Fuzzy, Furry, and Warm
My very busy parents were great about making the six-hour drive from Tennessee to central Illinois to visit us again and again during the eight years we lived in Illinois. I always appreciated it so much. We have great memories from those visits.
One time they came near Mother’s birthday. After a meal, I surprised her with the first dirt cake she had ever seen. Dirt cake is a combination of crushed Oreo cookies, chocolate pudding, cream cheese, Cool Whip, gummy worms, and such (this was obviously before our health enthusiast days). I placed the concoction in a plastic flower pot and finished off the illusion by putting silk flowers in the “dirt.”
Pretending that this was Mother’s birthday present, we brought it to her at the table. You can imagine her surprise when I stuck in a new, clean trowel and began offering everyone a serving of “dirt.” Her face and laughter were priceless.
Sometimes we took my parents on outings, just as they had done for my brother and me when we were young. On one very hot summer day, we went to the St. Louis arch. Another time the children and I took them to Chicago, while Ray stayed in Champaign-Urbana to work.
A downtown department store was having a super sale. I was attracted to something very different than anything I had ever owned before–a fake fur coat marked down from $200 to $50–not a bad price for a coat that would keep me very warm in the cold Illinois winters though I went nowhere that I needed a coat that looked like that. Still, I thought it was quite beautiful with its nice satin lining; and, if you looked at it from far enough away, it almost looked real. As I stood looking at the coat, my parents really encouraged me to buy it. I did. More than twenty years later, I still wear it when the weather is super cold, because the coat is super warm.
I can’t believe I’m showing you this picture from our snowy winter of 2010!
I don’t know that I have ever worn that coat without feeling kinda funny. It feels hooty tooty to me. I also feel that it draws attention to me. Neither are feelings I like at all. However, I also have a grateful feeling when I wear it.
My old fuzzy fake fur coat keeps me warm in other ways besides physical ones. When I wear it, I remember that my parents, children, and I spent happy hours in downtown Chicago one day. I remember my parents encouraging me to do something special for myself. And, I remember that my parents made my family and me a priority. The song that just popped into my head is an old Motown song from the 1960s. The chorus says: “Ain’t no mountain high enough; Ain’t no valley low enough; Ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from getting to you.”
That’s how my parents made me feel. Nothing was going to keep them from getting to us–not being short of cash, not the fact that they had a limited amount of time off, not anything. With my parents, it wasn’t excuses (or even reasons) that mattered; it was we who mattered.
You are helping your children form the view of themselves that they will carry into adulthood. It is crucial that they see themselves as valuable. One of the best ways I know to build up a child’s respect for himself is always to let him know how very valuable he is to his mama and papa. Doing that is not a “once and done” activity. It starts on the day a child is born and continues every day from that time forward.
Aren’t we thankful that no high mountains, low valleys, or wide rivers kept Jesus from coming to see us and doing what we desperately needed Him to do while He was here.
It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,
among whom I am foremost of all.
1 Timothy 1:15, NASB