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Timbrel Archives:
Articles about family & friends
Sample articles:
Blended family is a mid-life gift
Parenting by the Golden Rule
Remembering the self that isn't Mommy
What’s so special—and specially challenging—about
parenting daughters
Caregivers also walk the path of healing
Not at ease: pacifist
moms of chop-'em-up sons
Journeying with aging loved ones
Art by Ingrid Hess. Please do not use without permission.
* * * * * * * *
Blended family is a mid-life
gift
By Diane Zaerr Breneman
Timbrel, September-October
2006
Although I knew balancing family and the church had its challenges, I am not one for a sedate lifestyle. So I sent my laments to God: “How could you call me into pastoral ministry while ignoring my draw toward an additional calling: a family.”
On January 1, 2000, I traveled to Iowa to watch the new century come in with friends. Unbeknownst to me, these friends were working behind the scenes. They knew a widower in the area with two small children. His wife died suddenly of a brain aneurysm two years earlier. With mutual consent, the friends set up a group pizza party. The children, then 3 and 7, attended but were unaware of the real purpose. But Doug and I got a chance to discretely “look each other over.” And a long-distance dating relationship ensued.
We both had questions. The one that gave me most pause was the effect this “answer” to prayer would have on my calling to minister. Since Doug farmed, there was no negotiating where we’d live. By committing myself to this family I was permanently tying myself to one geographic area. I was 40 years old, living a single, “portable” life. I had lived in five states and moved countless times. Adjusting at this age to marriage with two children and a job change topped the stress scale. If this was my mid-life crisis, just buying a hot red sports car seemed to have fewer lifelong implications!
But I was irreversibly drawn to this little family. Without knowing about me, Maureen said to Doug, “Dad, you’ve got to find us a new mommy. We need one real bad.” We married March 10, 2001. The children were part of the proposal. And at the wedding. Maureen called me “mom” as soon as we left the church. Brent’s tender heart took about six weeks: He’d bring me a stuffed animal and pretend to cry, “Oooo! Hooo! The bunny has lost his mother.”
A wise children’s counselor suggested that Brent was grieving and coming to grips with loyalty. She encouraged me not to solve his problem for him, but instead say things like, “Oh, how sad. I’m sure glad the bunny found you because you know what it’s like to lose a mother.” After a few weeks of this, one day he said to me, “The bunny can’t find his mother. Will YOU be the bunny’s new mommy?” With tears in my eyes, I hugged them both my yes.
Now six years later, I find great thrills and frustration in raising children – just as I had imagined! I love to walk beside our daughter, now 13, and hear her narrate her humorous life and watch her make choices, inserting guiding questions along the way. And I rarely tire of 10-year-old Brent’s way of turning a phrase.
When I taught him to drive tractor and pointed out all the things that could go wrong, he looked up at me and said, “Mom, you have a lot of concerns.”
And I miss the focus of my single life. I cannot concentrate on my ministry calling in the same way I did before meals, laundry, fevers and farm work. For the first six months I couldn’t string an intelligible sentence together! But now I enjoy the diversity of part-time ministry and part-time farming.
Grief has been our companion and will always be there. Grief began accompanying me in 1994 with the sudden death of a 35-year-old brother with a small young family, and then continued with my 64 year-old father’s death five years later. There is grief in this new family, too. No matter how good a mother I am, it remains sad that the children’s mother died and could not raise them.
Being a second mother requires a healthy sense of self. The children need
to know their first mother and I welcome others’ memories be shared with
them. I also interpret her love to them because they were very young when
she died. I recommend the book Lifetimes. It explains death as “sometimes
a body can’t stay alive anymore.” The children’s grief has actually been
easier to accompany than Doug’s. On my good days, I can remember that one
can love the departed and find new love on this side, all in the same life.
And that I cannot share in something that grieves him deeply.Congregations can help (as ours does) by acknowledging there are many ways to make a family. It is helpful when folks ask, “How do the children refer to you?” if they are unsure. It is also a blessing to be accepted as the wife and mother of this family while at the same time acknowledging there was a first wife and mother.
Did God answer my prayers and pleas? Yes, indeed. In just the way I had imagined? No. I also really wanted to give birth to an additional child, but Doug was terrified of losing another wife and raising even more children alone. (He let this be known on our first date). Now, instead of congregational ministry, God provided oversight ministry where, except for occasional travel, I can work out of a home office. I’m grateful for God’s two calls on my life and I want God to walk with us in the sure challenges that are still to come. After all, we now parent a teenager.
For reprint permission, contact the editor.
* * * * * * * *
Parenting by the Golden
Rule
By Jennifer Bartsch
Timbrel, November-December
2005
Before I had children, I had many ideas about what a child should be. I thought that shaping a child to be a moral, responsible, emotionally intelligent person would be easy.
I would observe friends’ toddlers throwing temper tantrums in church, refusing to eat anything but hotdogs, kicking when it was time for a diaper change, and so on. I had theories as to why children behaved in these ways, and I was sure that, with my superior parenting skills, these obnoxious behaviors would never occur in my home.
But then I did have my own children. And these behaviors do occur in my home. I think back to the easy answers I once had, and I wonder if God is teaching me a lesson about judging by giving me particularly strong-willed little boys to test my parenting theories.
As a new parent, I thought I could win battles of the will by consistently enforcing my word as law. I sometimes wore myself out with my own stubbornness. When Quinn was about 18 months old, playing in the garbage can fascinated him. I would tell him “no” firmly and then distract him. Sometimes, feeling like a failure, I would move the garbage can to another room. Problem solved, right? But at the time, I felt that I was failing to teach him to obey.
Now, looking back, I find my attitude laughable. By the time Quinn was 2, he found the garbage to be as “yucky” as I do and had no desire whatsoever to play with it. He didn’t need me to set up a power struggle; he needed me to give him time to figure out for himself, by observing others and using his nose, that the garbage can is not a good toy box!
I wanted so much to avoid a permissive parenting style that I was going to the other extreme, expecting too much out of my young child and remaining locked into the hierarchical notion that I was the supreme authority over my child and that his only duty was not to think but to obey. Even though I rejected the old spare-the-rod, spoil-the-child adage, I still used reward/punishment systems that were demeaning to my child and wearisome for both of us.
As I sounded off my frustrations to my husband, my mother, my friends, it began to dawn on me: I needed to look no farther for guidance in parenting than the Golden Rule: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matt. 7:12).
Would I want to have an authority figure like that in my life, a boss, teacher, or spouse who expected total, immediate obedience? If I disagreed with an order, would I like to be labeled a “back-talker” and punished for it? Would I like to have to “earn” going out for supper with my husband by getting my chores done cheerfully all week? And would these methods help me be a better person, or simply convince me to not get caught breaking the rules?
I wouldn’t treat anyone else with the kind of tyranny that I sometimes subjected my own children to. Why not teach my children in the way I would like to be taught, giving them the same respect I would like to receive?
Giving up authoritarian control over children involves faith. I have to trust in their good intentions, believe in their ability to think for themselves, and feel sure that my own habits and lifestyle will provide a good model for them to make moral choices as they get older. But parenting also involves seeking the wisdom to know when children do need limits and external control, as in unsafe or unhealthy situations.
I am beginning to understand Jesus’ invitation to the little children (Luke 10:15-17 and elsewhere). I am learning to relax in social situations with my children, inviting them to be a part of the activity, welcoming the spontaneity they bring. Often parents are like the disciples, stifling children’s exuberance and not allowing them to bring their unique perspective to the world of adults. We are like Pharisees, worrying about what other people think of our children’s behavior, feeling threatened by their strides toward independence.
Parenting is an expression of my spiritual journey. Gentleness does not always come easily, even to a mother. Sometimes it takes all my energy to respond to childish behavior with empathy. But if we are not afraid to show our children compassionate qualities, children likewise will trust us enough to mirror them. What comes around will go around.
If I choose forgiveness instead of punishment, trust instead of suspicion, self-control instead of angry outbursts, humility instead of self-importance, then as my children mature, they will choose these, too.
I have faith that this is so, and my daily prayer is that I can live up to this sacred responsibility called parenting.
For reprint permission, contact the editor.
* * * * * * * *
Remembering the self that
isn't Mommy
By Valerie Weaver-Zercher
Timbrel, July-August
2005
Sometimes I’m not sure why I try to read books and write essays—or do anything else but parent my three boys ages 4 and under. It’s insane, really, to think that I should spend my few free hours doing more “work.” (Judging from two of the above incidents, not only insane but dangerous, too.) Lord knows there’s enough work in my days—and nights—that I shouldn’t feel guilty about using those off-duty hours to drink coffee and read a novel.
Plus, I’m all over the idea of “sequencing,” the term that these days refers to the way that many parents give up professional pursuits for the years when their children are small. I’ve used the “this is just a season of my life” phrase so often that it’s taken on the weight of a mantra: just a season, just a season. Someday I will return to the world of remunerated work and professional development. Someday I will have all the time in the world to write. Someday.
Someday too, when I have no more little boys with split lips to cuddle, people tell me that I will miss these things with a pain that is almost physical. Sometimes I don’t believe it. More often, however, I do, because I frequently imagine that day with a profound sense of loss that makes me hug the boys with a fierce combination of panic and love.
Why, then, if this time is so precious and fleeting, escape to the study for even an hour? Why try to do anything but be mom, which is more than a fulltime job?
I think I write as a way to remember myself. This isn’t easy in these days when I can forget to eat or pee because I’m making sure everyone else does. People told me before I had kids that mothers often forget their own desires; no one told me that I’d forget to go to the bathroom. No, writing isn’t as urgent as eating. Yet I am learning that my needs, however subverted and secondary to my young children’s, are valid. I am learning, slowly, that if I don’t remember my own needs, no one will.
Sometimes this honing of attention on my own needs doesn’t feel very Anabaptist. What about Christ’s call to deny oneself? But even as parenting small children is convincing me of the inherent goodness of self-sacrifice, so is it helping me learn that unrelenting sacrifice is not what God desires for anyone. As Carla Barnhill points out in The Myth of the Perfect Mother, “[w]hen women, who already tend to sacrifice their own needs to those of others, are reminded to be servants, they hear that they aren’t doing enough, that they are failing the most important people in their lives. So they dig in deeper, try harder, and work to subvert their needs even more.”
This is indeed my temptation during this season of life: to dig in deeper, to try harder, to give and serve and tend and nurture until I am absolutely empty. “Temptation” may seem a strange choice of words, since it calls to mind guilty pleasures like cream-filled donuts and marital affairs. But it fits. Temptation can lead to sin. When I give in to the temptation to sacrifice too much, I become depleted. And when I am depleted, I do things like shriek at my children when they don’t go to sleep fast enough or simply say, “Mama! Mama!” 20 times in a row. When I am depleted, I treat them as objects to control rather than humans made in God’s image. I can’t think of a better definition of sin.
Two college friends and I get together each year, and this spring found us in Arizona strolling past giant saguaro cacti, gazing as purple mountains turned orange in the sunset. “This is filling a space in me that I didn’t even know was empty,” one friend said. I nodded in agreement.
I don’t know whether she meant the intimate conversation or the blooming desert at sunset or a break from parenting. I do know that mothering young children, while an utter privilege and gift, empties me of energy like no job I’ve ever had. Like my friend, my empty spaces are filled through conversations and beauty and writing and walks—and sometimes even through my children.
I’m learning, slowly, to recognize my needs rather than to subvert them. Still, I’m grateful for a God who fills me with good things before I even know I’m empty—and who laughs with me when remembering my own needs means forgetting the eggs on the stove.
For reprint permission, contact the editor.
* * * * * * * *
What’s so special—and
specially challenging—about parenting daughters
Timbrel, May-June 2005
The conversation on daughters began with the topic of fashion and body image. How can mothers help their daughters navigate through the confusing and often contradictory messages in popular culture about standards of beauty, sexuality, and appropriate behavior and dress?
“This is definitely a concern of mine as my girls have a huge stack of Vogue and other magazines that they pore over. I see them trying to imitate models, stars, and starlets in their dress and aspiring to their body shapes,” one person noted. “Not only is it extremely hard on the pocketbook—mainly theirs, I should add—but it’s an exploitive influence psychologically as well.”
“My girls have never been into designer clothes,” another woman said. “Bargain hunting at Goodwill and such has become a wonderful game for them. I’m happy about it but not sure I can take credit.”
“My daughters are very different from each other,” a third person said. “It’s the youngest emerging as the one who cares so much about what her clothes look like: that they’re faded just the right amount, the pant legs flare just so. She’s not interested in the bargain racks anymore.”
“In our household, we aim for a middle ground,” one person said. “Like recently my daughter told us about a girl wobbling down the halls in shoes she could barely walk in. ‘That’s a fashion victim,’ she said. . . . But one of our rules is (continued) that hair must be a color found in nature.”
The group agreed that what really matters is helping girls to develop a healthy sense of self-esteem. As one woman put it: “Are they kind people? Are they treating others respectfully, and themselves with respect? . . . My partner has put in an unbelievable number of hours with his children, hours reading books and talking. Having an involved spouse in raising daughters led to a healthy sense of who they are. Letting them express themselves as they need to is okay.”
“As I’ve gotten older, my style of parenting has lightened up a bit,” another participant reflected. “I’m not apt to get so uptight as if there’s one right way of growing up. Each child is unique. I would advise a parenting approach that is more going with the flow. These girls are still discovering who they are. That might change next year or next week.”
A question to consider is whether you’re dealing with a moral issue or just something that’s embarrassing to you, said the third person. She described exploring a pastoral position at a church during a time when her daughter only wanted to wear pants. “Getting her to wear a dress to church was going to be a major battle. I had to ask myself, Do I want her to hate this church? I had to accept that what was at issue were my feelings about my own image, not about her.”
Still it’s also important that children see how their choices—about dress or any number of things— affect other members of their family. “We are a biracial family—I am African-American and my husband is Irish and Polish—and when we go out in public, people are looking at us,” the fourth participant noted. “In their appearance, I ask the girls to respect that.”
Issues around body image, appropriate weight maintenance, and health remain serious concerns within the group. “I have worried about eating disorders,” said one woman. Another mentioned a young friend of her girls who was hospitalized for self-destructive behavior. “I look at her and wonder what it is that keeps my girls from feeling that self-defeated and angry. Sometimes it is a fine line,” she said.
A second topic concerned the newer forms of technology and how they impact girls and communication.
“One of my daughters is instant messaging as we speak,” one woman noted. “They can do things on the computer that I don’t even know how to do—much less how to monitor.”
While this participant wants to be careful about how electronic communication is used, she has observed its benefits, too. For example, one daughter chats by computer with friends in Pakistan, Iraq, and Australia. As a result, this girl’s worldview, her mother reported, “is so different than mine was, growing up.”
At one time, said a second person, “I had no intentions of having even a TV. I’m sometimes shocked by the amount of technology we have: high-speed Internet access, cable, Nintendo, instant messaging, and a teen with her own cell phone.
“Each addition made sense at the time,” she commented. “Sometimes it seems like too much, but I haven’t figured out what I might want to carve away.” She is pleased to see her youngest daughter’s “fearless” attitude about technology, and noted that for a school project this girl chose to focus on robotics.
“As a mom, I am so grateful for e-mail and instant messaging. One daughter instant-messages me a lot,” another person said. “My girls have never been big phone users; we’ve never had to set limits on that. But the computer is another story.
“Still, we haven’t set a lot of parameters,” she continued. “The kids are good students, so it’s not like they’re not getting their work done. If it got to the point where it seemed like they were always in front of computer screens and not interacting with people face to face, I would be concerned. We’ve noticed how you say more when communicating by computer than you do in person.”
“One of my daughters is very quiet; she’s a writer, an artist, an interior thinker. She is more comfortable talking on the computer,” a fourth participant said. “As a parent I want to figure out how to help move her into a world that she can touch.”
One thing their family decided is to keep the computer in the living room, so it’s in a public space.
Another group member also reported having a soft-spoken daughter who has a hard time speaking up when she is unhappy. While some girls are very verbal, helping other daughters to “use her words” when they have a problem can take effort.
To return to technology, one person noted that cell phones can be an important safety tool. “When our oldest daughter got her driver’s license and was driving alone at night we decided to get a cell phone that would stay in the vehicle for emergency use only,” she said.
“One surprising thing to me about parenting is how I’ve come to understand my mother’s concerns when I was a teenager and young adult,” another person noted. “I was very independent and she had reservations about me driving distances by myself, etc. I resented her seeming protectiveness. Now as a mother of daughters who wants to give them their independence, I’m identifying with the worries about all that entails. In other words, I appreciate what I put my mother through and understand what that meant for her to ‘let go.’ ”
* * * * * * * *
Caregivers also walk the
path of healing
By Anne Plett
Timbrel, May-June 2000
My brother suffered from lupus for 21 years before dying at the age of 39. As we lived with and cared for him, our family learned much about loving without clutching, appreciating without judging. We learned how to offer help without insulting his dignity, how to invite rather than demand. And we learned to be respectful of each other so that we might give care to each person as needed. Together we were students of that most marvelous lesson: the mystery of unconditional love. And we were blessed.
Caring for terminally ill people became my profession, and often I am asked how I keep myself from burnout. People seem to assume that caring for the dying drains one of life.
But I find that caregiving helps to heal my own hurts. As a caregiver my journey to healing is intertwined with my patient’s journey. Companions on the road, we become each other’s teachers.
Let me be clear—I am not suggesting that prolonged work with ill people isn’t emotionally demanding; quite the opposite. Physician and psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross described the emotions a person experiences when she learns that she is dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It is my observation that caregivers and grieving family members go through the same emotions, often very randomly.
These emotions are real. Caregivers should expect and validate them. But we can hope to end up with more than a dull resignation.
This has to do with another concept popularized by Kubler-Ross: “unfinished business,” the idea that a patient has matters she needs to work through—whether practical responsibilities or unsettled relationships—in order to find peace. Caregivers experience the same thing. Whatever unfinished business we have in our own lives will be carried into our caregiving role. We need to deal with those issues if we are to avoid burnout and be healed ourselves. If we don’t find our own healing, we can’t help heal anyone else.
Think of it as a warning system: each time I find myself getting ugly and angry, it’s a signal that something is unresolved or unwell in my life. Realizing this gives me the opportunity to deal with it.
Health is so much more than the absence of disease; it has more to do with wholeness, with holiness. It has to do with salvation: our realization of the Creator’s unconditional love for us, and our response to that love. This is true whether one’s body has 20 years left to live or 20 minutes.
* * *
Sidebar—How to Cope in Caregiving
On feelings:
Don’t think you always have to be the “strong
one” with your emotions in check. There is no right or wrong way
to grieve. Let yourself feel whatever you feel. Sustaining a facade
of cheeriness requires a great deal of energy that could be used
in other ways—and it robs you of the opportunity to share your fears
and anxieties with others.
At first you may need to be angry. Anger takes a lot of energy, but in time that energy can be harnessed into constructive work. Talk about your feelings to whoever will listen, whomever you can trust. Talk to yourself if need be. Seek out a fresh pair of ears. Journaling can also be helpful.
Sometimes you may feel overwhelming sadness. Cry—tears will make you stronger. Give yourself private time to experience sorrow; don’t run away from it. Experience it, then be good to yourself. Be gentle with yourself.
If you find that you’re experiencing more than sadness—a constant depression which nothing can lift—talk to a professional counselor.
On receiving help from others:
Caregivers often fear that if they accept help—from
friends or agencies —they will lose their independence. This
isn’t necessary. If you set limits, people usually will respect
them.
Clearly inform others what is helpful and not helpful. Don’t wait until you’re ready to throw the next casserole out the window to explain your preference to go out for a meal.
Some friends may not be comfortable around illnesses and therefore will be unable to cope with your role as a caregiver. Accept that a few will fall by the wayside, at least for a time.
Illness doesn’t tend to make poor relationships better; in fact, existing tensions may worsen. The caregiver may end up feeling the effects of these tensions even more than the patient. A counselor may be needed.
On self-care:
Long-term illness can drain away our ability to
experience joy and beauty. Resist this. Set aside time regularly
for renewal and pleasure— perhaps gardening, playing with children,
or listening to favorite CDs.
Establish a place of refuge where you can go without being disturbed. It might be a room of your home, a coffee shop, a comfortable park bench.
Learn to live in the moment, looking for the delight and respite found in everyday things. Gifts surround us, whether in nature, loving relationships, or a peal of laughter
For reprint permission, contact the editor.
* * * * * * * *
Not at ease: pacifist moms of chop-'em-up sons
By Cynthia Hockman-Chupp
Timbrel, January-February 2001
Someone forgot to include the instruction manual. In it, somewhere, I’m sure there’s a chapter called, “How to Thwart Interest in Mean Guys.”
Until a few years ago, I had no need for such information. I was raised in a peace-loving home with one sister. If I’d give her a poke, she’d huff into her room and shut—not even slam—the door. My mom finally told me that “if you keep bugging your sister, she’ll remember it when she grows up!” I quit. My early years were nearly a pacifist’s utopia.
I should have listened closer to my husband. He told horrible, disgusting stories of one brother pinning the other down while hanging a lugy (a thick wad of spit, for those still in utopia) over the other’s face. He laughed when he said that occasionally lugies couldn’t be slurped up fast enough. He also recalled how he and his brothers used to love visiting the neighbors (fellow Mennonites, incidentally) so they could watch cartoons and play with toy guns.
Somehow all this passed by me. By the time I was pregnant with my son, I had two beautiful daughters. They occasionally fought but neither had shown the slightest interest in guns or violent games. In college someone said that if you raise boys and girls the same, they show equal interest in toys traditionally associated with one gender. I believed it. When our first daughter, Kasaundra, was small, we gave her a train set. She never touched it unless Daddy played with her. Instead, she played dolls all day, every day. I innocently thought she was an exception to the rule.
During my pregnancy I went to my nephew’s ninth birthday party. I knew I was having a boy and thought I’d better start paying attention. But it was then that I first got nervous.
James received many presents—and every single one was a “violent toy”: weapons, action figures from the latest shoot-’em-up movie, videos. I felt sorry for his poor mother. What was she to do? A group of second-grade boys aren’t likely to leave presents unopened so they can be exchanged for less-violent alternatives. And she couldn’t take away his gifts in front of his friends. I decided that my unborn son would never be allowed to invite boys to his birthday parties.
If it were only that easy.
Brandon was born without holsters attached. For those first couple years, I forgot about raising a pacifist and concentrated on my darling baby. He cooed and smiled at everyone. Life was simple . . . or so I thought.
My daughter Bethany loved the story of Little Red Riding Hood, so I read it to her repeatedly. As a toddler, Brandon would look up from his toys and smile as I read. Then it happened. My sweet little boy, the two-year-old with only a limited vocabulary, started running around with a cardboard tube saying, “Chop bad guys.”
He didn’t know what a gun was. We didn’t own any. He had never seen one—even on TV. (I only allowed “Sesame Street,” Mr. Rogers, and an occasional Barney episode on our set.) Close to his third birthday we visited a friend. Brandon joined the rest of the kids upstairs in the play room. Within a few minutes, he was back. “What ’dis, Mommy?” Sigh. A plastic gun. I mumbled a lot.
I had many opportunities to redeem myself. (Commu-nication: the key to peace!) Brandon carried sticks and talked about getting the bad guys. He never mentioned shooting—he still didn’t know what that was—but there was a whole lotta choppin’ goin’ on. I’d say, “But the guy will get hurt,” or “Won’t his family be sad if you chop him?” Or—pardon the phrase—the big gun: “Mommy doesn’t like it when you chop people. It makes her sad.” I was shooting blanks.
I still try to live in utopia. Not long ago two neighbors came to play, and soon shrieking resounded from the yard. Since the other kids are older, I went out to rescue my baby. I watched two 9-year-olds run by, followed closely by an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old. From behind chased my 3-year-old, growling and screaming for all he was worth.
Through it all I have hope—hope that the most important thing for this boy will be the example modeled by his parents.
Recently Brandon asked, “When was God born?” My husband, Kevin, laughed and shook his head.
I said, “God wasn’t born. God was always there. Daddy is laughing because that’s a hard question.”
Kevin said, “Yes, that’s a hard question. People don’t really know when God was born.”
Brandon replied, “Mommy does!”
Now, if only Mommy could find that instruction manual. . . .
* * *
Sidebar—What about those toy guns?
What’s a peace-loving parent to do with the
need some children have for aggressive play?
Parents can start by avoiding militaristic toys and violent entertainment. Studies show that these tend to promote aggressive behavior and desensitize children to violence. Watch television with your kids and talk about what you see. Monitor and limit TV, video game, and Internet use. Help children choose positive, nonviolent games and toys. Tell family and friends about toys you allow your children to receive as gifts or what programs they may watch away from home.
But sometimes this isn’t enough. What do you do when your child begs for toy weapons? Does forbidding a certain toy make it even more desirable? If a child is going to run around “shooting,” is it better to make him pretend that a clothespin or index finger is a gun—thus exercising his imagination?
Some parents opt to treat a toy gun like a gun used by hunters. They issue a “permit” for the gun after the child signs an agreement promising never to point the gun at people (among other possible rules). If the child breaks a rule, the permit can be revoked and the gun confiscated.
Other parents offer a “toy gun buy back” program, in which children can
exchange violent toys received as gifts for nonviolent alternatives.
For reprint permission, contact the editor.
* * * * * * * *
Journeying with aging loved ones
By Katie Cunningham
Timbrel, March-April 2001
One of the many blessings of my ministry with persons 75 and older has been to listen to their family stories and faith journeys. As we review their joys and losses, most are able to see how God has walked with them and claim the promise of Romans 8:28: “All things work together for good to those who love the Lord and live according to his purpose.”
Yet when older persons are very ill and fear they may be facing the end of life, many question their salvation. These are people who accepted Christ years ago, have read the Bible through many times, and were active members of their churches. Why do the doubts come now?
As older persons go through their first major health crisis, they may experience multiple losses and changes in a short period of time. Life feels out of control. They may face:
• The death of a spouse and/or separation from siblings or children,
leaving them to “go it alone” for possibly the first time.
• Change of living quarters into smaller space
or a nursing home, sometimes resulting in less privacy. They
must sell or give away treasures they no longer have space for.
• Health conditions which greatly limit their physical
participation in church and community life. They may become dependent
on others for help with driving, household jobs, finances, etc.
Chronic pain may make daily tasks a struggle.
• High medical expenses, especially for prescription
drugs, hearing aids, and eyeglasses which are not covered by Medicare
or many insurance policies, yet are needed more than ever.
• Changes in physical appearance and self image.
• Depression, in which they have little or no energy
or appetite and spiral deeper into despair.
No wonder many faith questions arise. Some might wonder, Why is this happening to me? I have tried so hard to do the right thing and to be faithful.
Or why is my husband suffering so? Is he being punished for his sinfulness? Does God really keep his promises?
Some may think they simply lack faith: The pastor and elders anointed my husband, but he hasn’t been healed. Did I not pray enough? Believe enough? Why hasn’t God answered my prayers?
How do you help someone you love through tough issues during times of loss?
Invite them to share by acknowledging how difficult this would be for you. Encourage them to share the depth of their feelings of pain and loss. Listen. Do not attempt to provide quick solutions.
Let them know they are not alone in their suffering. Search together for stories of Bible characters (Job, Jesus, Hagar, the widow of Zarephath) or great Christians who also suffered and their responses. Reread the Psalms, which express the whole range of human praise as well as lament to God (for example, see Psalms 22-23).
Acknowledge that God is sovereign and that we do not know all the answers in this life. As the scriptures tell us, “For now we see in a mirror dimly but then we shall see face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12); “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” (Job 38:4, NIV); “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth” (Psalm 8:1).
Note that healing comes in different forms—sometimes physical healing, sometimes healing of the spirit. Even the people whom Jesus cured eventually died. What matters most is that God promises to be faithful to us and walk with us through our struggles. God does not promise to answer every prayer in the way that we ask. God’s ways are not our ways.
Ask them about favorite scripture passages which promise faithfulness and share those that speak powerfully to you. Some of my favorites include:
• “God is my refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.
Therefore I will not fear!” (Ps. 46:1).
• “Do not fear for I have redeemed you. . . . When
you walk through the waters, I will be with you; when you walk
through the fire you shall not be burned. . . . For I am the Lord
your God; you are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you”
(Isa. 43:1-5).
• “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength. . .” (Isa. 40:28-31).
• “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it
may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and
does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed.
. . . Therefore, we do not lose heart” (2 Cor. 4:7-12, 16-18).
• “For I am convinced that neither death nor life
. . . nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:18, 37-38).
Help them recall times when God has been faithful to them. Draw with them a timeline of significant events in their lives. Discuss another time when they felt as discouraged as they do now. From where did they draw their strength during that difficult time? What resources do they have to draw upon now?
Encourage them to keep a journal which records where they have seen God at work each day, ways they have sinned as well as ways they have been faithful. Journals can be tape-recorded as well as written. Challenge them to list five things a day they’re grateful for, and go over the whole list together on your next visit.
Encourage them to reach out to someone else. Who else is discouraged or lonely? All of us need prayer warriors backing us up!
Ask how you can pray with them today, and also promise to pray for them in the coming weeks. Check in with them periodically with questions that get beyond the superficial: “Any tough times this week?” “What is getting easier/better?” “When did you feel God’s presence?”
As fellow sisters in Christ, we are on a journey together. Each new stage of life has its joys and its struggles. Take time to nourish your own relationship with the Lord. Then make time to visit someone who feels isolated.
Be present and listen more than give advice. Share stories and journeys. Allow them to grieve their losses, then gently lead them out of their despair. This takes time. If your loved one seems very depressed or appears unable to respond to your attempts to encourage him or her, please let your pastor know.
When we visit older adults, we have the opportunity to be a blessing to
them. Yet I always come away richer than I was when I went—blessed
by the people I go to bless! Praise the Lord!
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10.15.2006
