Tag: family

A New Memory

I unplugged the iPad from where it had been charging so I could take it with me to do some work while I waited on an oil change. When I unplugged it, the screen lit, and I saw a notification box in the middle. I tapped on it, and it read, “You have a new memory.” When I opened it, it was a great memory we had made a little over a year ago when we just had fun as a family. Nothing expensive or extravagant. Just time spent together smiling, laughing, cooking and eating… enjoying each other. Today, seeing those pics from that time, I am so glad we made the time to make those memories.

This begs the question… What memories am I making today that I will be glad I made a year from now? Five years from now? Ten years from now? When the boys are away at college, what memory will pop up on whatever electronic device we have then?

You see, if I don’t make them now, we won’t have them then. And I definitely want to have great memories in life. So I have to make those great memories. I have heard Author and Pastor, Mark Batterson, say, “Accumulate experiences, not possessions.” In other words, spend your time and money on making memories with the people you love which will one day pop up on the iPad to bring a smile back to your face and light up your eyes once more.

And hey, don’t let this post make you feel guilty if you haven’t been making great memories. Let it instead inspire you to start now. It’s the perfect time to begin. A month from now… a year from now… a lifetime from now, you’ll be glad you did!

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In Our Hearts

The morning began… after we were all awake and in the kitchen… with Frosty The Snowman playing while PR31 made pancakes in the shape of reindeer, stars, snowmen and Christmas trees. Today kicks off our 2nd Annual Team A’s Christmas In July celebration! It was so much fun last year, we decided to make it a family tradition.

The temps are in the mid-to-high 90’s outside with humidity in 90%+ range. But we set up a tree, hung the stockings, placed a few decorations around the house, played Christmas carols, and started the Christmas movies on Hallmark Channel. It already feels like it’s cooling down to the most wonderful time of the year in our house.

There will be various Christmas cookies baked throughout the week as we celebrate again the coming of our Savior as a human being so that God could be with us. Stockings will be slightly filled with treats. We will eat a traditional Christmas-type meal next week. And gifts will be exchanged.

We don’t go crazy with the gift-giving thing during this time. Instead, we each draw one name of someone else in the family and work at focusing on that one person. (Obviously, Mama & Daddy will sneak a couple extra gifts under the tree to amp up the fun, but the point is to keep it simple.)

As we drew names today, I suggested we each make a list to post so that whoever got our name would have some ideas. Angela reminded me that we didn’t do lists last year… instead opting to each see how well we knew the person we were shopping for. That’s when Austin piped up and said, “Yeah, we already have that person’s list in our hearts.”

I don’t know what you need the Lord to do for you today, and maybe you feel like you need to give Him a list so that He will know what to give you. The thing is… He knows you so well that He already has a list in His heart as to what to give you. And it will be better than anything you could have asked for.

So just trust Him today. And when you open the gift He gives you, you will be pleasantly surprised at how well He knows you!

Your Biography

PR31 and I are the romantic comedy type. We love a guy meets girl, falls in love and, with only slightly enough conflict to make the story interesting, they live happily ever after. So, it’s no surprise that we enjoy the Hallmark Channel. (If you’ve read any of my Christmas or Christmas In July posts, you already know this about us.)

From time to time, I hear a quote in one of these shows which really strikes a chord in my heart. And this one recently stood out to me…

“Someday, someone might write a story about your life… make sure you live a good one.”

I don’t suppose I’ve ever really thought about my life that way. I don’t strike myself as the type of guy people would write a biography about… especially on a day like today, Memorial Day, when I think of all the heroes who have paid for my freedom with their lives.

But that’s just it. I want to live a life that someone would want to write about. I want to make this life a good one… a great one. I want my love story with Angela to be epic. I want to be the kind of dad to Alex and Austin that would be a role model for other dads to follow. I want my service to my King, Jesus Christ, to be the kind of stuff He would want others to read about.

Oh, I know that no one may ever take the time to research my life in-depth and write a thrilling biography. That’s okay. I don’t need them to. But I do want to live a life so great… so full… so rich in relationships and love and joy… so authentic… so impactful… that it would absolutely be worth filling hundreds of pages in a book that others would love to read.

What about you? Are you living a life worth writing about? If not, the cool thing is that we can all start living a life so great today that others would want to tell our story. Don’t settle for an obituary at the end of your days on this planet… Go for a biography!

Why? Just Why?

Last week, PR31 finally convinced me that we could do something I’d been putting off for four and one half years. For some bizarre reason, the people we bought our home from had put up a basketball goal in the back yard… in the grass… the yard even slopes there… like it does on almost the entire four acres. Yet there stood that eyesore.

The entire time we’ve lived here, I’ve mowed around. The past couple of years, it has stood watch over our garden. And every time I saw it, it was almost as if it taunted me. I would open the blinds to look out over the beautiful back third of our property to see all green… and the eyesore.

I didn’t think we could move it. I thought it would take maneuvering a truck around there, tying a chain to the thing and trying to uproot its cement base from the ground.

But it had rained quite a bit, and PR31 assured me that she and the boys would help me dig all around the cement, and that, if we all worked together really hard, we could probably get it out. The goal being that we would moved it around front to the flat, wide open square portion of our blacktopped driveway which would be perfect for a basketball court for the boys to use.

True to her word, she inspired the boys with her delusions of grandeur, and we all headed out to dig. But before we could discover how wide the cement went out, she decided to push on the pole. And it gave. I said, “Let me give it a try.” And with all my manly might, I pushed… and it gave some more. I realized the pole was so old that it was breaking loose where it met the cement. Could it really be this easy?

We pushed together and the pole gently broke at its base. We caught it, lowered it to the ground, twisted, and voila. A little hammering on the barely remaining edge of pole hitting up from cement, and everything was flat. We scooped dirt back over it, and it was as if it had never been there.

Team A grabbed that basketball goal, hauled it around front, bleached it, scrubbed it, repainted it, dug a hole, and the next day set the goal in place with its new cement surround. Twenty-four hours later, our boys were having a blast with their new goal… which cost us less than $20 including, paint, a new net, cement & a basketball.

There have been a couple of great 2-on-2 games and we’ve taught the boys to play horse. They’re having so much fun with it. I can’t believe I wasted four and a half years of staring at something ugly when I could do something about it and enjoy the results so much!

So, why? Why did I wait four years to do this? I’ll tell you why… I thought it would be too difficult, maybe outside what I could accomplish. But before you mock me too much for my lack of self-confidence regarding this super-simple task, let me ask you… what is it in your life that you have left undone because it just seemed too difficult?

We all have stuff like that, you know. And sometimes it’s more serious than a basketball goal… like forgiving someone who did us wrong… or pursuing that degree… or chasing that dream… or starting your own business.

Here’s the thing… it’s almost never as difficult in real life as it seems in our mind. And our procrastination only makes it seem even more challenging when, if we would just go ahead and do it, we’d find that is was easier than we imagined. Plus, there is great joy on the other side that totally makes tackling this tough thing worth more than we invest in it.

Don’t put off till tomorrow… or four and a half years from now… what you can do today. Just go after it! Do it today. You will find it’s not as hard as you thought, and you will be so glad you did it. Take it from a guy who now loves to look at out the back window at a beautiful yard, and out the front window at two boys hooping it up.

A Social Sabbath

Each time I have visited Israel, I have been profoundly astonished at how seriously the Sabbath is observed. Our tour agency and guides must work strategically to arrange sites we visit to ensure that we do not end up at a strictly Jewish site between Friday at sundown till Saturday at sundown.

One of my favorite stops is always Kefar Kedem, a community of Jewish folks who show us what Jewish culture would have been like thousands of years ago to help us better understand what we read in Scripture. Once while we were there, our host Menachem was explaining how they rest and reflect on the Sabbath each week.

Someone asked him, “But what do you do if you have to work on the Sabbath?” He replied that they didn’t work on the Sabbath. The person re-phrased the question, “Yes, but what if the company you work for is not owned and run by someone who is Jewish, and they don’t observe the Sabbath? What if they require you to work on the Sabbath?” Menachem’s reply was priceless. He cocked his head somewhat puzzled and replied, “We would never work for someone who required that.”

Our group was stunned. They were further stunned to find out that, although this community which seems to live in the old ways, they have Internet service, wifi, satellite TV and more. But they were completely blown away when Menachem said they shut it all off for the Sabbath. No TV. No browsing or surfing. No social media. No cell phones.

Sabbath. A break from the normal. Rest. Ceasing from the stuff that fills the other six days of the week.

For the last twenty-four hours, I did something really rare… I did not access any social media, and I did not check this blog. Admittedly, I Googled a couple of inquiries, and I texted a couple of people. But other than that, no electronic communication with the rest of the world. I didn’t start off doing it on purpose. I just decided that I would put off checking anything till the afternoon. Then I realized I hadn’t missed it and decided to go a little longer. By early evening, I had made it that long and figured I could make it until this morning.

And you know what? It was nice. It felt good to take a break. We Americans check out phones on average about five times an hour… once every twelve minutes. If we sleep eight hours, that leaves sixteen hours in a day. That means we check our phones about 80 times per day during our waking hours.

What if we discovered what God told His people about the reason He commanded the Sabbath break? What if we could grasp that He gave that break to us as a gift? What if we would set aside just our social media for twenty-four hours each week? We might just discover that we don’t HAVE to check it 80 times a day. We might talk with our family and friends more… and actually be focused on those conversations. We might read a little more and thereby learn a little more. We might play a little more and have a little more fun. And we might find that that break really is a gift.

I don’t know how successful I’ll be at doing this every week, but I think I want to try. And I hope that you will try with me. I don’t care which twenty-four hours you pick. I don’t care if you start at sun-up or sun-down. But let’s receive this gift in the same way we just received all those at Christmas… believing that someone gives it in love and for our joy!

If you’re bold enough to take a break with me, let me know… but not on your Sabbath… or mine!

Together Is Better

In Monday’s post (click here if you missed it), I mentioned that part of our enjoying the snow miracle was making snowmen. The snow was perfect for packing together and rolling around into ball shapes to set on top of each other. As a windy day previously had dropped a bazillion more leaves on our property, our snowmen were a terrific blend of fall and winter, but to us they were beautiful and amazing.

Later on snow day, I had to get out to run some errands, and by the time I made my return trip to the house, almost all the snow everywhere had melted. The sun had begun to shine brightly, and there was no more snow in the trees. There was barely any to be found on the ground.

Yet, there stood our two snowmen.

We went on about our day, and they stood guard overnight. I took the picture above the next day. It struck me that all the other snow had long since melted away, yet the snowmen remained. That’s because the snow they had been made from all stuck together.

There’s value in sticking together. Like our snowmen, though difficult times may leave you not looking like much, you will still be there in the end when all those who decided to go it alone are no longer anywhere to be found.

King Solomon said that, “Two are better than one… and there are even better.” He understood what made our snowmen survive… together matters.

So, today… especially during this Christmas season, stick together. Whether it is with your military band of brothers… your fellow nursing home patients… your co-workers… your PTA or neighborhood watch… or your church… stick together. Overlook offenses. Put up with idiosyncrasies. Laugh at humorless jokes. And love a lot. Stick together. You’ll be better off than all those alone folks.

And by all means, stick together as a family. Stay married. Stay engaged in your kids’ lives. Help an aging parent with some task that isn’t as easy as it used to be. Work together on a project. Laugh a lot. And love a lot. Stick together.

I wish I had waited another day or two to take the picture… because those snowmen were still there… together… worse for the wear, but still there. When all we had were memories and pictures of all the other “alone” snow, there stood… or laid… our “together” snowmen. And I smiled even more as I realized how good together really is.

Make Them

Probably somewhere around fifteen years or so ago, PR31’s nieces were spending the night at Nana & Pappaw’s house at Thanksgiving or Christmas along with us. We had no kids yet, and so we had volunteered to hang with the girls while their parents got “a night off.” That night, we stayed up late talking and playing games. Then we got the munchies. Like chips and salsa munchies. But we had wiped out the stash Nana and Pappaw had rather quickly. So, on the spur of the moment, we loaded them up into our vehicle and drove two minutes down the road to Walmart at midnight to get chips and salsa. Junk food obtained, we drove the two minutes back to the house, and the fun continued.

They have never forgotten that night. In fact, for the next year or two after that, it had to be re-enacted in some form or fashion.

Fast forward to last night. We had taken our own two boys to Nana and Pappaw’s for Thanksgiving, and gotten home a little later than expected. Black Friday sales had already started… don’t get me started, though I enable those stores because they woo me into their craziness… and we had not been able to find one particular $2 item the boys had been looking for.

Two memories flashed in my head as we began to settle in for the night…

First, the memory of taking our nieces to Walmart at midnight for chips and salsa. And second, a speaker at a retreat for youth leaders saying that we should invest as much energy, effort, creativity and time into what we do to make our own personal kids’ lives special as we do trying to make things special for those we minister to at church.

In that moment, I decided to live what one of my favorite signs PR31 makes says… “The best thing about memories is making them.” I told the boys to put their shoes and coats and hats back on because we were going to Walmart at 10:30PM to look for that $2 item. They couldn’t believe it. They got so excited when they realized I was serious. You should have seen their smiles.

I bet they’ll never forget that small gesture. Sure we were tired. No, we didn’t really want to get everything back together to go back out. But it was probably only an hour. And we will never get that hour to spend with them doing something random… and fun… and crazy… and spontaneous again. But we will have that memory to look back on and laugh about. I know because of the chips and salsa run years ago.

We don’t make memories for ourselves, you see… we help make them for others. And in the process, we get them for ourselves as well.

Don’t let these holidays slide by without making some great memories for someone else… Get out there and make them!

Go On

Over the years, I have operated in my gift of procrastination.  If I didn’t want to do something, I would just put it off.  It’s not a successful way to live typically, but it’s what I did.  I suppose I still do it occasionally.  I put off mowing because the weedeating and cleaning up is so tedious.  And because it’s like a million degrees out there in the summer.  But I should just be grateful to have land to mow… and the tools to keep it under control… and the health to be able to get out there and do it all… and the time to be able to do it.

Yet, sometimes, I still procrastinate.  Why?  It always looks so much better when I’m done.  I’m always proud of it when I finish and look back over the yard.  I feel like slithering vermin won’t be able to sneak up on my family as easily.  And there is the sense of accomplishment that accompanies a job well-done.

Yet, sometimes, I still procrastinate.  Don’t look at me so disdainfully.  We are all tempted at times to put off till tomorrow what could be done today.

We put off forgiving.  We put off making that phone call.  We put off taking that class.  We put off getting readers and just determine to hold the phone a little further from our eyes.  We put off asking for help.

Why?  Fear… worry… doubt.  What might happen?  What could go wrong?  How much will it hurt?  What if it doesn’t go the way I hope?

C. S. Lewis wrote, “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”  But follow that up with Mark Twain saying, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

Think about it this way… What could go right if I went ahead and do what I should do?  What if it’s better than I expected?  What if it doesn’t hurt too badly, or is painless after all?

Either way takes faith.  Faith for the negative… or faith for the positive.

People nearing the end of their time on this planet would tell us to go on, and do it now.  You don’t know how long you’ve got left.  You may never get the chance again that you have today. Make the most of it.

Hug your kids.  Tell your spouse you love them.  Clean the bathroom.  Answer the call to ministry.  Choose a job you love. Get that degree.  Dial their number, and just apologize.

Don’t put off whatever it is that you’ve been dreading.  Go on!  Do it today!  Put it on the top of your to-do list, and then do it.  You’ll be glad you did.

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Still reading?  Why? Put this down, and go on! 😉

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