Parenting Teens

These teen years, they aren't perfect, but they are good.  And this not because of great parenting but a great Grace.

 

 

 

 

Little Bits: The Older Three

Nests.  They collect themselves all over my home.  Sweet little things that find their way into sweeter hands and onto my table.  My favorite?  The one where the mama bird gathered little bits of this and that, scavenged building materials that she wove together into a home.  It requires a gentle hand and an observant eye. 

 

After reading Tracey's book, I've been paying closer attention to the bits my older three leave around.  No more do they wander into the house carrying little treasures from outside.  Instead, they let their own lives drop and scatter wherever they will.  And I have been carelessly stepping over the teen years.  The boots I trip over.  The bags left by the door.  Airsoft bullets in cushions.  Stickers that mark interests. The details in rooms behind the closed doors (closed only by mandate to guard from tiny hands).  There are things that I have ignored as precious.  Things and images that one day I will cup tenderly in my palm for the treasures they are.  I commit now not to wait until someday.

 

 

 

Not to be outdone by his brother's compound bow, John took to the woods and made his own.  I am amazed at how strong and accurate it is.  And, of course, a contest, a battle of the bows is always a given.  The handcrafted held its own.

 

 

 

 

 See the blur out the window? Yeah.  That would be the last 15 years.

Now We Are

Just fifteen minutes after posting this, I stood up to head downstairs to update my husband, and my water broke.  Two and half hours later, Gabriel, our sixth, made his grand entrance via water birth into our family, into this wonderful world.  All the waiting, the timing, the longing met together in the perfect pitch of a newborn cry and glimpses of gold-red hair and daddy's chin laid upon my chest.  So few pictures of those early moments together only three of us, swimming deep in emotion.  But then some moments are meant just to be lived, releasing slowly their intense warmth to brand the image into hearts of flesh.

Even now as he roots around and coos, he melts me in ways I can't, won't ever be able to tap out into words.  They've all done that.  Undone me.  Unraveled my tense, closed off places, leaving a string trail back to these precious times.  I take a deep breath of newbornness and know that the scent of heaven, of new birth is all over these days.

Lessons

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. ~Dorthea Lange

(quote found at Shutter Sisters, one of my new favorite sites)

 

 

My due date has come and gone, and now we wait.   We've lived here before in the long wait for new life where the bank account slowly drains but the small moments fill to the brim.  With Dad home, time is abundant.  And we watch in the waiting and learn how to see, savor, and suck the marrow out of the beauty he bestows on our days.   Someday my words will return, and now I am happy to take lessons.  To learn the small beginnings of wonder that leads to worship.

 

 

Seeing beyond the fashion disaster and fear of the self portrait to the belly that (most likely) will be the last, to the gift of a child we thought we lost, to the blessing of a life planned before time.  (Framed poetry free at Dear Lillie, a quote for every month of the year.)

 

 

The Master Designer was at work in lights and shadows and fog and tiny little geniuses in the night.

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin spice play dough

 

 

Letting them make their mark.  My journal is a safe place to hide their art, their love.  Note the date and treasure the gift.

 

 

 



White

Peering around the corner, I could just get a glimpse.  I envied the Navigator's better view.  We were all in white.  She volunteered to be first, something I didn't expect.   One by one answered "yes" to each question.  

Do you believe that Jesus is God and came to die for your sins? 
Do you believe He was raised from the dead and lives now? 
Have you put your trust in Him to be your savior and Lord?

One by one white shirts were immersed and overtaken by the warm water.  One by one heads broke back through the stirred surface.  Smiles were hidden under layers of soaked hair.   My cheeks were already wet before I even entered the pool.  Strange to wipe away water before being immersed in it.  Strange after so many years to finally make such a bold proclamation:  Jesus is my savior and my LORD. 

That lukewarm water didn't wash, didn't make us white, didn't save.   A heart washing is not so cheap.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.

The room was still and quiet when I left the pool, not like before when three young followers jumped and fidgeted and giggled.  I made my way carefully down the side stairwell and smiled.  There before me each step of the way were wet puddles.  There they are still imprinted on my mind, those prints symbolizing the same proclamation my children made.   My children are my brothers and sister.  How can I comprehend a God so gracious to give me the gift of the lives of my children--twice!  The first birth made them part of our family; the second made us part of HIS.  (May He be so gracious once more for Little Bug.)

Photo thanks to Katy Cook