Sibling Rivalry Bible Style

We got into this discussion last week in Sunday School, and as God would have it, I've just been reading Genesis the last few days anyway.

Then, as if to drive the point home further, my two oldest children came home Sunday and spent the entire afternoon fighting. As slugfests go, this one was pretty much one-sided -- Melody, by both accounts, was the aggressor. When I got to the bottom of it (as I normally do of course), the spark that started the fire was Coby agreeing to go outside and play with his little sister then promptly changing his mind, presumably to watch TV or bang out some Guitar Hero.

That set Melody off, and the end result was a pretty good pounding on her older brother. Coby, to his credit, decided to not retaliate other than to come tell me what had just happened. His shirt was off, so I could see the evidence there on his chest.

Long story short, Melody was to be grounded from the trampoline for a few days. To my knowledge she hasn't touched the trampoline, but I haven't been around much so who knows?

The little episode, along with the recent studies in Genesis, got me to thinking -- have siblings been going at each other since the dawn of time???

It started with Cain and Abel, and they didn't build up to it gradually. Cain, of course, got in trouble with God when he whacked his younger brother due to jealousy. But read more in Genesis -- Ishmael and his mom got kicked out of Abraham's house, just for picking on Isaac! That's a war that's still going on today over there, unfortunately.

Then, there's Esau and Jacob. In some ways I feel for poor Esau. His birthright got flat-out jacked by his pipsqueak, momma's boy little brother, and then Rachel and Jacob pulled the wool over Isaac's eyes, literally, when they took Esau's rightful blessing.

But whose fault was it, really? Had Esau not given in to the temptation of hunger, and not sold his rightful place in the family for a bowl of stew, well, Jacob would have been still just the little twin runt. Were you really starving, Esau? C'mon. And was Jacob's soup that good? With all that hunting you did, you'd think you might have a piece of jerky or something to tide you over...

We do that a lot in our own lives, though. We are famished spiritually, or we just gotta have that new toy or outfit, or we'll die -- no matter the cost. The temptation is just too great to settle for a bowl of hot stew, with a full meal most likely sometime in the near future if we could just wait. How might history have changed if God didn't see fit to allow Jacob to steal the birthright?

God has a thing for the second-born. It's all throughout the Bible. Joseph was his favorite even though he had nearly a dozen older brothers. David, of course, was just a shepherd boy whose older brothers didn't want him hanging around their army buddies. And so on and so on...

I love both my sisters. I know that at any time I can pick up the phone or visit them and they're there for me. But we had our knock-down-drag-outs growing up, mostly because they couldn't live with the fact I was the heir to the throne (now that's funny).

But reading Genesis, well, God kind of has me looking over my shoulder a little bit because I'm the firstborn. My advice to Coby now, judging by the beating he took Sunday from his little sister, is to do the same.

I'd Like To Thank...

On top of the Longhorns' national title victory Monday night in the Fiesta Bowl (and yes, in my book, that was the official national championship game since the one being played in Miami tonight is an absolute farce), I got to witness a display of class, character and courage in the postgame celebration.

UT quarterback Colt McCoy, the rightful Heisman Trophy winner (don't get me started), accepted the MVP trophy of the Fiesta Bowl by first giving praise and credit to "his Lord and Saviour," Jesus. What an awesome statement and one that makes Colt, in my book, a national champion in every sense of the words.

But while enjoying Colt's acknowledgement for the source of his success, I was left to wonder the following -- would he have stood in front of a microphone and said the same things if the 'Horns - gasp - had lost?

Now that's not to say I doubt Colt McCoy's faith or his sincerity in any way. It's just that he's the latest athlete to stand up on a stage and give credit and glory to God for the blessings of a winning performance. By all accounts, Colt's a fantastic young man who, apparently, has been born again. That's awesome.

In fact, his nemesis, OU quarterback Sam Bradford, pretty much said the same things back in December when he stole the Heisman from Colt. I'm sure Bradford is a likeable guy and I don't doubt his sincerity either, but in mostly good-natured fun, I don't like the colors he wears. Nothing personal, but a stinkin', thievin' Sooner is still a stinkin', thievin' Sooner.

But I can't remember one time where an athlete, in any sport, stood before the world following a tough loss and gave credit to the Lord. The Bible says we are to praise Him in all things, and that of course includes winning and losing. True winners in any aspect of life understand that losses are a part of life. Read the Book of Job, or even Genesis, with Abraham, for that matter. Tough times build tough people.

I try not to doubt anyone who stands before a TV camera and displays faith. Not for me to judge. Terrell Owens does it all the time, and I still believe it's genuine despite everything else that surrounds that particular athlete.

But we must remember, all of us, that we should continue to be thankful and give praise following the losses. Not just the wins. It's extremely difficult to do, but I find myself failing nearly 100 percent of the time in that regard.

Praise him following the wins and the blessings, for sure. But also remember, the God of the mountain is also the God in the valley, and we should give thanks for the adversity that comes from losing something -- whether its just a game or not.

A New Day In The 'Ville

I took the holidays off from a lot of things the last couple of weeks, including blogging. But I'm back and rarin' to roar in 2009.

A lot of things have happened since the last post. Christmas was one thing of course, as well as a round of bowl games on TV and more Cowboys disappointment. New Year's Day is somewhat anticlimactic now, so I was pretty much ready to get back to work by the time Jan. 1 rolled around.

I might as well go ahead and release this little bit of news we found out over the holidays. It's been trickling around for the last couple of weeks and I'll go ahead and put the rumor to bed so to speak -- we are expecting again. Number four is due to arrive the first week of August or so.

I boldly predicted following Abby's birth two years ago that she was our third and our last. So you can imagine the shock of finding out that indeed Jeannie was carrying our fourth child. We found out ourselves about 10 days before Christmas, and a trip to the doctor a couple of days later confirmed it.

I must admit it was a kick in the gut. Not that I don't or won't love this child with all my heart, because I will. It's just that, well, this particular news just doesn't fit my plan, you know? Three kids is enough nowadays, really. Especially for a guy who's about to hit 40 and a wife who had no desire to endure another nine months of pregnancy.

Yes, I know how pregnancy happens. Birth control is quite expensive nowadays, and we threw everything but the kitchen sink at prevention I guess short of abstinence and surgery, which we looked into but just couldn't pull off financially.

But the shock of the news kind of wears off gradually, more and more with each passing day. I find myself getting ready for the fourth child now, although somewhat slowly than the previous three. By the due date I will be anxiously waiting for and ready to love and raise this one too as best as I can as its father.

God has shown me over the last month a lot of things. Going back to that not fitting into a plan thing, that's pretty much how He works in our lives. Our plans are not His plans, after all. Our thoughts are not His thoughts. There is a reason why this little one growing inside Jeannie's womb is there. He or she wasn't planned in a traditional sense of expecting, but with each passing day we are becoming more excited and more expectant.

I finally came to the consideration -- and it's very humbling -- that we are expecting again because God chose us to be this child's parents. It's sometimes as simple as that. To be honest I wasn't all that fired up about considering a third child, long before Abby was actually concieved. That can be readily observed by the nine-year layoff between Melody and Abigail Grace.

But Abby is the apple of our eyes, just like our older children are. They all have their own little special niche in our hearts as their parents, and I would not trade any one of them for all the gold in the world. They are as much a part of my life as the breath I take every day. Number Four will be also, and to a certain extent, already is.

God chose Jeannie and I to be parents. It's a little different take on our adventure into parenthood, which started nearly 12 years ago with Coby. The previous three we pretty much asked God for, and He gave. This one, He gave on His own, for whatever reason. And we are happy and honored to be given that responsibility, and the chance to love and cherish another precious child.

So the next seven months or so will be filled with all the usual things. We are a high-risk pregnancy because of age, but none of that matters to us because God is in control no matter what our age. Heck, Sarah had her first child, Isaac, when she was nearly 100 and he turned out okay in Genesis. 40 and 37 is child's play.

Thank you, God, for Your confidence and the honor of Your gift.

The Weather

Weather in the 'Ville the last couple of weeks has become worthy of writing about.

I've had the mysterious little cold-like thing going on since the day after Thanksgiving. I can't seem to get rid of the thing. Every time I think I've turned a corner I wake up the next morning with gook up to my ears, literally. (Sorry if that's gross, but hey, it's descriptive!).

For awhile I thought it was something in the house, so I politely petitioned Jeannie to see if we could maybe do something like wash the bedsheets. Or scrub down the bathroom, or maybe fumigate the entire house. Nothing major. I just want to feel better.

Then it hit me Monday morning, as I was coughing up another lung shortly after wakeup.

It's this unbelievably inconsistent East Texas weather.

I'm not one of those guys. You know, the guys who have to begin every conversation with "Man this weather is somethun' else." The guys who couldn't have a conversation without that weather kick-start, you know?

Matter of fact, I have never been accused of needing any kind of kick-start to a conversation. Just ask my wife. Or any one of my three friends on earth.

But the temperature here over the last month has ranged anywhere from upper 20s to upper 70s, sometimes on a 24-hour basis. For example, I woke up Sunday morning to a miserably mild upper 50ish temp on the outside. We had the Christmas choir concert at church and my sinuses were raging. Battled through it but the exertion knocked me out Sunday afternoon, literally. I didn't watch a single NFL game really Sunday afternoon, I just went to bed.

Back to church in upper 50sh weather Sunday night. Got home, set up for the Cowboys-Giants showdown and about late second quarter I posed the question to Jeannie: "Is it just me or is it BLAZING hot in this house???"

She readily agreed, and rather than sweat through the evening we decided to do the unthinkable, which was turn the air conditioner on. In the middle of December! Ten days before Christmas, and we have to spend Lord knows how many kilowatt hours on the A/C!!

I felt better instantly. I went to bed and slept like a baby, finally. But I got up Monday morning with the same symptoms that have been plaguing me for a month. Shortly following my lovely wife's first "Good morning," came this warning -- "It's freezing cold outside."

Yep, an Arctic front had pulled a sneak attack overnight and invaded the land of perennial summer. Gone were the shorts-type weather of the past couple of days. I had to bundle up and pull out my heaviest coat.

My body, at nearly 40 years old, can still take a lot of things. I can still punish it with as much basketball, racquetball and occasional mud-wrestling (not really) as the next guy. But it can't take a daily 50-degree drop in temperature anymore. So my immune system is constantly asking for reinforcement, and I can't keep up.

The temperature hasn't risen out of the 40s since Monday morning here. Three days of actual Christmas-type weather. But I saw a forecast that had us back to the 70s -- yes , THE 70S! -- by the weekend. Then same forecast predicted another cold blast late in the weekend that would have things back to the 30s or so.

Welcome to East Texas. So, man, this weather is somethun' else...

A Breath Of Fresh Air

I am one of the thousands -- maybe millions, who knows -- of Americans who sleeps peacefully most nights because of a wonderful invention known as Continuous Positive Air Pressure (CPAP) machine.

A little over two years ago I was diagnosed as having obstructive sleep apnea. That's a long, official-sounding name for loud snoring. Oh, and during the snoring, I stop breathing periodically during the night. Dozens of times. I took one of those sleep tests and was told in the morning that I had stopped breathing, on average, nearly 40 times per hour.

Basically what happens during sleep apnea is that the airway and nasal passages close. Snoring is actually the body's defense at waking you up. What's really bad is that sometimes the snoring has to become downright violent, and in my case, it's more of a snort. I wake up, and thereby never enjoy a full night's rest because I am constantly waking up and slipping off to doze throughout the night.

Enter the CPAP, which consists of a machine, air hose and mask that fits over my nose. I strap it to my head and turn the machine on, and it blows a soft breeze through the mask and into my nose, keeping my nasal passages open. Then I don't snore, snort, or do anything else to wake up. I sleep peacefully throughout the night and get tired the next day only rarely.

That's the great thing about CPAP. The bad thing is...sometimes you might rip the hose or break the mask, which means you have to get a replacement. That takes time, either ordering or waiting to go to the local CPAP supply store.

Two weeks ago I came home from a basketball road trip in the middle of the night. I don't go on trips without my CPAP, so it was with me. Rather than wake Jeannie up I decided to go without the mask for one night.

No problem, she was so conked and tired herself it didn't matter. I was coming down with a cold, so I decided to clean the mask and hose before hooking it up again and turning it into a germ trap. I soaked the equipment in warm soapy water and then when I was attaching it to the machine the hose ripped.

Not a good thing. I told Jeannie and she gave me this "it'll be okay" but what her look said was "good grief, now I gotta sleep with the pigs again." Meaning the snorting.

I tried calling my supplier but couldn't get hooked up. That would take a week or so anyway, so I retreated into my shell -- meaning I just tried to ignore the problem. Besides, it's quite comforting sometimes to sleep without an air mask strapped to your head, making you look like one of those stormtrooper pilots from Star Wars. I was free, unfettered, breathing normally...

Until I went to sleep. Then the racket broke loose. You know snoring and sleep apnea is bad when the sounds wake you up. I got punched, prodded, poked, downright beaten to a pulp by my suffering wife who had to listen to the large chain saw in the bed that ran all night. I was told one morning that Melody came into the bedroom in the middle of the night, from her room down the hallway, and begged Jeannie to make me put my mask on.

It's quite embarrassing, keeping your family awake because you can't breathe. It's also quite burdensome, and a sore spot as the days go on.

Jeannie threatened me. She was going to sleep in Coby's bed if I didn't get the hose replaced. Go ahead, I said, I like sleeping in king-size beds all by myself. Problem was, I wasn't doing much sleeping. The constant snoring and snorting was making me angry because I couldn't do anything but doze off most nights.

Long story short, I finally broke down and visited a local CPAP supply place yesterday. My machine now works fine and I'm back under the mask. Just in the nick of time.

But I can feel another cold coming on, so...who knows what might happen.

Phasing Out Pappy

My wife has decided it's time to get rid of our security blanket at home. This of course means it's time to break our nearly two-year-old baby girl of the "Pappy" habit.

It's not going to be easy, especially when Jeannie's not around. As Dad, I can tell you there's no better babysitter sometimes than the good old mangled pacifier. I'm about a week behind on the "get rid of Pappy" campaign, but I was forced to adhere to the new rules around the house over the last weekend.

Up until now it's not been unusual for Abby to have Pappy in her possession or in her mouth, I would estimate, probably 23 hours out of a 24-hour day. And that's rounded off. Pappy is her best friend, and she has several friends -- her favorite thing is to have one Pappy in her mouth and several others in both hands, just to know that there's always a friend close by.

We've found Pappys everywhere in the house. Toy box, TV cabinet, fireplace, under the bed, in clothes drawers. Because of a lack of counter space, we keep our toaster oven when not in use in a cabinet near the refrigerator. Abby's thing has always been to open cabinet doors, and once she found the toaster it became the thing to play with the door on the toaster. Yes, we find Pappys in the toaster oven now.

We're phasing out Pappy in an effort to help Abby speak. And for the most part, I'd say it's been a rousing success. She talks non-stop now, and a few words are actually understandable. Her favorite phrases the last week or so post-Pappy have been things like "Sanka Coz," "Oh min" (that's oh man -- she's picked this up somehow and says it all the time, out of the blue, quite hilarious) and her personal favorite, "Oss." Oss, of course, means "Oz," as in The Wizard of Oz, which is now forever on our DVR because yours truly thought it would be great for the kids to have. Abby loves it, and we watch the Dorothy Chronicles at least twice a day, or parts of it, anyway.

Oh yeah, she can say "Care cro" too, courtesy of Oz.

So the chatter has picked up considerably with Pappy out the way. We've come to an agreement with the baby, however. She can have Pappy only at naptime and bedtime, and any other time she gets a hankerin for her friend it's with the understanding that a nap must take place as well. That usually settles the issue for a few moments, anyway.

A week or so into the experiment, Abby's now playing games. It was just me and her yesterday in the living room, and I of course was caught up in the early part of the Cowboys game. That's about all I say about that debacle -- the Cowboys, I mean.

I look up at some point and there's Abby, somehow with a shiny green pappy in her mouth and another multi-colored one in her hand. I said something to the effect of get rid of the Pappy, and she grinned from behind the friend. I reached out to get it and she pulled back, grinning larger. Then we got into this playful little chase around the furniture, which fortunately I won. Both Pappys were removed and placed out of sight, I thought, and therefore out of mind.

No chance. Two minutes later, I look up and she's retrieved them, and we're off to chasing again. This went on for two or three more times before I finally had enough and the Pappys were safetly put out of reach. Game effectively over, she moved on to the next project with not a single word of protest.

Yes, Pappy isn't dead around the house, but the funeral arrangements are in the works. Once Abby realizes she can indeed fall asleep and sleep peacefully without Pappy in the same room, we can all breathe a little easier. Maybe then we'll get rid of the nighttime bottle-before-bed routine, too.

Tag Team

Okay, CDJ, I can play the game.

1. Two Names You Go By: Daddy and Dream. Daddy is obvious, and my wife calls me all kinds of things based on the mood and situation of the moment. Dream is a nickname given to me by a good friend, referring to Dreamweaver. Or my likeness with Hakeem Olajuwon.

2. Things You Are Wearing Right Now: Work slacks, a Tigers coaching shirt, and a blue windjacket because a cold front just blew in overnight.

3. Two Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment: A warmer cup of coffee and Christmas tunes. A playoff spot for the Cowboys would also be nice.

4. Two people who you look up to: My wife and...a handful of my friends who shall remain nameless.

.5. Two things you did last night: Went to choir practice and suffered through it with a raging cold that I hope I've knocked out overnight...feeling a little better this morning.

.6. Two things you ate yesterday: Chinese food for lunch and three Taco Bell tacos for dinner.

7. Two people you last talked to: My bosses, Mike Midkiff and Lea Hall.

8. Two Things you're doing tomorrow: Work and hopefully take my wife out on a date.

9. Two longest car rides: Birmingham, Ala., and Rogers, Ark.

10. Favorite Holidays : Thanksgiving and Christmas, duh.

11. Favorite Vacations : Destin, Fla. -- twice.

12. Last trip: Last weekend to Alpine, Texas, and Brownwood, Texas, for ETBU basketball. Nearly 2,000 miles round trip on a bus at all hours of the night -- hence the cold.

13. Two favorite beverages: Sweet tea and Diet anything.