My sweet Makenna is growing up. (Insert ugly-cry-mixed-with-celebration-and-awe here.) She’s on the brink of those tween/teen years and all the hormones and decisions that go with it. I think she’s maybe a little excited and a little scared but so am I! It takes guts to become a teenager. It takes even more guts to parent a teenager.
But it makes think “What did I need as a girl-growing-up? Isn’t middle school really the point in all of our lives when we begin to wonder who we are and who we want to become? And isn’t that when we flounder? or experiment? or do REALLY strange things that no one in their right mind would actually ever do, but we’re just running on emotion and FEELING and the world tells us that that’s what we should base our decisions on? {I know I did.} So how do I help my girls lead a different story?” These are my wonderings.
And then there’s this beautiful TRUTH from Shauna Niequist:
Thanks for sharing, Shauna!
This is something akin to adopting family members, but kind of the opposite. This is being adopted by others… and adopting them as well, I suppose. We all need a few voices to speak over us and show us how it’s done. Our kids need to see different forms of truthful living for when hormones hit and MOM IS ALWAYS WRONG.
I am truly blessed when it comes to moms, because my own mom & mother-in-law love Jesus and love me and are a beautiful and consistent part of our family’s lives. I make a point to invite them into our daily lives and to pour into my kids and I because they have SO MUCH wisdom to share! Still, I came to a place about two years ago where I realized I was facing things my own moms had not faced and I needed wisdom and experience specific to the trial I was facing. God graciously sent me the gentlest Air B&B Host who shared her house and heart and Jesus in all the right ways to restore my faith and breath new life into my burdened heart.
{God literally blew fresh wind into my sails by surrounding me with “Momma Bev” AND these glorious windmills along the NW Michigan lakeshore. I could watch them spin for hours.}
In that season, I realized how glorious it is to have more than one Momma, so I came home and sought out more! I knew so many beautiful women who exemplified traits that I desired – women who were changing the world in some lovely way that was unique to them. And I asked them to “adopt” me! I asked for their prayers and their time (to meet somewhat regularly) and their covering over my life. THEN I did it for my daughters! I want to have women of faith and joy in place to speak to my girls WITH me and repeat the truths they need to hear. I want them to see Jesus from all sides and how He changes us all in different ways.
So here are your takeaways:
- Pursue the women in your life who are living out an image of who you want to become. Ask them to meet for coffee. Ask them for prayer! Make them a consistent part of your life.
- The women in your life who are already blowing fresh wind in your sails? Send them a thank you. They have lives too, but it’s so much more rewarding to share ❤
- Seek out women to pray/speak with you over your daughters. Maybe they’re the same women as the above #1, Maybe they’re different. I have one “Momma” for my girl who asked me to be her mentor/prayer covering years ago! Now she gets to repay the favor.
Family is just another word for living in REAL community. It’s all the same.
We’re sharing family, sharing homes, sharing dinner tables, sharing faith.
Who’s a Momma in your life that you’d like to send a shout out??
BREATHE 