"Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world."

Ah, tis the season of break-up. For those of you who celebrate Spring, Alaska doesn't get one. Instead we get what Alaskan's refer to as 'break-up'. While the lower 48 gets beautiful budding flowers, lush green grass, and sweet floral fragrances fill the air...Alaska has a much different experience. Feet of snow stretch across the landscapes, no longer pristine white in appearance, it’s now dressed in dirt and debris. Ice roads turn into mudways dotted with potholes and the pungent aroma of things best left unthawed greet your nose. But if this is price we have to pay for our magnificent summers...then we are happy to comply. While I would not cry if I had break-up bungalow on Kona, I could never part with Alaska permanently.

In keeping with this  theme for April, I also broke up with Facebook for a little while. I've always been aware of the drain on my time Facebook is. But after watching a documentary on the influence we allow social media, news, and Hollywood into our lives I was enlightened. With the Covid-19 pandemic in full swing, I started paying attention to the narrative that was being presented to me, whether it came from the news or social media platforms. I have been working with Aiden for the past year on critical thinking, pairing it with research to formulate your view points. Aiden loves information. He seeks it out, he soaks it up, and he shares it. Some parents choose to remove the conflict entirely. Sully and I have chosen to try and co-exist with the technological world. We monitor what the kids intellectually ingest and discuss exhaustively. Often times we wonder if we should toss the devices in the lake and debate going 'Little House on the Prairie' old-school. But the truth of the matter is that we cant plant our heads in the sand and make like an ostrich, we can keep the kids sheltered while they are home with us, but the big bad world is waiting to devour them the second they are on their own.  Our job isn't to shelter them. It's to equip them properly so they can function with confidence in this crazy world. Sometimes, the worrier in me, the anxiety filled me that I am forever trying to browbeat into relying upon faith; she comes out and rears her ugly head. When she is given the reigns, I parent more like John Lithgow in Footloose, trying to bend my will with fire and brimstone. “There will be no dancing!” 🤣

I can't tell you how many parenting books I've read, how many articles I have poured over, trying to find the secret to doing it right. Ultimately I think in general we all do the very best we can. (There are exceptions to this rule, as hard as that is for me to wrap my head around.) Overall, the minute that tiny humans existence is acknowledged you instantly and fiercely love and want to protect them with everything in your being. And we screw it up, cause we are human. And sometimes the most valuable lessons we learn are from the mistakes we make. And we agonize, we lament, and we riddle ourselves with guilt when we fail. I have a deep pocket of grace for my own parents, because I realized in becoming one...just what it entails. One mothers day, I received a card with this famous Elizabeth Stone quote: "Making the decision to have a child-its momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart to go walking around outside your body."  That encapsulates parenthood in all its glory. What a vulnerable undertaking.

I don't know if any of you struggle with the need for control. I wouldn't have originally said it was one of my traits, however the Holy Spirit has evidence to the contrary. I want so desperately for my children to know the Lord, and for our lives to be a reflection of that, I try and force it. I'm like Darla in 'Finding Nemo' & I love things to death. I've realized that this is a tremendous lack of faith on my part, and a deterrent for my family to pursue God. It isn't my job to save Aiden, Charlee, or Sully. It is only my job to love them. I have to relinquish my fear and trade it in for faith, and allow God to do the work in the them. I can't put them in a plastic bubble and shake my beliefs into them vigorously and expect them to be receptive. In doing that I suffocate and kill the message of grace that I’ve been entrusted to share.

If God can create me, and allow me free will to choose Him...who am I to enslave people? I think it's easier to fixate on how to manipulate others into the Christian molds I have constructed by my own understanding. Its much harder to focus on my shortcomings and instead mold myself  into what Christ envisions for me, outside of my selfish nature and idolatry. How much more of an impact as a parent would I display for my children, if I put into practice what I preached?

For me this is something that has been weighing on my mind for many years. In blogs past I have touched on it...but the recent abundance of time to ponder has me grappling with ways to really put it into practice. How many of us grew up in the age of "Because I said so"?! While I certainly agree that parents do not owe their children explanations for everything, on the flip side I wonder if sometimes this catch-phrase isn't just a way for parents to avoid conviction. How often are we asking our kids to "Do as I say, not as I do" which is a mixed message. Jesus was effective as a teacher only because He lived what he spoke. We have the greatest opportunity to impact our children not in what we teach them by our lectures, but in how we live our lives. How we treat others, how we treat them, and most importantly how we treat ourselves.

I couldn't in good conscious tell my children they needed to limit their usage on their devices if I was a hypocrite in my own time management. In the same way I had to take a hard look at what content I was consuming. Was my bible study getting as much of my attention as my social media account? Was I getting sucked into needless drama online, and were my kids being exposed inadvertently to gossip and slander because of it? Was I allowing an unnecessary amount of fear mongering and political propaganda to infiltrate my own peace of mind, without realizing how much of that spilled over into my mood and behavior? While Facebook, Instagram, and the various other social media platforms are not necessarily evil, they certainly have potential to be an idol. I could tell as soon as the app disappeared from my screen that it was going to be a painful lesson, and this isn't the first or sadly the last time I will likely learn it.

The ultimate lesson I'm gleaning from this particular 'break up'...is that we really are what we eat. While that is true for our physical bodies, it also applies to the mind. What we consume everyday intellectually plays a huge role in who we are. I was starving and instead of filling up on scripture and biblical truth I was gorging on worldviews and utter garbage. And if I'm devoid of the goodness of God, than what can I offer my kids? Who, more now than ever, need to be filled with all the things only He can offer us in a world of uncertainty. Peace. Hope. Love.

"In this world you will find trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world" John 16:33