'Whatever seems best'

2 Samuel 18:1-4 (NIV)

David mustered the men who were with him and appointed over them commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds. David sent out his troops, a third under the command of Joab, a third under Joab’s brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, and a third under Ittai the Gittite. The king told the troops, “I myself will surely march out with you.”

But the men said, “You must not go out; if we are forced to flee, they won’t care about us. Even if half of us die, they won’t care; but you are worth ten thousand of us. It would be better now for you to give us support from the city.”

The king answered, “I will do whatever seems best to you.”

I’ve never considered myself the king of anything, but I’m fond of David’s phrase here and use it frequently when discussing plans with my wife: Whatever seems best to you. That’s not the same as saying “Whatever you want,” because as adults we can accept what we want personally is not always the best course of action. Rather it is a deferment when a family decision needs to be made.

One wrinkle I’ve learned over the years is the value of yielding to the party with a more firmly held opinion is weakened if the yielder never sticks up for their own view. When I do care, I make sure to say so. Otherwise my wife would rightly assume I’m not engaging, just passively letting her run the show with little concern for what happens. That’s not a partnership in any sense.

By and large we’re not talking about major, life-changing issues here. It’s more along the lines of what time we leave for a weekend trip, or whether or not we should get the house painted this summer. I try to be involved in the discussion, weigh the pros and cons and give my opinion, but usually I will do whatever seems best to her. I can’t think of a single time this strategy has royally backfired.

I bring this up in the context of parenting because it’s important for the kids to not only know their parents can be reasonable adults but also for them to have an example of how a married couple converses and chooses. They don’t need a doormat dad anymore than they need one who insists on controlling absolutely everything. They need to understand compromise is key, to stick up for the things they value most and to trust the people who say they love them.

My wife and I are far from perfect, but we each seem to be the precise partner the other needs to make it through life. I trust her without reservation, and I hope I offer the same to her. It’s fairly cliché to say she makes me want to be a better person — and that’s not really how I’d describe the dynamic. What she does do, whether she realizes or not, is make me want to always treat her with the respect she deserves and continues to earn. And I hope and pray each of our boys are lucky enough to one day find a partner who will always do what seems best for the both of them.

A prayer for August 19:

Lord, than you for your leadership and guidance in my life. Thank you also for the gift of a wife who is trustworthy, fair, respectful and able to set such a strong example for our children. Please help me hold up my end of the deal, show me what it takes to be the husband and father my family deserves each and every day. Be ever present and at the center of our family. Amen.

Feel like (not talking about) makin' love

2 Samuel 15:30-31 (NIV)

But David continued up the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went; his head was covered and he was barefoot. All the people with him covered their heads too and were weeping as they went up. Now David had been told, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” So David prayed, “Lord, turn Ahithophel’s counsel into foolishness.”

We had a brief moment of parental crisis a few weeks ago at the chiropractor’s office, and I was reminded of the fleeting fear tonight. There’s a wall-mounted monitor running a slideshow on a loop. Each slide either touts the benefit of chiropractic care or the potential downfalls of conventional medicine, or more specifically the culture of using pharmaceutical products to treat everything vaccines don’t present. That debate is a matter for another forum, but it’s relevant to the story.

This month, among the cycle of slides are a series of several listing the number of reasons for which people turn to a drug: to have a baby, to avoid having a baby, to stay awake, to go to sleep, to lose weight, to mask a nagging pain. Kristie and I paid passing attention to each slide, preferring instead to speak to each other. And then came the slide that portrayed an embarrassed man and a frustrated woman. It was on the screen for five or ten seconds, long enough for Jack to say, “I don’t get it — how can a drug help make love?”

One of the benefits of being in a relationship with the same person for 15 years is the ability to know the look on their face without actually turning to see them. After the typical means of nonverbal communication, I quickly decided to offer a complete non-answer: “It’s kind of complicated, Jack.” And fortunately, that was all I needed to say. Happily, the slide changed, Jack lost interest in the discussion and Kristie and I were left to reminisce on how much easier was before he learned to read.

Some day we’re going to have to explain these things to him and his brothers. If Max were the oldest, and had seen his mom be pregnant three times, I’m sure we’d have had at least one discussion by now. Some folks advise you start the talks around age eight or nine, and the logic I’ve heard behind that reasoning is sound, but it hasn’t felt right for us.

As we get ready to send Jack off to fourth grade and Max to kindergarten, I’m starting to calculate the number of hours each day and week they’ll be absent from our direct supervision and influence. I am thankful for teachers and school staff and bus drivers and scared all to pieces about the things that come from the mouths of other kindergarten and fourth-grade students. I would hope our boys will see the counsel of their peers as foolishness compared to what Mom and Dad can offer, but I realize that’s pretty unlikely.

So off into the wild we send them, hoping and praying for the best, all the while discussing the type of information we should be giving them, at what pace and under what circumstances. In some ways I’d rather commit myself fully to toilet-training the two-year-old and ignoring the reality of the big kids getting bigger, but I know that’s not how parenting works. So I’m in search of more than a little courage, patience, wisdom and strength to do what needs to be done to help my guys grow into Godly young men.

And maybe a little less prompting form our friends at the chiropractor’s office.

A prayer for August 15:

Lord, I have tried to be fully grateful for the blessings and responsibilities of parenthood, but I have to admit some challenges loom larger than others. Please be with me through all the hills we must climb along this journey. Help me to guide my children appropriately and respectfully into adulthood. Give me the tools I need to love them as you would have me do that they may grow to be able to completely give their love to the people in their lives, and to learn to let you guide them as well. Amen.

'Mom, the barley field is on fire again'

2 Samuel 14:28-31 (NIV)

Absalom lived two years in Jerusalem without seeing the king’s face. Then Absalom sent for Joab in order to send him to the king, but Joab refused to come to him. So he sent a second time, but he refused to come. Then he said to his servants, “Look, Joab’s field is next to mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire.” So Absalom’s servants set the field on fire.

Then Joab did go to Absalom’s house, and he said to him, “Why have your servants set my field on fire?”

This is precisely why we don’t let our children have barley fields. I know Joab and Absalom were not brothers, but my understanding of the text is Joab considered himself to be a very loyal subject of King David, Absalom’s father. He might not have seen himself as a son, but there certainly were intense feelings between Joab and Absalom with a fairly unhappy ending.

But aside from the gravity of the larger story is the length to which Absalom went for a little attention from Joab. That got me thinking about the tendency of children to do whatever it takes to get a parent’s attention, or what sometimes our boys do to one another to make sure they are not ignored. We have seen quite a few examples of such behavior, which, again, is why we don’t have barley fields.

It’s not uncommon among kids. I’m sure the phrase, “Oh, s/he’s just seeking attention” has been used to describe pretty much every child at one point. Certainly I fell in that category, and I know my siblings did as well. Yet I find myself wondering if that’s the kind of behavior we tend to grow out of as we get into adulthood, or it just manifests itself in different ways.

For example, with all the kids and the pregnancy and my work and my wife trying to keep the diaper store rolling and school getting started and Scout activities and now soccer practice, it’s easy to feel somewhat ignored at times, or at least to sense a lack of the type of individual attention I need to feel like part of a functioning grown-up relationship. I’m pretty sure I don’t thoughtlessly (or intentionally) act out, but I am certain my behavior adjusts slightly, or worse, if I’m not taking steps to ensure a balanced outlook.

It seems likely the workplace, especially one with a great number of employees, would give rise to adults acting as a child might simply in the hopes of getting noticed. Surely there are some scenarios where a person trying to move up the ladder goes out of his or her way to cause a scene or make sure the supervisors are aware of the desire to ascend. My experience in the newspaper world was more commonly to let your work and productivity speak for itself, and there was too much of a team atmosphere for backstabbing to be employed. But I’ve heard stories, and sometimes they’re not pretty.

One of the things we’ve long discussed as parents, and hopefully will actually achieve once the unborn is around two years old, is to establish a routine of one-on-one or two-on-one time with each kid, just to drive home the point they are valued as an individual, loved, special and simply noticed. Even now there are chances. Today alone I took Jack to a doctor, helped coach Max at his first soccer practice and did Charlie’s bath and bedtime routine. But most of our chances are more incidental than intentional, and that’s something we really hope to iron out once we settle into what should be a more permanent state of normal.

The point is to give the kids as much attention as possible so they never have to wonder about their place in the family or if their parents care as much about them as the other boys. That might come at the expense of more interaction between just us without the kids, but in a way two-on-one time with an isolated child often helps a great deal in advancing our relationship as parenting partners. Even if the one child isn’t Jack, we’re still sort of reminded of when it was just us three, which now seems a full lifetime ago.

Ultimately, and this probably isn’t a shocker coming from me, any time spent trying to strengthen familial bonds, whether with two, three, four or all five (and soon to be six) of us, is well worth the effort. We’re the only people in the world with this particular bond, and it’s up to us as parents to make the most of our time when the kids all live at home. We are shaping little boys whom we hope will have long, productive adult lives. I could not ask for a better calling.

A prayer for August 14:

Lord, as I think about the many ways my children compete for attention with me and each other, I am aware of all the things I ignore that ought to claim a more significant spot in my heart and mind. Help me more fully open myself to the things that matter most, the things you would have me keep in the highest priority. Allow me to suppress that which does not matter in favor of the chance to fill myself with the people and issues that will help me live a life worthy of you. Amen.

To surround them with love

2 Samuel 9:1-7 (NIV)

David asked, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” Now there was a servant of Saul’s household named Ziba. They summoned him to appear before David, and the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?”

“At your service,” he replied.

The king asked, “Is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can show God’s kindness?” Ziba answered the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is lame in both feet.”

“Where is he?” the king asked. Ziba answered, “He is at the house of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar.”

So King David had him brought from Lo Debar, from the house of Makir son of Ammiel. When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor.

David said, “Mephibosheth!”

“At your service,” he replied.

“Don’t be afraid,” David said to him, “for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.”

There’s an awful lot more to the story of David, Jonathan and Saul, obviously. But I love this little snippet. David doesn’t have to reach out to the son of his slain best friend, especially after all the tension with Saul, but he goes out of his way to do so. He does whatever he can to honor the legacy of his friendship with Jonathan. He loved Jonathan like a brother — more so, he said — and he extends that love to Mephibosheth.

I am reminded all too often about people who have rocky relationships with their birth families. There can be a silver lining when great friends become something of a surrogate family. Some folks are blessed to have both a loving family and friends who are just as devoted. Some are unfortunate enough to feel more or less alone. I suppose there are a few souls somewhere who would prefer to be more alone than they actually are, but I’m just not wired that way.

After all the time I’ve spent writing here it comes as little surprise I advocate for the importance of strong family relationships. And given the underlying theme is about being the parent God calls me to be, it’s probably not a shocker to find frequent allusions to a family of faith (including but not limited to a strong church congregation) as a component of a healthy life. But I keep going back to these themes because they ring so true to me and because I have seen the way my life has been positively affected by these types of relationships.

Sometimes being a good parent is as simple as helping my kids develop relationships with the other people in their world who will nurture and sustain them, an extended family of sorts, in one of the many ways that term can be defined. Seeing those relationships flourish, be it the boys spending time with their aunt and uncle or having a conversation with a friend who deeply cares about our family, tends to be an understated yet invaluable experience.

Simply put, I want my children to be surrounded by love. I know it is going to take more than just what we as parents can provide to make that feeling a reality. I relish the support networks that keep me going, no matter the reason we are in each other’s lives in the first place. And I hope I can help be a part of other people’s networks as well. We all have so much to gain through being part of the same community. If only doing it were as easy as saying so.

A prayer for August 7:

Lord, I am beyond thankful for the family and friends in my life today, from so many different parts of my past and present. And yet I come to you in apology for the times I have failed to show them your kindness. I don’t think of myself as a bad friend, but I know there are ways in which I could have been so much more the type of person you call me to be, where I could have let your love shine through me and instead did what suited my own needs. Help me right these wrongs and move forward with an eye toward getting it right from here on out. Amen.