Aim Small, Miss Small

Throughout October, I’ve been writing about those things that {re}build a strong family.  This was born out of my deep desire to give my children memories and traditions and laughter even after the tragic loss of their dad.

When it feels like the enemy has taken his hardest kick at your family, you need to intentionally do the things to shore up the foundation and give a strong sense of family.

So today, on the last day of this series, I’m stepping back with a wider lens. To look at the basic goals we need in place when we’re building our family.

When Dan and I started out, early in our marriage or even after having our first baby, I don’t remember ever really talking about long-term goals for our kids. Though we probably had a vision for our family, we’d never discussed it or written it down.

We were wide-eyed and unseasoned.

After Ben was born, I just wanted to make it through the first months of colic. I was mostly trying to figure out each stage when he hit it, default parenting in so many ways.

We added two more children and then another two and within the space of 7 years we had 5 children.

I was so busy with the day to day that the launch of children post high school was a distant horizon.

But God so graciously taught us.

Slowly, slowly God drew us to Him and taught us what He wants in family. And somewhere in the early toddler years, we began to form a key vision for our children.

I have now graduated three kids. I have another who is currently a senior and another that is waiting on deck.  That distant horizon is in my living room. And on two separate college campuses.

So, here is the question that is foundational to building a strong family: When you have your child’s prized possessions in the back of your car and you’re moving her into her freshman dorm, what do you most hope for your child?

The answer to that question is the bull’s eye toward which all of your parenting should aim.

It drives what you teach your child and what you don’t teach. It affects the after school activities and the nightly routine. It affects where you spend your money and how you spend your days.

Our kids can employ their childhood on so many things. American families are offered a huge buffet of activities and interests and pursuits and opportunities and each one either pulls us toward or away from that bull’s eye, that one vision we most want for our children.

At one point in my parenting, I got pulled by some of those pursuits. I veered just slightly from the bull’s eye. So slightly I didn’t even realize the idol I’d set up. I’m so grateful for an offhand comment by a mom with kids a bit older than mine, that pinched my conscience as I realized I had slowly and imperceptibly shifted my aim toward another goal.  I made a course correction that day. Only I could see how I had changed my heart but it affected my parenting, my teaching, my discipling and many choices for my kids.

Imagine a rocket that at launch is just one degree off course. That one degree might look unnoticeable at 1 mile or 10 miles out, but at 500 miles out, that one degree will put the rocket miles wide of its destination.

What do you most hope for your child when their days at home are done and they have stepped into adulthood?

Our ONE GOAL — the bull’s eye we have set our eyes on and that I have prayed for nearly every day of my mothering — is to teach our children to love the Lord with all of their heart, all of their soul, all of their mind and all of their strength.

My children will have to choose for themselves to love the Lord and follow Him with their whole heart. But I choose every single day whether I’m going to point them toward the Lord or fix my gaze just off course. I choose it in how we spend our time, our conversations and discussions, the priorities I set for my family, what I discipline and teach and model (and what I don’t).

Dan and I had a favorite line from the movie The Patriot: Aim small, miss small.  

What do you most hope for your children? How are you spending their days? Aim small, miss small.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. Psalm 127:4-5

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You can see all of the posts in 31 Days to {re}building family here.