"We Interrupt For a Commercial"

Technology. Love it or hate it, it's here to stay and it will only get better (or worse, depending on your take on it.) In our home we have TWO HD flat screens, one of which is in the boys room. It was in mine and Shannon's bedroom but we gave it up for the boys. What adult parents of toddlers have time to watch TV in the bedroom anyway? There's too much sleeping going down. We have I Pads, I Phones, I Tunes, I Pods and a coffee pot that makes coffee every morning at the same time. My wife can plug her phone into her van and hold a conversation through the speakers. We can pay our bills online without ever writing a check. The flag on our mailbox has been up twice this year. AT&T has made it possible to watch ANYTHING on demand, and the handy DVR allows me to watch only my favorite shows, fast forwarding through the commercials. Which brings me to my point...

The other day Braxton and I were flipping through the 280,000 channels that U Verse offers and we ran across one of his favorite shows. Being the bad parent that I am, I hadn't saved any episodes in our queue (that's this invisible box inside the visible box that holds your favorite shows, movies etc. for later viewing) and I forced the poor child to watch live TV. It hadn't occurred to me that in his almost three years of existence, he had never watched a commercial. What happened next went sort of like this...

B: "What's that? Where did Bubble Guppies go?"
Me: "Son, that's a commercial."
"What's that?"
"Well, it's a break during your show so  people can sell stuff and the networks can make money."
"What's a network?"
"That's the channel we are watching."
"When is Bubble Guppies coming back on?" He's starting to get upset at this point. He doesn't care about networks or commercials or people making money. He also could care less about the stain fighting power of Tide.
"They will come back on after the commercial."
"When is that?"
"Just a few more minutes."

The thought that he couldn't have Gil, Molly, Bubble Puppy and Mr. Grouper right then and now was to much for his brain to handle. It floored him. Literally. I took a picture. 

He was devastated. It made me really look at myself and how devastated I can be when I don't have what I want ON DEMAND.

Psalm 46:10 says "Be still and know that I am God." My how hard that is to do in this day and age especially with all the technology literally at our fingertips. We have instant access not only to TV but to bank accounts, social media, email, encyclopedias, travel reservations etc. Anything that we need to know or will ever need to know in this world is just a drop and drag away. So why not, with our human brains, would we expect to have to WAIT on God? We don't have to wait on anything else. Not even potatoes.

Our God isn't always an instant God. Don't get me wrong, if He needs to do something in an instant, HE WILL. But a lot of times He needs us to wait on Him to do things in His time. Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come. They didn't rush Him. They waited and look what a blessing they received. Noah waited on the flood waters to subside. He didn't go off rowing or swimming for dry land. He waited on dry land to come to him because that's what God told him to do.

In today's fast paced world, I am convinced that God will put "commercials" in our lives to interrupt our "program" that we have designed for ourselves. Things that make us stop and think about Him and His Glory. It may be a sunset, a dove cooing in the background, a friendly phone call from someone, or a butterfly floating beside you on a hike. Our God is a jealous God, and nothing comes before Him. Thank you Lord for the commercials that you put in my life!!

Be Careful Little Ears What You Hear.....

"Be careful little ears what you hear.. be careful little eyes what you see... be careful little mouth what you say.. there's a father up above looking down with tender love, be careful little ears what you hear!"

Aside from "Jesus Loves Me" that is the only song I remember from nursery Sunday School. We would all sit around in a circle and put our little hands over our eyes, ears, mouth, etc. when it got to that part of the verse. I don't know if that was on the set list of all denominations back then, but it was a crowd favorite for my little Southern Baptist children's program. 30 (something) years later the message that little jingle conveys still rings true. Especially in parenting.

Have you ever put a sponge in a bucket of clean wash water? It soaks it up. Put it in a bucket of nasty sewer water. It soaks it up. Put it in a bucket of gasoline. It soaks it up. That liquid will stay in that sponge until you wring it out. If a sponge has soaked up something undesirable, it takes work to get it clean enough to be used for wash water again. Often it is discarded and a new one takes its place.

My sons are living, breathing sponges right now. They repeat EVERYTHING they hear, mimic EVERYTHING they see, and have NO scruples when it comes to saying what's on their mind. They just walk around soaking everything up. The good and the bad.

Greyson has somehow confused the word "no" with "not." So.. whenever something doesn't go his way or something happens that he doesn't like, he will sound off with a sharp, loud "NOT!!" He sounds like a ticked off Nazi. Braxton sees all his superhero buddies on TV flying around carefree so he assumes that he can too. Anything he can climb up on he will try to fly off of no matter what the height. He hasn't actually taken flight yet but when he does I will blog about it. One of their favorite movies is the "Wizard of Oz" or "woz" as Grey calls it. The other day B just happened to mention that he was headed out to "kill me a witch." SAY WHAT? I never looked at "woz" as being ultra-violent and creating behavioral problems in kids. I don't know.. they dropped a house on one witch and straight up melted another. Anyway, it spurred my eldest boy into wanting to go Old Testament on him a witch.

In the grand scheme of things, do I want my sons soaking up clean wash water that can be used for good over and over or do I want them soaking up gasoline that will hang around and never really go away. When I spit, they spit. When I yell, they yell. When I pray, they pray. Braxton already wants a beard like daddy. I used some of my camo face paint to hook him up.

Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:1-2 "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
 Am I trying to imitate my Heavenly Father like my boys imitate their earthly father? Do I hang on His every word like my kids hang on mine? Do I really concentrate and listen when I KNOW that He's trying to tell me something, like Grey concentrates on me when I'm teaching him his letters? Am I careful what I see, hear and say? "NOT!"

I once heard an evangelist say that what comes in your ears and is seen through your eyes will settle on your heart and eventually come out of your mouth. It all starts with me and my relationship with my Father in Heaven. If I am on good terms with Him, then the anointing will roll down to my kids. If they see a God fearing, hard working, love-their-mamma man then they WILL imitate me. That's just what they do. They are little sponges. It's only by His Grace that I have been given the honor and privilege of being a husband and father. Thank you, Jesus!

Trying to stay in God's Will. That is the goal for today. It is much easier said than done. My job title these days is "stay-at-home-dad-elderly caregiver-landscaper" and I proclaim my title with pride. I threw "landscaper" in there because yes, I cut my own yard.  I am tasked with the daily lives of my  two young boys ages 1 and 2 (or 19 months and 32 months respectively if you want to count it that way) and my 76 year old mother (912 months) who also happens to have Dementia and Parkinson's. To put it simply, none of them can be left by themselves to do anything or it will result in an injury, a mess, or both.

I haven't always been proud of my job. Having been in this position for almost 4 months now, it has been a roller coaster of laughter, tears, frustration and exhaustion. I have an extensive background doing big manly things. I was a light infantryman, Firefighter/EMT, petrochemical operator, engineer on a towboat. I helped out on the Coast and in New Orleans after Katrina. I've jumped out of planes, killed lots of animals and ate them, spent the night tied to the side of a mountain, and I've ridden out 3 tornadoes.


Here lately I have been trying to use some the skills that I learned from my past jobs and apply them to my new job. Examples:

Old Application: Being a firefighter required fast hand-eye coordination.
New Application: I can change a diaper in about 7 seconds flat. (That's poo poo and all, son, and I openly challenge any stay at home mom to a duel.)
Old Application: Prison Guard at GITMO.
New Application: If they don't tell me something that I want to know, I will withhold something valuable to them. I haven't ruled out water-boarding. (our "water board" is a slide behind our house that we put dish soap and water on and travel fast down a big grassy hill so there's no need to get uptight. I will withhold that from them though if necessary.)
Old Application: Katrina Clean-Up
New Application: Almost everything that I encountered in post-Katrina New Orleans, I have encountered on a smaller level in my house. ON A DAILY BASIS. Open sewage, leaks, angry and confused people, insects, fires, different piles of clutter laying about and I have no idea who's it is. And the smell... Dear God the smell.

Would I trade any of this for something better? ABSOLUTELY NOT. God has given me an awesome wife (who has a college education and a government job) who has stood by me through a ton of stuff and who is standing by me through this. God continues to bless us financially, never failing and always providing. I was called to full-time ministry last October and little did I know that taking care of my mom and kids would be my first mission. Luke 16:10 says, "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." Amen.

 I know that God has big plans for my family and I am grateful for the opportunity to serve in this capacity. I literally have no idea what tomorrow might bring, nor do I want to know. I have a Faith that cannot be shaken and that's what I lean on.