M.I.T.

Are you a parent with children still at home? Bless you! Are you hanging in there? Each day is a challenge isn't it? Some days you want to hug 'em to death and other days you want to throttle them. Well, maybe you don't, but I do. If someone had told me exactly how hard parenting would be I am not sure I would have jumped in with both feet. But despite how difficult it can be sometimes, I would never trade it!

As I look around our community and the nation at large, I see so many broken homes. So many struggling parents. So many hurting kids. So many out of control kids! The level of disrespect and unkindness in kids is mind blowing. I often make the mistake of thinking that kids inside the church should be better. Truth is they are not.

A while back at one of the youth group meetings, Greg had planned for the teens to do some clean up outdoors after an event. Nothing too difficult, clean up some trash, put back some equipment. He told them this was their opportunity to "serve". The concept of serving, especially in the context of church, is huge. And one I thought was well understood. Jesus came to serve. The bible is filled with images of Jesus serving. We hear it over and over in church and Sunday School. This one is a no-brainer right? Well, let me finish the story. Josh got up from his seat and began to move the grill back to the garage. Kaleb got up and began to pick up trash. The rest of the kids sat there. Greg started to get on their case, prodding them to get up and serve! One of the teens chimed back that he wasn't anyone's slave. Gulp!! To them serving=slavery.

I don't tell this story to brag on my kids (though I was so proud of them!) but rather to show how far off base things have gotten. These were the regulars, at church and youth group. Most of them from families that have attended church for years. If they don't get it, how can we expect the world to get it?

At my new job I go into a lot of homes and I am continually saddened by what I see. Homes with 2 year olds and no toys in sight (but a 52" flat screen on the wall). Homes where the mom is threatening to drop her naughty child off at the Salvation Army like a sack of unwanted clothes. Homes where the kids are out of control yet the parents offer no discipline. Brokenness. Lack of love. Lack of knowledge. Lack of parents taking the responsibility of parenting seriously.

Whether in the church or out, it is clear to me the problem is not a little one anymore. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Training our children is the primary job we have as parents. Training is a non-stop job, from sun up to sun down, from birth to ..... job. That is the part they didn't tell you before you had kids. Some training happens naturally as our children observe us going to church, tithing, offering a kind word to another (and on the flip side, observing us being unkind, untrustworthy or unfaithful). But most of the training does not come naturally, we have to to be intentional.

Let's say that this morning I woke up and decided it was a good day to run the Boston Marathon. I showered, put on some jeans and a t-shirt, slid into my Birkenstocks and made my way to the starting line. You would call me a FOOL. Improper dress would be the least of my offenses. You can't run a marathon without training. And running to the mailbox somehow wouldn't cut it. The idea of running the Boston Marathon seems quite funny to me and though it is quite improbable it is not impossible. I could set a goal and work towards it everyday. I could build up from 1 mile to 5 to 26.2. With the right training and equipment I could one day be a runner in a marathon.

Parenting is not much different. We need to have a goal. We need to be intentional. We have to work at it every single day. And at the end of each day when we have done all these things, we need to be on our knees praying for our children. Praying that God will watch over them, that He will cover our mistakes and short comings because we will surely come up short.

We refer to our boys as M.I.T.-Men In Training. The goal: to have 2 boys that leave our home as men equipped for life, employment and marriage. Each day is a new opportunity for training. The school of parenting is like the school of life, the diploma won't come until we are called heavenward. There will be pop quizzes, some we will ace and some we will flunk BIG time. But we can not quit. We are by no means experts but God has impressed upon Greg and I that He desires us to share our journey, our successes and failures. So, as I have time and stories, I will post about this job of parenting. Will you be sitting at the desk that has your name on it???

Heartbroken

I wish we could rewind the last 48 hours. I want a mulligan, a do over. I want to take back the hurt and sorrow the last two days have brought. Unfortunately, my super powers are not so super. I don't even want to write it but here it goes...Daisy Mae is gone. I might feel a bit better if she had just run away but she is forever gone. We were just approaching the year mark of having her in our family and now instead of celebrating we are mourning.

I hadn't made plans for dinner on Thursday and the left overs were just not that appealing. I suggested we go to a place down the street for dinner. We put up the baby gate to confine Daisy to the family room like we always do when we leave her home alone. We scanned the room for stuff we didn't want chewed up. She wasn't really a big chewer but she did have a history of chewing on odd things like my cards, the boys' Nerf darts and pencils. Her chew toys were readily available. When we got home there were remnants of something on the floor. I was annoyed! What on earth was left for her to chew? Upon closer inspection, I discovered a few bits of a tube of cream that the dermatologist prescribed for Josh. It was on the end table and Daisy must have pulled it down, chewed it to bits and eaten the contents. All that remained was the cap and a few scraps of metal.

Now I was even more annoyed! The carpet was oily and I needed to go refill the cream before the pharmacy closed. I can't imagine it tasted good, what was she thinking? Don't answer that...she was a dog, I know! Dogs eat rocks and dead flies and worms and garbage and lots of stupid, inedible stuff! I asked the pharmacist about it and he informed me that the cream was quite corrosive, it was definitely not meant for consumption. I didn't have a good feeling about it and called Greg. He took her for a walk and by 10pm she was vomiting. I was glad to see it come back up and even more glad when Greg cleaned it up! Greg ended up staying up with her all night as she continued to get sick. By the morning she was unable to stand. We hoped it was due to dehydration.

The boys were clearly worried and Josh was feeling guilty that it was his cream that made her sick. But we made them board the school bus hoping to have better news when they got home. I rubbed Daisy's head and said a prayer over her before I left for work. Greg prepared to load her up in the Jeep so they could be at the vet's office when it opened. She started to have seizures. The vet gave her IV fluids hoping to flush things out. Hoping she would turn a corner. She never turned that corner and died shortly after lunch.

Can I just say how crappy this all is?! CRAPPY!!! First of all, I am MAD! Mad that I insisted we eat out, made that Josh left his cream out, mad at all those people who talked us into getting a dog in the first place and mad that the dog ate that stupid cream! But more than being mad, I am heartbroken. Daisy was Josh and Kaleb's buddy. She was Greg's great delight. She was THE dog for the Harp family. It is no secret that I wasn't so keen on getting a dog and truthfully, I complained about her a lot. She followed me everywhere. She poked me in the rear with her nose on a daily basis. She sat at my feet making it impossible to get up from the sofa without tripping. But I am heartbroken too. This was just not supposed to happen. If I wasn't a pastor's wife I would use a stronger word than crappy but it's all I've got.

When the boys returned from school we had to let them know the news. There were tears. There will probably be tears for awhile. We all need time to sort it all out.

A few hours ago I returned from the Women of Faith conference. I had made a commitment months ago to attend so despite the sadness, I went. It was a good distraction and offered time to reflect. Instead of remembering all the annoying things Daisy did, I thought of the good things. I thought of the joy she had brought. I thought of all the fun things Greg and the boys had taught her to do. I thought about how excited she always got at the sound of the Jeep pulling in the driveway. She delighted in us as well!

In a very crazy way, she reminded me of God. She gently loved on me, hoping to draw me in, but never in an obtrusive way. She would rather be with us than apart. She gently prodded me in the rear. I don't appreciate prodding from a dog or from God but sometimes I need it whether I like it or not. She didn't hold offenses against us and was always eager to see us. She delighted in us for no particular reason. Yes, we fed her, gave her affection and threw things for her to retrieve but she delighted in us beyond measure. Unconditional is the right word I think.

I am sad and at the same time grateful. We will miss our Daisy Mae.