Help!

I think everyone has heard the Indian Proverb from the older guy who has been married for ever and gets frustrated at times when his wife would unload on him and say, “Women, we can’t live with them and we can live without them!” (This is the sanitized version that doesn’t use damn.) I know that at times I can be the brain dead insensitive male that looks puzzled when my wife or one of my daughters is in tears and the world is quickly unraveling and despair seems to be reality. I usually end up being the calming agent that feebly attempts to bring sanity and peace into the situation.

Yet, I know that living and working with people that are in crisis 24/7 can impact my life and the life of my Anne. I know it is easy at times to be in denial about the hurt and brokenness that exists in my own life with my mom dying of cancer and my dad’s present situation with Dementia. I also understand that brokenness is present in all communities regardless of socio-economics and demographics.

We have had different people with us over the years to assist them in figuring out life and helping them get their feet on the ground. We had one of our Hispanic teens live with us in the late 80’s when we adopted our Julie and Jon. This was an amazing help and blessing to us as a family. Freddy was our kid’s superstar hero type and gave Anne and I the ability to adjust. We also had our sister in-law’s brother live with us during the same time. This was not as easy because he wasn’t as capable of fitting in our crazy family setting and Freddie loved to bug and harass him.

So as I talk about my present life choice to work with at-risk youth our experiences aren’t a whole lot different from what we did in the late 80’s. The opportunity is to see the bigger picture and be able to weather the storm of bad attitudes, talking back and lack of motivation to be different. Yes our house and some of the events we host can border on chaos but in the bigger scheme of things you can see a family coming out of our time together. I can remember getting into fights with my brother over the craziest things and looking back it was totally insane to let such petty things cause us to fight. Yet, I know that Mark will look back at his youth and say that I got everything given to me and he got in trouble all of the time.

I know that one of the key factors in having a healthy relationship is communication. I know that ever though I walk with my Anne and our herd at least once a day that I actually need to open my mouth and say something. It is too easy for the guy side of me, to want to stay in my man cave, and be in neutral. I should know at this phase in life that I have to open my mouth and engage my best friend and not make any assumptions about her spiritual or emotional health.

I might come across as if I’m capable of being an island or the lone ranger but truly don’t want to live in a vacuum where I’m it. I thrive on being around groups of people of all ages interacting and also love being with people on a one on one basis. I spent most of yesterday late afternoon with one of our new college interns. She grew up in Chicago and loves to work in an urban context with multi-racial kids. Yet, when I first saw her I was concerned that she wouldn’t fit and not have a clue about how to build relationships. As I’m asking probing questions I discover that she spent the summer in Detroit with a group very similar to us. She loves working with crazy teens in trouble.

As I listened to my Anne talk about her life circumstances in tears I responded also in tears in wanting her to sense God’s presence, power and mercy right then. I know that part of life is struggling together, working together and experiencing both victory and defeat. The focus really should be doing it together regardless of the outcome. I admitted that too often our goals are based upon performance and not grace. It is too easy to become your worse critic and think that life is horrible. Yet, as my mom would say often the cup isn’t half empty but half full.