Three Messages Heard in Strong Families

Family expert Nick Stinnett said, “When you have a strong family life you receive the message that you are loved, that you are cared for, that you are important. The positive intake of love and affection and respect … gives you inner resources to deal with life more successfully.”

Here is a family that shows us what it is like to receive the messages that you are loved and cared for and that you are important.

Once her kids were in school, one woman decided to go back to school for more education. After several years of hard work and late nights, she finally completed her Master’s Degree program.

Her husband planned a graduation party for her. He invited all of their friends to their home to congratulate his wife on her hard work.

But she turned the tables on him. She got a list of the invitees to her party and called each one. “I’d like to surprise my husband,” she told them. Then she explained what he sacrificed for her to go back to school. He supported her emotionally when she felt like quitting. Much like a single parent, he juggled his own work with picking the children up from school, caring for them in the evenings, shouldering much of the housework and preparing meals for the family. And besides, her education was expensive and the family needed to take out a student loan. “I’d like this to be a surprise party for him instead of a graduation party for me,” she told all of her guests.

So they came with cards and food, all of which he expected. But when he learned that it was all for him, he was stunned! And for her, it turned out to be the greatest graduation party ever.

He told her by his actions and by his willingness to sacrifice that, as Nick Stinnett says, she is loved,  she is cared for and she is important. And this gave her the courage to jump into a demanding program that others may never have attempted.

You are loved...you are cared for...you are important. Where love exists there is warmth. Where everyone’s physical and emotional needs are met, there is safety and security. And where respect for one another is the norm, the mind and spirit can flourish.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

-- Steve Goodier Image: flickr.com/Kannon B

Will You Play Your Music?

 

Image courtesy of Betsy Ray

I heard of a recruiter for jump school, the name given for military parachute training, who explains the training this way: “Jump school is three weeks long. The first week they separate the men from the boys.” (Presumably, they also separate the women from the girls.) He goes on to say, “Week two they separate the men from the fools. And week three, the fools jump.”

We once visited friends and sat outside where we watched  paragliders and hang gliders soaring overhead, suspended from colorful wings. They rose up into the sky upon invisible warm currents of air and floated effortlessly by -- trusting in their equipment and their ability to keep them from crashing into the earth. But isn't that risky? Maybe a little. But what a thrill to experience!

My son is a rock climber. Using toeholds and fingertip holds he makes his way up the shear face of a cliff. Though he fell once and broke his arm, he's back out there again. Why? Isn't that risky? Perhaps, but he likes the feeling of satisfaction of conquering the mountain and succeeding at a difficult endeavor.

Of course, one doesn't have to participate in sports to experience risks. Just buy stocks and bonds. I've been told that October is one of the riskiest months to buy stocks. The other dangerous months are January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, November and December.

There is risk in all of life. But aren't some things worth it? Artist Vincent van Gogh put it this way: “The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.” There are good and valid reasons to take necessary risks. In fact, I am sure we cannot experience a full life and shy away from all risk at the same time. We usually have a choice...we can choose to live boldly or we can choose fear. But be sure of this: the one we pick is all important.

Especially when it comes to major life decisions. Deciding to pursue a compelling idea. Going back to school. Changing vocations. Marriage and family. Moving to a brand new location ... these can be chancy life choices. We can listen to our hearts, or we can decide not to take risks, not to do the scary thing and, perhaps, not to fully live.

May Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Inc., once remarked, “Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.” Is that true? If so, I think that is sad. Is it because most people are afraid? At the end of my life, I don't want to say I always played it safe, I want to say I played my music. I want to say I attempted to stretch my wings and jump. I want to believe I took reasonable risks at the right times.

I have not always chosen the safest path. I've made my mistakes, plenty of them. I sometimes jump too soon and fail to appreciate the consequences. But I've learned something important along the way: I've learned to heed the call of my heart. I've learned that the safest path is not always the best path and I've learned that the voice of fear is not always to be trusted. I've also learned that, if I am to live my life to the fullest, I must not let my music die inside me.

Will you just play it safe? Or will you play your music?

-- Steve Goodier

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A Better Prayer

One man, too inebriated to drive, was walking home along railroad tracks when his foot suddenly became stuck. He pulled and tugged, but could not free it from the tracks.

Then he heard a noise and turned around to see an oncoming train. In a panic, he prayed. "Dear God, please get my foot out of these tracks and I'll stop drinking."

Nothing happened.

With the speeding train closer, he tried again. "Oh, Lord, get my foot out of these tracks and I'll stop drinking AND I'll quit cheating on my wife!"

Still nothing, and now the train was just seconds away.

He tried one last time. "Lord, if you get my foot out of the tracks, I'll quit drinking, cheating, AND ... I'll become a pastor!"

Suddenly his foot shot out of the tracks and he dove out of the way of the passing train. Dusting himself off, he looked toward Heaven and said, "Never mind, Lord, I got it out myself."

Does that kind of prayer sound familiar? How often are prayers, even when one is not in a state of emergency, concerned only about physical needs -- health and safety?

Mahatma Gandhi claimed to have never made even a minor decision without prayer. Gandhi was known best as an Indian nationalist and spiritual leader, but he was also a man of rare courage. He developed the practice of nonviolent disobedience that eventually forced Great Britain to grant India's independence.

He spoke often about spirituality and prayer. He told about traveling to South Africa to oppose a law there directed expressly against Indians. His ship was met by a hostile mob and he was advised to stay on board. They had come, he was told, with the express intention of lynching him. Gandhi said of the incident: "I went ashore nevertheless. I was stoned and kicked and beaten a good deal; but I had not prayed for safety, but for the courage to face the mob, and that courage came and did not fail me."

Gandhi preferred courage over safety. If accomplishing his goals put him in the way of danger, then he wanted to face that danger bravely. His prayer was to receive enough courage to do what needed to be done, not to live his life free from harm.

Rabbi Harold Kushner speaks about such prayer. He reminds us that "people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of what they have lost, very often find their prayers answered. Their prayers helped them tap hidden reserves of faith and courage that were not available to them before."

Like you, I know what it is to be afraid. I'm afraid of accidental injury, dismemberment or death. I've been afraid of a pending medical diagnosis. There must be a million different faces to the fears of life.

I'm tempted at these times to hope for, and pray for, a way to avoid the danger ahead. I want to be safe, secure and healthy. But none of us is always safe, secure or healthy. So, I, too, have come to see that the better prayer is for courage to face whatever life may bring. And in some place deep inside me, I am not only convinced that the courage will come and not fail me, but that it will be enough. Always enough.

-- Steve Goodier

freeimages.com/Fokko Veenstra 

What Is Your Rope Tied To?

You may have heard of the man who decided to repair the roof of his house. The pitch was steep, and to be safe, he tied a rope around his waist and threw the other end of it over the top of the house. He called his son and asked him to tie it to something secure. The boy fastened the safety rope to the bumper of their car parked in the driveway. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

But a little while later, his wife needed to run a few errands with the automobile. Unaware of the line securing her husband, she started the car and proceeded to drive away. The rope immediately tightened and jerked the man over the roof and into thin air. Now before you become alarmed, let me assure you that this never really happened. But I chuckle at the image of the poor guy sailing over the top of his house like Evel Knievel without a motorcycle.

This story, factual or not, points to a great truth. It is a truth about where we place our security; about those things to which we’ve tied our safety lines. What is your rope tied to?

Think about it. What do you depend on to keep you from disaster? Is your rope tied to a good job? Is it tied to a relationship with somebody you rely on? Is it tied to a company or an organization?

In her wise and sensitive audio Lessons in Living, writer Susan Taylor tells of discovering how unreliable some of our safety lines really are. She tells of lying in bed in the early hours of the morning when an earthquake struck. As her house shook, she tumbled out of bed and managed to stand underneath an arched door-way in her hall, watching in horror as her whole house tumbled down around her. Where her bed had once stood, she later discovered nothing but a pile of rubble. She lost everything – every button, every dish, her automobile, every stitch of clothing.

Susan huddled, scared and crying, in the darkness. In the predawn morning she cried and called out for help.

As exhaustion set in, she thought that maybe she should be listening for rescuers rather than making so much commotion. So she grew still and listened. In the silence around her, the only sound she heard was the beating of her own heart. It occurred to her then that at least she was still alive and, amazingly enough, unhurt. She thought about her situation. In the stillness, fear abandoned her and a feeling of indescribable peace and happiness flooded in, the likes of which she had never before known. It was an experience that was to permanently change her life.

In the deepest part of her being, Susan realized a remarkable truth. She realized she had nothing to fear. Amazingly, whether or not she was ever rescued, whether she even made it out alive, she sensed she had nothing to fear.

For the first time in her life she understood that her true security did not depend on those things in which she had placed her trust. It lay deep within. And also for the first time, she knew what it was to be content in all circumstances. She realized that, in an ultimate sense, whether she had plenty or hardly enough, somehow she would be all right. She just knew it.

She later wrote, "Before the quake I had all the trappings of success, but my life was out of balance. I wasn’t happy because I was clinging to things in my life and always wanting more. My home, my job, my clothes, a relationship – I thought they were my security. It took an earthquake and losing everything I owned for me to discover that my security had been with me all along . . . There’s a power within us that we can depend upon no matter what is happening around us."

She had tied her rope to the wrong things. It took a disaster for her to understand that those things are untrustworthy. So she let go of the rope and discovered peace. She found that her true security was a power within – dependable and sure.

What is your rope tied to? And what would happen if you found the courage to let go of it?

-- Steve Goodier


Image: flickr.com/Doug Wheller