On Saturday, I helped my husband dismantle the wooden play set our kids no longer use. When we first bought it, a dozen years ago, it was our daughters’ favorite spot. It had swings, monkey bars and a trapeze bar with rings where I showed them how to “skin the cat.” (That’s where you hold on to the rings and flip your feet over your head.) Along with the swing set, there was a little house just a ladder-climb up. It had real glass windows that slid open and close just like the ones at home. There were shingles on the pitched roof and a plastic, green slide you could whiz down for a dramatic exit. The play set survived a move from our original home to a second location. Soon after we moved it to our current backyard, I spent one hot afternoon painting the inside of the little house: the walls in chalkboard paint so they could add their own decorations and the ceiling to look like blue skies with white clouds and the floor to look like different types of rooms—tile for a bathroom, checkered linoleum for a kitchen, carpet for a bedroom, an oval, braided throw rug for a living room. I painted the inside of the door to look like it had a stained glass window design of white birch trees standing in front of distant mountains. You could argue that I loved the play set as much as they did. But time marches on, and now I have three kids in high school. My youngest is still in elementary school, but he hasn’t shown much interest in it in a few years. Instead, his focus is on the soccer goals standing near the play set or the bike in the garage. My kids just stopped paying attention to the play set. If this were a children’s book, the ending would be different. If it were like The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, you would see the play set giving of itself until all that was left was a few rungs of the ladder and a broken tire swing. Since that would make my kids like the boy in the story—selfish and negligent of the needs and feelings of others, I’m okay with it not being that particular story. If I could choose, I would rather it be like The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton. In that story, the house is built out in the country. It’s lived in and loved on until the bustling city crowds out the area and the little house is hidden by the train lines and the towering skyscrapers. Just when things look bleakest, the descendants of the original owners jack up the house and place it on a trailer. They drive it out to a new place, farther out in the country where it can be lived in and loved on again. Sentimental as I am, I was hoping someone would do the same for our dear play set, but it was too complicated. Taking it apart is hard enough, but reconstructing it would be even harder. A few people looked at the structure, but no one decided it was worth all the hassle. I can’t blame them—it’s been sitting out, exposed to the elements for a while and it shows, but it was sad to pry up pieces and toss them in the bed of the pickup truck before hauling them to the dump. This is one of those necessary phases of parenting. The fact that they don’t play like they used to has been true for a while, but growth is gradual. When you suddenly realize it’s time to box up the Barbies or give away the train table, their evolution out of childhood becomes more tangible. It breaks my heart a little, but I can say for sure that this deep bout of heartache is absolutely worth the years which preceded it. I wouldn’t trade watching these kids play for anything.

I aspire to have a magnificent garden someday. In my imagination, I grow heirloom tomatoes, delicate lettuces and beans with cranberry speckles. I know just what to plant and where to plant it and when to get the plants in the ground. I can identify any insect that might enter the domain of my beloved garden and the best way to eradicate the sinister ones. I can feel an approaching storm in the marrow of my bones, accurately predicting the rainfall my plants will receive. Unfortunately, this is all in my imagination. If only dreaming were the same as doing. Instead I spend most of my outdoor time in the spring at soccer games. Someday… In the meantime, I have been able to grow one thing abundantly—cherry tomatoes. There are few foods in this world that I love as much as fresh-grown tomatoes. In the summer, we eat a lot of BLT sandwiches and green salads with homemade ranch dressing and pasta tossed with sliced grilled chicken, olive oil, chopped garlic, ribbons of fresh basil, halved cherry tomatoes and a bit of sea salt. But I’m just as happy to eat a bowl full of sliced tomatoes topped with a big dollop of cottage cheese. Because of this great love of the tomato, it’s such a thrill when I see a tomato seedling pop up which I didn’t plant. It’s a bonus plant, an unexpected gift. As I watered my little row of cherry tomato plants this morning, I found the little fella, trying its best to grow in the shade of its bigger and more productive brothers. I spoke to it (I’m that Crazy Tomato Lady you’ve been hearing about), and told the baby plant to keep on going so it could give me some of those ruby-like tomatoes which I crave. This was a good kind of surprise, one that I didn’t see coming but welcomed with open arms (or, in this case, open mouth). It made me wonder if I had ever been the volunteer tomato plant for someone else. Wouldn’t it be nice to give someone a good surprise? How many times have I overlooked or ignored an opportunity to go out of my way to do something for a fellow human, not out of obligation or personal glory, but only because I had a chance to brighten that person’s day? This week, let’s look for an opportunity to be an unexpected surprise for someone. It can be a stranger or a neighbor or a person you’ve known your whole life. Don’t let them know it was you, but do let them know they are loved. It doesn’t have to cost anything. It just takes a little effort and selfless motivation and a desire to bloom where you’re planted.

I have the great blessing of leading the preschoolers at my church in praise time on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. We bring out our “Little Christian Light” and we get “wrapped up, tied up, tangled up in God.” We sing about having a joy down in our hearts and building our houses on rock, not sand. The songs are upbeat, action-packed and repetitive. One of my standard, go-to songs is “My God is So Big.” To explain just how big God is, the kids will spread out their arms and show me their muscles. To show that He’s the God of everything, they get to place the tips of their fingers together to create a mountain and push them down into a valley. Then they wiggle their fingers in the air to convey the effect of blinking stars. Oftentimes, after the song we’ll discuss how God is bigger than whatever they’re scared of. This declaration is a great reminder for myself, too, the grown-up in the room who should know better but still sometimes forgets that God can handle all of my worries. When those times of doubts come and, instead of believing in God’s mighty powers I start singing “My God is Too Small,” I wish I could be a fly on the wall for the story that we can read in 2 Kings 6. Elisha, God’s prophet from the Old Testament, has been giving the king of Israel insider information and guidance for his army which is completely baffling and infuriating the king of Aram, Israel’s enemy. Elisha offers military strategies which generals and spies couldn’t predict. His intel comes from God, the God Who’s So Big who can be everywhere and see everything all the time. The king of Aram finds out where Israel is getting this information which keeps spoiling his invasions. He sends soldiers, horses and chariots to the town where Elisha lives. They surround the city during the night, all to capture one man. Early the next morning, Elisha’s servant woke up and started his day. He was probably whistling a carefree tune, thinking about the chores he needed to complete. Then he saw them—an enemy army circling their little town. No doubt he dropped his water jar and ran to Elisha, crying out to him in fear and desperation. But here’s what Elisha said, “Don’t be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Elisha prayed and asked God to open the servant’s eyes. Then he was given a gift, a supernatural sight. That humble servant could suddenly see something extraordinary. The hills beyond the enemy’s army were filled with horses and chariots of fire. A greater army was at the ready. My God is so big!

When Ezra, our African-born son, first came to America, he was 5-years old. In his first five years, he had developed an understanding of the small square of Congo where he lived, showered, ate and played. Though his world was limited, he was old enough to know what was safe and whom to trust. Then he was flown across the world to a new place with a different language, people, food and customs. He had to relearn so much about this new world. When we would read books to him—books about farms and dinosaurs and pigeons and everything in between—he would point to the animals in the pictures and ask, “Me touch-ee him? He eat-ee me?” Never mind the plot, characters and dialogue. Forget about the story’s underlying morals or comparison to modern life. He wanted to get to the crux of what was displayed on those pages—does that pose a danger to me? Once I had explained that dinosaurs were extinct or that cows were docile creatures which give us ice cream, he was ready for the next page. Having always lived here, my understanding was so different than his. For instance, I took for granted that squirrels posed no threat to my safety, but he needed to be informed and then reassured about those meek, little acorn-gatherers. I came to realize that his first year in America was about a lot of things: attachment to his new family, strengthening his body, consistency in his schedule. But the main thing we did was reassure him. You are safe. You are loved. You are not alone. You can trust us. To watch him now, after more than a thousand days home with us, I see an 8-year old boy who jumps in the deep end and rides his bike downhill and throws his body on the ground to stop a soccer ball when he’s playing in the goal. He still asks a lot about the world around him, but he doesn’t hold as much fear for the unknown. His curiosity can be exhausting, so I have to remind myself that this is how he learns and with knowledge comes a decrease in his worrying. I love the way the Books of Psalms and Proverbs regard knowledge. It’s not about whitewashing the truth or ignoring questions. Knowledge is a powerful tool. “Lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.” (Proverbs 20:15) Or take Psalm 119:65-68 – “Lord, I am overflowing with your blessings, just as you promised.  Now teach me good judgment as well as knowledge. For your laws are my guide. I used to wander off until you punished me; now I closely follow all you say. You are good and do only good; make me follow your lead.” That’s such a big part of parenting: Imparting knowledge that leads to wisdom that guides us to righteous living.

Parenting is hard. This is the eternal truth I was pondering as I rubbed the back of my ankle right after my older son slammed into it with the grocery cart. You give them a chance to prove themselves, such as saying that they can follow behind you up and down the aisles with what amounts to being a metal battering ram, and sometimes they disappoint you. Being a parent can be a really tough job, but that doesn’t make me want to quit. We have a saying in our house (by we, I mean I and by saying, I mean homework time mantra): “When things are hard, we try harder.” It works for memorizing multiplication facts and learning to ride a bike. When a task just seems too difficult to complete, I tell them, “Rossers don’t quit.” Those are my standard pep talk declarations. Other than the obvious reasons not to give up (“Multiplication is something you will actually use your whole life! You just have to learn what 8 times 6 is!”), there are other, ongoing reasons not to quit. Each time we conquer a fear or accomplish a new skill, we add another layer to our confidence. These successes strengthen our resolve, making the next hurtle a little less daunting. I love stories about people who truly overcome adversity to do really great things, people who don’t quit even when things seem impossible and the world tells them they’re no good. An example of this kind of insane rise against all odds is the story of Dr. Ben Carson, famed neurosurgeon and current HUD secretary. Dr. Carson grew up in poverty in Detroit, and he was at the bottom of his class academically. The key to his eventual success was his mother. “I was fortunate enough, you know, to have a mother who believed in me when everybody else was calling me dummy,” he said in a 2005 NPR interview. “She prayed and asked God to give her wisdom. What could she do to give her sons to understand the importance of academic achievement, because we were doing terribly in school. And she came up with the idea of turning off the TV and making us read books…You know, it did incredible things for me because, you know, between the covers of those books you could be anybody, you could go anywhere, you could do anything. And it begins to broaden your horizons. And, you know, within the space of a year and a half, I went from the bottom of the class to the top of the class.” Cresting that hill made the next one seem climbable, and the next one, and the next one. His mother wouldn’t let him and anyone else define him as a “dummy.” She made sure he knew it would be hard work, but it was within his grasp. You have to assume that if we only do easy things, growth will be minimal. And besides, our most important tasks (like parenting) are just supposed to be difficult (like parenting at the grocery store), but we’re not alone. As C.S. Lewis said, “God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.”

As we were driving to a soccer tournament over the weekend, my husband and I witnessed a (sort of) significant milestone for our family minivan—we reached 100,000 miles. The lucky moment came while he was driving, so I filmed the clicking over from five-digits to six on the odometer for the sake of posterity. In the more than five years we’ve been driving this particular vehicle, we’ve averaged somewhere around 50 miles a day. For people with a long commute to work, that may not seem like a lot, but it does make me stop and wonder if the destination has been worth the all of those miles. There was once a servant who was given the task to take a long journey to find a wife for his master’s son. He traveled 500 miles (by camel, not Honda Odyssey), and when he got to the appointed place, the servant stopped for a drink of water at a well. He prayed, “Help me to accomplish the purpose of my journey. I will ask one of these young women for a drink and if she says, ‘Yes! And I will happily water your camels too!’ let her be the one. That is how I will know.” Sure enough, a beautiful woman came by and graciously did just what he had prayed for. As she set about giving him a drink along with his camel, the servant watched closely without speaking, resolved to verify that God had made his journey a success. The servant returned with the woman to her home and retold the story of the well encounter to her family. They consented to putting her in the care of this servant, but they asked if she could stay at home for a week or so before heading off to get hitched to marry a man they were related to but had never met. Though this seems like a reasonable request, the servant was already itching to get back on the road. He told them, “Please don’t stop me from going! Now that I know this mission has been a success, I have to get back to tell my master what’s happened.” (To read the full account of the Isaac/Rebekah family drama, start at Genesis 24 and grab the popcorn. Dallas has nothing on these ancient Bible families!) At the end of a long road trip, the last thing I want to do is get back on my camel (or Honda Odyssey). I’m a little surprised by the servant’s response. Knowing the value placed on hospitality in ancient times, this might’ve seemed rude. I sense an anxiety in his words and actions, as if he was overwhelmed with the initial task of finding the perfect wife for his master’s favorite son. He repeats Abraham’s instructions several times, like I do when I’m walking to a different room so I won’t forget why I’m going there. (Put the towels in the dryer. Put the towels in the dryer.) He so much wants this journey to be a success, and he can’t wait to get back to prove that all those miles (and camels and gifts of jewelry and clothing) were worth it. When I think back on the 100,000 miles we’ve put on our minivan, I think of trips to visit grandparents and trips to the beach and college tour visits and lots of soccer practice. I think of quiet conversations with my kids when I get them one-on-one, and I think of God’s hand in keeping us safe. And most of all, I think of that blessed feeling of relief when I pull into the garage and I am home.

There’s plenty of talk about standardized testing these days. Do they make kids too stressed? Do we test enough? Too much? Are they an accurate gauge of a teacher’s performance? Should the testing dates be spread out more or consolidated into fewer days? My answer to this as a former teacher and a current parent is…I have no idea. What I bring to the table is a discussion of the plight of a testing proctor. For several years, I’ve volunteered to be present in a classroom while these standardized tests are administered. This job is in equal parts necessary and redundant, super easy and painfully boring. The proctor’s main job is to exist. That’s it. Sure, I’m supposed to walk around the classroom, help pass out testing material, dispense the occasional tissue, but mostly I’m there to prove that everything is legitimate. Nobody is trying anything shady, not that they would. I’m not supposed to look at my phone or read a book. My eyes should always be scanning these kids as they work their way through reading passages or solving math problems. As the room grows deathly quiet, I inevitably get sleepy, so I decide to get up and move around a bit. In my quietest sneakers, I walk up and down the rows of desks, glancing at their booklets without really focusing on anything, just making sure they’re on the correct section and there are no stray marks. (Curse you, you ruinous stray marks! Who knew a light swipe of a #2 pencil could bring on such doom!) After a few days of this, my mind begins to adapt to this change of pace. Like a prisoner in dark, solitary confinement, I look for anything to amuse myself: world maps and inspirational posters. I start cataloging facts, such as how many kids are left-handed and how many wear glasses and whose constant sniffing leads me to believe he suffers from pollen allergies and would benefit from a morning dose of Claritin. Though I don’t know these kids, I begin to feel that I do. My heart presses me to wonder about them and root for them and pray for them. I try to give a reassuring smile to each student who might happen to look at me, hoping a friendly expression is encouraging. Being a testing proctor isn’t a difficult job, but it does require a deceleration, a slowing down of productivity, a temporary devotion to almost monastic pursuits. I become jealous of the classroom teachers when they pull out the Clorox wipes and busy themselves with wiping down counters. At least they have something to do. I crave that kind of useful service. Unrelated to the buzz you usually find around the debate about standardized testing, this annual activity is a reminder for me to be observant. I often forget how powerful the act of just watching can be. Noticing little things about people I barely know—like who has to bounce his leg up and down continuously to stay focused and who can’t stand when someone near her is bouncing his leg up and down—is like a window into their personalities. These observations are the beginning of understanding. To quote Sherlock Holmes, fiction’s keenest observer: “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.” I seek to do both.

Last week I was honored to speak at a Mother/Daughter Tea at a church in town. It was a lovely event with tea and coffee and cupcakes and lavender sachets. I came away believing that we really should institute a regular afternoon tea time. I shared a story with these dear women about my dental struggles.Several years ago my dental hygienist pointed out some worn down spots and asked me if I grind my teeth. I’d been having ear aches that weren’t infections, and once I started thinking about it I realized that my jaw was always sore. She asked me if I was under any particular stress. At the time, we were in year three of what would eventually be four years of trying to bring our adopted son home from Africa, so yeah…I was stressed. During that time, I had unknowingly directed my stress and frustration and worry on my poor mouth. I was clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth, causing damage to my gums. I would go on to have gum graph surgery and my dentist recommended I use clear plastic aligners (instead of braces) to correct my misshapen bite. I’ve been through dozens of this plastic teeth movers now and from one aligner to the next, you can hardly tell there’s any change. It’s a tiny tweak, slight modification. But over the many months, the minor modifications add up to a new bite that will cause less stress on my gums and help me keep my teeth. At this point in my talk, the women I shared this with were probably beginning to regret inviting me to their Tea. But I went on to explain that in relationships with each other, we can create bad habits. Dysfunction doesn’t usually happen overnight. It’s a slow teeth-grinding, jaw-clenching process. And this can be the case with mother/daughter relationships. An irritation or misunderstanding becomes a habit of slamming doors and shouting names. It’s hard when these habits become formed, but they don’t have to remain forever. That kind of stubbornness is a sin and God will always be on the side of breaking those sinful patterns, especially when they disrupt our families. So we must look to Scripture for guidance. In the book of Ephesians, we see what the Apostle Paul thought was most important to say to fellow Christians while he was in prison in Rome. Ephesians 4:2-3 gives us some essential truths. “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (NIV) In other words, be humble and gentle as Jesus was when he washed his disciples’ feet, choosing the posture of a servant over the attitude of a bully. Tolerate the differences you see in each other because you choose to love in an unconditional way. Then work diligently, with expectations of restoration, to become one as you join together in harmony to sing a beautiful hymn of goodwill. If we can do these things in our relationships with each other, we can take those small steps toward healing. It will take patience, and sometimes there will be setbacks, but the sweetest fruit often take the longest to ripen.

I’m not a self-help book kind of reader (I’m more of a help-myself-to-some-fiction kind of a reader!), but I know there are a lot of people who love self-help books. And, in a way, it’s admirable because to fully digest and practice what you read in a book from this genre, you are saying, “I need help!” That takes some level of humility. There are self-help books devoted to study in a wide field of topics, such as dealing with change, getting rich, understanding your spouse and being a better parent. Many of the more popular ones have names which grab your attention, like Who Moved My Cheese?and Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. Instead of reading what I assume are really helpful books full of strategies and personal anecdotes, I often choose the less glamorous path of on the job training. For a lot of scenarios, I prefer to get in there and decide as I go. I like to pretend that I have an extremely potent power of intuition, and I am better equipped to read the situation and judge how to act instead of relying on what I remember from a book I read a couple of years ago. But this approach is far from foolproof. There are some lessons I have a hard time truly learning. (Like how many times do I have to learn the hard way that I should always check to see if there’s toilet paper before starting my business in a public restroom?) This is why I am more and more impressed by people with true wisdom—not tricks and systems, but rooted-in-their-core understanding. If I were going to read a self-help book, I’d probably stick to the Book of Proverbs which was mostly composed by King Solomon. It’s interesting that Solomon, the greatest and wealthiest man of his time, would work into his busy schedule the writing of basic instructions like how to act while dining with an important person. (Proverbs 23:1-3) It’s as if Solomon understands that the way we conduct ourselves here on earth, even in the most mundane circumstances, can have lasting effects on our health, our family and our future. Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, said “Wisdom is the biblical term for this on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven everyday living. Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.” There’s a great summary of wise traits and advice in Proverbs 22. In just 29 verses, you can learn about good reputations, greed, humility, parenting, generosity, laziness, and hard work. I love Proverbs 22:3, “A prudent person sees trouble coming and ducks; a simpleton walks in blindly and is clobbered.” (The Message) That pretty much sums it up. That’s good advice!

My family visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium over Spring Break. It is a beautiful facility right on the bay with a big emphasis on conservation and protecting waterways and wildlife. One of its biggest attractions is the sea otters, and for good reason! They are ridiculously cute! While there, we listened to a talk about how the aquarium is involved in rescuing and rehabilitating sea otters. We learned that they have to clean their fur nearly all day long to keep it water-repellant and to make sure they stay warm and insulated in the chilly water. We also learned that they use rocks to crack open clams. Such smart little fur balls! The presenter told us a story about a baby sea otter who was found in the bay without her mother. He said that she was squealing and calling for her, but no one came. He said this sometimes occurs after a storm when animals can be separated from their families. They took the baby otter back to their facility to see if another otter, an adult female named Toola, would adopt this baby. They weren’t sure if it would work but hoped that since Toola had just given birth to a stillborn pup, she had the right hormones to make mothering this orphan pup an appealing idea. It worked and the baby—later named Luna for Half Moon Bay, the location of the beach where she was discovered—survived. Toola went on to be a surrogate mother to 13 pups over the years until her death in 2012. Beyond the fact that otters are so adorable (please stop what you’re doing and watch a video of them right now), it was moving to hear how they care for their own babies or the babies they are given. As an adoptive mom with a son who is celebrating 3 years as a part of our family, I identified with Toola in a special way. Something as unbreakable and supernatural as a mother/child connection becomes even more miraculous when the mother is given a child to care for who she never carried inside her. But that connection is definitely there. When we were called to be a family to our youngest son, we became more important to him than anyone else on earth, just as Toola was to all her pups. The aquarium employees and veterinary specialists who worked with Toola over the years gave her a lot of credit for the success of the aquarium’s sea otter program and even for the passing of legislation which protects sea otters in the wild. And all because she welcomed a vulnerable baby into her arms. Sea Otter Cam!!

There are just some things that are hard to teach young children: how to hold a pencil correctly, how to tie their shoes, how to make their beds, adequate basic hygiene like teeth brushing that brushes all of the teeth and showering that cleans all of the parts. And then there’s teaching your kid how to ride a bike. It involves balance and concentration and patience from them and running alongside a bike from me, so the whole experience presents a variety of problems. I’ve been working with our youngest to get him solo-ready for a couple of years. I’ll admit I haven’t always suggested it as often as I should have. Call it busy family or lazy mom or the usual predicament of the 4th kid, it just hasn’t been a priority. It hasn’t helped that he’s been reluctant to ride. Naturally athletic by nature, he’s used to being able to conquer physical activities pretty easily the first time, but this bike thing has been a different story. So when we had that beautiful sunny Sunday last week, it occurred to me to pull out his bike and get him back in the saddle. After we filled up the low tires, he hopped on. Up and down the driveway we went—him pedaling erratically and swerving like a maniac and me jogging while grabbing a wadded-up bunch of the back of his shirt. Not long into the lesson, he said, “Is it okay if I sing a song? It will help me focus.” “Sure,” I panted. “Keep on trying. Don’t give up,” he sang in a made-up tune. “Never give up. Just don’t give up.” We continued until I felt he was correcting his balance issues—going a little to the left if he was too much to the right. Then I slowly let go of his shirt. He rode a few yards by himself until he veered off-road into some grass. “I did it!” he cheered. He hopped off the bike and ran to me in joyful triumph. “I rode my bike!” We hugged and walked back to his bike for him to mount and try again. “I just kept remembering something important that I hear a lot,” he told me, full of introspection and wisdom from his hard won victory. “What was that?” I asked him, assuming he’d repeat some sage advice I’d given him. “You never give up,” he said, proudly. “That’s right,” I answered. “And where did you hear that?” “Ricky says it to Lucy all of the time because she’s always trying to get in show business. And he’s right, she never gives up so she got her own TV show.” I realized he was referring to I Love Lucy, not the careful parenting of his mom and dad. But if it helped him remember to keep trying, even when things seem impossible, then I’m okay with that, especially if it means I can stop running alongside his bike. Ezra in action

I love my 4 kids. I really do. I think they’re charming and delightful. I thoroughly enjoy their adorable personalities and unique quirks. They are precious gifts from the Lord. Seriously. I really mean it. But sometimes when I see it’s minutes away from the appointed time for them to come home from school, I wish I could buy another hour and turn the clock back a bit. It’s not that I don’t like having them around (see “I love my 4 kids” paragraph above). It’s just that I may be on a roll, getting things done and I see that the school day is nearly over and I realize I need to “Mom” again. When my kids first arrive home after a long day at school—that witching hour when everyone is hungry and grouchy and tired and stressed out at the same time—I have to divide myself into pieces so that I can feel and suffer and care along with them and take on a little of their struggles. If one kid is having trouble learning his sight words, then it becomes my trouble, too. If another kid is having problems with friends, then it becomes my problem, too. Now, there is a line to be drawn when it comes to involvement with your kids. It is possible for me to take on my kids’ problems to the extent that I impair their ability to problem-solve and strategize. But loving someone means sometimes setting aside our own interests and agenda to focus on another’s. At my house, it means caring about which team is going to win the European soccer championship title and who’s going to prom with whom and listening to highly detailed stories about lunchroom hijinks. I’m reminded of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples in John 15. He’s trying to explain to them how much he loves them. It’s a tall task because His love for them is so enormous. Then he turns this discussion of love distribution over to his followers. He says, “I demand that you love each other as much as I love you.” Well, that sounds impossible! We know what Jesus does next in the story. He dies a gruesome death on the cross. How can we be expected to love in that way? Jesus goes on to say, “And here is how to measure it—the greatest love is shown when a person lays down his life for his friends.” (TLB) I don’t know about you, but I don’t get a lot of opportunities to die for the people I love. So how do I obey this seemingly impossible command? Jesus tells his disciples to love each other in an extraordinary, life-giving, missional, selfless way. He asks that we show love in proportion to the degree He showed love to us, to pursue others with heaps of abundant grace and often undeserved kindness. If given the opportunity, I would lay down my life for the 4 knuckle-heads who call me Mom. Assuming that situation doesn’t ever materialize, I will try to lay down the time and attention I’d rather devote to other pursuits and focus on them, so I can show them a great love.