My Daughters Will Have Lint

Quick Update.

I have been feeling very well during the last three days that I’ve been back in the hospital. I’ve been able to walk everyday and have been blessed with several visitors.  My appetite is OK, although not quite normal still.  I started chemotherapy again on Tuesday evening, June 11.  I’m taking cytarabine, one of the same drugs that I had last time, but at a higher dosage.  No Red Dog this time.  Instead I get Blue Dog, or mitoxantrone.  Still no word on whether or not my brother, Joey, is a match to donate stem cells.  We expect to hear something next week. 

One of the most difficult things about being in here is the time spent away from my two young daughters, especially as Father’s Day approaches.  I love being a dad.  I have much to learn about fatherhood and time will tell if I’m any good or not, but I sure do love being a daddy to my sweet girls.

At the same time, this provides me a lot of motivation to do the things I need to get healthy so I can get home to them.  There is no greater influence in the lives of young girls than their father.  This is where they get their sense of self-worth.  It’s the dad’s responsibility to teach them about their identity in Christ – who they are in God’s eyes – and that their worth doesn’t come from outward beauty, performance, or anything other than simply who they are in the eyes of their earthly and Heavenly Fathers.  Emmy and Abrie need me home to teach them this and I intend to get there.  Here’s part of the reason that I feel so strongly about this:

Boy Scouts.

My childhood is filled with memories of being active in the Boy Scouts. It was my life from the age of ten until about sixteen, but I remained active in the program until I left for college. I spent much of my free time working on merit badges and studying the Boy Scout Handbook. I would literally cry if I had to miss a meeting.

I remember learning about how to start a fire. We learned different ways to arrange the wood to ensure that the fire would get enough oxygen. We also discovered the best materials to serve as a fire starter. One of those is lint. You know, the stuff that falls out of your of your pants pocket when you reach for your keys. Lint will catch fire quickly and create just enough of a flame to catch the kindling and other smaller pieces of wood on fire. Soon enough you’ll have a roaring blaze perfect for cooking S’mores or telling scary tales.

The problem with lint, however, is that you need a dryer from which to pull it. I grew up living with my mom after my parents divorced. We didn’t have much money and usually lived in apartments or mobile homes, often without a washer and dryer. So, to me, having a ready supply of lint was a foreign concept.  I remember spending the day with one of my Boy Scout buddies. His mom was washing clothes and, oddly enough, they had lint!  It was genuinely strange to me to be in this household where the parents were still married and they had things like a dryer. The mind of a young boy…

Not on my watch.

See, today I know that it wasn’t the lint with which I was so enamored. It wasn’t the washer or dryer. It was a stable family. It was the idea that parents could love each other and stay married. My parents divorced when I was about five years old. I remember them arguing often, both before and after their separation. Most of my parents’ friends or family members were also divorced. So my paradigm of family became a twisted model of what God intended. A broken home was the norm.  This isn’t an indictment against my parents.  I know they loved me, and I love them, and they did the best with what they had and the examples they had been given.

As I grew in my faith and became determined to be the man that God intends for me to be, I gained a better understanding of my childhood experiences and how they have shaped me. More importantly, I vow that the cycle stops with me. My daughters will never have to worry about whether or not their parents love each other. They will never have to cry when their dad leaves the house sobbing because one or both parents gave up on their marriage. They will never see a parent taken to jail. My daughters will never have to worry if Mom or Dad have enough money to pay the rent. I will teach them about life’s difficulties, but I will do so from a position of love, trust, and security. I will show them that I am committed to their mother forever, no matter what, and how a man should treat his bride.  For my daughters, families who love each other and love Jesus will be the norm, not the anomaly.  My daughters will have parents who love and are committed to each other.  My daughters will have lint.