Inspiration

Goals that Inspire or Paralyze

Laurie Russell — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:49:57 -0700

Our kids participated in a triathlon camp this summer at our local YMCA and loved it. Now they are sold on it and are training for a kid's triathlon that's coming up in a couple of weeks.

Yesterday I did a bike ride with them after school. Noah, our 10-year-old, wanted me to take my road bike because it has a “speedometer” on it. Periodically he’d ask about our speed and distance. He seemed content that we were averaging 10mph, however, each time I looked back at them, both kids appeared to be on a leisure stroll, not a training ride. So I asked if we should bump it up to 12mph or more.

“No, I don’t think I go that fast,” he spouted. Noah is our conservative child. His mind was telling him to keep it safe but I knew he could handle it. So I did the obnoxious mom thing and gradually began upping the pace 10, 11, 12 mph...looking back periodically to see how they were doing. I kept us there for a few minutes and checked again – they still appeared to be on a joy ride.

“How you guys doing?”

“Great!”

“We’re going 15 mph!”

“No way!! I didn’t think I could go that fast!” Confidence was building and it shown in his eyes.

Numbers can be intimidating. They give us a concrete goal that we either do or do not meet. They can inspire us to push our self beyond old limitations. At the same time, they can also paralyze us if the hurdles before us are too daunting. Doubt takes over and it pollutes our vision and it's hard to move forward.

God didn’t create us for mediocrity. Jesus told us we’d do greater things than He. But, there is wisdom found in realistiic goal setting. Growing up, I wanted to be the first female, professional soccer player but my genes thwarted that one. Just because we want to do or become something doesn't necessarily make pursuing it a wise use of our time and effort.

How are we to balance goals that lead us to the greatness God created us for without misleading ourselves?

1. Pray – This seems obvious but it’s often overlooked. Ask God to direct your goals. Commit to Him what it is you desire. Your prayers will focus your mind and heart into the goal and give you the discernment needed in choosing the correct goal.

2. Assess – Look at your circumstances. If your goal is to run a marathon but your 9 months pregnant – you may want to wait. If it’s a business or ministry goal, look around you. What are the needs? What are your natural abilities? What means do you possess? Is it a good use of time and resources?

3. Test – Often we don’t know how strong we are until we test it. Our son Noah didn’t realize his physical fitness until he tried and pushed beyond what his mind was telling him. His mind was holding him back.

4. Go for it – As the old Nike slogan says, “Just do it”. Times of doubt will come. Failure will lure in front of you. There may be a need to readjust the timetable but…goals God wants met never die unless we kill them. It’s up to you to make it a reality.

God didn’t give us a number to go after but He did give us a future with hope. Go for it my friend!

How do you set goals?

Are there steps you go through in setting them?

Call Vignettes- A Series of Surrenders 7- Compelled

Crissy Brooks — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:52:27 -0800

My high school graduation gift was a plane ticket to Florida to visit my cousins. I loved being with my older cousins who took me out and treated me like a princess. Everything they did was big: big hugs, big parties, big mistakes, and big faith. My Uncle Dale is kind of the patriarch of the group and one day when I stopped by his church he sat me down in his office. He showed me a painting of the prophet Simeon and shared with me how that painting reminds him of his call and inspires his faith. “What is your call?” he asked, leaning in intently. “I don’t know. Something about the poor, something about helping people…” I hemmed and hawed. “What inspires you to do that,” he asked. “It doesn’t have to be something from the Bible. Is there a piece of art or a song that compels you?” It came to me immediately. “The Statue of Liberty,” I blurted out. The poem on the statue brings me to tears every time I hear it.

I remembered standing at the base of the Statue of Liberty looking back at the city weeping. I went to Ellis Island two days in a row when I was in New York soaking up every story and detail of the people who had left their homes to start a new life in a foreign place. To this day I am taken by their courage and vision. Immigrant stories remind me of what it means to live in a place you are not from. They show me Jesus. “Get a copy of that poem,” my uncle urged me, “and keep it where you can see and be reminded of the burden and call God has put in your heart.”

Although I couldn’t (and in ways, still can’t) succinctly describe the things God had put in my heart, I knew what moved me. I knew what made my heart beat fast and compelled me to lean in. Sometimes that is all the direction you need. I took his advice and I now have the poem in my office: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” And I have collected other pictures and art whose beauty compels me on in the call. What inspires you? What encourages you on in obedience to the things God has called you to?

The New Colossus

by Emma Lazarua

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Your Worldview!?

Heal the World — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The children at the Shalom school are inspiring, and they have worked their magic on me. Without education their future isn't bright, or it wouldn't seem bright to us Westerners. In America it's stressed that if you don't finish high school then your future will be flipping burgers and digging ditches. Here finishing primary school is barely a goal, flipping burgers and digging ditches is a career, and anything more is a gift from god. When I get home from Burkina I plan on fund raising money for the Shalom school. I want those kids to have all the tools necessary for their education. Even though they'll most likely never have electricity, I want to fund raise enough money to spoil them in every other regard! Look around and be thankful for what you have. We are a a society privileged to the fullest. It takes coming somewhere like this, and working on a day to day basis with the people to truly be grateful. If you think you are, well think again.

The children.


Their situation.

That photo was taken at the Shalom school, that is their village, Rimkieta, in the background.

The Importance of Writing Stuff Down

Manuel Luz — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:49:33 -0700

It is less a contrast than it is a similarity. Two men, both highly educated Jews, both bold and passionate preachers of the message of the Gospel, both leaders in the first century Church. Paul and Apollos were both used by God to build His Kingdom in the precarious, turbulent infancy of the Christian faith. But only one of these men still has a ministry today. Indeed, Paul’s contribution to the New Testament is central to our understanding of the Gospel.

Why is Paul’s influence greater than that of Apollos? Spiritual calling aside, there seems a simple reason: He Wrote Stuff Down.

I’m a big Writer of Stuff. I have To-Do lists, archives of song lyrics, sermons and speeches, unpublished books and written meanderings. According to the stats counter, my personal blog site just hit 100 blog entries last week. I even have an archive of carefully documented calendars that stretches back to my freshman year in college, which I can’t bear to throw out. What if I suddenly need to know what I did during the summer of 1984?

Paul’s writings, obviously, have a more influential gravitas. But the point is, his passion and understanding of the heart and mind of Christ were documented in a way that move us two thousand years later. And we cannot say the same of Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew and bishop of the Corinthian church, who’s fingerprint on the first century church is no less deep.

I share this in part because I know there are a lot of frustrated writers out there. People hitting me up to find out how to get this Thing they’ve written published. And while I might be a helpful encouragement and a catalyst to them, the main thing I tell them is to just to keep writing. Not everyone is called to be a “published author” (whatever that means these days). That’s not the point of writing. Your audience may be only a hundred or a dozen or your spouse. In my experience, the act of writing is a creative and cathartic act that you do because you must do it. And of course, there is the vertical component—God is the audience for everything we do.

About fifteen years ago, after a decade of gentle but constant prodding, my father began work on his memoirs. He is among the first generation of Filipino American immigrants, and arrived in the US as a teenager, prior to the Great Depression. Poor but educated, his story is one of unsettling desperation, human perseverance, life-threatening bigotry, surprising romance, personal triumph. I know this in large part because he took the time to write his story. My cousins and I got together and self-published his modest book, Five Dollars in Change, and we’ve shared it with family and friends who were all grateful for the amazing stories previously untold.

Recently, I stumbled upon the semi-autobiographical novel of Filipino writer, Carlos Bulosan, entitled America is in the Heart. Moving, heartbreaking, revealing, it is The Grapes of Wrath for the Filipino American. As I read his account of life in the 1930s, I realized that Bulosan’s life mirrored my father’s in so many ways, from the incessant prejudice he experienced, to the overwhelming hopelessness felt by his people, to the enduring belief in his ideals. I realized that his book and my father’s dovetailed in many ways. It should be required reading for any Filipino American living today.

Dad passed away almost ten years ago now. And I am eternally grateful to him for many things. But one of his enduring legacies that I can pass down to my children and to their children is the story of his life. Ultimately, his book will help us understand him, and in the process, help us understand ourselves.

And all because he Wrote Stuff Down.

Waiting

jodie howerton — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:55:01 -0800

We’ve spent the better part of the last month making copies of our birth certificates, getting physicals, being interviewed by social workers, and installing more smoke alarms. We’ve filled out questionnaires about parenting, watched hours of training on trans-racial adoption, read books on attachment, given over our 3 years of tax forms, and prayed a lot. Finally, after many trips to the notary and the post office, I’m happy to report we have finally mailed off all our official adoption documents.

People keep asking me what our timeline is, when our son will be home. It’s absolutely maddening that I have to answer truthfully, “I don’t know.” The process is out of our hands and in the hands of 2 government bureaucracies. Every day when the mail truck arrives (at precisely 3:22pm) I bolt outside to get it, hoping there will be some receipt or communication that will advance us to the next step.

I have liked being busy with the paperwork. I like tasks. Collecting documents and checking things off made me feel like I had some degree of control over the speed of the process. This waiting part feels just the opposite. I feel out of control and restless. It’s like being forced to take an intermission right in the middle of the most suspenseful part of a movie. It’s like someone just hit the pause button on our life.

Now that I’m not busy with details of the process, I’m free to feel all these things I’ve shoved to the side in the name of efficiency and expedience. I’m afraid I won’t be the right kind of mother, the kind he needs. I’m grieving for the losses he has already sustained in his young life. I’m worried about our family’s transition and about his health. I’m worried about attachment and all the unique things that come with trans-racial adoption. I’m even worried about whether he will like the dog.

The benefit of feeling all these heavy things is that I know how to pray. Waiting is teaching me to pray and allow God to minister to my insecurities. The praying is supplying peace. Sometimes.

I’m still going to run out to greet the mail truck in 47 minutes.

Waiting for Inspiration

Manuel Luz — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:41:45 -0800

Traditionally, I take the week off after Christmas. For a worship pastor like myself, this is a bit of a sacred time—to spend with family, physically and spiritually refuel from the long fall and Christmas schedule, and do a little reflecting on life. This last week, I also fired up my project recording studio, collected all the odd and unformed lyrics I have jotted down over the past six months, and gave my right brain an opportunity to play a little bit. (I also snuck onto my daughters' new Wii a few times, but that may be irrelevant.)

Every songwriter works in their own way. Some like to start with a melody; others begin with a lick or a lyrical phrase or some chord changes. There are no rules, no procedures, no single formula for writing a song. There is only this inexplicable thing called inspiration—that seems like luck and works like magic and feels like madness.

The most gifted and hard working artists seem to be inspired all the time, but that is not true. When there is no inspiration, it is then that skill and gifting can carry you. A gifted songwriter can write a song whether or not they are inspired, simply because they understand the craft of songwriting. A gifted painter can create an amazing work of art simply because they have a canvas in front of them. And a gifted writer can write a great article simply because they are under a deadline. All of this begs the question: Is inspiration a requirement for creativity?

As artists, we are obligated to steward the gifts God gives us, through diligent discipline. Artists must be attentive to their craft. In other words, having talent is not an excuse for not working hard. Quite the opposite—the greater the giftedness, the greater the obligation to steward those gifts, to work and hone our craft. It is a matter of the parable of the talents, applied to our talents. And so, because I understand and practice the craft of songwriting, I can write songs that are creative. But I don't always write songs that are good. In fact, I am really quite good at writing mediocre songs. So where does the inspiration come in?

Jeremy Begbie states that "art is...inherently dialogical." And I believe that includes a vertical dialogue, a transcendent and spiritual component to our art. When we are inspired, it feels like we are tapping into this wholly other thing.

This last week, I was feeling inspired. And for me, this inspiration—that seems like luck and works like magic and feels like madness—took me somewhere I don't think I could have gone by myself.

As a Christ-follower, I believe that all true inspiration ultimately comes from the Spirit of God. I also know that the Spirit of God is a much better songwriter than I am, so I am often reticent to give him credit for the stuff I write. But this week, I walked into my studio with a some unhurried time, a few scratched-out ideas, and an attentiveness to the Inspirer of things—and I walked out of my studio with three new songs. And so far, they still sound pretty good.

Time to challenge my daughter to a round of Wii bowling.

I Got Nothin'

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:09:55 -0800

What do pastors do when Sunday morning is barreling down on them and they realize they have absolutely nothing to say from the pulpit? Women-in-the-pulpit theology aside, I’m awfully glad I will never be a pastor. The burden to create life-changing sermons week upon week must weigh on a man, especially if he is naturally a shepherd, a hand-on-the-shoulder guy, or just rhetorically average.

Inspiration is a tricky cat. If you believe in the Holy Spirit—and I do—you want to believe that God can zap our intellect, give us supernatural insight, and use his Holy Scriptures to shape our teaching. Yet I’m pretty sure God didn’t deem sacred the seven-day cycle of insights, where the Holy Spirit punches his time clock at certain intervals just in time for the church secretary to print the sermon title every Wednesday for the church bulletin. Our church system seems to have nudged out the natural growth cycles of Inspiration and his sister crop Revelation. But here we are in a system where the vast majority of churches operate on the expectation of a sturdy Sabbath harvest, delivered by the local pastor / farmer right on cue.

What if by Friday afternoon that farmer’s got nothin’ but rocks and weeds?

Zadie Smith in her intellectually demanding collection of essays Changing My Mind, believes inspiration happens in two ways. The first comes from absorbing everything you can find—great novels, comic books, the daily news, essays, conversations—in an attempt to allow great thinkers to wash over you in some kind of intellectual marinade. This, many believe, is a legitimate way of boosting inspiration, and some go so far as to suggest that no insight ever happens in isolation. Even that burrito you ate last night shifted your midnight thoughts and led to a new conclusion in your grand idea.

The other, fiercely independent, strategy is to shut yourself off from the world of ideas, fasting, as it were, from the rich foods of books and essays. In this way, you are assured that your inspiration comes from within (or in the case of pastors, from God himself), safe from the plagiaristic temptations of men.

So what would God ask of our pastors and teachers? What would he ask of me, a writer? Should I be looking for objects on the ground from which to create a Found Poem, a musical cover, a refurbished engine? Or should I search only within myself to find the heart of God himself, the mystical union of mind and spirit?

I have no great answer. But the man or woman who spends his life in both realms is better equipped, I think, to discover God’s spirit. God works within and without, using the supernatural and the mundane to push us toward elevated thoughts, both methods working like sun and water to bring a harvest of inspiration.

If I were a pastor (and since I never will be, I find it easy to throw out such an audacious proposal), I would tell my congregation to go home some Sunday mornings. I got nothin’ I would tell them. Go home and write your own sermon today. And if salaries weren’t such a pesky detail, I might also gather ten teachers together, young and old, internet trollers and pensive thinkers, deep philosophers and rhetorical comedians—all wedded to sturdy doctrine—and I would say Let’s all teach this year. Whenever you get a crop, let the rest of know and we’ll let you show up on Sunday. The rest of us will enjoy your food and wait until our sprouts are green.

Now I think I got something.

Baby Steps

jodie howerton — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:25:17 -0800

I love-hate the old 90's film, "What About Bob." Every time I watch it, I laugh out loud, mostly in a nervous, really uncomfortable, I'm-not-sure-what-else-to-do, kind of way. The character,"Bob," is horrifically neurotic. He has OCD to the nth degree. He won't touch anything without cleaning it and his fears and hang-ups outnumber even the most terrified cartoon character. His only salvation, his only pathway through the bog of his own psychosis, is a pop psychologist who has penned a trite self-help book called "Baby Steps." Bob, like a desperate leech, latches on to the concept and begins to see improvement. He can suddenly take elevators by taking one baby step at a time. He can walk out of his living room because all he has to do is take one step, and then another step. Bob's obsession with the book leads to more uncomfortable, neurotic humor and the audience can chuckle because the scenario is just too absurd to be real. WE are not that crazy. WE obviously have better boundaries. We don't need to take baby steps. Right? RIGHT????

This week, I am identifying with Bob on a whole new level. I'm not about to stalk anyone, don't worry. But, as of late, I have wondered if Bob-like neurosis was in my immediate future. We have made some huge, gargantuan life decisions that initially sent me into a spiral of pure bona fide nuttiness. In an economy that isn't any one's friend, we have decided to embark on two separate but, strangely connected adventures. First, we are pursuing an international adoption that we aren't at liberty to discuss in detail but, is likely going to cost a whole heck of a lot of money, and second, we are going to seriously increase our giving to our church, which is completely, literally committed to making a dent in global injustice in the next 3 years... I'm not writing about this to brag. I'm not writing about this so I can gain some kind of saintly favor from God.

I'm writing about this because deciding to commit to both was really HARD. We came to the commitment by taking teensy little baby steps and by crying and negotiating with God a lot.

And then, after safely jumping from lily pad to lily pad, we just dove in headf irst, right in to the pond. Faith is, after all, being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11) I guess you could say we've done a big, joyful belly flop.

Committing to 2 very pricey endeavors on a pastor's salary is just plain scary. Scary but, exciting. Invigorating, actually. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I know that we are risking to affect change on a global scale, that our sacrifice means something in the grand scheme of things.

So, I guess I'm writing to encourage you to do your own belly flop. You get extra points if it makes a loud smacking sound when you hit the water. :) It stings but, you know you're absolutely, undeniably alive.

No Risk, No Reward

jodie howerton — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:43 -0700

Last week, my husband jumped out of an airplane.

For a sermon illustration.

He's done lots of things for sermon illustrations. He has used real fire and real chain saws to drive a point home. He uses the verbal illustration most often. He talks about me, his kids, and his friends in sermons all the time. If you know him long enough, you will appear in the weekly sermon. It's an honor, actually. Well, most of the time. He once tattled on me to the whole congregation, claiming that I was a "cusser", a foul mouthed human being. The congregation laughed, because they all knew he was exaggerating, and I had to answer a thousand questions about the incident inthe hallways after the service. In my defense, I uttered one small word (not even a really bad one) in front of my kids and they delighted in repeating it over and over. They told daddy and a sermon illustration was born. You just can't trust kids these days. I must note here that sometimes the stories in his messages are stretched the ever most teensiest bit.

This time, though,the point he was trying to get across could not be done from the safety of a stage or from behind a pulpit. The message was too big, too risky, too important. He called me week before the stunt and I could immediately tell something important was on his mind.

"Hey babe," he said.

"Hey."

"How's your day going? Are you having a good day?"

"Yes. I am...Why do you ask?"

"Well, um...I was wondering what you'd think if I jumped out of an airplane...."

"HUH? WHAT? Wow. Well, someday I think that would be fine. Would you mind picking up some milk on your way home?"

"Friday. I want to skydive on Friday."

I was dumbfounded but, surprisingly excited for him. I felt inclined to allow him the space to experience pure- adrenaline -rush- only- supplied- by- insanity. I'm proud of the fact that we're generally a risk taking family. We deal in adventure. We do roller coasters, we hike, we do marathons and triathlons. We prize toughness. We sometimes forget to wash our hands. Skydiving was a new addition to the list but, I said I would endorse his escapade with one condition. I wanted to be there.

After all, someone would have to collect his broken bones if the chute didn't open.....

So, Friday, the kids and I traveled to the airport with Mike to watch him fling himself willingly from a perfectly good airplane. He had to sign a waiver. You know, that document that lets you know that if anything happens as a result of your OWN CHOICES, the operator of the COMPANY THAT PROVIDED THE OPPORTUNITY, is not in any way liable for anything catastrophic that may or may not happen. I shouldn't have read it. It was not what one would call GOOD FOR THE NERVES. Here are some exerpts:

"Jumping out of an airplane is a very dangerous thing to do. Please do not ever say that we told you skydiving is safe. It is not." It goes on to list the different injuries one can sustain from skydiving, "broken legs, angles, wrists or fingers," and "death from hitting the ground too hard."

He signed it, kissed me and our 2 kids and boarded the airplane. Just as he was heading out to the air strip, we spied this quote on the wall:

"Take risks not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping." This prevented me from begging him to return immediately to the car.

The kids and I watched his plane take off, watched it disappear in the clouds, and watched a tiny white speck plummet toward the earth. I was mostly calm. At least that's what my kids would tell you. Inside I was desperately trying to quiet the crazy raving lunatic telling me that I would never see my husband in one piece again.

When the parachute deployed, we could see and hear him clearly. Relief flooded by soul. He made it down safely and I was able to breathe normally again. You can watch thevideo at the link below.

http://vimeo.com/7150174

So, why did he jump? What was the point he was trying to prove? Overlake is

heading into a huge, mind blowing vision campaign. The campaign itself is not mind blowing but, it's goals are. Goals like 1,000 slaves set free, 2,000 orphans adopted into loving families, 1,000 churches planted, 50 Community Health Centers to combat HIV/AIDS......

We're asking our congregation to give of themselves in a way that many of them never have. We're asking them to take this risk with us and give of their time and resources in sacrificial, radical ways, even in the midst of this crazy repressive recession. We're asking them to trust God.

These things, my friends, are why I let my husband jump out of an airplane.

Holding Hands in Public

jodie howerton — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:31:30 -0700

Today I dropped my 9 –year-old daughter off at the Jr. high bus stop.

Our school district offers violin lessons for 4^th graders at the local Jr. high before school. 4^th graders are to ride the bus with the Jr. High kids, take their lesson, and re-board the bus, which drops them off at their proper elementary school. Because I’m really very afraid of Junior High kids (I spent a year teaching 7^th grade Spanish), I debated whether or not to just drive her to the school myself, sparing her the bus experience. She’s so tiny and sweet, I rationalized. Those kids will eat her alive. Plus, how will she be able to find the music room when she gets there? I mentioned this plan to Alex and, horrified, she replied, “Mom. There. Is. No. Way. You can’t drop me off.” She wanted to do this herself. She assured me that she’d sit near the bus driver and that if she couldn’t find the music room, she’d find a teacher and ask for help.

Plus, she didn’t want to be seen with her mother holding her hand at the Jr. High. I can be overbearing that way. You know, trying to hold her hand in public.

I reluctantly agreed to let her ride the bus.

Alex has been looking forward to the start of violin lessons for weeks. She’s been “practicing” with her half size violin and bow and trying to figure out how to properly tune it. Mike and I have politely listened to the squawks and squeaks of the tiny instrument, playing the part of the rapturous audience because of the delighted face Alex wears when she plays it. Well, I played the part. I think Mike really was rapturous. His love of our kids is big and unabashed. He loves them like crazy and is their chief cheerleader. He’s permanently proud of them.

I have learned to take ibuprofen before the concert of scratchy strings and loud whistling begins.

I woke Alex up early this morning and she stumbled out of bed with unusual compliance. She usually loathes the morning time. Today, however, she was excited. She carefully chose her outfit, took a shower, and asked me to blow dry her hair. She fussed over which shoes to wear and insisted her glasses were crooked. I fixed the apparently crooked glasses and watched Alex continue to bustle around the house as if she’d had one too many cups of coffee.

“She’s nervous,” I pointed out the obvious to my husband.

“Yeah, “ he replied, “Don’t worry. I’ll walk her to the bus.”

Alex must have overheard this exchange because when I went upstairs to check on her progress, she whispered,

“Mom, I don’t want Daddy to walk me to the bus.”

“Why not, honey?” I asked, surprised.

“I don’t know,” she fumbled and then looked at the floor.

Remembering her desire to not be seen holding my hand at the Jr. High, I could see her imagining Mike bestowing his big, unabashed love on her at the bus stop in front of the older kids.

“Oh, I said. “OK. How about if I drive you down and you can get out of the car when the bus comes?”

“OK, thanks Mom,” she answered with a sigh of relief.

I broke the news to Mike that his little baby girl didn’t want him to walk her down. It hurt his feelings. When I gently told him that she wanted me to take her, his shoulders fell and his face took on a pained expression.

Alex and I rushed out the door and drove to the bus stop. When the bus came, she flew out of the car and called out “Hi!” to the Jr. High kids in the most innocent voice I’ve ever heard. She threw me a grin and waved wildly as she boldly boarded the yellow school bus.

I came home and sat down on the couch next to Mike, remembering the days when I didn’t want my own parents to hold my hand in public. I tried to comfort him. I tried to explain that, in a way, Alex’s desire to go it alone on the bus is proof that we’re raising her well. The love we provide, the boisterous, full, crazy love Mike provides on a regular basis has helped create a strong foundation of self-confidence. She wasn’t rejecting us or being rude, she was testing out her independence. She wanted to see if she could get on that bus without her cheerleaders and their boisterous hugs.

He understood but, I think he still felt sad.

Tonight, when there are no Jr. Highers looking, I’m going to hold her hand tight. And Mike’s going to make a big fuss over her violin playing. Then, we’re going to hug her repeatedly.

She might be a little embarrassed but, that’s just the kind of parents we are.