life. faithful.

Motherhood is a lot of things. It has good and bad, ups and downs...and no shortage of people telling you all the things that you need to know to be a good mom. If you're a mom, you've thought all of these at some point--I know I have. I'm far from perfect as a mom, and I still have a ton to learn. But as of today, we officially have 5 teenagers so I thought it would be a good time to share some of what I've learned in the past 18 years of motherhood...or rather, some of the things I've unlearned. 1. You'll fall in love with your child at first sight. I've become a mother in two different ways, through giving birth and through adoption, and I'll be completely honest. My first reaction when my tiny daughter was placed in my arms the first time wasn't a whole lot different from when we brought the three we adopted into our home: "What in the world am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to know how to be a mom?" Yes, I'm sure there are w...

 Moms and dads, we are failing our daughters. The world is telling them how to dress and how to carry themselves, and we're allowing it. We are letting Hollywood and social media teach our daughters how they should look, how they should speak, how they should carry themselves--and in that world, for some reason the only voice telling them they should be "demure" comes from an overweight man pretending to be a woman. What are we doing?! The world is telling our daughters that their value comes from how others perceive them . They are being told that they should dress "to catch a man" from childhood. They are shown women with unrealistic body types and told that if they don't measure up, they are somehow not good enough. I see teenage girls every day who are wearing skin tight leggings or booty shorts with tight, low cut tops. They are being taught to reveal every curve of their bodies while simultaneously being taught to conceal every perceived imperfection o...

 My mom once asked her own mom what she thought was the hardest part about raising kids. I'm not sure when their conversation took place, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was after one of the many... spirited disagreements... we had when I was growing up. Part of Memaw's answer was, "If you can love them through junior high, you can love them through anything." Honestly, junior high was one of the reasons I left teaching. The politics were the main reason, sure, but I'm not going to lie to you and say I loved teaching hormonal young teenagers. I've often said that it didn't seem like my students could really connect with my odd sense of humor and bluntness until they hit about sophomore year. That's the year they would start saying I wasn't too bad, then by junior or senior year they actually seemed to like me a little. 7th through 9th grade, though? Yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of love lost between us. I remember telling my mom once tha...

You may not know it, but back in the midst of the craziness of 2020 our family grew from 4 to 7. It's not really something I talk about a lot, despite how it changed our lives. It may be a surprise if you only know me from my writing here, but I'm a very private person. I'm not good at small talk, but I'm not one for dumping out my entire life story, either (On that note, I once took a train from Toledo to Kansas City and sat next to a girl who had told me most of her life story before we even pulled out of the station...). Part of my silence about our adoption is simply due to the fact that I tend to keep to myself. Part of being quiet is because I'm still not sure how much of our kids' stories are mine to tell. It's a delicate balance, a tightrope walk of sorts, trying to figure out who in our lives needs to know how much. Some of it is mine to relate simply because I'm a mom who needs to make sure my kids are taken care of. Other parts, though, aren...

 Last Christmas, my parents gifted all of us season passes to Silver Dollar City. A couple weeks ago, we decided to surprise the kids with a day at the amusement park. It was a beautiful day--we let them sleep in, then took them out for burgers before heading up to Branson. The park was all decked out for fall, full of carved pumpkins, fall colors, and the tastes of the season. The rides were open after dark--and oh my goodness, there's a whole different feeling when you're on a roller coaster and can't see the track ahead of you! We had a wonderful time making family memories (though as is always the case, things weren't quite as perfect as I had hoped: notice that one kid is missing from the pictures because he had no interest in going). We had arranged for a day off of work in advance, then gave the kids an unexpected day off of school. What we hadn't realized, though, was that one of our kids missed a test that day. When he got back to school the next week and a...

 I'm sure you've seen all the craziness that's surrounding public schools right now. They've been in the spotlight for quite a while--test scores have been on the decline for much longer than anyone wants to admit, then parents were called domestic terrorists for standing up to express their concern at school board meetings. You've probably seen the videos put out by some of the individuals to whom parents have entrusted their children 5 days a week, videos that are alarming at best and in some cases downright scary. You've heard of critical race theory being pushed in classrooms, of the 1619 project being pushed instead of true American history, of some educators pushing the idea that 2+2=4 is racist and that expecting kids to behave in class and do their work is simply a result of white supremacist thinking. If you're a Christian, I'm sure you've also seen people calling for you to pull your kids out of public school. Just today I read a post with ...

To my kids: It's that time again--back to school. Seeing as how I've spent pretty much my whole life in school, I know the feelings well: a strange mix of excitement and nerves and fear and all of it ties your brain and your stomach up in knots. I'm teaching again this fall after 3 years away from the classroom, and I know that even though I've faced a new semester 58 times before (believe me, I counted), I'll still have butterflies in my stomach when I walk into a new classroom for the 59th semester. I know you get tired of me giving you advice, but I also know that you realize it won't ever stop... so I'm going to take that as an open invitation ;) First, embrace discomfort this year. The world teaches us to chase after comfort, but that's not what's best for you. You don't do much growing when you're comfortable--mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Mental comfort keeps you from learning new things. It keeps you in a place wh...

When my daughter was about 3, she would have told you, without hesitation, that she wasn't a little girl--she was a puppy. She would be a puppy at the grocery store , much to my embarrassment. She was committed, let me tell you. There was more than once that we had to get onto her for licking somebody or for barking in response to a question she was asked, or to tell her to get up off the floor and walk on her feet instead of crawling on all fours. Why do I bring that up? Because we have somehow decided that kids are capable of making life-altering decisions when they are at an age when it used to be considered completely developmentally normal for them to pretend to be any number of things, from a puppy to a train. What has never been normal, though, is to tell a child that they actually are whatever they are pretending to be. Now, though, we're supposed to go along with whatever someone is pretending to be.  We've come to a point in our society where it has somehow be...

Our kids are under attack, and it seems like we're just going along with it. I don't mean from violence like the recent school shooting that devastated a community and has left so many families reeling. Things like that are obvious, and we have no issue taking a stand against them. We may not know exactly what we need to do, but we all agree that it is something we can't tolerate. What I'm talking about is something more subtle. What I'm talking about is a battle for the souls of our children, and it's a battle the enemy seems to be fighting with no resistance from those of us who are supposed to the protectors. When was the last time you watched something that promoted traditional, Christian values? Something that didn't show "alternative" lifestyles or people hopping into bed with each other as things that are totally normal and acceptable? Or maybe the more important question, when was the last time you stopped watching a tv show or movie with y...

I heard an excerpt from a Christian podcast a few days ago and it hit me wrong. Two women were talking and one said something along the lines of, "I wish I had lowered my expectations for my children." She went on to explain how that was the better, more loving thing to do--how we should make it a point to welcome people just as they are and reassure them that however they show up is good enough. I call bull (sorry if you think that's too blunt). Maybe it's the years I've been in education, but there's not much that makes me more frustrated about parental behavior than parents who have low expectations for their kids. I sat in a conference once where I listened to a mom talk about all the things her daughter wasn't capable of. I could only watch the tears welling in the 14-year old girl's eyes for so long before I spoke up, and I'll never forget the look on her face when I chimed in with what I thought she was capable of. I've been on the rece...

 I saw a post the other day that repeated something I've seen a lot. Basically, it was along the lines of, "I don't go to church because the people there are hypocrites." So many people use the excuse that the pews are filled with imperfect people as the reason they don't gather together on Sunday morning. They talk about people who share verses and say they are praying for people but then mess up in some way, and somehow the fact that those people are at church is used as the reason they don't go themselves. I go to church with a bunch of imperfect people.  They mess up--most of them daily in some way, if I'm being honest. They get cranky and have days when they are just plain grumpy. They skip the Sunday morning service sometimes. They get mad. They say things they shouldn't. They get impatient. They make mistakes, and sometimes they even make conscious choices to do something they shouldn't. I'm incredibly thankful for that, because it means...