Wednesday, September 26, 2007

the latest big thing in the Holmes' household

My two oldest daughters have always shared a room. They are only a year and a half apart. And, since we have not lived in very big houses - having them share a room has always made the best sense. All that changed on Monday.

We have have begun a new chapter in our household. In the lives of my daughters, this is a REALLY BIG DEAL. They now each have their own room.

It is becoming quite evident that my girls are very different from each other. With each year that passes their interests are seeming to get more and more divergent. It's almost like they are they are totally different people. It's strange. And while I genuinely think they love each other - they don't always want to be in the same room with each other. So - recently they began lobbying hard for their own space.

I was the toughest sell on the idea, for two reasons. Reason 1 - I tend to think it's healthy for them to have to work things out and be forced to live together. Good life training - know what I mean? But, then again, I never had to share a room with anybody when I was growing up. So what do I know? Reason 2 -while I know it's selfish, I didn't want to give up our guest room/home office space. Now our home office stuff has to be put somewhere else in the house - making our house feel even more smallish.

Oh well - we'll live.

In the end I was convinced that making the move was a good idea. Now, two days after the move I am even more convinced. Their personalities are blossoming - even in how they choose to decorate their space.

My prayer is that they won't grow apart from each other and become distant. I hope this will help them get along if they are not in each other's face all time. If we see them becoming more and more distant from each other, we may have to make yet another change. We'll see.

Boy, this parenting thing is tough. We are told in Proverbs to train up our children in the way they should go. Too bad there is not a one size fits all approach that works for every child and every family as to how to go about doing that. It's clear that "the way a child should go" is more than just moral standards. "The way a child should go" has a lot to do with the way a child is wired by their creator. Within the constraints of clear moral behavior there are a lot of different paths to choose - a lot of different personalities, a lot of different interests. One of the roles of a parent is to help that child navigate and find the best possible path for them - the path of greatest kingdom impact - that path that will best use the strengths and talents and gifts that their creator has given them.

And, to do all that while trying to maintain a relatively peaceful household.

I'll say it again - this parenting thing is really tough. It takes an incredible amount of discernment, and agility, and emotional flexibility, and humility, and strength, and communication, and love, and patience. and... Any author or speaker who boils good parenting down to a handful of steps is lying to himself and doing a disservice to his audience.

I realize that in the grand scheme of things, deciding to give the girls their own room is a relatively small decision. There have been much bigger decisions we have faced - and I know there are much, much, much bigger decisions we will make in the future. But, this week, the room thing is the decision at hand.

A year ago I would have said, "Abby and Emma will share a room until they go to college". And I could have clearly explained why. But, I am learning that sometimes it is not healthy to "stick to your guns". Sometimes it is better to take a dynamic approach to parenting that requires a reassessment at each new season. Sometimes what is required is humility, and flexibility, and maybe even a change of course.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

big fear #3


Here to round out my top three fears in my phobia theme.

The fear of failure.

This one is the hardest for me to write about. There are very few areas of my life that are not touched by this fear. The fear of failure has gone a long way in shaping who I am - I am sorry to say.

I loved sports growing up. But, by the time I was a senior in high school, I didn’t go out for any sport. Why? - because, while I was a pretty good athlete as a 13 year old, I was a mediocre athlete as a 17 year old. And, because when you are a senior there is no JV to fall back on. You either make varsity or you get cut. There was a very real chance I would get cut as a senior. So what did I do? I quit before I gave the coaches a chance. Not one of my prouder moments.

What’s even more embarrassing is how often this fear of failure pops up in my relationship with God. And I should know better. Christianity is so wonderful precisely because it is not a merit based system where success and failure are determined by our behavior. My standing before God; my acceptance in his family; my eternal security… has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with the righteousness of another. Our obedience – our Christian life is not to be some lame attempt to avoid failure in something we could have never been successful at in the first place. Jesus has purchased our success. Our victory and our hope are in him – and him alone. We need never fear that we might lose God’s favor or his love toward those who are in Christ. That’s what I preach at least; that’s what I tell others when they come into my office for counseling; that’s what I believe – really and truly.

But, believing that and remembering it day by day are two very different things. Grace seems so foreign to me at times – so contrary to my nature. I keep having to tell myself that grace is true. But… it just seems too good to be true.

In my weaker moments I tend to imagine God shaking his head toward me, “What a disappointment you are, Greg. You had such potential – I had such high hopes in you. You were going to do such great things for the Kingdom. Look at you. You are a failure.”

I wonder how much of my obedience, how much of my ministry is prompted not out of love and gratitude for the one who loved me first – but out of fear that I might actually hear those words from God.

It’s kind of sad isn’t it? Living in fear that the God of the universe who loves me so much that he would give his only son in my behalf, would get fed up with me because I didn’t have a quiet-time today. It doesn’t make much sense does it?

I realize how silly it is. But, it’s hard to teach a stubborn soul new grace. God is still working on me. I still have a long way to go.

There is one who wants me to feel like a failure. But, it isn’t God.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

New and Improved

I have tried to freshen up the look of my blog. I hope you like it.

I have added something new. If you scroll down the sidebar you will see a "currently reading" and "recently read" list of books. If you would like to add your two bits about any of those books - I welcome your comments. Some of those books are not necessarily books I would recommend (for one reason or another), but I always think that knowing what people are reading helps in getting to know them.

If you have any books that you highly recommend, I would love to hear about them.

I also hope that by giving a list of "currently reading" books I will feel that much more pressure to actually finish them. I have this problem, see. I love books, but I tend to think that most books are too long. This is especially true for books that would fall under the "Christian Living" title at the Christian book store. I can usually enthusiastically get through the first half of a book in a day or two - but then it takes me months to finish. I tend to think that most non-fiction books could pretty well end by chapter 5 or 6 and save everybody a lot of time. So, I start a book - get tired of it and then start another. Hopefully I can move some of those books into the "recently read" column soon.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Espresso saga

A couple of weeks ago our espresso machine died. I don't know what's wrong with it. And I am not the most mechanical of men - not really one to take a something apart and fix it. So, I am not quite sure how to find out the problem. I cleaned it real good. Descaled it and all. But, alas... nothing. I talked to the tech people over the phone and they told me it was out of warranty. Of course. They were not much help. They told me it could be this one thing... but, then again it might not. And, the part that might fix the machine is on back order for a few weeks. Lovely.

I know that the responsible thing for me to do is to wait patiently for the part to come in and see if it does the job. That would the reasonable thing to do. What I have actually been doing is waiting rather impatiently and searching the Internet to find a good deal on a better espresso machine... an upgrade. Nothing so far. The machine I had was already pretty nice. An upgrade would cost lots of $. I can't really justify it. We only do a couple of espressos per day.

So, I am trying something new - a stove top espresso maker. I picked one up at a discount store last night. It was super cheap - not much of a loss if it turns out to be a dud. I have always been a bit leery about stove top espresso makers. I am a bit fuzzy on the physics of the whole thing. (But, in all honesty, it doesn't take much to make me fuzzy about the physics of anything.)

And, I read somewhere that stove top espresso machines are what real Italians use in thier homes. I have always wanted to be like a real Italian.

We tried it out this afternoon. Not bad. Not bad. It would probably be more accurate to call it really, really strong coffee instead of espresso since there is no crema on the top (that dense foam on the top of properly extracted espresso). But the flavor was good. I think it should make good "iced Americanos" (which is our favorite summertime drink).

So, I think we may have found a substitute until our machine gets fixed.

It's a good day.

I once was blind - part 2

Well, it's been exactly one week since my fancy schmancy laser eye surgery. So far, so good. I went back to the doctor this morning and I am seeing most of the letters on the 20/20 line and a few letters on the 20/15 line. It's incredible. I keep having to remind myself that I am not looking through glasses or contacts - these are my real eyes.

I have been singing a lot of "I can see clearly now the rain is gone... I can see all obstacles in my way..." You know that song? - the "bright, bright, sunshiny day" song? My children think it is quite embarrassing.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

burning eyeball

Ok - now I'm feeling a bit of guilt. On my last post I talked about how during my laser eye surgery I could smell my eye burning. Well, I went back to the doctor this morning for my post-op check and I mentioned how disconcerting it was to smell the burning tissue. She chuckled and said everyone thinks that smell is their eye burning - but it's not. It's actually burning ozone. What does that mean?

I like my story better.

I think I am going to stick to my version. Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

I once was blind

I am writing from vacation. I had my big laser surgery this morning. It has been quite a couple of days.

Yesterday I went down for my pre-op exam for the doctors to determine just what needed to be done with my eyes. They told me to prepare myself for 2 hours of tests. They were looking at me for over 4 hours. I was seen by a technician and 3 doctors. Evidently I have really, really bad eyes. The quote of the day came from the technician who was getting a preliminary reading on my prescription. A machine would look into my eye and get a ballpark estimate of what my prescription would be. Once the machine was done and then indicated to the technician what my prescription was - her only response was, "wow" - quote of the day. I am not sure what these numbers mean, but the doctors tell me that I am at a negative 10 in one eye and a negative 13 in the other. People who know what those numbers mean all tell me the same thing, "wow, that's really bad."

My eyes are so bad in fact that they are almost too bad for laser surgery - I found out yesterday. With the amount of fixing that my eyes require combined with what the doctor called "a cornea that is a bit flatter than I would like", there is the outside chance that I will forever have a bit of a glow around light and edges - especially at night. He told me that he could get my vision down to where I could see the letters (in the 20/20 range) but that the edges might not be as "crisp" as you would like. I told him that my eyes have been so bad my whole life - I have never seen "crisp". I am a bit unsure as to what "crisp" actually looks like. We went ahead with the surgery.

I know several people that have had this surgery. They all tell me it is quick and painless - piece of cake - nothin' at all. Maybe I am just wimpy - or maybe there was a little more involved with my eyes than most, I don't know. But, when I left I said, "well, it wasn't too bad - but it sure wasn't nothin." After the flap is cut and peeled back and the then the laser starts working on the inside of the eye - making the corrections - it evidently takes about 30 seconds or so (for most people for the laser to the do the job). Mine took well over a minute for each eye. And there was a pretty strong burning smell. And that burning was... you guessed it - burning eyeball. It is a rather disconcerting smell actually. All the while the doctor is holding your head and saying, "don't move, don't move, don't move..."

After the surgery the doctor was very pleased with how it went. I could already tell, just minutes after the surgery that I was seeing sooo much better. He gave me a sleeping pill and then sent me home to take a nap. My vision is supposed to get better and better with each day over the coming days and weeks. I am already impressed that even today - just 7 hours after the surgery, I can see well enough to write this blog post without glasses or anything.

This is amazing.