Editorial

Send your ideas, thoughts and feelings to LetsConnect Heather Haworth. Women’s Ministries Department. British Union Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.  Stanborough Park. Watford. Hertfordshire. WD25 9JZ. United Kingdom. email contact:-   Letsconnect For past editions follow this link

Are you longingly thinking about your holiday? Only a few weeks before the school and college term ends so children will be getting excited too. You may be going away with family or with your friends. One thing is sure you will be experience a lot of fun but also some friction. It is only normal that when putting a group of different personalities together for a holiday that sparks will fly. Letsconnect will feature different aspects of how to “give” and “take”  in our variety of  relationships.

 Karen Holford’s articles will make you smile, wince and nod your head in affirmation. For you men your page is entitled Are You Dripping and you can pick up some tips on understanding how and why women “nag”. Letting go of control for parents is also a challenge. Fortunately Sharon’s viewpoint in the Health and Beauty section can offer some respite. Our Inspiration page has an earthly focus with a heavenly theme.

  On www.discoveronline.org.uk you can find out more about a friend who will never let you down. May this summer time be a season for you to bask in the warmth of the relationships we have with those special people we call friends.

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Potpourrie

 Two friends were walking through the desert.  During some point of the journey, they had an argument; and one friend slapped the other one in the face.  The one who got slapped was hurt but without saying anything, wrote in the sand, "Today my best friend slapped me in the face."

 They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath.  The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him.  After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone, "Today my best friend saved my life."

 The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on a stone.  Why?"  The friend replied, "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away.  But when someone does something good for us we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

 Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your benefits in stone.  They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then, an entire life to forget them.

 Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

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Letting go of the Controls  Or Dealing with Control Freaks – even when it’s you!  Helen grew up in a home with three brothers. Her father ranked high in the army and he ran his family like he ran his soldiers. Each day there were shoe and clothing inspections. Beds had to be made to army standard (he would drop a penny on the sheet to see if it bounced to check that the bed had been tightly tucked in). Orders were barked and everyone had to obey, and to be efficient, perfect and never challenge his authority. When he went on long trips her mother would finally relax and the household would live in happy chaos until the week before his return when they would spend hours restoring perfection. Her parents divorced after her father came home unexpectedly early from an assignment to find the house in total disarray. Her mother struggled for years with severe depression as she tried to parent to four teenagers on her own.           Helen’s eldest brother joined the army like his father. It offered the clear, secure structure and line of command he’d grown up with. The middle brother rebelled against his controlled upbringing and joined a hippy-style artist community. He cycled in and out of rehab units trying to break his cocaine addiction. The youngest son drifted through life, unable to hold down a job unless he was micro-managed every minute of the day, because he’d only ever done things when someone yelled at him. Helen married someone who was as unlike her father as possible. John was relaxed and carefree, and she was happy with that for a while until the children came along. Soon she had three preschoolers. When the eldest was diagnosed with diabetes she suddenly felt out of control. She resorted to her father’s management style, giving orders expecting perfect orderliness, punishing tiny childish mistakes, nagging her husband to be more organized. She hated herself. The children were miserable, and her husband went on weekend camping trips with his friends whenever he could. When she couldn’t get her own way by nagging and demanding, she would try more subtle control techniques like bribery, manipulation, or carefully planned sabotage.   Why do some people cling to the controls, and why do others let them cling so tightly? Some may be like Helen. They’ve grown up in a family where their own parents had a very strong sense of authority. So, when they feel out of control, it’s all too easy to fall back on the patterns they learned in their own childhoods. Others may have experienced the opposite extreme – parents who let them do whatever they wanted to do, without restriction, and they’ve grown up believing that they could what they liked without having to think about the effect on other people. Sometimes people who try to control those around them have experienced the terror of being totally out of control. They may have been abused by others. Perhaps they have struggled with a mental or physical illness that seems to take over their world every so often. Or maybe they are challenged by addictions. Others may have experienced the powerful vulnerability of living through a war, a long-term disaster such as a famine or tsunami, or under a strict regime, such as a concentration or prison camp. In a sense their need for control may be the way they manage their lives in response to their post-traumatic stress. There are also some people who believe that they know best. They are better educated, know more, have more experience of life, and therefore they’re the best people to tell those around them what to do. So, what can we do if we think we have a problem because we need to control other people, or because we feel that they control us?  Help, I think I’m a controller! Great, keep on reading! If you think you might have a problem with controlling others the first thing you need to do is exactly what you’re doing – admitting, however reluctantly, that you may have a problem. Then prayerfully and honestly ask yourself the following questions: ·        Where did I learn the skill of organizing the people around me? ·        When did I begin to use this skill in my current relationships? ·        How did I figure out that I could manage my life better by managing others? ·        When is this skill useful to me? How is it useful? ·        When do others appreciate me being in control? ·        When does my need to control others hurt my relationships with those around me, at home, in my family, at work, at church? ·        What effect is my need to control having on my relationships with those I love – does it bring me closer to them, or does it drive a wedge between us? ·        Does my need to control others benefit them, or does it encourage them to rebel against me, or discourage them from taking appropriate control of their own life? ·        Can I really control other people, or am I just trying to control their external behaviour? When they do what I tell them to do what might they be really thinking and feeling about me? ·        What is the worst thing that could happen if I let go of the controls? ·        What am I most afraid of when I am not in total control? ·        When have I been able to let other people be in control? How was I able to give the controls to them? What worked well when I did this? What could I have done differently? ·        What would be the benefits of trying to work together as a team to tackle the tasks and issues? ·        Focus on one of your closest relationships. On a scale of 0 -10, where 10 means you are free to let the other person be in control, and 0 means you want to control the other person all the time, where do you honestly think you are at this moment? What would you be doing and saying differently if you could mark yourself one notch higher than you’ve just placed yourself? And what would you be doing and saying differently to place yourself on the next notch up? And so on. Then create a series of goals to help you be where you would rather be on the scale. ·        What would God like me to do differently in my relationships? How can I focus on letting him have control in my life, and allowing the Holy Spirit to produce the fruit of his ‘self-control’ in my life rather than my need for ‘other-control’?   If you feel you’re life is being controlled by someone else prayerfully and honestly ask yourself the following questions: ·        How have I allowed the other person take the controls in our relationship? ·        Have I let them have too much control over my life? Do I need to re-establish appropriate boundaries? ·        What feelings and thoughts do I have about the controlling person in my life? ·        What am I most afraid of when I am not in control? ·        What is the worst thing that could happen if I take back the control I would like to have? How could I take back some of the control in a way that will be most loving for everyone involved? ·        When was I able to get the other person to do what I wanted and how did I do that? What positive effect did that have on me and our relationship? ·        Focus on the relationship where you feel you are being controlled. On a scale of 0-10, where 0 means you let the other person take control all the time, and 10 means you would feel comfortable challenging their controlling position when you feel it’s appropriate, where do you honestly think you are at this moment in time? What would you be doing and saying differently to mark yourself one notch higher than you have just placed yourself? And what you be doing and saying to place yourself on the next notch up? And so on. ·        How does God see me in this relationship? When he sees me in this relationship what are his concerns and what are his hopes for me? How can I live the life he wants me to live as the person he wants me to be? What have I learned about God’s love for me through being in this relationship?  When someone is trying to control you, experiment with one of these responses: ·        It seems to me that you want to do such and such (or that you want me to do this) and it would really help me if I could understand why this way of doing things is so important to you. ·        I know you like it done this way, but if I had some other ideas about how it could be done (or that would make it easier for me to do this) what would be the best way to let you know that? ·        Your ideas sound good! I’d like to be able to share my ideas with you, too. I think…. ·        I wonder how we can work together to find a solution that would be good for both of us? ·        I appreciate that you want to help me and protect me by taking the management position in our relationship, but I think it would help me if I could have some management experience too, because you’re not always there when I have to make a decision or face a problem, and I need to develop some skills so that I can (or will be able to) manage when I’m on my own. ·        Or use the following sentence as a useful pattern of communication: o       In this situation… (be specific and choose one recent example), o       when you do….or when you say… (not what you guess they are thinking and feeling) o       I feel…(be specific and choose one or two of your main emotions) o       because (explain in a brief phrase why you feel that way without implying that the other person makes you feel that way) o       and I think you could help me by …(make a suggestion of alternative things the other person could do or say that you would find more helpful and respectful.)   eg. This morning, when I said that I wanted to visit my mother and check how she’s doing, and you told me I couldn’t because you needed the car to go and play golf with your friends, I felt sad and worried, because I know I’m the only person who’s around to take care of her. I think it would help me if I knew exactly when I could use the car to visit her. And maybe, another time, your friends could come by and take you to play golf.  Working together ·        In a healthy adult/adult relationship there needs to be a balance of power. When one person has most of the control, and the other person feels over-controlled, the control can act like a wedge between you, pushing you further apart. When there’s a conflict and one person thinks they’ve won, they are wrong. No one has won. The loser can feel humiliated, disrespected, unheard, sad, lonely and resentful. The relationship is damaged, and the two of you feel further apart. Essentially you’ve both lost. It’s important to learn how to work together to find solutions that you’re both happy with, then you both win, you feel closer together and the relationship benefits. You are sharing control over the happiness of the relationship rather than striving for control over each other. ·        Appreciate the person who takes control most often. Tell them you have noticed how hard they’ve been working to manage the family and thank them for all they’ve done. They’re often trying to do their best with limited resources and perspectives. And their controlling behaviour often hurts them more than they may admit to themselves, or others, as it often arises from their own fears and insecurities. Let them know that you want to help and support them and make their life easier, by sharing some of the burden of organization and responsibility. ·        Work together and draw a diagram, or make a list, of the effects that control is having on your relationship. First, look at all the benefits of one person taking control. This will help the person with controlling skills feel more at ease. Explore the challenges that control might be placing in your relationship. Then talk about ways to share the responsibilities more evenly. ·        One idea is to take it in turns to be in control. Perhaps the person who has had least ‘experience’ with control can be put in the driving seat for one day a week, to give the over-worked person a day off. This may be slowly increased if it works well. Or you can change ‘controllers’ week by week. If the experienced controller tries to take the wheel, gently remind him or her that this is their day off and they need to wait until it’s their turn again. Agree together to try the experiment for a couple of weeks, or a month, and then re-evaluate the situation. You aren’t working towards a control rota; this is just an exercise to help each of you work on your undeveloped skills. ·        Ultimately you are working towards mutual power-sharing, the relationship that God originally intended Adam and Eve to enjoy. This is God’s ideal for our relationships – respectful, loving, humble, and honoring each other above ourselves.  One of the most powerful stories that Jesus told was of a father who was big enough to let go of the controls. As the senior person in the family he had every right to exert his power over his youngest son, who was rejecting him, his heritage, his values, and his family. But the father took a long view of the situation and saw that grace and love would eventually be more effective in repairing the broken situation than power and force. Even though his heart was hurting, the father sold a third of the farm that had been in his family for generations, gave the money to his son without any strings attached, any anger, any cruel words of rejection, and let him experience an out-of-control lifestyle. At the end of the experiment the prodigal finds himself in a pathetic state: penniless, starving in a pigpen and sharing their food. At first he was controlled by his own selfishness, then he was controlled by his poverty and the famine, and now he is controlled by the greed of the farmer. And it’s when he has no control over his life that he finally remembers where he’s truly loved. It’s then he picks himself up and takes himself back home, wanting his father to employ him as a shepherd, or to look after the cows, begging his father to take back the control over his life and to take care of him as a servant in his household. And the father had every right to do so. In fact, in his culture, the community had the right to stone such an out-of-control son. But the father relinquishes his right to control, and, instead, chooses his right to honor his son above himself, to forgive him, welcome him, restore him, clean him, heal him, celebrate his return and to love him. This story tells us how God loves us. Not in a controlling way, but in a releasing way. When we’ve experienced his forgiveness, his welcome, his restoration and cleansing, his healing and his love, then we’re free to let go of our need to control others, and to be controlled by them, and we can learn how to love each other the way God intended.   There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. 1 John 4:18  Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10   Karen Holford

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THE FOOD FACTOR

 When we are stressed, our bodies produce stress hormones which release fatty acids and sugars to help us cope.  Food choices can impact our stress response.

 Experts in the field of stress management have identified the following key foods which aggravate stress reactions in certain people.

 Avoid

·        high intake of refined sugars such as chocolate, cake, biscuits and sugar-based foods;

·        foods high in fat;

·        stimulants such as coffee or cola-based drinks.

 Sugar

Refined sugar produces quick energy surges, giving a short-term high.  The body has to produce extra insulin to deal with the influx of sugar and this causes a drop in blood sugar levels, resulting in a feeling of increased tiredness and a yearning for more sweet snacks.  A self-defeating cycle occurs.

 Vitamins and minerals

Insufficient magnesium, zinc and vitamin B6 (found in vegetables, fruit and pulses) has been linked to depression.  However, too much of some nutrients can over-stimulate the nervous system, leading to feelings of anxiety.

 Stimulants

Alcohol dehydrates, acts as a depressant and can increase mood swings, depressive symptoms and aggression.

 Avoid coffee, tea, cola drinks and chocolate as these contain varying amounts of caffeine which acts as a stimulant.

 The adrenal gland may become overactive due to stress.  The use of stimulants can encourage the adrenal system to work harder than necessary.

 Saturated fats

Avoid saturated fats.  a high fat diet can lead to raised levels of cholesterol which is linked to coronary heart disease and high blood pressure.  Since stress is also believed to contribute to heart problems and raised blood pressure, extra care should be taken to avoid diet risks.

 Junk food

Try to avoid ‘fast foods’ as they usually contain unhealthy levels of fat, salt and additives.

 Salt

Avoid excessive amounts of salt (sodium) which can also raise blood pressure, leading to possible heart problems.  About a quarter of the salt we need is found naturally in food.  However, many processed foods contain unhealthily high salt levels.

 Water

Drinking adequate water helps flush out toxin (enhancing well-being) and keeps the kidneys working well.  Current medical advice suggests up to 2 litres daily.  Avoid sugary flavourings, as this encourages the body to produce more insulin, as state earlier.

 Some people overeat when they feel stressed, while others lose their appetite.  in the next issue we examine nutrition and the stress response and its role in combating stress.

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Playing Favorites My children were about 7, 5 and 3 when it finally occurred to me that it was hopelessly impossible to be a fair parent.  Once, when they’d been involved in some kind of messy misdemeanor, like fingerpainting the living room with peanut butter, I decided to give them all the same punishment. I sat each of them on a ‘naughty chair’ for five minutes, facing a blank wall in the dining room. My daughter was completely happy. Lost in her own fantastic imagination she sat there dreaming of castles and princesses. My five-year-old son was very visual. He was bored just looking at a blank wall, so he started to fidget, and then he noticed that he had very interesting hands and spent the time exploring the lines and crinkles on his palms. My 3 year old, living proof that perpetual motion exists, sat still for five seconds, an incredible feat of endurance. And then, unable to take the strain of his own stillness, he dissolved into violent and angry sobbing. They had all had the same punishment for the same crime. One enjoyed the moment; one finally found some fun in it and the third responded as if I had torn his world apart. I had overlooked the differences in their temperaments and their ages. Beth had piano lessons. But it wasn’t fair to make Nathan do piano lessons when he was more artistic than musical. Joel became a football player and his kit was expensive. We had small birthday parties at home. But one year I became very ill, so our lively youngest son had his party in children’s play-barn instead. Life isn’t fair and it isn’t meant to be fair. When their rabbit died, one child needed to be hugged for a very long time, one needed a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows, and one needed to sit quietly and then ask lots of difficult questions about death and animals in heaven. Their needs were totally different. If I had made them all a mug of hot chocolate, two of them might not have felt comforted. Patty had a quiet son and a lively daughter, three years apart. She was concerned about avoiding sibling rivalry so she decided that they had to have a joint party, with exactly the same amount of friends, half way between their birthdays. Everything had to be divided identically, even though they had totally dissimilar needs. Because Mom was so focused on keeping things equal, the children went right along with her and helped her to identify every iota, dime and cornflake of apparent ‘unfairness’. Their sibling rivalry grew because of all the attention Patty gave to their differences, and all the effort she put into keeping things totally equal. Her behavior, however, was understandable. She had grown up in a home where her younger brother was the indulged favorite of her father. For most of her life she had lived in his shadow, emotionally neglected and overlooked by her parents. She knew the pain of receiving one gift for her birthday when her brother received three or four. When my husband and I were studying in a foreign country we found ourselves depending on God for every detail of our lives. I shared with a friend how God had blessed us and provided some extra food one week. Her anger shocked me, ‘Karen, there are students all over this campus and some are starving and struggling. Who are you that God should bless you and not them?’ Her comments came like a blow to my solar plexus and I mentally gasped for air. Did I think I was all that special to God? Why did he bless me and not others? Why did some of the students find enough money to scrape through the quarter and others didn’t?  I stammered, still trying to bend my thoughts to accommodate God’s, ‘Well...I...I...I don’t know… I guess…maybe it’s just that I’m so desperate I notice the blessings more...?’ She rolled her eyes and walked away from me in disgust, leaving me with a handful of profound theological questions. As I reflected on the ways in which God worked with his people down through the ages, and the ways in which I saw him working in my life and the lives of people around me, I realized that he relates to each of us uniquely, according to our personal and spiritual stages of development, our talents and gifts, and the needs that we have. He sees the bigger picture of our lives in the context of eternity, and in the complex web of circumstances and relationships that surround us. Love doesn’t treat each person as if they were identical to the next person. God treats each of us in his own wonderfully wise and graciously generous way, according to his long-term goals for our lives. The Bible contains all kinds of conundrums and contradictions. We have the story of Jacob and Esau to warn us about the dangers of having favorite children, and the problems that can happen when each parent prefers a different child and takes sides in the family. Jacob didn’t learn his lesson well. In turn he favored Joseph so much that his deeply jealous older brothers sold him into slavery. And yet the Jewish inheritance system heavily favored the eldest son. Boys were more important than girls. Even Jesus seemed to have favorite, or closer, disciples. Several of his parables explore different aspects of fairness and it’s worth taking the time to reread these stories to understand the challenge God has as he parents us in ways that are universally and eternally just. The parable of the welcoming father – Luke 15:11-32 The parable of the unforgiving servant – Matthew 18:21-35 The parable of the workers in the vineyard – Matthew 20:1-16 As you read these stories reflect on the following questions: Where do I see myself in this story? How would I be feeling if I were each of the different characters in the story? What does this story tell me about God and his relationship with me? Which aspect of his love is most apparent in the story? How does God want me to show his love, fairly, to those around me in response to this story? One thing I am sure about is that God doesn’t play favorites. We are all equally loved, equally rewarded for our obedience and devotion to him, and he especially cherishes each one of us. You are his own, very special, child. The question is: how do we love our children with that same kind of special love? What can I do about favoritism in the family? 1.     Firstly acknowledge that these issues are complicated and delicate. They need plenty of loving prayer and grace to help create a context where healing and growth can take place. 2.     Read through the following sections and pray that God will show you his ideas – remember that he specially blesses peacemakers. 3.     If you get stuck, don’t be afraid to talk to a counselor, friend or pastor. 4.     If you can’t change things, find a way to let go of the pain in your life and invite God’s spirit of healing and comfort to fill your heart. If your children are still young: 1.     Ask your children what makes them feel especially loved, and then do that as often as you can. Try to spend some one-on-one time every day, however brief, with your children. 2.     Give gifts wisely. Give things to your children according to their needs and not just because the other child has one. Encourage them to accept the concept that sometimes other people get presents and we don’t. But when one child does a have a shareable gift, encourage him to share some of it with his siblings. This reinforces the idea that God blesses us differently, according to our individual needs and we need to share our blessings with others when we can. 3.     If one child is telling you that you’re not being fair, listen to what they have to say. Acknowledge their hurt or frustration. Think about their perceptions of your relationship and ask yourself if you really are being unfair, or if you are meeting the most pressing need. 4.     Explain that right now you need to spend time with the baby because he is tiny, or with Lauren, because she has a test tomorrow, and that when he has a special need, you’ll be there for him, too. An important message for your children is that you’ll do your best to be there when they need you. That’s the Immanuel-God-with-us kind of love that Jesus came to show. 5.     If the fairness issue is about gifts and birthdays talk about the need to take turns. Today is Luke’s day for presents and when it’s your birthday it will be your day for presents. 6.     It’s not your job as a parent to give your children equal experiences all the time, but it is your job to prepare them for a life where they will be treated differently from others, where things will often be unfair, and where they will definitely have disappointments. It’s a hard lesson, but it’s a valuable one. 7.     Talk to your friends who experienced a different place in the birth order to you – if you were the youngest child, talk to those who were the eldest, or in the middle, etc – and ask them how they experienced their position in the family. Use their stories to help you understand how each of your children might feel and what they might need from you. Or use their ideas to help you formulate some useful questions or conversation topics, so that you can discuss things with your children now, and each of them can grow up feeling especially loved by you. I f you think you’re the favorite... 1.     If you think you’ve been the favored one, then you may be the best person to discuss the situation with your siblings and with your parents. Check out your siblings’ experiences to see what their perceptions are, too. 2.     If you sense that another sibling may feel left out, or feel less favored, be creative about inviting your parents to help them feel special and included. Try making useful suggestions to your Mom or Dad, ‘Hey, when we go to New England for the weekend, let’s take Helen and Mary along too!’ ‘This shirt is just the right color for Stephanie. Maybe she’d really appreciate a surprise gift right now.’ ‘Mom, I’ve been talking to Sam, and I think he’d love to chat to you this week.’ 3.     Do all you can to pass any positive comments along to your siblings: ‘I was on the phone with mom and she was telling me just how much she loves reading the book you sent to her.’ ‘Dad’s had that great picture of you and him on your fishing trip enlarged and framed. It’s hanging on his office wall at work.’ And vice versa: ‘Mom, Bob emailed me and said how much he missed you. He was talking about the chocolate chip cookies you used to send him at college. I bet he’d love it if you mailed him some this week!’ 4.     Plan events where your parents and siblings can meet together at a time and place where everyone will be at ease. You could take care of the hospitality and leave them to spend time re-connecting and creating positive memories of each other. Choose activities that will suit the interests of the people involved, perhaps doing the things they enjoyed doing together when you were children, such as baking, fishing, hiking, sports,crafting, etc. 5.     Bring up the topic in conversation. ‘Wondering’ about others can help you broach subjects gently, without judgment, so that you can explore another sibling’s perspective together. ‘I was wondering how it feels for Kate when she knows we’re all going to be at camp meeting together, now that she’s left the church.’ Or ‘I wonder how we can do Christmas in a way that will make it easier for Thomas to come with his family.’ 6.     When your parents have rejected one of your siblings, and the relationship between them has broken down, pray that God will help you to mend the relationship. Be curious about what caused the breakdown in the relationship, and what might bring reconciliation. Let them know that the rift in the family hurts everyone, and that you’d like to see them reunited again. Explore creative ways that they can heal the relationship. Go out of your way to make a difference. Reassure your parents that showing love to their son or daughter does not mean that they have to condone their lifestyle; it means they have a special opportunity to help their adult child experience God’s love and extravagant grace. 7.     If your parents have cut one of the children off from their inheritance, or made a will that looks unequal, try to find a way to manage this together so that no-one feels isolated or rejected. If you think you’re the unfavorite 1.     If you have low self-esteem, struggle with depression, or if you have made lifestyle choices that differ from your parents, you may be more likely to think that you are the least favorite child even if you aren’t. In 1997 Cornell University conducted a pilot study into the issue of retired mothers (65-75 years old) who admitted having favorite adult children[i]. Most of the children agreed that their mother had a favorite, but only 40% correctly guessed their mother’s favorite, which shows how skewed our perceptions can be. Maybe, just maybe, you’ve been wrong all along. Sometimes we live out our life according to unhelpful misconceptions about our relationships with others. 2.      Explore the history of the idea that you are not the favorite child. What experiences did you have that caused you to feel this way? Then invite God into those painful situations. He is the perfect parent who loves you especially well. Take the time to imagine how he might have responded to you in the different situations. None of your tears ever fell unnoticed by him; none of your hurts were ever overlooked. He longs to put his arms around you and tell you that you are indeed his very special child. 3.     Find a close and trusted friend to talk to who knows how to comfort you well. Tell them about the times when you felt hurt, overlooked, forgotten or unloved and ask them to be sad with you in your sadness. Help them to know the best way to soothe the hurts that you’ve never spoken about before, and bring comfort into the memories of painful experiences. This is ‘mourning with those who mourn’ (Romans 12:15) and it is one of the best ways to comfort the pain in each other’s lives. 4.     Can you find someone who will affirm you in front of your parents? Leila was a perfectionist in the home and at work. She realized that she’d spent her life trying to be good enough for her parents to accept her, but no matter how hard she tried, they would always compare her with her older sister, Selina, who was a lawyer. After a weekend at her parents’ home where he had heard them belittle his wife, show little appreciation for anything she did and where they spoke at length about everything Selina was doing, Matt took the situation into his own hands. As they were saying goodbye, Matt said, ‘I want you to know that Leila is the most perfect wife I could imagine. She is a great cook; a wonderful, loving mother; an amazing nurse: an inspiring spiritual companion. She is everything I could ever want in a wife. I am sorry that you don’t see all the beautiful things I see in her every day. I am the richest man on earth because of her.’ Even though her parents continued to treat her the same way, Leila found that she didn’t need to be so perfect any more. Her relationship with her husband was the important one, now, and she knew that she more than pleased him. 5.     Read through the other sections on these pages. Choose some ideas that you think will be useful for you and some of your family members to do together. Share the article with them and wonder what you can do together to help heal your family. Relationship check for Moms 1.     Make a chart with the names of your children along the top and the different relationship-building actions down the left. Then, along the first row, ask yourself what you can do to increase your level of acceptance for each of your children. Choose a specific action you will do to demonstrate your acceptance. Write your action ideas in the relevant box. Work through the different relationship-building actions and keep adding your ideas. Then put your plans into practice. 2.     If you don’t have children, adapt this concept to your other relationships, especially the ones you have with your own parents and siblings.   Relationship-building action Anna Ben Accepting – freely and warmly welcoming the other person, especially when mistakes have been made; not judging, comparing or criticizing Luke 15:11-32; Romans 15:1-7 e.g. Make a cake to celebrate getting through the spelling test, no matter how many she gets right. e.g. Being grateful he wasn’t hurt when he scraped the car, and not yelling at him to be more careful   Affectionate – creatively showing love through touch, words, gifts, helpfulness and spending time together Philippians 1:9     Appreciative – showing gratitude for help or gifts given; valuing what the other person has achieved Philippians 1:3,4 & 4:8     Attention-giving – entering their world; doing things with them that they enjoy doing; being positively curious about their hopes and dreams. Matthew 18:2-5, Philippians 2:3-8)     Comforting – being sad with them when they are sad; comforting them in the ways they like to be comforted Romans 12:15 2 Corinthians 1:3-5     Encouraging – supporting them and inspiring them towards their own goals (not yours for them!) 1 Thessalonians 5:11     Forgiving – setting them free from any debts or obligations you may have held against them; giving up any bitterness towards them; giving up the need to keep reminding them of the things they have done wrong in the past 1 Corinthians 13:5     Generous – giving more than is expected or asked 2 Corinthians 9:6-8     Respectful - honoring the other person more highly than you honor yourself Matthew 18:10; Romans 12:10     Supportive –  helping each other through the challenges of life Galatians 6:2       Healing the memories when your parent is still alive 1.     Prayerfully gather the courage to talk to your parent. 2.     Before your conversation, ask God to help you stand in your parents’ shoes for a while so you can see things from their perspective. 3.     Find a time and place where you’re not rushed. Talk about what you appreciated about them as a parent. Say that you know it sounds silly, and you are sure it wasn’t intentional, but you often feel as though they were more pleased with your brothers and sisters than they were with you. If possible give a specific example of a time when you felt less than favorite, and why you felt that way. Explain that you are only bringing it up because the idea is bothering you and you want to be able to put it aside. You want to have a good relationship with them as your parents and you don’t want your misperceptions to get in the way of your closeness. This is taking the humble approach that Paul talks about in Romans 12 – being mature enough to honor your parents above yourselves. 4.     If this is a step too far for you, talk to a sibling with whom you have a close relationship and ask them to help you talk with your parents. Maybe they could find a way to discuss this with your parents on your behalf, or they could use the ideas under the previous heading and work with you to improve your relationship with Mom or Dad. Healing the memories when your parent is no longer available 1.     Talk to your siblings about your memories. Invite them to share their memories. Do this gently and perhaps with a touch of warm humor. ‘I know this sounds really strange now, but I used to think that you were Mom and Dad’s favorite.’ Sometimes you might find that they thought that you were the favorite! Help each other build up a collection of memories where each of you were valued by your parents and focus on those stories. Write your recollections down, if you can, and re-read them when you need encouragement. 2.     Imagine you are your parent and write yourself a letter. Address your feelings of being the unfavorite by writing a letter that describes how much your parent valued you, what he or she especially enjoyed about parenting you, special memories of your relationship together and an apology or comforting words that tell you how much they loved you. 3.     Remember that God has no favorites. We are all equally precious in his sight. When your thoughts about your human parents hurt and disappoint you, focus on God, the perfect parent, who is totally in love with each one of us. Ask him to comfort the pain in your life and help you to forgive your parents. 4.     We may not know all the secret hurts in our own parents’ lives and why they may have behaved in the way they did. Sarah discovered that her mother nursed her own mother through the final stages of breast cancer just after she was born, and this had interrupted the natural bonding process between them. James’s father died two weeks before he was born, so his mother invested special attention in the relationship with her new baby to help her recover from her deep loss. Each of these life events affected the very foundation of their mothers’ abilities to express love to them. When they understood what their parents had been through it gave them a fresh perspective on the relationship they had had with their mothers and why it might have been different from the relationship their mother had with their siblings. Ten things to say to make your child feel special 1.     I’m so glad you’re my child! 2.     There’s nothing I’d rather do in the whole world than be your mom. 3.     Whenever I think of you, my heart glows/smiles. 4.     You are such a blessing/gift to me. 5.     I am so glad God put you in our family. 6.     I am so proud of the way you... 7.     You are such a help to me when you... 8.     Whatever happens in your life I will always love you and be there for you. 9.     I’ve got half an hour to do anything you like. What shall we do together? 10.            I love you so much I want to love you forever! Karen Holford, Hemel Hempstead, May 2009 [i] www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Nov97/parent.favoritism.ssl.html

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·        

Are you dripping?

Right now I feel like nagging. I am hiding in a room with my laptop so that I don’t go and ‘repeatedly remind’ someone to do something. My kitchen is being remodeled and what should have been a four day job will take four weeks. The supplier sent some wrong cabinets and appliances. All our food is in a bedroom; everything is covered in dirt and dust; the stove doesn’t work; I can’t find my cup measures; and we have lived on crackers and soup for nearly two weeks. I want to nag the suppliers who sent the drawer fronts but no bases and backs for more than twenty drawers. I want to nag the workmen who fitted several things so badly that I can’t use the cupboards and a faucet that drips and drives me crazy!

I wouldn’t mind nagging my longsuffering husband because every time I clean up he drills another hole and everything is covered in grit and grey dust. My son is sitting in the middle of the chaos watching a movie with one eye and trying to do his homework with some of the rest of his body, but it’s hard to tell which parts are watching the film and which parts are actually concentrating on a lab report. I could probably nag him about something too...

And then I turn to the Book of Proverbs and discover that a nagging wife is like water that goes drip...drip...drip[i] like my kitchen sink, and it’s better to live on the corner of the roof than with a skilled nagger[ii]! Perhaps Solomon writes from the frustrated heart of his own experience and I wonder what it was like to be at the sharp end of several hundred nagging wives... I think he forgot to write any wise comments for wives living with nagging husbands. If Proverbs had been written by a woman there might have been a few creative variations like ‘It’s better to walk the long way to the well and back than to spend an hour with a nagging husband.’ Or ‘a demanding husband is like a dog that barks when it sees flies.’ Most of us are tempted to nag occsionally.

When I married my husband he told me he liked the sound of my voice. He said, ‘If I’m ever going to get nagged I’d rather it was by a voice like yours!’ I laughed. But keeping those words in my mind has stopped me from nagging on many occasions, (though not nearly often enough)!

In medieval England a husband could publicly humiliate a nagging wife by sentencing her to the ducking-chair. After being paraded through the streets and jeered by the community she would be tied into a chair that was swung on a lever over a cold river. Then she was dropped into the water and pulled up again after a few seconds, or longer depending on the severity of her nagging. Occasionally the woman would be suspended over the river for a whole day, and be dunked several times, risking severe hypothermia, or even drowning. Nagging was considered a public nuisance.

The problem is that nagging isn’t very effective in the long haul. If we nag too much then others avoid us, tune out our voice, help us begrudgingly, resent us, or even walk away from us. Children can learn that they can ignore us until we get really mad, or they don’t learn to think for themselves because we’re there to remind them, more than regularly, of everything they need to do.

On the other hand, we are busy, juggling commitments of work, home, family and church, with very long ‘to-do’ lists wrapped around our necks. Things need to be done efficiently, children need to learn responsibility and do their homework, and husbands need to know what needs fixing... So what can we do? Let’s look at why nagging isn’t always very effective and explore a few useful ways to stop us dripping.

When nagging is no good

1.     Can they do what I’m asking them to do?

One mother complained to me that no matter how often she reminded her child to tidy her room, it was always a mess. ‘How old is your daughter?’ I asked.

‘Three,’ she sighed.

I explained that most three year olds have no real concept of ‘tidy’, or if they do, they have no idea how to achieve it. If someone can’t do what you’re asking them to do, you‘ll both be very frustrated!

2.     Have I shown them exactly what I’d like them to do?

Children, especially, need to be given the skills to do certain tasks. Show them what to do, explain why it needs to be done that way and let them practice it several times with your supervision. Try making the task interesting and fun, help them to see it as an honor to be given such a responsibility. When they do it well, or even almost well, show your appreciation. Don’t expect perfection. If they make a mistake say, ‘That was really good! And I wonder what we (this shows your support for their efforts) could do to make it even better/easier for you next time?’ If you have a specific way you want your husband to do something, explain why you like it done that way and ask him for his ideas about how it can be done. Chances are his family did it differently and you may learn something from him, too.

3.     Have I worded my nag ‘positively’?

Try to avoid saying ‘Don’t do...’ or ‘How many times have I told you not to...?’ When we use the ‘not’ word we are ‘not’ saying what we want them to do, we are just telling them what we don’t want them to do. This leaves them trying to read our minds. Instead of ‘Don’t come into the house with your shoes on!’ try ‘Please will you take your shoes off when you come into the house and place them in the shoe cupboard.’

4.     Have I made it easier for them not to do what I’m asking?

Sometimes it’s easier to be told off for doing nothing, than to so do something and be told off for getting it wrong! One teenager told me, ‘My mom nags me a lot to do the ironing. But, when I do it, she tells me off for every little crease! What’s the point in helping her? We just argue either way! If I try to help, it just wastes both of our time because she ends up doing the ironing anyway.’

5.     Do they understand why doing this is so important to me?

Explaining why you like something done in a certain way can help the other person to understand what you need them to do and why. When things make sense to us it’s easier for us to remember to do them. And when we understand how hurt the other person can be if we forget, then we’re more likely to remember and do the task well. ‘I really like it when you turn your football socks the right way out before putting them in the laundry. It saves me having to do a messy job, and it helps me to load the washer faster. Also, when they’re left inside out, they don’t seem to get so clean because all the mud and grass just seems to stay in there.’

6.     How am I asking?

If our ‘reminder’ language is less than respectful it puts the other person down. Often when we nag we use a voice that sounds tired, frustrated and stressed. We use a tone of voice, or even words, that imply, ‘you’re not as good as me, you annoy me, you don’t learn quickly enough, you don’t care about me, you’re hopeless.’

Paul invites us to take delight in honoring each other[iii]. There’s a story of a mother who had lots of children. One day a visitor was in her home. The man noticed that she reminded one of her young sons to close the door quietly about twenty times throughout the day. Each time she did so she repeated the same words, calmly, lovingly and respectfully, as if it were the first time she had ever mentioned it. Finally, as he said good night and went to bed, he managed to close the door softly behind him. As soon as he succeeded she ran after him and swept him up in a huge celebratory hug!

Anti-drip devices

1.     The anti-nagging formula

Say clearly, simply, warmly, lovingly, gracefully and respectfully:

In this situation... (be specific)

I need... (be specific and offer a demonstration if necessary)

Because... (say why your request is important to you)

And the way you could help me is by...

Thank you.

‘When I come home from work I need to make supper as quickly as possible because everyone’s hungry, and the way you could help me is by peeling six carrots by the time I get home at 5.30pm. Thank you.’

2.     Invite them to help you

a.     Years ago we went to a marriage retreat presented by David and Joyce Ames. One of the most useful phrases we learnt there was ‘I have a problem I think you can help me with.’ Bernie and I use this quite regularly when we need help. When I use the words ‘I have a problem...’ I humble myself and I honor Bernie. He feels good, not because I have a problem, but because I trust him and his skills to help me solve it. When I tell him what I need, and ask for his help, he feels empowered by me, rather than belittled by my nagging.

3.     Encourage their ideas

a.     Say ‘I have a problem with (underwear being left on the floor, shoes not being cleaned, etc). When I see underwear on the floor I feel...What ideas do you have that might help me?’

4.     Write a checklist

a.     Instead of verbally nagging someone, make a prioritized checklist. Add household repairs and other jobs to a list for your husband and let him work through them at his own pace, crossing them off as he goes. List the chores or activities your child has to do before and after school and ask them to refer to the list to check that they have done everything they were supposed to do. This saves you having to remind them to do everything. Just ask them, warmly and gently, to check their list.

5.     Start the conversation in a new way

a.     As soon as we hear nagging voices we tend to become defensive, rebellious, resentful or frustrated. Try whispering your request in their ear, giving them a hug and saying ‘Please would you help me for five minutes?’ Or make a light-hearted joke about your request. ‘Can you help me to find the snow-shovel so I can clear the clutter off the bedroom floor?’

6.     Be creative

a.     Find subtle ways to encourage your family to do the tasks you need. When I invited my children’s friends over to our house, their rooms would suddenly become tidy. Set a timer and see how quickly the family can work together (not competitively) to do a chore well.

7.     Be patient

a.     Try leaving space for the other person to respond. Often when we nag we act as if we want something done straight away, according to our timetable. But we need to respect the goals and plans of our husbands, friends, children and family members too. Let them know what you need them to do and agree on a deadline. In Paul’s first description of loving behavior was patience[iv]...probably for a very good reason!

8.     Be positive

a.     Paul encourages us to say what builds other people up[v], to keep no record of wrongs[vi] and to focus on the good in others[vii]. When you need to remind someone to do something, try to follow these helpful guidelines.

9.     Learn how to do it yourself

a.     Early in our marriage I was at home with young children and Bernie was busy pastoring a wide parish, which included a large island off the south coast of England. Every now and then our washing machine would stop working, or flood the kitchen. Then I’d have to wait for several days until Bernie had the time to fix it. In the end I decided to learn how to drain the machine, remove any blockages (like buttons, toy bricks, stones and even carrots!) and put everything back together again. It didn’t take long once I knew how. Learning to do things yourself increases your independence and skills.

10.                        Be appreciative

I watched the sculptor stroke the clay into the face of an angel. The rough oval shape softened into delicate features smoothed out by the touch of her fingers. I asked how she made the clay so smooth and the shapes so perfect?

‘I appreciate and respect the clay. I have to understand its qualities. If I try to force the clay to go my way it might break, become rough or get dented. The best shapes are formed by gently strokes that softly grow an angel from the rough lump of earth.’ Nagging can be like hacking at a lump of clay. We may want to create an angel, but if we’re impatient and rough our sculpture will be ruined. By using calm, gentle respectful and loving words, together with appreciation and gratitude, we can shape ‘angels’ the way God shapes us, not with annoying, dripping, nagging, but with patience, love and grace.

Sidebar

Investigating the drip...

·        Why is it so important to me that someone does what I’m asking them to do?

·        When I nag someone to do something for me am I really trying to fill an emotional or relational need? I might be asking for help with the laundry, but is my real need for some caring attention, some warm affection, a few encouraging words, some respect for what I am doing, etc? If I have a deeper need, are there better ways to invite those I love to help meet that need?

·        What does it say to me if someone responds to my repeated request and helps me, and what does it say to me if they don’t? For example, when you ask for help and someone forgets to do their share, do you think, ‘They have a lot to do too, maybe they just forgot and maybe they’ll get around to it later,’ or do you think, ‘maybe the person doesn’t really love me or care about me.’?

·        Am I repeating a nag that I heard as a child? Is that a nag I want to pass on to others?

·        How does my nagging affect my relationship with the person? Does it bring us closer or push us apart? Does it cause arguments and hostility, or does it help to create a peaceful and harmonious home?

·        How does the other person feel when I keep reminding them to do things? Put yourself in their shoes and listen to your voice? What do you hear and how do you feel when you hear it?

·        List five anti-drip devices you could use to lovingly encourage the people in your life to do what you need them to do. Be specific, try them out and see if you can fix that drip!

Karen Holford

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Families having Fun

Family life is under more pressure than ever with long working hours, credit crunches, increased unemployment, 24/7 accessibility through mobile phones and the Internet, trying to inspire your children to do their homework, and constant information about how to be the perfect parent and how to feed your family their ‘five a day’ fruit and veggies. When there’s a shortage of time and money it’s easy for simple pleasures to get lost in the heaps of bills, piles of emails, baskets of dirty laundry, microwave dinners and general fatigue.

They say the best things in life are free, so here are some simple, credit-busting ideas to inject instant fun into your bored and tired family.

 Have a treasure hunt. Hide thirty buttons in a room and see who can find the most in five minutes. Give a tiny prize to the winner. Or work together and see how long it takes to find the complete set, and then share a treat as a reward.

 Pick up a book of clean jokes for children (you can often find these in charity shops) and take it in turns to read a few jokes during a meal. Or sign up for a clean-joke-a-day email – see the websites at the end of the article. 

Tell each other about a funny thing you saw or heard today. Or tell the story of the funniest thing that happened to you during the day.

 Have a tickle race! Take it in turns to tickle each other’s feet and see who can last the longest before begging the tickler to stop!

 Biscuit portraits. Find a packet of plain biscuits (or gingerbread people) and a set of writing icing tubes, peanut butter and honey. Then add a collection of any other edible decorations you have around the house (chocolate flakes, nuts, raisins, marshmallows, crispy cereal, coconut, etc.) Use the icing and other ingredients to create funny faces on the biscuits, or portraits of each other. Display them on a tray to make a portrait gallery, and then make them disappear!

 Hold a ‘straight face’ contest. One person has to keep a straight face while everybody else tries to make them smile or laugh. The only rule is that no-one is allowed to touch the person with a straight face! Who can last the longest without laughing?

 Read a story together. The ‘Just William’ stories by Richmal Crompton are hilarious fun for everyone in the family. Borrow the books from a library and curl up together with hot chocolate for an old fashioned evening of family fun. Or buy the stories as audio books and listen to them while you eat together.

 Make your own chocolates. Melt any spare chocolate lying around and give every person a small bowl of chocolate and a spoon. Set out little bowls of chopped and roasted nuts, dried fruit, coconut, crispy cereal, marshmallows, marzipan, biscuit crumbs, sponge cake, etc. You can use anything you think will go well with chocolate. Then let everyone create their own unique delicacies by mixing their favourite ingredients into their bowl of melted chocolate. Place spoonfuls of each mixture onto baking trays covered with foil or baking parchment. Leave to cool. No further instructions necessary!

 Charity Chuck. Set a timer and give everyone five (or ten) minutes to find five things they no longer need or want. Put everything that’s been found on a table and let other people in the family reclaim anything they’d like to keep. Then donate the rest to your favourite charity. Do this regularly to help de-clutter your home!

 Write your own ‘namagrams’. A ‘namagram’ is an anagram of someone’s name. Write out each person’s full name on a separate sheet of paper. Then swap papers and see if you can use all of the letters in a person’s name to make a funny phrase. If you find this hard to do without help – put the names into an online anagram maker and read the results! Search for websites with anagrams of famous people’s names – they can be quite hilarious! Try www.fun-with-words.com/anag_names.html which includes Florence Nightingale (Angel of the Reclining) and William Shakespeare (I am a weakish speller).

 Play ‘spot the difference’ - with a difference. Take everyone into a room and ask them to move around slowly so they can look and see where everything is. Then choose one person to ‘make a difference’. Close the door and give them one minute to make one small change to the things in the room. When the door is opened, each person has to look for the difference and the first person to discover the change is the winner. Then it’s the winner’s turn to make a difference.

 Make some paper presents. Take a stack of plain paper, some scissors and a handful of pencils. Ask each person to make one pretend present for every other person in the family. They can fold, tear and cut the paper, and they can write or draw on it too. When all the presents are ready, give them to each other and say why you chose to make that particular gift. For example: you could make a paper airplane to represent the gift of a flight or special holiday; tear out the shape of a dress for a new outfit; make a paper house; or create something that represents a wish or a dream.

 You’re special! Give each person a piece of paper and a pencil and ask them to draw a simple picture of themselves and write their name underneath. Pass the sheets of paper around the group and write phrases of appreciation, encouragement and love around each person’s portrait. Then give them back to their original artists, so they can read the great things everyone else has written about them.

 Write an alphabet sentence. This activity is an interesting challenge for older children and adults. Work alone, in pairs, or as a whole group to create a single sentence where every word begins with a letter of the alphabet, in alphabetical order. So the sentence should have 26 words and the first word should begin with an A and the last word with a Z. Which sentence makes the most sense? Which is the weirdest?

 Story Jars. Give each person in the family a large, clean jar, a litre-sized plastic bag, or a clean yoghurt pot, etc. Allow everyone five minutes to find at least three clues to a well-known story that will fit into the container. Then put the jars on the table and try to guess the story from the clues. For example – a small teddy, some porridge oats and a toy chair might be clues to the story of Goldilocks and the three bears.

 Ten Minute Tidy! Keeping a bedroom clear and tidy can be more enjoyable when it’s done in small doses! After the main course of a meal send everyone on a ten minute room tidying mission. Set the timer and when ten minutes is up invite everyone back down for dessert. It doesn’t matter how much they manage to do in ten minutes, it all helps! Do this two or three times a week and the rooms should be a bit neater, and the chore should be a bit more fun!

 Question time. Give everyone five blank index cards and ask them to write an interesting question on each card. For example: ‘If you could spend tomorrow doing anything you liked, what would you do?’ or ‘What did you do this week that you were really pleased about?’ Collect the cards together and stack them upside down. Take it in turns to answer the question on the top of the pile. Keep the stack by the dinner table and reuse the questions, or add to them from time to time.

 ‘I show, with my bit of dough...’ This is a variation on the classic ‘I spy with my little eye’. Use a pot of play dough, or mix 2 parts plain white flour, 1 part table salt, a spoonful of liquid soap, and enough water to make a batch of pliable dough. Add food colouring if you like. Take it in turns to make something out of the dough for the rest of the group to guess. When the ‘sculptor’ has finished their creation they say. ‘I show, with my bit of dough, something beginning with G’ (or the initial letter of their doughy object). When someone guesses the item correctly, it’s their turn to make something new with the dough to challenge everyone else.

 Find the mouse. Choose a small soft toy that everyone recognises and hide it in a place where someone in the house should naturally find it within a couple of days. Whoever finds it doesn’t tell anyone else they’ve found it, but quietly hides it again, where someone else will discover it. This is fun because no one knows where the mouse will turn up next, and you can find very creative and amusing places to hide the little toy!

Do you have fun games that your family has created? Why not share them with us?

  Karen Holford

Useful websites:

Fun family ideas for games, crafts and seasonal fun can be found at:

www.familyfun.go.com

www.dltk-kids.com

Clean humour websites can be found at:

www.crosswalk.com/fun/

www.mycleanhumor.com

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