Inside Out Families: Living the Faith Together

1 Families and Faith: Used Furniture, Saws, and Lawn Mowers

13 1 Families and Faith Used Furniture, Saws, and Lawn Mowers When I first met them, Brad and Lisa had just retired. He had spent years on the road as a long-distance trucker. Lisa had been on her feet day after day as a store clerk. Two of their three sons still lived at home. Twenty-four-year-old Tyler worked in a grocery store and Toby, age sixteen, was in high school. Tyler was not home when I visited them, but Toby was there, working a jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table when I arrived. Their oldest son lived nearby with his wife and daughter. Brad is a vivacious, outgoing man, a much-loved deacon in their small Baptist congregation . Lisa, a warm, smiling woman, orchestrated our conversation and cued her son and husband about when to chime in. She was clearly comfortable with using all of her five feet, two inches to control a houseful of men. I was a stranger in their community, a researcher/professor trying to learn from families in their congregation about how faith gives shape to their daily lives. When their pastor recommended I talk with them, Brad and Lisa had readily agreed, and so here I was. With my tape recorder rolling, I asked them to tell about their life together as a family. As we sipped coffee and talked about their lives, I posed the question, “If I came from 14 / Inside Out Families another planet and didn’t know what the word ‘faith’ means, how would I understand it from looking at your family?” Lisa reflected for a moment, and then told me a story about talking her church into helping a family in the community who had lost their home in a three-alarm fire, just five days before the Thanksgiving just past. She had organized the people in her congregation to respond. They brought clothes, appliances, and couches, dropping them off at church and thanking Lisa for her leadership. It was up to Lisa to figure out how to move everything to the rental house where the family was living. The temperature had dropped, and the first snow of the season was falling. So she rented a truck and turned to her three boys and Brad for help. They spent hours moving all she had collected. No one in the family really wanted to spend the snowy evening this way—it was miserably cold and slippery, they all had work to do, friends to hang out with, and the holiday to prepare for. But they did it anyway. Lisa admonished the family by reminding them that God had blessed them and expected them to be a blessing to others. Toby was listening as his mother told me that story, fingering the puzzle pieces and smiling at the memory. He then joined the conversation by saying that at least three times in a week, he cuts neighbors’ lawns. I suppose I looked quizzical about how that fit the conversation about moving furniture on a snowy night, so Lisa explained that he mows grass for women who are single or widowed, and she does not allow them to pay Toby. “I won’t let him take any money for it because he needs to do that; he doesn’t need the money.” Toby added, “She got me into something else—I have to cut up wood for this lady and she paints it and then we try to sell it.” Again, Lisa explained that a woman in their church was disabled and living on a fixed income. She was a skillful painter, however. Toby had received a jigsaw for Christmas, because he likes woodworking. So Lisa had him cutting out shapes that the woman painted, and then Lisa and other women in the church sold them for her, providing her a little extra income. She added, “He’s doing pretty well with his woodworking.” Toby laughed, “I get a lot of practice and a lot of exercise with Mom’s projects.” Brad summed up, “I think as far as our Christian Families and Faith / 15 living, what we practice on Sunday we try to do Monday through Saturday too. I think that’s kind of important.” Lisa went on to tell me that since retiring, Brad has provided people with transportation to the doctor and to medical treatments. Usually, but not always, those he helps are church...