How to Let Go of Regret

I see you, mama. The one with Regret written all over your face and on your sagging shoulders and in your sad eyes. The one whose hopes and dreams consist of words you wish you had said, deeds you wish you had done, or those you wish you could undo.

“If only” has become your mantra.

I see you and I know you because I am you.

Seems, sometimes, like Regret is a mother’s best friend.

We walk with it, chew on it, and let it weigh us down. None of us are immune.

I’ve certainly had my share of regrets over the years—things I wish I had done; things I wish I had said. More often, though, things I wish I had not said. The words, they do poison.

In the past few weeks I have spoken to two friends—both amazing mothers—who are filled with regret over children who are not currently living in the way these parents have raised them. One child has rejected the faith with which they were raised; the other is on the brink of making some important decisions about how to live.

In both conversations, I noticed that both of my friends expressed serious regret about their parenting.

Maybe you’ve felt this, too.

Here’s the thing, mamas: we are not made to regret. And I think our regrets come from our forgetfulness about three important things.

1. We forget that we are ultimately not in control.

In other words, we give ourselves way too much blame (or credit!) for the way our kids turn out. As much as we’d like to make the way easy for our kids, we have to remember that some kids very simply will not learn from our mistakes. They may not even learn from their own. We can give our children the tools (whether that be an education, a faith heritage, a stable family—whatever it is) that can make paving the way a bit easier, but it’s up to them to use them.

Don’t blame yourself if your child rejects the tools you have given him or her. Just be faithful every day.

2. We forget that we are forgiven, just as much as our children are.

Forgiveness is a powerful arsenal in our parenting strategy, and we must remember to also practice it on ourselves.

I recently read the most beautiful definition of grace: “Grace says, ‘There you are, I’ve been waiting for you and you’re welcome here. All of you. You are beloved.’”

Mama, you are beloved—all of you—whether or not you’ve messed up. Or your kid has. Or your husband has. It doesn’t matter. Grace is here, waiting for you.

Mama, forgive yourself because God already has. Don’t let the regret that you’re feeling limit you from the power of forgiveness and grace in your life, which will move you ahead to do the next right thing.

3. We forget that the story isn’t finished yet.

I’ve known parents of some seriously messed up kids. Some have let regrets stop them from doing what they should be doing—whether that is acting with tough love or gently loving them back home. But some parents I’ve known have simply said, “My son’s (or daughter’s) story is not yet finished. God has not given up on this child, and neither will I.” They have prayed continuously for their child. They have opened the door to their home. They have shown, in very practical terms, what the love of Jesus means.

Mama, your story is not yet finished—thank goodness for that, right?!—and neither is your child’s. Our stories continue to grow and to change and to mold us into the people we are today, and that’s true for our kids as well. If you have regrets, remember that your child’s story is still being written and that the way he or she is living today is not the end of the story.

Even more important, remember that God has not walked away from your child, He still loves them, and He will never give up fighting for them.

So mama? For the sake of your family (and your sanity) will you give up your regrets? Don’t dwell on those things that are over and done. Realize that, ultimately, you are not in control. Move ahead with grace and forgiveness. 

And thank God that the story is not finished yet.

A Mama Story

Tell the story, they say. Just tell the story.

About how you are a spoiled mama because your girls go to college eight blocks from home and how you know you’re spoiled and you don’t take it for granted. Tell about how you know that they will leave at some point and that’s OK.

Even though you may not like it, it’s still OK.

Tell the story about how Kate needed to go for a while. How we all agreed that she needed to do this, as hard as it might be.

Tell the story about how she decided in the last week, at the very last minute that she didn’t really want to go but that what she really wanted to do was to stay here with her friends for her senior year. And how she sat you down on the Monday before she was supposed to leave on Thursday and how she looked you in the eye and said, “I don’t want to go.”

Tell the story about how that crushed your soul. How everything in you wanted to keep her here—who needs to fly away anyway?—but how everything in you knew that the best thing for her would be to get out of her hometown for a little while. So you sat with her, listened, and then said, “You do not have a compelling reason to stay home. You don’t have a dad who is sick. Your family is not in crisis. You just don’t have a good reason.”

And then, how you said, “But you do have one compelling reason to go.”

“What’s that?” she said through arms tightly crossed over her chest and a slight sneer on her face.

“Because you signed up. You told them you were coming. You said you’d be there; people are counting on you. And God has things to teach you there.”

You signed up.

Tell the story about how you went to visit your girl last weekend and how much fun it was to be with her, how easy, and how much you wanted to pack her in your suitcase and take her right back home with you, but you didn’t. Instead you bravely hugged her and tried not to cry and said, “I’ll see you at Thanksgiving.”

While inside you were thinking, “Thanksgiving is so stinking far away.”

You signed up, mama.

You signed up for a lifetime of heart-tugs and breath-catches. You signed up for a lifelong battle with your own will that wants to protect your girl and shower her with stuff and make her feel good about herself when you know in your heart that the best thing for her is to let her go and not provide every blessed thing she might want and to sometimes tell the truth about who she is.

Tell the story about how you got on that homeward bound plane with a sinking, sad feeling inside and tears ready to spill. How you didn’t want to let go of her or leave her there or wait three long months before you stroked her beautiful, long, brown hair again.

Tell the story about how not a minute goes by that you're not thinking about your girls—all three—and praying that they are OK.

The story of motherhood is fraught with longing and tears and wonder. It’s a story that’s hard to tell, with emotions so deep they cannot be spoken. It’s a journey that wears you out with frustration and regret and love.

But it’s also fraught with high-fives from little victories and loud laughter and knowing that you both have done the right thing.

Not the easy thing, for the easy thing would keep her right here, tucked safely beneath your wing.

You didn't sign up for the easy thing. You signed up for the right thing the moment you became a mother.

The right thing. Because right is always better in the end.

Grace at 2:15

She steps toward the car and reaches for the door, sunlight splashing over her shoulders and across her wavy brown hair. I look, smile, then look again.

She’s changed.

School’s almost over for this one, and I see, in that brief moment, a full year’s growth.

Her face, more mature (goodbye, babyface!).

Her legs, definitely longer.

Her hair, styled rather than simply cut.

Her clothes, carefully selected, reflecting her sense of herself.

Her gait, assured.

All of this just in a quick glimpse as she ducks her head into the car.

She smiles from outside the window--a slight upturn of her lips, that quick connection that says, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

(O.K., if I’m really honest, she was glad I was there to drive her home so she didn’t have to walk. But still, she seemed glad to see me.)

It was a smile that said, “I’m good.”

I noticed today that my baby girl is growing up. Oh, sure, I notice it most days, especially as she very nearly reaches my height, but today it took me by surprise.

The end of the school year makes you take note of the changes, doesn’t it? With all three back under my roof for the summer, I’ve been thinking a lot about the past year and how it has changed them. Changed us.

It’s been a good year. Not without its challenges, this year, but good, overall.

And while the physical changes aren’t as pronounced in my girls anymore (I still remember the years of amazing stringbean growth, the too-short pants), the character changes are still coming, probably faster than ever before. Lifetime prayers for my girls are being answered.

And I like what I see.

I see confidence.

I see intelligence.

I see curiosity.

I see humor.

I see wisdom.

I see discernment.

I see girls who are ready to follow wherever He leads and to lead wherever He wants.

I see young women who are growing, changing, accepting, even though it’s painful at times.

I look, I see, and I wonder, How did we get here?

Only grace.

The Conversation I Never Thought I’d Have with my Kids

In about 45 minutes I need to pick up my daughter from school, and I will need to have a conversation that I never, ever dreamed I would have to have with her.

Because today, a beloved teacher from her school was arrested for having sex with one of his students. I won’t go into the scant details I’ve heard so far, just suffice it to say it’s horrific.

And especially horrific because both of my older girls had this teacher, loved him, and my youngest was hoping to have him next year.

It hits home.

What I want to know, what I have been praying to God this afternoon, is how on earth do I talk to them about this? Because, for the life of me, I don’t know.

Ironically, I’ve been thinking all day about a blog post I read and responded to yesterday. My friend, Jo-Lynne, has been struggling with how to protect her children, especially her 13-year-old son, in this crazy world we live in.

I get that. I understand that struggle.

What really hit me as I read her post and some of the comments from people who said that they have intentionally placed their children in a “bubble,” is that no matter how hard we try, we do NOT live in a bubble. We live in a very broken, very fallen world.

That sure became evident to our community today.

It’s interesting to me that I have truly been chewing on this for the past 24 hours, because much of what I wrote in Jo-Lynne’s comments is what I need to remind myself of here, now that I’m in this situation of having to have the ugly talk with my kids.

First, I need to remember that our world is very fallen indeed. Anybody watching “The Bible” on The History Channel can see that parents have been worried about protecting their children from outside influences for centuries. It's nothing new. But it’s also an unfortunate reality that the world we live in is trying its very best to corrupt, not only our children, but US.

And sometimes we fall prey.

Second, I need to remember who I am. I need to remember that I am fallen, too, just like this world, just like that teacher, just like, well, me. I am fallen. I am sinful. I am not above reproach.

The phrase, “there but by the grace of God go I” rings very clearly today. The fact is, I could be that teacher. I AM that teacher, because when God sees my sin, it makes him just as disgusted as that teacher’s actions are to me.

Sin is sin, and mine is no “better” than anyone else’s. If I think otherwise, I am only fooling myself and setting myself up to be a hypocrite.

Third, I need to remember who God is. He’s God, and that’s enough. He has loved me enough to provide a way of salvation, and in return, he wants me to stop living like the rest of the world and be holy.

But here’s the thing: I’m not holy. No matter how hard I try, I won’t ever meet the standard that God has set for me. In His eyes I’m just as bad as that teacher.

But Jesus.

Thanks be to God that because I have Jesus, God no longer sees my sin. He sees me as holy. It really is an amazing thing to think about.

So how does this help me talk to my kids about that teacher?

1. It reminds all of us that we are people who have received grace—totally, completely unmerited grace. And because of that we should not speak ill, we should not gossip, we should not judge what we do not know.

2. It makes me want to cling tighter to the God who sees all, who knows all, and who forgives all and to encourage my girls to do the same.

3. It causes me to pray for this whole messy situation, for the gross, fallen world we live in, and for the tender hearts of my children who are affected by this as well.

4.  And, sadly, this situation forces me to talk to them about being careful about who they are around and who they trust. To be honest, that was not on my list of things to do today.

This is a desperately sad situation for everyone involved, including my very own children. As I said, this hits home. I’m angry about it all--the effects are so far-reaching--and yet, I’m so sad for our community, for the victim, for the teacher's wife and family, and even for him.

It’s an ugly, messy world we live in, and all kinds of bad stuff happens in it. Stuff I would rather not have to think about or talk to my kids about. But the fact remains that this world, without Jesus, is desperately needy. There is no disguising the fact, no sheltering my kids from it, no bubble big enough to hide away in.

All I can do is praise God that He sent His Son to redeem it. As Easter approaches, this seems especially important.

And that’s a conversation I want to have with my kids.

Guinea Pigs

This kid?

She's a nut. 

But I love her very much.

With my whole heart, in fact.

She’s our oldest. Our first born. We brought her home from the hospital without a clue in the world how to care for her. Or how to parent her—at all, let alone well.

We’ve made many mistakes along the way, and sometimes we’ve just had to throw up our hands and say, “Sorry. You’re our guinea pig. We don’t know how to do this.”

Over the past 20 years there have been a lot of firsts with her. First to play piano. First to walk to school by herself. First to get a job. First to play a sport and first to quit a sport. First to go to college. . . .

You get the idea.

And with each of those firsts we’ve had to decide how, as her parents, we were going to handle each scenario as it came along. Sometimes the decisions were easy; other times not so much.

Last week, we hit another first, and this was probably the hardest first yet. Because last week, B and I became the guinea pigs, heading into parenting territory yet unknown.

As she and her friends began planning their spring break, Kate asked us if they could borrow our my van to drive to Florida.

*huge gulp*

Yes, that’s right. She actually had the NERVE to ask if she could take my van to Florida. My van! To Florida!

Some of you reading might just stop right there and say, “Um, no. Not happening. Not in my lifetime. Find another way to get to Florida.”

But we had a couple of things standing in our way.

First, we had precedent. See, when B was a sophomore in college, he and a friend took his parents’ station wagon to Florida for the week. They drove around, visited his grandparents, hung out on beaches, AND THEY SLEPT IN THE CAR! They went much farther into Florida than our daughter wanted to go, . . . AND THEY SLEPT IN THE CAR!

At least the girls had the good sense to rent a house.

But the second thing we had to consider was our philosophy. I’ve written about it before, but basically we are raising our girls to not need us.  I know that sounds terrible to some, foreign to others, and totally frightening to most, but our hope is to train them to be responsible, mature adults who can handle life independently of us. And we’re training ourselves, slowly, along the way, to let go gracefully.

(O.K., forget the gracefully part. That hardly ever happens. But we ARE trying to train ourselves to let go.)

So, taking into account precedent (I blame B’s parents for that one!) and our philosophy, we felt like we couldn’t say no. Well, we could have said no, but then we’d be kind of hypocritical, wouldn’t we?

Of course, there were some in our family who thought that our decision to let our daughter take a 16 hour road trip in our family car was . . . shall we say . . . irresponsible. 

And maybe it was.

Maybe if the trip had turned out differently, if something terrible had happened, we would have regretted our decision and called ourselves irresponsible for the rest of our lives. I don’t know. What I do know is that we stayed true to what we believe about our kids: they need to be trusted to make good decisions, to be allowed to explore the world, and to grow up. All without their parents’ constant companionship.

So we became the guinea pigs, making a tough parenting call--one that left us biting our fingernails and checking our phones for most of the week. Thanks be to God, the girls (eight girls in two cars) made the trip safely.

We did entrust them into His care last week, but really, we have to do that every day of their lives, don’t we? 

Just ask Anna's parents.

Let's talk. What do you think? Were we irresponsible parents to let our daughter drive to Florida last week? When have you felt like a guinea pig as a parent?

  

How NOT to parent your almost-not-a-teenager

My mom used to say to me, “Little kids, little problems; big kids, bigger problems.”

I never really understood what she meant until last weekend.

It was Friday, late-afternoon, when my phone rang. B was on the other end, calling from the speaker phone in his car; Kate was sitting next to him since she rides to work with her dad every day. This is an important detail to remember because . . .

Rule #1: Don’t discuss your daughter’s sketchy weekend plans with her sitting right there next to you.

B: “Did you know what Kate wants to do this weekend?”

Me: “Well, sort of. She mentioned it, but I wasn’t thrilled about it so I thought I’d wait to discuss it with you.”

Kate: “WHY WEREN’T YOU THRILLED ABOUT IT? WE’LL BE FINE!”

Kate’s roommate was coming into town for the weekend, and the girls had made plans. Big plans. City plans. Plans that would have been great if it weren’t a matter of finding some random independent bookstores in a neighborhood that they had never been to. Or if the Taste of Chicago wasn’t opening that weekend with a crowd of about a million or so expected to show up . . . all at once.

Rule #2: Don’t mention parking as the primary obstacle.

B: “The city is going to be a madhouse on Saturday. The Taste is opening, and it’s going to be impossible to find parking.”

Me: “Yeah, it could be a little rough, Kate. You’ll spend all of your time trying to find a place to park, and that’s just frustrating.”

Kate: “WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT PARKING? MY CAR IS SMALL. I’LL BE FINE!”

The big deal about parking, if you’ve ever been to downtown Chicago, is that there is none. It’s the kind of situation that will make you pray for a parking spot, if you’re that kind of person (which, by the way, I most certainly am). And during the Taste of Chicago, which is a super-fun family event, there are a lot of mini-vans crowding the streets and filling the parking garages. Can you say nightmare?

Rule #3: Don’t appeal to their sense of beauty. These girls are completely unaware.

B: “Seriously? You expect me to send you two into THAT neighborhood all by yourselves? You’ll have every guy staring you down.”

Me: “Yeah. Remember New York?”

Kate: “WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL? WE REALLY AREN’T THAT GOOD LOOKING. WE’LL BE FINE!!”



Um. Yeah. Whatever.

Rule 4: Stay calm. At all costs. Do NOT appeal to your higher authority.

B (losing it): “Kate, we are your parents, and we will decide IF and WHEN you can go into the city by yourselves. We can keep you home if we want, you know.”

Me (trying to maintain an even tone): “Kate, we are trying to respect what you’re doing here, but we’re also trying to figure out the safest way for you to do what you want to do. Work with us here.”

Kate: “WE ARE ALMOST 20 YEARS OLD! WE’LL BE FINE!!!”

We ended the phone call by saying that we’d talk more about it when they got home. Which they did, about 15 minutes later.

Later that night we calmly, rationally, quietly (sort of) sat around our kitchen table and hashed out the details of what Kate wanted to do. They wanted to visit three bookstores near the University of Chicago and then go to the Taste of Chicago, which is in a completely different part of town, which would mean moving the car, which would mean dealing with a lot of traffic.

O.K. Now, if I were going to the U of C, I would drive. I’ve done it lots of times before, but these were very precious girls who wanted to go, and one of whom, I know, doesn’t have the best sense of direction . . . even with a GPS. I almost suggested driving them myself, but I knew that wouldn’t fly, and driving by themselves wasn’t going to be an option because of their second destination: the Taste of Chicago.

No parking, remember?

So we suggested that the girls take public transportation. They could jump on the train right near our house and head into the city—that part was easy. They’ve done it a million times. But to get to the bookstores they wanted to see they would have to take the L down to Hyde Park.

Silly us. We just assumed they would take a certain train to a certain stop because the CTA website told us it was the stop for the University of Chicago.

Rule #5: Don’t believe the CTA website.

The girls headed out, found the L stop they needed, hopped on the train and headed to what they thought was the stop for the U of C.

Here’s the text I got from Kate a short time later:

“Turning around and heading to the Taste. Asked directions from a cop and he told us to be veeerrry careful. It just doesn’t feel safe.”

And a follow-up: “Got hollered at just one too many times. Going back.”

*GULP*

Rule 6: Don’t panic.

This mama wanted to jump in her car and head right down there to rescue those two princesses. But they are 19 years old and perfectly capable. Both girls have travelled extensively, so they know how to read a train schedule. They know how to ride public transportation. They are smart girls.

All this I kept telling myself.

But oh my goodness. My girl? Hollered at? In the city?

It was just a little too much for my heart to take.

A short time later I got this text: “Made it to the Taste.”

Looong exhale. She would be fine.

Rule 7: Check and double-check.

Later, when the girls got home . . . safely, I might add . . . we had a good laugh about their situation. Turns out, there is a different train that would take them very close to where they wanted to go. I would have known that if I had just picked up the phone and called my friend, Jane, who lives right there. (Hi Jane!) She could have told us exactly what they needed to do to get to the bookstores . . . safely.

When I asked the girls what happened they told us the whole story. They got off the train at the station that we . . . the parents . . . had told them to, but when they looked around they realized they were not in Kansas anymore if you know what I mean. They stopped at a Walgreens near the station to ask for directions from the security guard at the door (that should have been their first clue—our Walgreens down the street doesn’t have a security guard!). The guy told them that it was a long walk to where they wanted to go, and then he looked them in the eye and said, “Girls, you need to be veerryy careful.”

I don’t know what the girls said to one another as they headed down the street. I don’t know what they were feeling as they were getting cat-called. I wish I could have been there to protect them, but I wasn’t.

I just thank God that He sent angels to protect them and to give them the common sense they needed to turn around and go back.

Which leads me to . . .

Rule #8: Don’t forget to pray.

As a parent of teenagers, you can’t always say “Do this” and expect immediate results. You just might have to talk your way through a situation, explain your position, and listen to theirs. It’s a give-and-take that can feel a little thorny, scratchy, uncomfortable.

And, sadly, you do have to let them grow up, try new things, which might, inadvertently and never intentionally lead into some situations.

In the end, you just have to pray that God will protect them. And I’m so glad He did.

Despite our poor parenting.

Too Busy?

Source: jayo1989.deviantart.com via Shelly on Pinterest

I’ve heard it so often that I fear it’s become part of our national vernacular.

Every time I hear it I cringe just a little because the same words have come out of my mouth a time or twenty.

“I’m too busy.”

Have you said it? Have you thought it? Have you suffered from it?

Most recently, those words have crushed me. A friend told me she was just too busy to read my blog. She didn’t know about something that had happened in my life, and I jokingly said, “If you read my blog you’d know.”

*wink, wink*

My friend shrugged her shoulders and said, “I’m on the computer all day, and I’m just too busy to read blogs.”

Ooooo.K.

But I hear it other places too.

Too busy to play with my kids. Too busy to help out at church. Too busy to serve a worthy ministry. Too busy to just hang out.

Too busy.

We’re raising an entire generation that is just too busy. All the time. And I worry about what that is doing to our kids. I wonder if they are growing up with this sense of being busied about, run here and there for the sake of being busy. I wonder if that’s what kids today think is normal, and that if they weren’t very busy one day will they feel like less of a human being?

And I wonder if someday our kids will be so programmed to think their lives are so overwhelmingly busy (or “important” because isn’t that a word that could be substituted for “busy” sometimes?) that they won’t have time for us, their parents.

But I also wonder if this “busyness” is something else.

A way to justify our existence? If we weren’t busy, would we not be necessary?

A way to get out of something we don’t want to do? Think about it, if we’re too busy, we don’t have to get our hands dirty doing this thing that’s just too hard.

A convenient excuse? Does our busyness justify our mistakes? Our shortcomings? Our overlooking good friends?

Whatever it is, I think it has to stop. Even though we may be busy (and, face it, we all are), I think we need to stop complaining about it.

I think my husband is the best example of this. He has a job that is pretty demanding. He has responsibility over a lot of people. His days are full. In fact, one day last week he had seven meetings back-to-back. Seven! I can’t even imagine that.

And yet, I have never heard my husband complain about being too busy.

He comes home, he turns off his cell phone, and he rests as much as he can. He also digs in and gets his hands dirty, volunteering in many ways. Last week, the same week in which he had seven back-to-back meetings, he also was out four evenings in a row—three meeting-ish things and one was a date with me. *smile*

If that were me, I’d be raising all kinds of heck about how tired I was and how I’d been pushed to my limit by all the demands on my time, but not my husband. He never said a word.

I’m challenging myself to stop using the words, “I’m too busy” because the fact of the matter is that I am not. There is always more time, more room in my schedule, more of me to go around. I can make time to help someone else or to hang out with a friend.

And if I have a day in which I’m not too busy, I will say a prayer of thanks and enjoy the blessing, but I will not think I am of lesser value because of it.

Because I know tomorrow will be full . . . but not too busy.

Linking this post to Amanda's Weekend Bloggy Reading party at Serenity Now.

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31 Days Closer to Your Kids: Travel Together

Remember when you were a kid and your parents made you take long road trips? Remember the good old days when you could make a bed in the back of your station wagon with a bunch of sleeping bags? Remember when you could stretch out for hours on end and watch the clouds float by as your dad got bleary-eyed just watching the lines on the road?

All’s bliss on the road trip, right?

Um. Remember drawing an imaginary line down the middle of the back seat and just daring, with only the look in your eyes, your sister to cross it? Remember screaming, “Mom! She’s on my side!” a thousand times? Remember pushing your parents to their ever-loving limit by asking, “When will we be there?” in your whiniest voice ever?

Ah yes, there’s nothing like travel to bring a family closer.

You’re probably thinking I’m crazy with this one, but I have to say that some of our happiest family memories are of trips we’ve taken together.

Oh sure, there have been some of those moments. Moments when we parents sitting up front have wanted to just scream bloody murder—or maybe we actually have. Moments when travelling through the Bad Lands when we wanted to open a car door and just heave one or two kids out. Moments so silent that the seething rage permeating the inside of our car could be cut with a knife.

But, honestly, those moments are far outweighed by the fantastic times we’ve had that we now reflect on so happily. The good times definitely overshadow the not-so-good when we travel.

When I was younger, my family didn’t travel much, probably because both money and time were tight. My dad was a farmer, so he was pretty much bound to the farm during the spring, summer, and fall months. In the winter we were in school, so it was hard to get away. My husband’s job is a little more flexible, thought, and over the years we’ve found that we both love to travel. And our kids do too.

Here are just a couple of things we’ve done to foster a close family bond through travel.

We travel with a purpose. We have taken our family on two short-term missions trips—one to Brazil and one to Switzerland. Both trips have shown our girls that there is a big world out there and God is supremely engaged in all of it—not just our little corner of it. I really hope we will have more opportunities like this.

We travel for fun. Seeing Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons was a total blast a few years back. Disney World was great . . . once. And we have created lasting family memories at Kiawah Island, SC (we’ve been there six times). All of these trips, and others, have helped us grow closer together as a family.

We travel with one child at a time. When older two were about 14 years old, B took each one on a business trip with him alone. Kate got to go to Florida where she got the worst farmer’s tan of her life and learned the joys of room service. Caroline got to go to Arizona which they then made into a fun trip to see Grandma and Grandpa (after the business part) and during which B got really sick and spent the entire time at my parent’s house in bed. Go figure. Next year will be Julia’s turn—who knows where they’ll end up?

And then there is the Sixteenth Birthday Bash. When each of our girls turns 16, we do a mother/daughter trip—to England. B and I set this as a goal when our girls were very young, and we’ve followed through twice so far. Let me tell you, it wouldn’t matter if we went to the Holiday Inn down the street (although England is my favorite place in the world); the wonderful memories we have made together have drawn us closer during those teen years than anything I could have ever done with them. Taking a trip with one child alone is truly life-changing . . . for both of you . . . and I highly recommend you make this a priority.

Yes, travel takes money, which might mean sacrificing a little to save for a trip, but it is one of the most important ways we have bonded as a family. It’s something I’m passionate about (and I may have written about it just a few times). If there is any way you can do it, even if you have to wait until next year to take it, plan a trip with your family. You’ll never regret it.

* * * * * * * * * *

31 Days Closer to Health, Wellness, and Bathing Suit Season
31 Days Closer to a Cuter You
31 Days Closer to Hearing God's Voice
31 Days Closer to the Life You Always Wanted
31 Days Closer to a New Home

31 Days Closer to Your Kids: Meals Together

Our college girl came home yesterday.

For the summer.

Where, oh where did that year go?? It’s like *poof!* Gone. Into thin air.

Please, God, can’t you just slow down time a little bit?

Alas, this isn’t a post about kids growing up too fast. Even though these teen years are super-fun for us and I hate to even think about college graduation, which is right around the corner, there were plenty of years (*ahem* babyyears *ahem*) that seemed to c r a w l.

Nope. I just wanted to tell you about our night last night because it was so much fun and we really had a great opportunity to connect with our kids.

Since I knew Kate would be officially coming home for the summer, I decided to kick it off with a fabulous meal together. I went to the meat market and bought some beautiful steaks. I made her favorite fruit salad, even splurging on raspberries at $2.99 for a half pint which I usually don’t do because . . . $2.99 for a half pint? Seriously? But College Girl loves raspberries, so I splurged. We also had pasta salad and baked potatoes and some delicious banana bread that a friend made for us. It was an awesome meal.

Caroline had a friend over (the sweet friend who came on Spring Break with us—she’s pretty much like family) so she stayed for dinner too. The girls were headed to a talent show after dinner, and Kate was supposed to go to a party at another friend’s house, so dinner had to be a little early.

This is how we roll with teenagers. Flexibility is the key.

Let me just tell you that dinner with all of our kids around the table (plus one!) was so much fun. We ended up sitting there for a long time just talking and laughing and talking and laughing some more.

Eventually Caroline and E left for the talent show, but Kate said, “You know what? I don’t really feel like going out tonight. I think I’ll go get a movie and stay here if that’s O.K. with you.”

O.K. with us? Of course!

So the four of us who remained at home ended up watching “The King’s Speech” together (awesome movie—don’t let the R rating deter you).

Don’t underestimate the power of a great meal. Yes, it took planning. Yes, it took flexibility. Yes, it took effort. But the results were so worth it.

You know what? You don't have to wait until your kids are coming home from college to plan a special meal. And your meal certainly doesn't have to be steak and too-expensive raspberries to be special. Making family meals a priority is a good start to celebrating your family . . . every day . . . no matter how young (or old) your kids may be.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Be sure to check out the other gals in the "31 Days Closer . . ." series:

Sandy at The Amazing Adventures of the Fitness Friday Girl
Melanie at Bella~Mella
Jen at Finding Heaven
Lisa at Glad Chatter
Missy at It's Almost Naptime

Just one of the many reasons I love him

Because of those mornings. 6:00 a.m.

The sounds coming from the little pink tiled bathroom. The one with the black band around the top. Totally 50s.

Source: gallery.apartmenttherapy.com via Shelly on Pinterest

The same little pink bathroom that Kate once locked herself into when she was four, thinking she could manage the old-fashioned lock all by herself. And when she couldn’t figure it out I had to run next door to our neighbor, Richard, who thankfully was home and had an extension ladder.

He rescued her from the tower that day.

But her real Prince Charming—my Prince Charming—would begin each day in that little pink bathroom, Kate sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, watching him shave.

And while he shaved, they sang.

What can wash away my sin? (Him)
Nothing but the blood of Jesus! (Her)
What can make me whole again? (Him)
Nothing but the blood of Jesus! (Her)

And while he could have been singing “Wild Thing” or something Bob Dylan, he instead sang about the blood. Every morning. While he shaved.

While my eyes slowly opened and my brain cleared for the day, I awoke to the sounds of him teaching her the most important song a dad can teach a daughter.

And that’s why I love him.

This post is linked to Serenity Now.

Whatever Happened to the Road Trip?

"Mom," our youngest came to me just before Spring Break. "Everyone at school keeps asking me if we're flying." Friends and teachers alike just couldn't believe that we would actually get in the car for the 15 hour trip to our Spring Break destination.

The same thing happened at Christmas when my husband's co-workers were incredulous that we would actually attempt to drive 900 miles to get to Dallas where our family lives. He said that more than once people asked him, "You're flying, right?"

Wrong.

This family drives most places, and I think we've become somewhat of a rarity. Don't get me wrong--we're not opposed to airplanes. They come in handy sometimes. In fact, I've been on a plane six times already this year for various reasons.

But when you have a family of five, airplane travel becomes very expensive. And we figure, if we can make the trip in a day (or sometimes a day-and-a-half), we might as well drive. It's better than staying home! So from the time our girls were very young, we just got used to packing up our car and hitting the road . . . Jack. *tee hee*

And you know what? We've had a great time doing it. All three of our girls seem to like a good old-fashioned road trip. And B and I love it too.

We've made some really happy memories along the way. Who could forget packing up our car in a driving rainstorm at the end of a vacation? Some great bonding there! Or the time (it may have even been the same trip) one daughter sat quietly in the back seat of the van eating the entire contents of her Easter basket, only to have us pull over just in the nick of time? Good times!

Seriously, though, we have more jokes, more memories, more family lore from road trips than from anything else we've done together as a family. Road trips bond you together like nothing else.

We've seen some amazing parts of the country. If we had flown on this trip, we never would have enjoyed the beauty of the Smoky Mountains in their twisty-turny loveliness. We also would never have enjoyed the beauty of Yellowstone if we had just flown over it. And who could forget the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota which we stopped to see on our way out West one year? You just don't get to see that . . . interesting sight . . . from an airplane!

Our country is huge and wide and diverse and beautiful. You just can't get a sense of its grandeur unless you travel its roads.

Even the hard times bring you closer. I'm not gonna lie . . . not every moment of a road trip is spectacular family bonding time. We fight. We yell. We cry. We forget about it. And then there was the Great Vomiting Incident of 2005 that I've already mentioned--more than once did that happen! Sure, there are tense moments, but in the end, even those moments become part of the fabric of our family. A patchwork quilt that has sewn us together in some rich and wonderful ways.

Even now, we will often sit around the table and reminisce, laughing mostly, about various events that our family has experienced--and usually these events have something to do with a road trip. I have a feeling that even when our girls are older and have families of their own, we'll still be laughing about Ted, the bison, who very nearly got into our car out at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. It just wouldn't have been the same in a rented car.

And best of all, if we didn't take road trips, we'd never get great pictures like this!



So tell me, are you a road trip family or a flying family? Why or why not?

How Your Daughter Dresses Matters

Added 10.13.16
Friends, this post has unexpectedly gotten a lot of attention lately. In fact, a little too much attention for my taste. Earlier this week several people (OK, maybe a few more than several) read this post and left comments that were a little hard to stomach. That's not what I'm about here, so I took the post down for a while.

After much deliberation, prayer, and consultation with people I love and respect, I decided to put the post back up and I have written a further clarification here. Please read this post too. It shares a bit more of my heart, five years later.

Yes, this is perhaps a little controversial and yes, you might have thoughts. But here's what I'm going to say about those thoughts--I will be very picky about the comments I choose to share here, if any. I will not share comments that are disparaging to me or anyone else in any way. I will not share comments that are inflammatory or unkind. 

We need a kinder world, a kinder place to be with one another. Let's be that here. Thanks!


Moms of daughters, listen up. There’s something you need to hear, and you may not like it. You may think it weird or prudish or snobby. Whatever. You need to hear this.

How your daughter dresses matters.

I’ve been passionate about this topic for a long time, since I have three daughters and we’ve had to cross this bridge a time or twenty over the years. At times it’s been a painful crossing, but in the end it’s been worth it to actually address the topic of appropriate dress and modesty.

Why does it matter?

Because how a girl dresses reflects an image of herself to the world, especially to boys.

Remember elementary school? It was easy to tell the tomboys from the girly-girls by the way they dressed. Tomboys wore t-shirts and sweats every day; girly-girls wore dresses and frilly tops.

Somewhere around junior high, though, another image gets added in there, and it’s not necessarily the image you might want of your junior high daughter. You know what I mean. Back in my day they were the “fast” girls. We might have called them worse.

Earlier this week, WSJ online asked a really important question: why would a mother encourage her daughter to dress like that? The article is graphic and disturbing in places and just plain sad, overall. But I think it’s important and worth a look, especially if you have daughters.

The author says she posed the question of why moms would let their daughters dress like that to a friend. Here’s the response she got:

"It isn't that different from when we were kids," she said. "The girls in the sexy clothes are the fast girls. They'll have Facebook pictures of themselves opening a bottle of Champagne, like Paris Hilton. And sometimes the moms and dads are out there contributing to it, shopping with them, throwing them parties at clubs. It's almost like they're saying, 'Look how hot my daughter is.'"

And then the author asks the most important question: “But why?”

Why indeed? Who really wants their daughter to act like Paris Hilton anyway? And who really wants their daughter to look “hot”?

Here’s what another mom said:

“We somehow survived our own teen and college years (except for those who didn't), and now, with the exception of some Mormons, evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, scads of us don't know how to teach our own sons and daughters not to give away their bodies so readily.”

Can you hear the regret in her voice? They don’t know how to teach their sons and daughters to not give away their bodies? I guess they feel it’s a double-standard if they’ve done these things, but is it a double-standard to tell your kids you made a huge mistake and you don’t want them to replicate your mistakes?

Or is it helping and teaching your kids? Loving them so much that you don’t want them to feel the shame and despair you did? Having the hard conversation because you want something better for your daughter?

I loved this quote from the end of the article:

"We wouldn't dream of dropping our daughters off at college and saying: 'Study hard and floss every night, honey—and for heaven's sake, get laid!' But that's essentially what we're saying by allowing them to dress the way they do while they're still living under our own roofs."

Think about that. If, as mothers (or fathers!), we’re encouraging our daughters to dress inappropriately, that’s basically what we’re saying. At the very least we’re saying, “Here’s my daughter. She’s on display. Take a good, long, hard look at her.”

Ugh. The thought of anyone looking at any of my daughters inappropriately just makes my skin crawl.

I work with junior high girls at church, and here’s what I tell them: "Dressing a certain way attracts a certain kind of guy. I doubt very seriously that the kind of guy you want to attract is the kind of guy you’re dressing for when you dress like that. Besides, you are above that. You are better than that. You deserve better than that. So dress for the guy you deserve."

It’s tough as moms out there today. To encourage your daughter to dress modestly takes courage for both you and your daughter. Because she will be different—at school, with her friends, even (sadly) at church. She might get ridiculed. She might even get ostracized.

But isn’t she worth it?

Believe me, it’s tough to even find cute clothes to wear that are appropriate. Probably 80% of what you see in stores today is NOT appropriate, so you have to be creative and diligent to find clothes that honor your girl and won’t bring her down. But you can do it and it’s worth the effort.

And here’s why. Read this quote from a college guy who read the WSJ article and decided to leave a comment:

"As a male college student, I can say point blank, that most girls start to [sic] early and do too much. I go to a southern california school, so it might be a more extreme case, but still, the behavior referred to in this article is bad no matter how you spin it. We guys laugh at it and pat ourselves on the back for how many of these young girls we use and degrade, and how they don't seem to mind, but there's not a single one of us who doesn't know something is blatantly wrong with the picture."

This just makes me want to cry for our daughters who dress to attract that kind of guy. Even the guys know it’s wrong!

Moms, I just want to encourage you today to see your daughter as the precious gift she is and to help her see herself that way too. It is my prayer that we can encourage our daughters to reflect the image that God has of her—one that loves her completely and loves her enough to give up His life for her.

She’s that important. She’s that special. Let’s help her to reflect that image to the world.

*****
Again, I would love it if you would read my follow-up post here.

Dabbling?

I walked and I prayed. These are not unusual.

I cried. This was unusual.

Yes, I’ve already confessed my penchant for tears, but I don’t usually cry when I walk my dog. Last week I did.

Have you ever felt like a failure? Like a quitter? Like you just don’t seem to do anything with your life? I have. I do. And these are the things I was talking to God about last week.

I know it probably has a lot to do with a blogging conference I’m attending next week. I feel so out of my element going to this event, like I don’t really belong there, so I was praying about that . . . wondering why God has me going far away to hang out with a bunch of women I don’t know for reasons I don’t understand.

As I was praying I got to thinking about how I don’t really have a “thing.” I mean, this blog isn’t what I’d call successful. I’ve never written that book I’ve been meaning to write. I’ve spoken a little, but I haven’t pursued this as a “career." I’ve got a master’s degree, but never pursued a Ph.D. And then it dawned on me . . .

I’m a dabbler.

So as I walked, I poured out my heart to God, expressing my frustration that I dabble in so many things, but have never had one “thing." I wondered out loud to God why that is.

Frustration came too easily that day, not peace, not reassurance. Just frustration that I have never pursued much of anything for very long, that I’ve never had what you would call a meaningful career, that my life, as I see it, is not one of accomplishments.

It’s true, I’m a dabbler.

Then, in the quiet of the morning, snow crunching under my feet and the pit-pat, pit-pat of the dog’s paws, He whispered to my heart: You’ve never dabbled in being a mom to those three girls I’ve given you.

And suddenly I know He’s right.

For almost 20 years now I have devoted my life to three little girls who have given me a Ph.D. in parenting, in commitment, in love. They have been both the hardest and the happiest years of my life.

And even though I see this phase of my life careening past me at a blistering pace, God showed me that they have been my "thing."

So I will continue to follow the One who has given me these three darlings, and I will continue to pray for opportunities to serve Him wherever and whenever He wants, and I will keep looking for that “thing” that is mine.

Even if it’s right under my nose.

How about you? Are you a dabbler? What does that look like?

* * * * *

Hey, I'm also posting over at the MODsquad blog today. I'd love it if you'd check it out!

In Which I Apologize to my Dad

Photo Credit: deere.com

Have I ever mentioned that I grew up on a farm? I should have. It was a big part of my growing up.

I guess I don’t talk about the farm much because I don’t really know what to say about it. And because not many people can relate to it. In my life right here (my real life, not my bloggy life and not the lives of people who don’t live here in the suburbs with me) I can’t think of a single other person besides me who grew up on a farm. It was a strange and solitary existence, which could probably explain a bit of my introversion problem.

But growing up on a farm was mostly good. Aside from the allergy situation. I was a farm kid with allergies and asthma, and every year at this time the situation became pretty unbearable.

Of course, I couldn’t complain because my dad was a farmer with hay fever. Which is worse, I think. Much worse. Poor guy would sit for hours on a tractor just sneezing and blowing his nose. He’d come in from the field late at night with bloodshot eyes and a huge red nose. This would go on for weeks, until the time of the first frost when he’d start to feel a little better.

At this time every year I really miss the farm. I loved Fall on the farm, especially the smells of harvest. All of that dust being blown through the air. All of those diesel fuel fumes. It was great.

Some of my favorite memories of the farm involve harvest time, when my dad would climb up on the combine and sit there for hours on end, probably for days and weeks on end without a break, until the job was done. Talk about a solitary existence. Just Dad and his radio buddy, Orien Samuelson who brought the farm report on WGN . . . .

. . . until we brought him dinner out in the field late at night, with only the big light from the top of the combine to give us a sense of where he might be in the vastness that was harvest. Dad would drive over to where we were waiting with his semi-warm dinner, hop down off of the tractor and give us all big, dusty hugs. He’d take his cap off of his head and we’d see the distinct line of dirt across his face where the cap had protected his forehead.

And so it was with such memories—the sights and smells of harvest—in my head that I sighed as we drove to Springfield for a quick weekend getaway earlier this fall. As we drove, we watched the busy farmers harvesting corn in the fields with their huge combines when all of a sudden Maggie asked, “Mom, what does a combine do?”

I nearly had a stroke right there in the car when I heard it! Seriously? What does a combine do? She was joking, right? After all, her grandpa had been a farmer. He had ridden a combine every harvest season for the better part of 35 years. And she really didn’t know what a combine did?

B and I just looked at each other in the way that parents of troubled teenagers look at one another. You know, the look that says, “Where did we go wrong?”

So I took a deep breath, tried to remain calm, and patiently explained to Maggie that a combine was a harvesting tractor that gobbles up the corn stalks on one end, strips all the unnecessary parts off and spits them out the back onto the field. The only part that was kept were the corn kernels which were then used to make things like corn oil, corn syrup, and feed for cattle.

And, really, Maggie, HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT A COMBINE IS???

When all of a sudden it hit me. Maggie didn’t know what a combine was because I hadn’t taught her. Her grandparents had retired from farming when she was about three years old, and then they moved away, so Maggie had never really had the experiences that her sisters had had on the farm. Her sisters remembered riding tractors with Grandpa and walking through tall cornfields and climbing on the combine, but Maggie didn’t.

Maggie had no recollection of farm life because I had neglected to instill in her a sense of her heritage. I just assumed she would know what farming was all about.

And, Dad, for this I am truly sorry. Well, that, and the fact that your granddaughter doesn’t know what a combine is.

As we drove down the highway toward Springfield, I had another realization. If my daughter, who is just one generation removed from an actual farmer, doesn’t know much about farming, how quickly could our Christian faith be lost if we don’t pass it on to future generations?

More than anything, this thought scared me. And it made me realize the importance of being intentional about passing on our faith to my daughters, and also, someday, to my grandchildren. How quickly, how easily, can our heritage be lost if we don’t do anything to make sure it is preserved?

Yes, it’s important to me that my daughters understand the farming culture which is a part of them, but it is much more important to me that my daughters understand the Christian faith which has sustained my family and my husband’s family for generations.

“Listen, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Still Learning - Part 2

Hi! I'm so glad you stopped by. If you're here for Fabulous Friday Food, you'll have to come back next week. I have been busy--really busy--this week and haven't been cooking much, so I got nothin'. But I hope you'll come back next Friday for some really Fabulous Food.




When I last left you we were in the middle of a story. Two identical keys, on the same ring, were missing, and my daughter was learning some important lessons.

And so was I . . . .

* * * * *

Throughout the week we texted back and forth, and she told me she was going to walk over to Public Safety with a friend to see if they could help get the U-lock off of her bike.

Good idea, I texted her back.

She also said she had stopped at the front desk of her dorm to see if anyone had found the keys. No luck there.

Oh, that’s too bad. I’ll keep praying.

At one point she said to me, “Mom, do you have any idea how much a locksmith costs? Like, 80 dollars!!”

Uh huh.

Life’s rough. And let me tell you something, sweetie, being a mom whose hands are tied is rough too. Restraint isn’t exactly my strong suit.

Finally, about three days later at around 9:30 P.M. my phone rang. “MOM!!! I FOUND MY KEYS!!!! I ACTUALLY HAVE THEM RIGHT HERE IN MY HANDS!!!”

We jumped and shouted together on the phone, rejoicing that the incident, which had caused me almost as much internal turmoil as it did her, had come to the very best conclusion.

“Kate, that’s great! I’m so happy for you! Where did you find them?”

Turns out, she decided to ask one more time at the front desk in her dorm lobby. The girl working the desk was no help whatsoever, but it a guy who was standing nearby overheard Kate asking about some lost keys, looked down on the counter, and said, “Are these your keys?” all nonchalant like.

There they were, just sitting innocently on the counter. Who knows how long they had been there? I guess long enough for Kate to sum up the financial implications of a locksmith and buying a new lock. Long enough for her to come up with a plan and to ask someone on campus for some help. Long enough for God to teach her whatever lesson He wanted her to learn and for her to spend some time praying through her situation.

And in the meantime, those keys remained lost long enough for God to teach me a thing or two as well.

How easy would it have been for me to just say, “Oh honey, I’m so sorry this has happened. Let me call a locksmith for you and I’ll come meet you at work and we’ll see if we can get that bike unlocked for you”? And surely it would have been easier for me to write the check to a locksmith than for her to do it.

But in the meantime, she wouldn’t have come up with the great idea of going to Public Safety. Or checking at the front desk. Or finding out just how much this mess was going to cost her.

And in the meantime we both had the opportunity to pray and to wait for God to work it out. I’m so glad He worked it out this way rather than the most painful, expensive way, but even if He had chosen that path, it would have been worth it, too.

Because she did it. Kate had gotten herself into that mess and she had the unique privilege of getting herself out of it. It was her problem, and even though I was there to support her in it, she got the satisfaction of handling it.

I’m so proud of her, but I’m also just a little bit proud of me because I didn’t handle it. Me, the fixer-upper. Me, the handler. Me, the mom who wants to kiss it and make it better.

I didn’t handle it. And it was the right thing to do.

After almost 19 years of mothering this child, I’m still learning.

Now it's your turn. What parenting lessons have you been learning lately? What is the hardest part of parenting to you?

Still Learning - Part 1

The call came in last week: “Mom. I did something really stupid.”

How does one respond to this? I sat. I waited for the story I was sure to come.

“So I was running late for work the other day so I rode my bike, but I was wearing a skirt so I didn’t want to ride my bike home from work. I figured I’d just get it the next day when I was there.”

Yeah? Where’s the stupid part, aside for riding your bike to work with a skirt on?

“Well, when I got back to the dorm I don’t know what I did, but the keys to the bike lock fell out of my purse and I can’t find them anywhere.”

Immediately I pictured the bike lock that her dad bought before she left for college—a huge, heavy-duty U-shaped lock that only opens with a key. The packaging bragged that no bolt cutter could cut through this lock. No, sirree.

“Oh, Kate. How did this happen?” I asked.

“I don’t know!” the panic starting to rise in her voice. She’s probably picturing the U-shaped lock, too. “We played Capture the Flag when I got back. I set down my bag somewhere. The keys probably fell out on the grass.”

Yes, she had looked everywhere. Yes, she had torn her room apart. Yes, she had asked people if they had seen the keys. Nothing.

And, no, she had not separated the keys—two identical keys were still linked together on the small ring.

Don’t even get me started.

“Let me call Dad,” I offered, knowing already what he would say. But I felt like I needed to do something, and that was all I could offer at that point. “I’ll call you back.”

I made the call and got the response I knew I would get.

“Don’t help her out. Whatever you do, do NOT call anyone for her. If she were out East, we wouldn’t be able to help her, so just pretend she’s away at college, not just right down the street.” After 25 years, I knew this was what he would say, but I needed him to be the fall-guy, not me.

I called Kate back.

“Kate, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re going to probably have to call a locksmith to come and pick the lock for you. And then you’re going to have to buy a new bike lock.”

“How much is that going to cost?!” The panic rising in her voice even more.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to call to get an estimate.”

That little incident was one of the hardest parenting issues I’ve faced in a long time. It seems so simple in theory—make your child do the hard things . . . face the consequences of their actions . . . yadda yadda yadda. I KNOW all this in my head, but putting it into practice is so very hard.

I didn’t offer to Google locksmiths (even though I had already done it). I didn’t offer to pay for anything. I just remained firm that she would have to figure this one out, and I made sure she knew that I was sorry, so very sorry, for the hardship she was experiencing. And I was. More than she would ever know.

So tell me, has your child ever gotten into a jam? What did you do? Anything? Nothing?

I’ll let you know tomorrow how this all worked out.

More Than Enough

I’m kind of consumed with the start of school this week.

Office Depot loves me. And tonight, Famous Footwear is going to love me too.

Don’t even get me started about Target--we’re BFFs these days.

But amidst all the rushing around, buying new clothes, making sure we have all the necessary school supplies, there’s a certain bit of angst in our house these days. It’s called middle school.

Maybe it’s called junior high where you are. I grew up going to junior high, but my kids have gone to a middle school; I have yet to understand the difference. Different curriculum? Different set up of classes? What is it? Personally, I think the phrase “middle school” kind of softens the blow somehow. Makes it seem like a natural progression to the next phase of life rather than a waiting-for-high-school kind of thing.

Maybe that’s just me. It probably is.

One thing I do know, however, is that middle school or junior high or whatever you want to call it, is just about one of the toughest times for a girl. (I can’t speak about boys here because I don’t have one. Feel free to comment away about the boy-aspect of middle school.) I cannot tell you how many people I’ve talked to who have said that their junior high experience was so terrible that it’s the reason they chose to work with junior high students at church. Or others who said it affected their future career choice. Or others who just stay away from middle schoolers at all costs.

Seriously, it’s a rough go.

I’m currently going through middle school for the third time with my own girls, and each one has handled it differently. One seemed to breeze through middle school, only to tell me later that she hated every minute of it. Who knew?! Certainly not me. Another withdrew a bit, probably trying to ward off every cruel thing another person had said to her. Self-preservation becomes an art in middle school.

This time around is different still. We’re more concerned with our appearance. We’re straightening our hair and buying clothes in new and different stores. We’re much more concerned with the opinions of others.

And it’s this last aspect that had me on my knees today. Or walking, which is my preferred prayer stance.

I have always told my girls that I don’t want them to be known as the “smart girl” or the “athlete” or the “musician” or fill-in-the-blank. I would be much happier if the other kids at school think of them first as “the kind girl” or the “friendly girl” or, best of all, “the girl who really loves Jesus.”

The outward stuff just isn’t important. It’s the inward stuff that will shine through in the end.

But, you know what? You really can’t tell that to a junior high girl. Oh, you can tell her, and the sounds you are coming from your lips might reverberate around in her head a little bit, but there’s something that just makes them not hear it. Really hear it.

And so you have to come up with lots of different ways to say the same thing which is, “Just be yourself. Be the kind and loving person I know you are, and other people (the right people) will be drawn to you.”

Unfortunately in middle school, that just doesn’t register a whole lot. And so this morning I was praying for my girls, especially that sweet middle schooler with a whole bunch of angst about stuff that really doesn’t matter, and God somehow broke in through my mumbling and had me pray this:

“God, please help her to see that you are enough.” Just that. Enough.

Today I want my precious girl (all of them, really) to know more than anything that her clothes, her hair (as gorgeous as it is), her outgoing personality, even her talents in the classroom . . . none of it will ever be enough. Because there will always be someone to come knock her down a peg, or someone who feels like it’s their business to put her in her place, or someone who just gets a kick out of being cruel. All of the outward stuff will never be enough to make her feel good about herself.

But Jesus will.

Today I am thankful for a God who knows my daughters.
A God who knows when they sit down or stand up.
A God who knows their thoughts.
A God who knows when they go out and when they lie down.
A God who is familiar with all their ways.

These verses are loosely paraphrased from Psalm 139, and they bring me a lot of comfort. As a parent, it’s great to know that this God knows my daughters better than I do. He knows what’s best for them, and He even knows their mistakes. He still cares for them, watches over them, and loves them deeply.

Later, the Psalm goes on to talk about how God’s works are wonderful—that means you, junior high girl! About how God knew each and every day of our lives before we were even born and how He planned them all. And about how precious is each and every thought God has about us.

That part amazes me. Every thought God has about us is precious!

So on those days when it seems like we need the opinions of others to make us feel good about ourselves (Who are we kidding here? I have days like that too.), we can remember that God thinks highly of us. And that is enough.

He is enough for junior high. He is enough for high school. He is enough for college. And beyond.

More than enough.

Starting School

My friend, Rebecca, is sending her first child off to kindergarten this week. I’ve been thinking about her a lot, and since I’ve walked the road she’s about to step onto, I thought I’d give her some pointers to help her through the minefield called “school.”

Be prepared. Take Kleenex on the first day. You might feel happy that, after all those loooooong years with your child at home, she’s finally heading off to a minimum of 13 years in the classroom. (I know I was.) But suddenly, on that first day, I found myself crying as I watched my daughter walk into the building. It hits you at the strangest moments, so be prepared.

Thankfully, that stage doesn’t last long.

Walk to school as much as possible, even when it’s 20 below zero. Because that might be the only time you have to tell her about boys when she will actually listen. And it might also be the only time she will tell you about how Johnny tried to kiss her on the playground the day before but she wouldn’t let him because she slugged him. Hard.

You might want to consider enrolling her in a self-defense program. That playground can be rough.

Enjoy your child’s new friends. They can teach you a lot about your child. Like how she’s the official classroom Play Dough taster . . . or how she likes to sing the “ABC” song at the top of her lungs in the hallway . . . or how she likes Johnny, really, even though she slugged him.

You know how they say there are no stupid questions? Don’t believe it. There are. Don’t ask the teacher about bathroom procedures. The kids will figure it out. Don’t ask if you can leave a couple of days early before Spring Break. It’s always better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

And finally, don’t ask how they teach reading—whether she uses a whole language or phonics-based approach. Because the teacher might just look strangely at you and tell you, “This is kindergarten. We don’t teach reading in kindergarten.”

Not that I would know anything about that. I’m just sayin’.

Field Day. This is a day toward the end of the school year when the entire school comes together to play games. Running games. Water games. Relay games. Games that would require proper attire, and by proper attire I DO NOT MEAN A DRESS. But unless you actually know what Field Day is, you might not know what proper attire for that event would be. Learn from my mistakes, or your children might remind you about how lame you are for the rest of your parenting life.

Which is forever.

And that brings me to my next point: the job never ends. It just gets harder.

So have fun with that one.

And while you’re at it, realize that you are about to embark on one of the most fun, most rewarding, most challenging at times, most amazing rides of your life. You’ll meet great people, some of whom will become your closest friends. You’ll learn when to speak up and when to be silent. You’ll learn more about your child than you ever thought you could.

School is awesome. I’m a big fan of school. I’m a big fan of you, too, Rebecca, and I know you will do just fine.

Enjoy the ride.

Intentional Parenting - Just In Case You Missed One

I'm sad that the Intentional Parenting series is over. It's kind of like saying goodbye to an old friend. But even though I probably had much more to say on the subject, I felt like posting much more would kind of be like overstaying my welcome. You know, like being the last guest to leave a party.

And I would never want to be the last guest to leave a party. *shudder*

So anyway, just in case you missed a post or two, or you think you might reference my pearls of parenting wisdom every now and then, I thought I'd put them all in one place for you. Kind of like a hostess gift from me to you.

Thanks for coming to my party!

Introduction

Intentionally Disciplined

Intentionally Truthful

Intentional Stewardship

Intentional Service

Intentional Worship

Intentional Kindness

Intentional Travel

Intentional Prayer

Intentionally Letting Go

Intentional Parenting - Conclusion

A Day Late

O.K., I know it's a day late. Mother's Day was yesterday. But I didn't see this video until my friend, Jennifer, turned me on to it this morning.

As many of you know, Kelly Corrigan is one of my favorite authors. She's real. She's honest. She's funny. I'd love to be her friend. (Crazy and slightly stalker-ish, I know.)

Anyway, watch this video and pretend it's yesterday.