To my daughter on her 21st Birthday

I have written letters before and included them in my blog for a few reasons.  

1. I figure it is a good place to store them.  
2. I want to publicly celebrate my amazing kids.
3. Sometimes these things will someday apply to my younger kids which is why this letter begins Dear Daughter....




Dear Daughter,

Happy 21st Birthday!  Every birthday is special and always another opportunity to celebrate YOU and the wonderful gift that you are.  Birthdays probably mean the most to parents, who can look back and remember not only the amazing day you were born but all the special times along the way.  Your dad and I are so thankful for you and the perfectly unique way that God put you together and entrusted you to us.

Lots of birthdays are special milestones.  You turned 10 and it was “double digits!”  13 and you became a teenager.  Sweet 16 and you could drive a car.  18 and you were legally an adult and could vote.  Our society has attached a milestone to this birthday as well.  You are 21 and you can legally buy and drink alcohol.

Yikes.  Where to begin...  

I could begin with what God’s Word says about drinking, and I know you have learned this.  The Bible does not prohibit drinking, but it does have some things to say about it.  (1 Corinthians 10:23-24, 1 Corinthians 8:9, Galatians 5:21) I think there is one key to guide it all:  You are an ambassador for Christ!  All the time and everywhere you go.  You are representing Him.  Think for one moment how it represents Him when you allow yourself to be under the influence of alcohol or any other substance.  You have labeled yourself a Christian among your friends.  They are looking at what you do and what you say.  Be responsible for drawing people to God, not turning them away!  

I could begin with potential consequences.  The risks are high and the dangers are real.  You have been through the DARE Program and learned all the stats.  But indulge me and imagine this scenario for a minute.  You are drinking.  Therefore you are not thinking as rationally as you are as you read this.  You convince yourself that you are fine to drive.  Possible consequences?  You get a DUI.  How exactly are you going to get to that shiny new career you are working towards when you can’t drive for the next couple of years?  You injure or kill someone else.  You injure or kill yourself.  These are horrible, I know.  But guess what?  Unlike so many other awful things that can happen in life, these are 100% avoidable.  I made a decision many years ago and I URGE you to do the same:  Even one drink, and I don’t get behind the wheel.  Extreme?  Maybe.  But why risk it?

I could begin with how it looks. We live in a social media world.  You are close to being a teacher.  Your future employers will devour the internet to see what kind of character you have.  Parents of your students will see you out at restaurants.  You may keep your twitter feed and FB page clean, but other people in your world have cameras too.  If I was a principal looking to hire a band director and had 2 candidates, you can be sure that things like character and personal habits would effect my decision.

I could begin with experience.  When a kid is 14 and a parent gives them warnings based on their past experiences, the kid thinks they are stupid and just trying to keep him from having fun.  But as that kid gets older, he begins to realize that experience really is worth something, and adults really do have something to say based on lessons they have learned.  I believe you have come to the point where you know I am not just trying to manipulate your behavior.  I don’t think I have to go into the gory details, but based on my real life experiences, I can honestly say: drinking is not worth it.  The pleasure of a few minutes or hours doesn’t even come close to being worth the potential price you might pay.

So there are lots of places I could begin, but only one real place I want to end.  I love you.  You are beautiful, smart, talented, generous, and a faithful child of God.  You are courageous enough to not care if you are not doing what everyone else around you is doing.  You are wise enough to know that pleasure in the moment is not worth sacrificing the potential of the future.  And you are confident enough to know that you are representing yourself, your family and your God.

Have an awesome birthday, kiddo!  Show ‘em that you are special!

Love, Mom

Random Thoughts

Random thoughts on a winter day.

When my kids were little, I remember getting excited when I got a little break from the day-to-day.....a night out with my girlfriends, a weekend away with my husband.  Now, I get excited when I get to spend time with my kids.  They basically live away at college or in their bedrooms, and I CRAVE rare minutes spent with them.

I wish everyone had a job that they loved as much as I do.  I work with amazing, godly, fun people and it really is a blessing to be a part of a team with common purposes.

There is so much power in thinking about the “wholeness” of the Bible.  All of the little stories are amazing and important and meaningful, and for years that is pretty much all I saw.  But when I look at the whole thing as one big story of God’s relationship and pursuit of us, it is INCREDIBLE!  

Turning 40 was fine and no big deal.  But I can’t think of any part of turning 50 that I am looking forward to.

I think it would be fascinating to have a conversation with 20 year old me.  I’m pretty sure it would be 2 very different people talking to each other.  Thankful that God makes things new and is always faithful!

I am more and more convinced all the time that people are horrible at evaluating themselves...seeing their faults, their sin, their potential.

Bad habits are super hard to overcome.

I kind of stink at this blogging thing.

One thing I would really like to get better at is encouraging people.  Not just an occasional compliment, but genuine life-giving encouragement.  I think that is a rare thing in our society.

I've learned that there are two big things that can suck the joy out of your life.  Regrets about your past and worries about your future.  The key is in remembering that the grace of God is huge and will take care of both of these things.  And THEN, I can find the joy in today.

A Fine Balance

As I am muddling my way through parenting teens and young adults, I am learning that there are lots of balancing acts.  I am attempting to cross a high wire and not fall in either direction.  On one side is over-parenting and on one side is under-parenting.

The goal is to reach the other side with strong, godly, independent adults.  But while crossing the wire, I find myself wobbling and leaning and overcompensating.  

Sometimes it’s so easy to see other parents who appear to have already fallen to one side or the other.

Permissive Parents....

• have no idea what is going on with their kids on social media.
• have little to no knowledge as to where their kids are or who they are with.
• believe that dating is just for fun and has nothing to do with their kid’s future relationships or ultimately their spouse.
• are worried about their kid being unhappy with them if they say no too often.
• see no problem with their kid vacationing with a girlfriend or boyfriend’s family.

Helicopter parents...

• micromanage their kid’s life (homework, calendar, finances)
• are quick to step in when their kids have a struggle in a social situation.
• always jump in to bail their kids out, sometimes not allowing them to experience consequences.
• are “too present.”  They chaperone every event and are always on the sideline.
• fully fund their teens and young adults because they don’t want them to miss out on anything.

I have seen many of these in the lives of parents I know and I have seen many of them slip into my parenting.  I have to really struggle to not fall off the rope onto the helicopter side.  I have no doubt if you surveyed my kids, they would say the same thing.  

But I think healthy self-examination is the first step to getting things right.  When I think about the fact that I have such a limited time left truly parenting my girls, I want to make sure I am getting as much right as I truly can.

When Nik Wallenda recently crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope, he didn’t get there safely by casually walking along, distracted by the person talking to him in his headset, pushed around by the wind and the mist, worrying about his own comfort, worrying about how he looked to others.  He had to be solely focused on one thing:  making it to the other side.  

Blind Spots

I was thinking the other day about blind spots.  Areas of our life that we just can’t see.  

I can think back to times when I realized something about myself...a rough spot in my personality, body language that I wasn’t aware I was communicating, sin, unwise choices.  I was oblivious to these things until I discovered them in some way.  They are usually something that I would have totally done something about or avoided all together had I actually seen them coming or knew they were happening.

How can we miss these things?  There are probably several reasons but here are some of my thoughts.  

1. Habits.  Certain things become such a part of my life that I mindlessly continue to do them.  Absolutely no thought is going into it anymore.
2. Can’t see yourself.  20-some years ago I was in a job evaluation and my supervisor commented that my body language really gave away when I disagreed with someone and it was somewhat off-putting to people around me. I had NO idea!  If I could have seen myself, perhaps I would have realized it on my own.
3. Critical of others.  Sometimes I think we are so busy being critical of others that we pay little attention to what we personally are doing.
4. Little self evaluation.  I think we take very little time to actually evaluate ourselves.  We live in a world where we feel the need to fill every minute with something.  We are most comfortable when our life is full of social media, entertainment, work, activity.  Downtime with our thoughts, with God, with people are rare.  
5. No community.  Often we don’t have people in our lives who can help us with blind spots.  Maybe we have friends, but are they (1) plugged in to God and (2) loving us enough to call out the blind spots when they see them?
6. Sin.  Sin has a way of clouding my vision.  Things like pride and not loving people the way I should cause me to not see things.  It’s not an excuse, but it’s real.

So how can I see things that are in my blind spots?  I believe there is hope.  

• God provides us with His Word which is alive!  It illuminates, convicts and ultimately helps us with our blind spots.  
• As believers we need to be bold and show each other things.  It’s not easy sometimes, but shame on us if we can’t help each other in this way.  
• And most importantly, I believe God will show us things in our blind spots.  If we slow down and learn to listen more when we pray, I am confident we will begin to see the junk in our blind spots.

When you are driving a car and you want to change lanes or back out of a parking spot, blind spots are dangerous things.  If you don’t see what’s there, you could end up with a wrecked car or even worse.  I think the blind spots in our lives are potentially just as dangerous.  

Saturday Ramblings

I have stepped away from my blog for a while.  No good reason....just lazy I guess.  But last night a friend of my daughters told me that he and his mother had discovered my blog via Sarah’s blog and they really enjoyed it.  I guess you just never know.  

That was my inspiration.  But I have no real topic on my mind today.  Therefore, you get random ramblings.

1. I think it is so much harder to form a positive habit than a negative one.
2. I am usually really good at discerning who a person is when I first get to know them.  But sometimes I am surprised at how wrong I was.
3. The blistering heat of the past summer is making this fall weather all the sweeter.
4. The best conversations with my kids are often in the car....just me and one of them.
5. It just struck me that my babies will be 17 next Saturday.  Crazy.
6. One of the most challenging character traits for me to deal with in others is being unteachable.  When they think they know it all and have no room for improvement, it drives me up the wall.
7. I am amazed and saddened by how many people are medicated for psychological reasons.  Millions of people depressed to the point of a “chemical imbalance?”  Really?  Something’s wrong.
8. People (myself included!) are horrible self-assesors.  We simply do not see our own flaws and don't see areas that need worked on.
9. Parenting is funny.  One day I can think I am doing a pretty decent job.  The next day I feel like I totally suck and I have no idea what I am doing.
10. I have ZERO interest in politics and the upcoming election.  Therefore the phone calls, commercials, yard signs and discussion are getting on my last nerve!
11. I am super excited about a few things coming up.....Sarah coming home for fall break tomorrow.  Chaperoning the band to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving.  Our new church building getting started.  

I told you I was feeling random.

What Did I Learn?

Sometimes after I come out of something that was hard, I like to spend some time looking back and thinking about what God taught me through a rough situation.  For example, we lived in northern Michigan for a hard 2 years.  I didn’t see much joy at the time.  But after moving away, I was able to look back and see specific reasons that God placed us there.


I lost my friend.  My good friend Claudia recently lost her fight with colon cancer and is now in heaven.  It was hard to watch her suffer the past few weeks and she left a pretty big hole in my life personally.  I ache when I think of her husband and 2 sons who now face life without this amazing person.  But as I move forward, I am going to try to put words together as I think through what I learned through all of this.

It ain’t over til it’s over.

Claudia was still doing kingdom work during the final couple of days of her life.  She was boldly sharing Jesus with family and friends and openly praying for people in the room who don’t yet have a relationship with Christ.  I don’t know what the end of my life will look like.  Maybe it will be similar to hers or maybe I will spend 10 years in a nursing home into my 90’s or maybe it will happen in the blink of an eye.  But through this I learned that no matter what my circumstances, I still have work to do.  God will still use me if I am willing.  I can never let myself become so self absorbed in my circumstances, that I miss opportunites for Him!

How will I handle it?

I think nothing says as much about a person’s heart as how they handle a really hard situation.  Feeling like a very healthy person and being given a diagnosis of stage IV cancer?  I would say that qualifies as such a test.  From the day of her diagnosis, up until the final days, she showed a strength that most people would not exhibit.  I’m not sure how a person without faith could ever be as “okay” with things if they were facing saying goodbye to their family, enduring a potentially painful ending, and “losing” the final 35 years of their life.  I think that non-believers are always watching to see how Christians will handle things.  If and when something truly hard happens to me, I want my faith to be evident to everyone.  But not to say “look at me and how great of a Christian I am,” but to say “Wow.  What an awesome God that gives that kind of strength and confidence!”

You never know.

In her own words, Claudia’s last week on earth was a gift.  On oxygen and struggling to breath and swallow and sometimes speak, she was able to finish her business.  Her extended family flew in and they had big dinners together, watched our church’s Easter service on a DVD together, shared lots of stories and memories and prayed together.  She had very personal and important conversations with her husband and her sons.  She gave pieces of jewelery that had special meaning to her neices.  She wrote letters to be read at different milestones in her sons’ lives.  As much pain as she increasingly was in, Claudia was able take care of business and she recognized this as a precious gift.  Truth is I might not have that final week.  A car jumps the curb tomorrow and I don’t get a week.  That lesson smacked me square between the eyes and right in the gut.  I need to live my life in such a way that if I don’t get that final week or month, I will have taken care of business.  I need to be saying certain things to people right now!  I think most of us don’t think about our mortality and foolishly believe we have plently of time to do things....someday.

My friend that I was at Jazzercize class with just 6 weeks ago is in heaven with Jesus at this very moment!  Those aren’t just words to make you feel good or a cliche.  That is absolute, amazing TRUTH.  God promises that ALL THINGS work together for good to those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  ‘ALL THINGS’ might be really hard and painful things but when lessons can be learned and we can grow closer to Him as a result.....it IS good.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”  2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Critical Parenting

Sometimes I wonder if other parents are like me. All of the thoughts that run through my head about my kids.....do most other parents think that way?

I know I will always be my kids’ parent, but based on the math, I definitely don’t have a lot of years left of the real hands-on, everyday, in-the-trenches stuff. I find myself looking at various traits in their lives and thinking, “Is that because of something I did or didn’t do?” Sometimes these things are good and sometimes they are not so great.

I’m not talking about major lifestyles or bad habits that my girls struggle with. But there are areas that they don’t have confidence in that make me question how we parented them. Were we too restrictive in some areas or did we not encourage certain behaviors enough? Could I have done or said things differently that would have shaped their character differently? I don’t totally beat myself up over this stuff but it is what I think about at 2am when I can’t get back to sleep.

Or maybe I am giving myself too much credit. Maybe it is more the genes they inherited which has made them who they are. (After all, I have twins who have been raised the same and have the same life experiences and yet they have very different strengths and weaknesses.) I totally see myself--the good, the bad and the ugly--in all ot them. A lot.

Or maybe it is a matter of me wanting to see them respond to situations in a way differently than they do. I think that I see the best in a particular situation, and yet they choose something different. It’s all about angles. They see something one way and I see it from further down the road of life. Life and experiences have a way of broadening your view and narrowing your focus at the same time. As a result they can miss amazing opportunities and underestimate not-so-amazing consequences.

Maybe I am just trying to learn how to parent adult or near-adult kids. When to speak up and when to shut up.

Okay, as I re-read this post, I realize I am rambling and vague and cryptic. Just stuff in my head right now. Post or delete? Post or delete? Post. Maybe it will make sense to someone.