Coping Strategy 4: Don't Get Mad, Get Your Camera

I open the door, step inside, and look up the 18 steps leading to our second floor. At odd angles and different positions, on almost every step, are shoes of various colors, shapes, and sizes--no two matching. The boys have been enjoying their favorite game! By the boys, I mean Shota and Ma-kun, both three and a half years old Down's kids. We have a gate at the top of the steep stairs to prevent them from tumbling down. So, they love to take the shoes arranged neatly in rows at the top of the second floor entrance and throw them through or under the bars of the gate as far down the stairs as possible. They've done a particularly outstanding job today. Instead of getting angry, I go for my camera. We've never had any children do this before!

Coping strategy four: Don't get angry, get your camera! How many times do we explode and obsess over an event but later laugh as we tell friends and family about the disaster that is now a treasured memory. I wish I had learned this when I first had children, not now, thirty-three years later!

When Jason was three and Matthew two, we were keeping a small boy, about one and a half, while he awaited moving to his adoptive family. All the ladies of the house left me and Chris, who was 17 at the time, to babysit. I got distracted doing something in my office area and assumed that Chris was watching the three boys. I suddenly realized I didn't hear anything. Silence is NOT golden in such circumstances.

I rushed into the living room and didn't see anyone. Then I heard joyful laughter in the corner of the kitchen. [For those of you who don't have children or it has been too long for you to remember, "joyful laughter" may or may NOT mean all is well.] Rounding the corner I found the source of all the "joy." Jason was holding a plastic honey bear over the heads of the other two boys squeezing the remaining honey over their heads. Matthew and Matti were gleefully slapping their hands in the honey on the floor. Their hair and most of their bodies were covered in the sticky, sweet fluid.

My first thought was not, "Where's my camera?" but rather, "Sarah's gonna kill me." My second thought was, "Where's Chris?" Then I heard him pounding on the metal door that blocked off our staircase from the first floor. It seems he had stepped out for a moment and Jason had locked the door behind him. Because I was in my study, I couldn't hear his pounding on the metal door.

Unfortunately, in our panic and fear of the women returning, Chris and I cleaned up the boys and the

kitchen before we thought about taking a picture. Gone forever is that prize winning photograph. So next time, before your anger deletes the scene, make a memory!

"No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it." (I Cor. 10:13, The Message)

COPING STRATEGY 3: Let God Define Normal

“… being normal isn't necessarily a virtue. It rather denotes a lack of courage.”

“Dad, are we normal?” Jason asked me a few months back.

“No, Jason. We’re not normal in America or Japan. Normal people don’t have ten children and live in a foreign country.”

These days, I could add a lot more reasons to that answer. For instance, January 3, 2010, the first Sunday of the year, Sarah and Micah stayed home with one or two sick babies and they kept a few more so the rest of the family could go to church without too much strain. We just happened to have friends visiting from Australia who were coming to lunch after church. Sarah and Micah thought they would also have a little extra time to prepare the meal.

A few minutes into my New Year’s message, I saw Elizabeth jump up in a panic and run out the front door. Ericah ran out the side door. It was only after the rest of us arrived home we learned what happened. The following story is as accurate as I can piece it together.

Micah was kneeling on the floor changing one of the babies who had deposited a massive BM in his diaper. Ma-kun crawled over, grabbed a handful of the solid waste, and started sampling and redistributing the dark matter. Sarah picked him up and headed for the shower. In the mean time, Shota, who loves popcorn, started stuffing his mouth as fast as he could. Choking on the kernels, he began throwing up beside Micah and the baby. Micah, in her not so delicate way, yelled for her mother. Sarah came flying out of the bath area, tripped on something [she still doesn’t remember what happened] and landed face down in the living room. That’s when Micah called the church and franticly requested immediate backup.

Sometimes my life is so far beyond what I see in others, beyond how I grew up, and even beyond what it was a year ago, I almost scream, “Lord, I just want to be normal.” But, immediately, I know the problem with that cry: “Who defines what is normal?” When Paul wrote the Corinthians, “Let all things be done decently and in order” he was not giving us license to define what is “decent” and what is “in order.” We have used that verse in every generation to define what is acceptable in a meeting and even what is an acceptable way to preach and teach. I am convinced that only the Holy Spirit can accurately define what is “decent and in order” in any and all situations. AND, only HE knows what is “normal” for “me” at any given point in time. You can relieve a lot of stress by letting HIM determine what is normal.

In my Oral Communication class at the university I asked a young girl on my left, “Are you a normal Japanese girl?” “Yes,” came the immediate reply. I turned to a young girl on my right and asked the same question. “Of course,” she said confidently. The student to my left, who had very limited English skills, was wearing black and gray clothes, no make-up, and black-rimmed glasses. The girl to my right had short cropped hair which she dyed a different color every week, played drums in a punk rock band on weekends, and spoke very fluent English. Looking at one and then the other, I asked, “How can both of you be normal?” I couldn’t shake them. Each was convinced she was the typical Japanese girl. It is very important here to be considered “normal.” The Japanese proverb says, “The nail that stands up gets hammered down.”

“To be normal is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful.” Carl Jung

Photo: Jason say, "Man with 3 hands play mean drums!"

Coping Strategy 2: Giveing Tangible Thanks

COPING STRATEGY 2: Giving Tangible Thanks

Rushing out the door with a cup of coffee you spill precious ounces of caffeine down the stairs and onto your pants. You step in dog pooh the kids didn't clean up from the darling beagle you never wanted but they all swore they would take care of if you'd only buy her. Sitting your cup on the dash you look up from starting the car to see that the birds your wife so dearly appreciates for raising their young every summer in your garage have anointed your windshield with their excreted offerings. Your pants are stained, the car smells like doggie do, you can't see out the windshield, and you are late again for class.

The scriptures tell us to give thanks "in" every situation and "for" every situation and do it with a grateful heart. We can always give thanks that Jesus died for our sins, our sins are forgiven, we have entered into eternal life from the moment we are born again, we have abundant life, etc. and I could go on and on. However, those benefits and blessings don't seem very real when you are exhausted, constantly not doing what you want to do because of the demands of others, and animals (both domesticated and wild) seem to have joined a conspiracy to get you. So, how do I give thanks and how does this spiritual imperative change my attitude in the here and now?

Babies crying, siblings at war, bills to pay, unsatisfied mates, and unrepentant creatures are all way too real. So, make your thanks real, tangible. I really like this word, "tangible." It means "able to be touched or perceived through the sense of touch; capable of being understood and evaluated, and therefore regarded as real." Too often the spiritual blessings noted in paragraph two, are not really "capable of being understood" at a visceral level and therefore don't always relieve stress when I give thanks for them. When you are at the survival level, you don't philosophize very well. When your stress inducers are all too tangible, start your thanks at that level!

My "tangible thanks" include:

"Thank you Lord, I don't come home to an empty house."

"Thank you Lord, I have a car that's paid for. It may not be a Ferrari but it works and it's mine."

"Thank you Lord, I have food and I don't have to worry about breakfast tomorrow morning."

"Thank You people care enough about my ability or wisdom or approval to interrupt me--again and again and again..."

"After reading Spurgeon's Eccentric Preachers, I thank you Lord I was born in 1952 and not 1852!"

"Lord, thank you for opening my eyes to see that I am truly blessed with REAL, Tangible people and things!"

The picture shows our Ai No Kesshin/Loving Decision Office (our dinner table). Sarah, Lew, & Ako are working frantically to get a finance report ready for the Shizuoka City Hall.

Coping Strategy 1: Seeing One-At-A-Time

The noise is almost deafening at times. The activity on the floor is constant and doesn’t end until almost midnight then starts again by eight. Two new borns adapting to life without the touch and voice of the mother they experienced inside the womb. Te-chan is on life support. Eight children in foster care, five of them Down’s. Overwhelming is not an adequate word. None of my former coping skills are adequate for this situation. Paul said, “…momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen…” (2 Cor. 4:17-18) But, with Hitomu drooling on me as he tries to crawl up my leg while I am feeding Rin in her high chair and Shota screaming because Ma-kun pushed him over, it is almost impossible to see the unseen. How do I handle the “seen” when it’s in constant, demanding motion?

“See” each as an individual. No one spontaneously breaks into dance like Shota. Tomoki is alive to each and every experience and gives unrestrained vent to any and all emotions. When Ma-kun jumps from the coffee table into your arms, he throws his head back, looks heavenward, and leaps without ever doubting someone will catch him. And, Rin…while she is wary of strangers, delights in the appearance of “daddy.” Last night as she sat on my lap facing me, I interrupted one of her favorite activities, bouncing her head off my stomach, when I broke into song. She stared, almost blank faced, as I sang an old scripture song to her. When I finished, without changing her blank stare, she started clapping. That was priceless.

When I told Elizabeth I was learning to look at the individual instead of the group, she commented, “God doesn’t look at YOU as a group! He looks at you as one person.” Jesus said, “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto ONE of the LEAST of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” I’m learning to do it unto ONE at a time and see ONE at a time. Now, if I can just teach the babies to scream, need a diaper change, and get a bottle one-at-a-time.

The picture above shows 7 of our foster care babies on the sofa.

It is now 1:55 A.M. July 6, 2010. I am very tired. Nearing the end of the most difficult 12 months of my entire 58 years. I'm still alive, still married, still sane [relatively], and still walking with God. It is amazing what humans can handle. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." The problem is, "I don't want to do all the things Christ strengthens me to do." It is not a question of Christ's sufficiency, it is a matter of my "will." Christ is not limited. His resources are available. The choice is mine. Will I "choose" to accept "His strength provided?" If you read this, let me hear from you.