by Andy Wood on September 30, 2009
Took a look at the funnies the other day. To be honest, I read them for the laughter. But I noticed something else in the process. Call me sensitive, or call me curious, but I was intrigued at the ways dads are presented. If it’s true that art imitates life, we may have some big problems. With fathers. With God. With ourselves.
Who is Father? According to the comics, he is Dagwood, the family calamity. He lives to sleep, or to eat, or to deal with the occasional salesman. He’s loveable, but always a little bit late, and about one brick shy of a load.
Who is Father? [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on July 28, 2008
(A Turning Point Story)
“Reverend Wood?”
I always know two things when somebody starts a conversation with that. First, something interesting is sure to follow. Second, whoever it is doesn’t know me very well.
It always feels a little awkward when somebody asks, “What should I call you?” I never have liked the “reverend” thing; the only time I put it in front of my name is when I’m signing a funeral book. I once had a reason for that; now it’s just habit.
My Baptist heritage made me “Brother Andy” to most people. To me, that’s a higher life form than “reverend,” but still felt a bit, I don’t know, dated or preachy or something.
Whenever my wife hears the Abraham-Sarah story, she enjoys calling me, “My lord.” “What would you like for dinner, my lord?” She thinks it’s really funny. I haven’t a clue why.
Since my move to Texas, I’ve been “Pastor Andy” to most people in church. That’s OK. “Andy” is even better. I’ve always liked the simplicity of just being me. But after watching people stumble over all that title biz for a while, I finally took a cue from one of my college professors: a simple “Your Majesty” will do.
Anyway, “Reverend Wood” is at the bottom of the list. And on this day the conversation that followed was interesting, to be sure.
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by Andy Wood on June 19, 2008
Not once did the thought occur to me. Not once.
We knew at 10 weeks we were having twins, courtesy of those dandy new ultrasound machines. And we were excited. Fresh out of school, still using wedding dishes, living in our own home, and picking out not one, but two sets of names.
Two boys? Joel Andrew and Jeremy Adam.
Boy and a girl? Joel Andrew and Jessica Leigh.
I was pretty quiet as we headed home from that latest ultrasound. The images were beginning to form in my mind for the first time.
Two girls?
Cosmic shifts started taking place in my little brain. And they all culminated in a wedding.
Since I was old enough to understand what fathers were, I wanted to be one. I was blessed to have a dad who loves being a dad, to this day. In whatever ways I have failed to live up to his example, I caught the whole load on that one. And in doing so, three deep convictions emerged:
- I would be the first representation of the nature and character of God to my children.
- We were called to raise adults, not children.
- Mommies build nests, but for daddies, children are arrows in their hands, and my job was to launch them.
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by Andy Wood on June 18, 2008
This Saturday will be the next step in a season of some pretty intense generational shifts for us. More on that tomorrow. I wrote the following article ten years ago, during another such season. It only seems like yesterday…
The voice on the phone was tired and quiet – not unusual for a hospital room at 9:20 pm. They’d just gotten Lou (my grandmother) settled down for the night when I’d made my untimely call. The occasion, other than to check on Lou, was to wish Mamma a happy 60th birthday. A little ironic that I had to track her down at Providence Hospital where she was watching her mother edge closer to death.
Life is filled with choices and changes, and my mom has seen her share of them. But perhaps never with the magnitude and frequency of change she faces now. Her mother has cancer, and is losing the battle. Her son lives many hours away. And up the highway a couple of hours, her daughter prepares for the Big One. She’s preparing to leave the country for the mission field.
On this night, I enjoy a feminine family reunion by telephone. I speak briefly to Lou, to tell her I am thinking of her, loving her, praying for her. I hear the pain, the despair, the fear in her voice. That growing sense of hopelessness that says, “I don’t feel good and I probably never will again.”
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by Andy Wood on May 15, 2008
I’ve said it often in church life: there is nothing more useless (and sometimes obnoxious) than a new grandparent.
Uh huh.
So anyway…
Amazing creatures, these babies – resting peacefully in somebody’s eager arms or lying in the bed, quietly watching the world go by. Filled with wonder at times, filling the room with noise at times. Innocent and defenseless, yet powerful enough to hold your heart in their tiny hands. So capable of needing and being needed, even before she takes her first nap. Babies! I realized the other day how long it had been since I had held one, or played with one. I remembered how little we still truly know about them.
How does God do that anyway? How can one life be created in the image of two, a miniature version of her Mommy and Daddy? How can she be so unable to care for herself, yet totally equipped to learn, to grow, and to develop? What’s really going through her mind as she lies there quietly? What will she become one day? Will she be a woman or a witch, an angel or a devil? We talk of “accidents,” but God never does. What does God have in mind for her? How much of God will she ever truly experience? What kind of God will she see in me? Or in her parents?
“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4).
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by Andy Wood on January 10, 2008
Here’s what Jane’s Hambleton’s classified ad read:
“OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don’t love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet.”
Her phone lit up, as you might imagine. Nobody wanted to buy the car, but everybody wanted to talk to Jane.
Know why? [click to continue…]
