Walking Therein

Daddy Training Hearts

Sunday, 1:37am

I am so tired I don't know how well I can articulate this post. We have done a whole lotta' work around here this week of Matt's vacation. Tomorrow is his last day, and it will be back to our regular lives. I say that tongue-in-cheek, because this week has been far from ordinary, and I believe it will prove to have changed our lives.

As I type, at 2am, holding Luc, here in co-o-ld Indiana, my husband and 3 of our children are outside doing something Matt has talked about doing for some time. They are sleeping outside, in the front yard, no tent, just under the stars. Matt grew up in New Mexico, and sleeping under the stars in his Grandmother's backyard is a fond memory he carries.

This afternoon, as I traipsed back up to the house from the barn to nurse Lucy, I stopped to talk to Matt, and he let me know, that if it was ok with me he wanted to sleep outside tonight with  some of the older kids. He made sure to tell me 'not the little boys'... lol...

Alright, so, first of all... hey, no problem; cover up, though. Secondly... hey, no problem; I'm sleepin' inside.

He didn't go into the whole, "I want to sleep outside under the stars like I used to at Grandma's house." I already knew that. This is something he has spoken to the kids about with great memories of for years. I didn't hear it mentioned it again until it was time to go out there. Eric and Hannah were waiting out on the porch with anticipation and excitement - and a flashlight - being silly as they waited for Daddy. Then he came down, double-dressed and bundled up. LOL I hadn't realized it was about sixty-something out there. They went down to the garage and got a couple of mattresses, turned off the light so they could really "get the whole experience", and hunkered down for the night.

My thoughts now, as I sit here, and they are all out there on mattresses in the front yard, is "Yay for Daddy. This is cool." This is something that he has wanted to do for so long, but never did. We have 'camped out' all together on the other side of the barn in our big tent, but Matt remoinded me that it just isn't the same. Sleeping out there, under the stars, he can reminesce with his children about his own childhood.

I could hear him awhile ago, before they fell to sleep, telling the kids about the stars. There were 'oohs' and 'aahs' as they saw a shooting star sail across the darkened sky. I only heard a little bit, but I can just hear Daddy telling them about the Big Dipper, this constellation or that, the fact that God created the stars, the planets, the earth. I can just hear him training the hearts of his children.

The Bible speaks about turning the hearts of the fathers to the children in 2 different passages that I found. I am so happy with my sleeping monkeys (and Daddy) right now as I write this. I am so glad that Matt got to do this this week.  I am glad that God cares about the hearts of our children and the hearts of their daddies.

I think the biggest impact as of late on the Daddy Heart was a post that Amanda posted recently, entitled, What A Girl Wants.... She asked him if he would mind reading it, which he didn't. He studied it for several minutes. I think he must have been running through some of it over and over. Was it harsh? I don't think so. Was it hard? Yes, it was. It was the cry of the heart of a 17-year-old young lady, crying out to her earthly Daddy. It was the tears of a child finally pouring out some realizations of her young life.

He read it intently.

I don't know what he was thinking that night as he went to bed. Maybe he thought about Amanda as a little girl and all he used to do with her, before she had 7 siblings. Maybe he thought that he wished he had taken her outside in New Mexico and shown her the same starry night he grew up under camping in Grandma's backyard. Maybe he thought about all we were going to do this week for his vacation. I don't know.

Sunday, 7pm

We already had a packed week planned, and I don't know if he planned to do all he did, but he sure did spend a lot of time teaching and training and capturing the hearts of his children:

Going to Fort Wayne with Amanda and Eric (dentist appt.! ouch!);

Working on the electricity in the Addition with Eric, Rachel and Jocelyn;

Taking care of week-old chicks;

Reading bedtime stories and rocking little boys to sleep (this one is a regular occurence!)

Driving up to Amish country to meet a blogger-friend of amanda and Jocelyn;

Going to Fort Wayne with Amanda and Eric AGAIN (dentist appt.! ouch!);

Trimming and Mowing the extra-tall weeds and grass to feed the goats and horses;

Cleaning up the pasture and stalls to build walls and get ready for the new chicks;

Caring for chicks;

Rolling around with the boys on the freshly-mown grass, throwing the ball around;

Helping Jocelyn build her Hope Chest;

Weeding the Garden;

Right now, he just got in from putting up the tent outside for Eric (who, when he gets an idea in his head is pretty persistent about it!)

I sure am going to miss having him home this week!

blessings! -Jacque

Untitled Comment

6:48 PM, Monday, July 23, 2007 .. Posted by BlogBoy

That was an excellent post, it almost made me cry. The need for real fathers is so big. The problem is the 1st gen Christians didn't have Christian fathers, so they don't know how to be good Christian fathers. My dad has struggled with that, because he came out of a divorced non-Christian family. The way that a father acts towards his shapes their lives.

Eric

daddy's heart

7:17 PM, Monday, July 23, 2007 .. Posted by Christine Masloske

Hi Jacque!

Sounds like your family had a most excellent week with Daddy! Sounds also like the Lord has worked in Matt's heart in only the way He can. Praise Him for that! I'm sure you've spent countless hours in prayer for just that very thing.

As you know, when things aren't the way they "should" be, the Lord wants us to cry out to Him and depend solely on Him for comfort, direction and patience. So many children will not get what they think they "need" from their fathers but our Heavenly Father already knows that and will take care of it, if we let Him. BlogBoy has a great observation about first generation Christian Dads; they have absolutely NO experience in any of this stuff!!!

I believe that your daughter Amanda said that her father did not mind what she posted on her blog, so that's all that really matters about the subject. As a discerning Christian woman, I came away from the post wondering if airing all of that prior to his reading (that's what I am assuming) was Biblical. Heart-felt, most certainly, but was it Scripturally sound?

Love in Christ,
Christine

Untitled Comment

9:04 PM, Monday, July 23, 2007 .. Posted by HeartnSoul

That gave me goosebumps and about made me cry.

Denise

What a great Dad!

8:57 AM, Tuesday, July 24, 2007 .. Posted by shine29

That sounds like so much fun!
We actually camped out under the stars in CA one time when I was like 19. Me and two of my girlfriends. And the next morning, I found out they have lizards out there! YIKES!
But it was fun anyway!

Hi Christine

5:10 AM, Wednesday, July 25, 2007 .. Posted by JacqueDixonSoulRestES

It was ok with her dad that she posted this. She had his permission to do so.
She posted it, because, in actuality, it was about her and her needs, not her father's shortcomings.
The past week of Matt's vacation has been better than it has been in several vacations. He told the children today that he tried very hard to have a really good vacation, and we all did. And we spent the entire week working and playing as a family, and it was a great blessing.
As far as it being Biblical; I have not searched the Scriptures. It has been proven to be a blessing to several parents and several young ladies who have commented, called, IMed and emailed Amanda. It has proven to be so in our own family and in Amanda's relationship with her Dad and his relationships with all of his children.
It has sparked a new writing contest for other children to write a Tribute to My Dad, by Amanda and Paulie Suarez.
I hope this answers your concerns. Amanda prayed about this and was concerned over this for months before putting it up. She felt she was supposed to write it, but didn't want to. She did anyway. There were a lot of assumptions and other implications that really did not play into this that she has dealt with, but she has also been able to minister to some broken-hearted friends as well.
God is good. His ways are higher than ours, and I am thankful for His mercy and grace, even when we don't have all of the answers.
How is your little peanut doing, btw... I'lll bet he is growing like a weed... just like LucyLillie is.
Blessings to you and yours. I am glad to hear from you again. I don't think I have your email address saved on my new laptop.
take care and blessings!
-Jacque


Edited by JacqueDixonSoulRestES on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 4:30 AM

Untitled Comment

6:54 AM, Thursday, July 26, 2007 .. Posted by Anonymous

Sounds like it was a lovely week. Paul is so sad he missed it; we were looking forward to it. In Sept I think we're in IN with the Badgleys - you guys should try and plan for that. Big campout, lots of neat Christians, tons of food and fun (alas - food IS fun these days. Double sigh).

Sus is a hog according to Julia. What, I ask, is WRONG with drinking five small cartons of chocolate milk in a five minute sitting? Yet my daughter Julia says Sus is a hog and rather selfish. LOL. I only share my chocolate milk with ONE right now (the one living in me).

Kiss Luc for me.

AM1