What a kind word will do

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I was about ready to hog-tie the 10yo today. He was egging on the little ones, being rambunctious when I specifically asked him to settle down and generally ignoring my instructions. I was already frustrated for unrelated reasons, and I finally just got tired of hearing myself talk and made him do push-ups. (Push-ups are the baseline discipline in our house — everyone can do them, and they are great for taking care of infractions on the spot.)

Anyway, he settled down after the little ones went to bed and even asked if he could come to the grocery store with me. (Nothing like waiting till Sunday night to realize that you don’t have drinks for school lunches the next day!) I let him “drive” the buggy, and as he started to exit an aisle, someone else came careening around the corner. He immediately stopped, backed up and politely said, “Go ahead” to the other person.

I patted him on the back and said that I appreciated how he handled that. He glanced up at me and said, “My mom taught me to do that.”

I said, “Oh, really? She sounds like a pretty neat lady.”

He smirked and said, “Yeah, she is.”

Ok, fine. Brownie points earned to redeem your bad attitude earlier in the day! 😉  A kind word will go a long way in making me remember how stinkin’ adorable you really are.

The Makings of a Sci-fi Movie (Prayer devotional for the week of Sept. 11)

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Have you ever read a passage of Scripture, then shook your head in wonderment about what just happened? Acts 12 is like that. The chapter heading refers to Peter’s miraculous escape from prison, and if it was made into a movie, it would definitely fall into the sci-fi category.  The scene opens with King Herod the Persecutor, as he mulls over how else he can tighten the vice on the early church. Verse two mentions that John’s brother, James was killed by the sword, and the Jews liked that so much, Herod decided to arrest Peter, as well.

So, Peter gets thrown into prison under the watchful eye of 16 soldiers. The night before his trial, an angel appears, strikes him in the gut to jolt him awake, somehow breaks the chains binding him, and they casually walk past the guards and out of the prison. Peter thinks he’s having a wickedly awesome dream until the angel suddenly disappears, leaving him in the dark street.

It’s too bad for the guards, though, because Herod puts them to death just as swiftly as he killed the believers. He doesn’t seem to lose much sleep about it, though, and he goes back to his kingly duties of patronizing people. Some brown-nosers from a neighboring country come calling and exclaim that Herod’s voice is like a god, not a man. Instead of even feigning humility and giving credit to God, Herod just gloats in the praise. So, what does God do? He strikes Herod dead on the spot. Now that’s a scene that would make for a good sci-fi movie.

Here’s the kicker: Verse 24 reads, “But the word of God continued to spread and flourish.” No matter how much Herod tried to squash the church with fear tactics, they didn’t back down. They continued to defy him and follow Christ’s teachings, instead. They were—as we’ve been talking about for weeks—weird. In the face of death threats and persecution, would we dare to do the same? Many Christians are facing such threats, even today. Let’s focus our prayer time this week on particular countries & regions where persecution is rampant.

Foodie Friday: school lunches

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The boys don’t seem to have the same negative responses to carbs that I have, so I’m much more flexible on what they eat (although, I still try to cut back on sugar). The little three take their lunches every day, and the older two have decided to take lunch twice a week, for a change of pace.

The staple, as you might expect, is sandwiches. I try to vary the selection with pb&j and lunchmeat, but I know that sandwiches get boring, so I mix in some different “entrees” like Hot Pockets (pre-heated that morning and wrapped in foil to stay warm, since they aren’t allowed to use the microwave) or soup (in their new-fangled Thermoses!) I try to make sure that they have at least one fruit or vegetable and only one “sweet” snack.  We also discovered some Splenda-sweetened drinks that are bigger and have much less sugar than the juice/punch pouches, and all of the boys like them.

Did I mention that I just renewed my Sam’s Club membership? LOL – these boys eat a lot of food, and I know it’s only going to get worse as they keep growing!!

Palliative care

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This may be a tacky comparison, and if so, please forgive me, but I don’t feel like talking about the real situation, so we’re going to talk about cancer, instead. Compared to most people my age — and many who are older than me — I have experienced a lot of grief in my [relatively young] life. I have attended a couple dozen funerals (conservative estimate) and could check off multiple items on the Life Stress Inventory.

In fact, as a point of reference, I just took the inventory and scored 508. The quiz told me: “OVER 300 POINTS: This score indicates a major life crisis and is highly predictive (80%) of serious physical illness within the next 2 years.”

Yeah, um, things are a wee bit frazzled in my life right now.

So, back to the cancer analogy. I lost a dear family friend to cancer, and I’ve been thinking about her lately. She was sick for a very long time. Then, she’d perk up a bit, and treatment would seem to be working. Then, she’d get sick again. Then, they’d try some experimental stuff, and she might or might not respond. I had the privilege of talking to her on the phone shortly before she died, and I was thankful to have the opportunity to tell her that I loved her.

In her last days, the focus seemed to be on palliative care. I’m no healthcare professional, but from what I understand, palliative care is when you try to manage the pain, stress, etc. to make someone more comfortable when there really is no hope for recovery.

No hope. That’s a hard thing to wrap my head around, as a believer in Christ. I want to believe that there is always hope. I believe in a God who can (and does!) heal miraculously. Sometimes, for reasons I don’t think I’ll ever understand, that healing seems to come by means of letting that person’s body die.

It’s one thing to provide palliative care, in a physical sense. There are medications available to help alleviate pain, and so forth. But, how do you provide palliative care when the problems aren’t physical? What can you do for a dying relationship, for instance? Hope and pray that things will change? Wait for things to change? Try to force things to change?

And when they don’t …?

There’s no palliative care for relationships. You can try not to hurt people; you can try to ease the tension, but it’s going to be painful, no matter what you do.