Prayer for my son's seventh birthday

Lord, grant us the wisdom to be able to groom Dillon’s sensitive heart towards a loving relationship with You first and then accordingly, to love and thoughtfulness towards others.
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).

Help us become child whisperers so that we will know how to gently break the foolishness while focusing his gifts, talents and loving heart towards You and others.
“Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child” (Proverbs 22:15).

Lord, teach us how to focus his attention that takes in everything and presently distracts him from continual first time obedience. Help us know the correct way to train his heart. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

Help us as parents know when to give him enough slack so that he learns his own lessons, but not so much that he breaks free.
Help us know when to help him push past his fears and when to step back and let him do it in his own time.
“Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (Colossians 3:21).

Help us as his parents to always be available to him and to make our home a safe refuge for him.
“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7)

Help us focus his gift for instructing others so that he utilizes his sensitivity to be gentle, good and kind while helping others without being bossy or becoming wise in his own eyes.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Help us teach him the importance of patience, practice and perseverance in developing his skills.
“But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self control, to self control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

Lord, the word Dillon means faithfulness. Help us teach him how to be faithful first to you and Your Word, then to us, and to honor his word to others.
“A faithful man will abound with blessings” (Proverbs 28:20).

Help us encourage him to become involved while not becoming overextended so that his word will come to mean nothing.
“But let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’” (Matthew 5:37).

Help us teach him to always see the possibilities and to never lose Your hope and vision.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5)

Help us bottle his childhood enthusiasm and joy so that we will have some on hand when he gets older and loses it.
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12).

Help him see that each new day is an opportunity to serve You better and to be forgiven anew for his transgressions.
“So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

Lord, help him learn to turn to You when we as his parents, and others, will inevitably fail him.
“I will say of the LORD, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, My God, in Him I will trust’” (Psalms 91:2)

Help him see his problems as opportunities to become closer to You, knowing that You control all circumstances.
“And we know all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28).

Help him see Your will for his life and to love who You created him to be.
“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you” (Psalm 139:13).

Finally, Lord, help him to know that to You goes all the glory, for what was, what is and what will be.
“Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

I Know It Is Only Rock and Roll but I Like It

I’m sad. And I’m mad. Who knew I would become so sad and angry at the passing of a friend that I hadn’t seen in nine years.
I met Richard almost thirty years ago. I was young and fresh out of high school. On weekends, my friends and I could be found cruising Main Street or hanging out in the Advance parking lot. That was what we did in the name of fun in Waynesboro. Along about that time, a tiny pub opened up in the middle of town. Its name was Mad Anthony’s and boy, did I have some mad fun in that place on weekends. That was where I met Richard and the rest of the guys in the band First Offense. It was 1982 and the beginning of an era of big bands, big hair and big fun.
There was just something magical about bands and rock-n-roll music in those days, and while some would argue that the magic stemmed from too much drinking and partying, we would tell you that it was just something about the music that spoke to everything we felt and believed about the world. I couldn’t help but to get caught up in the sheer joy that exuded whenever First Offense played in front of a crowd. I loved being with and watching those guys perform, especially Richard, whose face contorted whenever he and his guitar became as one. Afterwards, we would all pile into Richard’s and my best friend Cheryl’s house to hang out all night, too high from happiness and harmonies to even think about going home to bed.
While most people my age were graduating from college and settling down, my friends and I spent a good part of the 1980s living for the weekends, just hanging out and having fun. Band members and band names would come and go, but the main core of us continued to rock on through good times and bad, cementing a kind of friendship that would last a lifetime and see us through many travails.
I finally settled down in the late 80s, getting married and giving birth to my first son. Richard did the same, although unfortunately the early 90s saw both of us divorced already. Maybe that was due in part because neither of us had learned how to let go of the past. Or maybe it was due in part to the dark shadows that resided inside each of us.. I lived as a single mother throughout the 90s, so I kind of fell out of touch with Richard and his band cronies. They were some rough years for me, and they evidently were rough for him as well. I’m not sure what happened to him in the years we were apart, but when we eventually hooked up again in the late 90s, a large part of Richard was gone, both emotionally and physically.
We met up again at a time when I had just lost my son to my ex-husband and his new family. I was so filled with grief that breathing each moment took more strength than I had to give. Richard, having always possessed a very dry wit and sharp tongue, and who had the ability to use his tongue as a rapier in order to cut through to the crux of any matter in an instant, used his skill with words and humor to prop me up during this phase of our friendship. He refused to allow either of us to succumb to despair. His friendship became my lifeline, as music was his, and although both of us were lost and struggling in those days, for two years we did it together.
In 2001, I met my husband Eddie and together he and I dedicated our lives to serving the Lord. I exchanged my love for rock-n-roll music for Christian contemporary worship. With the Lord’s help, I finally put the dark decade of the 90s behind me and moved on. That time, as well as those friends, I’m sad to say, became a distant memory as I forged ahead with a whole new life in Christ. I had a new life, a new son and an appreciation for that life that only those who had lost it once can possess. I so effectively put my past behind me that I didn’t know that several miles away, Richard was literally losing his life. And but for the grace of God, that could have been me, too.
So now I am mad and sad. Sad at the loss of such a vibrant, intelligent, talented man and musician at the young age of 52. Angry because I wasn’t able to see him before he left, to thank him for the friendship that I never bothered to thank him for before. I am angry at myself because by God’s grace and mercy I have been saved and will live in Glory one day but I never bothered to find out if Richard knew the Lord or not. I am angry at myself for waiting until after his passing to consider the thought that I should have shared the joy that Christ has restored to my life and could have restored to his.
My prayer is that Richard cried out to Jesus before he left this earth and that right this minute his face is contorting with joy as he becomes one with his electric guitar in God’s band in Glory.

Surely they may forget,
Yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of
My hands,
Your walls are continually before me. Isaiah 49: 15b-16.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

To fulfill a requirement for my multicultural issues class at Liberty, I have been reading a scholarly compilation of essays depicting some of the racial and ethnic struggles that have occurred in America, beginning with Columbus’ voyage from Spain and ending with the terrible tumbling of the Twin Towers. The majority of these essays was compiled from primary sources; thus are historically accurate, unlike some of our school textbooks that seem to gloss over the uglier aspects of America’s tumultuous history.
One of the issues that captured my interest more than others was the history of the women’s movement. Since another requirement for this class is to write a research paper on a multicultural issue of our choice, I chose to write about the struggle women face in an attempt to balance work and home since the conception of the Equal Rights Amendment in the early 1900s and the feminist movement that emerged in the 1960s resulted in more women leaving home and entering the workforce. Valiant women took up this cause over a hundred years ago so that women will not be denied opportunities based on sex. I am proud of the women who have fought for our voices to be heard and respected. I am indebted to the legions of women who pushed to change the status quo so that I can go to school and pursue a career in the field of my choice.
Yet over and over, what I’ve discovered in my research would not surprise working women. There truly is no such thing as a balance between work and family. According to Merriam Webster, one of the definitions of the word balance refers to “stability produced by even distribution of weight on each side of the vertical axis”. Research shows that men, for the most part, are able to have a job or a career and when their eight hours are over, they come home and are able to successfully transition to their role as husband and father, adeptly balancing the vertical axis. Women, on the other hand, for as much and as long and as loud as they have cried for equal rights, according to research, are not able to successfully bridge the chasm that separates the two worlds since gaining the right to do so.
There are many purported reasons for this, but the main reason seems attributed to the fact that women, by and large, are still the keepers of home and family, even if they work an eight hour day elsewhere. While research does show that men are pitching in more around the house, women, by an overwhelming majority, are still the main cooks, shoppers, cleaners, bill payers and babysitters. It comes as no surprise that some women see work as an escape from their toil at home. While both places overwhelming represent work to women, home represents a place of respite from the world to men.
In my lifetime, I have had careers inside and outside of the home. Both were and still are rewarding in different ways. Yet I’m starting to learn that the work we do at home in raising children is the most important work we as women with children will perform. Raising a child to be a godly person, to be responsible, loving, caring, thoughtful and to be held up to God’s standard in all matters is no easy task. As parents, we have to be cognizant of their every thought, their every move, in order to determine if their hearts and minds are staying engaged. We are in charge of reshaping the foolishness that they were born with, while at the same time calling attention to and reshaping the foolishness that still resides inside of us. The effort requires that we as parents teach our children by example at all times.
In addition, we have to know when to hold tight and when to let go. For such a short time, we are in charge of grooming their little souls to think and act more like Jesus, so that when the time is right, our Lord will be able to guide them to perform the tasks He created them to perform. The trust that the Lord has bestowed upon us to do this right simply astounds me.
Deuteronomy 11:19 stresses the importance of teaching our children the Lord’s standards when we are at home and when we are away, when we go to bed and when we arise. That pretty much means every minute we’re awake, we are in charge of shaping our children. I don’t know how other people feel, but to me that makes for a busy day! And then to have to think about squeezing in eight hours somewhere else? I struggle with knowing how to do either justice. When I’m at work, my mind and heart are usually at home, no matter how important the work is I perform somewhere else.
As for my research paper, there doesn’t seem to be any easy answers for helping women balance this divide with eloquence and ease. Even when the household chores are perceived as equally divided, women for the most part still feel overburdened. While I appreciate that my husband endorses my acquisition of knowledge and allows me the means to pursue a career of my choice, home is truly where my heart is, and where I as a wife and mother perform my most important work.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Dillon woke up Sunday morning not feeling well. He had been battling an ear and sinus infection for over a month, and the war on his senses was starting to take its toll on his emotional as well as his physical defenses. My husband was going out for his traditional Sunday morning cruise in his beloved “63 Thunderbird. I suggested that maybe Dillon could ride with him, in hopes that it might cheer him up. Dillon loved riding in the ‘bird with his father, one reason being that he was able to ride in the front seat and hang his arm out the window, much like the young riders in the 60s were able to do before the invention of air bags.
However, for whatever reasons, Eddie said he couldn’t go. I looked at Dillon and uttered the response many parents haphazardly mutter in times like this, in an attempt to make my husband feel guilty for his perceived selfish call. “Well, Dillon, I guess your daddy just doesn’t love you anymore…”
As soon as his father rounded the corner, Dillon leapt at him to give him a hug. In doing so, he inadvertently hit my husband in his “private parts”, causing my husband to react to the pain by yelling at him not to hit people “there”. Dillon ran out of the room and I truly did not think anything more of it, knowing Dillon is one of those kids who can bounce back fairly rapidly..
But as soon as Eddie left the house, Dillon came to me as I was washing dishes. He looked up at me with his sad blue eyes and his lower lip quivering and resolutely remarked, “You were right, Mom.” As I have never heard him directly acknowledge my correctness on a subject before, I grinned and asked him what it was that I was finally right about. He looked at me in tears and uttered the words no parents ever want to hear, “You were right—Daddy doesn’t love me anymore.” He then reached out and held onto me as if I was his last refuge. Those words that I had so carelessly uttered in order to guilt my husband into taking Dillon with him had been interpreted literally by my emotionally weakened son. I immediately responded by assuring him that his father did indeed love him very much, and I apologized for my thoughtless words, unable to explain why I said them, knowing that his 6-year-old mind would not be able to comprehend the complicated motives behind my remark. I then called my husband and asked him to return, explaining how both of our follies had led our child to wonder, if just for a moment, if his parents would always love him or not.
So often we mutter words, whether in anger, jest or in defense to some perceived injustice, that are not interpreted correctly by the receiving party. The chant we used to recite as children, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is simply not true. Proverbs 18:21a states “Death and life are in the power of the tongue”. Words possess great power. Words spoken with passion can sway mens’ hearts and lead them places they may be better off not going. Parents of young children need to be careful in choosing their words. We so often forget that they are not capable of abstract thought and reasoning and are unable to comprehend the manipulative motives behind words so carelessly tossed out.

As I listened to the ending medley from one of my son’s favorite movies, I became aware of a mounting emotion, deep within, of hope and excitement. I have not heard a song played in a long time from this particular artist, nor do I recognize him as someone I purposefully listened to as a youth. Yet visions of warm, sunny days, white clouds in the sky and the internal knowledge that I had the rest of my life to look forward to filled what could only be my soul, as these fleeting images were somewhat indescribable to my intellectual mind.

As another birthday approaches, I have been trying to put a name to what feels like dead weight that I carry around inside. I don’t have any particular troubles weighing on me presently, nor do I sense impending doom. Yet something is missing; some ethereal quality that I can’t quite put my finger on; a lightness of soul that I wouldn’t describe as the elusive longing for happiness, but more along the lines of a lost excitement for what each day might bring. Deep within are long forgotten memories of being fascinated by the smell of a honeysuckle bush each spring; of waking up and wondering what adventures the day will bring; of lying on a hill and watching the clouds go by, wondering who I will be when I grow up.

A sense of adventure—yes, that’s it! Those who study personalities claim that men always long for the thrill of adventure, while women long to be rescued. I don’t know about that; the women I know don’t long to be rescued as much as they long for security; both instincts supposedly being passed to us from our primitive ancestors. But to be part of a secure adventure—that comes as close as I can get to putting a name to my longing. I have no desire to travel abroad to turbulent places and place my life in peril, but I would like to wake up and look forward to my day again the way I did as a child. How do we go about tossing aside the disappointments from our yesterdays and lay claim to the hopeful promise of our tomorrows once more?

When we were young, we believed that anything was possible. I think we need to believe that still. Perhaps adventures did not stop coming as much as we stopped seeing them. Perhaps we’ve become comfortable with disappointment and have allowed our childish faith in the wonderful unknown to be stomped out. Perhaps we’ve stopped seeing what is possible and instead see a world of impossibilities. I know that my tethered and parched soul longs to drink in the excitement I sensed as a child again.