you are what you eat...

Dear children, you are what you eat...and read, and listen to, and surround yourself with.   Your mind will use the information you put into it to reason with.  You will use the ideas  you have encountered to figure out life.  It is so important that you read about good, strong and brave heroes.  Good books are food for your brain.  Beautiful music and art will feed your soul.  Encouraging friends and family will help you more than anything you could do for yourself.  And God can only speak clearly to you when you get to know Him.

Grace, you are reading Anne of Green Gables right now, and several times a day you will mention something about her you like and how YOU want to be like that (including some day dyeing your hair red).   But when you encounter a character who is so bold and passionate, how could you not be inspired to be more of yourself?  Grace with an "e"... that's my girl! When you kids see a character in book living out a hidden part of who you are you see it, and it can bring that part of you alive.

Trip, you were  definitely forever changed when we read My Side of the Mountain about a boy who goes out and lives in the woods by himself for a year.  It flipped a switch inside you and ever since you want to make things you collect from outside or the recycling bin.  And I hope one day one of your squirrel traps will work so you can have that pet squirrel you want so badly :)

I know I can't protect you all from the world... but why do we push all these sassy, rude, obnoxious role models on our kids?  They are what they eat and if we surround them with things worth imitating they will find the things in themselves worth imitating and bring them out.  Sometimes kids just need to see that great things can be done... whether in a work of fiction or a real life role model... and then they will believe that they can do it too.  They have to see how to do the right thing and they will do it.

You are what you eat and I hope my failings can be filled up with the great characters in the books you read.

God makes all kinds...

God makes all kinds....this is what I tell you kids when we see someone and you ask me why they are "different".  Sometimes it is someone who looks different than us, sometimes someone dressed very differently or someone with an obvious medical condition.    By parenting you kids I grasp a small understanding of why God makes all kinds...there is beauty in variety.

God makes all kinds because a loving parent delights in  their children's diversity.  In the tender eyes of our Heavenly Father none of us are "better" than another, because He loves us all more than we can understand.  All of you kids are so very different and I enjoy very much seeing who you all are turning out to be.

Some of you are the jokers...others are the laughers.  Some of you are the leaders...other the followers. Some of you learn easily, some of you will have to learn to work hard. Some of  you are the strong...others are the ones who inspire strength.  I have thinkers, and feelers.  Strong willed and easy to please.  You are all so different  but amplify the strengths of the others.   I love you all and delight in how you are all just who you were meant to be.

Why would God allow an innocent child to be born with a birth defect? My sweet Lilarose, you were such a sickly little thing.  Because of your cleft palate you had a hard time eating and sometimes it seemed like you weren't growing at all...but no part of me would say that there was ever something "wrong" with you.  God makes all kinds and He made you with that perfect little hole in your palate so that as you grew into a strong little thing all your sassy, strong, beauty would be magnified by the knowledge that you were one who suffered and overcame.

You kids teach me so much. As I lovingly accept each of you for the one-of-a-kind gift you are to me it helps me to love myself more. I  can see how God made me just the way I was intended to be.  I should celebrate how I am different instead of wishing for the strengths of others.   I wouldn't change a thing about any of you and I know that my loving Father wouldn't change a thing about how He made me.

Being is higher than doing...

Dear children, BEING will always be higher than DOING.   I am less concerned with what you do, but am very concerned with who you  are. This sounds very confusing, but it is truly very simple.

 

Say you travel all around the world.  You see amazing things, see beautiful places, eat all kinds of exotic foods, visit historical sights, you DO a lot.  But did it make you appreciate your home more?  Did it help you see all the world as your brothers and sisters?  Did it show you how small you were  or how big you can be if you make your part of the world better?  Are you more human from what you experienced?

 Education is very much a place where BEING is higher than DOING.  You can read all kinds of books, study math and science, learn proper grammar.  But did you let it change you?  Did you allow yourself to be transformed?  Are you more aware of truth and beauty?  Do you delight in seeing the order in the world all around us?  Did your education make you more human or was it something you did?

Religion is PAINFULLY more about BEING than DOING.  If you follow all the 'rules' but never allow what you do to transform you, you will quickly find yourself an enemy to your religion.  If your religious actions do not lead you to love, then all the things you are doing are worth nothing.  Sometimes all the steps to become more seem trivial and small.  But you must live everyday doing those things will which add up to a slow transformation of yourself.  You take everyday and challenge yourself.  You must stop and learn the lessons that life will give you.  If you just go through the motions of DOING you will never BE more. 

And when you are more all the world will know.  Because you will shine like a bright light.  You will send out warmth and peace.  And you will be a blessing to the world.

Marriage still matters...

To my beautiful girls, despite what the world tells you, marriage still matters.  It is still worth it to make a promise, a vow, that you will love someone for the rest of your life.  And it is still worth it to give your life to someone.

Yes, I know you can 'act' like you are married...do all those things married people do...live with someone, spend all your time with them, make memories, even have kids.  Society will even tell you how smart you are for "finding out if you are compatible" before you commit.  This is a lie.  It will never be as full as if you did all these things with THAT man as YOUR husband. Because marriage still means something.

Life is the same.  You work, you play.  Some times are good, others bad.  But marriage adds another layer.

 

Marriage wraps life with a bow that says" I love you, you are unique to me and I choose you above all others".  It says" I will be with you if you are sick or tired...or sick and tired of the kids! I will follow you where ever you go. I will love your family as my own.  You are safe.  I am here to stay and will do whatever it takes".  Marriage says that we will be together for always...long enough to have children and see them raised..long enough to dream about retirement...long enough to be the last one you see in this world. 

 

And then, when you promise to be with someone forever, they will become someone new.  No one stays the same, we are always growing and changing.  Life happens. And then, you get to fall in love again, with whoever this new person your spouse has turned into.  Because you promised you would... and a promise as big as marriage will take your whole life to fulfill.  Some of the things you loved about your husband when you met will go away...some things on purpose, some because life happened.  But I hope you will have the guts to choose someone.  To take the challenge of loving someone for always. 

Do kids make you more awesome?

I remember being so excited when I brought my second born home because I went from having "a baby" to having "kids".  I would call my two little ones "the kids" just for the fun of hearing those words come out of my mouth.  Well, now with 6 kids, it seems a lot more fitting to call them "the kids"... or "the mob" or the "heard of stray cats ".  Having so many kids so close in age can be very stressful and tiring.  Sometimes I feel like the days pass and I have done nothing but go from catastrophe to catastrophe.  But I know, without a doubt, that even though I am not the perfect mom, that these children are my salvation.  These children were given to me to be the furnace that burns all the selfishness out of me so that I can learn to love.  These children show me the face of God. 

Having a lot of kids does not suddenly make you a "good mom" or even a "good person".  But it sure gives you a lot of opportunities to practice!  Virtues are just good habits, and habits are actions repeated over and over.  When you have a lot of kids you get to practice putting yourself last, caring for others, planning things ahead of time, patience, sacrifice, and love.  You get to give up what you want for the good of others.  You learn to value being, more than doing.  You can't define yourself by your cool hobbies or exciting travels.  You are not likely to be high fashion or have exciting stories to tell.  Forget having a nice house or beautiful things. Being a mom is pretty consuming.  But day in and day out my kids are raising me.  Raising me up to be a better person than I would be without them.  Having several kids does not suddenly make you a devout Catholic or better mom...but I know that I am a more patient and loving and whole person than I would be without them.

Dear children, please be mediocre parents

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Dear children, it would please your mother very much to see you grow up to be mediocre parents.  I would like grand kids who squirm at church, laugh too loud and show up to grandma's with a shirt on backwards, maybe mismatched socks. I would like them to talk too much and fight with each other.  I would also like to attend totally uncoordinated birthday parties with just lots of kids running around and having a fun time. I want you to have old junky furniture and stains on the carpet where the kids got in the paint or dumped cool aid. I want my grand kids to be successful.... at loving, at sacrificing, and at laughing.
 

 

Please don't wait to have kids till you can give them the "perfect" life.  You are really just getting them started on life.  God is going to do most of the work.  But have them, even if you can't give them the picture perfect life that society tell us we owe our kids.  The perfect and amazing moments will happen anyway.  If you look for them you will realize that you are showered with moments of love, sweetness, humor, and sacrifice.  Life is beautiful and it will be more beautiful if you don't waste all your time and energy trying to make it so.

 

 Life is a gift.   It take too much time and energy to have a "perfect" life. Maybe I am wrong about this one, but I have a feeling that more good will be done in the world by having all you kids than if I had stopped at 2 and made your lives "perfect".   I want you to ENJOY your kids.   Kids need  parents who delight in them, not picture perfect childhoods.

Simplicity

Dear children,  It is so terribly difficult not to spoil you.  Yes, we are surround by abundance and opportunities to have more everything.  I enjoy so much giving you something new or seeing you in a brand new outfit.  But simplicity in childhood is a gift. It is a gift you will open years from now when you can relive the happiness of your childhood without having to buy it. You are likely to love the things you have and experience now for no other reason than that "that is how we did it when I was a kid"  And I try to remember this as I fashion our days.

I know that you will love many things just because that is how we did things when you were young. So I give you the gift of loving things that are simple.  I give you freedom from being a slave to things.  So much freedom is given to someone who is content with less.  If  we can be happy in a smaller space, with simpler food,  free entertainment or used clothes,  how much freedom  this gives us!  Freedom to marry someone for love.  Freedom to choose if you want to stay at home with your kids.  Freedom from debt.  Freedom from the competition of always having the biggest, the newest, the best.

I want to fill your childhood with things that you can always have. Laughing, loving, learning and knowing God are all beautiful and free things we can give you which will never spoil. 

I hope one day you will smile when you think of sitting at our craigslist table with our family, laughing and all having beanie weenies for dinner together.  And knowing in your heart that you were happy with the little we had because our house was full of love. And that loving God, others and yourself are the only things worth "having".

The more we tie "stuff" into the love that is mom and dad, the more burden we put on our children to love their children that way.   Simplicity is a gift we give our children and early childhood is the time to give it.  This is the time their brains are building that little place that feels like home later when they go out into the world.  As long as they are getting the basics kids won't feel want.  They don't realize how much "stuff" is out there so how can they miss it?  They enjoy whatever comes from mom and dad.  Because mom and dad mean happy and safe and loved.