Miley, Miss Louise, and raising children

Marc taught me to use the scanner. :) Baby Hannah and her big sister, sweet Pocahontas, I mean Sarah Beth.

My three darlings in earlier days.

These two share a close bond that goes beyond age differences or distance. Interesting factoid: SB's nickname for Han is Chebbles...after a city in Czech Republic--Cheb--that they both found hilarious one day on the train. :)

The steps of a man are established by the LORD, and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the LORD is the One who holds his hand. Psalm 37:23-24

Do you ever have one of those cups of coffee that are just so good that you drink it to the very last drop, even if it's gone a bit cold? I'm enjoying one of those right now. Strangely enough, it's not Viennese coffee this morning, but Target coffee. Yep, that's right. When we were in the States, I found little sample packages of Target's pumpkin spice coffee for 80 cents a piece, and I bought all of them. Every single one they had. This is the first morning I've splurged and opened one up. Lest you think how sad it is that I have to ration out little sample coffees--we have the best coffee on earth in Vienna. Seriously, we've become coffee snobs, only drinking a particular Viennese coffee and disdaining pretty much anything else. But I love flavored coffees, and Marc does not, so the samples were a little treat for myself. When they're gone, I won't cry, but I will enjoy them while I have them.

I've been thinking a lot about raising children in the last couple of weeks. (Wow...that was an abrupt transition. Sorry if it hurt your neck, but Marc is waiting on me to finish so we can take our walk.) Of course, Sarah Beth is a married woman now, so that's made me nostalgic and sentimental. And we leave Sunday morning to take Hannah to boarding school in Germany, and that's made me, frankly, a weepy mess. John is my height and his dad's shoe size. Where did the time go? Seriously? Wasn't he the little chili pepper just yesterday? So, like every parent during this kind of transition, I've thought a lot about raising them, what I pray for them, what I hope and dream for them. And then, amidst all this introspection, Hannah Montana went crazy. I was asleep when she went crazy, but it was the first thing to greet me when I woke up the next morning. And then, all around me, the internet blew up over the craziness. And, because I'm feeling the bittersweetness of our baby birds flying to different countries, far away from us, I thought about her parents. Particularly, I wondered what it must be like to be criticized for your parenting because your child makes choices you wouldn't want them to make. (I think we can assume it's no parent's dream to watch their child 'twerk' in front of millions of people.) I think it's probably pretty dreadful, frankly. I've had people criticize my children (not nearly as publicly, of course, but in the context of our own situation), both behind my back and to my face, and it's not particularly pleasant. Blow it up on a huge, world-wide scale, make it the lead story on CNN, and I have to assume it's fairly horrifying.

Raising children is such a private thing, isn't it? We never truly know what goes on in someone else's home, and sometimes we make assumptions about private lives that aren't supportable. Don't we all have beloved friends whose children, upon leaving the nest (or maybe while still in it), have gone crazy? Good people, godly people, whose faith is unquestionably strong, but their kids take a turn away from how they were raised. We, as parents, really can only do what we can do while they are ours to raise, and then we have to let them fly on their own--and that means facing consequences for their actions, taking responsibility for their mistakes, learning to make right the hurts they inflict on others. Marc and I are tremendously blessed by children who love Jesus, who do want to make the world better, who have a heart for those oppressed by the evil in the world. And yes, those are all things we have tried to instill in them, both through our words and our lives. There is never a morning that I don't pray for God to draw my children to Himself, to His path for their lives, to His one person for them, to love Him sacrificially and wholly. I don't pray those things for them so that people will think we're good parents. I pray them because I know the deep joy of following hard after Jesus, of loving others out of the overflow of His incredible, awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping love for me. I love them, and so I want them to know Him and to know the joy of serving Him.

I have channeled Miss Louise, my sister's elementary teacher before. (I know she was Kay's teacher--was she Cathy's, too?) She always said, "Take care of yourself, and you have a mighty big job to do." It's become a mantra, of sorts, in our family. Stop thinking about what someone else has done wrong--concentrate on making right the things in your own life that need fixing. The whole leave-the-other-person's-eye speck-alone-and-concentrate-on-that-log-sticking-out-of-your-face thing. As I contemplate Miley's craziness, the public lashing her parents have taken, and raising my own children, I realize that raising my own children is a mighty big job--a full-time responsibility, even at this stage, where they are more independent. I'll pray for the Cyrus's--all of them--because it seems clear that things are not exactly how they need to be. But I think I'd better concentrate on the log sticking out of my face right now. I'm pretty sure that's time better spent than pontificating on what a poor job they've done with Hannah Montana. Because I'm not sitting in their home. I'm not raising her. I don't know--and neither does anyone else.

Well, Marc is starting to get antsy to walk, so off I must go. We are down to the final days with Han before we take her to Germany. There is still lots to do, and some hard goodbyes coming. I'm dreading them. I really am. I hate goodbyes. But I'm joyful at the proposition of what the next two years could hold for her. And I love watching her become her truest self, the person God created her to be. Pray for us, won't you? It's going to be a hard few days. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you are loving people where they are and keeping your eye on your own life, and that you have leftover taco soup for lunch today, too. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye