Thirteen

Yesterday my oldest child turned thirteen. I am now the mother of a teenager and starting a new phase of parenting. Events like this always lead me to reminiscing and reflecting. I thought that I'd share thirteen reflections on parenting in honor of this occasion.

1. Children really are a gift from God. Each one is precious and individual. They have their strengths and weaknesses, but they are blessings.

2. Putting my children in God's hands (and leaving them there) is probably the hardest thing I do. I want to wrap them in a bubble and protect them from all the evils of the world. I lie to myself and think that I know how to best protect them. Then I remember that God is sovereign and almighty, and He can do a much better job than I can.

3. As much as I love my children, God loves them infinitely more. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around this one, but it's much easier to put them in God's hands when I remember this.

4. My children's accomplishments rarely (if ever) have anything to do with me. I'm always proud and amazed at what they can do. God has given my children talent in areas that I do not have, and I think it's so that I can't take credit for their gifts and abilities.

5. Consistency is key. When I tell my children that I will do something I do everything I can to follow through. This works with fun things as well as discipline. When my kids are misbehaving and I tell them that if they don't stop they'll get a privilege taken away, they stop, because they know it'll happen. On the flip side, when I promise a special treat, they know that will happen, too.

6. Time goes so fast. I know, I know. All mothers hear this from the moment they find out they're pregnant. And I was one that when older women would tell me that, I'd smile and nod, and think "Everyone knows that." But you really don't get it until you're looking at your teenager or watching them graduate or seeing them get married. Then it hits you in the gut. "Man, that went fast!"

7. Every stage should be enjoyed. Each one is fleeting. They all have things that are less than enjoyable, but each one has something that can be grasped and cherished.

8. Don't be too busy. I need this reminder all the time. When my child wants to be read to, or needs help, or wants to tell me something, do I take a moment to spend time with them or do I push them aside because something (cleaning, writing, television (ouch)) is more important?

9. Easing up on the reigns is hard. At least for a control freak like me. My daughter is getting to the age where her foundation has been laid, and we've taught her some building skills (hopefully). And now, she gets the opportunity to see if she can build something beautiful. Right now, she still has us watching her and guiding her, but she gets to make more of the decisions on her own. It's hard, but necessary, because soon enough, we're not going to be right beside her any longer, and she's going to need to know that she can succeed when that happens.

10. There are moments when you just stare at your children and your heart is flooded with joy. They aren't doing something spectacular, but simply looking at their face brings me joy.

11. Your children can make you laugh harder than you ever thought possible, and can make you cry harder than you though possible. Those little humans have their moms by their heartstrings and can pull their emotions with the smallest tug.

12. You never stop praying for your child. I started praying before they were born (sometimes before they were conceived). You pray for their health, for school, for their spiritual life, for their emotional hurts, for their future.

13. A mother's love is a reflection of God's love. The Bible talks about God longing to gather His children under His wings like a mama hen. He wants to nurture us, protect us, and love us. His love is unconditional and everlasting. A mom's love is amazing, but it's only a dim look at what God's love is.

The time I have left with my daughter under my care is numbered. I'll never get this time back. Each day, each moment is precious. What am I going to do with the time I have?

Accident Prone

I don't think I've admitted this to you before, but I have a bit of clumsiness about me. I'm one of those people who can trip on nothing - and do it spectacularly ungracefully, too. I have had stitches multiple times. Often enough that for a while my family wouldn't let me even cut my own meat at dinner or have sharp objects anywhere near me. I've had a couple concussions too - at least I remember a couple vaguely. But in all my clumsiness I had never broken a bone.

Then last Wednesday I took an amazingly ungraceful fall. I have a sunken living room and I took a step backward and caught my foot on the step. I stumbled into the open front door, stumbled further and ran into the wall, stepped on our cat carrier, and ultimately fell on my backside on the tile floor. Whenever I tell people about this, the first heartwarming question they ask is "Why was no one taking a video?" I'm sure it was hilarious to watch, and even I saw the humor in it at the time. I have fallen so often and usually in very embarrassing ways and places, that I've learned to laugh when it happens.

I got myself up and determined that I was indeed okay, but my hands were a little sore. As the day wore on, I realized that my right hand was not okay after all. My little finger was swollen and bruised. My husband asked if I could make a fist. My loving response was, "Of course I can make a fist!" But I when I did I gasped in pain. I smiled as I looked up at Joel. "I can make a fist. It just hurts to do it." My husband was certain I had broken my finger. That night I met up with my parents and sister and they were all certain that I had broken my finger as well. I sent pictures to my aunt who is a nurse and she said it looked bad, too.

With all of this, I still convinced myself it wasn't broken, just badly bruised. Going to the doctor would just be expensive and all they would do was tape my fingers together so I would just treat it myself. So for two days I taped my fingers together. By the way, it's hard to type with your fingers taped together. And I'm frantically trying to get the second Holliday Hotel book finished and published by February. So I would untape my fingers to write - for just a little bit.

Saturday morning I woke up and my finger hurt while doing anything. My dad, Joel and I had planned to go golfing on Monday morning, and I was starting to get the feeling that maybe this wasn't just a bruise and maybe we weren't treating it right. After discussing it with Joel for a while, we decided that I had better go to urgent care and get it checked out. The doctor just looking at it said that she would be surprised if it wasn't broken, but she needed x-rays for confirmation.

Surprisingly, it wasn't broken (I still have never had a broken bone!), but I had sprained my knuckle - the one where my finger joins with my hand. When I sent the diagnosis to my aunt, her response was "Only you." I had never heard of a sprained knuckle before, but the fix is a very impressive splint (shown in the picture above) to keep me from bending my finger. No wonder my finger was getting worse instead of better! Even with my fingers taped together I could still bend my knuckle. Joel asked the doctor about golfing on Monday, and I was sure I wouldn't be able to go, but she was confident that with Saturday evening and all day Sunday in the splint, I would be able to go golfing. In fact, she didn't want me to wear the splint for too long because joints get stiff very quickly. I was surprised, happy, and a bit skeptical. My finger still hurt and just look at that splint!

But Sunday night I removed my splint to take my shower and curled my hand into a fist. She was definitely right about joints becoming stiff! Even my knuckles that weren't sprained hurt as I curled them. But by the end of my shower I was amazed at how good my hand felt. The bruising and swelling were down and it felt almost normal. The next morning I took the splint off and was so excited to see how good I felt. I was even able to go golfing for all 18 holes.

When I tried to diagnose and treat myself, I only made things worse, but when I let the professional take charge, my hand healed quickly and I was able to get back to my normal life and activities. So often with sin, we do the same thing. We decorate it so it doesn't look like sin - it's not gossip, it's a prayer request. Or we think that if we just have the right self-help book and attitude it'll be fixed. Or we pretend it's not there and think it'll just go away. We put a bandage on, but don't understand what the real problem is. But once we turn to God and let Him take control, He can forgive us, wash us, and change us. When He's finished we look back and wonder why it ever took us so long to go to the professional in the first place. We realize that it would have saved us a lot of pain if we had only turned to Him when we first saw the problem.

New Year, New Goals

Towards the end of last year, God brought it to my attention that even though He was part of my life, I had moved Him towards the edges. Other things and people had become the focus and center of my life and attention. While it wasn't a bad thing for me to lavish attention on my family or serve in my church, when those things become my center of attention, I lose something important.

One of the things that drew my attention to this problem was how emotional I had become. Now, I'm always an emotional person. My husband is the one who is pretty calm and collected, and I'm the one who has roller coaster days. But this was deeper. I was sinking into "down" spells more and more often. I realized that what I was pouring my heart and soul into, I was also expecting to pour heart and soul into me - to fill me and complete me in ways that they are not able to do. I wanted them to do what only God can do and be what only God can be.

Heading into the New Year gives us a chance to re-evaluate what's happening in our lives. It gives us the courage to go back to school or choose a healthier lifestyle or refocus our priorities. Personally, I don't label this a resolution (although it is that as well), but a goal, not just for this year, but for my life. I need God to be the center focal point in my life. I need to know Him better every day. When that happens, everything else will fall into the place that they belong.

After making that decision, I needed to figure out what that was going to look like. It's harder than it looks, because in a lot of ways I was already doing the checklist of things that a Christian does: go to church, join a Bible study, serve in ministry, do personal devotions. So what was I missing? I think it's not necessarily a checklist item, but an attitude change. I decided that I need to be in prayer more - specifically for the things and people who had been my center. If I'm praying for them, I'm aware of their need for God and it puts them in an appropriate place. Also, I'm not a morning devotion person. I don't wake up "bright eyed and bushy tailed". I drag myself into morning. Reading my Bible in the morning is going to guarantee that I get nothing out of it, because I'm not alert enough to soak it in. However, I have started a 365 day devotional book by Beth Moore called "Praying God's Word Day by Day" that I start my morning with. My thought is that it will begin my day with a focus towards God, spur me on to pray first thing in the morning, and hopefully that will turn my focus to God from the very beginning of the day.

Every year I choose a verse to be my verse of the year. This year I chose (or rather God led me to) Hosea 6:3-

 "Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
    his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
    as the spring rains that water the earth.”

I did a study on Hosea by Jennifer Rothschild this past summer, and she said that the word "know" means to have an intimate knowledge. That's what I want. I want to intimately know my Lord. I want to keep pressing forward to know Him more and not get content where I am in my walk. God doesn't play games. If we are pressing on to know Him, He doesn't hide from us. In James it says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." He doesn't keep pulling away getting further away the harder we try to know Him. He draws close to us. That's what I want for 2017. I want to draw closer every day to God until my life is a reflection of Him. I want to recenter my life around Him, because He's the only one who should be in that position. Everything else will fall into the place it ought to be when He has the place He deserves.