I turned the mini-van into our neighborhood, so ready to be done with the afternoon of errands. My younger two in the backseat needed some down time to free range after our full school morning and I was itching to get to my laptop for a slew of writing tasks.

I would have a delightful window of time to work on my stuff before we loaded back up to meet my 17-year-old after football practice.

I pulled into our driveway and turned the van off. Just as I was about to give some instructions for the afternoon, my cell phone buzzed. It was my 17-year-old.

“Hey,” I answered, trying to smooth over any tone that I already felt interrupted.

“Hey, Mom. I forgot my cleats. Can you bring them to school?”

Ok – let me freeze right here.

I know the consensus among so-called experts would advise a parent in this situation to just say no. Parents should not rescue, they say. Let the child experience natural consequences and solve the problem without stepping in.

Believe me when I say my own agenda was also screaming no. Turning around to help him now would mean another 45 minutes at least before we’d be back home.

But I didn’t hesitate on this one.

“Sure. I’ll bring them to the field,” I said backing down the driveway for another round trip to his school.

There have been plenty of times that I’ve knotted up with frustration or launched into a lecture or let the consequences teach but I’ve also learned that sometimes you step in to help because — this is what a mom does.

Maybe the experts would cringe at that. Maybe they’d say I’m rewarding irresponsibility or crippling my child’s ability to figure it out.

But if I’ve learned anything in this parenting it’s that rules without mercy wind me up way too tight. We all need grace.

Some situations call for a bright-line rule.

Sometimes I need to call the child downstairs to put away shoes left in the living room.
Sometimes I need to call the child and review the rule on where to put our shoes.
Sometimes I need to hold the shoes until the child can pay their ransom.

But strict rules enforced with absolute consistency make me feel more like a master sergeant than a mom – and they don’t account for real life.

Because departures can get busy and time gets miscalculated and tasks get forgotten. And in those situations – if it’s not chronic irresponsibility – then maybe what’s most needed is not to tow the hard line but to offer grace.

Sometimes I just need to quietly put away the shoes because that’s what a mom does.

Or clean up their late night snack.
Or help them with an 11th-hour deadline.

When I reassure myself that this is part of a mom’s territory, my expectations adjust and my feelings follow. The irritation that usually rises and the sense that I’m being put out unwinds.   

Grace just releases all of us.

I got an urgent call yesterday from an installer who was ready to start work on our out-of-town rental. He had special-ordered material and his worker was all scheduled to start installation except for one hang-up: he hadn’t yet received my deposit.

Because I’d forgotten to send the deposit.

The invoice had become buried under other papers in my stack and now I had two choices: I could press pause on my entire morning, load kids up in the car and drive the hour and a half to give him a check or I could call my son who lives in the same town to help.

I sent a text to my son: “Can you take a check to the house for me this morning?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Sure!”

There was no lecture. No irritation. No I’m-not-going-to-step-in-so-the-consequences-can-teach.

He extended grace when I needed it.

That’s what a family does.

We started our 18th year of homeschooling this week. I shuffled shelves, scoured the attic for a missing grammar book and lay out fresh school supplies and goodies at each child’s place around the dining room table as we ramped up to full schedule.

We’ve graduated four kids so far with three more still at home. The years have been a sieve to all the daily tasks — the memory work, Bible study, history projects, co-op days, math facts, 5-point essays. Though so much of it was necessary and all of it seemed valuable, two things stand out above the others as time best spent: our shared mornings of Bible study and the shared books we’ve read aloud.  More than any other work, those two seemed to have molded and shaped our family, our thoughts and values and perspective.

With the launch of a new school year, this new release, Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time by Jamie Martin, arrived in my mailbox at just the right time. I had been casting about for an exciting theme or new unit study — something that would give this school year a special spark. This book is it and I could not be more excited to explore the world and this treasure this year!

Give Your Child the World is a carefully curated list of more than 600 children’s books from all around the globe. These books listed let kids taste and see the people groups and cultures of countries on every continent.

It’s not a geography book, though you could easily incorporate many of the books listed to round out an amazing world geography course. It’s not a missions book, though these books would provide a rich backdrop to help understand the people and places where missions takes place.

It’s really a buffet of some of the best in children’s literature with a global perspective. More than that, Jamie marvelously provides numerous ways for families to bring the world into their homes — ideas like creating a prayer jar, learning about ethical spending, using Google earth, traveling vicariously through a flat paper doll and sponsoring a child in another country.

Jamie lives out what she writes in Give Your Child the World with four countries represented in her own family. She’s done the hard work of reading through hundreds of books to provide this list of the best. My only wish is that it included selections for high schoolers — I’m hoping perhaps as Jamie’s own children grow, she’ll share in the next edition titles she’s culled for the oldest kids at home.

I’m delighted not just to tell you about this great book, but to give away a brand new copy to one of you. This is a book you’ll want to keep on your shelves as a resource for books to pull from the library, used sales or to gift on special days. This book will give us the special spark and unique theme I so wanted for our school year as we travel the globe through the best of children’s literature!

To enter to win a new copy of Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally minded Kids One Book at a Time, please leave a comment below. This giveaway will stay open until Sunday, August 28 at midnight and I’ll announce the winner on Monday.

Happy weekend, friends!

P.S. I’ve been working this week on the personal spiritual retreat materials that are almost ready….you can get a sneak peek here!

**UPDATE: The giveaway is now closed and the winner is Teresa M. Be sure to look in your mail for some happiness, Teresa!

Happy almost summer to you! Our family just got back from a week away up in the mountains of North Carolina and it was restful to the core. I’m a fourth generation Floridian and I love so much about Florida, but my happy place — the place where I can really rest and feel my soul just breathe deep — is the mountains. Give me a log cabin tucked into a wooded mountainside with the sound of a trickling stream and some cool air and everything in me starts to relax.

It was so good to get away, especially with the people I love. My oldest kids couldn’t come this year [insert sad reality face here] but I loved getting a week off-grid with the rest of my kids. I learned a few years ago to carve out the very first week my college kids are home as family vacation or the summer jobs and internships and camps start and it just doesn’t happen.  We hiked, read, hiked, rafted, antiqued and hiked. 😉

 

(If you’re on Instagram, I post more there and would love to see you there.)

One afternoon, after a long 3-mile hike up more than 1000 steps (hello, Tallulah Gorge) and a stop for ice cream and a quiet van on the way back to our cabin, I saw again how God has restored so much joy to our eight broken hearts.

I so clearly remember asking God not why — God allowed me to skip through that kind of questioning — but HOW? How in the world when our life had shattered into a thousand pieces and I was facing such fear, such huge unknowns and such gut-wrenching grief, how in the world could He fix eight broken hearts?

But He does. He promises it and He is faithful. There are still hard days and still tears on the pillow some nights — less often now — but God does usher in joy where there is brokenness.  And that joy is even sweeter now.

Well, as we launch into summer 2016, I am coming up on two years of writing here at True and Faithful as well as some other places. Amazing in so many ways but that’s for another post.

For now, I’d love to ask you a few questions. I love your comments and your emails because I get to know you. I love when you hit reply on a post and send me your own prayer concerns. I *loved* posting pictures of some of our moms here with their kids for Mother’s Day.

But I don’t always hear from all of you. So I’ve created a short survey. It’s just 5 questions, short and sweet, and will truly help me to know who’s on the other side of this keyboard as I click away.  I’d so appreciate you taking about 30 seconds to complete these 5 questions.

Thank you so much for your feedback. Thank you for reading and sharing.  xoxoxo