Teaching Your Children Well

Haven't posted anything in a while.  For one thing, I have been consumed with becoming a speaker, and finishing my book, and secondly, I haven't had a bee in my bonnet about anything.  But...tonight I was considering the road I've been on as a parent.  I am one of those Mama's who is serious about mothering...and although I'm sad about not being able to mother more children, I am glad not to be doing this process over.

Parenting teaches each of us a lot about ourselves if we're willing to take the time to reflect.  (Sometimes what we see in that reflection isn't pretty!)  When they're little, you are so busy trying to find time to sleep that time for reflection is lost between the time it takes to put the baby down and when your sleep-deprive-induced snoring begins.  But, as they get a little more autonomic, you have time to pay closer attention to the faces they make (that look like an aunt) or the way they play (fodder for psychologists sometimes), and how they interact with you.  I did a lot of that with my daughter early on, because there were so many peculiar behaviors, and like most new parents I worried.  Add to that, my mother-in-law moved from our hometown to our "new town" to "help"...and she worried more than I did.  Problem was, we worried about different things.  She was distraught over sneezes, running noses, and coughs... or any sign that our daughter would be in any discomfort.  I, on the other hand, was concerned about how she reacted to light and temperature changes, her abrupt night awakenings, and her fearsome fits.  Oh, she smiled a lot, and she had the sweetest way of waking us with humming in the morning, but there were so many times that I researched and waited, watched and wondered.

Like other parents before me, I have learned how much we are responsible for their behavior, but how little control we have over their decisions, and that my dear reader is what has broken my heart.  The gene pool has only so much influence on a child's personality.  The rest is a complicated recipe.  You can hope like crazy that your child will have the best looks, a good heart, success in all they do, wisdom, and our Father's Eyes, but hoping doesn't make it so.  When any of those things are missing in your child's make-up, it makes you wonder what went wrong.

I can go over the pregnancy (which was  during a time of famine, friction, and tumult), the hit and run accident by a drunk driver during my 26th week, and the birth (which must have been so incredibly rude to her!) where her shoulders could not be delivered so she had to be pushed back inside and brought out, elbow first.  Rude, indeed!

I wondered if any of those reasons were to blame for all we'd been through. Is this why she has so many headaches, had the struggles in school, the neurological issues, and the anxiety? And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  She was an exceedingly willful little person, demanding, and busy; but all the same, charming, winning, and beautiful.  She's always been prone to singing, even to the annoyance of one of her elementary teachers, but won't sing for an audience.  She drove her teachers crazy!  And if you ever need a leader for any reason, my daughter is your gal.  But, buyer beware:  If she doesn't agree with you, there is absolutely no way to change her mind.  I mean it. (I'll be there for you, future husband, when she makes you want to pull out your hair!  I'll be in the kitchen, hiding out with my chocolate.) So, are you a parent who wants to be pro-active about their child's future?  Or are you like me, in the ring, up against rebellion far too often (and tired of being in the ropes)?

Then please read the advice I have for you in the following:

If I did get a do-over, I would pray a lot more.  I would have looked for people to help me teach my daughter how much my faith is intertwined in everything I am and the reason behind everything I do.  See, I thought if I led by example she would watch and follow.  Not so with and independent-thinking, strong-willed child.  She has always behaved like she believes she is the exception to every rule.  It doesn't matter if it's a school topic or a faith-based discussion.  For example, if I suggested she take a raincoat with her to school, she would assure me that it wouldn't rain that day.  Sigh.

I have also been way too quiet about my relationship with Christ.  It should have been regular input in my daughter's life...before she was big enough to get Disney-indoctrinated. Plead with  believers in your family to help show your child how much a Christ-centered life is as natural as breathing, so that when they get to school and meet other kids without Christ-centered homes, it will not rock yours. If you don't believe me, let me tell you sometime about the storm brought to us from Germany in the form of an atheist exchange student.

I would have had more regular conversations with my husband about how important it was to be a unified front, and to always, always talk about the other parent respectfully (even if they aren't in the room with you two).  If the two of you are not on the same wave-length about your faith, you'd better pray even harder, because if your child sees that, you've got a bumpy ride ahead of you! And when there are disagreements about parenting style, moral issues, or worldly influences never, ever discuss these differences in front of your child!  I can guarantee that if you want to plant the seed of doubt in a parent's competence, have disagreements about these subjects in front of your child, often.

Heartbreak can come in many forms, but if I have learned anything, I have learned that the worst heartbreak comes from a lack of obedience.  So often God's Word gives us what we need to the job, whether it be parenting, being married, working, or whatever.  If you really want to fortify your household then do what we're told to do in Deuteronomy (11:18-21), "So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of Mine.  Tie them on your hands and wear them on your forehead as a reminder.  Teach them to your children.  Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed, and when you are getting up.  Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that as long as the sky is above the earth, you and your children shall flourish...."

We just have to obey.

Because heartache stinks, and disobedience brings sin, and sin brings death....and that death can be the death of the dreams you had for your children, images of what could have been, but worst of all, the risk it puts on the soul.  Like death, you cannot simply explain this kind of loss. But you can do your part to prevent it. Go teach your children well!

Devotion

In the effort to learn my new craft of speaking to the masses, continue writing my book, balancing my work load as wife, mother, and sometimes-substitute teacher, with two high-energy dogs, I find I’m often lacking the time and/or skill to fit in time for much else. I keep meaning to work out every day, be better about reading one of my three bibles, and reaching out more to my neighbors.  So, when last Sunday’s lesson was given by our Interim Pastor spoke on the intimacy we should have with our Savior, and I couldn’t help thinking of my little buddy.

 It just came to consciousness, that recently…or maybe I just didn’t notice before…my newly blind Jack Russell seems to always be at my feet.  It doesn’t matter if I’m taking a bathroom break, making dinner, or taking a power nap.  My friend is always either at my feet, or lying as close to my hip as he can get.  He has learned to navigate the house (as long as we don’t move the furniture!), and walks outside and down the patio steps for potty breaks by himself.  So I don’t think he stays close out of fear.  I think he just likes being close by.

Considering this, I wondered why it is that I don’t have the same devotion to my Father.  I know, Gizmo is a dog. His life is so easy. Therefore, he doesn’t have the same obligations I have.  He doesn’t start his day with a list of things that HAVE to get done, a list of should’s, nor does he get caught up in the diversions I often find myself captivated by.  It makes me a little jealous of his simple life.

I suppose he could spend all his time chasing his ball, eating every time his bowl is filled, or nap on his own, but he stays with me instead…everywhere I go.  I wonder if he gets the same feeling that comes over me when I’m at church on Sunday mornings, when the TV isn’t blathering political ads, my cell phone is turned off, and I am blissfully quiet. Quiet enough to listen to my Father’s voice and be in the Word without any distraction, and to be one hundred present… at my Father’s feet.    Makes me wish every day could be Sunday, and moves me to try even harder to make that quiet time more of a priority.

Sorry for the Space in-between!

Dear Readers,

Please forgive me for not writing. I just wanted you to know I'm still alive...just steeping in research and writing of my book....Please hang in there.  I promise you a new "funny" soon.

Love,

God's Own Fool

On my Tail

Dear Reader,

I beg your forgiveness for the lack of fodder for you to read!  If you’ve ever taken one of those “stress” tests (or evaluation) you might recall all the lists of antagonists to the stress you may under…like “have you had a recent move,” “job change,” “ recent death in the family…?”  I remember taking one of those when my daughter was about three or four years old, and scored just ten points below the highest score possible.  Not really a contest one should aim to win, but I’m special.  Lately, I realized I’m at just about the same level I was back then, and am much more conscious of the stress today, so as to strategize ways to deal with it more effectively.  Despite my best efforts, though, I still feel like I’m walking up the “down” escalator! 

I think there are lots of you who could sing the same song I do…. “Where have all the minutes gone (to the tune of “Where have all the Flowers Gone”)?  All the juggling leaves me bewildered, and when the dust settles from last storm, I find myself wondering how I could life better.  It’s been a question running around in my head for some time now, and while I was ruminating on this I started to see a recurring theme.  See if you don’t have the same conclusion….

Yesterday, for example, I started the day very early (5:15 AM!) looking for subbing assignments online, and trying to do some online training simultaneously for an organization I volunteer for.  Click “refresh” for the first screen.  Wait to see if anything comes up for two school districts.  Nothing.  Click “refresh” for the other school district.  Nothing.  Click again for the first screen, then the second.  Nothing.  Click on the training site.  Read legal ease for Department of State regulations on Secondary School Exchanges. ( Yawn)  Click school sites again.  Check phone to see if the ringer is on.  Continue online reading.  Take the test...and fail it.  Note to self: learn new information for the purpose of retention and evaluation only after chocolate intake and enough sleep!  Don’t forget dinner for six tonight, with dessert.  Maybe I should bake the cake now.   It’s 5:45AM.  Put roast in the crock pot.  Go back to searching for a job.

My morning goes like this until I give up and go back to bed for an hour-and-a-half.  I decide I would use the remainder of the day to get as many chores done as possible, and maybe, just maybe I’ll have time to write!   Yeah.   I should have gone back to studying the State Department info instead. 

Ever have one of those days when you feel like the devil’s on your tail?  The phrase makes me think of time I was in high school, trying to climb a set of stairs in a sea of people, and no matter what, I kept tripping.   In exasperation I looked back to see my twin brother (about 6’4” at the time) grinning from ear to ear, because he’d been simply reaching out to grab my ankle at intervals…just to see if I would catch him!  I was minding my own business, completely unaware of him being there, but he decided to keep me from climbing those stairs, just because he could.  I think the devil is that way too.  We make the decision to become more Christ-like, and that’s when the devil gets his antennae up. 

Anyway, I’m so psyched about our abnormally warm weather that I take my dogs for a nice long walk, and notice on the way back home, coming into the driveway, a bunch of white bits in the street… right next to the car of our “adopted” hockey son, who’s left it parked in front of our house while going home to see his mom and dad for spring break…and now it has egg all over the side!  So, instead of going to mop the kitchen after our walk, my daughter and I try like crazy to scrub the dried mess off.   No key to move it if the “eggers” coma back.  Rats!  Then, put away heavy duty, 500 foot hose so it doesn’t kill husband’s beloved grass, and make sure to pull out at least two solar lights on the way through!  I decide maybe it’s safer inside, so I attempt to frost the aforementioned cake, so I could watch the frosting take off the top. (Devil’s Food.  I’m not kidding.) 

A rational person would stop there, grab a coke, and go read a book.  Not me.  I like punishment.  I kept right on going through my list of gotta-do’s until it was time to put the finishing touches on the dinner for six to be delivered to the hospital before 6PM.  Again, I’m just minding my own business, trying to have a servant’s attitude about it all, when just as the alfredo sauce is coming t a boil (very critical timing here), the rest of the meal is packed, and the dogs go berserk!  Three lovely young ladies would like me to partake in their fundraiser (while I’m trying to keep my nutty dogs from chewing through the door to get at them).  Rescue the sauce!  Then the phone rings…..

 Tell me what woman alive has not had this scenario (Ok, one like it) happen to them?  It’s the devil, on our tail, tripping us up, just to see if we’ll catch him.  Are we gonna lose it or remain in control of ourselves?  Are we gonna yell or take a deep breath instead?  What comes out of you when the devil puts the squeeze on?  Half the battle is recognizing that it’s happening.  Then it’s part submission to God’s Holy Spirit (so you don’t slug the rude kid in the mall), and part defense.   I know the next time I see what the devil’s up to, I’m gonna flick him in the nose...and then yank my tail back!

Are You Crazy?!?

Are You Crazy?!?

To those who know me well, they know that I have spent most of my adult years battling depression. As I work toward my goal to becoming a speaker, I have been doing hours of research and “e-learning” thanks to Tina Hollenbeck (http://tinahollenbeck.blogspot.com) and Sheila Wray Gregoire (http://www.sheilawraygregoire.com).  Today, some of my research led me to speaker Joanne Goodwin (http://www.joannegoodwin.ca/home.html) who speaks on depression, and how many Christian women are affected by it.   I love that someone can share so well, a topic that is so painful for so many of us.  I say painful, because unlike those who take medicine for high blood pressure, diabetes, or migraine headaches, if you take medicine for depression, you get scolded by some for being less than spiritually sound.  Believe me when I tell you that I would be the first one to admit that there are definitely spiritual reasons for depression, but there are also clearly physiological ones as well.

As a matter of fact, I had to write my final paper for an Anatomy and Physiology course in Massage School, on the “Anatomy of Depression,” and I don’t think a lot of people know how it works.  I can testify to having run on empty for so many years that I drove myself into depression.  What I didn’t know is that you can die from it. Now I’m not trying to be dramatic. What I mean is that, you can run on “exhausted” for long enough to cause the body to shut itself down, in order to protect the nervous system and its organs.

I’ll put this as simply as possible and leave you, dear reader, to research further if you like. 

The body has a natural “fight or flight” response to anything that the brain might feel is dangerous.  Even in circumstances when the body cannot flee a situation the mind feels is harmful, the body emits adrenaline anyway. In our current world, that environment may be the workplace, home, on the highway, or anywhere we feel “danger” most often.  If you don’t use said adrenaline to “flee,” the body stores it because the body has no way to be burn it off.  If the body is under stress for long enough (i.e. new baby, stressful job, tough marriage, abusive relationships….) and the body continues to build the adrenaline, this causes the chemicals in the liver to get off-kilter, which in turn sends a message to the brain saying this human needs to go “on vacation” with or without a boarding pass.  The human then shows signs that others may or may not notice, or they may simply dismiss the symptoms as attention-getters for the sufferer. 

There’s so much more to it than that, but for those of you who have known someone in clinical depression, you’ve seen that they may have no appetite, may move slowly (or not at all), they may cry a lot (or just stare into space), and they have a difficult time making decisions.  The list is long, and if you are also “blessed” enough to have the oft-accompanying anxiety to go with it, you may have symptoms of unexplained fear, an inability to eat (even if you have the desire to), and the simplest question may put the depressed over the edge.

I suffered my first bout of clinical depression at age 11, after the death of my mom’s best friend, and later after back surgery (a common occurrence in brain and spine surgery patients).  Then, a very close friend of mine went through a horrible time in her life, which required an army of women, from two different churches, to help out.  When the dust settled, the armies had pulled out, there were just three of us standing.  We were exhausted, our families were lonely, and our relationships were frayed.  At the time I was in college full-time, raising my own family, and had a household to run, even when my husband had to be out of town.  Add an asthma attack, requiring steroidal treatment, and the recipe for a nervous breakdown was written.  My heart raced to a point where the doctors feared I would go into tachycardia.  I couldn’t sleep, stop crying, or eat a bite of food.  I also developed an inability to breathe without hunching myself out over my knees. It took so much effort to breathe, that even when I regained my appetite, it was too tiring to eat much.  My five-foot-ten-inch frame plummeted to 128 lbs., a weight I was not able to attain even in the laxative years of ballet dancing.

It’s been nine years since then, even more years than the doctors had originally said my recovery would take, because stressors don’t take a day off, and life happens… If it were not for medical intervention, I might not be here today, but I have learned that depression is an illness, whether it’s spiritually or chemically rooted (or both).  I also know happiness is a choice, and because I am a child of God, I can smile, laugh, and do life, in His power.  It’s just another way we as Christians can defy the world’s view of normal, and glorify His name in the process.

    

Audience of One

Today I’m begging the question of whether or not we should behave as though we have only an "Audience of One."  Recently I heard one of the best sermons ever on how our behavior affects the decision of those around us for or against putting their faith in Christ.  It was very motivating, by being presented in such a way that each and every one of us listening has impact, positive or negative, on the people around us.  The parting challenge given to us was whether or not we would live in such a way that people would see something different in us, or if we would be seen as being like the rest of the world, and cause people to want nothing to do with Christianity.

That left me re-evaluating the phrase I’ve often had to consider when performing.  I first learned it when I was on a worship team in Phoenix, where I learned the importance of “holding talent loosely.” That means that no matter how much time has been spent in rehearsal or how much you have personally invested in a piece of music, a drama, or sketch…that if it was decided that something needed to be suddenly dropped, replaced, or re-scheduled, that it was because whoever is in charge has been led by God to do so. There was to be no whining, tantrums, or pouting.  We were also not to take the decision personally.  Let go and let God kind of thing, you know?

So, that said, where does the idea of us performing for an “Audience of One” (which is God) leave us? I mean, I've also learned that as a Christian, when I'm performing I should be mostly concerned with what God thinks (not necessarily what I think of the performance).  I’m seriously asking for a discussion here.  If we are performers in any way, are we the only ones who should keep this in mind when we’re performing? How are we to make sure to hold our talents loosely and/ or behave everywhere else like we are faith walking and –talking people, but remember we have only and audience of One?  Got any thoughts?