Experiencing God at Home (6 page)

Chapter 4

Richard’s Family: A Study in Contrasts

I have always believed that the key to successful parenting hinged not so much on the
process
but on the
product
. That is, parenting is not about establishing the right rules and setting the most reasonable curfews. It centers on doing whatever is required to end up with children who honor God and you. If you are looking for a list of “Ten Sure-Fire Ways to Raise Great Kids,” you may be disappointed after reading this book. That’s because, though the Bible offers good advice on rearing children, much of parenting must be customized to the particular family. Families are unique. They consist of individuals and particular circumstances. Consequently, parents must seek God’s wisdom to know what is best for their situation. At least, that’s what Lisa and I discovered.

Our Marriage

Lisa and I have been married for thirty years. It hasn’t been easy! If she had grown up on the North Pole and I in Antarctica, we could not have been more polar opposite. My family put the “B” in Baptist! We can trace Baptists back in our family tree all the way to John! OK, well, not really. But there are Baptist ministers and missionaries generously sprinkled throughout numerous generations preceding mine. My father was a Baptist minister. His father was a bank manager, but he planted Baptist churches. My great grandfather was a student at Spurgeon’s College in London under Charles Spurgeon. In fact, family legend has it that one wayward relative began to indulge liberally in alcohol and died suddenly at a premature age. Everyone speculated that having descended from generations of tee-totalling Baptists, this man’s genetic constitution made him unable to handle the “imbibing” he was doing, and the alcohol killed him! (Of course, that’s just a rumor.) Even my mother’s parents were Baptist missionaries in Africa. It is quite clear that much of what I experienced in life was passed down from generations of God-fearing, church-leading ancestors.

Lisa’s family, on the other hand, were devout Catholics. When Lisa’s father died, five priests officiated at the funeral. Two of my wife’s aunts were nuns. In fact, when Lisa was growing up, her family predicted she would become a nun herself (a prophesy I will forever be grateful proved false).

I spent my early childhood growing up in San Francisco and Los Angeles. I have lived in cities all my life. Lisa grew up in the agricultural town of Carrot River, Canada. Its population of a thousand people boasted more grain elevators per capita than any other town in the province. Lisa grew up in the western Canadian province of Saskatchewan. I grew up in a home with four boys and one baby sister who was tacked on at the end. Lisa was raised in a family of seven girls and one brother (who was understandably upset when he had to wear hand-me-downs!).

Another major difference between us was our parents. Lisa’s mother came from French Canadian roots. My mother was an American from Oklahoma. Lisa’s parents mostly limited their social life to occasional bridge games with quiet friends (with eight children, they were kind of busy!). My mother is an off-the-shelf extravert who regularly fed the multitudes passing through the minister’s home. Lisa’s father did manual labor most of his life. He could fix or build anything. He constructed the home Lisa grew up in and would periodically add on a room when more children arrived. He never traveled on business, and Lisa has no memories of her father being away from home overnight. My father is also a Canadian, but his bank manager father never taught him how to fix anything. As a result, my dad never taught
me
how to fix anything (I only passed Industrial Arts class in high school due to the mercy and long-suffering of my teacher, who did not want to see me return for another year). Dad often traveled to fulfill speaking engagements. I recall one mealtime where my mother prayed for our father as he was speaking in a large meeting in Texas that day. It was the first we children knew our father was gone, and he had been away all week! These divergent views of our parents would provide some challenges for Lisa and me later in life.

Lisa and I did experience a few things in common. We both grew up in loving homes where family was considered important. Both of our homes abounded with laughter. My father afflicted his children with the world’s worst puns. Lisa’s father could put you into hysterics with his self-depreciating humor. Lisa and I were also born into families where religious faith was central. We also both grew up in homes within sight of the poverty line! The houses we grew up in were modest (and crowded), and money was scarce. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, both of our families opened their presents on Christmas
morning
and not on Christmas Eve, as some less civilized people do!

As a young adult, I concluded that four children would be a perfect family size, so I looked for who the lucky mother was going to be! Lisa, on the other hand, had watched a rather graphic film on childbirth during a health class in high school and henceforth concluded that zero children would make a perfect family. We would have some negotiating to do!

Our personalities are also diametrically opposed. I am rather task oriented, cognitive, focused, and a long-range planner. Lisa, on the other hand, loves a party and is always coming up with ways to make ordinary living a lot of fun. She is a feeler who for years assumed she had married someone who made Spock look like an emotional basket case! She is also, well, not exactly focused. In fact, she is extremely random. I’ll give you one example. She uses a weekly pill organizer for her vitamins and medications. However, she cannot bear to be enslaved to always Tuesday’s meds on Tuesdays, so she will randomly take pills from whichever bin she feels like on that particular day, which of course causes problems later when she can’t remember if she took her meds or not! Thankfully, she’s not as random as her sister Paulette who, after hosting a party at her house, found a full pot of coffee chilling in the refrigerator. And as for long-range planning? For Lisa, delayed gratification means the time you have to wait for UPS to deliver your online purchase. So you can imagine what it was like for us when we found ourselves as parents who needed to decide how we were going to jointly rear our three children.

Our Children

Let’s face it: not all children are the same. Some have colic; others coo and gurgle continuously. Some blissfully sleep through the night; others are night owls. Some kids are hyper; others are calm. Some are loud; others are quiet. Some are girls; others are boys. Our first two children were boys. They did what boys do: played hard and loud. Our friends, whose children were angelic girls, thought our offspring were barbaric! You don’t get to choose your children; you only get to choose your response to them!

Mike

We named our first child Mike (well, actually Michael, but he changed it to Mike as soon as he could). Mike’s entry into the world did not go smoothly. He went into distress after Lisa underwent twelve hours of labor. After an emergency C-section, Mike entered the scene. Mike was good-natured from the beginning. He was a social animal with a vivid imagination. School provided some challenges since unless he was bound with duct tape to his desk, Mike could not remain seated for more than a few seconds at a time. This brought him to the attention of his teachers on a regular basis. Let’s just say Mike never heard of the “Honor Roll” during his academic career! As Mike grew older, he tried his hand at various endeavors. He played some sports: soccer and in-line hockey. We tried to introduce him to music even though Lisa and I combined could not come up with one musical bone in our bodies. He took piano and clarinet but finally found his passion: drums (sorry next-door neighbors). Mike had his struggles, just like every child. As a teenager, he commenced a quest to become “cool.” He changed how he dressed, dyed his hair several different colors (some at the same time), got a piercing or two, and formed a rock band. At age eighteen he was also diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

Today, as I write this, Mike is twenty-seven. He finished college, earned a master’s degree from seminary, and is currently working on a PhD in Apologetics. He is the college/single adult minister at First Baptist Church in Jonesboro, Georgia, and has written a book with his younger brother, Daniel, entitled
When Worlds Collide: Stepping Up and Standing Out in an Anti-God Culture
.
He is also engaged to a charming young lady named Sarah. He’s working on his third book and has developed into an awesome public speaker.

Daniel

Our second child, Daniel, has always chosen his own unique path through life. He was born a month premature, but that is the
only
thing he ever did early! He is a laid-back child with a fertile imagination and a stubborn streak a mile wide! Daniel ran into some major challenges during middle school. He suffered from a severe sleep disorder that eventually made it impossible for him to continue attending school. We homeschooled him in order to help him sleep as much as possible. He later struggled to know what to do after he graduated from high school, which led to a year of international travel and mission work. Daniel is a brilliant child who struggles at times to put that creative mind to work when he lacks sufficient motivation. That led to his unfortunate propensity to skip classes and to put off doing his homework until the last minute (or Jesus’ second coming, whichever came first). Daniel loves music and can play almost any instrument you find in a typical church worship band. He excelled in playing hockey and loves to follow sports. He is also an English nerd and takes great delight in reading Russian classic novels. (Like I said, he hasn’t had it easy.)

Along with Daniel’s sleep-disorder issues, he suffered various challenges while growing up. He was pulled from two different schools because of his health. Like his older brother, Daniel had to “find himself” as a teenager. During that season of life, he grew his hair long (giving Rapunzel a run for her money), he tried a few piercings, and played in his brother’s rock band.

Despite facing health issues as well as moving to a different country halfway through college, Daniel completed university. He is completing a master’s degree at Golden Gate Seminary in San Francisco, is married to his sweetheart Sarah, and is helping plant his second church. He is presently coauthoring a second book with Mike and is currently writing the second novel in a fantasy trilogy series entitled The Lost City Chronicles
.
He is also looking at entering a PhD program that focuses on “Christianity and the Arts.”

Carrie

Just when we felt like we were getting a handle on raising boys, God sent us our princess. Sweet little Carrie has endured the unrelenting torment of her two gross older brothers. After some astute parenting techniques in which we gently steered her away from wanting to be a ninja turtle or a Jedi knight like her brothers, she embraced the finer arts of ice skating and designer clothes.

Carrie is our family’s health nut. She would rather endure a waterboarding interrogation than eat a doughnut or drink a soda. She exercises continuously and has run a half marathon. Carrie’s kryptonite is worry. I don’t know where she got it from, as she has been lovingly nurtured all of her life. She used to worry about being away from home overnight or attempting new things. She worried throughout college about flunking even as she piled up one four-point semester after the next. Carrie loves to shop, travel, write, and did I mention shop? She graduated from college and is currently enrolled in two master’s programs, one for advanced writing and the other in apologetics from a seminary. She has a fine boyfriend (don’t tell
him
I said that), and she just signed a contract with a publisher to write her first book.

So that is my family, at least for the moment. No grandkids yet, not that we haven’t dropped plenty of hints. Each of our adult children loves their parents and God. All three are currently enrolled in seminary and feel called into some form of Christian ministry. The
process
wasn’t always easy, but we love the
product
so far! I travel a lot, and so I was often away from home. Lisa is a softhearted, nurturing mother whose solution for most of our children’s problems was to give them a gift so they felt better! I had to be the “heavy” in our home, and some of our kids, especially of the male variety, needed more “heavy” than others. Nevertheless, thus far, it has been exciting to see what God has done in and through our children.

Family Principles

We’ll be giving you plenty of illustrations from our parenting experiences in the coming chapters, but for now let me summarize some of the principles by which we raised our children. These are not necessarily the identical rules you should follow in your home. I will simply relate what we did in our home and the kind of family, and children, that resulted.

1. Trust God throughout the process.

Lisa and I do not hold ourselves up as parenting experts. We have made far too many mistakes to see ourselves that way! Sure, we have worked extremely hard at parenting, but we also know that other parents have too and yet have suffered major disappointments. I am grateful that my parents regularly prayed for my children. I will be forever grateful that God, in His grace, chose to do in my children’s lives what their parents were unable to do.

2. Keep the rules few but nonnegotiable.

We did a couple of pretty unorthodox things as parents. Perhaps one of the most controversial is that we had very few rules! Hey, you can’t rebel if there is nothing to rebel against, right? Actually, we were aiming for character, not conformity. It has been said that it was when ancient Rome had the most laws that its society was most corrupt. We figured that if we kept pushing our kids to act with character, we wouldn’t have to keep telling them how to behave.

3. Respect and support family members.

This
was
nonnegotiable. If your sister was competing in an ice-skating competition, you had better be there! If your sons’ rock band was performing in a downtown café, you had to show up and, if necessary, jump up and down in the mosh pit (
man
was I ever sore the next day). As important as friends are to teenagers, they generally come and go, but family remains. When a friend came between two siblings, the friend had to go.