My most precious treasures.
The text of this post was written in September of 2017 as our family was on an adventure to Disney World, to "celebrate" our retirement. Me from my role as lead pastor after almost 40 years and my wife had finally closed down her Child Care business after some 35 years. I kept a pretty careful travel journal during the week that eventually became a book (EDDIE), which remains yet as one of my best selling projects. This is a bit long, but its taken right out of the heart of our trip. Please enjoy a good laugh at our expense. If this piques your interest, go to my bookstore and read the "rest of the story."
DAY 12 & 13 - Tacos Supreme
It’s 3:15 a.m. on Tuesday morning, and my son Tim just served up an order of Tacos Supreme. Apparently, he was not aware that he had placed the order. It sort of just showed up, unannounced, and altogether unwelcome. It sure made his trip the Magic Kingdom “magical.” Food can give a certain added sense of adventure to a ride on Big Thunder Mountain and a new spin on the Tea Cups. Certainly thinking about Tim as he flies home on Wednesday. He may actually have a "special" seat on that flight.
It’s 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning and I’m sitting outside under a giant figure of Roger Rabbit balancing on a can of turpentine and a huge yellow “walkman,” drinking a cold can of Cheerwine. I’m thinking about heading out for a plate of liver mush and grits in a while - and getting more hungry by the minute.
I’ve just come from seeing Tim, Heather, and Cady off to the airport for their flight home and I’ve just learned something about the little one - she is real grouch when you wake her up before she is ready. Will be praying for their little family as they fly back home today. It seems like just such a short time we were fighting to get everybody here and now, over the next few days we all start toward home. The kids will all be flying while Barb and I, well - we definitely won’t be flying - we will be pointing Cousin Eddie northward (kinda) and moving out of here on Friday morning. [Eddie is our 42 year old motor home.]
You know, it's hard work having fun with 25 people ranging in age from 5 months to 816 months; from 66 cm tall to 199 cm tall, weighing from 2.7 kg to 143 kg; not to mention getting them to wear the same exact shirt and to show up at the exact same event at the exact same time. Its tough to arrange work schedules, travel schedules, housing arrangements and event schedules to work together. (Not to mention one certain little guy’s first haircut.) Bryan has worked (in partnership with Gabe and Abigail) for over two years to organize and direct this little family outing to coincide with our retirement. I am positive he would have had a great deal more fun and relaxation if he would have left us all at home and traveled with just his family. However, he has been the rock that has made this thing work. The only thing missing might be a red umbrella to carry at the head of the line so we can all find him.
I’m pretty sure he’s had a great time planning this adventure and I’m pretty sure he will NEVER invite us all to come to Florida with him again. However, in the meantime, he’s done a great job and we are all grateful for his hard work and commitment to our family.
Bryan is the firstborn, every bit the elder brother and not at all like that elder brother in Luke 15 who despised the younger. Instead, Bryan seems to have taken some of his greatest joy this week in making sure that his siblings and his parents have an enjoyable time. He has pushed strollers with little ones while their parents have gone off to enjoy an exciting ride or show, and asked his mother at least a thousand times if she is “doing all right.”
It has truly been a typical Gantt family extravaganza; loud, boisterous, everybody talking at the same time, engaging everyone we meet and pulling them into the maelstrom that we call family; and hard to tell which kids belong to which adults as everyone has pitched in to make it a great week. It has been so much fun watching this bunch invade a room or restaurant and immediately, like a band of traveling comedians, “working” the room and then blowing out the door, a caravan of jesters in red shirts leaving unsuspecting travelers wondering, “What just happened?” They are truly a force to be reckoned with.
Have I ever mentioned how much I love my kids?
It breaks my heart to see families broken and shattered; fighting over an inheritance, frozen in a moment by some perceived “wrong;” pushing their own blood out of their lives because of offenses, real or perceived, and living in unforgiveness and bitterness; bitterness that slowly chokes the life out of those who gave us life - or, those to whom we have given life, or those with whom we share life. When we do this, we not only break our own hearts, we break the heart of God. Our families are the first and greatest gift God has given us apart from Jesus, our Savior; and other than Jesus are our first line of defense against the attacks of the enemy.
Satan, from the beginning, has worked to drive wedges in the family. He wants to destroy marriages, alienate siblings, harden the hearts of children toward their parents, transforming families into war zones, rather than safe havens for us all. I don’t hold our family up as a model. We have our spats, our conflicts, our troubles just like everyone else. However, there is a model that Barbara and I hold up for our children to see and it is the model of the scriptures. The Word of God is our family model.
God has given us vivid pictures of marriage and family and if we will faithfully use His template, we and our children will enjoy God’s blessings and spiritual prosperity it promises. Deuteronomy 6 and in Psalm 78, among others, God tells us that in the context of family, and through the power of Jesus’ blood that we destroy the work of the devil and strengthen one another against his attacks. When we allow ourselves to be alienated from our family we expose them to the attacks of the enemy and make them, and ourselves, more vulnerable to his devices.
Barbara and I are constantly engaged in warfare for our children and grandchildren. We will allow nothing to alienate us, we reject anything that might divide us, we rebuke in fervent prayer any effort of the enemy to bring destruction into their lives, marriages, or children. We teach our children the principles of Scriptures “that it might go well with them in the land.” [Deuteronomy 6]. Even this trip is not solely about “fun”. It is about fortifying our family against the evil plans of the enemy against them.
Barbara and I had a nice day yesterday. Andrew took all the guys out for breakfast (except for Tim who wasn’t feeling well and Gabe who had plans otherwise) to a Shoney’s Buffet Breakfast. Then Barb and I took the day off from having fun to rest. We’re finding more and more that us old folks have to put ourselves in time out with a bit more regularity than we used to. Fun is still fun, but you have to take it in smaller bursts with longer naps in between. She went shopping with one of our girls and her family and I drove the 40 miles or so up to Sanford, Florida to visit with my good and long time friends, Steve and Sue Dunklee.
Like other folks I know, Steve doesn’t seem to really know how to deal with this whole “retirement” thing so while he’s retired he has served as an interim Pastor in a couple of places and accepted a position at Ethos360 (formerly New Tribes Missions) as a chaplain for their retirement facility for NTM missionaries.
Even though both he and Sue have some significant health issues over the past few years, they soldier on in the service of King and Kingdom. Now, they live in the middle of some 70 acres of missionary housing and a thousand stories of unrecorded history regaling the majesty of the King. In just a short time there, I met an aging missionary pushing along a walker who was born with Cerebral Palsy, writing with her left hand because her right side was so limited, told that she would never live, never walk; that she would be dependent for her whole life sharing with a huge smile that she spent 50 years climbing up and down the hills of Papua New Guinea sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. After recently falling and breaking her hip, she was told she would never walk again; chuckling as she stood up and pushed her little walker down the hall. Oh, to have the time to just hear all the stories that live in that beautiful little compound.
We ended our day at Andrew and Hannah’s with Eliana, Alexander and Nessah so their mom and Dad could have a nice evening out together. The kids swam in the pool, Nessah rolled around on the floor and I answered Alex’s “why” questions at least 1,345 times.
I fail to mention that in the middle of all this, I spent a couple of hours effecting some much needed “Eddie Maintenance” in preparation for our trip northward.
The sun is coming up and another day has begun. I get to spend it with the people I love more than life itself. I leave you with this urgent appeal: If there are broken places in your family, if there are wounds that are festering, if there is bitterness which is taking root or long ago planted - do not delay, for both you and those from whom you are alienated are in peril of the enemy’s devices and sin is crouching at your door.
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