family

On Judging Books and Children

eric — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:20:56 -0600

I read Michael Hyatt's blog post entitled "What is Holding You Back?" His post got me to thinking about being on the other side of it; judging the effectiveness and abilities of others.

Earlier this school year, I had the talk with my seven year old son about the book he checked out from our private, Christian school. He had chosen a book that I immediately knew was above his current level of reading (and he reads extremely well and often). I talked with him about how he "judged a book by it's cover" by choosing it because of the men with swords and shields on the cover. The book? The Fall of Constantinople.

Now here is where I unjustly made a judgement about him. I assumed he hadn't read much of it or wouldn't have made it very far because of the subject matter and the time it was written.

Me: "Did you read any of it?"
Son: "A little bit."
Me: "Did you understand what you read?"
Son: "Not exactly." (he said this with enough confidence that it made me probe more)
Me: "How much have you read?"
Son: "About four chapters."

Cue 1 Timothy 4:12 - "Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity."

Even though he didn't understand it all, he was quite capable of understanding enough that he kept going through four chapters. He judged a book by it's cover, but explored it even though he wasn't able to understand it all. I, on the other hand, assumed it was out of his reach because of his age (even though he has an extensive vocabulary and regularly reads his Bible on his own).

We must not underestimate people, but especially children. They aren't hindered by "knowing so much" and making so many assumptions as we adults often do. I suppose this is why Jesus said what he did to the disciples: "Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” - Matthew 19:13-14.

How about you? What has God taught you about assumptions you've made about someone or something?

Miss Independence

eric — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:05:08 -0600

The downside to parenting is that you never know what what will come next. The upside is that you never know what will come next.

Yesterday, while trying to get our two year old to go sit on the potty (she's at that stage earlier than our older two were), she absolutely refused to sit down. She just wasn't going to do it. She was so defiant that she stood there and wet standing up; all over the stool, her pants and her socks. I was not exactly happy about that.

Today is a new day.

I had sat down to begin my work day while all three are at home playing in the living room. I hadn't been sitting long, maybe five to ten minutes, when our six year old son came running through our room to our bathroom, "Youngest is in our bathroom with the door shut and we don't know what she's doing, but I have to go to the bathroom real bad."

I got up and quickly got to the other bathroom and opened the door. There in front of me, stood Miss Independence holding her pants in her hand. "I can't get these back on," she said. I noticed she had on a pull-up (obviously, she got one out and put it on her self). "Where is your diaper?" I asked. "It's in the trash can," she replied. "Where did you go tee-tee?" "I tee-teed in the potty!" she said with excitement. I was excited for her and a bit confused considering yesterday's potty-training adventure.

I helped her get her pants back on and told her she needed to wash her hands. She got up on the stool in front of the sink and I turned the cold water on slightly so she could wash her hands. "That's the warm water," she said while rubbing the soap on her hands. "That's the cold water. The warm one is that one over there," I said. "Noooooo! That is the warm one and THAT is the cold one." She then followed me across the house to make sure I still understood she was right.

Sigh. It's still a slightly newer day.

I might add that before I could finish typing this up (in the ten minutes it took), I had heard some hard knocking, bouncing sounds coming from the living room. I went in there to see what it was. She was trying to play baseball with a foam bat and a real golfball.

The Energizer bunny wouldn't stand a chance against Miss Independence.

Our Children and Bible Characters

eric — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:48:21 -0500

Our children have a wonderful and funny imagination.

Overheard on the ride home from dinner after church (our older two):

Son: "Let's pretend we're Bible characters."
Daughter: "Okay!"

Son: "I'll be David. He fought Goliath."
Daughter: "Was Go-lie-uh a bad guy?"

Son: "Yes, and David killed him with a sling"
Daughter: "How about I'll be Mary?"

Son: "Okay."
Daughter: "And I'll have a gun and a spyglass... Look! [pretends to use spyglass] There's one!
There's Go-Lie-Uh! [bang bang bang - pretends to shoot her gun]

I never knew Mary, the mother of Jesus was so old (at the time of his birth) and was also a great marksman. Then again, maybe that's why she had a spyglass.

Medical Miracles in Our Modern Age

eric — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:20:46 -0600

I'm not sure what it is about us. Why do we continue to think that God doesn't work miracles? (I'm mainly speaking of medical miracles, here.) I guess we are all somewhat like the Disciple Thomas as we have to see it to believe it. Such is the case with our five year old son and his scoliosis.

My wife first noticed that his left shoulder dropped a bit when he was one year old (this explained the difficulty in keeping up both overall straps). We pushed to have our pediatrician look at his spine and recommend someone to speak with. Fast forward to 2006 and we have an x-ray with a 13 degree top curve and a five degree lumbar curve (basically his spine had a backwards 'S' shape). Now, they didn't report on the 13 degree top curve so when we had another x-ray this past July, it was alarming to hear about the "change." It wasn't a change as much as a lack of reporting everything they found the previous year, thus our concern that it was getting worse.

We spoke with a friend that is an orthopedic surgeon and he recommended meeting with the scoliosis specialists at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital. We were finally able to get all of the details sorted out with them and get an appointment. We went in this last week to see them.

What we found out surprised us. Then it surprised us that we were surprised (if that makes sense). A lot of people have been praying for our son for healing, guidance, and a good report. Well, we received all three.

The specialists checked him out and did some x-rays. As of July of this year, he still had a crooked spine. Now scoliosis isn't something you out grow as my wife still has it. It isn't as common in boys and it is also rare to notice it this much before adolesence. It's usually treatable, but not curable. Many people have a much more severe case, but his case was significant enough for us to get an appointment.

After speaking with the nurse practitioner, whom we loved, she said he looks very straight, but wanted to take some x-rays just to get a better look. Their x-rays showed his spine had completely straightened out!

The doctor came in and told us, "He looks straight as a string." They tried to explain away the two years of x-rays by stating that maybe the radiologist wasn't paying attention and he wasn't standing straight when they took those x-rays. Now, for those of you that have children and/or work with children you know how difficult it is to get a child to stand still, much less to stand crooked at the exact same degrees two years in a row. That explanation just didn't make any sense.

When you compare the sets of x-rays, some would think it was two different children. The only explanation is that God actually did heal him. My father-in-law said he wondered if that was why our son was having so many growth spurts this past summer. Maybe God was using those to straighten out his back.

Whatever the method He used, all we know is that the God that created us, sent His Son, Jesus Christ to die for our unworthy souls, is still in the business of healing, even in our modern age.