Looking for ways to parent with more emotional health?
Here’s nine. (Start with, like, two.)
Dear readers–I’m pulling this one from the archives today for you…mostly because it was what I needed. -J.
Do you remember the first time you wondered if God really was good?
Several weeks ago, I sat in a back room of the church amidst some storage shelves, music stands, and VBS material. Though the walls are cinder block, the seating leaves something to be desired, and the carpet perches on concrete, it’s been a good place for me.
It’s a good place to have a think.
Someone asked me recently how I talk to my daughter about modesty. It was a conversation morphing into how to help our daughters see their bodies as important, but not too important. (See this post, Naked Truth about Body Image.)
Incessantly telling her she’s beautiful—though I honestly believe she is–doesn’t seem to be the answer: “Don’t worry about looking beautiful. You’ve got that one down!”
As we prepare to celebrate Good Friday, I’m marveling all over again at these paradoxes bound up in Jesus’ death: all we gained through his loss.
Hope it increases your overwhelming adoration like it does mine.
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Parenting has this way of exposing a part of who you are in ways both beautiful and terrifying.
As in, Wow! Who knew I had this gift for creative teaching? Or, Who knew I could handle this amount of laundry and still emerge with enough panties to fight the day?
But also, as author Elizabeth Stone has written, Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
A couple of weeks ago, my son and I attempted homemade ravioli. I say attempted not because they didn’t taste good. (They tasted great!) I say this because in the midst of chaos–some foreseen, some not-so-much–we didn’t really seal the little ravioli pillows correctly. So ricotta leaked out into the water. Never fear: Every single one of the little guys was still eaten up, and since perfect ravioli wasn’t the goal, I’d consider it a smashing (smashed?) success.
I’ve been pulling kids up on the counter next to me (and sometimes sitting them in the bowl of the sink) for a little over a decade now. Initially, it was a strategy of containment. If I am cooking, I know where you and your fast little feet are, and what those little hands are dumping. But cooking has been a way that my kids and I create rich quality time together.
Near the end of the day, we are creating something nourishing together, learning a life skill, chatting about whatever, laughing, and sealing the memories with taste and sound and sight and smell and touch. Somehow the mundane, to me, seems to take on a little magic.
I first took the enneagram about a year ago when my family mentioned it. (Yes, my whole family talks about this kind of stuff. If you’re into a sports team or politics, we might not be able to help you out).
With a husband who’s a Human Resources exec, you can bet I’ve taken my share of personality tests. (I’ve even tried to outwit some of them?)
Personally, the enneagram has brought me more self-knowledge–knowledge that actually helped me truly change–than any of the others. I even keep basic profiles on my Kindle. (Yeah. I’m one of those.) With 207 subtypes, I’ve found it to be fairly accurate for me, which hasn’t always been the case with other profiles.
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