Scouts Ahead on the Path

I'm really beginning to understand the value of friends who are further along the path in life. Scouts, I call them, who relay important information from their experiences about particular trouble spots on life's path ahead of me.

In talking with one of these scouts recently, I discovered that most of the confusing, discouraging and stupid stuff I experience as a Dad of three teenagers is not unique to me. Most, if not all, parents of teenagers go through them.

For example, I was bemoaning to my friend (the scout) about how my children would rather do almost anything than spend time with me. Even the youngest one, my Nina, who has always seen me as Superman, seems to be viewing my cape as faded.

My friend paused for a moment then simply said, "Welcome to the leper colony!"

That's it! I realized one thing parents of teens have in common is they know exactly what it feels like to be an outcast of society, as if they should go around exclaiming, "Unclean! Unclean!" Scout and I had a great laugh together, and that made it a whole lot better.

Of course, the actual life stage of parenting three teens at once is a brief one for us--less than a full year. Our oldest turns 20 in April and our youngest just turned 13 last August. But adolescence is not always measured by clean cut birthdays, now is it?! I know this, because Valerie said to me just the other day, "Sometimes I think you're still a 13 year-old boy hung up in a 50 year-old man's body!"

Adding Insult to Injury

I'm kinda wondering what Jerry Jones must be feeling right now--total elation that he is about to host Super Bowl XLV at his house, Cowboys Stadium, mixed with absolute bewilderment about who it is that is coming to dinner. Not only the Green Bay Packers but also the Pittsburgh Steelers!

Any bona fide Dallas Cowboys fan, and I've been one all my life (we're both celebrating 50 years of existence), has to feel Jerry's pain. Some Johnny-come-latelies might not realize the irony, offering some solace as "Well, at least it's not the Redskins or Giants," but ol' timers, like me, remember the agony of losing the 1967 NFL Championship to Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr in the Ice Bowl and the nauseating defeats to Terry Bradshaw and his Steelers in Super Bowl's X ('76) and XIII ('79).

Now, in the year that Dallas fans started the season hoping against hope the Cowboys would play for a Super Bowl Championship in their own brand-new stadium, the Cowboys ended up being rather hopeless, and two of their arch enemies will vie for the title instead. And, one of them will be standing on the Star at midfield when handed, that's right, the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

That's adding insult to injury. I'm not sure I can watch.

A Tempting Path

I was tempted, nay, invited to travel down a path today that I have traveled before. A path that is so easy to travel. At first that is. It's an easy path, because it's down hill. But, as I said, I've traveled it before, many times, and I know what's at the end of that path--no way out except to turn around and head back. And that's when the difficulty sets in. As easy as the path is to traverse in decent, it's up hill all the way back and out, the only way out. Not worth it!

So, as I stood at the trail head with another person. I was tempted. The other person began to go down the path and invited me to come along. But, I knew that path. I knew that no matter how much I tore down another person's kid in my mind it wouldn't make the unfair thing that had happened to my kid go away. All I would be left with would be the knowledge that I had torn down another person's kid. That's a dead end with no alternative except to make that steepest of climbs back out--the climb out of emotional weakness and despair.

That's uphill all the way, and I knew my heart didn't need that kind of exercise. Tempting. Inviting. And oh so easy. At first that is.

Ding! Ding!

Some of the most beautiful sky scapes--sunrises, sunsets, the moon and stars--seem to happen during the Texas Winter. This morning was no exception. I wish I had a picture to share, but that's kind of difficult to manage while I'm driving 30 K-4th graders to school.

Going "out" on my route, I drove NW up Hwy. 6 across the Twin Bridges. Setting over the horizon, the huge full moon, yellowing in its descent, sat enormously ahead. I tapped the bus horn twice, giving God what I call a "ding ding" for His beautiful creation. My bus kids now recognize what I'm doing when I honk the horn lightly like that, and one of the kids said, "Give Him an extra one for me, cuz that moon is cool!"

Ding! Ding!

Dirt Can Be Pretty

Dirt can be pretty. That’s something I learned a long time ago as a teenager working on a South Texas cotton farm. At the end of the season, after all of the plowing, sowing, cultivating, hoeing, stripping, stomping, baling, stalk-cutting and plowing again, that rich, deep black soil, ready for a new season of growth, was nothing short of beautiful. Well, maybe you have to be a farmer or gardener or a teenager who is very glad to see the END of a work season to think so, but dirt, I believe, can be pretty.

Not fallow ground, crusted over from seasons past, but sod freshly broken up and turned over, ready for a new season of growth. I recently saw a large field of that kind of dirt and immediately knew what it meant—somebody, who knew what he was doing, had plowed it up and was about to sow fresh seed, develop a new crop, and, eventually, reap a great harvest. That dirt was, well, beautiful, and it was the brokenness of it that made it so. There was a lot of hope in that dirt.

We all know brokenness. We just don’t always think about how beautiful it is to that Someone tilling in the soil of our hearts. Sometimes, it seems, He plows a bit deep—businesses fail, jobs disappear, diseases appear, marriages dissolve, friends move on, children grow up way too quickly and move off to college, and the only Dad we’ve ever known leaves for Heaven. Hearts and lives broken up and turned over by the harrowing hand of the Sovereign.

Yet, I’m trying to learn how to be grateful for the brokenness when it comes. My Savior, that Someone, knows exactly what He is doing, breaking up the soil of my heart, preparing it and me for a new season of growth, and unimaginable fruitfulness and harvest. I’m trying to learn to see what He sees—that dirt can be pretty, especially the kind that is broken up and turned over. There is a lot of hope in that kind of dirt.

A Lesson from Parenting

When we dropped off our first-born, Briana, at Dallas Baptist University a few weeks ago, I was admonished NOT to cry until AFTER we had left the campus. Somehow I was able to comply.

Then the phone calls and texts started. In the following couple of weeks, Briana called and/or texted me at least once every day, needing to answers to questions or solutions to minor issues related to adjusting to life away from home. Wow! How great it was to hear that sweet, strong voice that no longer comes home at night! Every time I saw her name on caller i.d., I couldn't help but smile and think, "Alright!"

Eventually, of course, it dawned on me--that must be just a glimpse of how our Heavenly Father feels when we call His name. I didn't care how minor or simple the reason for Briana's call, I was just glad to hear her voice! It's the same for God when we call on Him, especially, I imagine, if it has been a while since He has heard from us.

Ask, seek, knock Jesus encouraged us, for "if you, then, being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:7-11)....refresh...rekindle!

Time Flies...

From "conehead" to gorgeous woman in a mere 18 years!

Happy Birthday Briana! Welcome to Adulthood!