Make it Seven!
In my June 23 blog, writing about six ways to bless your kids, I was unhappy because space precluded seven. That bothered me because Number Seven may be the most important blessing any kid could have. Why didn’t I put it first? Well, it’s a different genre. The first five involve immediacy with the child. Six and Seven don’t. Further, Six and Seven need to be separated. Six can be done by single parents. Seven can’t be. Belinda Luscombe — marriage author, popular journalist, Time magazine editor — states Number Seven succinctly, clearly, and practically: One of the best things you can do for your kids is to love the heck out of your spouse (Time May 20, 2019). Surely blessed are the kids who have parents that meet that criterion. But what the heck does that look like when it’s happening? That’s what this page is about.
Make your Spouse Number One
We’re speaking priorities. My misplaced priorities that put our marriage in jeopardy is ultimately why we wrote our book — the story of how we climbed out of the pit I dug. The Bible categorically — using different language for each — says to wives and then to husbands that to love each other is first to make the other their number one priority. I did fiercely love Mimi, but she didn’t know it. She was at best about number six on my priority list. (And I seldom got to number six.) As a pastor I felt God’s work needed to be number one, but then you can’t neglect the kids, nor forego your hobbies or your friends. And everybody needs exercise. But I was sincerely deeply in love with Mimi — and I was a jerk. Please read my May 6 blog (If Momma ain’t Happy ain’t Nobody Happy) about our advent of Date Night. It saved our marriage.
Do I not sense a reader thinking What’s wrong with God’s work being number one? Isn’t God supposed to be number one? Great question and the answer is Yes and No. God rightfully should fill the number one slot, but not His work. What helped me was to get the analogy right. I used to think of priorities as like a grocery list — most important item first followed by other items in descending order of importance. Not a good order for the home. Instead, think of a baseball. Google search tells me that at the all-important core of a ball is top grade highly compressed cork. Then the first layer is compact quality rubber followed by another layer of rubber. Then comes a thick layer of yarn, two thin layers of yarn, a finishing layer of cotton, and finally a cowhide cover. When God rightfully became the Core of my priorities it all fell into place — the first “layer” being Mimi. Then came the kids, work, friends, hobbies, recreation, and all the rest.
The Blessedness of Being Second Place (and the Curse of being First)
No, not first or third place, but a solid second. The marriage itself (under God) stays in first place. (Children’s Night is a night when kids rule and has been as big a deal in our home as Date Night. This paragraph is not about that fun night when kids are number one. It’s about the curse parents lay upon kids by making them number one 24/7.) We call it the Queen/King Problem. Loving your child is paramount. But more is needed. From our book: When a [loved] child who is given no bounds is in addition revered almost above everything and everybody else [in the home], he/she will feel they are an entitled person — he/she [feeling] humiliated when not receiving entitlement at every level — being totally blind to the problem. Some never recover. The painful cure begins upon being blessed by something or someone blowing the cover.
Mom/Dad — The Unfailing Foundation
Our girls loved The Parent Trap. They watched the Disney 1960’s original (starring Maureen O’Hara) a hundred times, it seems. (Dennis Quaid starred in a 1998 remake and there are afoot Disney’s plans for another.) Why this devotion by children to the story of a separated couple whose twin daughters have resolved to fix the marriage (albeit the film is hilarious)? Nothing is more important to the heart of a kid than that mom and dad are locked tight! (Without going there, that one sentence is the tip of an iceberg — an iceberg that at core carries answers to hate, anger, injustice, riots, and all the rest.) I said above that this Number Seven is not for single parents. After I wrote that, I read a story that has proved me wrong. Another Maureen, born two decades after O’Hara, was never seen by her dad — a missionary who died in Japanese-occupied China weeks before the end of WWII. Maureen, now a grandmother, recently said this about her mom (Florence) and her dad (Eric): You know, I look at these [photos] and know how good the relationship was between them, how much each so obviously loved the other. Then Maureen smiles big, still blessed by the bond of her mom, Florence, and her dad, Eric Liddell, hero of the film Chariots of Fire.
