Category: Uncategorized

It’s hockey season again.  That one time every year where I’ll inevitably get asked “So are you guys gonna keep trying for a boy!?”.  As father of 3 girls, and avid hockey fan, it seems like an obvious choice.

Nevertheless, nope.  3 Girls is a great number, and they do a pretty good job of reflecting me on the scale of a toddler.  A couple nights ago, in our small group, we talked about our children picking up things from us.  Sometimes we don’t realize just how much they’re paying attention, until we’re blindsided by seeing ourselves in something they do or say.  It’s inevitably going to happen, because they’re developing and growing daily, and spending time in our presence.  Learning to value what we value.  Learning to say what we say.  Learning to respond to life in the same ways we respond to life.  Learning to spend time doing what they see us doing.

So even though I don’t anticipate having a child to teach how to pee standing up, I do recognize my daughters are constantly seeing how I live my life, and how our family/home is ordered.  They’re learning what to value, and how to communicate that value.

It seems like God recognizes that about us as well, and invites us into His presence.  Jesus was called “Immanuel, which means ‘God with us’. ”  He spends time with us, knowing that without that – it’s hard for us to reflect Him into a world that is thirsty for God’s image.  He knows, because he’s created in a similar way.   He shares with us in John 5:19,

“Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

I want to spend time in God’s presence, believing that even when I can’t see him magically answering all the prayers I bring to Him, merely the act of spending time with Him can influence/transform my ability to reflect His image into creation/my home.  Whew…that’s a long sentence.  Really just a long way of saying, the more time I spend in God’s presence, the more prepared/resourced I am to carry God’s image into creation.  The more I’m able to do that, the greater our ability for our home to be a place our children learn to carry that same image.

Heck…it seems to work well with hockey so far…:)  Game On.

Every once in a while I do something right.  As Principal and janitor for our homeschool, it’s not often I’m able to do a whole lot.

When I do, I want to brag about it.  Or at least, say that it was pretty fun.  It also did more good for my wife/family and myself personally than I realized it might.

Last Wednesday was “See You At the Pole”, which as a youth pastor means “a very full day”, ending in a worship rally with many different youth groups attending.  I hadn’t seen my family since Tuesday evening as I drove home Wednesday night.  I also knew Saturday was an all day event at our church, involving quizzing/talent competitions, and taking me out of the home.  All of this on top of knowing my wife was being hit hard by a cold/sinus thing.  So on that drive home Wednesday night, I decided it was time Mrs. Anderson got a day off.

I realize many men can’t simply “switch days off” so that a day like this doesn’t count against vacation.  But for those who can, let me say – this is a very good thing to work out.  At first, I was intimidated.  I know my wife spends a lot of time pouring over lesson plans, and making sure to hit every subject needed throughout the week.

Then I remembered the substitute teachers I had in school.  🙂

So I ended up taking our girls to the local children’s museum, where we worked on our “ABC’s” .  For Art, we painted on a giant glass wall, talking about Noah and the Ark.  For Bubbles, we played with giant bubble wands, talking about air and the reflections of light…but mostly just getting dads hair wet trying to make a bubble on him.  For Climbing, we climbed all the way to the top of the middle climbing…structure thing.  I made sure to take a potty break before that, thankfully, remembering being at the top of a giant climbing structure usually makes one have to pee.

We closed our morning together with running a couple errands, and some McDonalds out, coming home just in time to nap.

It was a great day of exploring with my girls, incredibly valuable “daddy/daughter” time, and Mrs. Anderson got a sick day.  I’m sure she would have rather had a day off when she felt great, so perhaps we’ll have to work on a “teacher in-service” day of some sort.  To any spouse of a primary homeschool parent, I definitely recommend this, if you can make it work.  It’s a great reminder of what our spouse goes through daily, and gives them a much needed break.  Time invested with our children is always worth more than it costs.

As I visited with a young man who was in jail this week, his eyes teared up as he said, “People are writing me, and telling me God loves  me.  They say what I know, that he’ll forgive me.  But my question is…what do I have to do???”

My heart was on fire.  I didn’t expect these words, and if I’d watched that scene play out in a movie, I would have groaned “yeah, cause that would really happen.”  But it did.  There I was, door swung wide open for a moment, involved in God reaching out in Love to a son.

Afterward, I began to wonder when exactly we begin to think like this.  An “economic” view of forgiveness.  My children don’t seem to have it yet.  Our 4 year old messes up, whether in something small like pulling her sisters hair, or something larger like willful disobedience in a dangerous environment. (not following instruction in a parking lot)  Maybe even breaking something that mommy or daddy care about.  When the tears of the moment have subsided, there’s usually a moment where she says, “I’m sorry, daddy”.  I can’t stay upset or frustrated (for long), and I pull her close, saying “I forgive you.”

She’s never once (so far) come back to me and said, “Really dad?  Are you sure you forgive me?  Isn’t there something I can do to help release me from my indebtedness to you?”  Daddy said she was forgiven, and after a hug she runs back to join her sisters in playing.  She is free.

We were all like that once.

But at some point, or points, we experienced relationships where offense and forgiveness took on the economic structures of this world.  We offended someone who used us to their advantage.  We wronged someone, and they reminded us long after words of forgiveness were spoken.   Scales become tilted one direction or the other, and we’re used to the rational process of adding more weight to one side, in order to balance things out.

So when someone tells us that we are forgiven…completely.  That this forgiveness comes no matter which of the 10 commandments we’ve neglected, and it comes without any merit of our own.  This can be hard for us to grasp.  Because we’ve unlearned what used to seem so natural.  Forgiveness occurs, not in simply balancing the scales and making us “make sense” in God’s sight.  In His mercy and Love, God throws out our scales, and simply says “love and follow me”.  He calls us His children, and dies for us, even when we were at our worst.

We only had 15 minutes to chat that day total, and several had already ticked off the clock.  But I believe God is making a New Creation in him, and I look forward to more conversation and prayer.  May we each be reminded by our children, of how natural it is to “accept forgiveness” as a child.  God has called us forgiven and free…let’s live that way…:)