Friday Notes: On the Same Page? In the Same Playbook?

I've been reading 1 Samuel recently. Chapter 14 tells the story of Saul, the king of Israel, who's impatience got the better of him. The Philistines have set up camp to attack Israel, so Saul has gathered his army to respond to them. In one of many rash and unfortunate decisions, Saul decrees that no one in the army is allowed to eat until evening after the Philistines have been defeated. Foolish on many accounts, this decree withholds food from a tired, exhausted army. However, Saul's second-in-command, his son Jonathan, doesn't get the message. While his dad is making this decree, Jonathan has gone with his armor bearer to the Philistine camp. They're able to sneak into the camp where they kill 20 men between the two of them. The Philistine soldiers fly into a panic, unsure of what is happening. They flee the camp and the Israelite soldiers who were in hiding chase them down in battle.

Before making it back to camp, Jonathan, tired from battle and, no doubt, glad at the results, dipped his staff into a honeycomb and ate some honey on his way back to the camp. "Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath" to not eat anything until night fall (v. 27).

Well, long-story short, Saul had sworn that anyone who ate before nightfall would be killed. When he discovered Jonathan had eaten, in his rashness and pride to "save face", he actually was going to go ahead with having his own son - who had routed the enemy that day - killed. Thankfully, the soldiers protested the king's decision, saying "there shall not one hair of [Jonathan's] head fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day" (v. 45).

Something that struck me, because of other things I've been thinking about recently, is how Saul and Jonathan weren't on the same page - in fact, you might argue they weren't even playing from the same playbook. Jonathan didn't know about Saul's rash decree, but also Jonathan was much more apt to seek the Lord's advice and guidance then was his father, whose pride often drove him to protect his own image over following the Lord.

Marriage: Merging Two Playbooks

Marriage is awesome! But marriage is also, in many ways, about getting on the same page and making sure you're in the same playbook.

Each of us grow up in families who have specific ways they do things. We grow up seeing, learning and adopting the model we see and are a part of. Think of it as our family's playbook.

For example, in my family growing up, your room could be messy, but the we had to keep the common areas clean. Another example is that when mom fixed something we didn't like (e.g. I was never crazy about seafood, but the rest of my family liked it), you needed to find something in the meal you liked. It was rare when you got your own special meal. We needed to eat what had been prepared. "Please". "Thank you". "I'm sorry". These were all a part of my family's playbook. And the list goes on. We don't buy Christmas gifts for everyone, we choose names and have a small budget for our gift (usually $30-35). Our finances were often tight as missionaries, so our family has rarely been able to do much by way of large gifts except for weddings, births, etc. My family tends to eat breakfast at 8am, eat lunch between 12-1pm, and eat dinner between 6-7pm. And we're constantly in motion - doing projects while we watch television, thinking through what we accomplished - or still need to accomplish - in a day.

In a similar way, my wife grew up learning her family's playbook. In her family, things like Sunday afternoon naps, FOB (flat on back) time on the couch reading the Sunday comics, meals together, Sunday night family time for catching up and praying together, etc. were all a part of their routine and playbook. Being involved in church, especially in children's ministry, is also a big part of her family's playbook. The Raikes family has had, continues to have, and has left an amazing legacy in so many lives through years involved in their church's children's ministry. Lauren's family eats meals when they're hungry or when they're all awake, so this often looks like 10am breakfast, 2 pm lunch and 8pm dinner - or anything in between. Lauren's family is great at relaxing with each other and enjoys sitting around playing games, reading books, watching tv.

During our pre-marital counseling, Lauren and I took a "compatibility" test and discovered we were surprisingly compatible. We've discovered that we really are and it is part of what we love and makes our relationship really easy. But, even with that, we still were coming together as two people who had learned to do life out of different playbooks.

Some of those pages, and even some of those plays, look very similar. For example, Lauren's family too picks names and has a price limit for Christmas. Her family did a little more than my family did, because they had extended family nearby - so they each get an extended family member's name to buy a gift for - and the kids all go in to buy the parents gifts. Similar, but not the same.

After 2.5 years of marriage, I'm realizing that much of what marriage entails is creating our own, new playbook as a couple. It includes plays, pages - maybe even whole sections - from each of the playbooks we grew up with. But it also involves rewriting whole pages and the messy, hard work of trying to figure out what we as a couple want to do.

Having a Baby

What's made me think about all this recently is having our daughter Aubrey just over 7 weeks ago. For most of the last two years, our married life has looked very similar to what we grew up with. There have been a few adjustments we've each made. Lauren's sweetly adjusted to the regular meal times I was used to and I've really learned to enjoy relaxing with Lauren and watching some of our favorite tv shows. Up to this point in life, the similarities in our playbooks have complimented each other well.

Having a baby is a challenge for everyone - lack of sleep, lots of new things, and figuring out what it means to care for this little new life. Becuase our married life has been so easy in so many ways, we weren't prepared for how challenging being new parents has been. We've now come to realize that we've been playing off different pages in different playbooks.

You see, in preparing for Aubrey's birth, we did a ton of research and work focused on the actual birth. Birthing classes. Talking with the doctor and meeting nurses. What do we need at the hospital and what will we need at home. All of these things occupied us for months. But what we didn't do very well was talk about what it looked like to parent Aubrey.

When Aubrey was born, we didn't have a section in the "Daniel-Lauren" playbook for how we were going to be Aubrey's parents. I think a part of us thought we'd figure some things out as we went, but a larger part just didn't realize we weren't on the same page until Aubrey was here. Because we didn't have a page in our playbook, we realized that we both defaulted back to our family's playbooks and what we had learned from them about caring for babies.

And when you're not on the same page and not even in the same playbook, it's really tough to work as a team.

I have two older sisters who have both had two boys. Both of my sisters followed similar parenting styles involving schedules for their boys, set nap times, etc. It was a common thing in my family as my sister's where raising their boys to ask, "Do you need to put them down for a nap? It's okay if you do." And so our family's playbook has been largely shaped by their parenting styles.

Lauren's family has a tremendous love and heart for kids. Lauren's parents have been teaching 5 year olds for over 25 years at their church. To say that the Raikes love kids is an understatement! And Lauren's family's playbook section on babies is different then mine. Loving on, holding, rocking, and having the baby fall asleep on you are all parts of their playbook.

Within the first week of Aubrey's life, we felt the tension of Lauren and I not being on the same page. Because we hadn't decided on our "plays" and Lauren's parents had sweetly travelled all the way to see us in Kenya, the first week of Aubrey's life was out of the Raikes playbook - because there was no page in the "Daniel-Lauren" playbook - and very different then the Ostendorff playbook. And boy did it lead to some frustrating moments.

We're now almost 2 months into this parent thing and we're now working on writing our own pages in the "Lauren-Daniel" playbook. The plays aren't going to look exactly like either of our family's plays. We probably won't raise Aubrey on a schedule in quite the same way my sister's have their kids. And our plays aren't going to look identical to the Raikes playbook.

You see, the responsibility is ours - as the parents God has given Aubrey - to write the plays and create the section of our playbook based off what we believe is best for her - how we believe God wants us to raise her. We're taking in lots of different feedback, advice and thoughts in order to shape (and reshape) those plays, but at the end of the day the responsibility lies with us. We are the ones God will one day say, "How did you do raising my child whom I gave you?". That's not a question he's going to ask our families. It's a question he will ask Lauren and I.

We've got five weeks until we head back to the US for 2 months with family. Our goal between now and then: to agree on our plays and get on the same page in the "Lauren-Daniel" playbook. That way, when we're in the midst of the "action", we're able to support one another, work with one another, love one another, and function as a team.

Like a good team, we'll know what the other would do even when they're not around. We'll be working together, in sync with one another. And, in many ways, that's one of the things every married couple has to do to make it work. To write their own team playbook.

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