I would say I have been praying for a miracle in one (or more) of my kids for a year now.
But, y’know, it’s probably one of those things where you think, spring feels like a small miracle sometimes. My kids hanging up their towels sometimes feels like a series of miracles. And hey, let’s not forget the miracles God’s doing in me (to the tune of, Wow, when that kid flipped his lid, I didn’t flip mine. Miracle.)
So now that I’m a mom of teenagers and all their weirdness, we talk about things like we did last week: Is it okay to date a non-Christian?
This naturally means I have introduced things like oxen into our conversations before (cue the “unequally yoked” verse, 2 Corinthians 6:14). What’s a good dating conversation without lowing livestock?
Ever lost a job?
Years ago, after a frequent series of layoffs in my company, the axe finally fell on me.
After the all-too-recent my-kid-might-have-lymphoma scare? There are some things that have been going right.
For one, after a year of doing my freelance writing and marketing for my only employment, I filed for my own business. I am now the owner of Fresh Ink, LLC. So that’s pretty cool.
For a year in Uganda, I taught a class at a local institution for early childhood education teachers. I’d haul in boxes of file folder games and bottle caps and flour for us to make playdough together. I’d bring along one of my kids to show them how the games worked, and we’d split up into “centers” for them to try out games involving clothespins and string and painting with water on cement. I wanted them to feel and smell and hear and taste how fun it could be to teach kids early math skills; to know how to read. In a country where it was still acceptable to cane children in the classroom, I wanted to show them that by getting kids excited about learning–rather than shamed–teachers cut their work in half. Why?
In teaching that class, I uncovered a core philosophy of mine. If kids can “catch the bug” for a subject when they’re young—having fun and being engaged—they’ll be self-driven to learn and experience that topic for the rest of their lives.
(That’s the philosophy that informs the whole Spiritual Disciplines for Real Families series on this site.)
Last week was the week where you sign enough paperwork that you think, Maybe I just bought a house or something. But actually, you’ve just registered your kids for school. I lost track of how many boxes of pencils and packages of notebook paper I purchased. And one of my kids is starting high school, which may mean that I am old?
Either way, the principal introduced himself as I walked out with my freshman (man, just typing it makes it sound real). And here is what I liked: Our new principal, in his last district, was also an elder in his church. So was our new superintendent. These intelligent, gifted men could presumably be doing a lot of things with their giftedness. But as I chatted with the principal, I thought, I’m really glad you’re doing this particular job. It matters to me and my kids and their discipleship. People like you preserve our schools so they don’t become “unreached”.
So it’s summer, and the kids are home. And my son, who loves to cook and does so frequently, just asked me where the teaspoons are. Two days ago, he asked me to grab him a pair of socks. Yesterday, he asked me to text his friend. And I calmly responded, without snark, that I was not actually his personal assistant. (Okay. Minimal snark.) These requests are pretty frequent in my house.
In April, before I headed to Thailand, said son was swimming at the pool, and accused me of not making lunch for him (we were at a birthday party for one of our other kids. I was fortunate to be in my right mind). My husband tilted his head. “How old are you?”
“Twelve.”
So I have a teenager, and another just about. Most of me is tickled pink about all the real conversations we get to hold, all the fun we have as a maturing family, all the crazy jokes they tell me that leave all of us laughing.
And there’s this leeettle part of it that scares the bejeebies out of me.
Seemingly separate note: I have recently acquired an agent for a non-fiction book I’m writing, which makes my heart do little cartwheels of happiness. It was a moment I wasn’t sure would ever happen.
The idea bubbled up not long after my kids’ grandpa helped them each weave their own survival bracelets: eight feet of 500 paracord specially plaited and buckled around their wrists. The idea is that if you were in an emergency situation, you could use it, say, for a tent; a tourniquet; a climbing aid.
But even those neon colors couldn’t outshine the sparkle in my nine-year-old daughter’s eyes when she realized she could start a business with those little bracelets.
Her little business she started recently tumbled our family into a (lovely, really) domino effect of initiative, knowledge, community, work ethic, and perseverance. I love the dynamic it continues to create among my kids!
Missed Part I? First, grab it here.
When you felt like you were finally surfacing from burnout–or as I called it, tired-mad, I might tell you what I found out. That sometimes burnout is simply burnout, because life is hard. And even though God never gives us more than He’ll give us strength to handle (He says so here and here), it still can feel like a rightful scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel, ta-da-I-survived type thing. (Whether it’s godly or not to be burned out is another post for another time, perhaps. But pretending it’s not there doesn’t really help.)
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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