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.