One (just one) of the problems with writing a parenting book is the whisper spitting in my ear sometimes as I parent my oh-so-real-life teens. Like the one who yelled at me across the lawn this morning. (See? I’m wondering if I should have let you know that.)

Enter the Whisper: And you wrote a parenting book?

Even though none of that book hinged on my perfection or my kids’. Even though, as I’ve reread my own words, I wouldn’t reel any of them back in.

(Which says a lot. Often in life are words I wish I could reel in.)

And there’s this: If anything, parenting teens has underlined and added exclamation points all over the spiritual disciplines in Permanent Markers.  And not one bit because I was the one to write them down.

I needed to teach every one of those principles to my kids–for this day. Right now. Spiritual disciplines and life skills are one way of preparing our kids, packing their metaphorical backpack for a day we don’t know they’ll need it.

A word picture, perhaps?

For the Day You Don’t See Coming

I admit to watching all aired episodes of This is Us. In one of the final episodes (spoiler alert, here), principal characters Kate and Toby’s legally blind three-year-old, Jack, is shown navigating the path to their Saturdays at the park.

Kate’s written a jazzy song about how exciting the park is–and all the dangers Jack, with the help of his cane, needs to dodge on the way, from the traffic to the dog turds.

At the beginning of the song, Toby asks if perhaps he and Kate should hold both Jack’s hands. But Kate insists Jack needs to find his way.

From everything to the curb to the buzz of the overhead electrical lines, preschool Jack feels his way to the park.

Later in the episode, the gate to Jack’s room is left unlocked on a different, chaotic day. As parenting days so often seem to be.

And Jack dons the red boots he always wears to the park, attempting to find his own way.

Understandably, the entire family is frantic. But even though Jack has wondered out into the world, and his parents are attempting to swallow sharp chunks of guilt–it is Kate’s song, worn into the ruts of Jack’s memory, that saves his life for an unexpectedly life-threatening afternoon.

That, and the help of a grandma who listened to Jack when he mentioned he always wore his boots to the park.

What We Can Do Right Before Everything Goes Wrong

I cried buckets in this episode.

Because in all the ways I feel powerless as a parent, showing my kids ways to fall in love with God has protected their souls even when they feel out of reach. When I don’t really know where their souls are.

So things like teaching our kids to listen to the Holy Spirit, or to have self-control, or that the Bible is true?

Those lessons have shaped their brains when we as parents aren’t there at all.

Another one of those disciplines–community–has also anchored my kids, when mentors and yes, their grandparents, have gone out to find my kids when I don’t know exactly where to look, and the world feels so big.

Jesus’ Body, too, is a prerequisite for God-honoring parenting.

Like the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, God has sometimes mapped out a path through a distant foreign land for our kids–in order for their relationship with God to become intimate.

(See, the prodigal son’s heart was far from his dad’s waaaay before he left. Why else would he hurt his dad by taking off with half his dad’s money?)

Preparing Your Kids: Singing Them Home

Please understand me: This is not some underhanded plug for my book. This to affirm you.

The ways you’re teaching your child like Deuteronomy 6 says–in the car, before bedtime, those long chats after school–are singing a song to them, wearing ruts in their brain.

And it’s not just preparing your kids for the good things it will do: So they can teach Sunday School someday, or so they resist temptation at their locker one afternoon, or so they’re ringing a bell for the Salvation Army in the cold at Christmas.

It’s also so they are safer on a dangerous day. So they remember their way.

Because They Won’t Always Wear Footie Pajamas

At the risk of this post being a bit dark: A couple of years ago, I watched my friend progress through the nightmare of her husband’s stage four kidney cancer. From diagnosis to the day she became a widow—and single mother of three—took just over 100 days.

One night, as I transferred the children to their grandparents and we lamented the agony of their reality, her mother remarked that in her mind, she could still see my friend running around in footie pajamas as a child.

I realized we never know what life skills, what knowledge of God our kids might need in the future for which today must prepare them.

The days were indeed long, and the years short when that window was blissfully wide open for me to teach my kids a love of God.

Don’t phone this one in. Keep teaching them God’s ways–for the day you can’t see coming.

Tell us your ideas. What’s one simple way you’re preparing your kids spiritually for the future?

Comment below!

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