When I was little, my mother would buy each of my sisters and me a pair of brown, leather sandals every year. She would caution us to take care of them so that they would last the summer. They had thick, yellow, rubber soles and brass buckles on the side. For some reason, we hated them. I don’t remember reaching this opinion on my own, so I’m guessing I was convinced of their utter ugliness by my older sister. Not satisfied with only corrupting our opinions of the leather sandals, she also convinced us to methodically destroy them. Behind our house, along the property line where our backyard met our neighbor’s backyard, there was a ditch. When we received very much rain, this ditch would become a shallow creek of grass and muddy water. When it was high enough to cover our feet, my sister would instruct us to put on our sandals and wade out into the water. Her diabolical plan was to get the sandals wet enough that they would fall apart and it would all look like a harmless accident. (Everyone needs an older sister like this.) So we would do it and over time, our sandals would fall apart. I can’t remember what shoes we wore after that or how my mom reacted to the news, most likely completely frustrated since she was trying to make ends meet on a preacher’s salary with three young kids. What I do remember is the feeling of standing in the ditch with those wretched sandals on. I felt a mixture of guilt and delight as I wriggled my toes and felt the cushion of the insole fill up with water. Why does disobedience often feel good at the time? I knew I was disobeying my mother when I blatantly disregarded her instructions and didn’t take care of my sandals but I did it anyway. The knowledge of my disobedience didn’t stop me, and in some it ways it was actually thrilling. Now that I’m the mom correcting the disobedience of my own children, I have a new seat to watch this disregard of carefully spelled out instructions. I must sometimes witness their disobedience and deliver consequences for their actions. As the parent, I have more information and experience to back up the instructions I give my children—information and experience they don’t always feel justifies my right to correct them, but in the immortal words of my sister, “Tough noogies.” We can identify with King Solomon when he wrote in the Book of Proverbs: “At the end of your life, you will be sad that you ruined your health and lost everything you had. Then you will say, ‘Why didn’t I listen to my parents? Why didn’t I pay attention to my teachers? I didn’t want to be disciplined. I refused to be corrected. So now I have suffered through just about every kind of trouble anyone can have, and everyone knows it.’” Perspective. Obedience doesn’t always come naturally, even for wise kings, but the consequences aren’t far behind. I discipline my children because I love them and I have to cultivate a trust in my Lord who also disciplines out of love and wants to me to be obedient, even when I can’t see it from His perspective. #choices #obedience

How often do you say the following: “It seems like just yesterday” or “This is the longest week ever”? A minute will always last 60 seconds and an hour will always last 60 minutes but it doesn’t always feel like it. Time should be a concrete concept but it seems so fluid. I have a friend who recently told me about an out-of-body experience she had while holding a new mom’s infant daughter. A precious 4-month old sat in her lap and my friend was instantly transported more than 17 years in the past to the nursery of her own now-teenaged daughter. The years disappeared in a mist. Suddenly she was the new mom with the tiny daughter. The sweet, baby smell, the touch of soft baby skin—it felt like it was just yesterday. Tearful, my friend felt that time had passed too quickly. When you’re anxiously waiting for something to happen, time seems to slow to a crawl. It was true when you were a kid, waiting for summer vacation or Christmas morning, and it can still be true for adults. Time stretches out in front of you like an endless horizon. It’s January, bleak and cloudy, and you look at your covered swimming pool, thinking, “We’ll never get through with winter. Summer seems so far away.” Then there are periods of time and phases of life that seem to go quickly and last forever simultaneously. The anniversary of something tragic like the death of a loved one or a long illness or the day a spouse moves out and moves on, can create a desire for introspection. Upon examination, you might realize that while you’re living through it, your heightened feelings make time tick slowly. Your anger and frustration burn so brightly that little else enters your mind. This concentration slows everything down. But when the phase is over, you look back at the towering mountains you climbed and the raging rivers you crossed, and you wonder how you got through it in the amount of time that has passed. Intellectually, we know that time is a fixed thing. We check clocks and watches and cell phones often throughout the day to gauge what we should be doing and where we should be going, and we rarely question what we see. But emotionally, time is not fixed. And our perception, however unreliable, can become our reality. It’s okay if time feels fluid. In the Book of James, we read that “To the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.” He measures time differently, too. So maybe, in the end, it’s not the quantity of time we’re given—the number of seconds and minutes and hours that pass in a lifetime, but how we spend those minutes that really matters. #time

There are a lot of positives to having a baby: the miracle of birth, the revelations about the preciousness of life, the somber bestowing to parents a new purpose and responsibility. The epiphanies go on and on. But the real beauty of bringing home a new baby is the free meals. When my twin daughters were born, our church family fed us three times a week for two months…two months! We ate casseroles and lasagnas and chicken potpies. They brought their best, for-company recipes, complete with desserts. It wasn’t a great plan for shedding those pregnancy pounds, but it was a load off my mind (though not off my thighs and rear end). Being a first time mom was excruciating at times. I had dreamed of being a mom my whole life but the reality of it hit me hard. We had no family in town and I had convinced myself that it was all on me. The pressure led me to one afternoon, alone in the house with two squalling infants, crying and telling my girls, “I’m so sorry I’m your mom! I don’t know what to do!” My hormones were at Threat Level: Inferno. Soon after that break down, a woman from church brought us a meal. When she brought the food and laid it out on the kitchen counter, she stepped into the living room to check out the babies. Then she sat down beside me on the sofa and said, “I know this is hard but it’s going to get better.” I must have had HELP ME written all over my forehead. Her few words of kindness were a succor to my soul. I couldn’t tell you what she brought for supper that night other than a loaf of banana bread. Months later, when I was a little bit more myself, I asked the woman for her recipe. The taste of the bread, paired with her sweet words had remained in my mind. I’ve been making the bread ever since. This recipe makes two loaves. When making the banana bread, it’s become our family’s tradition to keep one loaf and ask the Lord who should get the other loaf. Over the years, we’ve had lapses into greediness and we’ve tried to eat the second loaf, too. But like the Israelites who were warned not to gather more manna than they needed, the second loaf never tastes as good as the first one, convicting us that sharing really is caring. Find a way to share with someone today. It doesn’t have to be baked goods or handmade quilts (no wonder grandmas are so beloved!), but there will be a multitude of opportunities available to you, if only you keep watching for them. In case you would like to share a loaf of this banana bread, I’ve included the recipe below: Share-a-Loaf Banana Bread (makes two 9×5 loaves) Ingredients: 3½ cups all-purpose flour 2½ cups sugar 2 tsp. baking soda 2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. salt 4-5 ripe bananas (makes about 2 cups mashed) 1 T lemon juice 1 cup vegetable oil 4 eggs ½ cup + 2 T buttermilk 2 tsp. vanilla extract Whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Puree bananas in a blender. Add lemon juice, oil, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Blend until smooth. Add to flour mixture and mix well. Grease and flour two 9×5 loaf pans. Pour the batter evenly in the two pans. Bake at 325-degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes. #caring #friendship

A new study finds that very tiny chameleons—like the ones from Tanzania that can sit on the tip of your thumb—compensate for their small size with incredibly long and incredibly fast tongues. They may seem like harmless, little lizards but bugs should consider themselves warned. Scientists assumed there would be some sort of adaptations for these tiny creatures but they were surprised by what they found. When I heard about those chameleons and their super-stretchy tongues, I thought of that feeling you get when you’re stretched to the limit. One more thing, even something as small as a stubbed toe, would push you tumbling head-first over the edge. It also makes me think of my friend who received bad news about her daughter’s health last week. There has been physical and emotional pain, sleepless nights and difficult choices. My friend has been stretched to the limit and beyond. She saw the sign THIS IS YOUR LIMIT as she passed it then kept on going. But the truth is she does have a limit. We all do. We hear well-meaning people tell us that God won’t give us any more than we can handle, but I’m here to tell you that sentiment just isn’t true. In fact, it’s a lie disguised as a scripture you won’t find in the Bible. The Book of Psalms is full of people who were given more than they could handle. For instance: “I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.” And then there’s: “I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.” This is not from a person who is in control of the situation. This is definitely someone who cannot take it another moment. My friend has been like the Apostle Paul, suffering hardship on top of hardship. When Paul said, “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself,” he thought they wouldn’t survive. So if there are times when we’re given greater burdens than our capacity to bear them, how is God good? Maybe our understanding of goodness isn’t Biblical either. God never promised this life would be easy but He did promise He would never leave us. Again and again in Scripture He says: “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So my friend is allowed to be mad. She’s allowed to do the very Biblical act of crying out to God. She’s allowed to ask “why?” And through it all, the Lord will never leave her. He’s a mighty God. He can take a few accusations and some angry finger-pointing. He will send comforters, both spiritual and physical, to meet her needs, also both spiritual and physical. He will weep with her and rejoice with her. And His Son will say to her: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” My friend will be stretched farther than she ever thought was possible, and if the tension becomes too great and she snaps, God will be there for her at that moment, too. #suffering

During the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, my family and I visited the Knoxville Zoo. On Saturday, my kids were lounging all over my in-laws’ living room furniture like there was a gas leak in the house, full of turkey and a bit grouchy, but they perked up when their grandmother mentioned there were two baby gorillas recently born at the zoo. I mean, who can turn down a chance to see baby gorillas? In my experience with zoos, there are many times when the animal doesn’t live up to the hype: the bear just lies there like a rug or the monkeys are quiet and standoffish. This visit exceeded my expectations. When we reached the glass enclosure for the gorillas, both mom gorillas cradled their babies. One mother-baby duo sat in a hammock, suspended from the ceiling high in the air. The other pair sat inside a long tunnel, also hanging from the ceiling. The baby in the hammock peeked over the edge several times, tiny fingers then precious face peering meekly at us. Each time the baby looked like he would climb out of the hammock, the mother would pull him back in, safely nestled on her stomach. When she finally decided to climb down, the baby wrapped his arms and legs around her arm to ride along. Now on the floor, the baby picked up a stick. The mother took it and placed it back on the floor. When a male gorilla got close to them, the mother gorilla picked up the baby and moved a safe distance away. Everything the mother gorilla did for her baby seemed intentional but it was done so slowly, like she was moving through water. The expression on her face was one of complete confidence. I expected her at any minute to look at me and say, “Kids…am I right?” without any exasperation, only commiseration and acceptance. As I watched in awe of her maternal skills, I thought that if that mother gorilla was on Facebook (which I don’t think she is), her pictures would be of elaborately decorated birthday cakes and links to her homeschool blog and posts about her kids’ achievements, like their innate ability to memorize Scriptures while simultaneously feeding the homeless and solving complex math problems. I wondered if the other gorilla mom, the one who had barely moved from her hanging tunnel while we stood watching, felt inferior to this super mom. Did she constantly compare herself and her baby to them? But then I saw the reason momma gorilla had climbed down from her comfy hammock. She needed to pee. She turned her back to all of us at the window, and let loose a stream of urine while her baby played with a plastic bowl nearby. She was not a superhuman (or super-ape) after all. She did her best to make decisions for her baby to keep him healthy and safe, but there comes a time when every mom has to take care of a few things for herself. Because, in the end, we’re all just imperfect humans (or in her case, gorilla) doing the best we can with what we know and until we know better or differently. Comparing our parenting only creates distance when what we need most is the closeness of community. #parenthood

I’ve always been impressed by resourceful people. When things look bleak, these amazing pioneers show imagination and gumption. They don’t let the negativity of the situation determine their attitude or the eventual outcome. Sometimes I worry this skill set may be disappearing. Take my childhood, for example. When my sisters and I got bored in the grocery store or in the line at the bank, we would entertain ourselves. We didn’t have mom’s phone to play games or watch videos. Instead, we would make up activities. We would take turns pretending that we were blind so that the “sighted” sister could guide us around the clothes racks. (“Oops, sorry” was an oft-repeated phrase from the “sighted” sister as the “blind” sister ran into mirrored columns and walls.) Another favorite pastime during the hours of errand-running boredom was to tie a string into a circle and play string games like “Cat’s Cradle” and “Soldier’s Bed.” When there wasn’t a string nearby, we would pull the elastic from the waistband of our underwear to make one. Now that’s resourceful. (Our mom might have preferred we had less saggy underwear instead of bugging her while she shopped at Castner-Knott. Actually, it was probably a toss-up.) Back in the 1990’s there was a show called MacGyver. In every episode, MacGyver would get into a pickle—often bound and gagged in a locked room—and he had to keep his wits to get out of it. At some point, everything looked hopeless: the timer on the bomb counted backwards to zero or MacGyver heard heavy footsteps of the armed and angry villains just a few feet away. MacGyver had to ignore the desperateness of his circumstances. He had to still his fear long enough to take stock of what he had available to him. Wrists and ankles tied up? No problem. He can melt the plastic zip ties with a wire coat hanger and space heater. Giant missile about to explode and destroy a Russian orphanage? Don’t sweat it. He can diffuse a missile with a paper clip and a wad of chewed gum. The show has been satirized for its unrealistic ridiculousness, but you still have to appreciate this guy’s abilities. For me, even more than his knowledge of lock-picking, safe-cracking, and bomb-diffusing, I’m impressed by his unrelenting optimism. There are times when I can get pretty low. The news tells me that we live under a constant threat of danger for our lives and our way of life, and it’s only getting worse. It tells me to fear everyone and everything around me. But what if I take a page from MacGyver’s life? What if I look around at what’s available to me and then I act? I don’t sit in a corner and give up in despair. And I don’t waste time casting blame on others. Instead, I look for ways to make things better. I don’t run away from problems, but I stay and save others from harm. Let’s use our resourcefulness to make this world a better place. #change

Moses was tired. He was old. His belly was full of his breakfast—wafers of manna and the water that poured from a rock. As he climbed to the top of a steep hill, he reflected on his life. In his mind, Moses saw mistakes and wrong turns. But he also saw miracles—a vast sea parting in two, a brilliant light high on a mountain. Now Moses sat on the top of the hill, flanked by his brother Aaron and his friend Hur. Below him, a battle raged, the Israelites and their attackers, the Amalekites. Throughout the long battle, Moses came to realize that if he kept his arms raised—the staff of God firmly grasped in his hands—the Israelites would succeed. But as soon as his arms became too weak to hold his staff in the air, the favor would turn to the Amalekites. The pressure to remain strong was depleting Moses. His arms shook. He closed his eyes, tears and sweat trickling down his cheeks. Aaron and Hur saw their friend’s exhaustion. They saw him gritting his teeth, trying to be strong. They moved to help. They held up Moses’ arms, one on each side. They kept him going until sunset, until the battle was over and the Israelites won. If you have ever been the recipient of this kind of support, you can appreciate the value of friends like Aaron and Hur. To have people willing to stand with you, lifting you up when you know it would be impossible to find the strength on your own. Moses could’ve shrugged off their help. He could’ve told Aaron and Hur to leave him alone. He could’ve said he was capable of doing it by himself. Instead, Moses allowed their strength to fill in the gaps and crevices created by his weakness. Moses let his friends pour into him. At times, I have been on a hill overlooking an intimidating battle. No Amalekites are clashing swords in a skirmish in the valley below, but the overwhelming trials still sometimes feel like I’m waging a war. So, a few nights ago, when life handed me a moment of “It’s-just-too-much”-ness, a group of women surrounded me. They supported me and lifted me up. They held my hands and stroked my hair. They prayed for me and gave me tissues. We don’t always have to have it all together and there is no shame in needing support. This need is only the evidence of our universal human frailty and a testament to the blessing of true friends. I don’t enjoy the crumbly feeling of falling apart but I will be forever grateful for my own personal “hilltop friends.” #friendship

It’s after lunch and I’m in a high school algebra class. Chin propped on hand, trying to stay awake, I’m staring at a poster stapled to the center of a square bulletin board. There is a photograph of a soaring eagle in the middle of the poster framed on all sides by a thick, black border. Printed at the top are two words in bold: “Dream Big.” Below the picture is a quote from businessman/motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” If only that applied to solving complex algebraic equations. More than twenty years later, I consider the validity of Zig’s argument. How far can attitude get you? How far can dreaming big take you? And when is dreaming not enough? When I think of someone with big dreams who followed through with those dreams, I think of my friend Staci. Years ago, Staci literally had a dream. One night, she dreamt of a woman—possibly in Africa—carrying a child, struggling to survive. Staci woke with a feeling of urgency and concern for the child and mother. The dream shook her and wouldn’t let go. It pierced her in a way that was almost painful. She felt called to act. Then, like déjà vu, Staci’s dream materialized before her when she learned of a plan by a missionary supported by our church to build an orphanage in Tanzania. This orphanage would be called Neema House. At this point, many people would give money to the orphanage. Some might just think, “Huh? That was kind of like my dream. Weird,” and stop right there. But Staci dreams big and she decided to act. She called together like-minded friends and family and cleared a space on her dining room table. Staci laid out plans for a Thanksgiving Day race to benefit the orphanage. There were hurdles to jump—permits from the city, t-shirt designs, port-a-potty placement—but she and her team continued. She had never planned a race before, but this would not deter her. Her dreams were bigger than the list of reasons it looked too difficult or even impossible. By 8:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning 2010, more than 1,600 runners had registered to compete in Borodash. The directors of Neema House would be shocked by the donation they would receive before Christmas that year. In the years since that first race, Borodash has grown and flourished and continues to bless the children living at the orphanage. The success of the race has exceeded anything even Staci could’ve imagined. She is quick to call the success a result of divine intervention. Last year, Staci traveled all the way to Tanzania to visit the Neema House. She finally saw the culmination of her dream fully realized. She rocked the babies who now had a home. She played with the children who were safe and loved. She learned what happens when you dream big and act. And what happens when God blesses your dreams. #dream #orphanage

In the Kingdom of Nerds, there is a special place for those of us who enjoy a good jigsaw puzzle. I’m not especially talented at assembling them but—in just the right circumstances—fitting two tiny puzzle pieces together can be pretty exciting. For instance, take my recent experience with a 500-piece puzzle of the Grand Canyon my mother-in-law gave us. My daughter and I dumped out the tiny irregularly shaped pieces and sorted them. We stood the lid to the puzzle box against the box so that we could reference the picture from time to time. Seeing that we’re highly developed humans, we started by constructing the edges of the puzzle. (Only a Neanderthal would begin a puzzle any other way.) Finding a piece with a flat edge is like panning for gold and finding…a flat-edged puzzle piece. (As exhilarating as the find can be, it’s probably not the same as actually finding gold.) After the bottom and sides were mostly done, we worked on the blue and white pieces that made up the 1-inch strip of sky along the top. Everything was rolling along until we hit a snag. We realized that the remaining 400 pieces were variations of brownish-orange and orangey-brown. Suddenly, the puzzle became less of a fun treat and more of an obligation. My daughter—the only other one in my immediate family who would help me with the puzzle—abandoned me for other activities. Now the puzzle has sat there, on the living room table for the last couple of days, mocking me with my failure to follow through and finish what I started. I’ll give it a few minutes throughout the day, attempting to join two seemingly compatible pieces together only to find that they are just millimeters from connecting. But all my brute force won’t make them fit. The only way to complete this puzzle is to sit down and do it, piece by piece by piece. As I trudge on to defeat the jigsaw puzzle, I do have a very important advantage (unfortunately it’s not patience). I have the lid to the box. I have the picture I’m trying to recreate. I have the explanation for the darker pieces (shadow) and the greenish pieces (tree branches). With the information the lid gives me, even though it may be difficult, it’s not impossible. If only I could see the whole picture more often. Maybe then I could better understand suffering and loss. Maybe I could have some grasp of the why’s and the how’s and the when’s I ask every day. But I don’t have the box lid to the jigsaw puzzle that is my life. I don’t have all the answers and it’s frustrating because I can’t see how this is all supposed to end. Without any type of guidance, I just sit down and get to work. I find a piece and try it at every available, logical spot until it fits. Sometimes that works, and sometimes that piece gets thrown into a pile of pieces I can’t figure out. Pieces that seem to have no place or purpose. We may not have the full picture but we do have a Lord willing to live out each step with us. When the Psalmist wrote: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” He should’ve added “and a box lid to my jigsaw.” It’s my responsibility to walk along the path but He offers to be our guide. He wants to sit by me as I construct the puzzle, reminding me where to place each piece if only I’m willing to listen. I won’t give up just because things are confusing and unpredictable and difficult. I am stronger than this jigsaw puzzle. I refuse to be defeated. #Trust

We had a visitor in Sunday school last week. A mom I’d never seen before dropped off her 5-year old daughter and left us to get acquainted. I noticed right away that this girl was full of personality. Her cheeks were covered in purple glitter and she was carrying a small, jam-packed purse. I asked her if she wanted to hang her purse up on the hooks by the door before joining her classmates on the rug for free time. Reluctantly, she hung it up and went to play with a box of Mr. Potato Heads. A few minutes later, she went back to her purse and took out a simple calculator. Looking at the screen with a serious expression on her face, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and began to press the number buttons with her thumbs. Then she paused, sighed deeply, and returned her “phone” to her purse. When the class sat down to hear a Bible story, I found a spot to sit next to my new friend. She smiled at me and whispered, “I have a boyfriend.” Apparently she thought that was all I needed to know about her. This little girl had no trouble getting into the head of someone else—namely a teenager. She is wholly devoted to understanding the psyche and tribal customs of a girl on the cusp of adulthood. Her understanding may be flawed and stereotypical, but you have to appreciate her dedication. The solution to so many of our relationship problems might be doing just what that 5-year old attempted to do—put yourself in the place of another. That’s not to say we should allow and excuse misbehavior and cruelty in our society, but we might be able to understand the reasons for bad behavior a little better from someone else’s vantage point—from their home life, their disappointments and their experiences. As Atticus Finch in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird tells his daughter, “If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Once we see things from their perspectives, our “enemies” can become regular, flawed people we understand and, then we can help them understand us better. After that, we can do what the Apostle Paul devoted his life to as explained in 1 Corinthians 9. Paul says: “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” He goes on to say: “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” When we can truly “climb into his skin” and “become all things to all people,” then we can truly extend to others the grace offered to us every day by the One who knows us inside and out. #friendship

It happens to everyone at some point: you sit down to eat at a restaurant with family and friends. After perusing the lengthy menu, you order. When the waiter delivers the food, it hits you—regret. You wonder why in the world you ordered the BLT when you see the plate of sizzling fajitas set down in front of your friend. Or why you thought it was a good idea to get the light portion of the garden salad when you see your husband’s giant Porter House steak and baked potato. We experience regret on many levels for as many reasons—my fault, your fault, our fault, no one’s fault. Whether some evil was done intentionally or completely by mistake, we’ve let someone down and we regret the role we played. Just or unjust, we suffer the consequences. What happens next is where we show our true selves. The extent regret shapes our future relationships and self-worth is one of the most crucial factors to our happiness. After some thought, prayer, and frank discussions with friends, I’ve come up with the following analogy: you’ve jumped into the sea with no life jacket and no plan. Upon further reflection you realize jumping was a huge mistake. You flail your arms wildly; angry with yourself and the so-called friends who let you jump. But angry arm-flailing isn’t helping the situation. In the distance you see four buoys bobbing up and down and you realize they are there to lead you to the other side. You must swim to each buoy and rest before moving on. Here are the four places you must cross: See the challenging situation as an opportunity. You’ve always wanted to get better at being you and here’s the perfect excuse to improve! It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for! Hebrews 12:11 says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Use this painful time to grow. Don’t waste it. Forgive yourself and others. Regret is a battle with shame. Hanging on to the bitterness that comes with the sins of betrayal, selfishness, miscommunication, and misdeeds is mostly harmful to yourself. The sooner you can extend forgiveness, the sooner you can heal. Be thankful. Regret prevents us from seeing the blessings we have. When we concentrate only on the pain we’ve caused and/or endured, we’re cheating ourselves of enjoying the sanctifying power of gratitude. Move on with the help of God and your community. When an error becomes public, it feels like your flaws and mistakes are hanging out of you like a gruesome, bleeding wound. A friend who continues to work through the pitfalls of regret told me “the first place your mind goes is to the depressing place of loneliness. You feel like you are all alone. The Biblical version of community shatters that loneliness.” When you can be transparent about your sin and find love and understanding in spite of your transgressions, you can move past it with a lesser burden of regret. Regret and bitterness nearly always go together but that doesn’t have to be your default setting. As my friend told me, “After you’ve really messed up, regret and bitterness is the first stop but don’t make it a rest stop.” #healing

You inhale deeply as you approach the wooden archway. A voice from the speaker above you and to your right is midway through its recording: “…so ride at your own risk. Only you know your limitations.” You pull the corners of your mouth into a forced smile at the child who stands beside you. She has asked you to join her on this journey. It would be pure cowardice to retreat. Together, you weave through the maze of metal fencing to find your place in line. The bars are painted a dark red. Shallow scratches and deep gashes in the paint show the original steely gray underneath. You rest your palms against the horizontal bars at your waist, but pull them back as you consider all of the sticky, sweaty hands that have blazed this trail before you, pioneers in tank tops and athletic shorts. You glance at your child who stands shoulder-to-shoulder with you. You notice that you are eye level now. When did she get so tall or when did you shrink? She leans her back against the bar behind her, looking carefree and relaxed. A clattering sound rumbles over your heads, followed seconds later by deafening screams, and then both sounds are gone in a rush of air. You shuffle forward a few feet. Conversations circle around you. Small children whine about the wait. Mothers remind them to be patient. A girl braids her friend’s hair into a long, tight rope. You turn away when you see a young couple embrace—too much affection in such a confined space. Finally, you see the loading area. You watch people—brave souls just like you—as they board the cars. You fight the urge to salute them and their bravery. The affectionate couple from before is seated and both look nervous. “I’m a little scared,” your child says quietly. You fake enthusiasm and confidence. You tell her, “Ah, come on. It’ll be fun. I promise.” The cars return with their windswept occupants, smiling broadly. You wonder if their smiles are from joy or relief or both. Either way, you are encouraged that they returned without injury. Your child slides into the car and you follow her. You attempt to steady trembling hands as you buckle the thick seat belt and pull down the padded bar. The bored, teen-aged park employee walks past each pair and tugs at their restraints. Internally, you question the extent of the training that allows him to operate this giant death trap. It’s too late to turn back now. The cars rumble away slowly, teasing you with their nonchalant speed. You know this is a trick. You know this ride is designed to rattle your fillings and challenge your bladder. The car climbs the steep hill with a repetition of clicks. At the top of the hill, you have only the briefest moment to assess the situation. In that moment, you calculate the risks and search your memory bank for any relevant news stories of crashes and negligent park staff. Then, you fall. The rapid descent lifts you ever so slightly from your seat. Your heart races and your stomach drops. You chance a look at your child next to you—her eyes shut tight and her hands thrown into the air. She smiles. You scream. You find that you are grabbing her arm, involuntarily. The fear you felt before for your safety has been transferred to fear for hers. When the ride is jerked to an abrupt end, you step out of the car and onto the platform with shaky legs. “That was fun!” your child says, as she bounces up and down with the release of pent-up energy. “Wanna do it again?” “Let’s let your dad have a turn to ride it with you,” you say, feigning maternal selflessness. The endless recording continues as you exit the archway: “Only you know your limitations.” You chuckle at the thought of fully knowing something as fluid as your limitations. You follow your child, watching her long legs manage a smooth, assertive stride and you wonder, “Did I just ride a roller coaster or watch my daughter walk through the doors of her school for her first day of 8th grade?” #parenthood