CHAPTER 11:
A Family Reunited
The girls rushed over to the pile of parents. “Mom! Mom! Are you ok?!” JoJo frantically cried as she shook her mother.
“Mommy?!” Ani yelled as she ran over to survey the scene.
Elijah, though, raised his eyebrows and dropped his lower lip as fear jolted through his body. He knew, as most eldest children do, that somehow he would be in trouble for this. But he also knew, as most eldest children do, that whatever trouble he was about to get in would be worse if he walked away. With bated breath, he slowly followed the girls’ lead.
“I’m okay, little sweetie,” said the world’s most beautiful woman in the world’s most beautiful voice. “What are you guys doing? Weren’t you watching shows? Why is your father dressed like this? What is that smell?!”
“Well! Every time we would leave a room, our toys would go missing. OUR TOYS!” JoJo said defiantly as her compassion gave way to frustration.
Ani: “Yeah! So we set up a camera to catch the culprit. We thought Pa was taking our toys back to the nursing home. Or that birds were stealing them. But we found out that a toy-nado was taking all of our toys. We thought it was that bear—but it wasn’t, was it? It wasn’t a toy-nado, was it? It was YOU! You, Mommy!”
JoJo: “Why’d you do that, Mom?! Why did you get rid of our toys?! They’re our toys, you know? Not yours!”
The girls went back and forth like this for a while. Elijah just hung in the background. See, he knew he would be in trouble for all this. Somehow. He was the oldest. He was always in trouble. Somehow. He could also see how each word that came out of the girls’ mouths was basically like a shovel striking the ground, digging a bigger and bigger hole. Soon, they would fall in. He just knew it!
And then, it happened. Mom rose up to give a much-needed verbal smackdown.
“Take your toys? Lose your toys? What are you talking about? I didn’t take or lose any of your toys. I put them away. Like you were supposed to. But never did. I’m not the bad guy here.”
Mom’s eyes met the eyes of each kid, including Dad’s. She only stopped for a few seconds, but it felt like she was peering straight into their souls. As I’m sure you’ve experienced, there are moments when it seems like it is impossible to hide anything from your mother. Or win an argument with her.
Mom: “What do you think should happen when kids aren’t responsible enough to clean up after themselves? What do you think should happen when kids ignore the instructions parents give for their good? What do you think should happen when kids not only do all of this but also do whatever they want—leaving their mom out of the family fun because she was left to clean everything up?!”
Fart Dad: “Your mother is right, kids. You need to listen to your parents.” Fart Dad thought he should try to offer some support … and get out of trouble himself.
Mom: “Parents? You should have made sure everything was picked up before the kids moved on to the next thing, Dad. Did you even ask them if they cleaned up? Did you check to make sure things were clean? DID YOU CLEAN ANYTHING UP?!”
Fart Dad: “I cleaned up that bowl of ice cream!” Then he searched for a high five from the kids who left him hanging. They knew better than to be dismissive of their mother. Especially when she goes into lawyer mode.
Mom: “That’s not funny. Clearly we’ve got a problem here. What do you think we should do about this? What do you think the problem is? What do you think your consequences should be?”
JoJo: “I know! The problem is that we have too many toys. No. The problem is that we don’t have enough toys. Wait, no. The problem is that we don’t have enough time to pick up our toys. No, no, no, no! Not that. The problem is that we don’t have enough room to put our toys away. I mean, wait, no. Not that. The problem is….”
Ani: “No, that’s not what’s wrong. Dad forgot to remind us to clean up.”
Dad: “Hey now! The real issue here is just that we all have different standards of cleanliness. Your mother likes things to be cleaner than a showroom. The rest of us prefer a house that looks like human beings live in it.”
Elijah: “You guys, none of this is what’s wrong. We are the problem. Don’t you realize that if we would have just picked up our toys, like we all know we’re supposed to, then none of this would have happened? We aren’t the heroes of this story. We are actually the bad guys.”
A stunned silence fell over the crowd. Fear and trembling filled the girls and Dad. Pride and relief filled the heart of Mom.
Mom: “What do you think was going on in your heart with all of this the last few days?”
JoJo: “I don’t know.”
Ani: “We just wanted to play.”
Elijah: “And watch shows.”
Have you ever done something that you knew you weren’t supposed to and did not know why you did it? That’s where these kids were at. Thankfully, God gave them a mother filled with wisdom and compassion. A mother who was more concerned about helping her kids understand their hearts than she was about making sure they just did the right thing. Like a spiritual surgeon, she began drawing out what their hearts had hidden from them.
Mom: “Well, WHO were you thinking about?”
Ani: “No one. We weren’t trying to be disrespectful.”
Mom: “But were you trying to be respectful?”
JoJo: “We just wanted to have fun.”
Mom: “Fun for whom? You know that you’re not the only ones in this family, right? Were you thinking about anyone or anything other than what you wanted?”
***Crickets****
***Tumbleweeds***
***Vikings’ Super Bowl hopes***
Mom: “See, you say that you weren’t thinking of anyone. But the truth is you were only thinking about yourselves. How do you think things are going to go in our family if every one of us thinks that what we want is more important than what everyone else wants?”
Ani: “Bad.”
JoJo: “Lots of fighting.”
Elijah: “Like we’re not actually friends.”
Dad: “Not friends? What do you mean?”
Elijah looked to his left to make sure he didn’t get knocked over by the pride that was about to burst out of Mom’s heart. He took a few steps towards Ani, just to make sure he was at a safe distance. He pulled a chair out from the table and collapsed into it, looking like the process of epiphany exhausted him.
Elijah: “It’s like this. We were all concerned about our toys, weren’t we?”
The girls’ blond hair bobbled back and forth as they nodded in unison.
Elijah: “But it was kind of fun to work together, wasn’t it? I mean we didn’t want to lose our toys or live in an unsafe house. But still when we all came together and were more focused on protecting each other and accomplishing one goal, we were actually happier … I think.”
Ani: “You’re right! How crazy is that?! The less we thought about ourselves and the more we worked together and thought about each other, the happier we were—even though we were kinda scared too.”
JoJo: “Dad? Do you know what they’re talking about? How is this possible? How can we enjoy our lives more when we care about ourselves less? This doesn’t make any sense.”
Dad: “Well,” Dad leaned up against the built-in bookshelf on the floor, “it’s like my pa would say. If you’re cold, you should drink something cold, because then your body will realize it’s cold and work to warm itself up.”
The kids stared at Dad with a look so blank you could feel it.
Dad: “Oh, no. Not that one.” Reversing course. “I don’t really get it either. But I think it’s just part of what it means to be human. It actually feels better to be generous towards others than it does to get more stuff for yourself. Doesn’t it get tiring worrying about the things you don’t have instead of enjoying what you do? Or stressing out over how your teacher makes you feel? How different do you think your days would be if you were more concerned with caring for others than caring about w
hat others think about you?”
Ani: “So let me get this straight. If I want to be happy, I need to spend less time trying to be happy and more time caring for others?”
JoJo: “And if I want to have enjoy my friends more, I need to think about myself less?! This is so weird.”
Mom: “My sweet kiddos, you’re on the right track. These lessons are hard to learn. Just like the lesson of picking up your toys. Which you still need to do. And it’s getting late.”
A chorus of groans breaks out amongst the kids.
Mom continued: “I know, I know. You started asking and answering some super important questions. But you never answered mine. What should happen to kiddos who don’t pick up their toys?”
Silence. No eye contact.
Mom continued: “You need to pick up your toys now. And—just so that this can sink in and you learn to think about other people and not just yourself—you’ll need to work together to do the dishes and take out the garbage all next week.”
“MOM! NO! That’s not fair! If we have to take out the garbage and do the dishes every day of next week, then we won’t have any time to do the things that we want to do! We’ll have to spend the entire week doing chores!”
Epilogue
We sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as we enjoyed writing it. Our hope is that this story would be much more than entertaining for you. Though we do hope that you had a good time! In the end, we hope that your heart was drawn to see the beauty of God’s heart.
The family in our story needed to learn and will need to relearn how much better life is when you don’t make it about you. The idea for this story came from a verse in the Bible that says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3–4)
Okay, that’s not entirely accurate. The idea for this story came from the reality that I (the dad) am actually lactose intolerant. My kids really don’t like to pick up. And I really am convinced that my wife has superpowers! It is UNREAL how fast she cleans up. It was through combining all of those dynamics, plus this Biblical instruction, that the idea for Fart Dad was born.
Considering what others may want sounds simple enough, but it’s hard to live out. Impossible, actually. Okay, okay, it’s impossible to live like this all the time. And yet that’s how the Bible tells us to live all the time. Why would the Bible tell us to do something we can’t do? What happens if we don’t do this?
The Bible makes the most sense when we approach it in the same way that makes life the most enjoyable—when we understand that it’s not about us. Jesus—God Himself, whose heart is so full of happiness that He had to create a world and write a story with a never-ending happy ending—lived completely focused on the interests of others and not just His own.
The King of the Universe—left His throne in heaven—to be born as a vulnerable, dependent baby. And that, in a manger. He entered history through the back door. And He lived His life on the outside of comfort. Instead, He healed the sick, taught the desperate, and gave hope to the hopeless. Even though He is entitled to nothing but the comfort and luxury a king deserves, He made Himself a servant—so that he could take care of our biggest needs—being separated from God.
Now, you may not realize just how far you are separated from God. So consider this: the Bible tells us to think about what other people need more than we think about ourselves. The Bible goes so far as to tell us that we should think that other people are more valuable than us. The purpose of this command is not to give us some standard we can’t live up to, but to show us God’s heart. This is who God is. He looks not only to His own interests, but also to the interests of His creation. He considers our needs as greater than His comfort. Always. Completely. Perfectly.
We don’t live like this, do we? That’s how far our hearts are separated from God. And that is why Jesus left heaven to come to earth. To bring our hearts back to God’s. He did not do this by giving us rules to follow, but rather by following all the rules that we couldn’t. He perfectly followed all of God’s rules—for us—so that He could pay the price for all the rules that we broke.
When Jesus died on the cross, He was separated from God’s heart. The Son of God was treated like an enemy who broke God’s heart—so that we could be treated like the cherished children of God.
So now, for all those who place their faith in Jesus, we know God doesn’t just love us as we are. He loves us as Jesus is. God treated Jesus as if He had done everything we ever did, so that God could treat us as if we did everything Jesus did. Amazing!
This means that we now have unending, unbreakable, unhindered access to the God who is so happy that He had to create a world and write a story with a never-ending happy ending. How do we get close to this God? First, through trusting in Jesus’ sacrifice for us. Then living like it’s true. We can now care about other people—just like Jesus cared about us—because we want nothing more than to be close to the God who loves us enough to die for us, and is strong enough to overcome death itself.
When we do, we will find that we are happiest when we are least concerned about ourselves. We will find that we enjoy our friends more when we think about ourselves less. We will even enjoy our stuff more—when we want to share instead of hoard.
Why? Because this is the way God made us. Why? Because He made us to be like Him. Why? Because He is always generous, always looking out for others, always overflowing with love.
Kinda like Fart Dad is always overflowing with gas. It’s just gotta get out! So forget Fart Dad. Trust Jesus. Following His example isn’t about following the rules. It’s about following the path that will keep you close to God’s happy heart!
Fart Dad Page 4