Don't Forget the Stick

It's my job to get the hockey stick when we go to practice and games. My daughter hauls her bag of gear, and I grab the stick. We've always done it that way, mainly because my daughter doesn't remember how long the stick is and has a tendency to accidentally whack others with it. We've been hauling her gear and stick to practice and games for more than a year and a half, and I've never forgotten the stick. Until last night.

I popped open the back of my station wagon, pulled out her gear and realized we didn't have a stick. A hockey player's stick isn't like a baseball bat. You can't just pick up another one and it will do the same thing. Sticks are cut to be the right height, and the blades are curved differently, depending on if you're a left-handed shot or a right-handed one. Playing with someone else's stick is a lot like trying to borrow someone else's eyeglasses. You can do it, but it may not be the right fit.

Left with no choice, we checked with the guys at the snack bar to see if they had a stick we could borrow. The one they came up with was a little bit short and curved a little bit in the wrong direction. But it was better than no stick at all. My daughter survived practice without her stick but said it wasn't something she wanted to do again.

Because I forgot her stick, my daughter was forced to play with a stick that was less than ideal. Too often, we try to force our kids to play the game of life with the wrong stick. We forget that our kids were created to be who God wants them to be, not who we want them to be.

I'll admit there are times when I try to force my girls into the mold that I would like them to fit. I miss the days when my girls loved to wear skirts and dresses. Now, it's all jeans and T-shirts. Sometimes, I wish I could get my youngest to just take a few minutes to think before she acts and not barrel through life at 110 miles an hour. And there are other days when I wish my oldest would not be quite so cautious. There are days when I'd rather do anything other than sit through another freezing hockey practice or another rainy soccer game.

But God designed our kids to be a part of His perfect plan -- not a part of our "perfect" household. As a parent, it's our job to encourage our kids and to show them how to use their gifts and personalities for Him. It's not our job to create the "perfect" children.

We are to help mold our kids into the image that God has for them, not the image we have in our minds. No matter how different our kids' choices may seem, we must keep in mind that Genesis 1:27 tells us "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Those quirks and differences are all a part of who they are. And who they are is exactly who God made them to be.

So, encourage your kids to be themselves. Don't expect them to be like anyone else. God didn't make them to fill the same role as anyone else. Let them play with their own stick, not a borrowed one, and you'll be amazed at where God will take them.

Bursting with Potential

My youngest's long-delayed (for snow) school music program was last night. The program's theme was "I Wanna Be." The kids were all dressed in costumes of what they wanted to be when they grew up. As I looked at the stage filled with aspiring artists, zookeepers, veterinarians, athletes, rock stars, astronauts, software engineers, businessmen and teachers, I thought, "Look at the potential on that stage."

Most of those kids won't grow up to be the things that they are dreaming about right now, but at 7 and 8 years old, they are filled with the potential to be and do just about anything. They will spend the next 10 to 15 years figuring out where their particular talents lie and how to use them. It's our job to guide them on that path.

What a daunting task. It would be so easy to mold our kids to be just like us -- and in some ways it's inevitable that our kids will imitate us. But, it's important for us to support our kids when they want to explore things that aren't within our sphere of influence. If your child wants to learn to build robots or join a dance troupe or join the chess club, encourage those interests. Some of them will stick, and some will fall by the wayside, but all will teach your child something either about herself or about dealing with others.

1 Corinthians 12:12 says "Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ." All Christ-followers form the body of Christ. Each one of us has special gifts and talents to use for God. Discovering those gifts and talents is easy for some and takes a long time for others. As a parent, we need to guide our children as they are discovering those gifts.

• Evaluate your kids' interests. If they want to do something that's outside what society considers the norm, don't dismiss it out of hand. Look into the situation and see if there's some way you can satisfy your child's interests within the constraints of the programs offered. Sometimes we have to think outside the box to keep up with our child's interests.
• Don't let your child's interests bankrupt you or drive you crazy trying to get them places. Encourage exploration of talents, but keep in mind that your sanity is important as well. If something is too expensive or too far away, look for other options.
• Remember that trying something is not a lifelong committment. Give your kids an opportunity to explore, but don't commit them to anything for more than a season. Kids have a short attention span. After a season is over, they may want to try something else.
• Be supportive of whatever you and your child decide to try. My parents used to come watch me manage the girls' softball team in high school. I can't imagine how boring that must have been. I mean, I kept score and told the girls the batting lineup, but it made a difference knowing that my parents were interested in what I was doing. Make the effort to be a part of their activities, even if it means watching your child write on a clipboard.
• Talk with your child about their activities. Find out if there's something else that they would like to do than what they are currently doing. I'm not advocating constantly changing activities, but it takes some kids a while to find the place where their gifts and talents are being used.

When you look at your kids today, look at them with an eye for potential. Your kids are bursting with it, and they need your help to discover how to use it for God. Be willing to walk along the journey of finding that potential. I promise you won't regret it.

An Out-of-Control Imagination

About 20 minutes after we put the girls to bed last night, my oldest was standing in front of me, tears streaming down her face explaining that she couldn't go to sleep because she kept thinking about some scary stuff someone at school had told her. God has gifted my oldest with an amazing imagination. She can draw entire comics, write extremely creative stories and make up song lyrics on the spot. I can send the girls out to play with the neighbors and with nothing more than a rock and a bucket, my oldest will create an elaborate plot for the girls to follow as they play. I am in awe of this gift that God has given her.

But, sometimes, that gift can take a scary turn. Because she has such an active imagination, she's extremely open to suggestion, and the time before she goes to sleep can become a terror fest for her. She'll start to dwell on something that someone told her. Lying there in the dark, she can create situations in her mind that are terrifying. This usually ends either in nightmares later in the night or, as it did last night, with her standing in front of us crying because she's scared to go to sleep.

For many parents, the scenario I've just described is a familiar one. It's also an extremely teachable moment. So, we need to put aside our frustration at what may seem like "silly" fears and teach our children how to stop letting what God intended for good be used in a way He never intended.

Psalm 34:14 tells us "Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it." Within this short, little verse is the key to putting our kids on the path to using whatever gift God has given them for good. Now, my daughter is not "evil" because she lets her imagination get carried away, but the things she is dwelling on that scare her are "evil" because they rob her of the peace that God promised her.

God has given each of our children talents that they can use for Him or that they can use in other ways that aren't pleasing to him. The key to teaching our children to use their talents for good is teaching them to recognize when they are straying from what God intended and then teaching them to seek and pursue peace when using their gifts. Sounds easy, right? It's easy to talk about, but even as adults, we struggle with this. Teach your kids a simple process to recognize when they are letting their gifts and talents serve the world instead of God.

• Talk with your kids about the gifts and talents God has given them. Ask them how they think they can use those gifts and talents for God. Then, ask them if they can think of any way that they could use those gifts and talents in ways that aren't pleasing to God.
• Give your kids this simple process to follow: Stop, Ask, Pray, Replace. It works like this. Whenever they are in a situation where they find themselves using their gifts and talents in a way that either scares them or that they aren't sure is pleasing to God, they should Stop what they are doing. Next, they should Ask this question: Is what I'm doing pleasing to God? If the answer is yes, they can keep doing what they are doing. If the answer is no, then they move on to step 3. They should Pray and give their gift or talent to God. They should ask God to remove whatever fear their use of their talent has brought them and ask God to show them how to use their gift for Him. The last step is Replace. They should try to replace what they are doing with something else that is pleasing to God.
• This process looked like this last night with my oldest. We asked her to identify the problem, which was that she had let her imagination run away with her, which led her to worry about things that weren't likely to happen. We talked about how that wasn't what God intended for her to do with her imagination. We prayed with her and asked God to take away her fear and to help her not to let her imagination create fear. We also asked that God would replace her fear with peace. Then, we gave her something else to think about. We told her to build the best ice cream sundae ever in her head until she fell asleep.

The next time your son or daughter gets caught in a spiral of using a gift or talent that God has given them in a way that's not pleasing to God, help them follow the Stop, Ask, Pray, Replace method to find peace and to use their gifts for God.