Encouragement for Parents When Life Mutes Us

When my son was about four years old, he had to have what was then considered a risky surgery for his age. We drove two hours to a university hospital where a doctor that specialized in the treatment he required performed the surgery. I still remember the doctor describing how the surgery would take place and all the potential harmful things that could happen. I remember sitting in the hospital waiting room for it to be completed, tears streaming, as I simply prayed, “Please, God.”

I was all out of words. I could only plead for God’s care for my son.

When Life Mutes Us

As Christian parents, we know our children need our prayers. God uses those prayers—not because he needs them—but because in his mysterious providence chooses to use them as a means to carry out his will. 

And so we pray. We pray for our sick child to be made well. We pray for wisdom when we encounter a parenting dilemma. We pray for our child’s protection from evil. We pray for God to open the blind eyes of our child’s heart so that he might see his need for Jesus and come to a saving faith.

Yet we know there are times in our lives as parents when we are so overcome by emotions that it’s hard to put words to what is happening. The challenges and heartaches we encounter with our children can leave us unable to voice what is going on in our hearts. We feel so distraught, so fearful, so brokenhearted that we can hardly utter a word, much less pray to the Lord all that needs to be said. We are left muted.

There are also times when our own sin gets in the way of our prayers. We are stubborn in that way, refusing to see the truth of our idolatrous hearts. In those times, we may look for ways to solve our parenting troubles on our own, rather than seek God and his will. We may trust in false hopes to lead and guide us. Rather than stopping to pray, we may even insist that we had every right to respond the way we did when our teen showed up past curfew and we failed to model the gospel by seeking forgiveness for what we said. 

Whatever keeps us muted, God is ever gracious still.

To read the rest of this post, visit Rooted Ministry where I am writing today.

Photo by Olivia Snow on Unsplash

On Motherhood, Memories, and How Quickly the Present Becomes the Past

My son and I got into the car one recent morning to head to school. As usual, he got out his ear buds case and began putting them in his ears.

“When you put your ear buds in, it makes me think you don’t want to talk to me. Or maybe it’s just that you don’t want to listen to me,” I said with a smile.

He laughed and put them away.

It didn’t used to take so much work and prompting to talk with my children. When they were young, all they did in the car was talk. In fact, I think sitting in the back of the car created an ideal place for them to talk to me. We weren’t looking at each other in the eye. We were captive audiences to each other.

In those days, they’d ask whatever question came to their mind:

How does a car engine work?

Why do the birds sit on the powerline like that?

How does the music come through the radio?

There was also a running commentary about whatever they saw out their window:

Mom, look at the shape of that cloud!

Why is that car going so fast?

Can we stop at the smoothie place? Please?

Then there would be emergency interjections like:

I have to go potty right now!!

Or I’m hungry, when will we get home?

One time, we were returning home from an appointment and my son complained that it was taking FOREVER to get home. We reached a traffic light and I said, “Let’s see how long forever is. I’ll time it from here. How about you take a guess as to how long you think it will be.”

In case you were wondering, forever is exactly 7 minutes and 42 seconds.

I thought of all these things as I sat in the car beside my son on the way to school. It wasn’t long ago that he sat in an infant carrier behind me, his face looking at the rear of the car. In order to see his face I put a mirror on the seat behind him so I could see him in my rear view mirror. Now he sits taller than I. Later this year, he’ll get his learner’s permit and the year after, his license. And then the season of driving children will be over for me.

If there’s one thing that is true about parenthood is how it’s always changing. Just when I get used to one stage, a new one appears. Lately, I’ve started to feel that way about the teen years. They’ve become like my favorite pair of jeans, soft and worn and comfortable. I know what to expect from my kids and they know what to expect from me. We’ve worked through the stiffness and kinks of those early adolescent years. But my oldest leaves for college later this summer and with that comes a new season of parenting a young adult. Before long, his brother will follow.

After my son put his ear buds away, we chatted all the way to school about the latest news in the world, his friends, and what he is learning in school.

I then tucked those moments away with all my other memories of motherhood, realizing just how quickly the present becomes the past.

Photo by Robin Edqvist on Unsplash

Talking About 9/11 With Our Children

Have you ever been asked, “Where were you when . . . ?”

As a child, I heard countless stories of my grandfather’s days in the U.S. Army, marching across Europe in World War II, and how the Lord protected him on D-Day.

My mother often shared her memories of hiding under a school desk during Cold War bomb drills, or of watching TV coverage of the moon landing in 1969. And every one of my parents’ generation can tell me where they were the day President Kennedy was assassinated.

I’m now old enough to have stories and memories of where I was when something significant or tragic happened in the world.

On September 11, 2001, I was leading a group counseling session with students at an alternative school when a coworker knocked on the door, pulled me aside, and told me planes had flown into the Twin Towers in New York. It’s a date I’ll never forget.

With the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaching, many of us will spend time recalling that day. We’ll remember where we were, what we felt and thought, what we saw and experienced. We’ll remember the lives lost and the heroes who sacrificed their lives for the sake of others. We’ll remember our national grief and our righteous anger in response to the horrors of that day.

As we do, though, there will be children around us who don’t remember. My children were not yet born on 9/11. To them, it’s a national tragedy, one they read about in the final pages of their history books in school. It’s like the stories I heard as a child of those world wars or of JFK’s assassination—one they don’t have an emotional connection to because they weren’t there.

How can we talk to our children about that day?… to read the rest of this post, visit The Gospel Coalition where I am writing today.

Helping Teens Navigate Social Media

When I was a teen, I spent many afternoons at my friend’s house. We’d arrive after school, rummage through the pantry for our favorite snacks (anything filled with artificial colors and flavors!), plop down in front of the wooden television set and watch the latest music videos of our favorite big hair bands. Later that night, we’d call each other on the phone. I’d use the one in the hallway outside my bedroom, snaking its mustard yellow spiral cord underneath my door for privacy—assuming no one else was using it—and we’d talk for hours about anything and everything.

Much has changed in the life of teens since that time; much more has changed in technology. The challenges, temptations, and issues our teens must navigate in the age of the smartphone are mind-boggling for those of us who still remember when phones were mounted to the wall. Even more, our teens need parents who understand these challenges and are intentional to walk alongside them in it.

The Way Teens Communicate Today

My husband recently assumed that one of our teens communicates with his friends by talking on the phone. He was wrong. Teens today don’t call each other; they are likely to use an app to communicate. For those of us who remember how foundational long conversations over the telephone were to our adolescence, this is totally foreign. It seems like an entire form of communication has been cast aside all together for a visual medium, where teens connect via abbreviated text, memes, and images….

To read the rest of this post, visit Rooted Ministry.

On Motherhood and the Passage of Time

It’s the end of the school year here and I decided to begin work on a task I’ve put off for far too long: going through the numerous boxes of homeschool classwork. We have years worth of binders filled with lessons and worksheets. I saved my children’s work from the very first day we started homeschooling, partly because I needed to save their work for a portfolio, but partly because I just couldn’t part with it.

My oldest just finished his junior year of high school and it was time. I’ve dreaded going through his school work because I knew what it represented. I knew that opening those boxes and flipping through spelling tests, math quizzes, and handwriting exercises would shout out to me the harsh and difficult truth—time has passed all too quickly. I knew that sweet memories would flash in my mind, memories of snuggling up on the couch during afternoon read-a-louds, of combing the beach for shells during that year when we studied ocean life, and of laughing at my son’s insistence on illustrating every word on his weekly spelling tests. Memories of studying the Great Wall of China and constructing one of our own out of miniature craft blocks. Memories of cheering on Odysseus as he pushed forward in his long journey home. Memories of lapbooks and unit studies and field trips. I knew that such memories would usher forth tears, and I wasn’t wrong.

When we started homeschooling my oldest in the first grade, we thought it would be temporary. We expected to do it for a few years at most. But we soon realized that it was a perfect fit for him. He thrived in homeschooling and my youngest soon joined him. When we moved to a city where there were many options for homeschoolers to take classes, he thrived there too. When we switched his brother to a local Christian school, my oldest wanted to continue homeschooling. He’ll enter his senior year this fall and our homeschool story will soon come to an end.

I look at both my kids now, who both stand far above me, and struggle to see the little boys they once were. Sometimes, when they smile or laugh at a silly joke, I catch a glimpse of their childhood, but then just as quickly, it is gone and all I see are whiskers across a man’s jawline. I then hear the jangle of car keys and they are out the door to see friends. It seems like yesterday my oldest was learning to count; now we are registering him to take Calculus in the fall. Our conversations which once centered on all the “why?” questions of life and how things work, now focus on plans for the future.

My life over the years has revolved around the school day and the school year. I’ve measured time by classes, semesters, and summer breaks. In between those times were hard and difficult days when no one wanted to do their work and I longed for a substitute teacher to come in and take over. On other days, I wanted to resign my job as teacher, principal, janitor, and lunch lady all together. On those days, I looked forward to the next stage when things would be easier. I looked forward to days when I would be in less demand. I longed for moments of peace and quiet. Sometimes, I even imagined what else I could do with my time. To be honest, there were even days when I wallowed in self-pity, reminding myself of all I gave up to teach my kids at home.

Yet all those years have flown by all too fast. My days as a teacher have since shifted to that of tutor and guidance counselor and those jobs too will soon end. While part of me wants to rewind time and go back to those afternoons when we all sat and listened as we took turns reading aloud the day’s history lesson, part of me also loves watching my sons grow and mature into young men. I love seeing the labors of my years, the sacrifices of my days, bear fruit. I love witnessing the Lord’s work in their lives. And I look forward to seeing what he does in them in the years to come. Because the truth is, all along I’ve merely been a steward in their lives. They belong to the Lord and his calling on me as a mother will all too soon transition to a different role. While I will always be their mother, I won’t always be involved in their day to day life. I won’t always be needed. I won’t always be their primary instructor.

As I flipped through those binders of days past, I was reminded all the more that my job was temporary— that I didn’t have tenure after all.

Moms, the days are long but the years are short. Those days of pushing through exhaustion do not last forever. Those days of picking up toys and wiping faces and teaching the same lesson over and over will soon pass. Those days of watching the clock tick by all too slowly until bedtime will be gone before you know it. May we, like Moses, ask the Lord to teach us to number our days (Ps. 90). May we steward our brief time for God’s glory. For our “days are like grass” (Ps. 103:15) and all too soon, our time with our kids will be past.

A Mother's Reflections on the Passing of Time

When I first became a mom, I received lots of advice. Some of it I asked for, some of it was unsolicited. Sometimes it was a friend telling me about their favorite parenting book or the best place to buy diapers. Sometimes it was a stranger in the grocery store voicing their how-to solutions for anything from child safety to potty training to incorporating veggies into my toddler’s diet. Then there were those who insisted that I must follow “So and so’s method” or I’d never survive the 2’s and 3’s— and whatever that so-called life saving method was varied from person to person.

But there was one piece of advice I received that I’ve thought about every year since. What was the advice? A mentor casually said to me something I’m sure many parents hear: “Enjoy each moment for it passes all too quickly.” She had just entered the empty nest stage of life and I could see memories flash across her eyes as she looked at my son resting in my arms.

When she said those words, I remember thinking, “I only wish it went by fast!” and tossed it aside with the rest of the well-meaning advice I received. Those days, I was deep in the trenches of early motherhood where time seemed to stretch out like an afternoon shadow. And then the sun would rise on another morning and I’d be reminded that another night went by without any sleep.

But as time went by, and the fog of fatigue faded, I remembered the advice. And every year around this time I reflect on her words. That’s because my oldest turned 16 yesterday. 16! It seems like just last week I was reading him a bedtime story while he lay snug in his blue racecar bed and then asked me to read five more. It feels like yesterday that I sat watching him cover every inch of the great room floor with an elaborate train track and a few hours later asked me to video every. single. cannon ball jump into the backyard pool. Long gone are the days of playing Battleship and building Legos and answering impossible “Why?” questions. Instead, these days are filled with instructions on safe driving and how to use a calendar to organize school work and reminders to study for the SAT. And asking the one question no parent will ever receive the answer to: “Why do you leave empty boxes in the pantry?”

When I consider how fast time has gone by and that I only have two years before he likely leaves home for college, I start to panic. Have we taught him everything he needs to know? What have we missed? Then part of me wants to treat these last two years like a study cram session. I want to make flash cards and quiz him on all the life lessons we’ve taught, the theology we’ve imparted, and all those important instructions that are guaranteed to save him from near death if only he follows them exactly as instructed.

But I know that the age of 18 isn’t some kind of expiration date, as though everything a person needs to know must be imparted by that time or they’re out of luck. I also know that most of the lesson’s he’ll learn in life will happen in adulthood, in those years when he stretches his wings and explores both his gifts and this great big world God has made. I know too, from experience, that he’ll have to fall to learn the most important lessons of all.

And so, while I will continue to teach my son what needs to be taught and gently lead and guide as needed, I also want to do what my friend told me all those years ago, “Enjoy each moment for it passes all too quickly.”