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!"