Letter to My Teenage Self

Dear teenage Shannon,
Yes, the Pulsar is the coolest of all possible first-cars, although when you're riding around with the t-tops off, I hate to break it to you, but you do not look like Mary J Blige.  Even in the hoodie dress and sunglasses.  Take a pic of the Pulsar, though, because in 15 years, no one on the earth will remember this car model having ever existed.  So take those T-tops off, velcro the CD player to the dash, and rock on, girl.  These days are good.  In 20 years, you will still text (it's a thing you'll understand later) Gina every time "California Love" comes on the radio.

You have stumbled upon one of the great truths of life at an early age: a perfect eyeliner application can always improve your mood.  We really should talk about that hair, though.  I know, I know: it was the 90's.

Something you should know: Mom and Dad are actual people.  Hard to understand at this age, I realize.  But they have feelings and struggles and hearts and hurts, and you need to be a little sensitive to that, ok?  One day you'll be a mom, and you'll understand how hard it is to be a mere mortal charged with the heavenly task of raising children. Even when parents fall, they still are heroes.  Mom and Dad are not necessarily perfect human beings (don't worry - they already know this), but they ARE amazing and selfless parents (you may want to let them know this sometimes - they can be hard on themselves, I think).  They can still perch on those pedestals, even though they are real.  Your parents are truly amazing people.  You'll be sentimental about them forever.

Boys are really not worth the trouble.  If you could not be bothered with them until you're about 25, that would be great.  Focus on your girlfriends.  They are the best!  There's nothing better than laughing until you have tears in your eyes over a million inside jokes that will never be funny to anyone else.  Enjoy all your friends.

God has a good man for you.  You'll meet him.  He will take care of you and your kids, he'll even take care of other kids, because he's really amazing.  You'll be crazy about him.  Besides being totally handsome, he's also brilliant.  You don't know now that such a good man will love you one day, but that's because you're young and silly and really should put all thoughts of dating and boys on the back burner until you are older and smarter.  There really is a man with a beautiful heart and who is strong and worthy of respect and who will chase after your dreams all over the world with you.  God made him for you.  Years will pass, and you will never stop being in awe of this man you have.

Be sure you get all your favorite childhood recipes.  You'll love to cook these meals for your kids one day.  And don't be annoyed that Mom makes you cook once in a while.  You'll be a decent homemaker one day.  (Which - are you sitting? - will become your dream job.)

You are actually not an idiot on computers. One day there will be something called the internet, and there will be so many cool ways to stay in touch with people (we call it "online" in the future, ok?) that you will push through your great aversion to technology because you are totally a people person.

Don't be afraid to look stupid.  Don't worry about going to something you want to attend just because no one you know yet is going (you'll remind yourself of this for the next 20-something years), because there are probably new friends waiting for you there.

You'll never be tan.  You're Irish.  If you are smart, you'll stay out of tanning beds and really not go overboard on the spray tan.  Just rock the sunscreen and the Celtic complexion with pride (and maybe a little spray tan).  One day you'll have a daughter who's biracial and you'll want her to be proud of the color God made her (although you will be jealous of her year-round mocha skin).

Get to know your grandmother.  She's super-amazing.  Try to learn everything you can from her.  She knows a bunch of cool things.  She can sew.  She can cook.  She can do the jitterbug.  She knows as much about how to live with joy and vitality as anyone, possibly in the history of the world.  Your kids will love her.  But they will be annoyed with hearing you say each time you drive by her old house that you hope to buy it someday.  (You'll say it anyway...)

The smell of fresh soil and cucumbers will always make you think of Bampa.  You'll never forget him. You'll tell Mom often how much he would have liked your husband.  Sometimes you'll say "Oh boy" to your kids, and you'll stop and think, "Oh my word!  That sounded just like Bampa."

Mom will actually be your best buddy one day.  I know she cramps your style now, but it's only because she's trying to keep you alive to adulthood, so you two can shoot the breeze and enjoy lunches out and talk for hours on the phone.  You'll realize soon that she is probably the most intelligent woman on earth. Honestly. You think you want to live in a big city now, but when you're older, you will live in the same small town as Mom and will think it's the only possible thing to do.  You won't be able to imagine living too far to pop in and visit. She's really quite a lot of fun.  She puts up with a lot from you.  Be sure you thank her profusely at least once later on.



Dad will always make you feel like a little girl inside, like his princess.  He'll always be larger than life.  In 20 years, he will still stand at the end of the driveway and hold up "I love you" fingers when you drive away.  And every time you'll cry.  (Your husband will understand completely after you two have a baby girl.  He'll stand by the sonographer when she tells you that your baby is a girl, and his first words will be, "I'm ruined," and he'll smile.)  Save money when you're still in your 20's to go to Ireland with Dad.  It won't be easy years later, with lots of kids, and you'll regret not going.  He'll never stop calling you "Pooks."  You'll actually catch fish with him as an adult.  I know, you can't imagine either of you doing something so unrefined, but you will be hysterical laughing, dragging a bass through the lake alongside a paddleboat a week after he has a stroke, and you'll thank God for small moments that really are full of treasures.  You will wear a fishing hat.  I know... "Say whaaaat?!"  You'll be cute in it, though.  Don't worry.

There's a reason why they offer classes at 8am in college, as well as at later times.  For the love of all things good, don't sign up for the 8:00 class!

There really will be a day when you don't aspire to own a Mercedes.  It's the truth!  You will -- wait for it...! -- happily drive a minivan one day.  Not forever, just for a couple years, until you don't need to tote pack-n-plays and strollers with you. God will mess with your mind, and you will start to want to put your money into all sorts of crazy things like "other people" and "missions" and "caring for orphans and widows."

Other dreams will change, too.  That fashion designer version of your future?  Not so much.  You will actually dream of being a housewife and having lots of kids from all over the place.  And you'll want to live in an old Maine farmhouse.  Your wonderful husband will humor you, but he will always draw the line at buying you a goat.  He's probably exercising wisdom.



Finally, you are beautiful and precious and loved and valuable.  Please don't take unnecessary risks.  Please don't ever forget that you are the workmanship of a loving God who has good plans for you.  When things in life hurt you, don't build up walls.  Don't self-destruct.  The pain will still be there.  You can't numb it by being stupid.  The only thing you can ever really do is take it to the Cross and let Jesus carry it for you.  You'll figure that out one day.  You'll grow up and have a wonderful life and enjoy your parents and have amazing kids and a handsome husband.  All the hard stuff now is temporary.  The good stuff is what to cling to.  The future is one fabulous adventure.  You'll learn to endure hard things.  You'll have wonderful friends.  You will love your church family.  You will dream big dreams and watch in anticipation as a holy God refines them and guides you.  You will marvel that He would send his only son to die for you, and one day the weight of that truth you've known so long will land hard on your heart, and you will actually write things to share His love with others.  And you'll see some of the friends you love now come to know Jesus, and you'll wonder a little bit if they ever saw him in you, so be careful how you live and what you say now, because the only thing you can take with you to heaven are people... you'll hope that you are a beautiful example of his grace going forward.  Because life passes quickly, and you'll get a better sense of that when you're older.

With great love for you,
Your 33-year old self



(Today, bloggers all over are sharing letters to their teenage selves in celebration of Emily Freeman's new book for teenage girls, "Graceful."  What would you say to your high school self? Let me know in the comments!)

Letter to My Mother on Her Birthday

Dear Mom,
When I think of my earliest memories of you, they are of how beautiful you are.  I remember being little and loving the smell of your perfume in the air and standing small, in awe of the rows of shoes in your closet.  I loved to try on your heels that had the bow with the big rhinestone inside.  Didn't you have those in 3 colors?  And you had tall boots in taupe, tan and black, and I loved to wear them in your big closet and pretend to be Wonderwoman.

Thank you for making me tithe, even when I was little.  I remember my $2.50 allowance each week, and I always took my quarter to church.  Giving to God first has become a habit, and I credit you with that.  You also taught me to avoid credit card debt, and that is something I am thankful for (and so is Selden!).  I hope we can teach our kids those same financial disciplines as well as you taught them to me.

You also are to blame for my highly type-A but very efficient way of making a weekly grocery list that is laid out in order of the aisles in the grocery store.  I thought you were so strange for all you organizational quirks, but now I have them too, so I think they are quite brilliant.

Thank you for always welcoming my friends and our messes into the house.  You saw the genius of play and making art without having lines to stay inside of and encouraged me to wallpaper the inside of my wooden bookshelf as an addition to Barbie's "Dream House."  You let me grow up with a sense of enterprise and possibility, and I know that's something God wants us all to develop in our children.  You gave me a shelf to sell my handmade earrings on in your salon, and you taught me about profit margins and invested in all of my dreams.

I love how you made every excuse to celebrate.  You set the table with candles and flowers, just because sitting down as a family to eat is something to be treasured.  And you cooked me fried eggs and toast for breakfast and woke me up with foot rubs until I graduated high school. (Have I told you recently that you are a much better person than I am?  It's true.  My kids use alarms to wake up and make their own breakfasts.  Please don't tell them about the fried eggs and the foot rubs.  Thanks.)

You threw the best spiral with a football of anyone in the neighborhood, boys included.  And you never pushed me to be all the things you loved.  When I didn't really love sports, and I liked art more, you were the biggest art fan on earth.

Thank you for bringing me along to serve others.  You lived out a life of ministry in front of me, and I now hope to live that with my kids.  I remember crouching in the car, hoping not to get shot driving through unsafe parts of town (for those who don't live in cities where this happens, yes, this is a normal part of life in some areas, not that many car jackers rush to steal Datsun 510's, so we were probably very safe, but that's another matter altogether) to deliver Thanksgiving gifts to a teenage mom and her little babies who lived in a two-room shotgun house.  I remember the kids licking Spaghettio's off the bare mattress when we walked in.  You taught me to seek out what others need, not what I think they need.  And you learned that as you went.  We took a turkey that day, and she didn't have an oven.  So you took a list of all the things she needed more than turkey, and we came back with curtains and diapers and other things.  And you took me to visit people who were sick.  And you invited the families of all the prisoners to our church for a special Christmas and made sure they went home with Christmas trees decorated and gifts and that they knew Jesus came for each of them and loves them.

I can't give you a birthday gift that could ever come close to being able to repay you for any of the riches you've cultivated in my life.  You've given me courage and determination and tenderness and Jesus.  And those things are worth everything.

Happy birthday to a mom I can never repay.
I love you to Jesus!

Shannon

Finding Your Value

My writing has been hit or miss the past year.  I apologize.  It's been a year when my heart's been heavy and so many of the things in my mind have felt too personal to share or have been bits and pieces of other people's stories, and I haven't felt it was mine to tell.  So I've been waiting.  Waiting for inspiration or some brilliant thing to come upon me that would certainly be compelling enough to warrant a blog post.

But for the most part, nothing came.

I sat and stared at the screen.  I typed words, and then I hit backspace until the page was white again.  And I shut the computer down.

I've felt a little inadequate sometimes, to tell the truth.

My reality was shattered to bits by moments spent on the other side of the planet. Standing on a hilltop in a Ukrainian village whose name I still can't pronounce, looking past the smoke from burning trash piles to make out the tiny white speck of a building I was told by the boy standing with me had been his mother's home.  I stood there and caught my breath in my throat, because in that moment he stood beside one who desired to be a mom to him and could not be, because of governments and aging-out of adoption eligibility, looking out at one of the remaining bits of visible connection to a mother who had passed away.  And I just have struggled with how to reconcile all this in my mind, even though I know we live in a broken, hurting world.  

I wondered how many times he'd climbed that hill and looked at that house.

His village is a thousand years old.  We were jokingly told we may have been the first Americans to go there.  (I wonder if it's maybe true.)

We ate fresh sunflower seeds, plucked from the gigantic center of a flower he pulled out of a seemingly endless field of yellow.

It's these moments that have sort of tripped me up this year.

But they weren't all heavy.

We had a good laugh that my husband ate the shell of the sunflower seed, and that I ate the skin of a grape (and lived to tell... we Americans... I tell you what), and we all thought it was funny that we were in great anticipation of a small-town parade when we heard horns and sirens ringing out when in truth it was some sort of Ukrainian signal that you could take your garbage to be disposed of.

When I came home I cried.  And I pushed the Lord to please do something.  Anything.  Give me something to "do" so I feel better about all of this.  Give us an adoption plan.  Give me a ministry opportunity. Something.  Something to be busy and to feel productive.

But I'm learning again to quiet that and to wait. And that's not really my strength, but it's something I am developing with practice, this waiting and this patience. (If you haven't yet, I highly recommend NOT praying for patience.... really.  Anything but patience.  There must be oodles of things God develops in us that are more fun to develop than patience...)

And somewhere in the midst of my stubborn nagging of the Lord to let me remind him of his will and to be sure he knew how very good and well thought out all my plans are for my life, He reminded me of something.

I already have something to do.

I already have a ministry.

He's been whispering to my heart about how my eyes sometimes are focused too far out ahead of me.  So I've pulled back.  And I've been renewing my focus on home and family and the things that are right this minute my work and my offering to him.  And all of these things - these children, this man, our home - are gifts to my life from a really loving and gracious God.  A God who gives good things.  Who is good always.

Last night, I went into a small group class at church called Christianity in the Marketplace.  So, yes, I partially went because I was a smidge shy to go into the women's Bible study alone.... I know, I know- I'm too old to be nervous to attend something without a friend.  But there you have it.  It's true.  So I tagged along with my husband to this class.  And you know what?  It was wonderful.

It was relevant for me.  Because I do have a marketplace.  It's my home.  And in that hour last night, as we heard teaching and as I read the familiar passage of scripture reminding me to "do everything as unto the Lord," I was so encouraged to see my "work" in a new light.  I was able to grab hold of the vision that I saw so clearly 4 years ago when I first stayed home full time.  God reminded me that what I do each day in my home, if I do it heartily and for Him, does have big impact and eternal value.

It's easy for us moms to sometimes forget that what we spend our days doing is of great value.  And I think sometimes the most critical voices we hear are our own.  We sometimes try so hard in our own strength to "make" something valuable of our lives and our time, when really, it's already that.  Because each of our moments is a gift from God.  And no matter what it is we do, when we do it fully and joyfully and diligently and heartily and "as unto the Lord," we can consider our days an offering to give back to the One who has given us this gift of today.

Today is beautiful.  I had coffee earlier than usual, and Sage and I made granola bars.  We took coffee to my husband at work.  Then we went to Target and chose some fun things to use making birthday gifts for my mom and grandmother.  Sage leaned her second memory verse of our "ABC's of Scripture," and she recited it while working diligently on her special gift.  She played the metal triangle instrument we found in the dollar section of Target spontaneously at a number of different occasions: to signal nap time, to signal prayer time, to signal that I could give her a kiss. (Now it's quiet upstairs, so I'm enjoying her sleeping after a 3 week stretch wherein I feared she'd outgrown nap time!)

I'd like to encourage you today to see your time and your life and your value as the Lord does.  Right now, today, you are in a place where God will use your energy and time and talents to be a blessing to others and an example of His love in this world.  Have you had any seasons of life that God has used to change how you see your time?  Are there any ways I can be praying for you today?