A Father's Gift

Nathaniel is rather active when I put him in the crib for a nap or for the night. He looks at me, kicks his legs in excitement, talks (now it’s “Bah bah bah bah bah”), rolls, strikes the crib railings with his feet, and fiddles with the toys hanging on his crib. I love listening to his noises and movements over the baby monitor. There is so much action going on in his bedroom even after I leave that I wish I had a camera planted in his crib so I could see what he’s doing.

What’s funny is that after 15 to 30 minutes of noisiness, the sounds suddenly vanish. It’s like, out of the blue, Nathaniel just passes out from tiredness or something. That’s when you begin to hear either his heavy breathing or his nose whistling. Though I’m relieved he sleeps so much—because it gives me the much needed break—I have to admit, I miss him so much after a couple of hours that I can’t wait to see him when he wakes up. A mother’s job never gets old—no matter how habitual everything is from one day to the next.

Monday, Lee is back to work. Of course, that’s a good thing. But it’ll also be sad that he won’t get as much time to spend with the family as he has the past few weeks. What made me cry is that upon his discovery that he was hired last Tuesday, we sat together to pray and thank God for his grace and blessing upon our family; while we shared about what we had learned during these past few weeks, one observation Lee made was the change in Nathaniel’s behavior toward him after just a few weeks of extra hours with his son. My eyes grew watery when I heard that Lee could see the difference time could make with his son. And I tell him—speaking from experience from my own childhood—a Father’s Time is the best gift he can give to his son. I hope, as Lee begins his work and enters a life of busyness again, that he will never forget the connection he made with Nathaniel in the early part of this year.

A Time for Pause

"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." Hebrews 12:4

"Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." Philippians 2:12

The past two and a half weeks have been atypical. Week one was busy: the husband was perfecting his résumé, making calls and networking, and applying for jobs on whatever job site was available. In week two, God was so gracious to our family. After a weekend of our wavering back and forth from peace to panic (the former as a result of our submitting to God our heavy hearts and the latter as a result of assessing the reality before us), God gave us hope: Lee was called for four interviews, one of them ended up lasting 2.5 hours long. The nights, as a result, involved Lee studying. He anticipated every possible question the interviewers would ask him and spent hours typing out his answers, then memorizing them. (I felt like the tables had turned somewhat: the past two years, it was me who was spending hours in the evening studying…)

Of course, we realized that even though Lee was temporarily unemployed, this extra time with family was invaluable. For once, during our family time, Lee’s Blackberry was not going off because of emails or phone calls. For once, on a weekday—not one, but a series of them—Nathaniel woke up in the morning, was laid on his mommy and daddy’s bed, and both of us were encircling him. Nathaniel would turn from one side to the other, talking to me, then talking to Daddy, then touching both of our faces. I, for one, was grateful that Nathaniel got more windows to get to know Daddy better.

At the same time, during this time in which Lee was laid off, we couldn’t treat it as a sort of vacation. We didn’t dare go shopping nor go out to eat nice meals—not when we had no idea when income was going to start coming in again.

In Lee’s prayers, he prays for God to humble him, to give him peace during this whole job search process. He was mentally drained. Interview after interview, he felt the pressure to prove himself to somebody—all over again. Not only did he have to do it, he needed to—he had a family to think about. One night, when he took a break, he and I sat on the family room couch to watch television; suddenly, he started breathing hard. It was all too familiar. Over a year ago, I went to the doctor’s because I had experienced shortness of breath. After some tests, the doctor told me that my irregular breathing was a result of stress. It was the same for Lee. I asked him whether he was okay—he said that most of the time, his head told him that everything was going to be okay—but every now and then, his imagination took the best of him, and he would lapse—momentary panic.

By the end of week two, I felt like a solemn cloud of calmness came over our household. Not because any solid news came in telling us that we were okay, but because we were somehow resigned to the fact that this was a time in which God wanted to teach us something. Our family has been incredibly blessed over the past several years. Lee has never been unemployed for as long as we’ve been together. He’s only experienced promotions and salary increases in the past decade. It wasn’t so much that “we were due,” as Lee once pragmatically remarked, but that God wanted us to stop and listen. Not that we haven’t thanked God in our prayers for the blessings He’s showered upon us, but sometimes, I have to say, that might not be enough. For an instant, however momentary it was or will be one day when we look back at this, we were anxious about the future. Even when we were telling ourselves there was no reason to be anxious (we had so much family who were ready and willing to help us) yet to know that what we had could disappear—SNAP—just like that.

The message was loud and clear.

Two weeks after Nathaniel was born, last year May, Lee got a call from a recruiter for a job opportunity. At the time, he had already spent five years at a job that was gradually sucking the energy out of him. Sixty to eighty-hour work weeks, incessant calls on his Blackberry that didn’t give our family a moment of quietness. Lee began to hate his job. It was normal for him to go through the Sunday blues, in which he dreaded going back to the office again. Work-life balance was non-existent. When our baby son was born, and this call from a recruiter came in, and after three rounds of intense interviews, Lee was eventually hired—we thought—this was a blessing from God: same title, more pay, less hours. Who knew it existed?

Not only that, but for once, Lee liked his job. He was eager to see the fruits of his labor. He had every intention of committing himself to this company for several years. Then suddenly, seven months later, they present to him a release form, terminating him, not having hinted at all even hours before that this was going to happen. Just like that. He lost his job.

Last week, I had asked Lee: “Knowing that they were going to let you go seven months after taking this job, do you regret having taken it?” With no hesitation at all, he replied, “No.” Though he shook his head in disbelief and frustration that they had done this to him, he was nonetheless thankful for the opportunity that was granted to him and the new networks he had made as a result. In fact, in the past couple of weeks, he’s gone out numerous times with his colleagues from the company that laid him off—with those who were also laid off and the staff who were still there but now were uncertain about their futures.

What occurred to both of us as a result of this ordeal is how things aren’t always what they seem. On the surface, circumstances give every semblance of security: a big fancy office, a comfortable salary, the praise of superiors, a promise of bonuses, good rapport with colleagues. But such tangible items are empty and fleeting, no matter how tight a grip one has on them. Like biting into a decadent piece of chocolate and finding it hollow inside.

Of course, the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes made this observation a long time ago:

“I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards... I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces... I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.

Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

After the extra long interview Lee had last Wednesday, Lee called them back to follow up. The HR representative said they wouldn’t have an answer for him until this week—week three. I have to say, I had a feeling inside that God wanted us to wait. I was somewhat concerned for Lee—he could get the job, he could not—but how would not getting the job affect him? In our prayers, we had to pray that God would give us peace whatever the result. And even further, that if Lee didn’t get the job, that we would genuinely have faith that this was part of His will. That the events that would unravel in the coming months could go any way—two weeks of unemployment, two months, six months—were we ready to demonstrate our assurance in God's faithfulness?

The past weekend, we celebrated Chinese New Year. We enjoyed time with family and relatives. Lee seemed less preoccupied than he had been the previous weeks.

Monday morning: Lee gets called in for a second interview for the same job, this time with the executives of the company. (The peculiar thing is that Lee was told that the company had been trying to reach him since the week before, even leaving him a message, but for some reason Lee never got it.) Tuesday: Lee’s interview is in the afternoon. Tonight: Lee calls home and says, “I got the job.” After another three-hour interview, Lee is made an offer. Relief comes over us.

I must say, it wasn’t until I took my Old Testament Theology course in seminary that it came to my attention that man had been put to work even before the fall. Genesis 2:15 writes, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” During Lee’s job search, from time to time, he would sit at the laptop and declare, “I need a job”—but not just because he ‘needed’ it, but he was saying that he needed to work. He couldn’t just sit around and do nothing. Ecclesiastes 2 writes, “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness…”

At the moment, I am waiting for Lee to come home. But even before receiving his news over the telephone, I had thought—if God decides that Lee is to get this job—He is truly gracious—because this period of testing could go longer—we might even need it to go longer (when I pray to God to humble us, don’t think I’m not scared about what I’m asking). As it is written in James 1:2: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Lee and I—we still need so much more maturing in our relationship with God—in what other circumstances was God going to shape us?

This three-week period of Lee’s layoff—rather than a prolonged impedance—has felt like someone had suddenly pressed the “pause” button on the remote—and today—suddenly pressed “play” again. As if, for several minutes, rather than listening to all the white noise coming from the television, we were able to drink in the stillness and the silence.

Lee starts his new job on Monday. I go on the company website and discover that the company that hired Lee is rated as one of the “50 Best Managed Companies” in all of Canada.

God, You are so good—yet none of it we deserve. May we offer all of ourselves to You—in good times and in bad. Thank you that you are the source of true peace, true assurance, true hope. Everything we have is meaningless if we do not acknowledge that it is You who has freely given it to us. Forgive us for our greediness, selfishness, self-centeredness. May we trust that You, our Heavenly Father, seeks to mold our character and conduct so that they reflect your holiness. Let no obstacle that comes our way do any harm to the state of our souls, but may we always seek the highest good, which is exemplified in your Son Jesus Christ.

Freedom from Fear

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. ~ 2 Timothy 1:7

So many thoughts have been going through my mind that I have yet to form an entry of it all, at least a coherent one anyway. I need time. Time to stand back and absorb it all. Time to delve into the Word. Time to figure out what kind of wife I need to be at this moment for my husband.

Driving home from fellowship on Saturday night, Lee began to explain what he was feeling to me. It was past midnight. It was cold. The roads were covered with snow. In the privacy and quietness of our car, I tried to understand what he was saying. And since Lee doesn’t very often pour out what is in his heart, I listened hard. In the end, I know I can’t empathize with what this means for him. When asked by people how he feels about what happened, he answers with the simple statement: “I feel like my best friend just turned his gun on me.”

He says this because ever since he took this new post as I.T. Manager, he’s been affirmed continually by his colleagues and boss. In fact, the affirmation came with a top notch performance review and a salary increase. This all took place two weeks before he got laid off. Of course, his being let go had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the recession we find ourselves in at the moment. Suddenly, the dismal headlines in the newspapers are hitting a little closer to home.

Now and then I ask Lee whether he’s okay. Quite often at first. To the point where I asked him, “Is my asking you whether you’re okay annoying you?” He answered, “Kinda.” “Do you want me to stop?” I then ask. He doesn’t answer. That in itself communicated a lot.

Repeatedly, he has said that it isn’t the financial aspect that vexes him as much as the psychological. If constant affirmation in the workplace isn’t a sign that you’re going to get to keep your job, what is?

This, of course, goes back to the age-old theme that nothing in this earthly life can be fully relied upon. We all know that. We live like we don’t, until one of us, inevitably, has the rug pulled from under us. We’re taught this time and time again in the Bible. Nothing is new under the sun.

While Lee is working on his résumé, talking on the phone with recruiters, networking with all his business contacts, I’m tending to Nathaniel or reading. I’ve picked up Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ Spiritual Depression again—thinking that the book would speak to our current situation. Coincidentally, the chapter I left off at just a few months ago was entitled, “Fear of the Future.”

I noted the following passage in this chapter:

Our fears are due to our failure to stir up—failure to think, failure to take ourselves in hand. You find yourself looking to the future and then you begin to imagine things and you say: ‘I wonder what is going to happen?’ And then, your imagination runs away with you. You are gripped by the thing; you do not stop to remind yourself of who you are and what you are, this thing overwhelms you and down you go.

Now the first thing you have to do is to take a firm grip of yourself, to pull yourself up, to stir up yourself, to take yourself in hand and to speak to yourself. As the Apostle puts it, ‘we have to remind ourselves of certain things. And as I understand it, the big thing that Paul is saying in effect to Timothy is: “Timothy, you seem to be thinking about yourself and about life and all you have to do as if you were still an ordinary person. But, Timothy, you are not an ordinary person! You are a Christian, you are born again, the Spirit of God is in you. But you are facing all these things as if you are still what you once were, an ordinary person’.

And is not that the trouble with us all in this connection? Though we are truly Christian, though we believe the truth, though we have been born again, though we are certainly children of God, we lapse into this condition in which we again begin to think as if none of these things had happened to us at all. Like the man of the world, the man who has never been regenerated, we allow the future to come to us and to dominate us, and we compare our own weakness and lack of strength with the greatness of the falling and the tremendous task before us. And down we go as if we were but our natural selves. Now the thing to do, says Paul to Timothy, is to remind yourself that we have been given the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, and to realize that because of this our whole outlook upon life and the future must therefore be essentially different. We must think of suffering in a new way, we must face everything in a new way.

Jones continues in the chapter by making the next empowering statement:

Living the Christian life means we have the “power to endure, power to go on whatever the conditions, whatever the circumstances, power to hold on and to hold out. Let me go further, it means that the most timorous person can be given power in all things, even to die.”

But how are we to free ourselves from running away with our imagination, one replete with human worry? Jones says it is necessary to get rid of ourselves—that is, our persistent need to be engrossed in self-love, self-concern, and self-protection. We do this by becoming “absorbed in someone or something else that [we] have no time to think about [ourselves]. Thank God, the Spirit of God makes that possible.” We are to think of “the love of the Son in its breadth, its length, its depth, its height… Think of His love, and as you come to know something about it, you will forget yourself.”

My calmness right now, I must confess, is because this is the first day that Lee is out of work. God truly showed his grace to us during this time, for Lee, having only worked for this company for seven months, nonetheless received a two-month severance package, in addition—vacation pay and bonus.

We are praying. We are actively searching for job prospects. We are taking it one day at a time and trusting Him who is the provider. We are looking ahead. We are hoping. But I must say—eight weeks is not a long time, and as the days or weeks go by, and should we not hear anything, I pray hard that our faith does not grow any less weak because we have more reason to be fearful. I pray hard that, as Jones has described, we do not respond to our situation like ordinary persons—but as children of God, with the Spirit in us. Not only that, I pray hard that, whatever might come our way in this time of uncertainty, that we turn it all into glory to the One who graciously gave us life.

In Good Times and in Bad…

When you’ve been married long enough, your attention is easily seized by the subtlest changes in your husband’s behavior. A little before midnight last Thursday, the husband and I are in our bedroom. I’m lying in bed, reading, and Lee is checking his work email. Then, out of the blue, he gets up and says, “I have to make a phone call.” I say, “Why don’t you make it here?” To which he answers, “It’s private.”

I stay in bed, but I hear his muffled voice coming from the basement. The fact that he has to talk on the phone in the basement so that I’m not within earshot worries me. Some time passes by. My eyes grow heavy, and curiosity is not enough to keep me awake.

1:30 a.m. My husband taps my elbow. I open my eyes. Hovering over me, he says, “I have something to tell you.” He sits down on the bed next to me. That’s when my heart begins to beat faster.

“I think I’m gonna get let go tomorrow.”

I continue listening.

“It’s too complicated for me to explain to you, but I pieced it all together, and I’m pretty sure tomorrow is my last day.”

One thing about my husband. He has an exceptional ability to observe and evaluate his surroundings. He can read people, make conclusions based on their words, actions, gestures. He has this uncanny ability to filter out “unnecessary” emotion and opinion to see things as they are (can you imagine what our marriage must be like—this man with someone like me?). As a result, Lee can very often see the reality behind the pretense. He’s also a very pragmatic man. When he speaks, he only says what “needs” to be said, nothing more, nothing less. So when he tells me all this, I have no doubt that his hunch is correct.

A slew of words come out of me. Among them, “I love you,” “I trust you,” “Are you okay?” Then came the more realistic questions—how are we going to handle our finances? Considering Lee had just begun this new position last June, we were worried about what his severance package would be. Two weeks, perhaps? A month? We started to list all the “fat” in our monthly budget and began to decide which ones needed to be eliminated.

After an hour of discussion, I open the Bible to Philippians 4 and read it aloud. Then I pray for the both of us. In my prayer, I even prayed that God would grant Lee the sleep he needed, even in the midst of the circumstances. Afterward, Lee tells me he needs some time alone, so he goes downstairs. At 4:30 in the morning, when I still can’t sleep, I go downstairs to find him. He’s fallen asleep on the family room couch. I wake him—advise him to go to sleep in the bed. He does so, and falls sleep until 8:00 the next morning.

Lee puts on a dress shirt and pants the next morning to prepare for work. He wants to look his best for his last day. Later in the morning, I tell my sister to pray for me. Prior to leaving the house, Lee had told me not to share the situation with anyone until he knew what was really going to happen. Late in the morning, I tell my sister to pray for me. I tell her I can’t tell her why—though I knew in my heart I would feel better if I did. So I say to my sister, “Would I be a bad wife if I told you even though Lee told me I couldn’t?” She chuckles, “No… He didn’t say—me— in particular; he said, ‘anyone.’” I hesitate. “Okay, I’ll guess—so you really wouldn’t be telling me.” I, of course, agree to that. (My sister and I have an unspoken understanding that when we say to one another, "Don't tell anyone," our husbands are the exceptions; there really needs to be a clause in the confidentiality agreement with our husbands that the same holds true for sisters.) My sister guesses correctly. And that’s when I recount the events that had taken place since late Thursday night.

“Do you have time to pray?” My sister then says. I said, “Yes, I prayed last night and this morning.” “I meant, do you have time to pray right now?” So over the phone, my sister prays for Lee and me, and as I listened to her words, I began to cry, and then she began to cry.

Nathaniel and I spend the afternoon at my sister’s place. We played with the kids, snacked on chips and cookies, joked around, meanwhile, in the background, my thoughts went back to what Lee was going through. When I got home at around 2:45 p.m., Lee’s car was already in the garage.

I knew that what he said would happen, had happened.

Daddy-Son Connection

It’s nothing amazing when Nathaniel cries for Mommy. When I leave him in the bouncer or exersaucer so that I can do my chores around the house, Nathaniel simply has to see me walking away from him before he begins to cry—even if it’s just a few seconds.

Last night, however, was the first time I ever saw Nathaniel cry for Daddy. It was a very touching moment.

Lee had to work a little later than usual. Nathaniel’s bedtime was supposed to be 7:00 p.m., but I tried to keep him awake so that he’d, at the least, see Daddy before going to bed. Nathaniel and I sat together in his bedroom. I was relieved to hear the garage door opening and minutes later Lee coming up the stairs into Nathaniel’s bedroom. At the first sight of Daddy, Nathaniel squealed and kicked his legs. Lee held Nathaniel in his arms and hoisted him in the air as he always does (Lee likes to do things I can’t do with the baby). Ten minutes later, I say, “Time to sleep.”

I sit down to feed Nathaniel, but oddly, he rejects me, turning his head around and reaching out into the space ahead of him. I try a few times to get him to feed, but he rejects me again. Then he begins to cry. Perplexed by this uncharacteristic behavior, I call Lee to come back into Nathaniel’s bedroom.

“I think he wants you…” I say to the husband. “Let’s put this to the test. Sit down beside me.” Lee sits down (I normally tell Lee to leave the room when I feed Nathaniel before bedtime so that Nathaniel doesn’t confuse bedtime with playtime). At once, Nathaniel begins to feed, then turns around every ten seconds or so to check that Daddy is still there. When Nathaniel is done feeding, I put him in the crib, but his hands reach out toward the door, as if wanting Daddy to come back.

Since Nathaniel’s birth, he’s always had an intimate connection with Mommy, of course. Lee always tries to mimic my interactions with Nathaniel when attempting to pacify his crying, but in the end, it’s always Mommy he wants. I console Lee every time: “He needs me, and he wants you.”

It was nice that this was not the case last night. Nathaniel’s expressing what he wanted last night and the happiness this brought the husband was a moment definitely worth recording.