Maybe you have forgotten about many of those moments, and maybe neither one of us knew how important they’d be, but when I look back, they made a difference.
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You see, every time we choose to judge instead of take time to see past the surface, we are creating a world of assumptions and those assumptions are most of the time false. They end up leading to division and essentially making someone feel that they are “less”.
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Have we made our lives busy and crazy all by our own doing? Probably. But the truth is, I think many people are living the same way. If it isn’t exhaustion from running kids everywhere, it’s from our jobs, or stress from helping an elderly parent, or from financial strain, or just simply from not taking time to stop.
Whatever it is, distractions are everywhere and they silently creep into our homes and our families and steal the time we have for building moments that build strong foundations.
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15 years after “I do” has taught me this: If you want to see perseverance, pain, character, commitment, and the human spirit undergo the most self-inflicted stress and still survive, go watch a marriage.
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If you have a tween or teen, you may feel like you are constantly searching for conversation starters that will lead to more than a one-word answer. Here is an easy way to achieve that and make it happen naturally.
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This week is our 1st birthday! Many, MANY moments living by these two bracelets: “courage” and prayer. Both significant of catalysts at work on a journey to a place of which I could have never dreamed. When I felt called to this and began praying for it, I knew it would not come without a price - hard work, unknown territory, fears, tears, mistakes, sacrifice.
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How is it that we can hear the phrase, “Be the change you want to see” over and over, nod our heads in agreement, even pump our fists and rally behind it, yet we don’t make the strides to make it happen? In so much of life it seems the natural thing is to just sit back and “let someone else do it”. Is it because we feel unqualified? Maybe we feel insignificant. Maybe it’s that deep down we don’t want to do it ourselves because of that one thing.
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Guess what? The storms will come. They show up in hidden ways like the busyness in schedules that slowly fades to chaos and lost time with one another. They show up in environmental stress from careers, or academic struggles, or conflict in relationships. The storms come from the disorganization in our homes that lead to battles over “lost” things or unsigned papers or arriving late to our obligations. What communication practices do you have in place right now to withstand the storms?
I was at the grocery store the other day and walked through an aisle where a teenage boy was standing with his mom. He had the cart and it was blocking the end of the aisle. His mom just looked at him and yelled, “move the cart, dumb a**.” My eyes got huge, my jaw dropped and I had so many things I wanted to yell back at that woman. I bit my tongue and moved to the checkout line. I’m pretty sure I knew what they were practicing at home…
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When Saturday morning came with the kids running into my room screaming, “There’s snow! Snow! Can we pleeeease go play outside??”, my anxiety went up with the thoughts of the bundling up, the wet clothes, the complaining of freezing wrists, and the thought that I may have to go out there and play. I like snow days from inside my house looking out and not freezing from outside. I am okay with the fact that I don’t think we are called to like everything we do as parents.
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As we look forward to our goals of the New Year, it’s important to reflect on the fact that everything doesn’t come with instant gratification as our world may falsely tell us. Sometimes we can think everything should come with ease, especially our prayers, hopes, and dreams. God surely offers us blessings, but we can’t forget what it requires of us: steadfastness, perseverance, sacrifice. Values that are not often highlighted in our society, but ones we must not neglect teaching and modeling.
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Good habits at the dinner table teach consistency and set the expectation of what family meals should look like. You have the opportunity to make that table a gathering place for stories shared, lessons learned, and memories made. Model positive communication at a young age. It will quickly become routine and will surely lead to growth within your family.
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