Family

Open Doors and Dreams Come True

by Andy Wood on August 22, 2008

in Following Your Passion, LV Cycle, Turning Points, Waiting

John W. Drakeford

Dr. John Drakeford had an open-door policy. Yes, the counseling icon, who pioneered a Christ-centered approach to psychology and counseling, had a rule that whenever his office door was open, any student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary could walk in.

But that’s not the open door policy to which I refer.

Dr. Drakeford also had this thing about the door to his classroom. He saw to it that it remained open at all times, propped so by a chair. Without fail, when a student arrived a bit late to class, he/she would grab that available chair, and the classroom door would swing shut.

“Suh, suh!” Dr. Drakeford would say in his beautiful Australian accent. “Could you choose another seat? I like to keep the door propped open in case of fire or something.”

I don’t think anybody else in the room believed that propping two swinging doors open would stop any of us from getting the heck outta’ there if the building was burning down. But who wants to argue with the author of Psychology in Search of the Soul?

One day, right in the middle of one of Drakeford’s fascinating lectures, somebody nabbed the empty chair and took off down the hall. I believe to this day it was a prank. [click to continue…]

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10 Things to Pray for the People You Love

by Andy Wood on July 31, 2008

in Five LV Laws, Principle of Legacy

I want to share with you 10 things I pray for my children, all of whom are married adults now, living elsewhere. They are listed in order, but not necessarily order of importance or chronological order. More on that later.

I didn’t make the list up – somebody already beat me to it. But as soon as I found it, I decided that this was a good “handle” for interceding for anyone I love. But I’m particularly drawn to praying this for my children, and their children as they come along. Here goes…

1. Deep personal fulfillment. I want them to be happy! Not in that shallow, vain use of the word, but for them to find life satisfaction – true joy – in their lives, their relationships, and their work.

2. The success and strength of their descendants. To use a biblical term, I pray that my grandchildren and beyond would be “mighty on the earth” because of the things my children taught them and demonstrated to them.

[click to continue…]

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The Time Capsule

by Andy Wood on June 25, 2008

in Life Currency, Love

Okay, one last swipe at sentimental stuff, and I’m moving on…

The year is 1983. President Ronald Reagan has proposed to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles called Strategic Defense Initiative — nicknamed “Star Wars.” McDonald’s has introduced a new product called the Chicken McNugget. “M*A*S*H” has ended after 10 years on CBS TV, the first longest running TV series ever. Over 125 million Americans tune in to watch the final episode.

Microsoft has developed a word processing software product called “Word.” Sally Ride is flying (actually floating) high – the first woman in space, aboard the Challenger. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is opening in box offices across the country. Nintendo is introducing a new video game called Super Mario Brothers. India – that’s right, India –will shock the cricket world on this very day by winning the Prudential Cup. I know, I know! Can you believe it?

“I.O.U.” by Freeez is the #1 dance tune in the country. “Flashdance: What a Feeling” by Irene Cara is the number one pop hit. Mickey Gilley’s “Fool for Your Love” is atop the country charts.

The New York Times Bestseller List features Return of the Jedi as the #1 fiction best-seller. In Search of Excellence is the #1 non-fiction book.

We pay $3.15 to see Return of the Jedi. We fill up with gas that cost an outrageous $1.16 a gallon. We also mail a few letters for 20 cents apiece.

And in a little farm and oil town in West Texas called Brownfield, I stand with my fiancé and repeat these words:

I Andy, take you Robin, to be my wedded wife. I promise to be honest and true to you always. I will make whatever adjustments are necessary so that I may genuinely share my life with you. And as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

With the exception of grandparents, the family is still all here, on both sides. That’s cool. The friends in the wedding party have scattered across the country – to California, Arizona, Canada, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, and who-knows-where. Three kids, twelve houses, eight churches, eight dogs, five cats, two hamsters, innumerable fish, one grandkid, and more friends than we can count later, we are greatly blessed.

So where was God when I made those vows? Giving gifts. Hearing every word. Making Himself available when times got tough. That’s why He says,

“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving
And pay your vows to the Most High;
Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me” (Psalms 50:14-15).

May I tell you from 25 years of experience that God’s promise and offer are true?

And so on this most unique of anniversaries so far, I offer to God thanksgiving for the gift of my wife. I remember (again!) those vows I made, which are as relevant today as ever. And I am reminded today that whatever trouble we may encounter is an opportunity to experience God in ways that are as new as the sunrise and fresh as the morning dew.

Happy Anniversary, Robin! I love you more than ever.

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The Language of Letting Go

by Andy Wood on June 19, 2008

in Five LV Laws, Life Currency, Love, Principle of Legacy

Not once did the thought occur to me. Not once.

We knew at 10 weeks we were having twins, courtesy of those dandy new ultrasound machines. And we were excited. Fresh out of school, still using wedding dishes, living in our own home, and picking out not one, but two sets of names.

Two boys? Joel Andrew and Jeremy Adam.

Boy and a girl? Joel Andrew and Jessica Leigh.

I was pretty quiet as we headed home from that latest ultrasound. The images were beginning to form in my mind for the first time.

Two girls?

Cosmic shifts started taking place in my little brain. And they all culminated in a wedding.

Since I was old enough to understand what fathers were, I wanted to be one. I was blessed to have a dad who loves being a dad, to this day. In whatever ways I have failed to live up to his example, I caught the whole load on that one. And in doing so, three deep convictions emerged:

I would be the first representation of the nature and character of God to my children.
We were called to raise adults, not children.
Mommies build nests, but for daddies, children are arrows in their hands, and my job was to launch them.

[click to continue…]

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Generations

by Andy Wood on June 18, 2008

in Five LV Laws, Principle of Legacy

This Saturday will be the next step in a season of some pretty intense generational shifts for us. More on that tomorrow. I wrote the following article ten years ago, during another such season. It only seems like yesterday…

The voice on the phone was tired and quiet – not unusual for a hospital room at 9:20 pm. They’d just gotten Lou (my grandmother) settled down for the night when I’d made my untimely call. The occasion, other than to check on Lou, was to wish Mamma a happy 60th birthday. A little ironic that I had to track her down at Providence Hospital where she was watching her mother edge closer to death.

Life is filled with choices and changes, and my mom has seen her share of them. But perhaps never with the magnitude and frequency of change she faces now. Her mother has cancer, and is losing the battle. Her son lives many hours away. And up the highway a couple of hours, her daughter prepares for the Big One. She’s preparing to leave the country for the mission field.

On this night, I enjoy a feminine family reunion by telephone. I speak briefly to Lou, to tell her I am thinking of her, loving her, praying for her. I hear the pain, the despair, the fear in her voice. That growing sense of hopelessness that says, “I don’t feel good and I probably never will again.”

[click to continue…]

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The Wreck (Part 1)

by Andy Wood on May 20, 2008

in Gamblers, LV Alter-egos, Turning Points

(A Turning Point Story)

What do you do when you encounter somebody who’s made a wreck of his or her life? What do you do when that that wreck of a life shows up in your place of worship? What do you do when YOU are the wreck?

The closest I ever came to having a horse was a 1964 Ford Tractor at my granddaddy’s, and a ten-speed bicycle I got for Christmas my ninth grade year in school. I put miles – miles – on that bike.

Now, years later, it leaned against the wall in my dad’s workshop in disrepair. But for some strange reason, Daddy and I were inspired, and decided to get it going again. A brand new front tire, new tubes, adjustments to the brakes, handlebars and seat – only one thing was missing. Our hand pump wasn’t strong enough to inflate the tires completely. So we pumped them up as much as possible, and decided to take the bike to a nearby service station to finish the job. We had to hurry, though, to outrun one of those afternoon thundershowers so common in Mobile during the summer. We took the short cut through the woods behind the house – I on my old trusty-rusty steed and my dad on my sister’s three-speed. We emerged behind a shopping center near the service station, only to be greeted by a sudden downpour.

So we waited.

It was frustrating to sit there, pinned in by the rain with our destination in sight. So when the shower let up a little, we decided to make a mad dash for it. We had a plan, sort of. We’d go across the parking lot, behind the Seven-Eleven store, through the little alley, to the Texaco station. Once we go the tires pumped up, we’d figure it out from there.

Off we flew! Across the parking lot. Around the back corner of the Seven-Eleven.

Just one problem.

[click to continue…]

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Christmas in May

by Andy Wood on May 15, 2008

in Life Currency, Love

I’ve said it often in church life: there is nothing more useless (and sometimes obnoxious) than a new grandparent.

Uh huh.

So anyway…

Amazing creatures, these babies – resting peacefully in somebody’s eager arms or lying in the bed, quietly watching the world go by. Filled with wonder at times, filling the room with noise at times. Innocent and defenseless, yet powerful enough to hold your heart in their tiny hands. So capable of needing and being needed, even before she takes her first nap. Babies! I realized the other day how long it had been since I had held one, or played with one. I remembered how little we still truly know about them.

How does God do that anyway? How can one life be created in the image of two, a miniature version of her Mommy and Daddy? How can she be so unable to care for herself, yet totally equipped to learn, to grow, and to develop? What’s really going through her mind as she lies there quietly? What will she become one day? Will she be a woman or a witch, an angel or a devil? We talk of “accidents,” but God never does. What does God have in mind for her? How much of God will she ever truly experience? What kind of God will she see in me? Or in her parents?

“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4).

[click to continue…]

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Dear Laura Kate

by Andy Wood on May 12, 2008

in Five LV Laws, Life Currency, Love, Photos, Principle of Legacy

We welcomed you into the world today after a lot of prayer and waiting, filled with joy and anticipation. You didn’t disappoint! Other little girls have been and will be born. Other grandchildren will surely grace our family. But you will always be our first. And your arrival will always be a memorable moment in our lives.

On this day, May 12, 2008, it’s a crazy world. But I guess people would probably have said that on the day I was born 49 years ago, too. It’s an election year in America. Here in Lubbock, our mayor just lost a reelection bid two days ago. Soon the Democratic party will choose between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama for their nominee for president. Either one will represent an unprecedented step in American politics. Republicans already have their candidate – John McCain. An earthquake hit China today. American soldiers are fighting in Iraq in an unpopular war.

We worry about the world you are inheriting. But we don’t fear as those who have no hope. We know in whom our (and your) hope lies.

For a short time, I get to be your pastor. That’s really cool. But I’ll always get to be your grandfather. And that’s even more cool.

Your parents are wonderful people. [click to continue…]

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The Band Contest

by Andy Wood on April 11, 2008

in Life Currency, Turning Points, Words

A Turning Point Story

This is for all you jocks, coach dads, and soccer moms out there who never were in the band or had a kid in one. Other than my year of football futility, the primary point of my non-academic energy was spent in the band. And during football season, I got to wear the fuzzy hat. Yep, I was the drum major – the band’s field director during my junior and senior year.

The high point of marching season was traveling to either the Florida or Mississippi coast to participate in a regional band contest. Can you imagine the energy, the excitement that fills a stadium when more than 30 bands gather and perform, with no football team in sight for miles? Unlike football games, where half the crowd heads for the concession stands, at a contest people in the stands cheer loudly for every slick move, every powerful burst through the line. And did I mention that there isn’t a football team in sight?

[click to continue…]

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The Face in the Window

by Andy Wood on March 12, 2008

in Esteem, Life Currency, Love, Turning Points

(A Turning Point Story)

This is an article I first wrote about my son 16 years ago, about what a powerful thing encouragement can be. It means as much to me today, if not more, as it did in 1993. Click “share this” and forward it to the encouragers in your life. Thank them for being your “Face in the Window.” And let somebody know you’ll be theirs….

It was one of those forgettable days, when nothing seemed to go right. I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. The summer heat was unbearable, the humid West Alabama air unbreatheable. But I had to bear it, and I had to breathe it on this day.

Name a pitiful emotion – I’m sure I felt it on that day. Rejection, anger, discouragement, depression, loneliness, fear, shame – they all showed up with the intention of staying.

“Nobody needs you,” they said. “And nobody believes in you.”

It was a day of giving. Normally that rejuvenates me, but not today. On this Saturday, I had given time, love, and tenderness, together with a whole lot of physical energy. I had given my best (I thought). Apparently, others had disagreed, and I had been humiliated in front of a large family gathering.

I was spent. I would say that I came home with my tail tucked between my legs, but honestly I don’t think I was standing that tall.

[click to continue…]

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