My Dad

January 3rd, 2009 Tim

[I wrote this 12/30/08 and gave a copy to my dad 12-31-08 and he called me today to tell me to post it.] 

(Nancy) My Dad turns 70 years old tomorrow. Yeah, I know, New Year’s Eve. It’s a bittersweet day to have your birthday. One of my favorite photos is of him and me. I’m about nine months old, wearing a big sunflower bib, being held by him. We’re looking into each other’s eyes and he’s got this pleased smirk on his face (my goal when I give him a present is always to see that pleased smirk) and he’s holding my hand like he’s going to lead me somewhere. His thumbnail is dirty, like he has the experience to show me something of importance in life.

My Dad grew up in tiny towns in northern Louisiana. His dad was the principal, his mom was the librarian and his mom’s best friend was one of his teachers (no pressure, right?). He played basketball and baseball (there was a rumor that he might have become a pro catcher, if he hadn’t “blown out” his right arm). He was also the guy with the slide rule and the fancy calculator. He became a chemical engineer at Louisiana Tech and OU, but not before meeting my mom on a road trip to Mexico, which he took with his college roommate. His roommate was dating (and later married) my mom’s best friend. The story goes that when my Dad first met her he had a hard time understanding her name, pronounced “Low [as in “allow”]-ra” in Spanish. He later learned that it was the English name Laura. My dad promptly switched from studying French to studying Spanish at Louisiana Tech.

They’ve now been married 46 years. I can always remember the number because their wedding was literally the day after my husband, Tim, was born. My dad has two sisters and my mom had six sisters (one died) and my parents have two daughters. That’s a lot of estrogen!  He seems to like hanging out with our son, William.  They say girls marry someone like their dad. I sure did. Tim is patient, has an irreverent sense of humor, likes football, baseball and music. I grew up listening to the Beatles, The Kingston Trio, The Beach Boys, The Eagles, Peter, Paul and Mary, Jethro Tull, Three Dog Night, Crosby, Stills and Nash. Dad once took me to a Moody Blues concert and another time we saw Bonnie Raitt perform in a tiny club in Houston, before she was nationally popular. He once called in to a local radio station and won two Queen albums (Day at the Races, Night at the Opera) and tickets to a showing of those Marx brothers movies (by the same names), sandwiched by a Queen video concert and he took me.

Unless you ask him a question, he is a man of few words. I remember when Tim and I told my parents that we would probably not have any more kids after Deanna and William, due to medical complications. My dad just said “well, you hit the jackpot with them.” But, if you ask a question, watch out! My dad taught me to always be reading at least one book. I could never beat him at Trivial Pursuit, from Sports to History to Geography, there wasn’t a bad category for him! I used to follow him around while he worked in the yard, just asking him stuff. I did grumble occasionally at the length of the replies. In one of his very few moments of raising his voice he said “you want me to explain the theory of relativity in one sentence!” I tried to remember not to grumble any more.

When we women quiet down enough, he (like his dad before him) usually has a joke or funny story at hand. He affectionately called his dad “Old Sport”, which I always thought was a great nickname for a man born with a handicapped arm and leg.

Except for playing rare golf or tennis games, my dad’s pre-retirement life was all about providing for his family. During the oil glut in Houston in the 80’s he lost his job (with two kids in college!). I had worked part time at a cardiologist’s office and we frequently disdained the pharmaceutical representatives who came to the office. At one point he was considering becoming a rep for a drug company and I begged him not to. He firmly told me that if that was necessary to take care of his family, that is what he would do.

My dad models respect for others, even if they have differing beliefs. He’s never harsh or ridiculing of anyone. I could tell you stories of his sacrifices (including giving up smoking a pipe, giving up living in Spain and giving up having a pet) for his family.

Though I’m not always good at showing it to him, I love my dad. Happy birthday, Dad!

“I say this because I know what I am planning for you,” says the LORD.  “I have good plans for you, not plans to hurt you. I will give you hope and a good future.” (Jeremiah 29:11 New Century Version)

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The Tale of Despereaux

December 21st, 2008 Tim

(Nancy) “I told you that grief is the strongest feeling you can have; it is not, forgiveness is.” [as best as I can remember from the Tale of Despereaux movie]

We saw the Tale of Despereaux yesterday and I absolutely LOVED it. Tell me if Despereaux reminds you of anyone: born very humbly, among humble people, “at the time when a hero is needed”, afraid of nothing, breaking the rules that don’t make sense, full of honor, truth and chivalry, on a quest to save prisoners.

Grief and sin and bitterness and vengeance are real in this movie and they spread and corrupt everyone, from the fairy princess to the dungeon jailer. But forgiveness is also real and powerful enough to unite all but the one committed to death. Light returns to their darkened world and there is a great feast!

Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. (Psalm 85:10 KJV)

Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6 NIV)

He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV)

Tell it to the generations to come, for this is God, our God, forever and ever and he will be our guide until death. (Psalm 48:13-14)

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Gaggin’ on Saggin’ and Draggin’

December 20th, 2008 Tim

Confession time.  I spent several of my formative years during (gasp) the Disco Era.  I wore bell-bottoms, satin shirts with HUGE collars.  I had shiny green and white wing-tips that could almost be considered platform shoes.  I had a choker.  I listened to Donna Summers, the Bee Gees, and Chic on my eight-track player in my Volkswagen Bug.  I lived during the Disco Era.  I was the Disco Era, and once a year I find a hill, climb it, confess my transgressions to the four winds, and, penance done, I go back to living.  

Don’t get me wrong, my fashion sense is not all that great.  One of my students told me I have “Sunday school hair,” I never buy clothes unless they’re drastically on sale, and then only from stores that most would consider discount stores, and (gasp again) I actually tuck in my shirt ninety-five percent of the time.  But I’m okay with that, and I don’t embarrass my thirteen-year-old too much when we go out in public.  Though from time to time she will say, “You’re not actually going to wear that, are you?”  So I go and change.

There’s no accounting for taste, and style is, like the four winds, constantly shifting.  I teach in an urban school district in west Houston: Not Katy, not Fort Bend, not Spring Branch, not Stafford, not Lamar.  I have students from all over the world and all over the fashion spectrum.  I have my Asian Goth boy with long jet-black hair; I have my girl who takes her fashion cues from Hello Kitty, and I have my Hispanic-funky-urban-cowgirl-meets-Katrina-and-the-Waves who brightens my day with the creative way she wears her clothes.  

Then there are “The Others.”  If you’ve been outside the past few years, you’ve seen ‘em.  You’ve seen more of them than you want to.  Way more.   I mean, their waistlines go lower than the hemlines of mini-skirts.  They have to walk with a waddle which must be doing massive damage to their hips.  If they run, which they can’t do quickly, they have to hold their pants up like ladies trying to run in long dresses. 

What took me over the edge on this was the other day we were at the mall, and Nancy and I were grumbling about some guy we saw who was pretty much exposed.  My daughter heard our protestations, became indignant, and said we were just being judgmental.  Now, don’t get her wrong.  My daughter doesn’t like the way they look, but her point was that we shouldn’t judge their fashion. 

That’s where I flipped, and my daughter got to hear Dad rant for a few minutes about the difference between legitimate fashion and lewdness.  What makes me so mad about this is that I even had to tell my daughter that, no, this isn’t a style choice.  This isn’t like choosing, “Should I wear my Hollister or my American Eagle today?”  This is a matter of choosing to live in a society that has boundaries of what you show and what you don’t show in public.  This is a matter of maintaining a sense of modesty that honors both ourselves and those we encounter as go about life.  I don’t mourn my daughter’s mild indignity at her parents, I mourn that I had to have that conversation with her in the first place because we live in a society that mostly shrugs off this type of exposure.

 I was raised with old-fashioned parents, but my mom taught me that if I see a man with his pants down, I’m supposed to run away.  The other day at school I saw a couple of boys who were extreme sagging.  I mean literally down to mid-thigh.  I’m ashamed to say that my reaction was stunned disbelief.  I literally couldn’t say anything.  I know I was supposed to, and if my boss reads this he’ll have to talk to me about my responsibilities as a teacher, but I just stood there.  Deep down I was afraid that I would release the inner-marine and go off on the kids like a drill sergeant on a fresh recruit. 

Here’s the gospel message.  We are made in the image of God.  No, God doesn’t sag, but we are made in the image of God.  This doesn’t mean I have to accept the fashion, but Jesus didn’t die solely for guys like me with tucked in shirts and dorky hair.  I need to pray that God will soften my heart and give me words to say that change the heart of my saggers and the society that’s created this. 

And that I never wear a leisure suit ever again….

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Whose approval do you want?

December 18th, 2008 Tim

 (Nancy) I once heard a pastor say that we either have a high view of man and a low view of God or a high view of God and a low view of man.

1 Samuel 15-16 illustrates this. [Some background is that the prophet Samuel had been told by God to anoint Saul as king over Israel.  Now, Saul was out looking for his dad’s lost donkeys. He and his servant had spent three days looking with no success and knew that the prophet Samuel was close to where they were. Saul had no money but his servant happened to have a quarter of a shekel (this is in 1 Samuel 9) so they thought they’d go ask the prophet Samuel if he could tell them where the donkeys went. Instead Samuel anoints Saul king over Israel! But later Saul gets full of himself and grieves the Spirit given to him in 1 Samuel 10:6-7.]  

In 1 Samuel 15:17-19 Samuel tells Saul: “although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission…why did you not obey the LORD?” Still not really getting it, Saul replies (1 Samuel 15:20) “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel.”

1 Samuel 16 tells the story of God choosing and anointing David, a humble shepherd boy and the youngest of 8 sons: “So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power.” (1 Samuel 16:13)

All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. (1 Peter 5:5b-6 NIV)

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Inter-generational Scripture

December 12th, 2008 Tim

(Nancy) “Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm.” “It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the desert until you arrived at this place.” “But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the LORD has done.” (Deut 11:2, 5, 7 NIV)

“Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them.” “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds.” “Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deut 11:16, 18a, 19 NIV)

“After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.” “Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers.” (Judges 2:10, 11a, 12a NIV)

God commanded Gideon: “Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God.” “So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town he did it at night rather than in the daytime.”  (Judges 6:25b, 27 NIV) [The story of Gideon (Judges 6-7) is a great story of God’s patience with our doubts and fears and his great faithfulness when we obey.]

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Peter 1:18-19 NIV)

I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. (2 Timothy 1:5 NIV)

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The Christmas list of a middle-aged Christian

November 25th, 2008 Tim

(Nancy) When I was little I’d plan to buy gifts for my parents and my mom would say “don’t spend your money, we don’t need anything”. I thought she was just being nice. Now that I’m older I can truthfully say that, while there are a few tangible things I might want, the greatest desires of my heart are respect and love. More than almost anything this year, I want someone in my life who doesn’t know God to read a book I gave about Jesus.  From someone else, I would like respect, even if that person never agrees with the way I run my life.  I personally believe that one of the greatest expressions of love is to pray with someone else. That’s third on my Christmas list.

This morning Tim jokingly said that our Thanksgiving plans had changed, that instead of having extended family over to our house, we would be waiting in line in the Best Buy parking lot with others who have already set up camp there. “For what?!” “A $200 lap top.” Switchfoot’s song “Gone” has a great line: “life is more than money, time was never money, time was never cash”. People throw away time for money. People throw away time for comfort. People even throw away time for comfort to make them feel better about the guilt of throwing away time and people. I am certainly guilty as well. I once heard a pastor say “we should love people and use money, not use people and love money.”

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV) 

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What is God teaching you?

November 23rd, 2008 Tim

(Nancy) I’m convinced that God is intimately involved in our lives. So often we just don’t realize it. When I was a junior in high school I applied “early bird” to my first choice of Hollins College in Virginia, mostly because I wanted to get back in to horseback riding, after a 4-year hiatus. I knew no one in Virginia and had never lived in a state east of the Mississippi. Not the most responsible decision.  I had convinced my parents to pay the $600 non-refundable deposit (a lot of money in 1982), wrote the essays and was accepted. Then God told me “No”.  I didn’t hear a voice from heaven, no prophet showed up at my door. But, somehow, I knew this was not God’s will for my life. I had to tell my parents and cough up the $600. During my freshman year at The University of Texas at Austin, an Inter-Varsity staff member suggested I attend a month-long summer camp in Colorado. Houston was suffering from the oil bust then and my chemical engineer dad was briefly out of a job so I had to get a scholarship for the camp. Then I had a fever the day it started and so my parents didn’t let me leave.  The next day I took a plane, bus and car trip and arrived a day late and a little woozy at Bear Trap Ranch near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Tim Hausman, from Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado, and I had been placed in the same “small group” of 5. He and I literally met under a moose. Well, a moose’s head on a wall.  If I’d been in Virginia, or hadn’t applied for the camp scholarship or had stayed home to recover, who knows what would have happened.

I certainly can’t claim to have gone through the hardships that Joseph “O’Canaan” has. But I do know that recognizing the providence of God can make a profound difference in life, during good times or bad.  Personally, I am going through some painful pruning right now, realizing some forgiveness I need to dispense to extended family from long past hurts and some forgiveness I need to accept from God.

This morning, Pastor Bill Woolsey preached at CrossPoint Seven Lakes, on Joseph and his struggle to forgive his brothers(Genesis 42-50).  Bill said that “holding on” to sin commited against us “equals revenge” and “letting go equals relief”.  God has been teaching me a lot about forgiveness and bitterness lately. I’m learning what forgiveness is not: it’s not forgetting, it’s not saying that it was OK, it’s not even saying it shouldn’t be punished.  Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church says that all sin is paid for, either by the sinner in death or by Christ on the cross. [Some sins are also rightfully punishable by courts. Someone can forgive and still have the person rightfully punished by the authorities. Fortunately, I have not experienced “illegal” sins.] Forgiveness is saying “it wasn’t ok, but I choose to no longer punish that person myself”.  Driscoll says that sometimes we have to get up in the morning and say “it hurts like hell but I choose to forgive” and the next day we have to get up in the morning and say “it still hurts like hell but I choose to forgive”.  This morning Pastor Bill said “the greatest work God wants to do in you is forgiveness (for you and from you)” and that Jesus gives us the power to “forgive in spite of the pain.”

But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:19-20 NIV)

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:31-32 ESV)

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Kitchen Nightmares

November 7th, 2008 Tim

(Nancy) My family and I like to watch the TV show Kitchen Nightmares.  In case you’ve never seen it, the concept is that Chef Gordon Ramsey (of “Hell’s Kitchen” fame) is asked to help a struggling restaurant. The word “nightmare” is usually not an exaggeration: the food is terrible, the owners and cooks and managers and waiters are lazy and fighting, debt is mounting… Chef Ramsey comes in, tries the food (I think he stays slim because he only eats more than one bite when the food is good) and asks the owners and staff what they think the problem is. He gives them advice, spruces the place up a little, adds a few special menu items and they have a revamped dinner service. Things do not go much better.

So, he digs deeper, much deeper. He finds the rotten lettuce, the lazy chef, the drunken manager, the stealing cook. After they throw out the canned or tainted food, he sets the staff and owners to do a thorough cleaning. During this, he tours the area to see what the surrounding culture is like, often finding farm-fresh produce or fresh-caught fish or clientele preferences that were completely ignored by the restaurant owners/managers.

He returns, shows them how to reach the culture and gives them a passion for local food and people. His staff redoes the decor to match the new theme. Chef Ramsey often facilitates them working out their teamwork problems.

Now, Chef Ramsey is certainly not Jesus. I doubt Jesus used profanity as regularly as he does and he certainly has pride issues. But I do see parallels in how Ramsey helps the restaurant and how Christ exposes and heals sin in our lives. I am reminded of the Chronicles of Narnia story in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Eustace’s sinful heart causes him to become a dragon. He realizes his sin and laments his scales. He tries to scratch them off himself. Many fall around him but, after each attempt, he looks at his reflection in the lake and there is no visible change. Then Aslan, the Christ figure, comes to him and makes a deep and painful cut with his claw and tears off the old dragonish skin, leaving new, raw human skin.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. (Psalm 34:8-9 NIV)

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11 NIV)

because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. (Hebrews 12:6 NIV)

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Where do you want to go today?

October 30th, 2008 Tim

(Nancy) Where do you want to go today? That was the theme of the first CrossPoint life lesson Tim and I ever heard, on January 7, 2007.  It started with a somewhat selfish question and ended with a clear look at the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross: “If you want to launch forward to the next steps with God, it all starts by taking a step back, looking at the cross and letting it make you go “Wow!”‘

We should never “get over” the cross. Even in Revelation, where God is busy pouring out his wrath, we see Jesus as the Lamb that was slain [Rev 5:5-14] as well as the conquering King of Kings [Rev 19:11-16].

The more I look to Jesus, the more I realize how desperately I need Him.

Despite this previous blog entry, I still struggle with the proper place of food in my life. I recently heard a women’s conference talk on gluttony where the speaker said something like “it is humbling to think that I can’t even eat without sinning, apart from the grace of Christ, the grace of Christ.”

We live in a consumer culture. Advertising is built on the concept of getting people to feel a need and then fill that need with your product. Even church works that way sometimes. We tell people that in Jesus there is forgiveness, freedom, peace, joy. That is all true and good and Christ brings release to guilt-ridden people. But what if we’re feeling pretty good? What if we perceive that culture apart from God offers more than the Bible or youth group or Christian community? Conviction of sin, including pride of not needing God, and confession and walking closer to Him are very important, but is our need to be our focus 100% of the time? Are we only to go to God (or church) when we feel like we need something from Him (or it)? That is making God (or church) our idol for dispensing goodies, rather than worshipping God for who He is.

There may be nothing wrong in enticing non-Christians or “complacent” Christians with “goodies” (both tangible and non-tangible), that’s another blog topic. But what about those of us who already know at least some of the value of a life with Christ (here I go with the consumer metaphors again)?  Galatians 5:1 (NIV) says “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

What do you want to do? How many times a day do we ask ourselves that? How about a new question? How about “in light of God’s love, how can I serve those around me?” I once heard a pastor say that marriage and family is for holiness and happiness, but holiness first. If our whole motivation in life is satisfying ourselves, whether short-term (Homer Simpson drool “bacon cheeseburger!”) or long-term (”I’m gong to do my homework so I can get good grades, get in to a good college, get a good job and make a lot of money”), we have enslaved ourselves again.

“I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law [if we could just “be good”], Christ died for nothing.” (Galatians 3:21 NIV) Meditate on Christ’s death. Why did He come to earth? Why did He die? Sin is that bad but we are that loved.

When we realize that [and I have to re-realize that quite often], then “Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15 NIV) 

Where do you want to go today? Go to Jesus and the cross, especially if you don’t feel like it.

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Parenting 101

October 4th, 2008 Tim

(Nancy) Ever have one of those “aha” moments? I walked in to the garage and realized that the recyclable items that I had asked one of the kids to take to the bin in the garage were piled up and overflowing. A second bin was under the first one and empty. I sighed, remedied the situation and wished in my mind that this child would have, instead of legally doing what I had asked, thought about what would have been really helpful to the family.  And, if he or she needed help to pull out the second bin, asked me or Dad.  I have tried to teach to “use your brain” and be helpful to the family. There was the “aha” moment.  I saw God the Father asking His kids to obey with joy, give cheerfully, love each other; basically help the family and love Him with all our hearts, minds, soul and strength.  I think that’s why so much of Proverbs, Psalms and the gospels talk about the heart and motivation for actions, not simply behavior.

The verses about not “exasperating” or “embittering” one’s children came back.  As parents, we are to follow the way God parents us. God gives us His Word as a gift, God gives commands as a guide, God gives the Holy Spirit as a helper, prayer is a present, fellowship with believers is a joy, mission is a purpose.  We forget that life and joy were created by God.  God’s not a disappointed father who keeps raising the bar out of reach with each success, he’s a Dad who loves to help. He loves us enough to not leave us wallowing in the same old sins, in guilt and condemnation. He doesn’t want to keep telling us over and over not to do X, he wants to take away the motivation to sin and give us the joy of obeying. He tells us that rebellion is not freedom and joy, it is death. Do we believe Him? And if we come to believe Him, then we see our need for Christ’s grace and God’s help. Pride melts away, we admit we need our Father’s help.

 Though the Lord is on high, he looks upon the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar. (Psalm 138:6 NIV)

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