It's Time to Check Back In!

So the last few months I have been relatively silent on my blog.  School is back underway, harvest is in full-swing, soccer season has started again where I am coaching multiple teams, and I am training for a marathon so to say I have free-time is almost a joke, but everyone is busy.  But between all the activities and running I find myself with some down time.  See, it is too far to drive all the way back home from town in the hour space between school and soccer, so we have been doing "filler" activities: going to the park, reading at the book store, kicking a soccer ball around before practice, going for a walk, and I have a severe observation to make: we as a society are very checked-out from one another, especially parents with their children.  Now I have read plenty of posts about parents pushing their kids on a swing while on their phone, or couples going out-to-eat and neither of them talk to each other because they are on their phones, but to actually see it in real life everywhere I go is extremely depressing.  Just yesterday the kids and I had about 2 hours from the time we got done with our kids' Wednesday School Store to their confirmation so we decided to go to the new park in town.  A few parents were following their toddlers around, but the majority of the parents were sitting on a bench, phone in hand, and periodically saying "wow, that's cool" (but not looking up) to their kids when their child was pleading with them to "watch me, Mom!".  I have been just as guilty of this as the next parent, but I am aware of it and making a change by leaving my phone in the car when I am with my kids.   So if I don't answer then you know I am doing more important things, so leave a message.

Every day I try to skim through the news and most of the articles are usually filled with the latest antics of the presidential candidates, or if Planned Parenthood is actually going to lose their funding, or all the refugees flooding Europe trying to escape war or whatever the media has "decided" is the most important topic for that day.  But with all those issues that are going on in the world around us, what is going on in our own households?  I personally believe that a lot of the problems going on in the world are because we as parents, grandparents, leaders, coaches, anyone of influence, are failing our children.  We are failing to teach accountability, responsibility, morals, pride, strength, compassion, and maybe most importantly love all because that dang device in our hand is so much more important!  There is so much negativity in this world that I believe that the adults of this world need to flood our kids with so much positive that it drowns out that negativity, and you can't do that staring at your phone.

My son last night at confirmation was doing a lesson on trust so they did a team-building exercise where you stand on a table and fall back and the group is suppose to catch you.  He thought it was the greatest thing and I really appreciate the activities that their group does to build kids up and mold them into strong, confident, young adults.  But probably the most stunning thing for me was after that activity they all got into small groups and everyone had to write on a piece of paper one thing they were most scared of, and they were going to put it into a fire and basically give their "fear over to God".  A lot of the kids wrote down death, spiders, snakes, the typical ones that everyone expects to hear.  But the most startling thing was some of the kids wrote sports, school, their weight, not fitting in, being ugly, and to hear my son tell that about 6th-12th graders, really broke my heart.  Can you guess what my son wrote down?  He wrote that he is "bigger than most of the kids in his class".  I was very quiet right away because I didn't know if he was talking about his weight (was he thinking himself as fat), or that he is taller (by almost a full-head than some of his best friends), or that his shoe-size is the same as his dads and he is only 11.  So I very calmly asked, "Well what did you mean by that?"  and his response made me cry. "Mom, I am not scared of snakes because I know that our dogs won't ever let them get near the house, I am not scared to die because I know God is watching over me and I will go to heaven, I am not scared of bad people because Dad and you will protect us, so I just wrote something down because I couldn't think of anything else that I was really scared of."  Now last year he was teased because he is the biggest and tallest in his class so that must have stuck with him, but seriously he couldn't think of anything else?  In a world filled with so much negativity, fear, turmoil, and evil, and that is the thing that he is scared of?  There are times when I turn the t.v. on and get really disheartened and wonder if God really is there for his people because so many innocents are suffering.  So, we talked again on how someday his classmates will grow and catch-up to him, and it isn't bad being the tallest or the biggest one.  But, he threw his paper into the fire like everyone else did and felt satisfied that his fear went to God.

As a mom I feel I try very hard with my kids, every day, trying to teach them to be the best kids they can be and many times I feeling like I am failing.  I feel that I am too busy, that I didn't give my kids enough hugs today, or that I didn't spend enough quality time with each one of them, or I wasn't positive enough.  But every once-in-a-while you get that rare opportunity where you get to witness your child doing something great and that you have taught them well.  Maybe they stand up for a kid that is getting bullied, maybe they hold the door open for an elderly person, maybe they help their little siblings with their homework, maybe they do something special for someone less fortunate, or maybe they are in confirmation and you have filled with them so much love and confidence that they really aren't scared of anything.  But in those moments you know as a parent that all those little things you did to them and for them, they mattered.  So let's put those phones away, check back in, and go do those little things in life, because one day you will realize that the little things were really the big things.