Articles
Parenting
Monarchs, Menarche, and Menopause
I sometimes tell teenagers I work with that middle and high school is one big crash course in relationship skills, with the operative word there being “crash”. There are often lots of crashes along the way. There is some major emotional “weight lifting” that takes place in high school. You know what happens in weight lifting. The muscles get torn down and then grow back stronger. Teenagers get torn down and, hopefully, grow back stronger…if the emotional weights are not damagingly heavy.
My teen years were filled with highs and low, the best of times, the worst of times…depending on the day you asked me. While I had the best friends in the universe, I was also in class with some of the meanest girls ever. Well, I sure thought they were! On the tennis court I was confident. In school around peers I was painfully insecure. I was tall, thin, and awkward. I did not want to be told how much I would appreciate my height later. I wanted to be little and cute NOW
Deborah, Barak, and Solos
My oldest daughter, now seven, sang her first solo Sunday night at church. It was a short, little line with, as she pointed out to me, 17 words. I watched her, nervous and proud all at the same time. She knew her cue. She knew that if she did not move quickly enough to the microphone the song on the track would move on and she would not get to sing her lines. She was fast. She was confident. Her words were loud and clear. The experience culminated in a twenty second moment in time. She walked away pocketing an experience that left her with a drop more confidence that she COULD DO IT.
Shout Jesus Saves
