A Hump Day Prayer for Children caring for their parents

English: My parents. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Father God,

I come to You with gratitude for my parents. Though dad is in Your presence today I am grateful for the life and legacy he left.

And I pray for mom who is still recuperating from her surgeries today. I too thank You for her life and legacy.

It is wearying Lord to wait by the bed and wait from afar as a parent seeks to gain their strength back from illness and surgery so they can move on with the life they. So I ask for the mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical strength AND stamina as I walk with mom in this season of life.

I pray today for other adult children who are dealing with caring for their parents.

Some Lord are dealing with difficult decisions as to what a parent wants and does not want regarding care.

Others Father God are dealing with determining what to do about such care because the parent is unable to make that decision.

Still others are wrestling with all sorts of emotions – guilt, jealousy, anger, sadness, grief and the like as they care for their parents.

Even today Lord, other children are waiting in waiting rooms as important and serious surgery is being done and yet other sons and daughters are traveling because the news is not good.

In all cases dear Jesus, we ask that Your presence will be felt this day.

And Father, for those who deal with caring for parents as an only child or one whose siblings are no longer alive or able to be “there” grant Your grace for them this day.

 

In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

A Mother’s Day Tribute to My Mom

My parents and I at my college graduation, May 1980

When my mom was born, Calvin Coolidge was President. (I am sure she would give me her look for saying that..)

She was born in the ‘hills and hollers’ of Eastern Tennessee. When I visited there with her, her mom, and my father in the summer of 1969 I understood what a ‘southern breakfast’ truly was… never did steak and eggs taste better than after sleeping in a down filled bed!

She was part of what has been called  the “greatest generation.” The day after she graduated from High School in 1943, she packed up all her earthly possessions and moved to Dayton, Ohio where the work was. Within a week, she had a job and became a part of an important part of the war effort – a civilian employee with General Motors. She left Dayton only to go to college and returned to Tennessee only a few times.

College was on her agenda after the war but she postponed it a year to help her parents buy a house using the money she saved for college. She never regretted doing it.

She had (and still has) high standards when it came to men. No divorced men, no smokers nor drinkers. Pictures of her in those days showed a blonde beauty who had, I am sure, numerous suitors. But she dated little and told God that if she was to be an “old maid” then so be it and she did not want to be a cranky one!

But in 1946 she met a family, including a 15 year old boy, who would become a key part of her life to this day.

Independent to the exasperation of her father, she secretly learned to drive after getting off work. He did not want her to do so and then refused to help her find a car. She asked a cousin to help her and she found her first car, bought with her own money, a 1950 Dodge (black with red interior and the personal car of a local police chief). Though chagrined, her father loved her car and liked the sound of the horn!

By the mid-1950′s the 15 year old boy had become a man on the battlefields of Korea and held a passionate interest in her. Much to her chagrin. “Why doesn’t he date girls his own age?” Well, she would find out that what he wanted, he usually got.

And in October 1955 the 31 year old library employee and the 24 year old tool and die maker got married and stayed married until my father passed away in 1991.

Time then flew by with my birth and the life that comes from living and raising a son and church and school and family… She worked for a bank, then as a private kindergarten teacher, then a public school substitute teacher for over a decade until she retired in the early 80′s. When I went off to college “two states, 300 miles, 6 hours, and one time zone away” she admitted that she cried all the way back across those two states. (I KNOW she would give me the look right now.)

When my father retired in the late 80′s they traveled to California and back with plans for a Pacific Northwest trip that never materialized because of my father’s sudden death from a second heart attack.

I remember how hard it was to leave her, alone for the first time in over 35 years, on that Mother’s Day, a widow.

But today, I left her recuperating from major heart surgery this week, her independence currently curtailed as she regains her strength. But as I neared home her nurse called me to let me know that she was awake from a procedure, talking her up, and that she wanted me to know that and also to know if “I got home safely.” Yup, that’s my mom.

My mother is an example of a woman in which learning and education has known no bounds. She is a person of great faith. Both have contributed to me creating this blog nearly 6 years ago.

So I salute my mother today and give thanks to God for her as we now navigate together a new chapter with uncertainty as to the next steps but with gratitude for the life we have lived together and apart and now closer (geographically and otherwise) together again.

Happy Mother’s Day mom!

My One Word, Follow: Adulthood and the Church

In late October, speaker and writer Margaret Feinburg posted a piece on her website with the very insightful and thought provoking title of “An Open Letter to Everyone Over 40 Who Has Left the Church” which you can read by clicking on this link http://margaretfeinberg.com/margarets-monday-musings-an-open-letter-to-everyone-over-40-who-has-left-the-church/

(By the way Margaret I thought that it was interesting that you posted it on what would have been my parent’s 57th wedding anniversary had my father lived. Talk about two people who stayed, and have stayed with, the church (my mom is 88 and still actively attends the church she and dad started attending 30 years ago!) and through thick and thin!

What struck me about this post were the responses. The post struck a chord with many readers both over and under 40. As I read them, and I contributed one myself, and as I thought about what had been said, I stepped back and reflected further on my life and involvement in a local church.

I wanted to write a post on this subject last month but the draft (which has been modified into this post) did not satisfy me and so I let it sit and allowed my thoughts to ripen and they did. As I pondered the title of this post I was drawn to the word ‘adulthood’ and something clicked! While I am very much committed to the truth and authority of scripture I am also a student of adult development which became of interest to me in my seminary days in the mid-80′s.

I used to think that adulthood was static and almost like a flatline! In other words, once you hit 21 then life setting into a predictable hum of, well, monotony. How wrong I have been!

I think that part of Christian discipleship, is to help Christians navigate the developmental tasks of adulthood in ways that are, to quote the late Erik Erikson, ‘generative’ and not ‘stagnation.’

It seems from the comments (and I acknowledge that Feinburg writes only about the issue, and a very important issue, of the empty nest in her post) that for most people, adulthood goes flatline after child raising has been done! But there is life after parenthood!

And to me this is where local churches, and the church at large, needs to take discipleship further out on the time line. Much has been focused on the young adult and parenting aspects of living. Very important to address but there is more to adulthood and adult discipleship than being twenty or thirty and being a parent.

I am going to suggest here that perhaps one of the reason many people walk away from the church after the years of ‘active’ parenting are done is that there is no community in place for those people who are navigating and have navigated the turbulance of the empty nest period when, what is now beginning to be called “The Grey Divorce” (go to this Wall Street Journal article for more information http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203753704577255230471480276.html ) is on the rise.

In short, the local church needs to help those beyond the ‘active’ parenting years discern God’s direction for them because as life-spans increases Christ’s call to ‘follow me’ is still present. Maybe then, vibrant communities of post forty year olds will develop and truly become mentors and partners for the those under forty as Feinburg calls for in her post.

These are my Thursday Thoughts

Daily Prompt: Invent Your Own Holiday

If I could invent any holiday I could, I would invent a holiday called “Dad’s Day With Kids.”

This is would not be a Father’s Day type holiday. In fact, it would be held in November, prior to Thanksgiving, instead of  in June.

The purpose of dad’s day with kids would be for fathers to have a day with their kids – at home, at school, in the community.

Dads would be allow to eat lunch with their kids, perhaps sit in class with them and assist the teacher in the grade school ages, and simply be with them.

Places of worship, community groups such as the Scouts, and even the local public library could have after school events where dads and kids could participate in shared activities.

I think that Fatherhood is such a vital part of a child’s development, including all the way through High School, that having a specific day for father involvement would pay dividends for children, families, and communities.

Daily Prompt: What’s the one thing you hope other people never say about you?

What’s the one thing you hope other people never say about you?

The one thing that I hope people never say about me is that I was a terrible father.

My wife and I were married for ten years before we started trying to have children. After a year she suggested that I get checked out by my doctor.  I did and I was referred to a urologist.

I heard the word “surgery” among all the medical terminology my urologist used in diagnosing my condition. And shortly thereafter I had infertility surgery.

The wait after the surgery was hard.  Six months went by while we endured post operative check after post operative check.

But then, success!

That was over seventeen years ago now and I was 37 approaching 38 when my first son was born. (My second son was born 13 days before I turned forty.)

It took about a week after we confirmed the first pregnancy for the reality of fatherhood to sink in. I was set in my ways by that point and realized  that a whole new way of life was about to begin. (And it really had by that point.)

I would not change the life that has unfolded since those days for anything.

And I vowed to be an active and involved father since that time.

And I think that I have had.

When both boys were young I would pack them, and all the ‘stuff’ needed to walk them through the local mall on a Friday morning, up in the car and take them for a stroll. I got some strange looks at times but it was worth.

The bonds that developed then with both of them (17 and almost 15) have stretched and changed but I am grateful for the young men they are and they are becoming.

I hope that my example of faithfulness to their mom, their faith, responsibilities, and community will influence their choices as they go the path they are to walk in the years ahead.

Writing Challenge: Mind the Gap

I am a proud parent of two outstanding young men who are currently High School Students. To have a part in helping them to become responsible and caring adults, my wife and I have always made sure that they knew how to properly behave in public and also know how to interact in public.

I remember the first trip we took with my oldest – to an annual ministerial meeting. After enduring a night of some sleep with the hope neither of the rooms on either side of us heard him – we ventured with Him into an important meeting with many adults. He was just a few weeks old.

A colleague and someone that I have grown to admire was the speaker for the morning session. He was emphatic, inspirational, and spoke for well over 30 minutes. And my son slept through the entire presentation not too far from the speaker’s dais! A restaurant visit (actually several) was part of that time as well and we successfully navigated them all!

Fast forward about five years later. A vacation to a well-known amusement park in the Midwestern U.S. resulted in me holding our youngest through a sit down amusement experience that turned scary for him and frustrating for me. The park employee told me, as I sat in the very back, with my son, that he had to sit in his seat. Then the experience started.

Probably twenty minutes later, I took a screaming child from among the dirty looks of other patrons, and quickly exited the hall. Looking for a quiet spot away from the crowd, I worked to comfort him wishing I would have gotten out of there before the presentation started.

These experiences have illustrated to me the opportunities, and pitfalls, of taking children to more adult oriented places. Some have gone well and few have not.

But, the value of doing so is seen when my wife and I know that when they go out with friends or another family, they know how to appropriately act in public. And as they get older, they are a pleasure to interact with, even when dad starts telling his puns or acting silly himself!

A Dad’s Hump Day Prayer for His Boys

Gracious Father,

I am grateful and thankful for my boys.

But in many ways Lord, they are already men.

Men who will in a few years move on with their lives as it should be.

But today they begin a new year of school.

I ask that you would give them understanding minds as they navigate subjects which give me shudders.

I ask that you would through Your Holy Spirit, strengthen their souls and wills and thus their characters so that they will honor You in all their doings at school, on the athletic field, and in the community.

God give me and their mother the patience, wisdom, compassion, firmness, and, most important, love, to help them in this season of their lives. I thank you for my wife and the strong woman of character and commitment that she is. Help her too this day, as an educator, to be prepared for her students.

I am honored to be a dad. I am humbled to be a dad. Help me do better.

Thank you so much Lord!

Amen

Hump Day Prayer for First Year School Parents

Image via Wikipedia

Father, today in my community as well others and in the weeks to come in other communities, parents will be dropping off their child for their first day of school. I ask that you be with them as well as the children.

Grant peace in all their hearts.

Help the teachers to have wisdom and patience as they work with the children to make this vital transition.

Be with the parents as they let go and leave with a mixture of joy and sadness that a chapter in life and parenting has come to an end and a new one has started.

I am grateful for your grace and help as I remember that day now 10 years distant for the first time. Bless my boys this day and help them to honor You in all they say, do, and think.

Amen

Tuesday Book Review of Plugged In Parenting

Image by Adam Crowe via Flickr

“After listening to some speakers or reading their books, you might get the impression that media discernment is something negative-even cruel- you must do to your children. It’s all about limits and warnings and turning things off and saying, “No.”

The truth is that making healthy entertainment choices is a positive exercise with positive results. When you teach your kids to consume media wisely, you may restrict them in some ways-but broaden their horizons in others.”

Chapter 3 of Plugged-In Parenting

“Doing Your Child a Favor”

Having teenage boys, it was with interest, that I selected Bob Waliszewski’s book Plugged-In Parenting: How to Raise Media-Savvy Kids with Love, Not War, to review for Tyndale House’s Blogger Review Program.

What I found was a book that provided me with a personal soul check on my own media consumption as well that for my kids.

Plugged-In Parenting is 10 chapters in length and divided into three sections. Bob begins by reciting both a litany of statistics regarding media usage as well as many stories of families struggling to provide good media experiences for their family.

Of those 10 chapters I found chapter three to be the heart of Waliszewski’s argument for helping your kids to learn to consume media wisely. In that chapter he lays out the positive side of helping kids to be ‘media savvy’ by helping them to see the value of really thinking through what they are watch and why and to honor God in those choices. Of note were the rewards of finding time “to explore the real world,” and the like.

Also of note are chapter 6, “Ten Things You Can Do to End Fights Over Family Entertainment” and chapter 7, “Your Family Entertainment Constitution,” which outlines a proactive way to develop a media strategy for your family when the kids are younger. These chapters offer practical suggestions for working with kids in making helpful media choices and consumption.

Plugged-In Parenting is a book that attempts to avoid the extremes of “letting kids do whatever” and “absolutely not!” What I like is an attitude and approach that empowers kids to learn how to consume media (and the focus of the book is primarily on music and movies) so that they make good and spiritually healthy media choices as adults.

What I would hope to see if a future edition of the book is written is an additional chapter on social media as that, from my perspective, is now a large part of a teenager’s life. And I also want to encourage parents of young children to be thinking about their kids media assumption now rather than later. And I also suggest that you read this book now as a pro-active way of helping your kids become great media ‘critics’ later!

On my rating scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 being a bad read, 2 being an so-so read, 3 an ok read, 4 a good read, and 5 a great read), I give this book a 4 a ‘good’ read.

I was given a complimentary copy of this book by Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for a review. I was not required to give a positive review.

Sunday Sermon: A Time to Embrace and A Time To Refrain from Embracing

Image by Tobyotter via Flickr

Scripture Passage – Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Description – Fifth Sermon in the Series “A Faith For and A God Of All Seasons”

 

(Slide one) Bob Carlisle, “Butterfly Kisses” http://youtu.be/vmC3rJR7E98

 

Let us hear God’s word this morning as we read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

We return to our summer series text, Ecclesiastes 3 on this Father’s Day Sunday and the focus for today is the latter part of verse 5 that says, “a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.”

Now before we take a closer look at this segment in light of today’s holiday, I remind us that we are focusing on this important, challenging, and mysterious Old Testament chapter from the view that we have “A Faith For and A God Of All Seasons.”

The Lord is a God who is not just present during the summer time experiences when life is good and growing. He is with us in the spring when it is time for some cleaning and cultivating for new growth and life to take place. He walks with us in the fall when what we have planted, perhaps years before, is harvested and that harvest is sometimes not what we had expected. And he knows where we are in the depths of winter, which is not necessarily about death but about the hibernation that can result in new dreams and visions coming about.

A healthy and viable faith is one which is grown, refined, and sustained by God’s grace through the Holy Spirit throughout all the seasons of life. A life, and a faith, built on the Great Commandment to love God and neighbor and the Great Commission to go and make disciples, is one that grows and matures in all the seasons of life. And part of those seasons is a time of embracing and a time to refrain from embracing.

This time of year is a time for both embracing and refraining from embracing. It is a time traditionally of graduation and marriage when new chapters are written in young adult lives and another chapter of life comes to a close.

That opening video clip, tear jerker for sure, reminds us dads (and moms, too) that our kids are to be embraced for a season and then it is time to let them go! That is what Genesis 2:24 means, “a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”

Gary Smalley and Ted Cunningham have written a book, Great Parents, Lousy Lovers, in which Ted says, “I love it when a mom comes up to me at a wedding and says, “I don’t feel like I am losing a daughter today- I feel like I am gaining a son.” My response is blunt and simple, “Nope! You are losing a daughter.”

“That perspective,” he goes onto say, “that one must leave in order to cleave, is the key to launching a young couple into oneness in marriage. Your parents and your kids can chip away at that bond.” The point of what Smalley and Cunningham is saying in their book is that “God did not design us to have kid-centered marriages. Kids grow up and leave. You ans your spouse are united for a lifetime.”

Now maybe you disagree with what they say but how do we respond to Genesis 2:24 and our main text for this morning when it comes to family life?

I suggest this morning, based on Genesis 2:24 and Ecclesiastes 3:5 that (Slide two) “A season of embracing is a season for empowering and enabling our kids to become responsible and maturing adults.”

       An often quoted passage about child raising is Proverbs 22:6 which in the King James Version says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

The New International Version says, “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”

The New Living Translation says, “Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.”

Notice the three starting words of each verse, “train,” “start,” and “direct.”  They are words which, to me, imply that a parent’s job is to actively get things started because the phrase which follows implies that after a certain point, children are to be on their own.

Train up a child in the way he should go

Start children off on the way they should go

       Direct your children onto the right path

I expect my boys to leave home (they can visit once a while and I will fill their kids with sugar and send them on their way!). I expect them to become responsible and caring adults who serve God in their work, as husbands, and fathers. But the choice to do that will be their choice. I can only help get them launched on what I pray is right path for them.

Now is a time of embracing them and empowering them. The day is coming, sooner than I realize, when I will have to release them into God’s hands and let them go.

Some of you have done that. You know the feelings, the concerns, the frustrations, and the pain of letting your kids go. The launches are not always successful and I know that it could happen to me and my kids, too.

But what scripture teaches us about embracing and letting go must still happen.

In his book Empower Your Kids to Become Adults Dr Donald Joy shares some important ways we empower our kids during this time of embracing them toward adulthood.

He notes that kids want to be competent adults. “I will make the case that the natural appetite of childhood is to believe that they can grow up and become exactly like you,” he writes.

Kids, let me tell you something this morning, you will say things to your children that will cause you to stop and ask, “Is my father (or mother) in this house? S/he lives five states away!”

Joy also argues that a key vision of parents is for “kids to become our friends as adults.” “What do you want for your kids?” Joy asks. “Well it is pretty simple: You want them to grow up, to be competent to manage life well, and to leave home as settled and responsible human beings.” The time for embracing is a time for such an agenda to be accomplished.

(Slide three) But then comes time for the season to “refrain from embracing” to take place.

It will be 35 years in August that my parents left me, two states, one time zone, 300 miles, and 6 hours away from where I had grown up at college. It was hard on them and I remember my dad’s voice breaking as he told me that not studying hard would be a waste of our money and the school’s time. Well, I wanted to be there and believed that is where I was supposed to be and I was not going to let them down.

Fast forward nearly four years later.

On a hot July day I remember landing with a mixture of relief and shame back home in Dayton after an unsuccessful launching of a life after college graduation on the east coast. I felt I had let my family down and told them so. Mom thought differently and told me later that she had not slept at all since I moved to the east coast.

Two long months were to pass before I ended up back at the college I had graduated from four months earlier. But it was different. I was not a student this time but a member of the staff. It felt strange to be sleeping in the dorm I had lived as a student knowing that I was now a working adult. And I never moved back home again.

Now not everyone moves hundreds or thousands of miles away from their family to become responsible adults. Some move down the street or across the street. But there comes a time when children need to stand on their own.

(Slide four) What might the season of “refraining from embracing” look like? How do we empower our kids to be on God’s right path for them?

• We accept the change in the nature of our relationship that comes as our kids become adults. Some of us here today are further down the path of parenting because your children are grown and you have even become grandparents. You can tell the rest of us some things we need to know because you have experienced the change in relationship with your children. But you know that it changes. That it must change.
• We help them to learn good decision making skills and allow them to learn from failure. With drivers’ education taking place in several families in this church right now, I am reminded of the story Keith Miller told many years ago on the change in one of his daughters’ thinking as she learned to drive. Familiar roads and places became unfamiliar to her as she had to navigate them from a different perspective, one as a driver. It required her to learn good decision making skills, which are critical for being responsible adults.
• We provide them a significant youth group to help them grow in their commitment to and faith in Christ. I could go on and on about this but there is not time. We have committed, through our current capital funds campaign, to hire a part-time youth director. But we have a great group of teens now and a willing group of parents and other adults to help with leadership and teaching. Our teens lead us in worship each week and they are involved in other ministries throughout the year. This kind of commitment is vital to helping them become adult members of a church in the future. In fact, I am going to suggest that teens who are vitally involved in the ministry of a local church are going to be more likely to stick with a church than those who “just come to youth group.”
• We give new and vital attention to our primary relationship which is our marriage. The “empty nest” is a season of life that for some becomes a vulnerable time in marriage. Some statistics suggest that an increase in divorce begins to take place when the last child moves out. But it is just as devastating to adult children as those who are at home when a divorce occurs. The sense of normalcy many have felt over the years is pulled out from under them. A refreshed marriage can be a vital witness to children, and others, as it demonstrates a continued commitment to a spouse over the long term. The season of child raising is usually shorter (and should be) than a season of marriage.

 

So where do you find yourself this morning in this season of embracing and letting go?

Some of us here are on the front end of the parenting journey, some of us are in middle, some of us are spread across beginning, middle, and end, and some of us are in the second round of parenting grandkids, and some of us have been done with parenting for a long time. But we are always parents, aren’t we?

But there comes a time when we need to let go and allow our kids to become adults. There comes a time when kids need to let go and become adults.

(Slide five) On this Father’s Day, I pray that we who are parents will find God’s peace and direction in our parenting as we embrace and let go and that we will place both our kids and ourselves in His hands because He knows what is best for all of us. Amen.