Yesterday, moms and dads of 20 itty bitty kids woke up  thinking, “We’ve made it to Friday. Just get through this day of school and then it’s the weekend.” I’m sure they had weekends full of activity planned with Christmas less than 2 weeks away. I’m sure they thought of all the last minute Christmas shopping, baking, programs and errands they needed to get to and finish and felt a bit overwhelmed and out of breath with the madness of the season. In the craziness of a Friday morning rush to school and work, they might have kissed their children’s heads or hugged their necks and said, “see you later,” as they went out the door.  I’m sure they never imagined what would happen. I can’t imagine. I simply just can’t.

My kids walked in from school yesterday and I realized I had subconsciously been holding my breath. I held them and blinked back tears…some I couldn’t hold back and came tumbling out anyway.  We watched the news together last night, we prayed together for families of lost little ones and teachers and administrators, but all we could do was sit numbly and watch the news unfold in front of us. Seasoned news people crying openly. The President wiping away tears as he tried to speak. How could such innocence be wiped out so dismissively?

It took my mind quite a bit of time to settle down before bed, but even in that I’m pretty sure I saw images of parents and children in my sleep. I woke up with the heart pounding realization that my family is well and whole, but also that there are mothers and fathers who woke up yesterday morning and never went back to sleep last night because of the horror of their day. God, be with them. God, grant them peace. God, please bring comfort. God, oh God, oh God be their hope.

When my kids wake up, they’ll come down and find me in the kitchen. They’ll come and kiss me and I’ll hug them back. I’ll ask them how they slept and make them breakfast and we’ll talk about the day ahead. Our Saturday will start and we’ll have our  moments of laughter and frustration and fatigue but I know that each of us is dealing with what happened yesterday in our own way. I know that today we are all more grateful for another moment with each other to say. To be able to look into each others eyes and say “I love you and I’m thankful for you.” At this point in life, I realize we have just this moment…the one in front of us, so I want it to be a good one because the next one isn’t guaranteed.

Baby, you know we’re living in stolen moments
You steal enough it feels like we’re stopping time
These days are gold we’re living in stolen moments
Just grab a hold and feel your way
These days are yours and mine- Lyrics by John Hiatt

Dearest darling first child,

Half your lifetime ago

When I was sixteen my world was so different from yours. I look at you and am amazed by your strength of character, self confidence, determination, intelligence, humor, beauty and grace. You are a miracle child and I am so proud to be your momma every single day. You and I have talked about things, big and and small from the time you were in my womb, but for some reason, I just want to make sure that in the next 16 years (and more) you keep these little thoughts tucked away in the back of your brain. There will be times when you doubt everything and at that point all you really need to remember is #1 below.

1. You are a Princess. Beloved daughter to the King of Kings and Creator of the Universe- Created in His image. You are perfect and beautiful, and there is a very specific plan and purpose for your life, and NO person (man, woman or child) can change or dispute this truth.
2. Seek God every day.
3. Your parents/family cannot dictate the path God has chosen for you.
4. Respect all life, people, cultures and beliefs but don’t let that sway you from your core beliefs.
5. You will fail. It’s okay, we all do, just never give up.
6. Always do your best.
7. Be yourself.
8. People will have negative things to say, but you can always choose to be optimistic.
9. Life is good, even in the hard times, so enjoy every moment of it.
10. You will have heartache and bad things will happen, but your outlook and response to the bad will determine the outcome.
11. Be a good friend.
12. Make good friends because sometimes they will have to carry you through the hard times.
13. Follow through with your promises. Your word means something.
14. Remember that your actions speak volumes. People see you even when you don’t know they’re looking.
15. Your family believes in you more than anyone and we will always be your biggest cheerleaders.
16. Laugh out loud every day.

Oh and one more for the year ahead.

17.   Always eat dessert.

I love you my Precious, beautiful girl,

Momma

There were a couple of incidents that happened this weekend that really made me focus on my role as mom and how I present myself in public as the mother of my kids. Which brings me to the fact that I’ve recently come into being a basketball mom with my boy.

Anybody who knows me at all,  knows that I am super competitive (blame it on being the product of 5 older brothers and 0 sisters). So, I will cheer hard for my boy’s team and I will push for him to be aggressive, but there is no desire in me to be rude to any of the other children, coaches or refs. I think my role is to be my kid’s biggest cheerleader…as I believe it is every other parent’s role for their kid.

A couple of days ago at one of the games, a mom started egging on one of the older players part of our team. She was doing it to get our  FEMALE  coach frustrated. Today, several parents from the other team started making ugly comments to the refs and being just plain rude to our coach. I am pretty certain if our coach was a man, we wouldn’t have heard much of the commentary.

So 2 things I’ve noticed:
1. Parents can be embarrassing and crazy.
2. The horribly embarrassing treatment shown toward a female coach in a male dominated area.

Over and over again,  I’ve been thinking that we, the parents are setting the example for our children. We are the standard setters for our kids. We are the ones they look up to when it comes to responding to unfair situations, people and places. We are the ones who show them right behavior, etiquette and response. Granted, they have their own brains and emotional responses, but everything they see as acceptable from us…they will assume is acceptable behavior for them.

It is not and never will be acceptable for a man, woman or group of parents to be rude or disrespectful to a woman because she is the coach of a boy’s team. Our coach has taught these boys more than any man because she WANTS to coach this group of boys who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to play in a basketball league. A group of boys from a lower income area of town that the rest of the middle to upper middle class white dads and moms wouldn’t dare take a chance on, mostly because they’re afraid of driving that far south in co springs. Our boys listen to their coach and respect her because they know that she cares about them. She’s young and wants to make a difference, but it’s hard for me as a mom and woman to see the odds stacked up against her.

Today I walked away and thought about all the good men and women in the bleachers today,( many who arrived after attending church on Sunday morning) who were beyond rude and all I could think was what do my actions and behavior tell others about me? What do my children see when they watch how I respond or behave in stressful situations? Am I being the person that I want my kids to grow up to be someday?

I’m new to being a “sport” parent and currently, I’m pretty frustrated, so how about it? How do I maneuver through this?

Please, just a minute to process, to sit, to be calm, to not have answers, to not be the cheerleader, the official, the driver, the chef, the fixer, the teacher, the planner…just a minute to be?

I know that the kids are growing so fast, and I should enjoy this greater ride I’m on with them, but in all honesty, sometimes the ride’s just exhausting and I just need a minute.

The awesomeness of piecing together all the edges and corners of a puzzle.
Cuddling under a blanket watching the rain fall outside your window.
Toast with Peanut butter and honey.
Watching babies giggle/laugh…nothing short of pure joy.
How about catching the eye of an elderly person and smiling?
Big breakfasts at home on lazy Saturday mornings.
Long runs when all feels right with your body and you’re thankful to be healthy enough to run and use every muscle given by God.
Smelling lilacs through the windows in April and May
Ice cold, refreshing water straight from the tap.
Kind people.
Happy children.
People with passion and fire inside of them.
Music for the mood of the day.
Books that make me laugh out loud.
Computers without viruses
Instant Messenger/Skype/face-time
Handwritten notes
So…What’s your bliss?

I sometimes get really sad thinking about the fact that my parents have never known my children the way they know the little girls they care for. I know that sounds really petty and selfish, and I know they have a higher calling with their ministry, but sometimes I wish I had parents who could come over for a weekend or a day to spend time with me and my kids.  I mean,  you know how it is when you only see someone once a year… it’s just not the easiest way to build or maintain relationship.

I guess the thing that’s getting to me lately is that life is getting shorter and shorter and I’m a bit afraid that age will catch up to one of us and sooner than later memories will be lost and there won’t be place for new memories to be made.

So, help me out if you have some ideas on how to deal with this.

This spring, here I am thinking I really want to ride when suddenly out of the blue we get an unexpected chance to ride in Santa Fe. Well, what was supposed to be an easy 6 mile ride ended up being a 31 mile ride complete with hills, valleys, country roads, highway frontage roads and amazing views filled with lots of prayer(Dear God, please help me get up this hill and not die) and deep breathing.

Know what I learned about myself? I learned that I hate to give up and I hate feeling like a failure. I also learned that my expectations of myself are ridiculously high.  Oh and one other thing…I pray and I pray a lot when I am faced with difficult situations. Especially situations where I question the stuff  I’m made of.

Thankfully God answered my prayers that day and I didn’t die. I made it up the hill. I was probably going slower than any other human being has gone up that hill, but you know what? It didn’t matter because I was back on a bicycle and learning to ride it in a way that I never learned on my little yellow banana seat bicycle.

it was one of those days where I was so thankful for the gift of life, the opportunity to do something challenging for myself and the ability to learn something new…even if this new adventure is just getting going at the age of 30 something.  Oh and the fact that I could come back to my kids and say, “your mom re-learned how to ride a bike complete with shifting gears, clipping in shoes, wearing spandex and everything!” I’m sure they (the kids) were beaming with pride on the inside.

Not a bad start to the spring, I’d say.

My second guessing has hit an all time high as of late because both my kids are teens. I know that I’ve second guessed myself through all of the stages of their lives till now, but I’ve never experienced this type of second guessing in any previous stage of their lives.

I remember going through the final moments of giving birth to my daughter and being hit with the realization that nobody else could finish the work of delivering a baby except for me, her mother. Yes, there were all sorts of people to assist and comfort and coach, but ultimately, I had to do it alone.  Not very comforting, but very humbling.

A couple of weeks ago I had this realization that my daughter is almost 16 and I have to go through an entire new set of labor and delivery pains. She’s coming into her own. A young woman with her own wants and needs, goals and hopes. Almost 16 means that she wants a bit more freedom a bit more time away from her family a bit more of everything that freaks me right out. As a mom, it’s hard to go through this pain because it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. It’s illogical. All the things I’ve wanted for her are happening…I want her to use her talents fully. I want her to be self-confident, I want her to be independent, I want her to love her friends well. I want her to be involved in school activities, I want her to be in youth group. I want all of these things, but now that all of these things are fully taking off, it’s scary and I realize I’m suddenly just not ready for it and wanting to slow everything down just a bit.

I’m second guessing if I’ve prepared her well enough. I’m second guessing if I’ve taught her all that she needs to know. All sorts of questions crowd my head space when it comes to what we’ve taught her about faith, friendships, family, caring for people, integrity, the world. Have I done enough? Have I done too much?

I watch moms with new babies and feel such overwhelming and heart-wrenching love for that relationship. I had no idea how I was going to fall in love with this girl. I had no idea that the sleepless nights, tantrum filled days, sickness, fatigue all of that would pass in what seems like a blink of an eye. I know it wasn’t a blink of an eye because I lived each moment of it, but I still feel like life moved in fast forward bringing us to this place and time.

It’s been a hard couple of weeks, but the best thing has been the conversations we’ve been able to have. As hard as it’s been, we’ve talked about the difficult moments and the hurt feelings. That’s actually something we’ve always done. Explain and process our feelings without attacking but allowing for real feelings. There’s this strange safety in knowing I love my kids so deeply and that’s why the feelings are so real and so strong.  Now that’s the one thing about  parenting that I haven’t second guessed so far.

A mom and her girl

I’m a preacher’s kid, so growing up in the Indian church we had all sorts of rules to follow. On Sunday mornings, we had a whole different set of rules.  Some of them included not watching TV or reading the newspaper before church, learning a memory verse, or always wearing our Sunday “best.” One of the biggest rules was that we couldn’t eat on Sunday mornings before church. I knew we were supposed to be “fasting” but I was never really sure why we were fasting. As a kid all I really knew was that I was hungry and wanted to sneak a little snack, even if it was just a piece of bread when nobody was looking. My brothers and I would literally count down the hours, minutes and seconds until church ended and we could have lunch. And of course, Sundays were always the best meals! We always had guests at our house after church so our mom would make all of our favorite Indian dishes.

Somehow, I guess I knew that fasting was important to my parents, therefore it should’ve been important to me. But I didn’t get it. My parents never explained the purpose of fasting to me, perhaps thinking I was too young to understand or care.

But that lack of understanding about fasting followed me for years. As a young adult I still struggled with knowing what to do on Sunday mornings. Was it wrong to eat breakfast? Was it wrong to not fast? Why did not eating breakfast and making a mad rush to the buffet line at lunch make me somehow feel that I was missing the point?

It’s funny that sometimes what we learn as children become the things that we believe should be the way we live the rest of our lives. We sometimes don’t even know why we do certain things, but since it’s familiar, we carry on the pattern. Do we do things simply because our parents told us to do them as kids? Do we know what the scriptural basis is for things we practice, preach and pray?

The topic of fasting left quite an impression on my young mind, so as an adult I’ve looked into it on my own and Isaiah 58 jumps out at me:

Can you imagine? Our fasting is meant to loosen the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

I never would have known that had I not opened up the scripture and read it for myself. My act of not eating is actually a battle against oppression. It says specifically what happens when I fast…it’s not meant to make me look holy and perfect before God. It’s meant to bring life, hope and relief to those around me. When I am hungry I will see the hunger in the eyes of my brothers and sisters around me. When I am thirsty, my eyes will be open to the thirsty around me who need so desperately to hear about Jesus through my love for them.

Why is that so hard for us as Christians to understand? There are people all around us every day who need a little relief, but sometimes we’re so caught up in self-motivated fasting.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t pray for good things in our lives, but too often we are fasting and praying for a winning game, a good grade, the perfect spouse, a bigger house, a better job, a better location, better looks. We often compare ourselves to those around us and feel dissatisfied with the blessings we have which lead us on a path to pray for more.  This, my friends, is the type of fasting that God despises. The kind of fasting where we are left wondering why God isn’t hearing our prayer, but we forget that in His word, he’s told us in
Isaiah 58:9b-10,

Its kind of hard to believe isn’t it? That God would be so harsh in addressing us about our role in taking care of the poor? We sometimes doubt that He meant that for us specifically. I mean really…all we need is some direction in life and some answers to prayer. So if that were all we need, why wouldn’t we follow his word? Verses 8 and 9a say:

I want that! I want that for myself, for my family, for my friends and for you! It’s sometimes a hard concept for us as a new generation of Christians in a multi-cultural world to understand that the mandate still remains for us to reach out to the lost and the hurting…to put someone else’s need above our wants for bigger, better and bolder…to be the answer to the prayer of a child in need or a neighbor in want. The truth of scripture has not changed.

It’s interesting to me how God uses the “If…Then” statement to explain His intense meaning. IF you do this, THEN you will see the light. Amazing isn’t it? Our fasting, isn’t meant to make me look good or holy to my parents or my church. It is meant to battle the wickedness and oppression that exists to debilitate and strip my fellow man of their humanity. If I don’t step into the battle, then it becomes my sin that gets in the way of another person’s freedom.

My prayer is that God will allow us to see that we can do something on a daily basis to reach beyond ourselves and to help those in need. We are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We are called to take a stand. Fasting is powerful and necessary. It’s not just a chance to go hungry, but to do some serious battle for the kingdom.

The question is: Will you step forward and allow Him to use you? Will you fast in a way that pleases the Lord? Will you be the one who is called Repairer of Broken Walls and Restorer of Streets with Dwellings? (Isaiah 58: 12)