Selfish in a Box

I am sitting here sharing a box of Sour Patch Kids with Levi. Candy is a guilty pleasure that I rarely allow my kiddos. They eat a lot of fruit, veggies, and whole grain snacks. My mom raised us that way. "What can I have to drink?" was always met with "Water or milk." My grandma still insists to this day that my sisters and I used to frisk her for candy when she came in the door of our house, because we were so candy deprived. Pop was a rare luxury saved for restaurants - one glass about once each month. Sweet cereals were saved for camping vacations when the variety pack of mini cereal boxes was busted out, and we all had to fight over who got the Lucky Charms. Of course, by day 3 all that was left were the Honey Nut Cheerios, and the real vacation (the one from shredded wheat, Grape Nuts, and oat meal) was officially over. My dad will mostly likely be reading this, and he will be disappointed if I don't mention the fact that when we went to McDonald's (which was a rare treat) he bought us each a hamburger, and then he made me and my two sisters share a box of french fries and a drink. He often wondered aloud why my sisters and I fought "like cats and dogs". I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that sugar deprivation and the resulting serotonin deficiency combined with the fry-sharing and fighting over the once-a-year tiny boxes of sweet cereal created an atmosphere that was less conducive to sisterly love and more conducive to fighting like wolf pups over a rabbit carcass. You do the math.

I think it's interesting how I swore I would never be like my parents, but I tend toward those ways of rationing certain types of food. I can look back and understand that it was done for my good - just like I am trying to do with my own children. I think mom and dad were hoping (as I do for my kids) that someday - a constant diet of nutritious food would result in an appetite for good things that would never go away. As my Sour Patch Kids binge would indicate, this may not have gone as planned. Don't get me wrong, my body loves healthy food, and I feel better inside and out when I eat it. It doesn't diminish the fact that I want greasy burgers, cheese fries, and Ben and Jerry's Half Baked ice cream. It almost seems worth the $4.50 a pint sometimes. My body has developed an appetite for nutritious food, but my taste buds sadly have not followed suit.

As I go through photos of my children, the only ones with them eating are with a cookie or lollypop. I guess they're more likely to smile when eating certain things. The carrot sticks and apple peels just don't bring out that smile. I guess they're called "cheesy" grins for a reason.

As Levi and I were eating the box of Sour Patch Kids I noticed I was only giving him the greens and yellows. With any luck, we'll get well past his 4th birthday before he even realizes there are oranges or reds. He doesn't mind, because candy's candy at this point, and when regularly deprived of sugar, sugar-induced delirium is a common outcome. This is clearly my own selfishness at work. I also keep pop in the garage that the children are allowed to look at but not touch. I love to grocery shop alone so that I can, on occasion, purchase a bag of Keebler's frosted animal cookies - the ones with sprinkles. Then I can hide them somewhere in the refrigerator and never have to share them. I know how my kids would love these, but they'll be 32 someday, and then they can buy their own.

I also have to be careful that I am not offering my children healthy foods but setting a bad example by eating mostly what is bad for me - the, "Do as I say not as I do," mentality. This is both a physical and spiritual concept, and, as I notice quite painfully sometimes, they are watching me.

I know that, were I to eat how I feed my children, I would probably be significantly healthier and less "well-rounded". The parallel to the rest of my life is obvious. My parents also fed me other good things when I was growing up - things like church, Bible reading, prayer, and right living. They undoubtedly hoped that feeding me these things would give me a healthy appetite for things that would be good for me. The bottom line is, I had to eventually choose those things for myself. I got to an age where no one was going to offer only those things to me anymore; I had to decide that I wanted them. For me, this didn't happen immediately - not without bingeing on the "junk food" of which I had been deprived first. After seeing that those things taste good for a time but carry with them a bitter aftertaste that sometimes lasts forever, I have had to choose to feed myself with good things. I was hoping that my body would develop more of an appetite for those things over time, and it has somewhat. Just like with my physical body - I feel better inside and out when I feed my spirit well. However, I would still much rather sleep in or watch a good movie than go to church some days. I would rather go to bed early than get my Bible out to read it. This just proves that what my flesh wants will never go away. It will still call to me like bacon bits at a salad bar.

My grandparents have discovered in their older age that healthy food doesn't just taste good and help you feel better... it is necessary for LIFE. They wouldn't go on living if they didn't eat right and take care of their physical bodies. Maybe sometimes this sense comes with age - or with the increasing probability of death. Whatever it is - it's the same with our emotional and spiritual health. "Religion" (or as I like to think of it - a relationship with our Creator) isn't just for old people. Old people just got smarter. It takes many of us a long time to appreciate the fact that some things are better for our well-being or even necessary for life.

Levi just came back and asked, "Can I have a little more of your snack, please?" I replied, "It's all gone." He said, "Can I check in your mouth a little bit?" As I opened up for inspection, I realized that, aside from the fact he doesn't seem particularly averse to eating regurgitated food - his own or, apparently, someone else's - it's okay for me to deprive my children of some foods for their own good. I'm not shoving carrot sticks down their throats or giving them tomato juice intravenously. I'm not forcing them to read their Bible or get on their knees each night to pray. I'm just offering them healthy choices. Despite my teasing of my parents, I'm a healthier person today because of the healthy choices they offered me - physically and spiritually. It helped me to realize that it was possible to live without Zingers and R-rated movies and that it feels very good to be healthy. I was bequeathed more than a good immune system, a strong body, and a shiny coat - I was given a chance at a different way of life. I was given not only the love of my parents but the love of One greater than my own flesh and blood. Maybe I've never said this to them before, but, "Thanks for the shredded wheat."

Love Me Tender...

I had sisters. I had daughters. Men have been, for the most part, an enigma to me. They still are in so many ways. My son, Levi, recently turned 3 years old. Based loosely on my causal observation, he has a few loves: sharp objects, blunt objects, fast cars, orange tractors, and a little girl... baby doll that is. Her name is "Baby". As I type, he is standing next to me feeding Baby a sippy cup, because "she's tirsty". I spent the last 15 minutes helping him hunt for Baby, as she had gone missing. He took her with us to the church to paint this morning, and he took her in the car home, but he lost her at some point after that. Where did we find her? On the seat of the orange tractor in the garage. He's tenderly caring for her at the moment. He's showing her a plastic frog he found in the toy box and explaining to her gently that this is her first frog and that frogs say, "ribbit".

A few days ago we happened to be at a friend's house, and, in his excitement over a sword toy, he accidentally left Baby behind. When we realized she was missing, we thought for awhile about where we had left Baby. When we realized where she probably was, I text messaged my friend to ask her if we had left Levi's baby at her house. She said, "Yes, but I assumed it was Violet's baby:)". "No," I replied, "she's Levi's Baby, and he's quite distraught." She responded, "Wow! He'll be a real catch someday. A tough guy with a tender side." What mother would disagree?

You might guess that this fascination with Baby began when Levi's baby sister, Violet, was born. Levi was not quite 2 when Violet was born. He was very nice to her, which is remarkable in itself, considering his treatment of nearly everyone and everything else in the house is usually significantly less than gentle. As you might notice, he has a great role model for how to treat a baby girl... his dad. Mark is tender-hearted toward his girl. Much like Levi is toward his girl.

A few days ago we went to retrieve Baby from my friend's house. My friend left her in a bag outside on their front porch for us. It was a chilly, rainy night. As I brought her back to the car, my husband (who was driving at the time) was smiling as he watched Levi's excitement at me bringing Baby toward the car. He immediately tore open the bag and hugged her tightly - patting her on the back as he said, "Aw, baby... you're so cold and scared." He looked at me, and whispered, "I have to just hold her a lil' while, 'cause she's bery cold." He spent the next 5-10 minute patting her softly on the back and whispering comfort into her ear.

At the left you can see Levi "wearing" Baby during one of our walks last summer. Daddy and Levi carried their babies for the whole walk.

I recognize that, like so very many things in childhood, Levi's preoccupation with Baby will not last forever, but it gives us great joy to watch him as he tenderly cares for her. If Baby were real, she would have quite the stories to tell, I'm sure. She has been there for all of Levi's significant life events over the past year or two. She sleeps in his arms every night. In the past few months as we have been dealing with many doctor appointments for Levi, Baby has been to every appointment too. Sometimes we take a little frog backpack with cars also, but Baby is a staple fixture in all of Levi's experiences. I think I'll be rather sad the day he decides that Baby is "not cool" or that he's outgrown her. She will be placed gently into his box of baby memorabilia - to be looked back on fondly someday.

When he had an MRI a few weeks ago, Baby was in tow. She sat up alertly and watched the process, but then fell immediately asleep as soon as she lay down next to him. (She has a funny way of doing that.) I have to admit I was a little embarrassed at her raggedy, dirty appearance. I said to the nurse, "Yes, Baby needs a bath. She's well-loved." Levi wasn't even slightly embarrassed of her, as he proudly showed her to all newcomers to his hospital room. As he was coming out of sedation, Baby was waiting for him, but unfortunately for her, she ended up wearing the evidence of his after-sedation nausea... twice. As I placed her gently in the washing machine the following day, I wondered if she would make it. Would she survive the washing? I waited anxiously for her return. Even on the gentle cycle, there are no guarantees with toys and washing machines. When she came out, her head was full of water and, when I squeezed it, it drained out, but her head was misshapen. Her head also rattled with some beads that were displaced from her bottom to her top during the washing. Levi didn't seem to notice. He was reunited with her quite happily as soon as she dried out.

Yesterday I was using a program on our new computer. It recognizes faces of people in the photo and places a box around the face and has a line underneath the box for me to type in the name of the person in the face box. This program fascinates me - how it can recognize a human face - for one thing. Furthermore, after the first time you've tagged someone in a photo, it asks in future photos, "Is this ___?" and fills in the blank with its best guess of who is in the photo. I found myself amused at how many times I would flip to another photo and see a tiny box around Baby's face with the words underneath, "Is this Baby?" I wouldn't have even recognized she was in most of the photos, but the computer did. Indeed, it's Baby. She was in so many photos that she now has her own file folder in our computer - photos of Baby.

I also have a son who is almost 14. He tends to think that Levi's fancy of Baby is a little "whimpy". I have wondered myself, having never had a son, if his love for a pink baby is odd... not that I'm worried about it. I find in the Word of God (Psalms 91:4, Matthew 23:37, Luke 13:34, Luke 1:78) that God Himself longs to gather us "under his wing" and treat us most kindly. He desires to have compassion on and to "speak tenderly" to us. A heart of compassion and tenderness is not just a gift of woman. It is also a gift to us from God. Masculinity does not preclude gentleness. In fact, it would seem as though gentleness completes true masculinity. For some reason, there seems much more strength in the kindness of a man.

I remember, when I was a child, looking up at the men around me and gaging their size. Was each one a "big guy" or not? Big guys made me feel safe and secure. As I grew up, I was better able to gage the actual size of the men I had known as a child. It seems as though the ones I often thought were "big" were actually no larger than the others. It seems it was more something about their character that made them seem larger than their physical stature. I think in a world full of text messages, e-mail, and the internet - where it is easy to be selfish and to dehumanize others - compassion is a rare quality - especially for a man. I figure a little tenderness can give a guy an extra foot or so of stature... easily.

My husband is 6'4". I'm 5 1/2 feet tall. Levi is tall for his age. Given his genetics, I imagine that he'll end up being a pretty tall grown man. That being said, it's far more important to me that he continues to be tender-hearted toward others - especially those weaker or smaller than he. That way, he can grow up to be a "Big Guy".

Broken Home

Broken home, step-family, blended family, yours-mine-and-ours... These were phrases that I never imagined would have someday pertained to my situation when I married my first husband 13 years ago this coming August. I remember wondering on that day what our future would hold - never imagining that it would hold the heartache of lost love - a "broken home". When I held my first, sweet baby in my arms I never imagined she would someday call another woman "mom".

My current husband and I married our first spouses young and, I believe, could be great motivational speakers to teens on dating/marriage... the what not to do type. Would that be "unmotivational speaking"? I digress.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I haven't gotten to celebrate Mother's Day for very many years yet, and the years I have celebrated it has been mostly with children who are babies/toddlers from whom a mom expects very little for Mother's Day. The burden inevitably falls on the man of the house - who, just as inevitably, fails to meet my expectations year after year. I've often sat down and tried to delineate just exactly what my expectations are and if they could even be met, and I've pretty much come up with a solid, NO, because I don't even really know what I want to happen - I just want it to be spectacular. So, that being said, I've tried to lower my standards a bit. The girls came up, on their own, with a few hand-made cards which I loved. Levi managed to wake me with a sweet whispered, "Happy Mudder's Day, Mom," which I also loved. Austin was away from our house with his own mother this past weekend - for the first time since last November. Levi thoroughly disliked the implication that Austin was with his mom when, clearly, I was (in his mind) Austin's mom. He stated this several times throughout the weekend, to giggles from the girls and once a sigh, and a, "Give him a couple more years, and he'll understand," from Sadie.

Will he? The answer is no. Not really. His mind might comprehend the concept, but (by God's continued grace) his heart will never know the brokenness of the other people in our home. He has reluctantly accepted that the girls' "udder dad" (actual udders not included) comes to see them one night a week and every other weekend. He still has yet to understand why he can't accompany them when they go or why they have to be gone so often. His favorite phrase when they are absent is, "Where are da kids?"

When Mark and I both first considered getting married again, we knew that, at least statistically speaking, our marriage only had a 25% chance of survival. We took this very seriously as we considered the risks to ourselves and, more importantly, to our children. The idea that they could face heartache of divorce again was more than either of us was willing to put our children through if we could at all help it. We entered into this marriage with caution, advice from trusted counselors, and a lot of prayer. Circumstantially, this marriage hasn't been any easier than our first marriages were. In fact, in many ways it has been more difficult as we never had a "BC" era (before children, that is). We were married after only a few short months of courtship; we have moved twice; we have five children total; and we deal with our ex-spouses and their spouses and the absence of some of our children on a semi-daily basis. The truth, we have realized, is that marriage is difficult - no matter who happens to be your spouse. It is filled with the same unfulfilled needs, unmet expectations, problems, bills, disagreements, and questions as our first marriages were. The difference is that our current marriage is made up of two people committed to God first and then to one another and to our children.

The first few months of our married life were spent on Mark's family farm in Iowa. I have always loved farms, farmers, and farming, but I grew up very much in town. I reminisce about Mark explaining to me the "garbage rules" when the girls and I first moved to the farm with him and Austin. These consisted of, among other complexities, the fact that all food scraps were to be saved for the hogs to whom I was to go feed them at the end of the day. Now, if you've ever been on a hog farm you may have noted that the houses are always built upwind of the hog buildings/lots - and for obvious reasons. I relished the opportunity to feel like a real farm wife - shouting "sewweee!" to the swine with gusto. If, however, I happened to make the rookie mistake of going out to the lot to drop scraps when the wind was stirring to a different direction, I was met with the sniff and scowl when I came to bed for the evening... which meant, "Go take a shower. You smell." In addition to this newbie error, Mark found one morning after breakfast, that I had a pile of bacon and sausage separated from the egg shells and other leftovers from breakfast. He said, "What's this in a different pile for?" "Well," I replied with some amount of confidence, "the pigs surely can't eat themselves. That's just wrong." He responded gruffly (but with a slight smirk), "If one of them drops dead in the lot, the rest go over and eat it. So I don't think they'll mind a little bacon." I look back on those things and laugh, because they were bonding moments for us. Laughter has often been used as part of our bonding process.

At the beginning, when we were all getting used to our new arrangements - changed up bedrooms, houses, even states - we sometimes got bogged down with all of the "new". It struck me one day that God had put us in the ideal environment for the healing of our broken places. Each of us were now in a household with 4 other people who knew the heartache of rejection, the pain of unfulfilled ideals, and the loneliness that comes from missing another person who is (or was) part of yourself. That has become our family pep-talk. It has given us reason to have compassion for one another when we might normally feel apathetic. It has given us an unspoken bond that is our own. I always remind the children that every family has pain - for some it is illness. For some it's the death of a loved one. For some, it is abject poverty or abuse. Divorce is our family pain. It is also our family bond.

Mark and I read a lot of books and other literature when we first got married about step-families. One book stated, rather harshly I thought at the time, that "blended families" is a nice name, but it's too "touchy feely". It doesn't deal with the reality that there is no way to "blend" a family. It basically said, "You're a step family, and that's all you'll ever be. So don't expect to blend, because your identity is that of a step family." I think the author of this material was trying to keep us from the probable starry-eyed assumption that we'll be able to take two families and make them into one. That was partly right. Yesterday, when Austin came home he neglected to acknowledge to me that it was Mother's Day. However, he told me how his mother had loved the ring he picked out for her and bought from my grandpa for her. Claire also said to me that she has "two moms". The selfish side of me reared its ugly head thinking, "What about me?! I do everything for you. They don't clean your dirty clothes. They don't fix your owies. They aren't there to crawl into bed with when there's a storm outside." I don't say these things, and I feel ashamed that I even feel them sometimes. The lucid part of me knows that I am SO happy that the girls have a loving step-mother, and I'm very thankful for her. I'm also happy for Austin that he got to visit his mom, as I know that's important to him.

The following is copied from Revive Our Hearts ministry website. It fell out of my Bible and landed on the floor recently, and I found it as I was sweeping under our kitchen table.

Proud People

Focus on the failures of others

A critical, fault-finding spirit; look at every- one else’s faults with a microscope, but their own with a telescope

Self-righteous; look down on others

Independent, self-sufficient spirit

Have to prove that they are right

Claim rights; have a demanding spirit

Self-protective of their time, their rights, and their reputation

Desire to be served

Desire to be a success

Desire self-advancement

Have a drive to be recognized and appreciated

Wounded when others are promoted and they are overlooked

Have a subconscious feeling, “This family is privileged to have me and my gifts”; think of what they can do for God

Feel confident in how much they know

Self-conscious

Keep others at arms’ length

Broken People

Overwhelmed with a sense of their own spiritual need

Compassionate; can forgive much because they know how much they have been forgiven

Esteem all others better than them-selves

Have a dependent spirit; recognize their need for others

Willing to yield the right to be right Yield their rights; have a meek spirit

Self-denying

Motivated to serve others

Motivated to be faithful and to make others a success

Desire to promote others

Have a sense of their own unworthiness; thrilled that God would use them at all

Eager for others to get the credit; rejoice when others are lifted up

Heart attitude is, “I don’t deserve to have a part in any family”; know that they have nothing to offer God except the life of Jesus flowing through their broken lives

Humbled by how very much they have to learn

Not concerned with self at all

Willing to risk getting close to others and to take risks of loving intimately

I used to think that I was what was broken about our home. Now my prayer is that we ARE a broken home. That is what it will take for us to survive. That is what it will take for Levi and Violet to know - only conceptually - the pain that the rest of us silently share. That is who I pray that we will be - for the sake of one another and of our family.

By God's grace, He has blended us quite nicely. I don't know if I have ever seen anything quite as amazing. It's a miracle to me how our children love one another. I think that most days they are much nicer to one another than my sisters and I were to one another. We chose Levi's name for its meaning, "United; bonded together". It's nothing we have done. It's not due to a magic formula, and I wouldn't wish divorce on anyone, but God is taking our ashes and turning them to beauty. He is taking our broken pieces and making a mosaic. I am including some of my favorite family photos in this blog so that you can see what He is doing with us. If you think of us, thank the Lord that he placed us in a family, and ask that He would continue working to make us a "broken home".