Kathy,

It is too long to try and detail but tell Greg that my youngest son and I
came close to having a fist fight the other night.  Not really, but
something happened, like I said, it is too long to detail, that caused me to
insist my youngest son leave my house.  My reason was due to the fact the
whole incident decayed into a shoutting match.  My son, however, became
disrespectful in the process in moe ways than one.  I was in my office and
he was in the kitchen.  He said, after something I yelled, "Do you think I
am afraid of you dad?"  This is my son who has his third degree black belt
and is about to take the test for his forth degree black belt.  When he said
that, I knew the whole thing would do nothing but get worse.  So I told him
to get out of my house.  He does not know this, but I did this in order to
stop things from getting worse and they were bad enough the way they were.
He refused to leave.  As over weight as I am, as stupid as I am, as short as
I am, and as out of shape as I am, I am still not afraid of any of my
children.  I got out of my chair from behind my desk and walked up into the
kitchen.  My son stood fast.  I pushed him on his chest with my hands.  He
backed up, although he certainly didn't have to, so I pushed him again.  He
put up some resistance, so I pushed even harder.  I was pushing him toward
the front door.  It became exceedingly more and more difficult because
Everett put up more and more resistance.  You might say he is quite large
and my actions were, to say the least, quite stupid based upon our size
differences.  I continued pushing, anyhow, until he basically decided he
wasn't going to move backwards any longr regardless how hard his dad pushed
him.  So the idea of calling the police came to mind and I pretended, the
key words here is pretended, to act as if I was calling the police.  He
decided to leave at this point but I broke his heart.  I should have broke
his nose for the way he was acting but being the smart ass that I am, I
acted as if I would call the police on him instead.  I honestly didn't mean
to break his heart; I just wanted to break his will.  I failed miserably.  I
had sort of forgotten how much larger he really was than I am but when you
are mad, certain things don't make any difference.  Anyhow, it was a hell of
a mess and I don't mean that in a swaring sort of way either.  Some really
dumb things were said, and done, over the next few hours but I guess one of
my good traits is that once it is over, my anger dissipates rapidly.  Plus,
I have been doing a lot of meditative prayer to search for anything that
caused my anger to get out of hand.  Preaching in Baptist, and now
Charismatic churches, as I have over the years, I've developed quite a
volume to my voice but I wasn't preaching very good the other night.  The
Lord allowed it, in one sense, to show me I'm not as perfect as I think.
Our deck swing broke the other night and we purchased a new one.  My son,
using it as an opportunity to say he was sorry, put the swing together for
us and came through our back fence and put it on the deck.  Sandy came and
told me what he was doing so I thought she was right and that I should go
out and look at it.  He talked to me as if nothing was wrong, of course, but
we both knew better.  The Lord said, "You better show him your sorry for
letting things get out of hand," so as we looked at the swing, I just
reached for him and hugged him and we said we were sorry and confessed we
loved each other.  Yes, I feel stupid but so what else is knew.  Yes, I had
some very legitimate complaints.  Yes, there were things which were wrong
and needed fixing.  Yes, it could have been handled a whole lot better.  So,
Jesus is still Lord and I am still just a servant.  So it shall always be.
Anyhow, I know, and so does Sandy, exactly how you and Greg are feeling
about Chris right now.  Gretchen is doing well now but those last few years
were no Sunday school picnic and if I still had all the tears I cried over
that situation a lone, I'd have my own private lake in the backyard.
Fortunately, according to the Psalms, the Lord does keep all those tears in
a bottle for us and He knows absolutely everything we are feeling.  so,
Kathy, you guys will just have to hang in there.  Yes, even as pastors of a
church.  Pastor's are sheep, too.

Phil.