When did the wicked stepsisters become known instead as the ugly stepsisters? It took me a long time to sort it out in my brain, because I distinctly remember reading them designated as wicked in the stories, but growing up you only ever hear about them being ugly. Now, I suppose one could argue that perhaps the term ugly could also be applied to their behavior, but their animated portrayal in the movie supports the adjective being applied to their physical appearance. They’re not very nice, of course, but their ugliness puts off everyone they meet, and it’s their most defining characteristic.

I think I prefer the stepsister in Ever After. At least she was a wicked – and pretty – portrayal.

I vote we go back to the wicked stepsisters. Judge these sisters by their actions and their behavior, not by their faces. Thanks a lot, Disney, for creating a link in our young daughters’ minds between beauty and goodness.

(And I just realized that’s the stupidest, most painfully obvious conclusion ever. Almost all of their movies portray this – the exceptions being the ones that star animals.)

So maybe this wasn’t such a mini-rant after all, or such a groundshaking discovery. But it is something of a wake-up call for me, and in that, it has great value.

My PSA of the day: Parents, do not ignore snoring in your kids. Snoring is not normal for children and can be a symptom of a nighttime breathing problem. Lou has been waking frequently of late, crying, restless, impossible to soothe. I hate feeling helpless when my child obviously needs something, but I don’t know how to comfort her or help. I’m the mommy! At the very least, my presence and my love should be comforting! Last night I spent the better part of the night next to her in her bed, and I noticed a pattern. She would snore heavily and erratically, then she would stop breathing for about five seconds, take a shallow breath, stop breathing again, then awake spluttering and choking, shift positions and go back to sleep. And begin the cycle all over again. SLEEP APNEA!

I’d never heard of this in children. I knew it could be a problem in overweight adults or those with allergy problems, but a kid? Lou also has mild asthma to which I always attributed any breathing problems, but in the moments when she would fully wake, her breathing was smooth and her lungs clear. It wasn’t her asthma.

So at 1:53am this morning I’m sitting on the laptop, eating a muffin and reading up on sleep apnea. I wanted to see if there were any positioning tips to help, like sleeping in a chair or with a wedge. Nope. For true OSAS (obstructive sleep apnea syndrome), the two options are CPAP or surgery. CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) is a facemask strapped to your head and hooked up to a machine, that forces air past the obstruction so you can breathe and sleep. It is worn every night. Surgery is done to remove the obstructions, usually tonsils, adenoids, and/or excess nasal tissue.

I’m pretty sure Lou has true OSAS. One has to only hear her try to sleep to know it. In fact, I think I’m going to make a recording of her sleeping to play for the pediatrician, and maybe we can skip the sleep lab. As much fun as a nightly machine wouldn’t be, since most kids outgrow OSAS, I’m thinking I’d prefer it to surgery.

And now, on to the rant.

I went back to bed, but couldn’t sleep. I knew I needed to call the pediatrician in the morning, and I was dreading the confrontation. See, my kids haven’t seen the doc since January, when we took them in to get their general health checkups for our hoped adoption. We had a huge falling-out with our beloved pediatrician, Dr. B, when he got very angry and not-so-subtly called us irresponsible parents for our choice to delay vaccinations for our children and then only selectively vaccinate them (I’m not discussing our reasons in this post). He then subsequently refused to sign their forms stating they were in good health. We left, with E grinding his teeth and me crying and carrying unsigned forms. (See, I’d mistakenly assumed that the doc would disagree with us but recognize the limit of the professional relationship.) E then spent hours on the phone with almost everyone in the department, arguing the definition of healthy as being “free from disease” instead of fully vaccinated and not currently sick. He had the nurse send an email to every pedi in the practice (about 30 of them) to see if any of them would be willing to sign the forms. One, count ‘em, ONE doc was willing.

We got the forms signed, but the doc wasn’t one I’d like to be their regular doc. So today I must get Lou an appointment with a new doctor and interview him to see if he will be a good fit for our regular family pediatrician.

What do I want? I don’t think I’m asking all that much, to be honest. I want him to fulfill his role as a professional who gives me medical advice for my children, then ultimately lets me make the choice as the parent. I go to him for advice because he knows medicine better than I do, but I am the parent, I make the choice whether or not to follow the advice given. And I’m well aware that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends fully vaccinating your child according to their schedule, but they’re recommending it, and that does not translate into coercion in my book. Ironically, the AAP also currently recommends breastfeeding your child at least until age 1 (a slim percentage of moms do), but I don’t see them forcing that on mothers. They also recommend no TV until the child is 2, but how many moms do that? Can you imagine the uproar if a pediatrician refused to be your family doc if you didn’t follow all of his advice to the letter? Can you imagine the uproar if pediatricians guilted and coerced and insulted those mothers who didn’t breastfeed until their child was 12 months? If they called Child Protective Services because your 18-month-old watched Sesame Street?

I think if you’re going to recommend full vaccination and recommend breastfeeding to age 2, you should heavily encourage them and educate parents on the pros and cons, but ultimately respect the parent’s right to choose for their child. Both have documented health benefits but both require risk or sacrifice that the parent must evaluate. Anything more than encouragement and education is overstepping the bounds of the professional relationship between doctor and patient.

“If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Matthew 18:15-17

My mom has hardened her heart. For her entire Christian life, minus the last year, she has believed that divorce is wrong. But a year ago, she divorced my dad, because she decided that God would rather have her be happy, and “divorce isn’t really a sin anyway, it’s all about how you interpret the Bible!” Within six months she’d found and married a new, “more godly” man (his fourth marriage, but who’s counting?). In this time, I gently and kindly confronted her with scripture and love, then went to her with her best friend and her sister, then with an elder and his wife from our church. She repeatedly blew all of us off. Finally, she baldly told me she wanted her new man more than she wanted her relationship with me and my family. To this I responded with intense sadness that our relationship would have to change as a result of her choices.

Now, six months after this admission of priorities, she’s trying to woo me. I say “woo” because that’s what it feels like. She’s constantly calling, emailing, instant messaging. Calling me Dear or Sweetie or Honey. Asking how we’re doing, if I want to get together, can she pray for me, how about she come watch the kids so E and I can have a date. Emailing me little Christian anecdotes or devotionals. Treating me the way we’ve always related, up to a year or so ago.

I know she thinks that enough time has passed for me to have “cooled off” and “grown accustomed” to her being remarried. But this is not something time alone will heal. I am faced with having to define our relationship to her, which means I must finally commit myself to some firm guidelines of what it looks like to “let [her] be to [me] as a Gentile or a tax collector.”

For as bright as I like to think I am, I sometimes forget that one does not know everything at the age of 25, even if I do have more kids than most of the moms in my church. I forget that sometimes the Bible is illuminated by experience, and then I get a flash of, “Ohhhhhhh!”

Luke 14: 26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”

I’m coming upon the one-year anniversary of this verse’s illumination in my life. December 2006, over Christmas dinner at my aunt’s house, my three-months-divorced mother shyly said to me, “I have a friend I’d like you to meet sometime.”

As background, it is necessary to understand that my mother and I have historically enjoyed a super-close friendship. I never experienced the classic parent-hating phase so common to tweens and teens. Mom and I had so many of the same interests, we talked all the time, we agreed on so much, and she taught me to live my beliefs with conviction. (Looking back I realize that this friendship was probably quite unhealthy – the psychological term is “enmeshed” – at times, because now that I am a mother I recognize that there are subjects not suitable for discussion with your child.) We’d have minor disagreements but they were always resolved and forgotten quickly.

Now, my mom knew I did not agree with her divorcing my dad. I do not believe hers are Biblically-supported reasons, and she is a Christian so I do hold her to Biblical standards (especially given the closeness of our relationship). But she did it, telling me she just wanted to be happy by herself, with her dogs, and just settle back and be grandma to my kids, living life single. Now, she’s telling me she has “a friend” that she wants me to meet. (I discovered later that she had put up a profile on an online dating site before the divorce was final.) I briefly and kindly explained that the Bible does not allow for remarriage after divorce in her case. She disagreed and we exchanged several emails on the subject, which became increasingly angry and defensive on her part. In February I met with one of our church’s elders and his wife. They have known my family (and she has been close friends with my mom) for ten years. They were heartbroken to hear of her actions and decisions, and I had them read all my emails and hear my position. I begged them to test me and find where my attitude, position, tone, words, anything was wrong or even not as loving and Christian as it could or should be. Mostly I asked him what my relationship with her should look like if she responded as I prayed and hoped she would not: if she went ahead with what she wanted to do anyway. I asked, “What does it look like to ‘treat them as a Gentile and tax collector,’ as the Matthew 19 passage says? What does that look like when it’s your mom?”

A few weeks later, the poopy hit the fan. Mom called, said she wanted to come over to talk about it. I tried to lovingly explain what the Bible said, but she would hear none of it. “We’re engaged,” she said, “And if you’re going to tell me that I have to choose between you and him, then I choose him.” I told her that I could not support this, and that it would mean that our relationship would change. She became furious, screamed at me in front of the kids and stormed out of the house. She married him a month later.

And now I understand Jesus’ words. He speaks comparatively. He is not nullifying his command to love others, he’s not suggesting that we treat our families as if we hate them. He’s saying that compared to how much we love him, it should appear that we hate all others we love. It’s hyperbole.

I don’t think I would have understood this passage unless I’d been forced to choose between my mother and my Jesus. She is still incredibly hurt by my choice, and believes I’m one of those condescending, judgmental* Christians. She used to be like that, she says, but she knows better now, and she feels sorry for me. God is love, she says, God is not judging and all that.

But I disagree. God is love, yes. But God also requires obedience. God is judging. He is justice. And none of this contradicts. The whole reason Jesus had to die is because of this. Because God loved us, he wanted us to be with him, but because we had sinned and he is perfect and just, we could not be with him. We were eternally marked with our sins, and he could not have us with him. So he provided a way, through Jesus’ death, for us to come back to him without contradicting himself. Jesus’ death paid the debt for our sins and erased those marks, so that we are no longer sinful people coming to be with God, we are perfectly clean and pure people coming to be with God.

Am I grieved at the present state of my relationship with my mom? Oh yes, deeply. Do I hate my mother? No, not at all. I still love her very much. But if you ask her, she’d probably say I hate her. And I believe that’s exactly what Jesus meant.

I wonder how much more of the Bible I will understand if I have the privilege and blessing to live to the age of 80.

*Here’s my favorite explanation of the oh-so-common and incorrect usage of the verse, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.“

Ranting.

I have a second blog, a family blog in which I can post pictures and use my children’s real names and go on and on and on and on and on about how my children are the most adorable on the planet and not lose readers with my pity that they can not possibly have children as wonderful as mine. I never got much into scrapbooking, so I use that blog as something of a record of my children and our life.

Unfortunately, my family reads that blog. This means that if it’s not something I would say to their face or debate with them in person, I am not going to bring it up. So I only blog about the cute, fluffy aspects of life. Meaning I can’t gripe about my mom’s choices, my dad’s disease, the fact that I never want to meet my mother’s new husband (I will never ever EVER call him “step-father”) as long as I live, however unavoidable that may be, I can’t weigh my options re: homebirth (because that’s just not safe, you know) for the new baby, I can’t even talk about being frugal and the absolute ridiculousness of my sister purchasing a $5,000 wedding gown with a total wedding budget of only $10,000, because I’m the matron of honor and I can’t risk offending her, or anyone else for that matter. In short, I can’t really be all of who I am and talk about what I believe, and after a few months of attempting to blog only over there, I am stifled and gasping for breath.

So you will get an earful. (Eyeful?)

Not that the posting will be frequent yet, as within a few weeks we will finally be making our move to my childhood home. This move actually fulfills a dream for me, to see the house that my dad built on 26 acres in the country kept in the family, regardless of what happened with or to my parents. Now that my parents are divorced and my dad has a terminal illness requiring care, we are moving to this house with my dad. It’s the perfect place for my dad and us. He loves it out there, and I think it the perfect place for him to live and enjoy the peace and love of his family, and the encouragement of his grandchildren’s presence. It’s big enough for all of us and any future children, and the structure will be easily adapted for accessibility once he’s in a wheelchair. On top of all that, I think it almost the most serene and beautiful place in the world, and it thrills my heart to think of my children growing up out there, tromping the property as I did, planning picnics and adventures, sleeping in our childhood bedrooms, climbing the trees that were too small when I was young but are now huge and laden with heavy fruit (the pecan orchard my dad planted), catching bugs and having lots of pets. E and I have dreamed of having property and raising animals and a huge garden, and we are willing to work hard to make it a reality.

Which is a good thing, because the place has been vacant for a year and the grass is as high as my armpits, the pool now harbors frogs and turtles, and the wasps have colonized every nook and cranny on the wraparound porch. There is a lot of work to be done. So I am grateful for our young age and our vision and our willingness to work.

And I just pray that by the time we get the place back to its former glory, the absolute rape of our rights and outright abuse of eminent domain known as the Trans-Texas Corridor has not become reality and poured an ocean of asphalt over the entire place, prostituting our home and property to the purposes and profit of a Spanish company and our corrupt Texas politicians.

(Oh yeah, I forgot to mention politics on the family-forbidden-rant list.)

That’s one thing I’m NOT going to miss when we move back out to the country.

I have recently been reading Hard to Believe, a book by John MacArthur. I am not normally a huge fan, but this book has compelled me to examine some of the ways we dilute the message of Christ by sanitizing the message to appeal to the masses. The leadership in most churches is so concerned about getting “meat in the seats” that they often end up, by design or by ignorance, either reducing the authority of the scriptures or reducing the exclusivity of Christ’s message. This is more than unfortunate, it is tragic.

At the end of the day, after everything else is boiled or burnt off, what matters most is our calling and how we have fulfilled it. My wife is in the difficult position of being a lone voice of truth to her mother in a time when she has surrounded herself by ear-ticklers, people who are either not believers, too immature to understand their obligation to correct her, or by weak believers who believe that keeping on good terms with people is better than holding them accountable.

At one point during college, I was engaged to a girl who was poisonous to my spiritual life. I don’t blame her, for I was partaking of the poison gratefully, believing not that it would make me happy, but that perhaps it would make me forget how pathetic my life really was. It was strictly a numbing agent, like novocaine for the soul.

During this time in my life, when I was still frequently seeing my friends from church and college, I was approached, corrected by and subsequently cut off from two friends. I was cut off from them because I blew them off. I looked them in the eye and told them with a straight face that I was doing what was right for me and that I didn’t need their correction, and even questioned their motives in correcting me. To my shame, I called them names and made a mockery of them in front of my other friends.

Months later, as I was coming out of the fog a physically (a life of debauchery and indulgence will kill you eventually) and spiritually frail man, I thanked those two friends for correcting me, despite my mockery and despite my total lack of response. Had I been a stronger man, I would have gone to my other Christian friends and asked them why they had not done the same to me. Why had they seen the same things these two faithful friends had seen and done nothing? Were they afraid of me? Were they restrained by the guilt of their own sins, feeling that I would attack them on those points if they were to approach me? I honestly believe that they simply wanted to not rock the boat, and were far more content to allow me to drift away, rather than to upset me. They valued keeping me happy with them more than obeying God’s word, more than bringing me back to repentance. It is true that more correction probably wouldn’t have kept me from doing what I did, but the lack of potential for results does not excuse the lack of effort. A doctor with a 30% chance of success will still try to excise a malignant growth from a patient because that is his job, his calling. He takes an oath to that effect.

We as Christians take a similar oath by claiming that title. If half the people around me had taken that oath seriously, I would have been the subject of a spiritual vivisection that would have been impossible to ignore. I am thankful for this experience now, because it has shown me the importance of correction in a believer’s walk. It has shown me that I have an obligation to correct brothers in Christ when I seem them sinning.

We always look to Matthew 18:15-20 when we talk about church discipline. It is good that we do that, because that is our model. But just as important as those verses are the several that precede them.

12“What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying?

13“If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.

14“So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.

We are to correct our brothers because it makes God happy when one comes back. We are to be God’s image-bearers here on Earth, and as such, we get to share in the joy that God has when someone comes back from disobedience. Thank God that he promises to be faithful to complete the work he has started in us, and that we can rely on Him to never allow us to break his plans for us!

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For the record, my dad never cheated on my mom. He was a less-then-stellar husband, to be sure, and had some very serious personal demons to deal with, but none of those is grounds for divorce according to the Bible. And what gripes my hisband the most is the fact that for the last twenty-five years my mom has defended her position of not divorcing her husband on the same Bible verses that I’m presenting to her now.

My parents are married. They got married in 1976 and have stayed that way. My mother is easily, without close second, the most difficult person to get along with that I have ever known. My dad is at least 75% of his way to being beatified at the ripe old age of 51. At this rate, he will have a cathedral named after him well before he dies, and he is not even catholic. Yes, my mom is that hard to get along with.

My dad has never, to my knowledge, considered divorcing his wife. He is not made of that stuff. To be honest, my mom is made of that stuff. If my dad ever got to be as difficult to get along with as my mom is, I would not be surprised at all if she did a cut-and-run-god-wants-me-to-be-happy of her own.

My wife’s mother divorced her husband of 26 years in September. Again, to restate my first premise, divorce always sucks. My mother in law has bought into one of the two oldest ideas in the world, the first being that God doesn’t want me to be happy (think garden of eden), the second that he does. What people mean when the say that God wants them to be happy is that they want themselves to be happy and they have set themselves up as their own God.

The part of divorce that I hate the most is the victim mentality. This mentality is rampant enough in America in general, but among divorcees, it is the worst. “I suffered…” “You don’t understand what it is like…” “Don’t judge me…” You are right, I don’t understand what it is like to bail out on a lifelong commitment. There are exceptions to the rule, in the case of abuse or infidelity, but even then, remarriage is simply not allowed. That is the major sticking point for my wife. My mother in law, who had only been divorced for about 3 months, has already succumbed to her own codependency and found another man, who has at least one major characteristic in common with her now ex-husband.

I love my wife more than I love my next breath. It is easy for me to say that marriage should last until death, because I would rather die than leave my wife. Plain and simple. But just as I, as white man, still have a right to speak out against unfairly preferential treatment of minority groups, I can also speak out against the frivolous ceasement of marriages. Just as the legalization of abortion made it something that people pursued for convenience, the acceptance of divorce has made it something that pursue as an easy out to relationships that are no longer fulfilling our masturbatory desire to feel “in love.”

Again. Divorce.Always.Sucks.