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10 Things My Daughters Should Know

With my 14 year old, Kate, my 11 year old, Macy, and my 5 year old, Alyse, there are always times I wonder if I have given good, true advice. Advice to help them grow up as strong, independent women with healthy values. I try to get my hands on as many parenting magazines and articles as I can, hoping to find the 'hidden messages' I may have forgotten to give. All of these things are facts we tell our girls on a regular basis. Maybe not in these exact words, but this is written beautifully. I had to have a copy for myself. If this advice can stick in their minds like gum on a shoe, I just think so many pitfalls could be avoided! Ten things I want my 10-year-old daughter to know: 1. It is not your job to keep the people you love happy. Not me, not Daddy, not your brother, not your friends. I promise, it's not. The hard truth is that you can't, anyway. 2. Your physical fearlessness is a strength. Please continue using your body in the world: run, jump, climb, throw. I love watching you streaking down the soccer field, or swinging proudly along a row of monkey bars, or climbing into the high branches of a tree. There is both health and a sense of mastery in physical activity and challenges. 3. You should never be afraid to share your passions. You are sometimes embarrassed that you still like to play with dolls, for example, and you worry that your friends will make fun of you. Anyone who teases you for what you love to do is not a true friend. This is hard to realize, but essential. 4. It is okay to disagree with me, and others. You are old enough to have a point of view, and I want to hear it. So do those who love you. Don't pick fights for the sake of it, of course, but when you really feel I'm wrong, please say so. You have heard me say that you are right, and you've heard me apologize for my behavior or point of view when I realize they were wrong. Your perspective is both valid and valuable. Don't shy away from expressing it. 5. You are so very beautiful. Your face now holds the baby you were and the young woman you are rapidly becoming. My eyes and cleft chin and your father's coloring combine into someone unique, someone purely you. I can see the clouds of society's beauty myth hovering, manifest in your own growing self-consciousness. I beg of you not to lose sight with your own beauty, so much of which comes from the fact that your spirit runs so close to the surface. 6. Reading is essential. It is the central leisure-time joy of my life, as you know. I am immensely proud and pleased to see that you seem to share it. That identification you feel with characters, that sense of slipping into another world, of getting lost there in the best possible way? Those never go away. Welcome. 7. You are not me. We are very alike, but you are your own person, entirely, completely, fully. I know this, I promise, even when I lose sight of it. I know that separation from me is one of the fundamental tasks of your adolescence, which I can see glinting over the horizon. I dread it like ice in my stomach, that space, that distance, that essential cleaving, but I want you to know I know how vital it is. I'm going to be here, no matter what, Grace. The red string that ties us together will stretch. I know it will. And once the transition is accomplished there will be a new, even better closeness. I know that too. 8. It is almost never about you. What I mean is that when people act in a way that hurts or makes you feel insecure, it is almost certainly about something happening inside of them, and not about you. I struggle with this one mightily, and I have tried very, very hard never once to tell you you are being "too sensitive" or to "get over it" when you feel hurt. Believe me, I know how feelings can slice your heart, even if your head knows otherwise. But maybe, just maybe, it will help to remember that almost always other people are struggling with their own demons, even if they bump into you by accident. 9. There is no single person who can be your everything. Be very careful about bestowing this power on any one person. I suspect you are trying to fill a gnawing loneliness, and if you are you inherited it from me. That feeling, Woolf's "emptiness about the heart of life," is just part of the deal. Trying to fill that ache with other people (or with anything else, like food, alcohol, numbing behaviors of a zillion sorts you don't even know of yet) is a lost cause, and nobody will be up to the task. You will feel let down, and, worse, that loneliness will be there no matter what. I'm learning to embrace it, to accept it as part of who I am. I hope to help you do the same. 10. I am trying my best. I know I'm not good enough and not the mother you deserve. I am impatient and fallible and I raise my voice. I am sorry. I love you and your brother more than I love anyone else in the entire world and I always wish I could be better for you. I'll admit I don't always love your behavior, and I'm quick to tell you that. But every single day, I love you with every fiber of my being. No matter what. This post originally appeared on A Design So Vast. http://www.adesignsovast.com/

A Wall Of Protection

Last week was a particularly bad week. I know of 3 people in my life that are hurting. Just plain hurting. Their hearts are being torn from their chests I don't doubt. One of these friends, I don't even keep in regular contact with but has a room in my heart. I prayed for these friends. I hurt for them. Whether they knew or not, I did. My own personal problems were crashing around me at the same time. Another house deal that was just steps away from closing fell through. I just didn't know how much more my heart could handle. Then I read my daily devo. When God praised Job for his integrity, Satan replied, "You have always put a wall of protection around him....take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you." So God gave Satan permission to test Job, but He placed limits on how far he could go. (See Job 2:6) There are times "When the enemy comes in like a flood" (Isa 59:19) to attack your mind, your marriage, your ministry, and anything that's born of God in your life. When that happens, Isaiah says, "The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard [shield] against him." When you feel you're at a breaking point and can't handle one more thing, the Holy Spirit lifts up the wall of the blood of Jesus and tells Satan, "This far and no further!" Paul says, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed" (2Co 4:8-9) There's a wall of protection around you. There's also a time for your deliverance. "In the time of my favor I hear you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." (2Cor. 6:2) God will step in and intervene. The Psalmist said, "When my heart is faint; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I" (Ps 61:2) When your resources are depleted and you think you're going under for the last time, God has provided a refuge that's higher than your circumstances, a place where you're under divine protection and the enemy has no jurisdiction. All you have to do is lift your eyes toward heaven. What a comfort it is that we can lift our eyes toward Heaven. The Maker of Heaven and Earth. He knows us inside and out better than anyone. He knows my inner struggles. He knows my deepest fears, desires, and temptations. When my heart is faint, Lead me, Father God to the rock that is higher than I.