Weekend benders and other problems when mom leaves town.

Last weekend (the weekend before Mother’s Day) was a fairly bad weekend and I largely have myself to blame. Sure, I could throw all sorts of excuses at you, but in the end, I only need to look in the mirror to see the culprit behind last week’s debacle. You see, my wife was gone on a four day retreat with ladies from our church, so it was a dad weekend with the kids. Normally, those weekends usually go off without a hitch, but not last weekend. When I think back to where things fell apart, it doesn’t take much to see where I went wrong.

Thursday night: After hanging out at the library watching a super cool presentation on the Pacific Crest Trail, I headed to the grocery store with a small list. I ended up buying a few extra items, all of which contributed to my #parentfail weekend. My list included items for make-your-own pizza, while the extras included a mountain or Oreo cookies (we need dessert, right?), chocolate milk and Coke (hey, mom’s gone, and the kids will think I’m cool) and a few other unnecessary, “dad’s cool,” items.

Friday night: First, the only good good move of the weekend, was when I took the kids to the park and let them burn off a bunch of energy before dinner. (That concludes my parenting weekend successes). We fixed dinner (a little late) and then made sure everyone had several dozen Oreos, drank ourselves silly with an endless fountain of Coke and chocolate milk, then stayed up well-past midnight watching movies together.

Saturday morning: The kids were up by 7:30 (we usually help them sleep 9-10 hours a night), and they plopped themselves right back in front of the TV until almost 11. Why? Because it was easier to let them veg out then to have to actually offer good parenting. By 11am it dawned on me that over the previous 16 hours, I had allowed by kids to watch 9 hours of TV (movies, Sponge Bob and more Sponge Bob). I don’t know about your house, but without a doubt, TV consumption increases fights, irritability, eating and general family chaos. And since our kids are used to a couple of hours of TV over a whole weekend, this overdose was beginning to take effect.

Saturday afternoon: By 1pm, I had already refereed several fights, comforted multiple bouts of tears, repeated these phrases a dozen times each: “Please take a deep breath” and “Think before you speak” and “Please, for the love of all things holy, stop farting in the kitchen!” and, “I’m going to sell all three of you on eBay later today.”

I won’t bore you with more details of my epic weekend.

Have you ever had moments like that? You ever a weekend go bad (with kids, with your spouse, with friends, with work or family)? You ever had a whole week, or month, just bite-it because you made a series of bad decisions? We all have, and here are a few lessons I learned after my weekend bender with the kids.

Bad decisions lead to other bad decisions: As I was thinking about this blog post, I was reminded of a Facebook thread I read a while back. A guy I don’t know well, had posted about the end of his week. Apparently the last couple days of work had been awful, and on Friday he blew up, cursed out his boss, and was sent home early. He described the situation on Facebook, and concluded with, “Anyone want to help me forget about this week by meeting me at [x] bar?” Saturday he posted that the weekend was not improving as he woke up with a nasty headache and felt like a “flu” truck had run him over. Sunday he picked up a speeding ticket trying to get back to his house so he could get some decent sleep to start the week off better than the previous one had started/ended.

Think about that progression: Cursed out his boss (bad choice), drank himself silly (bad choice) woke up severely hung over (bad choice) sped home to avoid starting a week poorly (bad choice) and ultimately started Monday much worse off than he ended Friday (which wasn’t great to begin with!). One bad choice -- choosing not to control his temper -- led to a whole series of bad choices, each compounding the situation.

I did the same thing to my kids over the weekend. My wife generally feeds the family pretty healthy meals and we try to avoid sugaring up the kids excessively. Over the years we’ve seen how much diet affects attitude and outlook on life. We also try to limit how much screen time they get because we’ve seen the connection between how much screen time they get, and how much more arguing and fighting happens. I loaded them up with tons of sugar and then let them veg-out for hours.

Getting a mountain of Oreos wasn’t bad in and of itself, but adding the chocolate milk and coke compounded the one decision. Adding in a family movie wasn’t a bad idea by itself, but turning Movie Night into Movie Coma Night really exaggerated the issues we faced the next day. Usually, when we make one intentionally bad decision, we set ourselves up to make many, because bad decisions are like gum on the bottom of your shoe -- they attract all the garbage on which you step.

Solomon said it this way: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats their folly” (Proverbs 26:11, NIV).

Bad decisions usually lead to blame: Like politicians, bad decisions like to hang out in groups and blame others. Once bad decisions start piling up in our lives, we usually start blaming others for the situations that result. Traci and I know a family that has a legacy of bad decision making, one that often involves illegal activities. It’s amazing how often we’ll hear this family blame the police or blame their neighbors or blame someone for making their lives so awful. The reality is their daily choices leave them in such a pit of despair and emptiness, they just need someone else to blame so that they don’t have to stop making bad choices.

I’ve seen it in leadership, I’ve seen it in the church and in the workplace, and I’ve seen it glaringly in my own life: when people suffer the consequences of bad decisions, blaming others is an easy way to feel better (at least in the short-term). But since the problem doesn’t ultimately rest with others, blaming does nothing to solve the real problem.

Bad decisions are just one decisions away from dying: No matter how bad the decisions are that we’ve made, it only takes one right choice to start putting an end to they cycle of making bad decisions. Once we own our mistakes, we can start dealing with the consequences (since we’re not blaming others) and start looking for a new way to see and experience life. It’s simple, but not easy!

My friend Tim, from Texas, used to clock in at close to 500 pounds. I didn’t know him back then, but he would be the first to tell you that he was making a lot of bad decisions when it came to his health (and of course, there were a lot of “good reasons” for those choices). Finally, the day came where he made just one choice, and it was a choice that would change his health forever, as he determined 500 pounds wasn’t going to cut it for the quality of life he desired. Not that long ago, Tim posted on Facebook that he had dropped below the 250 pound mark, and he was still going strong.

Bad decisions compound in a hurry, but so do good ones! When we embrace the journey God has given us, and when we own the times we’ve chosen poorly, made it more complicated than it needed to be or we just blew it, then we can get back on track in a hurry. Just like a whole bunch of bad decisions had Tim tipping the scale at 500 lbs, a whole bunch of good ones helped him reclaim his life.

Thankfully, my weekend was saved before Traci got home on Sunday. Saturday afternoon I fed the kids a decent lunch, kicked them outside to enjoy a “warm” northern Michigan day (hey, 50 degrees is practically Summer around here!) and then had them help with dinner later that night. They all had hot showers, we enjoyed the movie National Treasure before bed, and we took some time to thank God for our situation, for Traci’s retreat weekend and, in CJ’s words, “A great day!” Sunday, Traci came home to three kids that were clean, mostly fed and all generally pretty happy. She might submit my name for Dad of the Year, and just between you and me, let’s not ruin the magic.

The point is simple: one good decision on Saturday allowed for more good decisions, which ultimately changed the whole outcome of our weekend. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not promising rainbows and butterflies or health and financial blessing because you make one good decision today, what I am promising is that life is always better after a good choice. Solomon reminds us that it is truly a blessed life to live with wisdom (Proverbs 13:3), to live with good choices, even if your circumstances haven’t changed.

I wish all bad decisions could be remedied in the course of an afternoon. I am thankful, however, that in an afternoon, regardless of the misery I’ve caused myself in the past, I can make a choice that can lead me out of the foolishness I’ve temporarily embraced. What decision do you need to make today, in order to start reversing a bad trend in your life? Maybe you need to make the choice to seek God’s forgiveness or the forgiveness of someone near you. Maybe you need to hire a coach or personal trainer. Maybe you need to seek accountability from a trusted friend. Maybe you just need to publicly declare an intention to move forward. Whatever it is, remember, you’re just one good choice away from starting something great in your life.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

The 3 P's of parenting: Poop, pee and puke. All in one night.

Before you have children, you are fairly grossed out by most bodily expulsions. For example, the thought of taking a damp cloth and wiping someone’s nasty little rear end is mostly disgusting. The thought of doing that five or six times a day is positively repulsive. What about pants that were peed on through the diaper that was advertised as being able to hold the entire contents of a whale’s bladder? Yeah, you touch those too, and yeah, no matter how careful you are, you touch a wet spot or two. Or three. And finally, the puked on shirt. It’s a miracle when the puke is only on the baby’s shirt! That’s almost reason to rejoice, mainly because that never happens. Babies are actually genetically engineered by God, to puke only when in close proximity to your cleanest garments.  

Ahhhhhh, parenthood.

If you’ve been blessed with children, you know you wouldn’t give your child back for all the money in the world! No amount of disgusting clean up could ever change how much you love your child. In fact, to the contrary, your capacity to take care of your child in their mess speaks volumes of your love.

When AJ was less than a year old, he was sleeping in his “big-boy” bed, and doing pretty well. One night, Traci and I tucked him into bed, and a couple of hours after we went to sleep, I was awakened by his cries for mommy and daddy. I told Traci that I’d take this one, so I got up and headed into his room. I was not prepared for the ambush that awaited me.

My little 12-month-old boy was sitting up, having just thrown up his latest meal. The room reeked of vomit...and what was that other sweet odor? Oh yes, he had clearly pooped in his pajamas, too. He did not look good, he was crying out and holding up his hands, begging for someone to pick him up. I just laughed. I told him when he got himself all cleaned up, I’d be glad to hold him, and then I went back to bed. “That little baby can take care of himself” I said to Traci as I lulled myself back to sleep.

Not really.

Instead, I called for backup and then I moved in and picked up my sweet little sprinkler head. He began to projectile vomit all over the room as I held him and tried to comfort him. Traci came in and almost dry heaved (she was pregnant) at the smell, but she didn’t have the joy of feeling the warm sensation I was feeling on my arm as AJ was emptying his bowels and bladder onto my shirt. The little flu bug he had was hitting our city hard, and later we learned that children were experiencing “severe reactions including diarrhea, violent vomiting” and, apparently, “total loss of bladder control.” I felt like AJ’s personal toilet.

We finally confined his projections to a blanket, he stopped firing, and ultimately calmed down. We washed him up in the bathroom, dried him off and like most traumatic events in a child’s life, he went to sleep and forgot all about it, while Traci and I spent the next hour cleaning up his room. We used an entire spray bottle of F’breeze, excessive amounts of carpet cleaner and went through five or six towels getting everything soaked up out of the carpet. I started the nastiest load of laundry I’ve ever done in my life. It was well past the middle-of-the-night when we finished cleaning up.

When we were done, Traci headed back to bed and I went in and checked on AJ one more time. As I sat there thinking about him holding out his hands, begging for me to pick him up -- I kid you not -- I began to tear up. It wasn’t just the foul odor that still filled my nostrils (I should have shot a spray of F’breeze up there!) it was the reality of the moment, the clarity of what had just happened.

In the moment of distress, it didn’t even cross my mind, but as I sat there afterward it seemed so obvious. My poor son, desperate for help, crying out for someone to hold him while sitting in his personal filth, was me. In fact, it is you and it is anyone who has ever walked on the face of the earth, except One. We are born with a condition that makes it impossible for us to know God on our own. We’re like AJ, we have no capacity to clean ourselves up, but just like my son, when we cry out for help, God comes to us.

And here’s the thing -- God doesn’t wait for you and I to clean up before He steps in. He doesn’t say, “You’ve lived a bad life, Joe. I’d like to have a relationship with you, but you’re going to have to do more to make me happy; you’re going to have to clean up your messy life and then I’ll hang out with you.” Instead He comes to me in my spiritual filth and offers a clean slate. He offers to do the cleaning, He just asks me to trust and follow Him.

I don’t know where you’ve come from or where you’re living right now, but I do know this: God is eager to help you clean up. He sees you for what you are, He knows all you’ve done, He’s been watching you puke, poop and pee your spiritual pants for years, and He’s ready to take you, just as you are. And once you enter into that relationship with Him, you become a son or daughter to Him, and the relationship never ends. Just as you could never do anything to begin the relationship, there is nothing you could do to end it, either.

I’m so glad God came into my life and cleaned me up. And I don’t know where I’d be today if He had abandoned me in those moments where I chose to return to my filth. But that’s the greatness of God, and truly one of the mysteries of His ways: He doesn’t leave us. We don’t deserve Him, we could never do enough to keep Him happy and pleased with us on our own, but He still comes to us. He still chooses to live with us, to take us in and always, always, offers forgiveness, hope and healing when we need it most. Somehow, in the craziness of the ups and does of life, He delights in us and loves to call us His children. Even though we never stop messing up our pants (hopefully we just mess them up less and less as we get older!), He never stops loving us.

Do you know His love? Have you come to Him and asked for a clean shirt? You can’t clean yourself up, so quit trying. You will never impress God with your own righteousness, so quit trying religion over a relationship. Instead, turn to Him in faith. Believe that He has opened a door for you through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and all you have to do is believe: Believe you’re stuck without Him. Believe you can’t save yourself. Believe that Jesus paid the price you couldn’t. Believe that God offers it freely to you.

You can’t live the Overboard Life without Jesus. He makes life on the water possible and remarkable!

30 down, 10 to go.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

The beginning of our alphabet: AJ is born

I don’t care what the experts say -- nothing actually prepares you for birth and parenting. We attended the breathing classes, we watched other peoples’ kids, we read books and talked to other parents, but none of it prepares you for the reality of the delivery room and life after your precious little diaper pooper is brought home. Next to getting married and learning to share the blankets with another human being, kids are the biggest game-changers in life.  

I have a lot of memories of AJ’s birth. I remember the night before he was born, Traci and I had been up late with some friends, so as we went to bed around 11:30pm/midnight, I rolled over and said to her belly, “Ok little guy, we need a good night’s sleep, so no middle-of-the-night surprises, ok?” AJ has always been such an obedient child, so that’s why at 1:30am Traci wakes me up with, “My water just broke.”

After I realized that her water breaking meant the big show was starting (I was a little groggy for the first few moments of her announcement), operation child birth went into full swing. I woke up my Mother-In-Law who was ready to meet her fourth grand child, I called my parents and then threw the pre-packed suitcase and camera gear into the car. At 1:45am we left the house and at 1:55am we were checking in to the hospital as contractions were starting to get stronger.

The rest of the night was a blur as  Traci’s contractions grew in intensity, and I watched them fly off the little monitor that ranges from “This is really hurting” on the low end, to “good thing you’re getting a baby out of this” on the high end. Her contractions were, literally, off the charts. By 8am I was sure little AJ was about to make an appearance (based on my extensive medical knowledge about child birth), but the doctor dropped some bad news on us. Traci was having what he called “couplet” contractions. That meant that two contractions were occurring one right after the other. The first was pushing the baby out, but the second one, happening seconds after the first, was actually pushing the baby back up. That meant at 8:30am, Traci’s 7 hours of labor had accomplished little in getting AJ out of her womb.

I remember the look of discouragement on my wife’s face. She was in such pain and discomfort as, for the time being, the contractions were not accomplishing what they were supposed to. She pressed on for two more hours before finally requesting an epideral to help with pain. I still remember the moment the doctor injected the meds through her spine. Traci was grimacing as another contraction spiked off the chart, and seconds later she was lying down, talking to me, like nothing was happening. I was watching the contractions on the monitor and trying to comfort my wife when she fell asleep. 9 hours of hard labor was exhausting, and it didn’t help that she had only slept 90 minutes the night before.

The day dragged on and AJ insisted on taking his sweet little time. It wasn’t until about 4pm that the doctor informed me that we were getting close. At 4:32pm on June 19th, 2001, little AJ made his grand entrance into the world. He was not particularly fond of life outside the comfortable womb, but after the doctor cleaned him up, got him breathing, wrapped him up like a 6.5lb Mexican burrito and then placed him on Traci’s chest, AJ quieted down and we both began to cry; we had a baby boy!

After about 15-20 minutes of Traci and I enjoying our new child, I went out to the waiting room and announced to our family that a baby boy named AJ (Aaron Joseph) was safe and sound with his mom. Soon after, the moms came in and celebrated with tears of joy, and later the dads proudly held their new grandson (#4 for my father-in-law and #7 for my dad). It was a very special day, and we had no idea how much that one day would change our lives.

Today, almost 13 years after AJ was born, I can hardly remember what life without kids was like. Traci and I loved the four years we spent in Seattle, serving the Lord without children of our own, but now it seems like we’ve always had kids. It’s hard to imagine that a day will come when our children aren’t living in the house with us and that they, too, may give us the joy of grandchildren (although CJ has made it clear that she will remain in our house indefinitely).

Children are indeed a wonderful gift from God, and in part, I think God gives them to us as a picture of His love for us. A few days after taking AJ home from the hospital, Traci was resting on the bed and I was holding our new baby boy as I sat on the couch. He was bright-eyed, and looking right at me, and I was marveling that God actually trusted me with providing life-giving care to another human being. AJ was so fragile, his total well-being depended on Traci and I, and there was nothing he could do to provide anything for himself. He could cry his little eyes out (and on many occasions he did!), but apart from us intervening, he would cry in vain.

Isn’t that how it is with us? We are helpless without God. Oh, we like to think we are strong by ourselves, we like to think we can achieve greatness on our own, we like to think it’s all up to us, but at the end of the day, we would be at a loss were it not for God’s life-giving care. You may not always (ever?) acknowledge Him, but that doesn’t negate His presence in your life.

God loves you with an everlasting love. It’s no surprise then, that when you and I enter into a relationship with Him through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we become adopted sons and daughters! Not guests or renters. Not cousins or step-relatives. Not slaves or employees. We become adopted sons and daughters, children of the King, and heirs with Jesus, God’s first Son.

As I held AJ that day on the couch, I had an amazingly new understanding of God’s love for me. I couldn’t believe how much I cared for and loved this little boy that I had only known for four days! How much more does God love you and me after knowing us before we were even known -- before the world was even created (Ephesians 1:4)? In that moment, I knew I would do anything to protect and care for my son, and I knew God had already done everything to provide for me at my deepest need; not just a relationship with Him that protects me from hell, but a relationship with Him that sustains me each and ever day, through joys and sorrows, victory and pain, in my good days and especially in my bad ones.

I want to be dependent on God each day, just like AJ was (is!) dependent on me and Traci to provide for his needs. And an interesting truth emerges as I grow in my walk with God -- the more I know Him, the more I strive to love and serve Him, the more I realize how much I need Him. My dependence actually grows with age. And that’s a good thing.

Are you trusting God with your day, today? Are you laying out your needs and wants before Him? Are you trusting Him with your goals and dreams? As you move forward in your life, I hope you’ll find that you are trusting Him more, not less. I hope you’ll realize that the Overboard Life can only be lived with God’s help. May you and I grow stronger by leaning further into His love and grace.

29 down, 11 to go.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

100 days without fast-food

Since January 4th, I’ve been on a 100 Day Challenge to go without fast-food. I know, for some of you that’s an easy task, but fast-food has always been one of my vices. I admit…I love fast-food in all its various shapes and sizes. I’m especially a sucker for a burger-and-fries from just about any fast food joint. So here are three take-a-ways from my 100 Day Challenge:

I think about food a lot: I’m amazed at how much I think about food. During the first 20-25 days of this challenge, it became clear that food was on my mind a lot. I’d leave work at 11 and be thinking about where to stop for a quick bite. I realized that I set up a lot of appointments for lunch time so that I could grab the food I was thinking about. I also realized how often I used a small hunger pain as an excuse to grab some grub-to-go on my way home, taking the kids across town or just because.

I love conveniences: One of the reasons I like fast-food so much is that it’s highly nutritious (just seeing if you’re reading). No, it’s actually because of how convenient it is. I like the fact that I can order a meal and have it entering my mouth within 60 seconds. Seriously…60 seconds from when I say, “A number one with Coke” to when the first few fries are finding their way into my stomach. Sometimes I know I’ll feel like garbage an hour after I eat the meal, but the convenience of getting the food surpasses the possible side effects.

I have a lot of influence on what my kids like: My kids love fast-food, too -- especially the youngest two. There is a direct correlation between their love of all things McDonalds and the number of times it was convenient for me to take them there. That “Number one with Coke” has been a staple in my diet since the first time I bought one with my own hard-earned money at the age of 16. I’ve influenced my kids’ love and appreciation for fast-food by facilitating their access to it. I’m not inherently opposed to fast-food, just recognizing how easily I was able to influence my own children in this area.

So now that my 100 Day Challenge is over, what’s next?

I’m not really sure.

I was hoping today’s blog post was going to be some sort of super-clever, mega-inspirational post about dramatic life-change and massive over-use of hyphens. Well, at least my hyphen over-use goal has been achieved.

While I’m still trying to figure out what this 100 Day challenge will mean for my long range health goals, I have at least one conclusion to the matter: I need to make sure I’m influencing my kids so that they too, will seek to live a God-pleasing Overboard Life. If I can have a significant impact on their food choices, I want to have a significant impact on their spiritual journey. I can’t make them choose a life of obedience (that trick has never worked!), but my little experiment through fast-food withdrawal has taught me what I can do:

I can set a good example. If I want my kids to make healthier food choices, I need to set a better example in the foods I eat. Thankfully, my wife does a great job of providing healthy food choices and meals for our families. In fact, her influence in changing our family’s diet is proof that setting a good example is at least half the battle.

If I can influence their food choices, how much more should I want to influence their commitment and devotion to God? Deuteronomy 6:7 spells it out so well:

“And tell them [God’s commands] to your children over and over again. Talk about them all the time, whether you’re at home or walking along the road or going to bed at night, or getting up in the morning.”

And Jesus summarized all of the Bible’s commands in two categories: Love God and love others. The greatest influence I can offer my kids is that of teaching them to love God with everything, and to show that love by loving others.

I can create opportunity for them to experience success. Just like I want to give my kids a love for healthy food by providing good choices (allowing them to experience success in their health), I can create experiences for them to have success in loving God and loving others. Over the years, Traci and I have intentionally provided experiences for them that allow them to exercise a love for God by loving others. We’ve given them chances to serve the homeless, travel on mission trips together, bless the elderly, serve tables and clean up litter.

In each opportunity we’ve tried hard to give our kids ownership, let them express their service through their own gifts and talents and, at times, let them experience some amount of frustration and failure in their service. By walking with them and creating opportunities to experience success in their walks with God, I’m doing what I can to influence them for a life of loving God and loving others.

I can navigate the tough times with an enduring grace and faith. God has never made promises that living Overboard would be easy. Instead, He’s pretty well implied that a life of faith is full of challenges, obstacles and a fair share of suffering. In fact, it’s the reason a lot of people quit following Jesus -- He wasn’t promising them roses and popularity, He was promising them thorns and abandonment.

When those tough times come, I can influence my children’s faith by resolving to stay close God even as I wonder what His plan entails. Faith is messy. Faith can really complicate life at times. Faith demands that we trust God in all of life’s circumstances, and as I walk through the potential messes, complications and circumstances in trust -- I show my kids that the best life they could have is in God’s care.

I’m still trying to sort out how this past 100 days will influence my eating. Stay tuned for that update. In the mean time, I’ve seen how much my food choices have impacted my kids, and now I want to make sure I’m influencing them in eternal matters, too.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!