This morning as my 14-year-old scarfed down chicken-maple sausage links before school, I pulled Tim Keller’s devo (for adults) on Proverbs off the kitchen’s half-wall, where it sits by the fruit bowl. These pages have become to me a quietly cherished part of our routine.
There’s something about Proverbs’ concrete wisdom and word pictures for developing young brains that makes this book wonderfully tactile. (And bless the person who divided it neatly into 31 chapters, one per day of the month.)read more
I’ve probably written before about my dad sending my sisters and I off to the bus on so many mornings, in that flurry most of us with school-bound children know well. Lunches! Instrument! Mom, you didn’t put that in my lunch, did you? Permission slip! Did you finish that homework? Who’s picking me up from practice? Yes, you have to wear a coat; this is not optional. He’d surround us in his big farmer-arms or put those sausage-like fingers on our shoulders. “Go MAD!” He’d say. My dad finds little shame in the corny, so that was Dad-code for “Go make a difference.”
Now I’m the one pecking heads while they run out the door, my fingers reaching (when not scrambling for the lunch and permission slips) for those shoulders that grow just a little more every year. I’m sending them on a mission, really.
From the moment we got off the plane, my kids have marveled slack-jawed (with the rest of us) over the news shows and internet headlines of the rabbit hole that is the 2016 elections. Perhaps like I’ll never forget the Challenger exploding at liftoff or where I was on 9/11, they will never forget these last few months.
Some of my kids have dealt with no negligible amount of fear. They’re rife with questions, and looking to a lot of places for hints on how to make sense of this brouhaha. And, as my mom used to say, I can assume they’re even smarter than I think they are. They’ve picked up on a lot. (Though I had to grin yesterday, when during a wrestling session I heard, “Can’t Dad just run for president?”)
I'm totally #thatmom--the one diving into all the weirdness with my kids, sidestepping a few eyerolls.
Pull up a chair for practical ideas and discussions on the parenting, relationships, and spirituality we're all army-crawling through every day. After five and a half years in Uganda, my family and I returned to the U.S., where I write and speak professionally, and we continue to work on behalf of the poor. My first solo book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids' Hearts (Harvest House), released October 2021.