Let's Parent on Purpose: Christian Marriage, Parenting, and Discipleship

Every spouse has specific ways they best give and receive love.  Additionally, depending on circumstances and the season of life, you’ll find that certain felt needs rise to the top and seem to overshadow all of their current met needs. Learn how you can recognize and meet your spouse’s greatest need. Resources mentioned in this podcast: His Needs Her Needs by Willard F. Harley Jr. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

Failure is a natural part of a child’s life.  They way we respond to their failures (and ours) will steer them towards egomania, paralyzing fear, or optimistic self confidence.  Today I’ll share how we can produce resilient optimists by celebrating the lessons learned through failure.

My good friend (and top 5 finisher for the Florida State Teacher of the Year) Patrick Farley joins me again for a very helpful explanation of philosophy and methods behind Common Core.  As a parent, I’ve mostly been frustrated with my inability to help my 4th grader do math homework.  As a Christian, I’ve heard concerns that Common Core is designed to destroy my children’s moral foundation. Patrick helps walk me through the truth and the hyperbole. If you have friends that are educators, I HIGHLY encourage you to have them check out Patrick’s excellent Youtube channel “Mr. Farley”, where he equips and encourages educators. What do you think?  What has been your experience with Common Core?  Did the podcast sway you? If you need help walking through specific lessons or concepts in Common Core, check out Khan Academy.

One year, one week, and one day ago we celebrated my son’s last dose of chemo.  On this week’s podcast I share the essay I wrote for that occasion, as well as thoughts from a dad with one full year of no treatment and no relapse under our belt. Here’s my original essay: We are done with chemo, and I’m a little bit afraid. As of today, we are done with all chemo treatment.  I can’t believe I’m actually writing this. On April 14, 2014, our family’s world was turned upside down when we were told our little 5 year old boy had Leukemia.  I remember the first night in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, watching the nurse come into our room over and over again, switching out bags of blood and other medicines. I didn’t know much about leukemia at the time, I’m not even sure I was positive it was cancer before Elijah got it.  I knew enough that first night to stay off the internet. There are lots of leukemias, and our boy only had one of them.  Until they gave it a specific name, I didn’t want to walk in the horror of all of them. The next day, as our doctor and a team of staff from St. Mary’s Children’s Hospital filed into our room, I’ll never forget Dr. Saxena’s opening words.  “OK, your son has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, and this is an excellent cancer to have…”  Say what? It turns out that ALL is both an awful and awesome cancer to have.  To my knowledge, it’s the fastest killer of any cancer left unchecked.  But it’s also the most common childhood cancer.  Therefore, it’s the most researched, the most measurable, and has among the highest cure rates.  So I guess it is an excellent cancer to have. But the treatment is brutal. Three and a half years of chemo.  The first ten months, there were so many injections, so many hospital stays, I just can’t count them any more.  There was the time when Elijah started going into respiratory distress at the second dose of a chemo called Pegaspargase. There was the time where they did an echocardiogram of his heart before giving him some other kind of chemo, because the it’s known to cause damage to the heart.  There was that period where he would get high doses of methotrexate, and then stay in the hospital to get a rescue drug, because, you know, methotrexate can kill you.  There have been so many days in the outpatient center with three sweet nurses who had to check on him every fifteen minutes because the potentially catastrophic side effects of whatever they were injecting him with.  There was the trip to the podiatrist and the Xray of his heel, which showed this little sliver of cartilage that looked like granola instead of a solid object.  Was this caused by chemo?  Who knows.  There have been fevers of unknown origin, causing us to to stop whatever we are doing and head to the hospital for the next several days.  Just last month there was that inexplicable, debilitating headache that lasted for a week and ended up putting us back in the hospital. There have been at least 2-3 chemo pills (and up to 15) every single day since April 16, 2014.  That’s 1,208 days of chemo.  I take that back, he did get a 2 week break after Delayed Intensification.  And maybe 12 other days where he was so sick they withheld treatment. I have no idea how many injections of chemo he’s had on top of the pills.  100-200? Oh yeah, and somewhere over 1,000 prednisone pills. So it’s not been easy.  But honestly, MOST days have been good.  And we’ve cherished every one.  We’ve learned to cherish the most normal, boring days with all of our kids.  Those are actually our favorites. I want to take this time to leave a couple of thoughts as a follower of Jesus and a parent of someone who’s finishing 3+ years of chemo: It sounds worse than it is.  All of those stories, all of those numbers, they didn’t happen at once.  And we didn’t know the next one was coming.  So as long as we lived in the grace of that day, we made it through. The presence of Jesus is very real, the grace of God is very real, the comfort of the Holy Spirit is very real.  I could give you story after story… There’s a lot of joy to be had in pain and sorrow. Really sweet joy. At the same time, the root of bitterness will defile even the good things going on in your life. One of the most important lessons of grace I’ve learned is to just give everyone the benefit of the doubt.  People aren’t trying to be insensitive.  The nurse didn’t wake up this morning planning to mess us up.  Most people who say “let me know if I can do anything” really would do something if they could just figure out how.  And I am under a tremendous load and am going to fail at a lot of things.  Just give people the benefit of the doubt, including myself. I ask God to build all of these amazing things into me, my wife, my family, and my church.  I don’t get to dictate how He does it.  My son got leukemia, AND my Father loves us more than I can fathom. Families walking through emotional and psychological illness (especially in a child) don’t get the sympathy and understanding of cancer families.  But in many ways, the journey is more exhausting and terrifying.  We’ve been in both worlds these last few years.  In our case, cancer is a much easier battle.  That’s a story for another day though. And so now we are done with chemo, and I have to admit, I’m scared.  I feel like we know every single child in South Florida who has relapsed.  And we’ve grieved with plenty of parents who have buried their children.  I’m supposed to be overjoyed that we are done with chemo.  But it’s become a bit of a crutch.  And now I don’t know what to think.  So I suppose I’ll just have to trust God. But I know that trusting God doesn’t mean my son won’t relapse. It means that He will never leave us nor forsake us, and His grace will be there. So I will pray that day never comes, celebrate today, live in gratitude, and marvel at the little man and family God has forged through this fire. Thank you Jesus.

This is not the podcast you were expecting.  Rather than talk about bedtime routines or homework strategies, I’m joined by Patrick Farley, who placed in the top 5 in the Florida State Teacher of the Year awards for 2018.  We talk strategies for helping you establish solid communication and rapport with your child’s teacher.  Listen and share with others to learn how to communicate concerns, resolve conflicts, and get the best out of your parent-teacher-student relationship. Patrick Farley is not only an exceptional teacher, he’s a mentor in our student ministry, sports coach, expecting father, and host of the new Youtube channel Mr. Farley.  Check it out!

There’s one thing that can rob you of your joy no matter what’s going on in your life.  You can live in a house on the beach with a million dollars in the bank, yet be absolutely miserable.  This Joy Killer is a cancer to the soul and a destroyer of relationships.  Listen to today’s podcast to find out what it is and what you can do about it.

I know, this sounds like the most manipulative, self-help title I can imagine.  But the principles are totally Biblical.  Going a little further in my reading of Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, I was shocked to realize that Carnegie’s strategy for getting people to like you is simply a practical working out of God’s command to us in Philippians 2:3-4 Philippians 2:3–4 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (ESV) What does this look like in your relationships?  Listen to the podcast as I explain the importance of: Becoming genuinely interested in other people. Smile Too simple, right?  But I promise you, if you listen (or get the book and read) and genuinely try to apply these principles to your relationships, not only will you get people to like you, but they will like you because you are a genuine blessing in their life! Listen, share with one person who needs to hear, and let your spouse and children be your guinea pigs as you try the simple, profound practices of becoming genuinely interested people and smiling.

I recently found a copy of Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Win Friends and Influence People in the bargain rack at my local bookstore.  Honestly I had very low expectations.  And I was very wrong.  The book is largely an exposition of the Golden Rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As I’ve worked through the chapters I realize that the principles given in this book, if applied, would absolutely change the tone of relationships in our homes.  It’s not about manipulation, it’s about considering the other person and looking for the best in them. Today I share three principles that can help lower defensiveness and increase the willingness of each member of your household to do their best for one another.  Listen, share it with others, and by all means, pick up a copy of this classic book! Just remember, any fool can criticize and complain, and most do.  But it takes character to hold your tongue and seek the best for those in your house.  Let the change in your home start with you!

Your church family can inspire your household towards deeper faith in Christ and years of meaningful service.  It can also sow doubts about Jesus, hurt your marriage, and stir seeds that lead your children to abandon the faith. On today’s podcast I talk about choosing a healthy church for your family. If you’re already happily nestled in the church of your dreams, I want to encourage you to listen because this is still going to be really important for you to hear. But if you find yourself between churches, or you’re involved in a church and you’re wavering on whether you should stick or split, these few minutes are vital for you to hear and potentially share with others in the same spot. Listen as I explain my reasoning on how much you can determine on just about any given Sunday in a church gathering: – Do they worship Jesus as Lord? – Do they hold up the Bible as God’s Word and our guide? – Do they demonstrate their love for people by the way they treat the ones in front of them? Additionally I address a couple of longer term considerations: – Is the leadership seeking Jesus? – Fit? But be realistic. Finally, I talk about some items that aren’t near as important as we sometimes make them out to be: – The music – The coffee – The sound and lighting – How they dress – Are they super organized – Did they remember my birthday or my hospital stay – Topical or “Exxegetical” And if you’re on the Treasure Coast of South Florida and don’t have a church family, I invite you to come worship with us at Covenant Fellowship Baptist Church!  

Have you ever been driving along and experienced an accident, or even a near-miss accident?  Things happen so fast, your body essentially takes over before your mind knows what’s going on. Do you remember how you felt in the moments after you got through the event?  As your brain begins to comprehend what happened, your adrenaline is still pumping, and suddenly your emotions catch up with the reality of what could have happened.  The event might only last for seconds, but the emotional recovery can take several minutes, hours, or days. The time after a major personal or family crisis can often be like a very drawn out version of one of these accidents or near misses.  You think you should be able to just jump back into life, but instead find yourself flooded with emotion and fatigue.  You have a quick burst of energy but then feel like a zombie. Just as self-care in the midst of crisis is important, self care after a crisis is crucial to rebuild all that is broken in the midst of trial and tragedy.  Listen to this week’s podcast and share with friends you know who have walked through deep waters as I discus: – Keeping your expectations realistic – Bursts of energy then deflation – Reestablishing your routine – Extended periods of rest – Spiritual renewal – Reviewing your journal – Counseling and therapy – Low impact vacation time – Recommitting to your spiritual community – Serving with your newfound gifts It’s fooling to try to return to your old normal.  You’re not the same person you were before walking through these waters.  Acknowledge it.  Embrace it.  And keep waking.