“I can’t help it. I just love them too much.”
It was the confession of a grandmother. Her daughter lives nearby with her husband and two small children. She was admitting she was an over-grandma. Over-caring, over-providing, over-serving…
Too much love?
Her tearful angst came at the end of our study of idolatry and traveled around our circle of women.
And when it came around to me, I felt the tension. I’m guilty of gusto, too. (more…)
It was barely 9:00am. My son’s sticker chart was ruined, his time-out chair was hot, and our marble jar was empty.
And I was all three. Continue reading
An enthusiastic cheerleader’s voice boomed through the loudspeaker over our heads and echoed down the shiny, tile hallway. Our little group paused until it was over.
“Sorry about that. Big game tonight.” The assistant principal said with a smile. He then motioned us toward a doorway marked “125”. Inside, students were huddled together over papers and chrome books, talking and writing. They looked up at us briefly.
“This is one of our history classes. The students here are working on a group project,” he explained.
We watched for a while, then continued our tour. We were new parents and students, getting informed and oriented before the next school year. The following thirty minutes were spent moving from one spot to the next, as students pushed past each other in the hallway, reached across each other in the cafeteria, and talked over each other at classroom tables. It was a loud, busy place.
Personally, I loved high school, and happy memories washed over me that day. The energy of games, clubs, and social activities fueled me through my academics, and I thrived in it all.
But now, as a parent, I was seeing things through my daughter’s eyes. With her in mind, even this short tour made me tired.
She is extremely introverted person, and I realized I had to do some very intentional parenting for us both to survive until graduation day. Continue reading
A few weeks ago, my oldest son was playing guitar in our basement. The music was loud and he didn’t see me coming, so I stood and listened for a while. It was a piece I’ve never heard him play, but I instantly recognized his soulful heart behind it. Continue reading
The light turned yellow, then red, and I slowed to a stop. I hung my arm out the window and glanced at a park near the intersection. There, a disheveled mom was chasing a three-foot live wire with a bowl cut. I watched until the car behind me honked.
As I pulled off the line, it hit me: That’s me. My kids are teenagers, but they haven’t stopped running. And I’m still huffing and puffing behind them.
The teenage years seem to cause parents to either chase harder or quit running altogether.
I’m a chaser, through and through. Continue reading
I used to go to my room to cry.
I would hold it together until I fixed a snack for one child, pulled down a toy for another, and assigned math pages to two more. Finally, with trembling lip, I’d hustle down the hallway to the privacy of my bedroom.
There, my God and my pillow absorbed the tears. Because someone called with bad news. Or I didn’t get my way in marriage. Because it was the wrong time of the month. Or mothering and homeschooling four kids was just plain lonely and hard. Continue reading
A couple of people have asked me to post this. I hesitate for fear of people thinking I’m a parenting expert in any way. THAT IS NOT THE CASE. At. All.
However, I have tried various ways to keep my teens active, learning, helpful, and growing over the summer. About four years ago, I came up with this plan, and it stuck.
Enough set-up. Here’s what we do. Not perfectly. Not without grumbling. But it seems to keep us out of trouble… Continue reading
I entered the room and found her studying her reflection in the mirror, a girlish habit that sends up a maternal red-flag. “Do you like it, Mom?”
She was trying on a hand-me down dress given to her by an older friend. She tugged at the ill-fitting neckline and bodice; her body not yet the shape for its womanly cut.
I gotta give her credit. The girl dreams big.
And she’s a lot like me.
She pulled at the fabric and shifted her body until her reflection matched how she felt: bigger, older, and like someone else.
I’m honored to be featured at God Sized Dreams today. Please follow me there to read the rest of the story…
It was that heavy time of day. You know, that time when you realize that another day is slipping away and all you have to show for it is a bigger pile of dishes, more laundry, and the same stagnant set of worries from the days before.
You know, that time of day when everyone’s tired, but restless. Hungry, but fed-up. Fragile, but rock-hard. When school is over, but homework is looming. After friends have disappointed, but before siblings are appreciated.
You know, that time of motherhood when the problems are too big to wrap in a blanket and conflicts don’t end with a time-out. When a pacifier or teddy bear just won’t cut it. When being a mom just isn’t enough. Continue reading
In her kitchen, I didn’t learn much about cooking, but discovered the importance of fun over fussiness.
In her family room, I didn’t learn much about parlor etiquette, but fell in love with family.
In her dressing room, I didn’t learn how to purse my lips or or paint my face, but learned to keep smiling at the girl in the mirror. Continue reading
I watched him from my seat on the bleachers. Neck rolls, deep breaths, pacing, stretching… I could tell he was nervous and it made my stomach turn. At some signal I didn’t catch, he pulled off his hoodie and jogged to the check-in table. His muscles bulged and I wondered when he got so strong. Then I looked around at the other wrestlers and I wondered if he was strong enough. Continue reading
It was another hard day of no leggings, yes pants. Homework first, FaceTime second. No eyeliner, yes blush. Talking, hugging, slamming doors…
Being a middle school girl -even a fun, beautiful, smart one- is rough.
And being her mom is exhausting.
It was the dark time of night when confidence turns into confusion and anger becomes fear. Even though I was in bed, I knew sleep probably wouldn’t come, but definitely not if I didn’t do one more thing… Continue reading
We were getting ready for church and I wanted to check in on my middle-school daughter. Lately, she’s had many tearful fashion crises and I was prepared to help her settle on a cute outfit. You know how girls need their moms for stuff like that… Continue reading
“I’m thankful for the presents that I’m gonna get for Christmas,” he said, smiling.
I frowned and began a lecture in my head, “Let’s take one holiday at a time, shall we? How rude to rush ahead to your Christmas list when you haven’t taken time to properly remember what you’ve been given.” Sheesh… kids these days. Continue reading
Our family loves Christmas. We start talking about what kind of lights we will put on the house and tree right around Halloween. Clark My husband turns up the volume as soon as the radio station switches to Christmas music. Our Christmas movies get pulled from the shelf and dusted off even before we’ve digested our Thanksgiving meal.
And much of our enjoyment is a result of some practices we fell into when the kids were young. I say “fell into” because I don’t want to sound like we are the kind of people who have our act together. We didn’t intentionally plan out these things… they just sort of happened.
But these are the things that have made a huge difference in how we celebrate this monster of a holiday. These are the things that have helped us “tame the beast” a bit, and even enjoy what could be a pressure-cooker for a family of six. Continue reading
I creep into his room with a pile of clean laundry, and see him lying there, way past bedtime, under the covers but far from sleep. I’m exhausted and want desperately to be off the clock, but something about his expression tells me to wait.
I stand there and notice how he looks out of place on the bottom bunk, with limbs hanging off and his growing body quickly filling the space meant for a boy. Continue reading
We’re halfway there. Two of our four children have a driver’s license. I’m bolstering myself for when we have to start lessons with the next two.
Very few things are more nerve-wracking than teaching someone how to drive.
The worst part is when new drivers “over correct”. Our car starts to drift into the wrong lane, and I’ll say, calmly, “You’re drifting a bit, sweetie,” (my blog, my version) but just as my words start to register, an angry honk startles the driver.
Inevitably, the steering wheel gets jerked a bit too suddenly, we swerve into oncoming traffic, then back into the honker’s lane, and my life flashes before my eyes.
It’s scary. They realize that they’re headed in the wrong direction, panic, and turn too far the other way. It’s instinct, I guess.
And girlfriends, isn’t it a perfect picture of how we react as women?
But the answer to being too far right is not in going too far left.
It’s like in Grease when Sandra Dee traded her cloned, goodie-goodie poodle-skirt for skin-tight 
leather pants and a cigarette. The former was to fit in, the latter was for attention. I like to imagine that Sandy eventually landed somewhere in the middle, where she could be her best self without selling herself short.
The answer to a lack of attention is not in getting the wrong kind of attention.
As women, we tend to correct one dangerous extreme by heading toward another. Either place rarely offers stability or peace.
Let me give you a couple of examples from my own timeline: In college, another girl called me “fat-ass”. So I stopped eating enough, started exercising too much, and began a habit of criticizing what that I saw in the mirror. Both voices, audible and silent, were mean.
The answer to one abuse is not another.
And as a young bride, I was convicted that I was in the habit of nagging my husband. I made a vow to stop, and took a giant turn towards silent brooding for a season. Or a decade. Neither was effective or respectful.
The answer to nagging is not silence.
See what I mean? In both cases, I rightly identified a wrong, but reacted impulsively and foolishly. And when I look back over the history of our complicated gender, I see that I’m not alone…
In one era, women felt trapped and restricted, and responded with a pursuit to “have it all”. Shortly after, we suffered a generation of women who had everything, but were doing nothing well.
The answer to not having enough is not in having everything.
The women’s movement gave us the the courage to respond to the horn’s blare of inequality.Our long silence turned into a demanding roar, but most of us are still trying to figure out how to be heard.The answer to oppression is not aggression.
Our grandmothers raised their children in homes of high-truth. There were no excuses, no hand-outs, and little supervision. Generally, those kids grew to be hard-working and highly resourceful, but lacked compassion and open-mindedness.
Now, years later, the wheel has turned.Today’s kids are full of entitlement, dependent on accommodations, and over-scheduled. To compensate for the shortcomings of generations past, we’ve mothered a bunch of very empathetic and solicitous, but fragile and unprincipled people.
The answer to high truth/low grace is not low truth/high grace.
When culture devalued the roles of wife and mother, we agreed and abandoned most of what makes us women. Then, we expected men to fill the void and bashed them when they fell short. Now, no one is sure how to be a woman or a man, much less a wife or a husband, and we’ve gotten no closer to where both are simultaneously and individually esteemed.
The answer to gender depreciation is not gender resignation.
Even in church, we’ve over-corrected.For generations, we’ve fallen prey to distorted definitions of submission and we’ve discounted God’s value of women. In response, we shut the Book, banned the word “obey”, and turned to Oprah for guidance. It’s no wonder we’re lost.
The answer to legalism is not the absence of law.
Our historical highway has the skid-marks to prove our swerving story, and it’s jolting to recount.
But when I look closely, I must admit that I’m over-correcting even today, on the smaller roads of my life…
I’m offended by a friend, so I pull away and hit “delete” on our relationship.
I feel overcommitted, so I quit everything.
I meet someone cool, so I abandon myself and try to become her.
When will I learn? When will we?
Ladies, let’s be honest. For years, we’ve been paying the price for panicky responses and trading one danger for another. We can’t redo those lost years, but we can get back on track.
It will take effort, focus, and the support of one another, but mostly it will take humility.
The answer to over-correction is humility.
Humility to listen to Someone else’s voice and to distrust, for once, our instincts.
Humility to slow down and learn from our mistakes.
Humility to resist the extremes and respect our boundaries.
Humility to learn the way in which we were uniquely designed to communicate, make changes, and do our part.
If we stay in the correct lane, we’ll get to where high-truth and high-grace cohabitate: where we can be our best selves.
It’s at the intersection of womanhood and the gospel… right between the lines that He painted with His own blood.
It’s the center of the cross, in the midst of “you are worse than you’ve ever feared” and “you are loved more than you’ve ever hoped”.
And the trick is not to jerk away from either.
It’s where you were meant to live. Not as a slave. Not as a queen. As a woman. As His daughter.
Sisters, it’s where we will find everything that we’ve wanted all along. It’s where we’ll find our rightful place in this world. It’s where we’ll have peace.
I w
ant my daughters to live there someday. Don’t you? Let’s teach them the way.
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”Genesis 3:13
As of last month, it’s been twenty years since my first-born was placed into my arms. It seems like yesterday, and so long ago at the same time.
I look at his tiny body in the picture and can’t believe that he is now a man: strong, talented, intelligent, sensitive, and godly.
And I look into the face of the young version of myself and remember. She is clueless about being a mother, but Continue reading
If I didn’t already have my shoes off, I would have removed them, for I felt I was on holy
ground. It was one of the last mornings of our vacation, and I was on a beach walk by
myself, but I was not alone.
With my very first step, I began thanking God for the opportunity to be there with my
family. Then as my mind wandered, I started talking to God about why He made the
beach the way He did and how our visits there impact us. And I started snapping pictures
to capture it all. Continue reading
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The coach chose him to swim an I.M., or Individual Medley, which is a 100-meter race where the swimmer does one lap of each stroke: butterfly, backstroke, breasttroke, and freestyle. A race that intimidates him and makes him doubt.
My third born, a boy, who has reached thirteen years in the blink of an eye, who gracefully straddles the beam of adolescence, who still says “Yes Mam” and hugs me everyday, who just started gelling his hair and caring about muscles, stood on the blocks. There were anxious fidgets, exaggerated exhales, and popping of knuckles. And the swimmers seemed nervous, too. Continue reading
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Recently, my pre-teen daughter went to a birthday party. When I picked her up, she got in the car and slumped on the seat, frowning. No “Hi Mom”, no “Thanks for picking me up”, no nothing.
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Dear Daughters,
As you get ready to enter new schools in the fall, it’s normal for you to be anxious for things to go well.
We’ve thoughtfully planned your core classes, electives, and extra curricular activities.
We made a list of supplies and will scour the stores for just the right binders, backpacks, and notebooks.
We’ve budgeted and will shop carefully for outfits that are practical, appropriate, and expressive.
You are pretty much ready, except for one thing.
We haven’t done anything to prepare you to sift though a big, new group of people in the hope of making godly friends. Often, the friendships that you have in middle school and high school can influence you so much more than your classes, supplies, and clothes. Therefore, I’d like to offer some advice and encouragement, to be just as intentional about getting ready for this part of your new school year. You can begin now to prepare to make friendships. You can do this…on purpose. Continue reading
Curled up on the couch with his sketchbook in hand, my son asked, “Mom, if you had a super power, what would it be?”
Within seconds, I replied, “I’d be able to control time. I would fast forward, pause, slow down, and rewind the hands of the clock at will. My name would be Captain Tick Tock.”
Clearly, I had thought about this before.
With raised eyebrows, he studied me for a few seconds as if seeing me anew. “Wow, Mom,” that’s actually a really good one.”
“I know, right?”
He went back to his pages filled with superhero drawings. I had a feeling Captain Tick Tock was about to be added there.
Just before bed, I spotted the finished drawing on the coffee table
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One of my kids cried when I reported that another snow storm was coming. None of us ridiculed, belittled, or discouraged his tears. We all just shook our heads and silently hugged. We know, buddy…we know.
Seriously. This winter is relentless. Everyone is at their breaking point. With another round of closings, grocery panics, salt, boots, coats, shoveling, scraping, we must admit that if we didn’t have the self- control that my child lacks, we would all be crying too. Continue reading
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This past Christmas, I was reminded of one of our family’s rules. My youngest received a gift that was interesting to her siblings. Soon after it was unwrapped, her brother was asking to “see” it (which really means hold it and play with it until you beg for it back). Big sister came to her rescue and reminded everyone of our time-tested rule, “You don’t have to share on the first day!” Everyone nodded. It’s true.
To My Awesome Kids,
All four of you are in different stages of your education. Since I (Mom) feel a little panicky as I watch you grow up so quickly, I want to press pause for a moment to write you this letter.
Naturally, as a homeschooling family, parent and teacher roles have been been blurred for you. This was a good thing at home. I never wanted you feel like I had a dual personality (leave snide comments aside for now, teenagers), so “School-in-Session Mom” wasn’t too different from “Weekend Mom”.
This worked well for us. However, clearly defining the roles of parent and teacher might be beneficial now that you are getting older and entering into traditional schools. Even when my role as your school teacher ends, I’d like to make it clear that Dad and I are not resigning as your lead teachers in the following areas:
The other day before an appointment, I was doing the “Mom Scramble” on the way out the door : letting the dog out, finding keys, turning off lights, switching laundry, loading dishes, etc. I was minutes away from being on my way when my husband called. He was giving me an update about that evening’s logistics, “Uh, huh. Okay. That will work. What time?” I was already doing seven things; talking on the phone made it eight. An average-sized scramble, I’d say. No big deal for a veteran like me.
My two youngest blessings waited by the door, watching me hustle around (another blog idea for later).
Stooping For Manna 