Category Archives: Parenting

A Healthy, Happy Husband

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As we’ve moved through our last vacation day at Afterglow, I’ve missed my husband. When our family used to travel from home in years past, Nate wasn’t just my spouse. He was my same-age buddy, a pal, someone I could talk to and share with, knowing he’d see things from my same-age perspective.

Today for example, our last chance to pursue Northwoods activities, my vote was to travel 20 minutes into Upper Michigan to revisit the spectacular Bond Falls, but with the complication of baby naps and the guys wanting to fish, there were no takers. But if Nate had been here, he’d have gone with me.

This week of family time has brought several unexpected jolts related to the problem of not having Nate with me as a vacationing peer. Last night as we finished a late dinner, I watched and listened to our adult kids talking, laughing, moving in and out of topics, and suddenly I felt like a fifth wheel. It was a quick flash of, “I’m the odd-man-out here.”

I know the kids weren’t thinking like that, but as I looked around the table, my mental status made a major shift from co-parent to single mom, something that hadn’t occurred to me yet. And it felt awkward. Although the label “single mom” is accurate, it doesn’t dictate I’m now a fifth wheel around my children.

I miss my partner a great deal, especially at our shared vacation place. But would I have wanted him here this past week with piercing back pain, struggling to maintain his composure with crying babies and crazy schedules?

Would Nate have been able to cope with sleeping in a set of bunk beds as I have this week? Would he have been ok with the two young families using the two bigger bedrooms?

Would I have been glad he was with us if he’d had the cancer death sentence hanging over his head and ours?

“No” to all of the above.

The Nate I’ve been missing was the one who stacked all our vacation debris on a makeshift trailer and towed it behind a station wagon for 350 miles each summer. I missed the guy who taught the kids to bait a hook, cast a line, reel in a fish and fry it in a pound of butter. I longed for the man who’d been happy to ride double on a horse with a toddler, triple on a motorcycle with two pre-schoolers and who’d run off the high dive like he was a kid himself.

But that man, that pal, that father… can’t be here.

The bottom line, as always, is that our family scenario worked out this way because God orchestrated it as such. But I trusted him back when Nate was healthy and happy at Afterglow, and I’m trusting him now.

After all, Nate is, indeed, healthy and happy again. He’s just not at Afterglow Lake.

“Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

Preserving Traditions

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Every family has its traditions, and most families work hard at creating happy memories through them. Children find security in routine, and part of that is revisiting traditions, “… because we always go there… always visit them… always do that…”

Just as children love to read and reread the same story book, they also love to repeat times of family togetherness. When our kids were growing up, they’d ask, “Are we going back to Afterglow this summer?”

What they were really asking was, “Are we the same family we were last year? Does everybody still love everybody else?” Establishing and repeating traditions is a first-rate family stabilizer.

Wednesday we traveled 475 miles to Afterglow Lake in the Wisconsin Northwoods to resurrect a week of family traditions and togetherness. Although we vacationed here for 25 summers in a row, we stopped visiting the year we bought our own summer cottage in Michigan, nine years ago. I’ll never forget the unsettled looks on our kids’ faces when we told them we wouldn’t be returning to Afterglow after that. Their objections were so strong we had to bottom-line the discussion with, “…at least for now.” Well-established family traditions don’t die without a fight, which proves their worth.

God has valuable family traditions, too. As his children we eagerly participate and are thankful for his consistency in these. When we take part in prayer and Scripture reading, we’re joining in on his well established traditions, put in place for our benefit. He’s also invited us to take part in the tradition of attending church with other believers, something else that benefits us with the gifts of fresh understanding and insight. God’s faithfulness in keeping his traditions is a tribute to his perfect character.

The Nyman traditions have never been on as high a plane as the Lord’s, of course, but some of the family-stabilizing ones we’ve loved most have been connected with the warmth and joy of past Afterglow vacations. For example, one favorite tradition born here was “Ice Cream for Dinner Night.” We’d all get good and hungry, and then pile into the station wagon for a big meal at Eagle River’s elaborate, old-fashioned ice cream parlor.

Round One might be a sundae or banana split, Round Two a malt or float. Only the brave went for Round Three, which could have been a loaded waffle cone with sprinkles as we walked out the door. The result of all this sugary goodness was sweet memories.

When we count traditions as important, in a way we’re modeling what God does for us as he demonstrates parenting perfection by being faithful to his own supernatural traditions. When we participate in these, he’s answering our question,  “Do you still love us, Lord?” By challenging us with Scripture, teaching us in church and answering our prayers, he’s saying, “Yes!”

So the next time we’re tempted to let a tradition go because it’s too much trouble or because obstacles get in our way, we should think twice and persevere. Our families will grow through these regular customs and experience a small sample of the security we feel as children of our tradition-oriented heavenly Father.

And now… what will I order first at the ice cream parlor?

“Every year, [Jesus’] parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover.” (Luke 2:41)

Battling Birth Questions

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Last week I heard a radio broadcast focused on stem cell research, which has recently been in the news again. The topic of frozen embryos came up, as well as the competition for control of these potential children by two groups: eager science labs and willing adoptive parents. Because couples attempting in vitro fertilization usually end up with more embryos than they use, hundreds of thousands of these are awaiting release to one group or the other.

Embryo adoption seems like a wise solution, although an explanation of the child’s origins might be tricky. All of us are curious about how we came to be. Why did we end up male or female, and why did we land first, middle or last in the birth order?

The Nyman family was designed like this: boy-boy-girl-boy-boy-girl-girl. I say “designed” because I believe God puts families together purposefully, one child at a time. Whether born-into, adopted or originating as a frozen embryo, the Lord considers all the factors in his decision-making: which parents, what sex for each child, what birth position, what personality, what physical appearance, when in human history he/she should arrive and every other detail.

I remember Linnea approaching me at the age of four. “It isn’t fair!” she said, her freckled face full of fury. “You had four boys and only me for a girl!”

Before I could comment, she launched into a lecture letting me know I had no business tipping the scales so heavily toward the boy side. “Why did you?” she cried.

Yes, it appeared unfair. If we were voting on babies, her impression was I’d stuffed the ballot box in favor of boys because I liked them four times better than girls.

The answer that came to me was only two words: “God decided.”

Like it or not, that was the truth; the buck always stopped with him. I’ve been thankful on more than one occasion for his permission to use his omnipotence in this way, and as always when God shows up in authority, the debate ceases. Even a six year old knew she couldn’t fight him.

All of us have wondered at one time or another why we were born as we were. Because faith in God is the fulcrum of my life, I’ve always wondered why I was born to Christian parents who led the way to Jesus. What if Mom and Dad had been Muslim? Or Buddist? Or Hindu? Would I have followed their lead?

We aren’t in a position to demand answers to those questions. But I believe one day in heaven we’ll be shown, and when we hear God’s explanation we’ll say, “Ohhhh. Now I understand.”

Linnea eventually accepted her feminine fate, and I worked harder to partner with her in family femininity. Once she accepted that it was God who made her and her siblings as they were, she chose to partner with him in finding a solution to her problem, asking him every night to make a sister for her.

After she asked for many years, he made her two.

“I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment. And how happy I was with the world the Lord created; how I rejoiced with the human family!” (Proverbs 8:12,31)