Wordlessness

To paraphrase a favorite middle school movie of mine, "I have no words? This has never happened to me before. Words are my life."  It has been rare in my life that anything would make me speechless - anger, excitement, boredom. Words would always come. Easily and plentifully, in my case.  But there are times when an emotion is too much for words.

Only when my husband and I experienced the simultaneous birth/loss of our stillborn daughter five years ago did I truly understand what speechlessness feels like. What staring into nothingness feels like.  What it's like to truly not have an answer for "how are you." Because, there's just nothing. You're empty. There aren't words, so you just sit there with your mouth weirdly hot and dry and stare at your fingernails while other people's words bounce off your ears and get absorbed by the carpet.

Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence always comes to mind. Hello, Darkness, my old friend.

I like to think that in five years, I've changed a little and matured a lot. I've actually been speechless many times since that experience.  Maybe I've learned to be more introspective, maybe I've learned that God speaks in the silence. Maybe I now know that it's ok to just sit and be blank. Through the current circumstances of my life, I find myself rehashing these feelings five years later, dwelling on the memories, trying to sort out right from wrong, peace from anger, acceptance from bitter resolve. 

My wise father-in-law has put a name on these times of confusion and wandering for me: being 'in the desert'. Of course, God was with Israel in the desert, watching them, caring for them every step of the way, but it was still hot, dry, and itchy. You learn a lot in the desert, but man... it sucks.

Wordlessness. Ironic to use the written word to describe the experience. But even in this attempt, I'm explaining around it.  Because the only thing to me that would sum it up would be blackness. Darkness. Emptiness. A waiting and longing for what isn't here and won't return.

At my daughter's funeral (a healing time for a group of families hosted by an organization called Share of Lancaster), one of the pastors closed the ceremony by praying in Spanish. Now, I had a good eight years of Spanish in school, but I could barely understand a single word. Strangely, that was the most touching moment of the service for me. That was the only moment I felt God reaching into my blank heart. The pastor was softly weeping and saying words I couldn't understand. For me, it was like experiencing Romans 8:26-27: "The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

Groanings too deep for words. Yes. That's it. That's what the desert is like.

helping my kids when i myself am a screw up

Raising Sexually Healthy Kids, Part 3

You feel pretty perfect as a parent, right? Every day as I see my children sin, I just realize how unlike me they are. Pouting? I never pout. Anger? No worries there. Impatient? Not me. Selfish? Never.

If only.

My biggest issue as a parent is seeing my own sin in my kids. They get angry and stamp their feet, pointing fingers emphatically. They threaten each other if they aren't getting their way. Wonder where they learned that. When I hear them full-name their Daddy, that's when I know I have no excuse.

My kids are learning to sin by watching me.

Now, before you go all theological on me, I know they are born sinners. But the style and flair of their particular sins show my fingerprints.  It's like looking in a mirror as they say. The reflection is shorter and younger, but boy does it rock my attitude.

So the next question I want to address is: How can I help my kids when I am a screw up?  The topic of the seminar I'm blogging about was Raising Sexually Healthy Kids, so while the focus was on that area, this applies to all areas of our life that are full of sin. So... everywhere.

One of my favorite parenting books is Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp. He points out that keeping your kids alive is the primary goal of parenting until like age 3, and after that, your goal is to help your kids see Jesus. This is important because parenting apart from Jesus is very behavior-oriented. But like I referenced last time, we know it's all about the roots not the fruit. 

I'm a miserable sinner. Are my kids even safe to learn from me?  Not really, no. But as their parent, I need to keep in perspective that they are not really "with me." Walk this analogy with me...  Matthew 8:23-27:

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

What kept the disciples safe? The boat, right? No. Ok, then when Jesus calmed the storm? Still no. The disciples were safe the whole time. Even if there had been no boat, or the boat disappeared, or the storm suddenly raged a thousand times harder -- the disciples were safe with Jesus.

As a parent, I am the boat. I am one tool Jesus uses to keep my kids safe. I worry that I am not giving my kids the best. But here's the truth: I'm not. I'm a sinner. I will never love them perfectly, discipline them truly selflessly, or make plans that are 100% for their best future. Only Jesus can do that. My kids are safest and in the position for their best possible future when they are with Jesus. Storm, rage on! Do your worst!  Safe with Jesus is safe in the boat, safe out of the boat, safe in the storm, or safe on calm seas. He is safety.

My encouragement to you today is that while you are helpless to bring freedom to your child from a besetting sin or helpless to change a behavior or helpless to save them from the evils of their environment... you can send them to the one who is all-powerful. 2 Corinthians 12:9 is my parenting verse:

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Conference was hosted by Westminster Presbyterian and presented by The Student Outreach on Saturday, January 21, 2016.

Raising Sexually Healthy Kids, part 2

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." If you grew up in the church like I did, you've heard Galatians 5:22-23 many times. My son even has a song to help him get in all the words in!

It's such a familiar truth that it can become trite. But there's a very important lesson here: your actions reflect what's inside you. So, what's inside your kids that's bearing out the fruit you see in daily life? This was the subject of Session 1 at Raising Sexually Healthy Kids.  

I took appx. 12 pages of notes at this conference, and I don't want to steal The Student Outreach's brilliant presentation or take credit for it as my own. However, I do want to present this groundwork as the basis for my own commentary and the lessons I picked up.  The entire session, which they called "Discovering: Looking Deeper Than the Fruit", was built around a tree metaphor:

• The seed is the heart

• The soil is the context

• The roots are our desires

• The trunk is your worldview

• The fruit is the behavior

So often, as parents, we get lost in the behavior. Some examples we heard:

I caught my daughter sending a sext, so I took her cell phone. Glad I fixed that!

My son was searching for pornography, so I put a tighter filter on our computer. I'm so relieved to not have to worry anymore!

But imagine... the tomatoes in my garden have blossom end rot, so I pulled off all the tomatoes. Problem solved! Crazy, right? Because you know the new tomatoes will grow in sick, too. The problem wasn't in the fruit; you have to address the cause.  But that gets dicey in parenting... what is the cause of this behavior? And how do I address a sin "sickness" in my kid that comes from the heart and is affected by so many internal and external variables?

Consider the heart. Genesis 8:21 paints a pretty clear picture: "The intention of man's heart is evil from his youth." But if our child's fallen heart is redeemed, he/she is a new creation. As parents, we must start here. There is no hope to help a child out of any sinful behavior, sexual or otherwise, until the heart is changed.  What a challenge for me as a mother to pray daily for my boys' salvation!

Consider the soil. So many things play into a child's life context. The presenter gave examples that specifically spoke to me as a foster parent. Trauma, family influences, appearance... children don't choose these, but the impact they have on their life cannot be overestimated. He also added a few things I found particularly profound. A child's physical characteristics and their talents or gifts might dramatically change their life. Imagine a boy's "life context" -- the way people react to him, the things he overhears people say, the coaches and teaches who become influential -- if he's an excellent dancer, gifted from the Lord to perform ballet, versus a boy who has been blessed with an excellent ability in math? Everything these kids hear, see, and feel form their context. Sometimes these are things that parents can't necessarily prevent (nor should we, in many cases), but they all affect how your child will view and experience the world.

A final note on context: a reminder that the local church can and should be part of my child's life context. This is a safe environment where they can grow and see many people modeling what a God-honoring life looks like.

Consider the roots. Man, when it comes to corralling desires, I always feel like Gollum: arguing with myself like a crazy person. Trying to convince myself something is ok when I know it's not, and then trying to be sneaky like I don't know what I'm planning! James 1:14-15 couldn't be more clear what happens when we give into sinful desires: "But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." Death! Sounds hopeless, right? But no! The hope comes back to the seed again. Galatians 5:16: "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." What fresh hope this gives me as a mother in this battle, knowing my kids have reinforcements when they are weakest.

Consider the trunk. What worldview are we presenting to our children? Does your daughter hear you say, "I need to lose weight" and watch you give your backend dirty looks in the mirror? Do your sons see you focusing on the cheerleaders when you watch football? You are shaping their worldview, and it matters.  The worldview we want our children to frame is one where God's glory is our ultimate life goal. We want them to understand their sin and their need for a Savior. We want them to see others as people to be loved and served. We want them to know they are loved and precious in God's sight.

Consider the fruit. Behavior is the focus of all our time, teaching, and lectures. Take the cell phone, but your daughter's desire to fulfill her need for attention, to feel loved and accepted isn't gone. Filter the internet but your son's desire for control, excitement, and release isn't remedied.  Don't start with the fruit. The behavior will change when the heart changes, and when we understand the context, worldviews, and desires that are warring within our children.

Next time, my notes on addressing the fear... "I am pretty screwed up myself and the world is insane around them, so how can I really help my kids?"

Conference was hosted by Westminster Presbyterian and presented by The Student Outreach on Saturday, January 21, 2016.

raising sexually healthy kids, part 1

On Saturday, we went to a conference entitled Raising Sexually Healthy Kids. Now, if you're like me, you think that sounds like a long name for a conference about how to put stuff on your computer to keep teenagers from accessing porn. Since our kids are young, I figured I would take a bunch of notes and revisit them when my sons turn... 21 and become interested in sex. (Ha.)

As it turned out, only one small session talked about actual computer/device protection, and the speaker admitted up-front that he was going to talk more about research and strategy in that session than actual techniques because, as he put it, "there are twelve new apps coming out as I'm saying these words and I can't possibly tell you how to analyze, block, or filter them all."  Good point. Things are changing fast!

I plan on blogging about this conference several times, so for today, I want to focus on two things: 

• The biggest stand-out point of the day

• Our first conversation with our son on this topic

What was my biggest takeaway from the day? My kids aren't too young to begin worrying researching, strategizing, and planning ways to protect them. As the speaker put it, "Your kids might not be looking for porn, but porn is looking for them." Sound dramatic? Maybe not. When I was six, no one handed me a book where half the pages were porn and half the pages were stories for me and walked away, hoping I wouldn't turn the wrong page accidentally. Meanwhile, I hand my kids a tablet or a phone and walk away, assuming they won't accidentally see something that isn't for them. Huge eye-opener when you realize the porn battle isn't to corral some wayward teenager but rather to protect the eyes, hearts, and mind of my very young sons. The enemy is out there and looking for ways to hurt them. (1 Peter 5:8)

In light of the realization that we're late to the party for this conversation, I wasn't sure how our first conversation with our six-year-old would go. Sexuality etc. is a topic that hasn't come up much at all, other than when we have privacy and body-safety conversations.  

One age-appropriate question suggested by the conference speaker was to ask a child his age about what it means to be a man or to be a woman. Now, you have to understand our all-boy household is full of Nerf darts, battleships, Darth Vader masks, and... well, a thousand wars a day fought with anything the boys can imagine to be a gun... they even fired their candy canes at each other at Christmas.  I did worry, honestly, what my son's impression of masculinity would be. I kind of didn't want to ask. 

But I did. We sat down, and my husband and I started off by vaguely pointing out that boys and girls are different and our bodies were made differently.  Our son noted a few things like men are usually taller and woman often have longer hair. Then I took a deep breath and asked him, "What do you think makes someone a man? A good man?"

He waited a moment, but when he opened his mouth, his answer really surprised me.

"Love," he said.

"Really?" I replied. "What do you mean?"

"The good men I know are loving," he said.

"Great!" I said, pleased. "What else?"

"Safe," he said. "The men I know make me feel safe. I think being a man means making the people around you feel safe."

So, be still my heart, and thank you Jesus for the wisdom that my six-year-old has learned from his loving Daddy and the other wonderful men around him who makes him feel safe.

Conference was hosted by Westminster Presbyterian and presented by The Student Outreach on Saturday, January 21, 2016.

My favorite Shakespearean temper tantrum

I don't know what made me think of this today, but apparently I had temper tantrums on the mind... Hmm...

This is a favorite monologue of mine, one I used as an audition on multiple occasions for dramatic productions at both colleges I attended. I've never been in A Midsummer Night's Dream; the only Shakespeare I have actually performed for an audience is Two Gentlemen of Verona.  I was Silvia, who is supposedly a heroine but mostly an idiot. (Seriously, she's an idiot. Although most of Shakespeare's female characters are.)

For those of you who don't know this story, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy (meaning it ends with a wedding not a funeral - and yes, that's really the difference) about two men, two women, and a bunch of magic. The speaker (i.e. tantrum-haver) Helena is in love with a guy named Demetrius who's in love with a girl named Hermia.  The King of the Fairies starts meddling and oopsie now Demetrius is in love with Helena but so is his friend Lysander, Hermia's boyfriend. So instead of pursuing Hermia, they're both pursuing Helena, who assumes they're messing with her just to be horrible.  This is poor, confused Helena's wonderful temper tantrum:

O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
To set against me for your merriment. 
If you were civil and knew courtesy, 
You would not do me thus much injury. 
Can you not hate me, as I know you do, 
But you must join in souls to mock me too? 
If you were men, as men you are in show, 
You would not use a gentle lady so; 
To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts, 
When I am sure you hate me with your hearts. 
You both are rivals, and love Hermia, 
And now both rivals to mock Helena. 
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise, 
To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes
With your derision. None of noble sort
Would so offend a virgin, and extort
A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport.

I must confess, I have definitely considered spouting the first four lines at people. O spite! What a great exclamation...

foster parent wish list

I don't know where the line to qualify as a "veteran foster parent" is, but I'm sure I'm not there.  Still, I've read a bunch of these kinds of lists written by foster parent bloggers, so I'm adding my thought-socks to the laundry pile.

Here's what foster momma would like from you...

1. Listen when she talks, but don't give her suggestions unless you understand the situation. "Have you tried using apricots to help him poo?" is a great any-mom tip. "Did you tell the judge that he's constipated?" is probably the place where you've enter an area you know nothing about.  So, just listen if she complain and tell her you're praying for God to be glorified in the situation.

2. Ask her what's going on without offering commentary on what you think is best.  "Did the judge say you can keep him yet?" isn't exactly hiding what you think.  Try, "How are things going?" or "Have you heard anything new?" She wants to know that you care, but frame it in a way that isn't smashing her instep on a Lego.

3. Please make her the "foster parents" instead of him the "foster child", "foster son", or "foster kid".  Can he just be a regular ol' kid and she'll be the weird one: the foster momma? Please label her instead of him. 

4. Don't tell her that you know what God's plan is. His plan is good. Period. What you think is good may not be his plan. Also, not using words but smugly nodding with a wink wink nudge nudge is the same thing.

5. Actually pray for her family, and if she gives you a specific request, follow up so she knows you listened and care.

6. Yes, she want meals and babysitting and laundry folders and dish-doers if her family get a new placement.  She didn't birth a baby but she does have 4,392 people in her home doing evaluations this week plus 223 doctor's appointments tomorrow and three supervised visits today. And everybody's gotta eat.

7. Don't judge his birth parents. Just don't. You don't know anything, and she's not going to tell you. Stop judging, because it wouldn't matter if a T-Rex and Cleopatra were his parents. 

8. Children have ears. Don't ask complicated or sensitive questions in front of kids: foster kid, biological kid, neighbor kid, your own kid. They are all corn; they all have ears. Wait for privacy. In the same vein, though, explain what her family does to your own kids in age-appropriate language. You may think they're too young to understand, but so are the kids she's parenting. Choose the difficult road that leads to enlightening your own family to truth.  And then work together when the awkward kid-question moments come (because they will), and that's ok. Focus on safe.  Kids can understand what "safe" feels like, and that's usually enough for the little ones.

9. Stop telling her she's a good person for doing this.  Just stop it.  You can tell her she smells good or her hair looks nice or that her words were a creative use of discipline techniques or that she is giving this child a great period of safety in his life but, for goodness sake, please stop telling her she's a good person for doing this.  You mean well, but she wants to punch you in the throat.  Seriously. Stop it.

10. Love these children.  Smile. Laugh. Hug. Play. Hold. Help. Reach. Snuggle. Love these children. Love them so much. Love them like Jesus does. 

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