Hope

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” – Romans 12:12

He rose feebly from his elevating recliner and shuffled deliberately out the back door with the help of his walker, in spite of my insistence that my daughter and I could handle it. You don’t argue with your 91-year-old grandfather, however, especially one as headstrong as mine. While visiting my parents for a few days in the DFW area one summer, my oldest and I found a moment one afternoon to drive to my grandparents’ house and retrieve a lawnmower they no longer could use due, of course, to their age, and she and I were happy to load it ourselves into the van to transport it to my parents’ place a brief 5-minutes away; if not, that is, for his resolve first to teach me a thing or two.

As if my years of practical experience with this simple machine counted for naught, he scooted hastily out the back door and into the driveway, released his grip on the walker, grabbed the handlebar of the mower with his left hand, and with awkward elderly aggression repeatedly yanked the pullstring with his right in order to demonstrate for my benefit how to start the motor. I gave up on my insistence and resigned myself to the likelihood that my teenage daughter was about to suffer the indelible trauma of Papaw cranking a lawnmower and collapsing violently and fatally to the pavement from overexertion. To my surprise, it started, he survived, and I thanked him for the unnecessary lesson as he shuffled back inside.

I have little desire to live to 100, as many do. Maybe I’ll sing a different tune the closer it approaches, but from my vantage point on the timeline, old age is no picnic. We all think we want a long life, but what I suspect is what we actually want is to put off the reaper for as long as possible. Though we all have our beliefs about it, death is largely an unknown, and the unknown is a source of fear for us all, especially those of us with little faith. The Bard put it best: “But that the dread of something after death, the undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?”

In any event, my grandparents, now 93, find scant strength or energy to do much more than gingerly transition from one seat to another inside their modest home, and this very seldom. Trips outside of the house are rare, and for good reason. The world is built for a pace that often exhausts even me; how much more so for them, exceeding the capabilities of both their minds and bodies.

It would seem an accomplishment to have reached their age. The only fact as impressive might be the number of years they have been together: 75. Their marriage has nearly outlived the CDC’s researched average life expectancy of most Americans, which they plot at 78 years, give or take. A few months ago, they celebrated this milestone in their own quiet and understated way, satisfied with a fried chicken dinner with my parents, my wife and I, and our youngest. No gifts were requested or exchanged. There is nothing on God’s green earth nor among man’s manufactured creations they either want or need any longer other than a good meal and the company of family. They have both given and taken much of what one is able to of life and have exhausted their interest in the common wants and pursuits of younger men and women who have many years stretched ahead of them.

Our visit in celebration of their anniversary concluded on Saturday, and we left the following Sunday morning. My wife and I and our son began the 4-hour trek back to Houston, departing bright and early in order to pick up our daughters, who had spent the weekend at a church youth retreat. Timing ourselves to arrive at noon, we grabbed on the way out of town our son’s favorite sugar-saturated breakfast — donuts and chocolate milk — and were on our way.

Scarcely an hour into the drive, my wife’s phone rang. She answered familiarly, though I could only guess at who was on the other end. The comfortable greeting segued jarringly into an expressively ambiguous “What?!” as I wondered at both who might have died and who was thoughtful enough to share the tragic news. Instead, she turned to me and exclaimed with unabashed delight that our oldest was calling from church to tell us she was getting baptized that morning during the service. She had made a “confession of faith in Christ,” as we Baptists like to call it, and was performing her first act of obedience as a new Christian.

We all bear hopes for our children as they mature, some of them very specific and unique. For parents such as my wife and I, our Christian faith is an inseparable aspect of our identity, in no small part due to our parents’ influence, both of whom were ministers. The decision our oldest made that weekend remained at the top of our list of hopes for her and her siblings from day one, even more so as adoptive parents, considering we often feel as if we’re making up for lost time in their early upbringing. The relief, satisfaction, and joy of learning that they have independently embraced your faith, making it their own, cannot be understated. There are few decisions they will make in life that will have a greater impact on how they will choose both to see the world and to act upon it, a world that increasingly pushes faith to the margins or dismisses it altogether.

As ecstatic as we were to hear the news, we pled with her to wait until the following Sunday when we could attend along with her grandparents. Moreover, I asked her for the privilege of baptizing her myself, still technically a licensed minister, though I did not pursue it as a career as I once had planned. She gladly agreed, and we ended the call. Though the decision was her own, my wife and I in silence and welling tears took each other’s hand, a knowing gesture expressing a sense and gratitude that we are, after all, having an impact upon them.

Though the role of parenting never truly ends, Paul’s exhortation to his Roman readers centuries ago — “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” —seemed fitting for where we found ourselves up to the moment she shared the news. It’s an ideal verse for parenting in general, as it is for the life of faith. And as much as I could retrieve my college toolbox of rusty hermeneutical implements to plumb its meaning, I find ample clarity on the surface to see through to its depths.

“Be joyful in hope”

“Are you okay?”

I heard this question from my wife more times than I can count during the first year of our marriage. The fact is, I hail from a family whose emotions are generally subdued. We’d make great poker players, if only for our lack of facial ticks or cues (though I am told I have made a recent habit of talking to myself). Wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve, as the expression goes, is just as risky emotionally as it is physiologically for my ilk. Not so with her kin. As couples do, we learned a few things about one another once we were under the same roof, one of many about how we do/don’t express our feelings. My answer to her question was typically that I was fine, which was true, but after a month or so of this, it left me with the impression that one of the implications of our marital vows was that I turn cartwheels across the living room if I were even moderately pleased in the moment.

While I am generally “fine,” it might surprise those with whom I’m acquainted that if there is a yin and yang in every relationship, it is I who bears the honorific of “sourpuss.” I lean towards the negative end of the spectrum in our partnership, though, perhaps, not to the extreme. With only moderate influence, my confidence may be sapped and feelings tipped easily to the pavement by the difficulty of the moment, especially when it regards the frequent ups and downs in the lives of one’s children. My wife, by contrast, is characteristically optimistic and positive about life and all that it presents. It is one of her many attractive qualities as well as a reason, I would argue, I often hear another loaded string of words from her that instantly elevates my anxiety: “I have an idea.” Such ideas as hers, furthermore, tend not to be small in stature and carry the expectation that I find a way happily to get on board. They are big and bold, and this, I believe, because she is “joyful in hope,” as Paul wrote. She generally expects the best of wherever she focuses her efforts, and even if such expectations are dashed, she merely picks herself up and moves on to the next idea.

While we both agreed to it and believe (on most days) we were called to it, parenting by way of adoption was one of these big ideas. If I had thought the 1-2 years of training was hard, I was in for a shock once the kids were placed. “They have no idea what they’re getting into,” my mother expressed to my siblings, each already in the thick of parenting for several years. Prior to parenting, the endpoint of my various “hopes” often landed at the end of the week, month, or year; in other words, at a distant point in the future. The phrase, “take it a day at a time,” however, took on startlingly new meaning with kids. The object of my hopes shrunk temporally — Let’s see if we can make it to bedtime without incident. Currently, we are finding ourselves in the thick of the teen and preteen years.

I will admit, though, that I have felt little joy in hope, as Paul encourages, even in the smaller day-to-day portions. The fact that he does encourage it, however, indicates that we have a choice. How hard a choice it is to make. We hope especially for big change and progress in our kids, but it is often slow in coming, if or when it does.

When I lowered and raised our oldest in the cold water that morning at church, I felt a hope fulfilled. It was easy to find joy in that moment, and, not to mention, to wish that I had chosen to be joyful in my hope until then. My mother was recently asked what advice she would offer her younger self given the opportunity. “Don’t worry so much.” Likewise with hope and the attitude we choose towards it. As much a high it was in that moment with her in the baptistry, there would be a down just around the corner, to be certain. Such is life with children.

“Be joyful in hope,” Paul says. Choose joy as you wait, as he segues into the manner in which we should do so under unfavorable circumstances.

“[be] patient in affliction”

He coasted into the oncoming lane, thinking the maneuver would allow him to avoid the car that had drifted into his just ahead. The other driver drifted back, however, and then once more as each responded in kind. They collided at the last second, too late to correct.

The police report took longer to read than the event itself, which was a theory, at best, since no witnesses were present. The drifting driver was drunk, and he would languish in the hospital for another week, his life ending ironically on the day my grandparents and mother were to celebrate when my uncle’s began. His life, however, ended instantly that night on the road.

I would never have the privilege of knowing my mother’s brother, who exists for me only in various stories and a few photographs. I’ve thought it odd that he should survive the many deadly perils of the Vietnam war as a marine only to meet his end at the hands of a careless driver once home, and this not long after his return. The best years of his life should have been yet to come, but it was not to be.

My mother had anticipated upon his return a relationship as adults better than that they had shared as children, which was often strained. My grandparents had to endure the tragedy of burying their child, a fate no parent would wish upon themselves or others. For each of them, the grief of the loss became what felt much like a physical affliction, lingering and painful, deep into the marrow. There would be no closure.

The “affliction” my grandparents were forced to endure patiently following his death was not for a hope that he would return to life but the absence of an answer to the overwhelming sorrow they would feel in their remaining days, months, and years. They would live in the unexpected reality of an unshared life with their only son. How does one ever overcome such an affliction?

I can’t imagine how one could ever arrive at peace after such a devastating loss. What good is patience if my child will never return in this life? One either wallows in bitterness, or allows the years and one’s faith to reward patience instead with one’s grief. I am happy to say they opted for the latter, finding other joys in life while preserving in gratitude the memory of their son.

I still have my children, and, hence, hope for my patience with the “afflictions,” if you will, that they bring home. If my grandparents were able to move past a grief that threatened to drown them, surely I can find the patience to deal with the day-to-day.

“[be] faithful in prayer.”

My grandparents’ home was modest by today’s standards, but it sufficed, and it was a safe and comfortable place we enjoyed visiting during our childhood. We learned to love and cherish what we saw and experienced there. The backyard garden full of vegetables, my grandfather’s workshop walls lined with all manner of tools, a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies cooling on a sheet of wax paper in the kitchen — all became welcome and familiar sights as the years wore on. But it wasn’t only the daylight hours in their home that left an impression on me.

Rising in the middle of the night, a step or two was all it took to traverse from the guest bedroom for a quick trip to the bathroom. At the end of the short hallway was another bedroom, though used as such only when all three of us siblings were visiting. Without fail, if the time was right, I would catch a glimpse of our grandmother crouched on the floor, Bible spread in front of her, studying and praying. This, we learned, was her private routine each and every night. Well after midnight and into the earliest hours, she would rise from bed and take advantage of the stillness and silence to study and to pray for all those she cherished. I never learned how long she spent up in this posture before returning to bed, but what was certain is that she was faithful in this practice for all the times I spent in their home.

I wonder if this verse ever crossed my grandmother’s mind in the midst of her despair at losing her only son, a pain — an affliction — that would never fully be alleviated. There is no pill to swallow that would restore the loss. One learns to live with it and, in their case, lean on the words, even if it is a circumstance for which there will be no change. How one could chose to remain faithful in prayer rather than bitterness is beyond me, but she did, habitually rising for an intermission in slumber to pray.

I also wonder that the reason God has allowed her to live as long as she has is because he knows me and mine still require the faithful prayers of spiritual stalwarts such as her. God knows I allow myself far too many distractions to practice this discipline as well as her. Then again, it’s difficult to find many nowadays who do. I’m thankful, nonetheless, that I have one in my bloodline who has never failed to continue praying for me. I can only hope to live up to the example she has set.

Yes, hope. Seated behind each of these admonitions from Paul is, I believe hope. Without it, I have no motivation to be joyful, no cause to be patient with my troubles, no reason to pray faithfully. Hope is a foundational Christian virtue, and I find I need more than a heavy dose of it, especially with the bad news and negativity circling us daily in the world out there.

But it’s often more a choice rather than a feeling, especially for those of us not engaged in the conscious practice of choosing it. The more any attitude is chosen, the more readily it becomes our nature.

My grandmother had no hope of ever seeing her son again in this life after that fateful night. There was seemingly nothing left in which to hope for him and every reason to cease caring about a cruel and unfair world in which all your hopes, in her case for her child, evaporate in an instant. And yet, she somehow managed to continue to try and live out this verse day after day in the first and earliest hours of each and every day.

That, I realize, was because she learned not to center her hope in her child and his future but in the one to whom she was offering her prayer.

I admit to despairing from time to time over my inability to maintain good personal habits, in the behaviors my kids may or may not exhibit, or in the pitiful state of the world at large. But it occurs to me, considering my grandmother, that the reason may lie in the fact that my faith, my hope, may be misplaced. No wonder I remain disappointed.

My grandmother has never instructed me to rise in the middle of the night to pray. This has been her discipline, not mine. But, unbeknownst to her, I’ve observed it enough to admire it gratefully, not just in the knowledge that I have been and remain one of the subjects of her prayers, but in the example of unwavering hope such a secret practice she has unwittingly left as a legacy to me. It is joyful hope that prompts her to rise, patiently and selflessly sacrificing time that could be spent in sleep, faithfully offering her prayers. I’m not sure to this day she knew I was watching, but I was.

Would that I would learn to demonstrate hope through such steadfast discipline, and that my children, perhaps my grandchildren, would be left an example of hope that would likewise sustain them in the lives they have yet to lead.

Spring Broken

“The happiest place on earth” is one of the most brilliant marketing slogans ever created.

It’s also a lie, as most advertising is.

Before the devoted Mouseketeers among you take offense, let me explain.

If you’re willing to ask any parent who’s bought the slogan hook, line, and sinker, they would likely regale you with tales of bitter unhappiness in their ranks upon visiting one of the prohibitively expensive houses Walt built. My wife and I took a brief trip to the east coast version prior to parenthood and were witness to no shortage of tantrums and meltdowns. The kids in their charge were also challenging. In fact, they were the sole source of their parents’ grief. One indelible image burned into my memory took place at the Tomorrowland Speedway, where children have the opportunity to sit in the driver’s seat and practically demonstrate to mom and dad just how thoroughly unprepared they are to handle the family sedan. While my wife and I each waited in our designated spots for a repurposed riding mower with a paint job (I have no idea why we thought we wanted to do this in the first place), I was prevented from entering the vehicle due to a toddler with a death-grip on the steering wheel, mother’s arms wrapped tightly around his legs, awkwardly pulling him forcefully in the opposite direction, full-horizontal. Mom, of course, ultimately won this battle of wills, and I can only guess at what awaited him as they exited. My wife and I then hopped happily into our respective rides, pondering smugly how we would never tolerate such behavior in our own kids, if or when they arrived.

It had escaped my memory as I puttered along the guided track that my siblings and I had provided our own parents a decent share of frustration years before as children after they had saved scrupulously to bring us to this very magic, only to be met with timid reluctance to enjoy ourselves. The five of us were bunched together outside of the entrance to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, my mother wondering what the hold-up was. The noise and speed of the coaster as it roared past paralyzed the three of us. My mother would later tell us she grew up a fearful child, and, by God, she wasn’t about to allow that to transpire with her own. We were boarding the literal crazy train whether we liked it or not. My younger sister’s tear ducts began gushing with anxiety as our fate was decided, and so, we marched into the snaking line as if dead men walking. We sat down, we coasted, and my sister continued wailing (it never stopped) as we exited. Once she was able to quell her sobs sufficiently to form intelligible words, she shared our joint sentiments through tears now transformed: “I want [sniff] to [sniff] ride it again!” Mom’s dogged determination paid off, though it wouldn’t be the last time a carefully-planned family vacation was met with momentary misery.

The further along I move in parenting, the more I come to believe that kids will never meet all of our expectations, not even when it comes to the “fun” we plan for them. Likewise, we can be a source of disappointment as parents if we aren’t paying attention. I don’t know when exactly it occurs, but we forget at some point along the way what it’s like to be a kid in a world constructed and managed by adults. I tend to believe the best parents keep this truth at the forefront of interactions with their children, and, consequently, that such kids stand the best chance of adapting well to adulthood.

I often forget this truth as a parent, however, as I’m sure some of you would echo for yourselves. The stress of a given moment can bring out the worst in all of us, and sometimes our kids may be the closest target, though they may clearly have a part in the resulting strain on our nerves. Vacations are an excellent opportunity to test such scenarios, and ours are no exception.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, my wife is a planner and organizer to the nth degree. She’s assembled massive, complex spreadsheets and itineraries both for work and home that would make your head spin. Another talent I regrettably don’t share is her ability to summon an inexhaustible supply of ideas to serve as the content of said spreadsheets and itineraries.

This year’s idea for our annual spring break family vacation had us abandoning what was swiftly becoming a Disney tradition after three years. A couple of the kiddos wanted a change, so my wife went to work researching and preparing, settling on an experience they would never enjoy at the balmy sea-level climate of Gulf Coast Texas. And so, packing an additional large suitcase to carry winter apparel, we left the sunny, crowded beaches of Galveston behind for the white but equally crowded slopes of Beech Mountain, North Carolina.

For those unaware, as we were, Beech Mountain rises to an elevation of 5,506 feet above sea-level. The average high in March sounds more like the average low for what passes in Houston as winter: 47 degrees. Access to the resort involves weaving deliberately in and out of a seemingly endless series of hairpin turns that will challenge otherwise eager travelers prone to carsickness. My wife, a characteristically nervous passenger, chose to maneuver the airport rental herself due, no doubt, to the fact that I’ve carelessly rear-ended one too many strangers in the last six-years, and nobody needs that complication miles from home in a vehicle that doesn’t belong to you.

As we made the twisting ascent, the sun hid itself behind the accumulating clouds as the temperature plummeted in the space of less than an hour from a moderately comfortable 50 degrees down to a bone-chilling single-digit. Green gave way to white as snow collected in the passing surroundings. By the time we reached the summit resort village of Beech Mountain and stepped out of the van with the intention of paying in advance for the following day’s access to the slopes, the gusty, frigid wind hit our faces like a hammer. Seconds was all it took for the muscles to feel the icy pain of cheeks frozen in place. The trip up and then down the snow-covered stairs to the resort booth for tickets proved fruitless as we learned we would have to make our purchases the following day. My wife’s spirits gradually fell with the temperature, as did our youngest’s as they gingerly made their way back on the slick steps to the van in the frozen air. “I wish we had gone to Disney!” he lamented.

Once back in the van, the plan had been to make our way to the Walmart in the nearby town of Boone for a curbside order of basic provisions and to grab a bite for dinner before returning to the mountain and settling in to the Airbnb. The roads and weather precluded the likelihood of making it out of town, or back, for that matter, so we altered the plan and attempted what should have been a brief drive to the house to wait it out and simply get off the roads and into shelter. My wife relinquished the wheel and allowed me behind it this time as we set out.

The short distance to the house lasted twice as long on the steep, slick neighborhood inclines and declines. We unwittingly passed it by due to the absence of posted numbers and had to shift in reverse, precariously backing up until facing the driveway. Ascending it without snow/ice-treaded tires was out of the question, so the van would remain at the base of the driveway, just out of the way of passing vehicles.

My wife’s visible but unjustified regret over planning what was shaping up to be a miserable family vacation was about to get worse. As she and the kids attempted to gain footing up the driveway followed by two flights of stairs to the front door, I began grabbing seven pieces of luggage, one at a time, up the same ascent. I stepped inside to a warmer climate, thankful for an escape from the bitter cold outside. After a few passing minutes, one of us, I don’t recall who, observed that the lights didn’t seem to be working. In fact, nothing requiring electricity seemed to be functioning.

No power. Wonderful.

Now, here I must pause a moment to observe the state of attitudes among our party, which I have glossed-over until now. Needless to say, my sweet wife was on the verge of tears at this point. I was intensely stressed on her behalf but was doing my utmost to remain upbeat, but the strain of the effort was wearing my nerves thin. Our children were, for the most part, faring better, save one, who will remain nameless. This one, I regret to say, often has an irritating tendency to offer needless, sarcastic commentary during almost any circumstance, be it positive, negative, or otherwise neutral, merely, it would seem, for its own sake, or for the delight of simply being a drag. We’re really not sure after six years. In any event, there is a time when it’s tolerable, and there is a time when mom and dad’s patience can no longer bear it. This was one of those times.

After returning with another piece of luggage, I stepped across the threshold, but to my consternation, my feet found only a slippery surface on the wet linoleum. It took only a second as my legs flung clumsily into the open air, and like a circus clown, I fell flat on my behind with a “thud.” No laughter was heard from our brood. Cue, instead, yet another dry, sarcastic comment from said child about how amazing a vacation this was shaping up to be. As I regained my footing and rose to my height, my anger broke like a dam, having heard one too many such unhelpful comments over the last hour of the journey. Before I knew it, the brief but cutting words shot out of my mouth like a cannon, aimed squarely and unequivocally in our child’s direction.

And just like that, I had uttered bitter, divisive words to one of my children, words I’ve admonished the kids never themselves to say to anyone.

I’d like to say I immediately regretted it, but, we all know, this kind of anger doesn’t step aside easily, at least not immediately. I wanted to be angry. I nevertheless moved on to the next task, which was comforting my wife and then trying to solve the power problem. I stepped outside searching for a breaker/junction box but found no identifiable issue there. Unthinkingly neglecting to inform my wife of plan B and having left my phone in the house, I began walking up the street to neighboring residences, hoping to either acquire assistance or information. Again, the air was a brisk and breezy 9 degrees. Not until climbing to house number four did I encounter another “survivor,” who told me power was likely to return before the evening, in his experience. This didn’t fix the food problem, since we had no inclination to die driving off the edge of an icy mountain, but I did acquire his cell number to update me, or, I thought, to plead for rescue.

I made it back to the house, where I found my wife beside herself with worry. I had not, as I mentioned, shared with her where I was going, leaving only her imagination to toy with her as to why I had not returned from the base of the stairs or why I was not answering her literal calls into the woods surrounding. Wrapping my arms around her as she sobbed, afraid she had been left alone to face this debacle, I apologized, doing my best to reassure her. I don’t remember when, but not long after, the neighbor-stranger became a God-sent friend, and he graciously invited us via text to share the warmth of his fireplace along with a hot meal cooked with care on his gas stove, if we were so inclined. We gladly accepted, but did not make the climb until dad, anger subsided, chose to make amends.

Though my words were directed carelessly at one of our children, I realized I needed to apologize to each of them. I did so in turn, and it appeared to improve matters. We made our way to the home of our new friend in much better spirits. As he cooked and conversed with us, after no more than half an hour, the familiar electric hum of appliances was heard suddenly as light bulbs above burst back into bright existence. The day was saved, our bellies were full, and our temporary home, upon returning after a couple of hours, was now warm and inviting. We would all get a good-night’s sleep, only to have another adventure or two the following day. It would, at the end of it all, be a vacation to remember, with several more ups and downs we wouldn’t soon forget.

_______________

Parents, we know, are expected to exercise patience with their kids, but some kids, I’ve observed, appear to hold fast to the conviction that it is their sworn, conscious duty to test the limits of their overseers. We have just such a child, and the effort to remain calm but firm often feels impossibly Herculean, even for someone like myself who, prior to kids, was known for longsuffering with difficult people, notably in the professional realm. Library patrons, however, are not one’s children, though they clearly may act like them, to which I can attest.

There are many days I wake up nervous and uncertain of whether the Doctor Jekyll or Mister Hyde version of our child will rise to meet the day, ready either to challenge the world at large or to cooperate with it. More often than I care to admit, it’s often the former, at least with us at home. My wife and I have searched and prayed for an answer as to why one would actively work to antagonize those closest to you rather than seek peace and pursue it, but we have yet to find a reason, other than the lingering scars of an unstable, painful past, of which we, regrettably, had no part.

They say you have to love the child you have, as they are, and not the child you hope to have. This can be tough when it feels there is so, so much in them that needs to change. With adoption, there is no guarantee that you will make an impression, especially if you were absent from a child’s most formative early years, as we were with ours. It’s hard to know how to approach parenting under the circumstances when it often appears that nothing is effective in the way that it should be. Some kids are that eager for a fight. I’ve consequently lost count of the number of times I have felt like giving up, like we’re simply biding our time until graduation, when the house may return to us and a consistent peace will reign once again.

But we don’t give up, though I often am compelled to. And we’re not called to. I’m reminded of the words of Paul to the Romans, as he closes his letter: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Implied in these words is a truth about the life of faith, if not life in general. Behind the hope, patience, and faithfulness encouraged is an understanding that life will not be easy, no matter what’s before you. How much more so for those of us doing something we believe He’s called us to, even though we might feel we’re doing it all wrong or that there seems little evidence on a daily basis that He’s behind it?

Among those three, I struggle most with “joy.” It’s a chosen attitude, and I tend to allow the appearance of circumstances to drag me down, unlike my wife, who, to me, can find within her the capability to be endlessly positive — unless, that is, a spring break trip she has planned for the family is rapidly transforming into an episode of “Survivor.” We continue to plan them, nonetheless, which, I suppose, is good evidence that we aren’t giving up and continue to provide the kids with memories. Regardless of attitudes, struggles, or misfortune, or the appearance of little personal change among one’s charges, we press on, and we do best when joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

“Life is difficult.” That’s how M. Scott Peck opens his esteemed work The Road Less Traveled, and I love it, though I struggle, as we all do, to accept it. Truer words have never been spoken. We all want relief, ease, and convenience. You could make an argument that it’s the American way. But, no matter how many “just a touch of a button” solutions technology fashions for us, we’ll still have children to raise, as difficult as they may be, we’ll still lose our cool with them on occasion, and we’ll still have forgiveness to seek. God help each of us to choose joy, whether in the middle of family business at home or a spring break trip gone awry.