Monthly Archives: January 2013

Selfish or Selfless?

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My little house has 3 bedrooms: one large, one medium, and one closet-sized. We’ve taken the large bedroom and made it more like a camp cabin, putting the emphasis on sleeping space.

The room has a variety of beds with one king, one double, one twin, one twin-size floor mat, room for another twin in the closet and two mattresses stuffed under existing beds. Although there are ample blankets and pillows (at one point I counted 32 pillows), once in a while there are still problems.

“I need a flat pillow… a fluffy one… one without feathers.”

Or, “Where’s my favorite pillow?”

As the pillows get passed around, “favorites” get lost. Since I’m lucky enough to sleep in a different room, I have charge of my own favorite pillow. But one day I decided to choose (and hide) a spare, just in case.

I plucked one of the best pillows from the pile with just the right depth and feel, wrapped it in a plastic bag, and stashed it under my bed. That way, if anyone “borrowed” my bed pillow and failed to return it, my back-up would be ready. And then I promptly forgot about it.

Stashed

Several years passed until yesterday, when I was in a cleaning frenzy and decided to pull everything out from under my dressers and bed. There were old Christmas cards, sandals, a bin of papers, extension cords, a folded rug, boots…. and my pillow. I hadn’t even remembered it was there.

The pillow was still clean and in great condition, but as I pulled it out of the bag, it struck me what a waste it had been to stuff it under my bed like that. Truthfully, it was selfish and might even have qualified as hoarding, which is “to accumulate a supply of something that’s hidden or carefully guarded for preservation or future use.”

That’s exactly what I was doing with my pillow. If I was a squirrel, hoarding would have been commendable, but in my case, I was just refusing to share.

A pillow may be a small thing, and we had 31 others people were able to use. But the principle of withholding something good so others can’t use it and saving it for self is a serious fault.

Even more important than sharing a pillow, however, is sharing the other things God gives us, like spiritual blessings. For example, if we’re saved by Jesus, we should eagerly introduce him to others. If we’ve been given spiritual insights, we should willingly share them. And if we have opportunities to serve someone in need, we should offer to do so. Spiritual blessings that are hoarded put us in disobedience to the Lord.

But God knows that sometimes sharing is really hard. Once in a while it goes against our natural leanings so significantly that it’s a major sacrifice to do it. But that’s what makes it valuable to him and important for us. In my case, maybe it would be easier to share if I looked at every selfish impulse in the light of God’s opinion.

If I did, I know I’d never again stuff a pillow under my bed.

“Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” (Hebrews 13:16)

A Surprising Gift

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Making Kids MindBack in 1984, Dr. Kevin Leman wrote a parenting book entitled, Making Children Mind without Losing Yours with chapters like this one: “How to Act When They Act Up.” He recognized that parents needed help and gave some good advice.

Part of the problem is that parents never know what to expect. Their task is full of surprises. Although some are glorious (like the intensity of love for a child), some are horrendous (like the power of a temper tantrum). And as we look back on our efforts at the end of two decades, we wonder if what we did was good enough. We see mistakes and have regrets, but we also see we did some things right. But time’s up, and the way the kids “turned out” is generally the way it stands.

Despite all the surprises of parenting during those in-the-home years, the biggest one for me came after our active parenting had ended and our 7 had all left the nest. Nate and I had gotten started on the parenthood journey in 1973, and I figured motherhood would fall off a cliff when baby Nelson reached the age of 21. It was a big surprise that our relationship morphed into one of adult-to-adult while still retaining strong attachments as mother-and-son, father-and-son.

Although we’d had our share of “run-ins” during the growing up years, once Nelson became an adult, our problems melted away, and we were free to become friends. With our eyebrows raised, Nate and I used to talk about the wonder of that new stage of parenting.

Now, since our children are grown and all leading productive lives, the same delightful change has occurred in each of them. These adult siblings are looking out for their mother and each other, and they work hard to have time together. If I keeled over tomorrow, I have no doubt they’d all stay close-in-heart.

I’m still their mom, though in different ways now, and each of them reminds me often of the special place I have in their lives. It’s undeserved but so appreciated.

All of this adult-child blessing is actually God’s intention for all parents. It’s as if he says, “When I sent you a new baby, I knew I was giving you an enormous assignment. But you took it on, and now, in these years after the difficult days have passed, you’re learning the depth of what I meant when I said ‘children are a gift.’ ”

Adult kids (…all but Lars)

My heart breaks over some of the mistakes I made as a mother, and yet my children demonstrate loyalty and love  to me anyway. If I’d have known about all these goodies waiting for me at the end of active parenting, I would have been much less likely, during the stressful years, to have the mind-losing moments Kevin Leman referred to in his book. But none of that matters now, because I’m surrounded by the lovely surprise of one of God’s best gifts: my adult children.

“Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift? Oh, how blessed are you parents, with your quivers full of children!” (Psalm 127:3,5 The Message)

Trails

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Sky writingWhen driving back to the Chicago area at dusk recently, the trail-marks of O’Hare’s jet planes made a beautiful criss-cross pattern in the sky highlighted by a gold and blue sunset. I could hardly pay attention to the road for wanting to stare at it, so I snapped a photo instead, to study later. The jets that made the trails were nowhere to be seen, but we knew they’d been there because of what they’d left behind.

Baby rattle

 

When I walk through my house and see baby items, I know a baby has been here. Of course they belong to Emerald, and she lives with us, so that makes sense. But even when she’s tucked into her bassinet, out of sight and sound, evidence of her former presence has been left behind.

Gel flower

That’s true even for my other 6 grandchildren. Today I was sweeping when I noticed something cute on one of the heating duct grills. It was a tiny window cling in the shape of a flower. I’d given all the children sheets of the clear, Jello-like decorations, and most of them lasted only long enough for a day’s play. The purple flower, however, had gone astray and became a sweet reminder of the children who had recently stood playing in that place.

God leaves reminders of where he’s been, too, hoping we’ll recognize his activity and think about the fact that he was nearby. If we take the time to notice, we can see his “trails” all around us, for example outdoors every day. They’re visible in large ways (the heavens on a clear night) and small ones (the diligence of a squirrel transporting acorns).

We can also see God’s trails in people, like the testimony of someone whose life has been changed after committing to Christ. We see it when we watch a tiny start-up church flourish and grow, when a girl forgives the one who abused her, and when a terminally ill person dies with a smile on his face. All of these things are trailer-markers letting us know God was there.

One major difference, though, between God’s trails and those of jetliners, babies, and preschoolers is that after he leaves his mark, he doesn’t leave. He stays with the new Christian, the growing church, the girl who forgives, and the dying man.

And about that dying man? When his soul flies away, it’s so quick and complete that not even a wisp of a trail will be left behind him.

[Our lives] ”pass quickly and we fly away.” (Psalm 90:10)