Having a Family Requires Lots of Planning.

Nothing will change your life quite like having a baby and starting a family. It forces you to maturity and will either drive you and your spouse closer together, or further apart. All decisions related to having children, or more children, should be taken with very careful consideration, communication, planning, and prayer.

Here is a list of things to consider when talking with your partner, fiancée’, or spouse about starting a family. Talking about these things before entering into marriage can save you much heartache in the future. It is important that you see eye to eye on most issues involved in child-rearing if this is going to be a happy marriage:

• Wait at least several years after you get married before trying to have children. The time you have alone together is invaluable and you will never get it back. Choosing to spend several years in intimate childlessness will strengthen your marriage in unbelievable ways and prepare you for being the best parents you can possibly be- parents who are secure in their relationship.
• Having a baby WILL NOT fix your marriage problems! It will only make them worse!
• You need to save and prepare for having children, but you will never have ENOUGH money to have a child. Being a parent requires intense sacrifice. You will no longer be able to buy whatever you feel like whenever you feel like. Children will control every financial decision you make.
• You must share the responsibility of disciplining your children or one of you will become the bad cop, and the other, the good cop. You also must agree how you will discipline your children well before you ever conceive one. Will you spank? Use timeout? Ground? Take away privileges? Use only positive reinforcement? If one of you feels a particular form of punishment is too severe, the other is bared from punishing in that manner.
• You need to talk about what you will do as a couple if you are not able to have children? Will you seek medical help? Would you go as far as in vitro fertilization? Will you foster or adopt? Fertility issues can cause MAJOR issues if you are not prepared to deal with them.
• Make sure that your spouse wants to have children. Some don’t and will just allow their spouses to have children to simply appease them. This causes resentment, anger, and the breakdown of relationships.
• Also, make sure that you and your spouse are aware and open as to how each of you interact with children. If it is negative, you need to work on that as a couple long before trying to conceive, and possibly even before you consider entering into marriage. No one wants to marry someone who is a jerk to kids, but sadly many women do.
• Decide before you have children who will be primarily responsible for taking the children. Will both of you work and share the responsibility and  possibly send the child to childcare. Or will one of you work, while the other stays home to raise the children? Will one of you resent the other if you chose that option? These are all important things to consider.

Raising a child is the most sacred of all jobs given to man. Make sure that you and your partner take these decisions as such.

Jack was special. It was Jack’s job to watch over and care for the most magnificent plant in the entire garden. His plant was an enormous flower that could be seen from miles away. Most people say that the flower didn’t even exist until Jack was born- like it was made for him. The flower was made up of a rainbow of bold and brilliant colors. It had the most beautiful aroma anyone had ever smelled. The flower’s roots were so deep that it drank from an abundant supply of water from an underground stream-Jack didn’t even have to water it. It was placed in the garden in such a position that it received the perfect amount of sunlight and the perfect amount of shade, and even stayed in full bloom all year long. The flower was so magnificent that it even glowed in the dark on nights when the moon was out in its splendor.

Everyone in the garden would have done just about anything to tend to this flower. Even though they loved their plants, they would be lying if they said they never secretly dreamed about just watching Jack’s flower for hours. All Jack needed in life to be abundantly happy was to just sit and be with the flower and enjoy its multifaceted beauty. And all the flower needed from Jack was for him to take pleasure in being with her.

The flower burst forth offspring in the fertile ground around Jack’s corner of the garden. The amount of beauty and perfection that had been planted all around him was unfathomable. Jack’s life was basically perfect. He had been given a family- the most beautiful family he could have ever imagined. Life should have been good- very good.

But Jack had something in his heart that told him that he deserved better; that he needed more than just the most beautiful flower on earth and her offspring. He loved the flower and had no desire to tend to any other plants, but he began to spend less and time with his flower family in pursuit of something more fulfilling than what he had been given.

He poured his energy into tending fertile soil that had not yet been seeded. He worked vigorously rerouting streams and rivers to portions of the garden that had no need for irrigation. He began to write books about how to tend a flower. He scheduled as many meetings as he could with other gardeners to tell them about how good he was at tending flowers and how hard of a worker he was. He even ran for the position of head gardener and won.

Yes! Jack was busy! Jack was feeling quite good about himself. After all, he had won the respect of everyone in the garden- all because of his hard work- or so he thought. You see, people looked up to Jack, not because he was a hard worker or a phenomenal gardner, but because he had the most beautiful flower in the garden. And the more and more busy Jack become, the more and more recognition he gained, and the more and more his ego grew; the more and more his flower began to wither and die along with all of her offspring.

Jack saw the poor condition of his flower and her offspring. Day after day he looked at it as he left his portion of the garden for his busy work. But Jack didn’t have time to tend to them! He was a busy man and people needed him! His flower and her offspring would be fine- after all, they had Jack as their gardner.

One day, a trusted friend of Jack was walking by his portion of the garden when he noticed that Jack’s flower wasn’t so beautiful anymore. She was nearly withered to the point of death. Her offspring were suffering as well; their once vibrant petals littering the now dry soil at the base of their stems. Jack’s friend ran to warn him, but Jack didn’t care- he shrugged it off and blamed their condition on his flower’s unstable emotions.

Jack’s friend began to tell others about his flower, and Jack began to lose all the respect that he once had. Jack started to realize that his notoriety was based, not on his hard work, but on his beautiful flower. When Jack realized that, and how he had horribly neglected them, he ran back to his portion of the garden to take pleasure in his beautiful flower and her offspring in order to rejuvenate their health, restore their symbiotic relationship, and bring back his respect amongst the other gardeners.

But when Jack arrived, it was too late. His beautiful magical flower lay limp on the ground, and her offspring all bowed down dead on the ground facing towards their mother. Jack wept aloud and wished that he only would have seen how perfect his life was! If only he has paid attention to the one thing that was supposed to be the object of his affection. If only he wouldn’t have tried to pursue so many other things that he now finds meaningless…if only.

People are almost offended when they find out- as if we are living in sin for not obeying the rules of culture. People say things like,” how can you afford…?” Usually the answer is,”we can’t.” We make sacrifices in order to have our kids raised by the one person they should be; their mom. We may not have a big house, two cars, or as many night’s out as the typical two income family, but we do have our kids at home with their mother. And that’s worth every sacrifice.

Now I don’t want to belittle or condemn for a minute the moms out there who work. Some of you do not have a choice and some of you simply may not be the stay at home type and for that you and your children’s lives may be better off.

But I do think that in almost all cases, moms staying home to raise their children is ideal. While I don’t believe it’s a Biblical command for mothers, I do believe it’s God’s plan for them and the precident set in Scripture.

And the amazing thing about our decision is that God keeps providing for us, often times giving us extra money to be able to do the things other two income families are doing. I believe that is attributed to is doing his will, part of which is keeping our children at home with their mom. It’s what’s best for us.

One final thing to consider is that often times having a mother work is no benefit to a family at all. After the expenses of childcare, transporatation, wardrobe, food, and higher tax bracket, working-mother-families can have a difficult time getting ahead at all. When you put it on paper you may only be making several hundreds of dollars more per month to miss some of the most important stages of your child’s life. Is that worth it to you?

So if you are a mom, soon to be mom, or considering becoming a mom, prayerfully consider what God would have you do in regards to raising your children. And whichever way He leads you, if you remain faithful, He will provide.

Either way; I want to escape for a while- very badly!

My sister and brother-in-law are in Disneyland right now. And I’ve got to say; I’m jealous.

Would love to see the joy and excitement on the faces of my wife and kids as they ride down Splash Mountain or pose with Mickey Mouse. Would love to feel the warm sunshine on my neck. Would love to have a few nights walking on beach or a boardwalk with my wife as we go from restaurant to shop and so on.

This may sound a little self-serving: but a guy can dream, right?

Once we finally got away from work, we had the pleasure of driving up the Willamette Valley on 1-5 on a very beautiful sunny February day.

I love going on drives with my family and the time it allows us to talk, relax, and listen to an occasional podcast.

After being stuck in Canyonville for 4 days, it was nice to see civilization again- it was also nice to have a little Taco Bell on the way up for lunch as well.

We dropped our tv off, once we arrived in Salem, to get the HDMI input fixed. I hope that doesn’t cost too much. Then we got rid rid of some old toys at Value Village that were taking up way to much room in our house- please don’t tell our son!

To top off our evening we had the wonderful opportunity to have dinner with our good friends Bobby and Tiffany Gaither. Tiffany made some ‘smok’n’ spaghetti sauce! And even though it had onions in it; I loved it! It was great to see their son Josiah and how big he is getting.

After visiting with my parents, with their tv turned up WAY too loud, I am settling down for a night of working on my taxes- if I don’t fall asleep on the couch!

I’ve been very neglectant of my blog as of late, but my New Year’s Resolution is to change that. I’m going to be changing my personal schedule up a bit to be more accountable to things in life that are important to me.

So what have I been up to?

Well it’s been an exciting couple of months. I’ve gotten to meet some wonderful students from all over the globe. I saw the ‘last boy on campus that I expected to become a Christian’ become one! I’ve had my fill of cafeteria food. I’ve learned the joys and difficulties of being around your wife and kids basically 24 hours a day. I’ve had the opportunity to speak the Word of God to young people who know nothing of it- and have found it challenging. I’ve figured out what some of my passions are, and what they are not. I’ve rediscovered some of my strengths, and have had my weaknesses redefined. I’ve learned to trust more in an Almighty-Everliving-God. I’ve driven to Eugene, Medford, and Portland a few more times than I would have liked to drop kids off at the airport. I’ve had to say goodbye to some students who made horrible choices in life. I’ve found the most respectful-delightful-polite-loving teenage boy that I have ever met- and he is a Muslim. I’ve learned to rely on the hospitallity and generosity of others. I have grown to love my close friends and family more than ever before. Etc….Etc….Etc…

One thing that has surprised me more than anything is my love of the Church. Here at CCA I attend church every week on Sunday when I am working, but it’s not really attending church, it’s supervising young people who because of their non-existant relationship with Christ- can be quite disrespectful during church. I have learned how powerful it is to worship the Lord Jesus Christ with a group of Believers and how meaningful it is to absorb the Word of God with your brothers and sisters in Christ. I have learned how much it means to have fellow followers of Christ around you to constantly encourage you, hold you accountable, and study the Bible with you.

I came here over 4 months ago with my desire and focus on changing the lives of young people from every corner of the globe-and I think I have- but I belive now that God brought my family and I here for ‘us’. I know that sounds very selfish and it’s normally something that I would not say, but I honestly believe it with all my heart because here we are being tested, refined, and challenged in ways we never have been before. This is a spiritual and mental training ground for the next stage in our life….a transitioning place and time….and I’m excited, and scared to see what’s next.

Grace and Peace,

Anthony Trask