2018 Book List

My book list this year is lengthy. Pace yourself, skim, or, if you're not a reader, come back next time.

CLASSIC FICTION (otherwise known as books my teenagers read in school this year)

Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

For years I’ve wanted to read the books my kids read in their high school lit classes, and because this book caused some controversy this year, I decided it was time to read it for myself. I was surprised, first of all, by its relative tameness. By today’s standards, it’s downright chaste. While I did not enjoy the book’s characters, I thought it was excellent fodder for conversation about morality. The premise is that a painting becomes a visual representation of the title character’s soul. While he stays young and beautiful, admired by everyone (at first), the painting bears the marks of his flagrant sins. The moral of the story: our actions have consequences, our friends rub off on us for better or worse, and we do have souls that are affected by the way we choose to live. These lessons were written on each page of the book, and in the hands of a good English teacher, Dorian Gray would lead to important conversation.

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
This classic reminded me a little of The Bridges of Madison County without the sex. Except sadder. There’s not much here except hopelessness. The story is short and slow. Very little happens. I didn’t care about any of the characters. So what’s the point? Why do our high schoolers read this? Like Dorian Gray, it demonstrates that our actions have consequences, and sometimes we’ll live with those consequences the rest of our lives. We always have choices, even in desperate situations, and those choices should not be made impulsively. That’s what I got from it, but maybe a class full of AP students came up with a lot more.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin
When I talked to a group of high school students about this one, they brought up the contrast between rights and responsibility. I'm glad they've been taught to find something instructive in even the grimmest of novels. Written at the turn of the 20th century, this is a staple of the early feminism movement. Did that movement really wish to represent itself with a spoiled, selfish, indulgent narcissist of a woman who can’t find anything more meaningful to do with her time than contemplate how restless and unsatisfied she is with her husband and children? My suggestion to Edna, the main character, was to raise her own children, change some diapers, wash some dishes, and pursue gratitude. Life becomes a lot let restless when you have real work to do.


This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby was the book that made me fall in love with writing. Some of Fitzgerald’s literary genius is on display in Paradise, his first book, written when he was right out of college. Like Gatsby, there’s nothing uplifting here, and the characters are mostly unlikeable, especially the leads. But just about the time I thought I couldn’t take another page of it, I’d run across a sentence so well crafted that it gave me chills. This one, though, is probably only for the committed Fitzgerald readers.

MODERN FICTION

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
I don’t pick up a fiction book lightly. Because I only let myself read a handful a year, I do my research. Based on the reviews of the best books of 2017, this one was a clear choice. But once I started reading, I was reminded that fiction is full of people I don’t like. I’ve also noticed that as my kids have gotten older, I’m more critical of the way children and teens are portrayed in books. J.K. Rowling is brilliant, but 13-year-olds don’t talk like Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. And 15-and 16-year-olds (at least the ones I know) are not nearly as complex or predictable as the characters in this book.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
With most fiction books, you become engrossed in the lives of a small number of characters. Not this one. In Homegoing, a story that begins with two girls born to the same mother in an African village in the 1700s, characters’ whole lives begin and end in one chapter. Each chapter details the life of one of the descendants of the girls, taking us right into the present. I wouldn’t call this enjoyable reading, and certainly not easy reading. But it is another thought-provoking book on the horrors of slavery and its far-reaching consequences.

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion
This sequal to The Rosie Project is light, far-fetched, quirky, a little inappropriate, and just plain fun.


NON-FICTION: My attempts to understand the world

Just Immigration: American Policy in Christian Perspective by Mark R. Amstutz
This recommendation from Christianity Today read like a doctoral dissertation. I’m sure there are better books that address this topic in a much more interesting, readable way. I did a lot of skimming but managed to get the point, one that I had already pretty much landed on for myself. The Bible does instruct us to care for the foreigner, but that does not entail opening up the borders and letting everyone in. It’s the church’s responsibility to care for those who are here, legally or illegally, and, perhaps more strategically, provide support for refugees in their own lands. It is the job of government to protect its people and its borders. The best argument Amstutz made was this: It is a person’s right to pull out of anything—a job, a club, a committee, a country. But it is not their right to receive automatic membership into something else. You don’t quit your job and then push your way into a new job. Companies have hiring procedures and due process. So do countries. There, I just saved you hours of difficult reading.

Choosing Donald Trump: Anger, Hope, and Why Christian Conservatives Supported Him by Stephen Mansfield
I’ve been a bit obsessive in my quest to figure out what in the world happened in the last presidential election. Mansfield’s brief book—I read its 181 pages in a couple of days—is the most helpful book I’ve read so far. He enlightens us on Donald Trump’s own brand of “faith,” largely shaped by the pastor of his youth, the late Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking. Mansfield also unpacks the series of events that led evangelical Christians to overlook Trump’s obvious moral flaws and support him in droves. He urges those pastors and religious leaders who still have Trump’s ear to find and maintain a prophetic distance and speak words of life and truth tour president. The following quote is long, but it’s insightful. After writing about Trump’s lifelong admiration for religious teachers, and his respect for those who are willing to test and challenge him in order to make him better, Mansfield wrote: “Trump’s association with the nation’s leading ministers during the 2016 presidential campaign might have led to profound change for him and, ultimately, to a nobler president for the country. They might have called him to a more orthodox and full-bodied belief system. They might have challenged him about some of his extreme behaviors. When he swore, they might have reminded him of his younger listeners. When he called for violence against protestors or went on racist rants or spoke of women in disparaging terms, they might have reminded him of the example of Jesus and helped him recover his moral balance. They might have also whispered in his ear from time to time, ‘Always remember the poor.’ In short, had they maintained prophetic distance, had they been more interested in urging the candidate toward God and his ways and less interested in allying themselves to power at any moral cost, great good might have been done. It was largely not to be.” This book is certainly not letting Trump off the hook for his own bad behavior, but it also calls his supporters, those who call themselves followers of Christ, to their own responsibility. The religious conservatives who voted him into office “have taken responsibility for him now, and this may, in time, exact a very dear price.”

Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism by Drew Hart
This was the hardest book I read all year. I had to force myself to push beyond how it made me feel and swim through my sea of self-justifications to make it to the end. I have come to terms with the fact that I’m part of a dominant people group who have oppressed people for centuries. I’m in the process of learning why it’s important to be mindful and repentant of that and allowing it to shape the way I view people and the evening news. But oh it gets personal and hard when I’m awakened to my very own prejudices. It’s easier to take responsibility and repent for something your great-great grandfather did 150 years ago than what lies in your own heart today. Nothing fun or enjoyable about this read, and I had mental battles with the author throughout, but by the time I finished, I was glad I had allowed it to shape my perspective.


12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson
I felt like I deserved a trophy after finishing this 448-page book. If you’re not familiar with Jordan Peterson, Google him. He’s been called one of the most important thinkers of our day, and evangelicals have aligned with him because of his conservative viewpoint. He’s obviously a brilliant man, but he’s also pretty down-to-earth. His advice is solid: treat yourself like someone you’re responsible for helping; make friends with people who want the best for you; pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient; compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today; do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. The most interesting part of this book to me, though, was how someone can know the Bible inside and out and have a deep respect for God (or at least the idea of God) and completely miss the point about grace. What results is a skewed theology and a defeating conclusion: try to make the world a better place by being the best person you can be. He’s so close, and yet so far. Still, I was glad to have read his book. His words are mostly accessible and often clever, but this is not a book you can read in the living room while your kids play video games. It requires tremendous focus, and even with that, I felt like I only caught about half of what he was saying. It was worth the effort, though. I feel smarter for having read it. If you’re a serious reader and a deep thinker, you won’t want to miss this one. Otherwise, check out the much shorter summary version.


NON-FICTION: Topics relevant to my life right now

Letting Go: A Parent’s Guide to Understanding the College Years by Karen Levin Coburn and Madge Lawrence Treeger
This is supposedly the classic text book on releasing your child into the world of college. It’s been around a long time; the version I read was the sixth edition. I think I may have benefitted from an older version. This one focused a lot on issues of sexual identity and harassment and other buzz words of the day. While not all of it felt useful, I did take away some practical tips: leave right away (don’t dawdle on campus or even in town after you say goodbye to your student) and let your child propose the terms of his communication with the family. Ironically, I didn’t follow either of these, but I’ve still got three kids to go. Some good stuff nestled into these 500 pages, but not something I’d recommend for most people. Find something shorter.


Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancey
I’ve always liked Yancey’s style, and he was a logical place to turn as I searched for wider perspectives on prayer. He includes interviews, scattered throughout the book, of people’s thoughts and experiences with prayer. This was a helpful book—though a bit long—and I particularly learned from his ideas on wrestling with God in prayer. Citing numerous examples, he encourages his readers to get in the trenches with God, to call out His qualities and ask Him to show up.


NON-FICTION: Some good and some great Christian topics

Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World by Eric Metaxas
I am the product of a rural education, which I like to blame for many of the educational gaps I seem to have. I knew a little about Martin Luther, but this book opened my eyes to just how significant his actions and writings were. I kept looking up to tell my kids what I thought were astounding things, to which they always responded, “Um, yes, mom. Did you not know that?” I relished every detail, and like anything Eric Metaxas writes, I hung on every word. Again, not a book for everyone, but if you’re at all interested in how Christianity moved from the Dark Ages into the modern world, and why we worship in so many of the ways we do, this book is immensely helpful. Metaxas connects the dots between Luther and the things we take for granted in the modern world. We assume the world has always been this way, but it hasn’t—not by a long stretch. The fact that Christians today don’t spend all our money on bone fragments believed to have come from the thumb of the Virgin Mary? Thank Martin Luther.

Letters to the Church by Francis Chan
I’ll read anything Chan writes, but this was especially good. It’s the kind of book that soaks down into your core. Very few days pass without one of Chan’s points returning to my mind. Could it really be that the greatest evangelism strategy of all time is simply that Christians love one another well? And is there anything simple about that? So much to chew on in this book. Required reading.

The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts by Joe Rigney
I’m going to recommend this one, even though I only made it halfway through. I tried reading it as a library loan on my Kindle but realized pretty quickly this is one of those rare books that I need to buy, read, and then read again. The theology is deep and thought provoking. The thesis is that everyday things—laughter, a good steak, a game with your kids—can be seen as holy and can draw us into deeper worship of God. This book came out in 2014, and I’m surprised I didn’t hear more about it. It’s good—even to the point of being a game changer in terms of my thinking. It’s more complex than I was expecting, but it’s the best kind of complex. I can’t wait to read more.

Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen
This is a staple of Christian nonfiction, and Nouwen has been on my list for a long time. I’ll definitely be reading more of his books. This one was written by Nouwen to a long-time friend, a nonbeliever, who asked Nouwen to explain the spiritual life in easily understandable terms. He answered with a discussion of four words: taken, blessed, broken, and given. I enjoyed reading the book and highlighted some profound statements, but I have to admit that five months later, I can’t remember much about it.

Keep Your Love On: Connection, Communication and Boundaries by Danny Silk
This book I read and discussed with a friend. Silk, a pastor, gives practical relationship tips that everyone can use. He includes a lot of marriage examples. That makes it extremely helpful for married couples, but it’s also applicable to other kinds of relationships. Most interesting to me was his discussion on what it means to be a powerful person. I don’t care for the term, but his explanation opened my eyes to myself and some of the tricky people around me. This is a great choice for anyone who wants to work on communicating clearly and setting good boundaries in relationships.

Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely by Lysa TerKeurst
This is a great book for certain people: those who have been divorced, dumped, unfriended, fired, or passed over. Or for those people who chronically struggle with feeling like they’re on the fringes of all the good stuff in life. For everyone else, skip ahead to a very useful chapter 14, which gives pages of truth speak for those times when you’re spinning out of control. My highlighter nearly ran out of ink on those pages.


LOOKING AHEAD: On my list for 2019
Falling Free
Irresistible: Reclaiming the New that Jesus Unleashed for the World
Feed the Mouth that Bites You
Your Teenager Isn’t Crazy
Letters to an American Christian
The Cost of Discipleship
Generous Justice
The Return of the Prodigal Son
Practice Resurrection
Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner
Before We Were Yours
Why We Sleep
How to Think

The Restoring Reign of God

My advent reading has pointed me to what is my new favorite passage of Scripture. (That will change in a week or two, as it always does, but it's my favorite today.) It's Isaiah's account of the great reversal that will occur when Jesus Christ reigns on earth. Isaiah 11:6-8 talks of things like wolves living peacefully beside lambs and small children making friends with vipers. It's nature the way God intended.

My mind has been running wild with its own pictures of this great reversal. Imagine a world with no failed marriages and no abandoned children. No pimples and no brain tumors. No bullets and no roadside bombs. No immigration battles and no government shutdowns. No lies and no fears. No rejection and no despair. No addiction and no suicide. No guilt and no shame. No starvation and no gluttony. No earthquake, hurricane, flood, wildfire, or avalanche. As Isaiah said, "They will neither harm nor destroy."

The most helpful definition I've heard for the kingdom of God is this: the saving, restoring reign of God on earth. Saving and restoring. In other words, what Isaiah was prophesying. What Jesus came to earth to do. What we so desperately need right now. 

As I ponder my new favorite passage, the thought that has come to my mind at least a thousand times returns again. Why, God? Why did you create the perfect world and then allow it to be corrupted? You knew we'd inhabit a world of brain tumors and starving children and murder. Why did you build that possibility into your glorious creation?

I'm sure the answer is way more complicated than I could ever understand. But I think part of it is that He had something even better in mind for us. The restoration of His creation is somehow better than the original creation. God sending His son to earth to pay for our sin is somehow better than if we had never known sin at all. It's a pale, hollow example, but I think of taking my kids to the ocean. If I'd told them there was an ocean, they would have believe it existed. They might have spent some time thinking about it, and they might have even grown to love the picture of it in their minds. But until we actually took them to the ocean, they never really experienced it. They needed to hear the roar of the tide coming in, feel the sand between their toes and the salt water on their lips, be nearly pulled under by the force of the waves to truly appreciate the ocean.

If I'd never experienced the ugliness of my sin, I would not understand the beauty of forgiveness. If I'd never been burned by my own self-sufficiency, I wouldn't know of my desperate dependence on God. If I'd never tasted grace, how could I possibly conceive of God's goodness? If He'd not sent His son, how would we know the depth of His mercy? Without His most costly sacrifice, how would we know how much we're loved?

My new favorite passage ends this way: "The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." As cool as it would be to pet a lion's mane or never again feel rejected, the greatest part of our restoration is the knowledge of the Lord. We weren't made to just know about God. He wants for us an experiential kind of knowing. 

I can't make sense of it--the tree in the Garden, God incarnate in a dirty animal trough, a bloody, humiliating crucifixion. Why did He do it that way? Because it was the best way. The perfect way. And some day, when I see lambs frolicking with wolves, it will all make sense.

"In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious." Isaiah 11:10

Waiting and Yearning

I am a Christmas girl through and through, but I have to admit that I haven't acknowledged advent much in the past. Beyond the lighting of the candles at church, it hasn't really registered in my mind. Of course I'm excited for Christmas, but I spend more time on Christmas cards and shopping than intentionally anticipating the coming of Christ.

Not this year. This year I'm all in. I'm expectant, eager, yearning. That's a funny word to me--yearning. I'm not much of a yearner. If I yearn for something, it's either for something easily attainable (a bowl of ice cream) or something impossibly unmeasurable (more faith). As a result, I don't usually yearn. But I've also never had a child living 1,500 miles away. I've never gone 3 1/2 months, or even 3 1/2 weeks, without seeing one of my children. Let me tell you, there's some yearning going on.

Many weeks ago, my youngest daughter made a paper chain counting down the days to Braden's return home. It went ceiling to floor. Today, it has two links. Two measly little links! We are so close. Except that the southeast is getting the storm of a generation. Charlotte, North Carolina, in particular, is getting dumped on. I've never given Charlotte a thought, but tonight, all of my thoughts and prayers are directed right there. Because the route from Virginia to Colorado goes straight through Charlotte, at least on American Airlines.

And so we wait with great expectation. This non-yearning mom finds herself yearning like never before. The last time I remember being so desperately eager for something was when this same child of mine was nine days overdue and I was so tired of being pregnant that I would have pulled him out through my nose if I thought it would have worked. Here I am again, 19 years later, praying that he will just get here already so the party can begin.

The anticipating, waiting, and longing are so present with me that they shape my thoughts and perspective. They have completely shaped my season of advent. I think of the Israelites, God's chosen people living as hostages in their own land, crying out for deliverance: "O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel. Come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here." That is yearning! Their hearts were ready, their eyes focused. Only their Savior would satisfy.

Only my Savior satisfies. My head has always known it, but today I feel it. As delightful as the ham and carols and presents and family will be on Christmas day, they can't begin to compare to Him. As much as my heart will race and my eyes will leak when I see Braden's face, even that can't hold a candle to what it will be like to see my Lord and Savoir some day.

Come home, my son. I can't wait to see you! Come soon, my Lord. I can't wait to be with you.

Thank you for the gift of yearning.

Word of the Year

I have a friend who chooses a word for every year. She puts a good amount of time into thinking and praying about it, and then she comes up with a great word to capture her anticipation of the year ahead. I thought this was such a good idea that I tried it myself last year.

Turns out, I'm not as good at it as my friend is. All I came up with was "BIG." Not very inspiring or descriptive. But at the end of last year, "big" was how everything in my life felt. I was asking God for some big things. We were also walking alongside our son in making his college decision, which felt very big. So "big" is where I landed, although it didn't really take. It sort of passed right out of my mind shortly after I chose it. As much as I love words, maybe this whole word-for-the-year thing wasn't for me.

Imagine my surprise when three-fourths of the way through the year, God gave me His own word. One day as I was praying, it just kept tumbling out of my mouth. Every day, it kept coming back. I couldn't get it out of my mind. STEADFAST. That was His word for me. (An improvement over "big," yes?)

It's a word I desperately needed. More like a whole mentality I needed. I have always been pretty even-keeled. I'm not given to mood swings or frequent outbursts of emotion. But this fall, I found myself all over the place, always with regard to my kids. Two of them had a really rough fall, and I was right in it with them. In fact, I have that magical mothering power to take what my kids are feeling and amp it up a hundred percent before owning it for myself. The picture I had in my mind was of my hands clenched to the back seat of a rollercoaster while my legs flew all helter-skelter out behind me, wind whipping me all over the place as I held on for dear life.

Into this picture, God spoke the word "steadfast." It didn't happen overnight, but the rollercoaster stopped taking the dips at 90 MPH, my legs found their footing, and my racing heart became, well, steadfast. I was reminded that my kids' experiences and emotions belong to them. I don't need to take them on myself. I've already done sixth grade. I've been through high school and college. I don't need to relive the emotion of those turbulent years. I need to be an adult. (I get to be an adult.) I get to be the one who's not tossed around by a bad day at school. I'm the one who gets to be steadfast, anchored in maturity and truth and the wisdom that comes from decades of walking with Christ.

Like David fleeing from Saul, I can say, "My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast!" (Psalm 57:7). And I can live like I believe it. It's amazing how one word can change your whole perspective. Over the past several weeks, especially, as I've struggled with Braden being so far away from us at Thanksgiving, as I've wrestled through ugly feelings of jealousy toward my friends whose kids are coming home, I've noticed that my anxious heart has become steadfast. The disappointment and jealousy just sort of disappeared. My desire to run and hide until Thanksgiving was long gone went away, too. Now I'm actually looking forward to Thursday, with genuine thanksgiving.

God has been writing steadfast love and faithfulness on the tablet of my heart (Proverbs 3:3). Isn't that a far better picture than the frantic woman on the crazy train?

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast.

No Sting Here

"Where, o death, is your sting?"

Have any greater words ever been written? They may be my favorite in all the Bible.

Last week, I went to see a friend who is in the last days of her life. Younger than me and a mom of five kids, she was diagnosed with lung cancer a year ago. Though at first it looked as if she may have only a few months to live, she and her husband were able to award their son his high school diploma in May. Yesterday her oldest daughter got married. Some happy, milestone moments in the midst of a very hard situation.

Five days ago I sat with this sweet friend, who is long past fearing, worrying, regretting, or grieving. She's now in a simple, pure, beautiful child-like state. A month ago, I would have felt awkward and sad visiting her. I'm not touchy-feely, and I'm not good with sick people. But when sick people become dying people, and when dying people regress (or is it progress?) into their simplest selves, all that awkwardness melts away. The me who barely hugs my own mother sat at my friend's feet, holding onto her, even relishing the honor of feeding her.

Her words were jumbled, but her eyes were clear. On a few occasions, the gibberish was suddenly and incredibly interrupted by a moment of clarity. She would squeeze my hands, lock in on my eyes, and say the most wonderful things, things that made the hairs on my arm stand on end. "He just wants us to believe" was one of them. Another time it was, "He wants to put us back together, to make us whole." Simple statements spoken so quietly, yet they bore into my soul. These were words from God.They weren't booming prophet words, like Moses preaching to the Israelites. They were more the words of a little girl who's delivering a message from her daddy.

In all honesty, this is why I showed up. I did bring a meal, but I also brought expectation. I've been around the dying enough to know that there's something supernatural about it. This is holy ground. No sanctuary or cathedral can compare to the holy space occupied by one transitioning to heaven. With one foot on earth and the other in eternity, the veil between the two becomes almost transparent. And those who sit in the presence of the dying get just a glimpse of it. Such a sacred place. O, death, where is your sting?

When you look into the face of the dying, you have to ask yourself, "Do I really believe? Do I believe that in 12 hours or 12 days this friend of mine, the one whose feet I'm sitting at now, will be sitting like this at the feet of God? Creator of heaven and earth? Do I believe it's all true?"

Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. Any doubt I carry with me in regular life disappears in this sacred space. I look at her face and I see her doing holy business with the Lord. I know where she's headed. I know that some day I'll occupy the same space she's in now. And never have I said so certainly, "Oh, yes. I believe."

Remembering

Twenty-five years ago this month I moved to Colorado Springs to work for The Navigators. I'm not exaggerating when I say that no other event in my life had such a profound effect on who I am and what I do. I'm so grateful.

As a rookie writer, one of the stories I covered most in my first year at The Navigators was the release of The Message. A pastor I'd never heard of had just finished translating the New Testament into "contemporary language," a laborious task for him and a risky move for NavPress as his publisher.

A lot of our time in the Communications department was spent fielding complaints about The Message. People called it sacrilegious and threatened to pull their support from our field staff. Some did. But there was a 24-year writer in Communications who had never really connected with the Bible but was now devouring it. I wasn't alone, as 20 million copies sold testifies.

As I've mentioned before, one of the greatest professional privileges I've ever had was to get to spend a day with Eugene Peterson, supposedly interviewing him, but mostly just visiting with him and enjoying his company. I will treasure that day forever.

In honor of Eugene, who passed away today, I share my favorite quote of all time, which I've posted here many times.

C.S. Lewis, I apologize for choosing favorites. You know that my computer is filled with your quotes. But my life's anthem came from Eugene Peterson in my favorite of his books, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. (If you haven't read it, make this the year that you do.)


“Every day I put love on the line. There is nothing I am less good at than love. I am far better in competition than in love. I am far better at responding to my instincts and ambitions to get ahead and make my mark than I am at figuring out how to love another. I am schooled and trained in acquisitive skills, in getting my own way. And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily—open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.”

My Kid's in College, and Here's What I've Learned

A little over a month ago, my husband and I left our oldest child in a dorm room in Virginia and started a new chapter in our lives. Now, with a whoppin' one month of experience under my belt, I share what I've learned so far. 

• Sending your first child away to college is every bit as hard as you imagine it will be. It doesn't matter that it was time, that he needed to miss you in order to appreciate you, or how good you know this will be for all of you. It very well may be good for all of you, but it's still hard. Someone very important is missing from your house. It would be weird if that wasn't at least a little bit hard.   

• Our kids need to process the changes in their lives, and we want to be the ones they process with. For those of you who are up to your eyeballs raising younger kids right now, here's motivation to keep giving it all you've got. Sure, if you feed and water them, they will grow. But when you fully invest in them—those hours reading a book with them that you really don't care about, those chilly sporting events that you sit and cheer at, those biology tests you help them study for, those late-night conversations two hours after your preferred bed time—you're doing so much more than growing a kid. You're growing a lifelong relationship. When life gets confusing and they need to talk it out, whether they're 6, 16, or 26, you'll be the person they turn to. 

• Asking lots of questions helps them process. Don't worry, if you're over asking, they'll either let you know or they'll stop answering. But until that time comes, ask and ask and ask some more. I've been emailing Braden Seven Thursday Questions that cover everything from the food choices in the cafeteria to his relationship with God. His long answers have helped both of us process the changes happening in his life. Email works great for us because we both write, but I presume I'll find different methods that work for my other kids down the road. 

• I can't for the life of me figure out how much milk to buy. It's been a month, and our excess milk is still souring in the fridge. 

• I tend to focus on the negatives of technology, but I'm enjoying its benefits immensely. Last Thursday night we celebrated my daughter's birthday. Through the miracle of Google Hangouts, Braden was right in the middle of it. He sang Happy Birthday with gusto. He got to see her open the present he sent. He did everything but eat caramel apples with us, and even gave his sisters a complete tour of his room—all at 11:30 at night his time. It is unfortunate that Russians can spy on us through baby monitors, but I hope the person who made it possible for long-distance families to be together is blessed, rich, and happy. 

• Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. My two kids who've never had much to do with each other are now speaking with appreciation and affection of the other. I even heard one throw out an "I love you" the other night on the phone. This may be reason enough to send your child 1,600 miles away. 

• No 8-year-old waiting for a puppy is as excited for Christmas as I am. Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year, but it's taken on new meaning. Now it's the Season When My Boy Comes Home. Every tree that goes on display at Hobby Lobby in September is one more reminder of Braden's impending return. If Christmas music started playing on the radio today, I'd start singing. I'll even forgo my 80-degree days for snow and a 4:49 sunset. I'm seriously considering pulling out the red and green construction paper to make a paper chain to count down the days.  

• And finally, this sending-and-releasing thing is a perpetual process. I just booked a college visit in Texas for my 17-year-old. Lord, help me. Here we go again. 

Only Fools Rush In

I've read a lot about prayer over the past two years. What I haven't heard, until now, is this:

"When it comes to the sacred, God commands us to proceed with caution.While others quickly judge God's actions and question His commands, we are to be careful even to speak His name. We don't carelessly question His actions or inaction.While others rush into prayer with opinions and demands, we cautiously approach His throne with reverence. Like the high priest entering the Holy of Holies, we are to treat prayer as sacred." 

Leave it to Francis Chan, always one to rock my world with the truth, to remind me that prayer is a sacred thing. In the first chapter of his new book, Letters to the Church, he writes about how we are a culture of rushers. All of our lives are spent rushing because if we don't rush, we could get behind. Or worse, passed up. I totally get that. I am the poster child for rushing.

But approaching the throne of God is not to be a rushed affair. Why not? Well, for starters, there's this:

"Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few." (Ecclesiastes 5:1-3)

Where has this passage been all my life? I've been told repeatedly to spill my heart out to God, to tell him my every concern, to ask him my hardest questions, to beat down His door with my requests. There is biblical support for all of this, but now I know to place these things within the context of Ecclesiastes 5:1-2.

My prayer life has increased drastically in recent years. But what does that really mean? That I'm spending more time going through my long list of requests? It does sometimes feel like I'm reading off my shopping list. There's just so much. I take seriously God's call to intercede for the people in my life. I pray salvation for the lost and for those who have been deceived by false religion. I pray freedom for those held captive by fear, addiction, doubt, and a hundred other things. I pray for my leaders and for my nation, for forgiveness and healing. I pray for wisdom every day, for myself and for the people I care about. These are good prayers, all of them, but they're often hasty prayers, too. And never are my words few.

Since I started meditating on these verses from Ecclesiastes, I've tried to be more of a prayer listener and less of a prayer talker. Holy smokes is that hard! Especially for a mom who's just sent her first child to college and could easily spend two hours a day making requests to God for him. There's nothing that requires more focus and discipline than shutting down the chatter in my head to make space for listening. I think I may be up to about a minute now, after working on this for weeks.

It helps to picture an Old Testament priest approaching the Holy of Holies. He must feel this is the reason for his existence. He has prepared for it for an entire year. His whole body has been purified. He enters in slowly, cautiously, unsure if he'll even make it out. He never forgets this is holy ground. Sacred work. Certainly nothing to be rushed. 

No high priest could have imagined that a soccer mom in Colorado, dressed in spandex, flanked by an unruly dog, and walking around a field full of weeds would some day have the same privilege. God, guard my steps as I approach your throne. Teach me to listen. Let my words not be the sacrifice of fools.

A Long Goodbye

Alzheimer's Disease is known as the long goodbye, but sending a kid off to college could give it a run for its money. Mine left a week ago. I feel like we started preparing 18 years ago. The ramping up began in earnest four years ago in high school. Our college visits began the summer before junior year. Then came the PSAT, the ACT, the SAT, and the copious emails from the school counselor's office, all natural triggers for a mother's inborn goodbye reflex. The one she works feverishly to squash.

Senior year. Just one big farewell, capped off with a graduation week that seems to stretch on for all eternity, endless parties (posing as celebrations, but really goodbyes), and perhaps a goodbye family vacation. Summer? More goodbyes. Goodbye, grandmas and grandpas. Goodbye aunts, uncles, cousins, high school friends, and Fargo's Pizza. Last week as the departure date arrived, it was goodbye sisters, goodbye bed, goodbye home. I cried my eyes out in the driveway as my son and my husband started off on their long drive across the country. But oh no, that was not the last goodbye.

I flew out a few days later to meet up with the guys in Virginia. There we had the goodbye hotel night, the goodbye nice dinner, the goodbye Target run. Ninety-six hours of goodbyeing, until I was completely worn out. But then it was Sunday, the Big Goodbye Day. After goodbye church and goodbye Egg McMuffins, we were finally at the end.

Except that we weren't, because there is no end. Goodbyes are an ongoing requirement of parenting. From the moment we leave that baby with grandma for the first time to eek out a two-hour meal between feedings until we're on our death beds, we say one goodbye after another to our children.

They may go against maternal instinct to gather our young and keep them close, but goodbyes don't have to be bad. Goodbyes are actually kind of exciting. (Not to mention a better option than a basement full of unemployed 30-somethings.) There are overwhelming life events like accidents and cancer, fires and floods, that are devastating. But there are overwhelming life events like births, marriages, and new jobs that are beautiful and hopeful. Sending your kid to college is one of these. It feels a little overwhelming to everyone involved, but it's the good kind of overwhelming. Something really hard but really, really good.

I find that if I stay focused on looking forward through the lens of Braden's future instead of backward through the lens of his time with me, I'm practically giddy about this overwhelming life event. (By the way, those words aren't mine. Thankfully there are very wise, eloquent people who have done this before and offer help for the rest of us.) If I discipline my mind to focus on joy and gratitude, there's not nearly so much room for the sadness. I picture it like a big, sludgy pot of emotions. There are about a hundred of them in there, but if I keep stirring, very intentionally, the joy rises to the top and the sadness settles at the bottom.

Yes, there are times when I open the pantry and realize the graham crackers are going to go stale because no one eats them but Braden. There are moments when I put the strawberry milk back in the grocery store cooler because Braden's not here to drink it. There are times when I have to walk into his remarkably clean room to deposit the last pair of straggling socks that didn't make it into the suitcase. That's when I have to stir the pot hard.

It's not that I feel the need to chase the tears away. Tears are a natural part of processing overwhelming life events, and they can be very therapeutic. But I want them to come from a place of joy, gratitude, and hopefulness, not a place of despair.

The past 15 months, and especially the past two weeks, have left me with goodbye fatigue. But they've also given me perspective on what it means to love a child so much that you want what's best for him, regardless of the cost to yourself. I can do this. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I can keep letting my children go, keep saying goodbye, keep stirring that pot.

Ambassadors

It's been a rotten week for the church in America. At least the public image of the church. The country's most influential church appears to be falling apart at the seams, rocked by another leadership scandal. Pastors seem every bit as likely as politicians, Hollywood executives, and professional athletes to be called out for their poor behavior. And the state of Pennsylvania has just released the most scathing report ever on the history of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, with at least 300 priests and more than 1,000 victims identified.

Such a great paradox between what we read in the news and what we read in the Bible. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. We are His ambassadors. God makes His appeal through us. The church is the body of Christ. We bear His very name! And yet we drag it through the mud.

What does it mean to be Christ's ambassadors? It means we represent His kingdom. We show others what it's like, what He's like. And yet we fail at this all the time. Where He is faithful, we are faithless. Where He is kind, we are nasty. Where He is holy, we are just like everyone else.

He's not surprised by any of this. He knew how we'd fail, and yet He still trusted us with the most important of assignments. He put His good news into our hands, and He told us to take it out to a hurting, needy world. It blows my mind. If He had asked me, I would have said, "Oh, no, God. This is a bad idea. These people can't even be trusted to show up to worship on time. They're easily distracted, self-absorbed, messy. They're dust, Lord. Redeemed yes, but still just dust. They'll make a mockery of your great name. Don't entrust this to them."

But I wasn't there. And He knows infinitely more than my little mind can ever hope to grasp. This was the way He chose to make Himself known on the earth--through messed up dust like us--and it is the way that is best. I have to trust Him on that. And I have to believe that whatever harm His people are bringing to His name, even more good is being done. 

In his book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam reported that Christians are significantly more likely to give money to the homeless, return excess money to a shop clerk, help a sick neighbor, spend time with someone who's depressed, and help someone find a job. People who regularly attend church give four times as much to charity as their secular neighbors. They are twice as likely to volunteer with the poor, the sick, and the elderly. 

These are just the small things. They don't include the Christians who provide loving homes for one foster child after another, who feed, clothe, and welcome refugees, who bring new life to addicts and prisoners. I've not seen many national news stories on Christians who leave the comfort of their western homes to lay pipes for fresh water in El Salvador, to love street children in India, to rescue sex-trafficked girls in Thailand, to teach grown-up orphans in Russia how to be good mothers. Yet these things happen every day. 

We are Christ's ambassadors. We represent His kingdom in our service, our love, our joy, our patience, our perseverance, and our hope. I look at myself, nearly defeated by something as mundane as a couple weeks of plumbing woes, and wonder at God's use of someone like me. He could have chosen angels, and yet He chooses to use regular, flawed people like you and me. His power is perfected in our weakness. His light shines through our frailness. His name rises above the scandal of the week. In all this, He knows what He's doing. 

Hills and Valleys

Our family of six just returned from a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Hawaii. Eight days with no responsibilities, no projects, no deadlines or work. Hour upon hour of leisure time. Our only appointment was the nightly sunset, which we never missed. Our hardest decision: Should we spend the day snorkeling with exotic fish, swimming with giant sea turtles, or taking a nap? And the best part for a mother who's about to send her firstborn child across the country was that all six of us were together, soaking up every minute of familiness. Ah, the good life.

Then we came home. After making that brutal all-night flight where you're up for 26 straight hours, we arrived home to a plumbing crisis. The kids called the thing that happened in our basement a poo geyser. In order to maintain the dignity of this blog, I will refer to it as an eruption of raw sewage. (Really, though, their term is much more descriptive). Whatever you call it, it was nasty. And did I mention we'd been up for 26 hours and traveling for 12? The sewage was flowing; the clear thinking and effective communication were not.

Some days you get to swim with sea turtles. Some days you get to wade through raw sewage in your basement.* What a metaphor for life. 

One day you're giving your kids a rich cultural experience and shaved ice, and the next your 11-year-old is going to the bathroom at 4:30 in the morning in the dog run because she's afraid to flush.

This week, I have a clear demonstration of the hills and valleys of life. Both are doing their good work in me. Trying to be thankful for both. Without the valleys, I'm not sure the hills would be so sweet.

*I personally did not have to wade through any sewage. The men in our family soldiered through it nobly, and with only minor gagging.

Loving the Weird

You wake up one day in the middle of your life, and everyone else starts to look weird. In the first place, they're all really young. Their skin is covered with what they call art but what looks to you like weird, indiscriminate lines and swirls that all look the same on everyone. Their hair is extreme, and a lot of them have purposefully put large holes in their ears and noses. Their clothes don't seem to be doing the job they were intended to do. Sometimes these people are filling their cars with inordinate amounts of smoke. Vaping? I still don't quite get it.

You see these people and you begin to wonder, What has become of us?

It's happened for generations. It's the reason why the words "generation gap" exist. It's just that now I find myself on the other side of the gap, and my natural instinct is to look down on those standing across that great chasm. The judgment comes so quickly. I barely notice it sneaking up on me. It seems to run roughshod over all the biblical truth I know at my core: Love one another. Be kind and compassionate. Do not judge lest you be judged.

Apparently this phenomenon is not reserved only for the middle-aged. My kids struggle with it too. They've grown up in quite the homogeneous world, despite our two-year cross-cultural adventure living in our car repair shop. (In that part of town you see the truly weird, like a prostitute walking down the street with a pig on a leash; but alas, the kids may have been a bit young to be shaped by it.) For the majority of their lives, they've gone to school, church, band concerts, and soccer practice with people who pretty much look just like them.

And then this summer my oldest daughter got a job. She works at a hotel/adventure park staffed primarily by older teens and 20-somethings. Some of them look like her, but some do not. And even those who look like her didn't grow up much like she did. They swear. A lot. They take smoke breaks. They struggle with big issues that she hasn't had to deal with. They're unfamiliar with stability. And, here's the thing: They're really, really nice.

This discovery, that outside of high school you can appreciate and enjoy people who are completely different from you, has changed my girl. In just a month, I've seen her open up more. She's more comfortable with herself and with other people. She can make chitchat with people she has nothing in common with. And that age-old phrase we've all said a hundred times but rarely  apply--"Don't judge a book by its cover--is becoming real to her.

Do you know how contagious this is? When I see it in her, I want it in me! So I've found myself at stop lights, in Walmart, at the gym looking at the "weird" people and saying to myself, "I love them." I'm not sure at this point how much I actually mean it, but making that my go-to internal dialogue is a step in the right direction.

I do love them in theory. I love that they are human beings created in the image of God, that they each have their own story, that they're all journeying through this hard life with enough strength to get up and buy cereal, work out, or take their kids to the movies. Loving them in theory is a big first step toward where I want to be, loving them in practice.

The God Who Sees

El Roi. As much as it sounds like a type of dog food, it's actually one of my favorite names for God. It means the God who sees. In the book of Genesis, we find out that God revealed this name to a scared, rejected young woman named Hagar who had no place to go and no one to turn to. God came to her in her desperation and told her, "I see you," and gave her instructions for what to do next. He saw her and made a place for her, and her life was changed.

In the 17 months I've been walking Oakley around the prayer track in my backyard, I've addressed a lot of prayers to El Roi. I've asked God to see people who felt like they've fallen off His radar. We all know that "stuck" feeling, when it's like God is moving in everyone's life but our own. I've walked alongside several people in that situation, praying that El Roi would show up for them in a clear way. And one by one, I've seen their lives change, just like Hagar's. Jobs and opportunities have opened up out of the blue. We may think that God is slow to act, but when He does act, it's quick and definitive.

My friend Tracie waited on God for years. When I met her in 2011, I was instantly drawn to her story and her heart for overseas ministry. She grew up as a missionary kid in Indonesia, which immediately made my ears perk up. My daughter has been talking about Indonesia since she was 4, and since I know next to nothing about this far-away country, I was eager to learn more from Tracie. As our conversations continued and our friendship grew, I learned that no matter how much she loved her life in Colorado, a quiet longing lay just below the surface. She packed lunches, drove carpool, and cheered her kids on at track meets just like the rest of us, but I always had the sense she and her husband were made for a different place. It would be a long journey, filled with waiting and wondering, to get them there. Seasons of unemployment and long weeks of separation while her husband worked out of state stretched their faith. She introduced me to the words "fighting for hope" not just by saying them, but by practicing them. Job interview after job interview. Hopes up, hopes dashed. "God, El Roi, where are you?" I cried. "Do you see this family? Why won't you act?" And the months went on and on.

They weren't looking for anything extraordinary. Just a job and to be together under one roof. But the extraordinary found them. The God Who Sees had been knitting together the pieces of their story for 25 years, and He unfurled it before them all at once. Quickly and decisively. An invitation came out of the blue, could Jess and Tracie come to the Philippines and serve as house parents at a boarding school for missionary kids? The same school that Tracie had attended and graduated from more than 20 years ago? Could these parents of four boys live with and love a houseful of other boys whose parents are serving Jesus all across Asia?

The pieces began falling into place. All the waiting. All the closed doors. The years of longing. The thousands of prayers offered up. This couple who had come together because of their shared love of ministry, missions, and kids had received their call. In a whirlwind span of only a few months, they applied, were approved, found a sending agency, shared their vision, completed the daunting task of raising support, rented their house, and finished well their relationships and responsibilities in Colorado. Along the way, they modeled patience, faithfulness, and courageous obedience to their children and their friends. They gave people like me, so nicely settled in middle-aged comforts, the thrill of seeing what it looks like to radically follow Jesus wherever He leads.

More than anything else, I see through their story El Roi at work, doing one of the things He loves to do best. I think He loves to say to His children, "Of course I see you! I've never taken my eyes off of you. I've been with you every step of the way, orchestrating things you couldn't begin to imagine."

This bolsters my faith. I need to be reminded that El Roi not only sees, but that He cares. And He acts. When I see how much God loves Jess and Tracie and their boys, how much they matter to Him and how He has been working for their good through every rejection and trial, I can come before the throne of God with greater confidence. I can believe that He hears my prayers, that He sees all the other people I'm still praying for. People who think they're unseen and can't quite believe their lives matter to God. People who are fighting for hope and losing.

Keep fighting. Keep believing. God sees you, and He cares.

A Parent's Best Friend

"Maturity is your best friend." If I've said it once to a mom or dad walking this parenting road a couple paces behind me, I've said it a thousand times.

When my son was about 18 months, we were visiting my mom when he started to fuss over not getting something he wanted. I'd read  Love and Logic, so I knew how to handle this. I would let him know his fussing had consequences. I told him we would have to go home if he kept it up. That only riled him up more, until he was on the verge of a full-fledged meltdown. Still, I pressed on, trying to keep my controlled Love and Logic voice despite his wails: "Braden, by screaming, you're making a choice to leave Grandma's house. Is that what you want to do?" No response, just more melting. Then my mom, apparently more aware than I was that this child was 18 months old and probably didn't understand complex decision-making processes, stepped in with something he actually could have, a simple toy he could play with. He perked up, stopped crying, and we were all able to enjoy each other again.

My son was acting like a baby. Because he was a baby. Concerned that by not dealing with this willful episode head on I would create a rebellious teenage drug-addict degenerate, I tried to parent a baby in a way that wouldn't be effective for a couple more years. Most of the Big Parenting Issues I've encountered over the years were not handled by my brilliant, well researched parenting, but by maturity. My kids' maturity has been my dearest friend.

When I see a younger mom frantic that her son will never be generous with his toys, I try to encourage her that maturity is going to do its part to rectify that. When a little girl can't be separated from her mom for more than five minutes, I remind that mom that maturity will do its work. Just this weekend, I dropped off my big girl at a band camp two hours away without another soul that she knew, and I remembered that 16 years ago she would barely let me out of her sight to use the bathroom. Oh, how maturity has done its good work in her.

As I watch one child of mine preparing for his freshman year in college and another preparing for her freshman year in high school, I see the work of maturity up close. One seems so ready to go, having outgrown what we can teach him here, while it's hard to imagine the younger one being in that spot four years from now, when today she can't even make toast. But maturity will do its work, I have no doubt.

It makes me wonder, then, why we resist getting older. Does maturity cease to be our friend after we turn 21? 30? 45? Do we really get to the point where we say, "Yes, this is it. I'm the best me I'm ever going to be, and I'd like to stop learning and growing right here"? Surely not, but that's sort of what we're doing when we grumble about aging.

It's true that age itself is not making us better. Science tells us that our bodies start declining before we're even old enough to rent a car. Age takes our muscle tone and flawless skin, our hair and our eyesight and our hearing. It takes our speed, which is going to be a hard one for me to swallow. But age doesn't just steal from us; it gives back. If we let it, it gives us maturity. And maturity gives us wisdom, understanding, depth, perspective, compassion, and contentment. It does makes us better--better husbands, wives, children, parents, and friends. Better human beings.

I may not welcome Age when it shows up at my door each October, but if it brings its friend Maturity with it, I will treat it as a welcome guest.

All In, More Than Ever

It was after the fifth or sixth one hit the pile that I realized what I was doing. Cleaning off my bookshelves in anticipation of the graduation party we're hosting this weekend, I was weeding out the books I no longer want or need. And mostly, they're parenting books.

Hmm, what does this mean? We all know those families who have a wide age spread of kids, and the ones on the end are parented very differently than the ones at the beginning. Sometimes we look at them and think, "It looks like those parents are just done."

I admit that in some categories of parenting I feel done. I do not need to do any more practice spelling tests or reviewing of phonograms. Second-grade Immigration Day was a beautiful thing, but I've served my time as an Ellis Island medical inspector, and I'm done. I got off the school bus a couple days ago after accompanying the fifth graders to the botanical gardens and wondered if it was my last field trip. After the dozens that I've made, was that it? Will I ever be on a school bus again? Maybe not, and I can let that one go.

I've taught the same fourth and fifth grade Bible study curriculum to three different groups of girls. Every group was different and I've loved the variety of experiences, but I don't need to do it again. I've read the Narnia series aloud at least three times through and am on my second round of Harry Potter. I've practiced/crammed AWANA verses with kids for 13 years, and while I'm still going strong, I don't dread the day when that will end. And all that driving? With two drivers in my house and one a year away from a permit, I rejoice at my beautiful future. Those hours in the car were well spent (and helped with the AWANA verses and phonogram reviewing) but yes, I can be done. And I can be done in a cute little sedan.

But done parenting? Is anyone ever really done with that? I know it will look different across the various stages of life, but I want to be all in for the duration. Those books I tossed on raising a modern-day knight or shepherding a child's heart are rapidly being replaced by books for the next season. I've read my 500-page Letting Go book from cover to cover, and my reading pile is stacked high with books that promise to help me understand Gen Z. While there are plenty of things I'm ready to put behind me, I don't feel like I'm in a finishing season. It feels more like a beginning season.

My 1990's parenting books may have moved along to Goodwill, but I have no intention of checking out on this parenting thing. I feel excited by all I'm still learning, all the ways I hope to do things better and smarter with the younger kids. If they're raised differently, let it be because their mom got wiser, not lazier. Let it be because she was more tuned in and more faithful, not more cynical or distracted. Keep my head in the game, Lord, because this is without question the best game in town. 

Running My Race

Twenty-seven days away from graduating my firstborn child, I have to say that this parenting journey has looked a lot different than what I imagined. First of all, and most important, it's been a whole lot more fun than what I expected. But I'll save that topic for another day. Today my topic is this: When your kids are little, you have such strong notions of what's ahead for them, and you prepare accordingly. I studied up on raising counter-cultural kids, on teaching them to say no to drugs and alcohol and yes to modesty and purity. I imagined the boundaries we'd have to set, and the conversations we would have, about driving, dating, drinking, partying, and all the things that teenagers and their parents everywhere deal with. Armed with statistics and research, interviews with older parents, unfortunate memories of my adolescence, and my own well-thought-out philosophies and arguments, I was ready to go!

And then I got to know my kids. They were very, very different from what I was expecting.

Now, with three teenagers and a tween, I find myself cheering when they go out with their friends. Encouraging them to initiate fun and stay out as late as they'd like. Pleading with my daughters to wear a little bit of mascara on special occasions. (The answer is always no.) Combing the internet for the only swimming suits they'll wear--they're not really swimming burkas, but that's what I jokingly call them--while trying to persuade them that a cheaper and easier-to-find tankini would be just fine. Hoping, really hoping, that someone some day will choose to go to homecoming or the prom.

The funny thing is, they're not this way because of the moral arsenal I had prepared for them. I never even used it! I'm pretty sure my girls came out of the womb covering themselves up, and that was that. Before I could even have a conversation about dating, my kids seem to have decided it wasn't for them. At least not for a long, long time. And though they'll go out every once in a while, my two high schoolers just really prefer to be at home.

This is not bad news, I know. These are four really good kids--respectful, responsible, teachable, and mostly a joy to be around. I definitely celebrate who they are and thank God we've been so blessed. But I gotta be honest: I wish someone would go to prom. Or even just a date to Dairy Queen. I'm not picky.

All indications are that these kids are going to have their first date, their first kiss, their first heartbreak a thousand miles away from me. The dating conversations I was so eager and prepared to have with my high schoolers will either happen remotely or not at all. I wanted to get to walk through all that with them, but if parenting has taught me anything, it's that I get to control much less than I might like. I have to trust God with the timing of all my children's Big Life Experiences and accept that it will likely be other people walking that road with them. (And of course I still have an 11-year-old, so this is still quite speculative, but she seems a whole lot like her older brother and sisters.)

While I was looking at other people's kids' prom pictures earlier this month, God reminded me of this verse from Hebrews: "Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Envy is a sin that so easily entangles me. It takes my eyes off Jesus. I know this about myself, and I have to be diligent to guard against it and confess it when it comes. This verse also reminds me of a line one of my dear friends frequently says: "I've got to stay in my lane." God has a race marked out for each of us. My race, my lane, may look different from the people around me and different from what I was expecting. But it's the race He set out for me, and I trust that it's exactly what I need. So I will run it with perseverance, even if it means I don't buy prom clothes or have a group of lipstick-wielding girls getting ready in my bathroom. My race is good. My parenting experience has been the biggest blessing of my life. God is giving us exactly what we need while these kids are in our house, and I can trust that He'll keep giving them exactly what they need once they leave.

And in the meantime, He makes me laugh. My senior got home at 1 a.m. on prom night. He and some kids from church made their own fun. He went willingly and happily, with no pushing or prodding from me, and even bought some new clothes--with his own money in his own car on his own time--to wear that night.

Stay in my lane. Run my race. Love the journey.

The Hope of Easter

One of my parenting mentors used to look forward to his kids messing up. He would wait with expectation for his little kids' moral failures, knowing those were the moments to connect the dots between their sin and Christ's death and resurrection. He said we should expect our kids to commit every "crime short of murder," and when it comes, not to respond with shock or outrage. Instead of saying, "I'm horrified and disappointed that you've soiled the Jones family name!" we should wait until their defense has tired and their regret has set in, draw them close, and say, "I'm not shocked. I don't think you're a terrible person. I knew this day would come, and I'm thankful that now you can understand why we celebrate Easter." Consequences, yes, but seasoned with the hope of Easter.

I think of that every year at this time. I actually think of it all year long, each time my own moral failures hit. After I'm done making excuses and justifications, when I'm finished berating myself and wallowing in shame, I lift my head out of the pit and think to myself, "And this is why I'm thankful for Easter."

Connections

I make connections; it's what I do. My mind is always leaping between people, places, events, ideas, messages, quotes, and experiences, trying to find ways to tie them together, categorize them, and make sense of them. Sometimes the connections come easily; sometimes they remain vague and hazy until they finally come together or I give up on them.

Right now, my mind is working overtime to make a connection. It's still in the "vague and hazy" stage, much too early to write about it publicly, and yet that's what I'm about to do. Writing helps me see connections, so I'm going to unfurl the words from my brain and see what comes of it. Feel free to stick around and watch.

• No matter how optimistic and grateful I am, our world seems to me to be violent, sick, hurting, hopeless, messed up. 
• Jesus is the answer. He is our hope. 
• Christians know that Jesus is the answer. 
• Christians are known for what we stand against, not what we stand for. We are not seen by the masses as people who have found the cure to "the malignancy of the soul" (I'm quoting Kathie Lee Gifford here, who hit it out of the park in her tribute to Billy Graham on the Megyn Kelly show). 
• Billy Graham has died. The most well known voice of the gospel, the most respected messenger of the good news of saving grace, is gone. I don't see anyone ready to step into his place. 
• The next generation, called Gen Z, is the first completely digitally native generation in the history of the world. They have never known life without the Web, iPhones, social media, and universal connectedness. 
• They know how to mobilize support for their cause, as evidenced by the survivors of the Parkland shooting.
• They know how to communicate and use technology to their advantage. 
• Some of these Gen Zers--many of them--know the hope of Christ. They've found Him, they believe Him, they're all in with Him.
• Many of these Christian Gen Zers have been raised by very intentional parents. My parents didn't have to be intentional. They grew up in a society where "everyone's basically a Christian," and they assumed that was true as I was growing up. That wasn't the case, but evidence to the contrary was not strong enough to drive them to intentional discipleship. If we were "discipled" at all, it was by Oprah and Judy Blume.
• Gen Zers have grown up in a much less "Christian" world. Not only are Christian views not the norm, they're pretty much considered the enemy of the norm. 
• As a result, many Gen Zers have grown up being taught to know, explain, and defend their faith in a way previous generations have not. 
• Jesus is captivating. 
• God gave us the Holy Spirit and left us in charge of captivating others with the good news of Jesus. 
• Are Christians living out a captivating faith? Are we holding out the good news to those who are hungry for it? Or are we distracted by political issues and our own internal squabbles?
• Will the next generation be different? Will they be able to communicate the hope of Christ, leveraging technology and global connectedness, armed with a deep knowledge of biblical truth, in a way no one's ever seen before?
• Will there be not one "Billy Graham" in the future, but a connected, mobilized, hope-offering network of millions? 

God is leading me to pray about all of this. To pray for my children, of course, but also to pray for their friends, and to pray for the hundreds and thousands of kids who are pre-teens, teens, and young adults right now. I pray for a new, special outpouring of the Holy Spirit to fall on them. I pray they will be courageous, confident, and captivating in sharing the Good News. And I pray for revival like this world has never seen before, revival that would make Billy Graham stand in awe.

If you can see some connections in all of this, will you pray with me?

Celebrating People in the Background

Among the junior high girls in my Bible study, there's a general consensus about who gets noticed at their school. One of them summed it up eloquently: If you choose to have good character and do the right thing, you're making a decision to be in the background. My four kids would all agree with this statement. The irony is that they go to a character-based charter school.

But when I read these words from one of my favorite authors, Eugene Peterson, I saw that these kids' experience aligns with the truth of our bigger world. 

There is little to admire and less to imitate in the people who are prominent in our culture. We have celebrities but not saints. Famous entertainers amuse a nation of bored insomniacs. Infamous criminals act out the aggressions of timid conformists. Petulant and spoiled athletes play games vicariously for lazy and apathetic spectators. People, aimless and bored, amuse themselves with trivia and trash. Neither the adventure of goodness nor the pursuit of righteousness get headlines. 

No culture has been as eager to reward either nonsense or wickedness. 

If, on the other hand, we look around for what it means to be a mature, whole, blessed person, we don't find much. These people are around, maybe as many of them as ever, but they aren't easy to pick out. No journalist interviews them. No talk show features them. They are not admired. They are not looked up to. They do not set trends. There is no cash value in them. No Oscars are given for integrity. At year's end no one compiles a list of the ten best-lived lives. 
(from Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best)

We can occasionally find a human-interest story celebrating good works, but usually it's on such a large scale that I find it hard to identify with. I can't give a million dollars to a worthwhile cause. I've yet to find myself in a situation in which I can save a dozen lives, or even one.

But then I get off the internet and turn off the news and think about the real people who I know. Like my 74-year-old friend who spends his days tending to his ailing wife and doing everything he can to keep her out of a nursing home. He himself has spent decades in chronic pain because of rheumatoid arthritis, and a spinal stroke several years ago took a severe toll on him. And yet when I see him, he tells me over and over again, "I love God," like a teenage talking about his first love. He loves God in a way I can only hope to experience some day. He gets my Oscar for a life well lived.

So does my mom, who selflessly gave years of her life to provide a home for women transitioning out of jail. She lived with them day and night, testing their urine and trying to help them start new, clean lives, knowing only a fraction of them would succeed. She wasn't a social worker or a mental health expert. She was a secretary and a grandma who did what God told her to do, regardless of the personal cost.

There's my sister-in-law who took care of an elderly lady in her church for years, while simultaneously raising three of the greatest kids I know. My friends who raise special-needs children with hope and joy. The moms and dads I know who do foster care and do it well, loving on crack-addicted babies for months until they have to release them back to the state. These are the people who deserve accolades and awards--and yet all of them would run away from it. These are "background" people. They do what they do quietly, off the radar, not for attention but simply because it's the right thing to do.

I hope my Bible study girls and my own children will grow up to become those people. They won't be social media stars or make the talk-show circuit, but they'll be people who are mature, blessed, and whole. People pursuing the adventure of goodness and righteousness. What could be more challenging--or more exciting--than that? 

Lessons Learned by a Senior Mom

I am a lot of things to a lot of people, but more than anything else right now, I'm the mom of a high school senior. More specifically, I'm a newbie mom of a high school senior. This actually is my first rodeo, and as we ride through this buckin' bronco phase of life, I'm learning some things.

First, what happened to parents between 1989 and 2018? When I was a junior my dad asked me, literally from his deathbed, what I was thinking about college. Because I had been zealously researching this topic (without the internet, mind you) since I was 14, I had a ready answer. I don't remember my mom and I ever having any conversation about my college plans before halfway through my senior year. Granted, we were dealing with home hospice care and bed pans, but I don't remember anyone else's parents being obsessed with the college process in 1989.

Cut to 2018, where we've been talking about college in our house for as long as I can remember. Even my 10-year-old knows where she wants to go and who she wants to room with. I have made eight college visits with Braden and have spent hours (days?) on collegiate websites. My husband and I spent nearly every waking moment between Christmas and New Year's filming Braden and putting together a video for a scholarship competition. We have coached him through interview techniques. We have provided phonebook-sized study books to help him raise his ACT score. And from what I read about other people, we're the sane ones in this process. I have learned that my generation cares more about our kids going to college than they do.

I've also realized that it's very easy to let the world's perspective seep into what should be a very Spirit-led decision. I regret that our college discussions have centered more on maximizing Braden's potential and future pay than on seeking God's will for his life. I regret that we've made it all about the physical destination, when we should have talked more about the spiritual journey. (Thankfully, it's not too late, and even if we miss this boat with Braden, we've still got three more kids to go!)

I've learned that I want to do "senior mom" well, and for me, that means toning it down. Yes, there's a "this-is-the-last-time-we'll -ever" narrative running through my  head, but to express that over and over again would get old fast. I've decided to savor the "lasts" while not carrying on about them. In October when I celebrated my last birthday with all my kids at home, I was intentional about planning a day we could all spend together, and also about not crying my way through it. I want my words to my senior to be positive. I want to affirm the vision God is giving him for the future, not remind him of all he's leaving behind.

I've learned that this kid isn't me. OK, I knew that when he was 2 and refused to take off his shoes at a toddler gymnastics class. But now more than ever, I'm seeing that even though he may share half my DNA, his strengths, preferences, and the way he thinks about the world are all very different from me. On our college tours, I try to act interested in student-made 3-D printers and physics classes that would be the death of me. Not my cup of tea, but exciting for my son, and therefore exciting to me. I've also learned to accept that location is not very important to him. While I sought out a college in Santa Barbara with a sweeping view of ocean and palm trees, he's considering East Texas, where, according to my Texas friends, people eat squirrels. As long as I don't have to eat squirrels, I can go with this.

More than anything, I'm learning how to parent an adult. That requires an awful lot of faith, both in the parenting job that my husband and I have done so far, and more importantly, in the One who loves our son even more than we do and who can fill in all our gaps.

Graduation: 115 days and counting, and still so much to learn.