Tough love versus spankings

Most of America's populace think it improper to spank children, so I have tried other methods to control my kids when they have "those moments."

One that I have found effective is for me to just take the child for a ride in the car and talk

Some say it is the vibration from the car, others say it is the time away from distractions such as TV, video games, computer, IPod, etc.

Either way, my kids usually calm down and stop misbehaving after our car ride together.

I have included a photo below of one of my sessions with my son, in case you would like to use the technique





























Check the speed!

I think this will work with grandchildren, nephews, and nieces as well.

**my dad sent this to me.... source unknown.

She needs her Daddy

I saw this story about some young girls that made a pact to get pregnant. Its really amazing.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1815845,00.html?fark

I wonder how many of them have a good relationship with their father. If I were betting, I would guess zero.

Girls with good relationships with their Daddy do not have an emotional need to go out and get pregnant or to even go out and let some boy "love on them."

I think that a healthy relationship with Daddy will go a long way towards helping girls (and boys) stay out of all kinds of trouble.

Children (and adult children) crave acceptance. What better gift can you give a child than the love of a father.

Isn't that we are all looking for ultimately? Isn't that the message of the gospels?

Your Heavenly Father loves you and he wants to be with you. He would give anything, even his own life, for the sake of his children.

I wish that these girls had that kind of Daddy.

Meaningless

I read Ecclesiastics this morning. "meaningless, meaningless... everything under the sun is meaningless..."

Bottom Line: Eat, drink, and enjoy your work. Finding satisfaction in your work is a blessing from God. Do good to others. Fear God and keep His commandments - this is our whole duty.

Wisdom: meaningless (but better than foolishness)
Foolishness: meaningless
Poverty: meaningless
Wealth: meaningless
Toil: meaningless
Advancement: meaningless

Hedonistic pleasure: meaningless (The American Dream (my dream) is meaningless? I am sure this is correct, but I feel the need to do my own research here. I'm thinking a 7 day cruise to who cares where...leave the kids at home...bring the wife of course...would be VERY meaningful at this point in my life. Perhaps I missed something in the Hebrew context. Maybe there is verb tense that ALL the English translators have missed. A misplace jot?)

So everything under the sun (even the beach) is meaningless.

One Jewish source that I have read summarized the book as follows (paraphrase):

Everything under the sun is meaningless, therefore we should put all our efforts towards that which is above the sun.

I kind of like that. An eternal perspective - because all of these things that we worry about will burn.

Our temporal life is but a vapor. What are we doing with this vapor that that will be of eternal benefit?

Freedom!

I am a HUGE Dave Ramsey fan. I make my Ga Tech students read his material. Last Friday I was listening to his show. Friday is the day that people call in and scream "WE'RE DEBT FREE!" Some of them are lying though - they still have a house payment. A house payment doesn't count as debt on freedom Friday. That's fine with me. I am waiting to call the show myself.

I have vertical bars (a bar graph) on my white board that represent our debts. When we first moved we had some credit card bills (moving expenses) that took a few months to clear. Then we had some medical bills that took a few months to clear.

Now I am looking at my bars... most of them have gone away.

We have a house payment. I wish we didn't. Maybe we won't in a few years.

We have a student loan.

That's it.

Dave doesn't like the student loan.

I want to call Dave and scream "We're debt free except the house and the student loan but thats ok because my savings account is paying three times the interest that the student loan costs."

1.8%.

Would a rational person pay off a 1.8% loan? The math just doesn't work out for the rational person. The rational person puts all their spare cash into a "sinking fund" and then uses the interest on this sinking fund to pay off the student loan. It turns out that you only have to put a little more than half what you owe into savings and then let compound interest do its magic. You still have your savings account when you are done because the interest on the savings account has been enough to pay the loan.

The rational person balks at Dave's advice.

What about the spiritual person?

Would a spiritual person pay off a 1.8% loan?

A spiritual person owes no debt but a debt of love. A spiritual person does not become servant to a lender after they have been set free from their bondage of sin and death. A spiritual person does not go in to debt at all because that is presuming upon the future. A spiritual person believes that God will provide in supernatural ways if he will stay out of debt....

... but on the other hand... the spiritual person is a good steward of God's resources. If super cheap debt is available for a constructive purpose, does the spiritual person pass on the opportunity? Does the good steward pay off cheap debt when they would be better off by keeping their cash and letting it work harder than 1.8% (tax free) for them?

Perhaps our family should have bought a mobile home for cash and paid off all student loans and then saved up for a house before we bought it.... maybe God would have blessed us in ways that we could not even imagine.

... or maybe God gives us wisdom and the ability to do math so that we can make good decisions and not just roboticly follow the over-simplified systems of popular financial advisers.

I want to be the spiritual person...I really do want to be that guy... but my rational brain is telling me that walking in the spirit is a little more complicated than following Dave's baby steps. But the heart (our thinker) is deceitful and wicked...

What do you think?

Is Dave right? Is ALL debt dumb?

Amendment

Every family has rules.

We have certain expectations of our children and we seek to continually reinforce those expectations.

But, some things you just can't anticipate. You have those moments when you realize that you have never in your life dreamed that you would use that particular combination of words in the same sentence.

This weekend our girls were playing with beads and making all kinds of wonderful creations. They have the beads that you put on strings and another kind of beads that you put on a grid in a pretty pattern then use Mommy's iron to make all the pretty beads stick together. I think that the girls get more use out of Mommy's iron than she does... but that's a painful story for later...

Anyway... our precious girls and their cousin spend the morning making delightful creations by melting the plastic beads with Mommie's hot iron. All is well...until the 3 year old has the bright idea that these beads are just the right size for cramming up her nose. How fun is that? You put several beads up your nose, show your friends....get a nice laugh.. and then out they come... right? You can imagine the fun.

Then the screaming starts.

Mommy can't get it. I get a call in my basement lair, "Dr. Marchman... you are needed in surgery." I don't think people "get it" that a PhD is not the same as an MD... but I practice on my own kids anyway... just to add to the confusion in their minds... maybe Dad IS a doctor....

She is laid out on the bathroom counter. The bead is WAAAAY up her nose. Tweezers. Too big. Think..... something small and tweezer like... back down to the basement lair.... tiny tools for working on tiny electronics...that should work.....doesn't work. Think.. think think...

MacGyver mode kicks in.... what do we have? We have a tooth pic, a hair pin, a pair of pliers and some dental floss. If I can just turn it around with the tooth pick...so I can see the hole in the bead...we can fish it out....SREEEEEEAAAM. Let me know if anything hurts sweetheart.......

she is actually VERY calm... except when I poke at the bead with a toothpick.

Bend the hairpins into tiny tweezers.... that should work....four different designs.... all failures. The infant snot sucker... doesn't work. Manual snot sucker (me sucking on her nose) YECH... does not work...

We need more light (and I need to clear my palate) ... down to the master bath.... bright surgical lights....mommy holds her head... toothpick (with the flat "handle" end) works this time. The object is rotated...

HOLY COW!!!! Its not a bead!!!

I can see clearly how to get it out, but we do not have the tool we need.

Back down to the basement lair....with the tweezers.....grinder on... sparks flying...must make just the right shape (sorry... they will never pluck eyebrows again)....

... back up to surgery... with just the right tool....

Slowly... slowly... SCREEEEEEEEEEAM... slowly...

GOT IT!

Giggling..."thank you Daddy."

Go put it in the gun and shoot it.

Its a live cap for the boy's cap gun.

So now we have a new rule, an amendment to the Marchman constitution, a new parental expectation:

Do not put any explosive device in your nose or in your sister's nose.

(the last part is preemptive... just in case the boys get any ideas... you said not in MY nose...)

Rule making is a constant battle of wits.

Seriously though, we are striving to train these children not to follow rules, but to follow the rule giver. When they are little, the rule giver is Daddy (or Mommy). We expect (but do not always get) instant, first time obedience. Appropriate discipline comes after the first command, not the second, third, fourth, or a screaming 10th time I told you....(this is our philosophy... not our perfect practice).

As they grow older, we hope to shift their desire to please their father to a desire to please their Heavenly Father. If they will follow Him with all of their hearts, minds, soul, and strength, the rules will take care of themselves and maybe (hopefully) they will develop the wisdom to keep explosive devices out of their nose.

Its All Good

During good times and bad times, my wife will often respond to "how are you doing?" with "its all good."

Sometimes I think she is lying. I can see it in her eyes.

The pastor at church today gave an illustration from Romans 8:28 today. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose."

He talked about how he LOVES chocolate cake. He went on and on about the wonders and beauty of chocolate cake.

Then he had a table set up with lots of ingredients - flour, sugar, eggs, etc. There were 10 ingredients in his cake recipe. Eight of the ingredients were putrid when eaten by themselves: the raw eggs, the flour, the baking soda, vegetable oil, the coco (or is that cocoa?)... you just could not stand to eat these things. The butter is ok, but it is not all that appealing. Sugar is pretty tasty by itself.

I was not paying super close attention to the direction of the sermon, so I was prepared to yawn at another illustration on diversity and how different people with different backgrounds and gifts can come together to make something wonderful in the body of Christ. How nice.

That was not his point. His point really blew me away and it spoke to me on a very deep level.

Earlier he had asked if we really believe that ALL things work together for good for the believer. How about cancer? miscarriage? divorce? sickness? losing a job? ... yes.. yes...yes.. of course they do... I noted mentally (as it turns out, I had the right answer).

How about our sin? How about the times we disappoint God? Does that work for good in the believer? well... maybe... but not THAT sin... not MY vice(s). That's something bad. In fact, that is something that is hindering God's work. If I could just stop being such a jerk and if I could just dispatch of my personal vices, God's good... maybe God's better or best... could be accomplished in my life.

ALL things.

The wonderfully amazing chocolate cake - the chef's best - is accomplished by using 8 bad things, 1 not so good thing, and only one really good thing. The master chef can take a lot of putrid ingredients and by his skill and knowledge create something heavenly.

How much MORE can God (the master, creator, and sustainer of the entire universe) take all of our putridness, a little mediocrity, and very tiny amount of good and create something heavenly.

I struggle with this.

How can God use MY ingredients?

Does he KNOW me?

He DOES know me. He can and will (continue to) use me.

He is the Master Chef.

When He is done... it is GOOD.

My wife is not lying when she says "its all good," she just has a long term perspective. She has God's perspective.

I am glad she sees me through God's eyes.

Its all good.

A useful engine

Are you familiar with Thomas the Tank Engine? It is high praise for the mayor of the town to refer to one of the engines as a "useful engine." It is what all the engines aspire to.

I was reading Oswald Chamber's "My Utmost for His Highest" this morning and as usual I was reading the wrong date in the daily devotional. I think it was May 18th or 19th that is talking about being used by God.

How do we best do God's work? The same way that creation best does God's work. It just is. The stars, the ocean, the sun, the moon, the delicate flower... they just are. And God is glorified.

In the same way, we just are. What we are pales in comparison to what we do or what we say. Much of what we do for God is done in our own strength for our own reasons. That doesn't glorify Him. It is only when we are in a right relationship with him that what we do and what we say has any eternal significance. In fact, when we are in a right relationship with God, EVERYTHING we do - even just being - is a testimony to God. We are doing his work every moment. Just as we ponder the stars in awe on a clear night, people will ponder us in awe when we are in a right relationship with Him. Hopefully the stargazer and the Barry-gazer will be pointed in the same direction - to their maker.

I heard on pastor express a similar concept: "It is your job to develop your message... and it is God's job to develop your ministry." Our message is developed by obedience - even when obedience does not make sense.

We can only be a truly useful engine in God's kingdom when we are totally submitted to Him.

The Boss

Mommy is busy at work preparing the next meal. Chloe jumps up on a stool near Mommy and says, "Mommy, I want to help you!." Mommy smiles and starts to give instruction, but she is interrupted by a glass pounding on the counter and the demand of her little cherub, "now give me some orange juice!"

We all have to be very careful with this little angel. She is so cute and smiley. Her requests are so innocent at first. You feel like a bad person if you don't comply. The three year old is hungry. Can't she have an apple? Of course she can. The three year old is thirsty, can't she have a glass of water? Of course. She "accidentally" spills water on her pretty outfit (that she didn't want to wear)... can she go change?

She is a born leader - the kind of leader that has all her minions in her orbit doing her bidding. It starts with a simple request, but then you find yourself being drawn into her complex game of spider and fly. Then... she strikes. Suddenly its YOUR idea to go get the outfit that she wanted to wear all along. And as if to rub her victory in your nose ... you get to help her change into it ("I can't button it," she says). She runs away laughing that infectious laugh. She is very good. We have to be very careful to funnel these skills into a positive direction. Otherwise she will have 6 Marchman minions all doing her bidding very soon.

Resistance is futile - you can't say no to her. But you must. I think that the key is not making eye contact.

Memorial Day

On Memorial Day, I always get choked up while telling the kids about the men that died to make us free. We talk about the Revolutionary War, the World Wars, and other recent wars. I cry every Memorial Day when I hang my flag. I can't even finish my tribute most Memorial days without blubbering like a baby. The tears flow out of a grateful heart for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. My heart aches for the families that never saw their loved one again.

Today we did something unusual. We visited a Confederate Cemetery. Not everyone buried at this Tyrone, GA cemetery was a confederate soldier, but every soldier's grave was marked with the battle flag of the Confederacy. The cemetery was not quite neglected, but it was one of those almost forgotten places where the grass is a little long, and many of the tombstones are so old that you can hardly read the engravings. Many of the markers are leaning or cracked with age.

As we browsed through the markers we found that some of the soldiers were killed in action (KIA) while others made it home and lived long lives. All of them are heroes.

Just the fact that someone would be honoring these soldiers 150 or so years after their death was very touching to me. Someone has a list of names. Every year, the people on this list are memorialized with a little flag. These people are not in any history book and most accomplished no great standing in life. They just defended their families in a cause for freedom and their families are still honoring them 150 years later. To me, that makes them a hero.

I challenged the kids today to live their lives in such a way that their families would still be honoring them 150 years after they died. I challenged myself also. One hundred and fifty years later... will they remember?

Jonathan (10) found a tombstone that had been knocked down and broken into three pieces. He gently and very respectfully put the chunky base back in its place. Then he very meticulously placed the other two pieces on top of the first piece. I lost it. I think I managed to squeak out through my lumpy throat and watery eyes, "that was very respectful, Jonathan."

We stopped at the cemetery out of curiosity on our way to somewhere else. I was surprised at how moving of an experience it turned out to be.

Will anyone remember me or consider me as hero 150 years from now? I know that every Daddy is a hero to his children. But to his children's children's children? Now that is something to aspire to.

Are the Confederate soldiers heroes? Some people may not consider the soldiers in a losing cause to be heroes, but they are.

They are heroes because they defended their families and loved ones against an invading army. Many of them did not even know what they were fighting for. They just knew an army was invading their land and frightening their wives and children. They fought to protect the ones they loved most.

The ones that did know what they were fighting for are heroes too. They were fighting to preserve their way of life. They were fighting against a central government that was over-reaching its power. They understood that a government that governs least governs best. They were fighting for the right to govern themselves at the state and local level. No one in Washington DC has the right to tell us how to live our lives, raise our families, educate our children, worship our God, or run our business. The Civil War (or War of Northern Aggression) was not about slavery - except as it was a state's rights issue (the states should have the power to decide without interference from the Federal government) . Eighty percent of southerners did not even own slaves. It was a non-issue to most.

The situation was very similar to that in Revolutionary War times where a far away government was trying to dictate its will on a people without giving them a fair representation. But even if there was fair representation, the far away government was over extending its powers by trying to take powers reserved for the States (or the local governments) as their own.

The far away government succeeded and we are a weaker nation because of it. The level of government interference in the average American's life today is unprecedented in history.

The Confederate soldiers are heroes. Anyone who has fought to limit the powers of the Federal government is a hero of mine.

We honor their memory today.

Good War

Ok..so I haven't posted in a while. I have been blogging, but not "publishing." The stuff on Esther sounds so much like a UFO conspiracy theory ... I just can't put it out there yet.

Things are going well for our family. Jonathan is having is 10th birthday this week. Its hard to believe. We have a wonderful family of 9 staying with us this weekend so we have a ready made birthday party!

We played capture the flag - actually it was capture the shoe (we were hiding an old flip flop). The (10) kids had armor, swords, sticks, nerf guns, sling shots, and various other weapons. The rules were very complicated and often disputed. The criteria for injuries versus death versus having to go to prison were dizzying. After one especially grueling match (the last one of the day), Jonathan and I had just battled with our pvc pipes to the death (I died) while my team ran away with the flag.... the agony of defeat was heavy on Jonathan's face. After he caught his breath .... the way he smiled through his exhaustion and said "that was a good war, Dad" ... really touched me.

That's male bonding in a nutshell. You beat each other to a pulp... you get mad, get bloody, you scream and growl and say awful things in the heat of the battle... but then when its over... you leave the battle field arm in arm with the ties that bind a little bit stronger....

Girls don't get that.

God gets it.

That's why he tells wives to respect their husbands. Thats what we crave...more than love, faithfulness, clean laundry, or a home cooked meal. We want our wives to go "WOW... he is awesome."

Thats what the battle field bonding is about... earning our mutual respect - its what we live for. To hear those words.... "good war, buddy."