To My Girls: How I Met Your Daddy

Reprinted from a KatharosNOW article.

I invite you to read this letter to my daughters, the story of how I met my husband. I hope that it will encourage you to hold out for your hero, a man of strong faith and a pure heart, like the young men who wrote articles for this issue. They do exist and there’s one waiting for you.

Dear Claire, Anna, and not-yet-born Baby Girl,

I’ve tried to tell Claire this story a couple times, but at age four, she’s still too young to be interested. Today, the story of how I met your daddy is already nine years past, and I don’t want to wait until the details have gone all vague and wispy to tell you this story of how God brought your parents together.

That summer, I had hoped to work at a Christian summer camp. I’d never been turned down a job I’d applied for. My dad’s company, U.S. Rep. Wes Watkins, the Western History library at the University of Oklahoma, and The Oklahoma Daily, my college newspaper: they’d all been happy to have me work for them. But not this summer camp. Dejected, I’d returned home to take a job at a restaurant near my hometown. I was a terrible waitress. In my first week, I spilled a bowl of salsa on some customers’ table, got orders wrong, and forgot about customer requests for refills and napkins.

Then there was my three-month relationship with the boy back at OU. Wait a minute, you might say. Our daddy didn’t go to OU! Be patient, daughters. I’m still learning, too. This boy and I had met two years before, and he’d harbored secret feelings for me ever since. Over time, we’d become very close: I was drawn to his creative talents in film and oddball, self-deprecating sense of humor. We studied, made root beer runs, and watched movies together. But that summer, he was in Norman; I was back home, and things were different.

Did we get through this separation, girls? Was my proposal of marriage some zany short film that he screened for all our friends? It could have been. But this man is not your daddy. When I got home that summer, I looked around at the men in my family and at church, and that boy just didn’t measure up. I liked him; he adored me, but with him, I was someone entirely different than I was at home. I didn’t like that girl as much. I didn’t want to be her for the rest of my life—I wanted to be your mother.

So I asked that boy to meet for lunch at our halfway point in Ada and broke up with him over Mexican food. He had tears in his eyes when he told me, “That’s three strikes, Kim. I’m out.” That was our best-friend language for “I’m done with love.” I was his third serious relationship, and he couldn’t take any more getting his hopes up, only to crash in heartbreak. He had thought I was the girl he would marry. But God had a different plan to bless the world with you girls.

So I drove back home alone: not only was I not good enough to be a camp counselor, I was a terrible waitress and I had just ended a sweet young man’s attempts to find happiness with love.

The next day, our church’s Gospel meeting started. My church family still treated me like the golden girl home from the big-city college, and the lesson I heard helped me refocus my priorities. It was the right decision for me to end that relationship, and a summer at home would do me some good to get back to my roots. Like a deep cleansing breath after a good cry, I began to feel strong and ready for the future.

The second night of our meeting, my cousin James brought a friend, a guy with floppy blond hair. I stared at the back of that blond head through the whole service, wondering who that young man was, if I knew him. After church, I found out I did know him. He was Jay Mauck, the legendary basketball player from my middle school years. Four years older than me, he didn’t remember meeting a scrawny eighth-grade girl six years before at the state basketball tournament. At that time, he was a senior too busy talking to the two girls—best friends—he would come between later that year at a scandalous high school prom. My 14-year-old self had just basked in his glow, enamored with his green eyes, short sandy hair, and compact muscular build. And then I’d had to wait six more years to see him again.

But I remembered that glow. Now he was two years out of college and coaching men’s basketball at our local college, with my cousin as a student assistant. He smiled at me, and this time, I didn’t just receive his fleeting attention. He noticed me. He gave me that impish, chipped-tooth grin I remembered from basketball games so many years before. It was the second time we’d met, but sometimes, my darling girls, you have to try again to get it right.

And that was how I met your daddy.

Love,
Your Mama

Hello, My Name is Kim and I’m a Celebraholic

The need would strike me at the strangest of places and times: in the doctor’s office, in the grocery store checkout line, or during a phone conversation with my grandma. I would get a whiff of celebrity news—an image, a headline, a comment—and the urge would overcome me: He broke up with her? She named her baby what? Who got sent to rehab—again? Like a junkie who craves a hit, I would grab the magazine or launch into a gossip-fest, greedy for the brief escape this addiction brings.

Trust me, I considered this a harmless hobby until I left it behind. Then I saw how many precious thoughts, conversations, and minutes I had wasted: sacrificed at the altar of celebrity worship.

I’m not alone in this habit. Type the word “celebraholic” into a Google search box, and you come up with a Twitter feed, a social network, a blog, and a YouTube channel, all devoted to celebrity news, pictures, and rumors. According to a 2007 poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, only one in seven Americans could name the Supreme Court Chief Justice (John Roberts), while two out of three could name at least one judge on American Idol.
No matter how many people share our affection for juicy celebrity gossip, this doesn’t make it acceptable for a Christian. A light in the darkness, a city on a hill, salt of the earth: how can a Christian woman be all these things if she’s watching the rich and famous just as idly as the rest of the world?

I remember the exact moment that made me realize I was part of a nationwide problem: I was browsing through a celebrity baby blog—filled with photos of star moms out in public with their children—and came across one of actress Reese Witherspoon holding her Halloween-costume-clad daughter, crying. The girl had been frightened by the paparazzi, and ended up spending part of her night trick-or-treating in tears. I caused this, I thought. Every magazine I read and every video I see that intrudes upon a celebrity’s private life is fueled by my desire to see it: without my eyes viewing ads or paying for magazines, these paparazzi wouldn’t have websites or publications paying for these images, and they wouldn’t go to such lengths to get these shots.

So how did I kick the habit? In retrospect, I realized I followed (and am still following) four steps:

1. Think and speak on worthy things: This celebrity really does have some excellent wisdom to offer us: Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Great minds talk about ideas; average minds talk about events; small minds talk about people.” I decided to shoot for greatness, to realize that every one-on-one conversation I have with an adult about any topic we want is an opportunity from God to encourage, uplift, and edify. I decided to use my words to “give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29). Idle chatter is fruitless, and slander—speech that is harmful to another’s good name—is a sin (Ephesians 4:31). Let your mind soar above the bright lights of Hollywood, and focus on instead what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, noble, excellent, and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8).

2. Use a worthy standard of comparison: It was so satisfying to see myself as superior to those train-wreck celebs. Rehab, again, seriously? Why can’t she get it together? That just showed a lack of understanding on my part: I was seeing a tiny part of that person’s life, the part that the media chose based on accessibility and entertainment value. Someone who snapped pictures of my life without my permission could use those images to create the character they wanted: a shopaholic, a negligent mother, an unhappy spouse. In addition to judging based on limited evidence, we’re also using a pretty low standard to measure ourselves. Hollywood is not filled with patterns for living, but liberal-minded, worldly, wealthy entertainers. The apostle Paul tells us to make him and other Christians our pattern for living, and that those who have set their minds on earthly things will be destroyed (Philippians 3:17-19). We bear the name Christian because we strive to be like Him, not one rung above the people whose lives we see a very small part.

3. Be satisfied with a quiet life and the gifts God has given you: It was fun to dream about living the glamorous lifestyle of celebrities, but my fall back to earth tended to end with a painful thud. It might seem harmless to live vicariously through the seemingly dramatic, luxurious lives of celebrities, but what it really amounts to is envy, covetousness, and aspiring to a life of fleshly desires and arrogance. Instead, we are told to make it our ambition to lead a quiet life, to attend to our own business, and to work with our hands (1 Thessalonians 4:11). Let us focus on doing our own work to the best of our abilities, not wishing for others.

4. Choose free-time activities with care: I’m a wife, mother, and teacher; aren’t I entitled to some rest and relaxation where I can get it? That’s the rationale I gave myself for feeding my addiction: Why can’t I put on Access Hollywood while I cook dinner or flip through a celebrity magazine while I eat lunch? After I kicked the habit, I found out I wasn’t being careful with my time: we’re told in Ephesians 5:15-17 to make the most of our time, understanding God’s will for us. Making the most of my free time meant engaging my daughter in helping cook dinner and returning to my old habit of reading good fiction after I’ve done my Bible reading for the day. I decided to choose ways to relax that are wholesome or beneficial, instead of harmful and superficial.

Today, I look back on my idle pastime and realize it became an idol one. I thank God for that moment of realization, and I try to honor Him with my conversations, comparisons, thoughts, and free time. Like that old song says, “All the vain things that charm me most / I sacrifice them to His blood.”

Enjoying our Children Now

In Paul’s letter to Titus, the seasoned evangelist instructs the young preacher on how to teach the people of the church to serve in their roles. Young women are to “love their children…that the word of God may not be blasphemed” (Titus 2:4).

When I stopped and really looked at that verse, a part of me bristled: Well, of course I love my children, why should I need to be instructed in this? But then I looked at a little closer. I realized that the kind of love that comes naturally to most mothers, the kind that drives us to daily serve our children and manage our households, is not what this verse is using. The Greek word for love in that verse is philoteknos, a combination of phileo, one of the four Greek loves, and teknon, which signifies loving one’s children. Phileo denotes a friendship that both parties enjoy. Friends? With  my kids? Isn’t one of the mantras of today’s parents, “They don’t need a friend; they need a parent!” (I believe I’ve heard Kate Gosselin utter this one before. That’s all I’m going to say.)

Often as parents, agape love, the self-sacrificing love of Christ, runs deep as human instinct. We sacrifice our time and energy for our children’s well-being everyday: Laundry, meals, dishes, bedtime, etc.

But I don’t think that’s the kind of love Paul is talking about in Titus. He instructed us to enjoy the fellowship of our children and the love we share. All too often, I see young parents who seem to have hit the fast-forward button on their first child’s childhood: By the time she can walk, they’re taking her to storytime, zoos and children’s museums, and thinking about swim lessons, researching preschool programs, and talking to friends about dance lessons or gymnastics. For her first birthday, you buy a trunkful of presents and party decorations, including a pinata she can’t even swing at, let alone safely eat the candy inside.

What is the rush? There’s plenty of time for a baby to discover these joys! Parenthood is such a blessing that often we are in too much of a rush to experience all the joys of it, instead of enjoying our baby now, at her current stage. We need to take Paul’s advice and just enjoy our children, have fellowship with them. Additionally, if we are constantly taking them places outside the home, the lessons we teach them are these: To have fun, we go somewhere else. For you to learn something, I take you to a teacher. For you to make friends, we go to a playdate or someone else’s house. Why can’t our baby or child find fun, friends, and learning at home?

I posted on my family blog about this book I’m reading called Training Up a Child: Following God’s Plan, and I love the point that she makes that once kids hit age 12, they can become involved in school-sponsored sports, and their friends become of extreme importance to them. Why not wait until then for them to be constantly being driven from A to B for this activity or that, and let these years be spent enjoying mother and siblings at home?  Let’s focus on appreciating and enjoying our kids now, not rushing them to the next stage, or carting them all over creation in search of a good time.  I love the occasional playdate, trip to the library or park, or special field trip to a museum or zoo. But home and family should be all they need to learn, grow, and have fun. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Peace for a Purpose

I have had not one single writing assignment since I turned in my profile on the McCoy brothers for Oklahoma Today the first week in June. During the school year, I had writing assignments, papers to grade, and two girls to care for. For the past six weeks, it’s been just me and the girls, enjoying the summer. What to do with this summertime slowdown? Work on my temple, of course! That’s what the wisest person who ever lived, King Solomon, did when God gave him a season of peace. His father, David, had faced one life-threatening experience after another: if he wasn’t running for his life from the murderous King Saul, he was fighting a war. But Solomon was given a kingdom at peace: no famine, no enemies; all was prosperity and peace (1 Kings 5:3ff). So after God gave him the gift of wisdom, riches, and honor, King Solomon didn’t just recline in his throne to have grapes and pomegranates dropped into his mouth. He used this time to build a temple for God, a place to honor Him now that He had delivered the Israelites from slavery and set up a kingdom worthy of God’s people.

Can we say we’re using our seasons of peace as productively? Although I’ve done my share of relaxing, playdates, and vacations this summer, I’ve tried to use my newfound freedom to work on writing projects of my own: this blog, a book on Christian principles in Jane Austen, and a new website for Christian teens called Katharos NOW.  God gave me this pause before the frantic rush of the school year and the holidays to work on my temple: to glorify Him through the talents and the time He has given me. I hope I’ve done that this summer, because a period without trials or a packed schedule is truly a gift from God: a time for us to fortify and build up so that we’re ready for the busier, harder times to come.

When My Child Grows Up…?

Every mom yearns to know what her child will do in the future: My toddler loves to play doctor; will he grow up to be an M.D.? My eight-year-old is so theatrical; will she be on Broadway someday? My middle-schooler  is the best basketball player on her team; will she play college ball? Even before you have a child, it’s fun to let your imagination run in giddy circles, thinking of all the places your child will go; all the achievements he will add to his name.

This is what the parents of Samson, Manoah and his unnamed wife, some of the last remaining faithful children of Israel, did when an angel of God came to Manoah’s wife to tell her she would bear a son (Judges 13). This is much more than any of us have received from God: a message from an angel, telling you to bring your child up as a Nazirite, for he would begin to deliver your people from the oppression of the Philistines! What a blessing and honor.

But Manoah wanted details. The angel had appeared to his wife after all, not to him, and he needed to hear it for himself. So he asked God for another visit from the angel, and God, in His infinite patience with His children, sent His messenger back to deliver the same message, this time to the husband and wife. Now, Manoah already knew what his wife had told him, but he needed more, so he asked the angel, “What shall be the boy’s mode of life and vocation? (Judges 13:12)” Basically, what specifically do you mean he will deliver our people? What will be his business and his achievements; how will he live?

Isn’t that such a familiar impulse? It’s not enough to experience the here and now and be thankful for it; we need to know more about the future! The angel only gave Manoah and his wife enough information for now: how to handle the pregnancy and the first few years of the child’s life. That’s usually all God wants us to know: what we can do today to do His will. As parents, isn’t that all we can ever do, too? Make good decisions for our children today, and leave their future in God’s hands: Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6). Tomorrow has its own tantrums, chores, and dirty dishes. Let’s just focus on today.

Defy Science: Be a Happy Mom!

This cover article in New York magazine made me feel despicably guilty of the crimes in parenting it outlined, based on copious amounts of psychological research. The article was advertised as “I Love My Kids. I Hate My Life.” It’s something I would never say out loud, but I do confess, I sometimes think. My girls bring joy and purpose to my life, but also a great deal of stress, frustration, and never-ending, tedious chores. One of the points of this article is that today’s parents are no longer the bosses of their children, but rather, it’s the other way around. Whereas parents used to enlist their children to help work the farm or run the shop, today’s children are protected and privileged by their parents; they’re depended upon to reach never-before-seen levels of achievement, both academic and athletic. Parents today are more put out by their children than ever before: our marriages suffer more, and our own happiness takes a huge blow.

There is hope, though: these studies that prove that having children actually decreases your happiness–and there are many of them, do not measure long-term rewards, simply happiness, which is after all, a transient state.  One psychologist pointed out that if we stop and think about what our children mean to us, we realize how happy they make us, what great joy they’ve brought to our lives. The problem is, the majority of the time, we don’t think about that; we think about what we’re going to fix them for lunch, or why in the world the baby won’t stop fussing, or any other of the myriad monotonous, laborious or just plain gross chores that come with parenting.

So I challenge you today: stop and think. Realize that by having children, we are fulfilling God’s purpose for mankind, and it’s our choice whether we enjoy it or not. Be silly with your kids. Don’t just distract them; enjoy them. Seize on the everyday moments that make us truly happy, and remember them when the going gets tough. When the here-and-now of parenting is ridiculously hard, think about what a funny story it will make to tell someone later, or what a great lesson it is, and just ride it out. You’ll be going against the odds, but isn’t that what Christians do?  People of the world don’t enjoy trials, but Christians are supposed to. In fact, trials should be a joy to us, because they produce endurance, making us perfect and complete (James 1:2-4). Defy science: Be a happy mom!

Mission Work during Motherhood

Impossible, right?  An opportunity for a mother of young children to go on a missionary trip would be rare. So we stay here, becoming accustomed to mommy survival mode. We’re steeped in blessings on our journey toward our Promised Land, and surrounded by loved ones and Christians. The life of a mother of young kids is not easy by any means, but it certainly is blessed. I sometimes find myself complaining about ridiculous things: Anna’s won’t take a bottle, Jay gets home too late in the evenings, and Claire has suddenly become shy, sometimes even rude, to friends and family.

While studying Hebrews 3 last night, I realized that the plight of the children of Israel wandering through the wilderness has some startling similarities to my own journey: I’m so blessed and protected that it’s tempting to lose my thankfulness, and begin grumbling about minute things. For the children of Israel, it was that they were tired of manna, the food that God gave to them each day–no chopping, sauteing, or even microwaving required!  We family cooks can surely appreciate that miracle. And yet the Israelites grew tired of this blessing. So God sent them so many quail that much of the meat spoiled and began to stink up their camp. Despite their long, tough journey, the Israelites were truly blessed and protected by God. And yet they lost faith, and an entire generation of them did not get to enter the Promised Land.

This situation should truly frighten we blessed mothers. Yes, our journey is often difficult, but look at all God provides for us! We must not fail to thank Him and love Him through worship and obedience daily for that. An important way to help us remember to do this is to live outside our blessed bubble. We can’t do this physically when we have young children, but we can do it through reading and prayer. I love to read The Christian Chronicle, the international newspaper of the churches of Christ for many reasons, but one is its updates and stories from the mission field. These stories never fail to open my eyes to my own blessings, and that dramatic stories of faith, like we find in the Bible, are still being enacted around the world today. This one tells about a woman whose story reminds me of the apostle Paul’s: Fanaah Radebe had trained since she was a young girl to be a witchdoctor, a pagan healer. One day she became deathly ill as a result of part of her training. While Fanaah lay in bed, her sister read to her daily from the Bible, and her uncle visited her and prayed for her. After she got well, Fanaah became a Christian, and today shares the Gospel and her testimony with others in South Africa.

People everywhere are not so blessed as us. Our mission for today might be raising our children, but we must not take this blessed time for granted, or begin to complain about our small hardships. That ungrateful heart is a open door to a hard heart. Through prayer and reading, we can travel abroad and realize how blessed we are, thanking God for that, and praying for people like Fanaah, for her strength and the strength of other missionaries to reach other souls who need Christ. Don’t give in to the temptation to grumble about things that aren’t truly trials, but just a result of our own inability to recognize God’s provision and care for us. Your mission: raise godly children. Accept it with a grateful heart.

A Ph.d in Motherhood

My thesis is titled “Mothering While Worshiping: Heart for the Lord, hands for my girls.” I’ve taken doctoral courses in easy day crafts and healthy lunches, but in my undergraduate years, I certainly had to overcome the usual first-year foibles of heavy TV watching, staying up too late playing, and poor time management. My studies take up almost all of my time, so no wonder I sometimes find it difficult to clean house or squeeze in some exercise. I occasionally have tried to get my roommate to do a project for me, or attend my classes for a half-day, to give myself a break, but I’m never quite as satisfied with the results as if I’d done it myself.

Motherhood sometimes seems like it takes very little brainpower: our daily tasks seem tedious and monotonous; I sometimes wonder if a monkey could do what I do just as well. But then I call in a substitute for my job, and it becomes apparent that I am irreplaceable. That’s because I’ve been training for this position for three years now–almost long enough to have earned a Ph.d. Sure, my husband takes some night courses here and there, but he’s logged nowhere near as many hours as I have. This is a position that only I am qualified for, and no matter how much I envy women who practice law or run magazines, the truth is I have a job that is every bit as challenging, exhilarating, and rewarding as they do. Sure there are dull moments and parts of the job that are icky, but what job doesn’t have its drawbacks? I encourage you today to appreciate your unique qualifications and intense training for your job. And study hard. While I am at the top of the field of “My Girls,” I still have a lot to learn!

The Many Faces of Mom

Sometimes I have to reassure myself I don’t have multiple personality disorder: One minute, I’m playing jellyfish with Claire in the bathtub, giggling and singing silly songs, and only a few minutes later, I’m chastising her for not cooperating, threatening a spanking. Timeouts can bring out the crazy in both of us, as Claire is loathe to sit alone in her room without throwing an all-out temper tantrum. Conversely, teaching her numbers and letters is something we both enjoy, as I am gratified watching her learn and grow, and she loves the one-on-one attention and mental stimulation.

We all know that moms and dads wear many hats, but it’s also important that our children are never fearful of an unpredictable mood swing, or uncertain of what kind of consequences to expect. Consistency is important, but so are the many faces of mom: the playtime mom, the teaching mom, the disciplinarian mom, the cuddly mom. We certainly change as the situation requires, but we still remain our essential selves: that completely unique person God created to parent this child.

So many parenting experiences can teach us about the  nature of God, like the changing face of Mom. Like a curious toddler asking, “Why?”, we so often ask God how He, the loving and merciful God, could let such atrocities happen in our world. Why do children have to suffer and die from lack of clean water? Why do natural disasters claim the lives of hundreds? Why do drunk drivers crash into family vehicles? Although our children might think we can answer every question, and do anything, the truth is, we can’t answer these tough ones, nor can we save innocent lives. But God knows why, and He could save people if He chose. So why doesn’t He? How can He offer to save all those who believe on His name (John 20:31), and yet let innocent people suffer and die on this earth?

Just as we make parenting decisions based on our children’s need for instruction, for protection, for discipline, and for love, so does God. It doesn’t mean we change our nature: we become who our children need us to be. God seems different at times in the Bible: Old Testament God versus New Testament, Jesus versus God; and He can seem different based on His actions in today’s world. But He is the same. He never changes. He does what His children require. It might not look like love to us, just as timeouts don’t seem like a manifestation of love to a toddler. And what’s more, He doesn’ t fall victim to human parents’ lapses in patience and temper. The many faces of Mom are unfortunately shaded by mom’s personal failings, although I hope I can say that most of my mom personas are adopted based on my child’s needs. But all of God’s choices–or faces– are motivated by pure love for His creation. He knows what’s best for us, and that’s what he always does (Romans 8:28).

Finding Your Passion

If you couldn’t tell from my previous post, I love words. I’m a writer, so this passion for words comes with the territory. Take that word passion, for instance. I use it here to mean enthusiasm, but it’s actually from the Latin word passio, which means the suffering of Christ. In the New Testament, the Greek word that today translates as passion, pascho, was then translated as “suffer,” as in “Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you” (1 Peter 2:21).

Today, the American Heritage Dictionary defines passion as ardent love or boundless enthusiasm. Amazing how time can change the meaning of the word, huh? Or has it really changed that much?  Aren’t those the same feelings that motivated Christ to suffer for us? His powerful love, his enthusiasm for our souls, compelled Him to die on the cross, to go through unimaginable sufferings.  He was truly passionate about us.

I could apply the word passion to many things in my life: my family and friends, studying the Bible, writing, words, even desserts and Jane Austen! But let’s think about the old definition: What are you passionate about? What, or who, are you willing to suffer for?