Category Archives: Marriage

April Fool!

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By now you know that my mother, a joke-teller with the best of them, was also a joke-player, and April 1st was prime time for her to “fool around.”

Dad married Mom in 1941, and on their first April Fool’s Day together, he must have wondered what he’d gotten himself into. Being the dignified, quiet Swede he was, he would no more have played a joke on someone than have jumped off a tall building.

Mom fixed Dad’s breakfast as always that day (one hard boiled egg, two pieces of toast, orange juice and coffee). Since Dad always salted his egg and sugared his coffee, she decided to fool him by switching the salt and sugar. He stirred a big spoon of salt into his coffee and shook sugar on his peeled egg. When he took that first sip and spit it out, Mom laughed with gusto. “April Fool!” she said.

The next year she did it again, along with the 48 April 1sts after that. Dad never remembered and went through the breakfast misery every year. Whether or not he got a kick out of seeing Mom’s delight in fooling him, we’ll never know. In his wisdom, Dad may actually have anticipated the joke but then willingly “played the fool” for her pleasure. We’ll never know that, either.

Mom loved to laugh, and Dad’s salt-sugar-switch aside, she loved to see others laugh, too. I’d say she pulled some foolish tricks questing after giggles, but she was definitely not a fool, at least not by biblical standards.

Scripture has a great deal to say about genuine fools. (I repeat: Mom was not one of them.) Here’s a sample of true foolishness:

  • A chattering fool comes to ruin.
  • A fool’s heart blurts out folly.
  • Honor is not fitting for a fool.
  • Fools hate knowledge.
  • The way of fools seems right to them.
  • The mouths of fools are their undoing.
  • Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
  • Fools die for lack of sense.

A biblical study of the word “fool” causes me not to want to be one. So how can I be sure I’m not? The Bible gives two good clues:

  • Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent.
  • Those who trust in themselves are fools.

If I keep my mouth shut (or at least refrain from babbling), and if I trust in God rather than in myself, I have a head start toward avoiding genuine foolishness.

Mom was no fool, and I’m sure of that, because every biblical reference to fools includes their disdain for the Lord and his wisdom, which Mom loved. But she was good at fooling people. Even in her departure to heaven, she came close to pulling a good one. She died on April 5, 2005, but all of us know she was really shooting for April Fools Day.

”The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to [Mom and] us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)

Force of Habit

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Even on vacation, needs arise for routine errands to the grocery store, the airport or a gift shop. Today I was at the Sanibel post office to finish a few mailing tasks. When I walked back into the parking lot, without even thinking I went right up to a white Chrysler mini-van identical to the one I used to own. My clicker wouldn’t open the locks, of course, which let me know of my mistake. My red Highlander was the next car over but had failed to break the hold of “what used to be.”

All of us are creatures of habit. We find comfort in routine and like regularity in our schedules. Even children have a rut-like mentality that causes them to love a rut. For example, it’s taken all week for Skylar and Micah, ages 2 and 1, to adjust to their vacation home-away-from-home and to sleep past 5-something in the morning.

I’ve had trouble adjusting to Nate’s absence this week, because our Sanibel “habit” began with him in 1980 and continued many years after that. It was our routine, our tradition, the way it was meant to be. Being here without him includes a measure of emptiness and makes me wonder if we should even come back next year. Yesterday Linnea and I both got teary talking about it.

In the past year I’ve spoken with quite a few widows. No two stories are alike, but the one constant is a radical break in “the way we were.” To be married several decades is to come into a period of the relationship characterized by the word “comfortable.” The two of you have become one entity, and you both like it that way.

When death disturbs the routine, happy habits are forcefully broken. After a husband (or wife) dies, every life pattern changes, and adjustments never end. It’s like being in an airplane that’s been flying a straight course, when suddenly it begins doing loops, dives and spirals. It’s hard to get our bearings.

Death wasn’t God’s plan, and he never intended we’d have to adjust to it. Apparently he meant for Adam and Eve to continue forever in the perfection of Eden. But sinful choices deep-sixed that arrangement, bringing spiritual death immediately and physical death later on. The Eden routine surely must have been a hard habit to surrender.

After sin, the break from “the way they were” changed everything for Adam and Eve including their home, their neighborhood, their work and their walk with God. Separation. Division. Disconnection. The adjustments must have taken quite some time.

Old habits die hard. It was true back then and is true today. But Adam and Eve finally did adjust, and God stuck with them in their new life. That’s true for us today, too. As long as we live, change will yank us from our comfortable ruts and insist we adjust.

We see these disruptions as painful endings, but God views them as fresh beginnings. And he will help us.

“The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things.” (John 14:26)

Travel Time, Part II

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After entering an automatic car wash with a car carrier strapped atop our van, the kids and I didn’t understand Nate’s stunned expression when he saw us come out. “What happened to the carrier?” he said, alarm in his voice.

When I looked up and saw it was gone, I knew where it had to be. All of us looked back into the car wash and sure enough. There it was, in two mangled pieces, completely empty. Its contents were scattered on the car wash floor, including the contents of several suitcases that had torn open. Wet carpet strips gently dripped suds over the whole mess like salad dressing over lettuce.

Since I was unable to put a sentence together, Nate spoke first. Passing up a choice opportunity to accuse the guilty, he said, “It’s as much my fault as yours. I should have stopped you from doing it in the first place but wasn’t thinking.”

 And it was my turn to be stunned.

Whether Nate knew it or not, he had modeled God’s love that day. He stood in front of me and took the blame for something that was clearly my fault, which translated to, “I love you anyway.”

When he refused to blame me, I instantly escaped everything that usually accompanies being blamed: judgmental words, embarrassment, a lecture. Although I deserved those things, because of his kind response, it all went away.

This wasn’t the first irresponsible act I’d committed, nor the last. All of us repeatedly goof up now and then, and when we do, we should willingly take the blame. Every mess is somebody’s fault.

God is the only one who’s never made a mess, goofed up or acted irresponsibly. He is never to blame… well… except for once. It happened when Jesus hung on the cross in anguish, voluntarily taking the blame for all our sins.

On that dreadful day he paid the price for every wrong deed we’ve ever done, every wrong thought we’ve ever had. Though we ought never to blame Divine Perfection for the messes we make, Jesus Christ accepted blame for them all. And what we hear him say through this incredible sacrifice is, “I love you anyway.”

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At a car wash half way between Illinois and Florida, we gathered up our soaked belongings and loaded them into the van, which put us back to square one on over-packing. Nate asked permission of the gas station manager to leave our trashed car carrier next to his dumpster, and we were on our way.

Although there were material losses that day, there was one phenomenal gain for the kids and I: an unforgettable demonstration of godly love.

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” (Romans 5:8,20)