in the way she should go.

“You must earn the right to quit.” And with those words floating wisely across the room finding only a lonely stare in my daughter’s young eyes, I returned to the corner of the room and the lotus position from which I came.

Another parenting stroke of genius gently leading my daughter from a place of despair and desolation to perspective as the ocean deep and endless sky sprawl.  One day she’ll look back with forever adoration thanking God for gracing her life with such magnificence.

That’s what it looked like seconds after I spoke a Confucian smoke screen hung with ornate words that impressed only me.  It was one of those lines spoken valued so good that repetition was a must for certainty that the hearer surely missed the glory.

She just sat there unaffected by my words, despite repetition and rephrasing, overwhelmed with emotion and armed with countless reasons to quit.  I miss the mark in my parenting relationship with my daughters.  It happens quite often.

I say the wrong things and do the wrong things every day, but I am convinced that perfection in parenting is a misdirected illusion cutting the legs out from under many parents sinking in mistakes.

:::::::

My oldest is growing into her own faster than I can count days.  Before I know it and much sooner than I care to even entertain at the moment, the day will come when she hugs my neck in a hurry on her way out the door to cut her own path in life.

Already behind us are those days when I carried her and ruled righteously in her life with a firm and unquestioned ‘yes’ or ‘no’.  Life was simple.  That was then.

Now and in the days ahead, she is beginning to (and will continue to) push boundaries, question my judgement and reasoning and stretch out the legs strengthening beneath her.  This is an important formative process that must happen, but also must be shaped by the parent.

“Train up a child in the way (s)he should go; even when (s)he is old (s)he will not depart from it.”  - Proverbs 22:6

And hear me clearly when I say that this, her stretching, pushing, objecting, protesting, is all good.

:::::::

Our conversation was more than simply my words being spoken to her, or at her.  A milestone now sets behind us marking her maturing.

You see, training your child to go at life the right way happens in the smallest of opportunities.  This particular opportunity came in the form of a conversation about giving up because of rejection and difficulty.

Elizabeth has been a dancer for over 5 years now.  She’s learned the basics in several different forms of dancing as she’s been a part of two different dance schools.  Dancing is simply a regular part of her identity as a young girl.  As the new session began, Elizabeth chose to enroll in an advanced ballet class, one that would surely push her ability beyond anything that she’s aspired to accomplish as of yet.  After the first class, I could tell she was frustrated and sinking into a bad attitude.  Then her new teacher suggested she move to a more basic ballet class where she could master base techniques.

Suddenly in her own mind, Elizabeth couldn’t dance.  She wouldn’t.

Vanished were the years of dance behind her.  The recitals, the classes and all accomplished, gone lost in her perceived rejection and difficulty.

In the grand scheme of circumstance and reality, her difficulty seems minute and insignificant.  That was my initial evaluation of it, but I undervalued a great struggle for her; a tension between do and don’t, try and quit, win and lose, significance and perseverance.

She made a handwritten list detailing no less than ten reasons why she would quit dance.  With that list written in the little handwriting that I helped teach, she had my attention.

She was shrinking, giving up without giving greater effort in heavier circumstance.

:::::::

“If you quit now, what will you be?”

...silence, but her eyes said everything.

With a hushed voice she nearly whispered, “A quitter.”

:::::::

As a parent, I never want my kids to feel forced to do anything that they do not want to do.  If she really wants to quit dancing and move onto other activities, she’s free to do so, but she has to earn the right to make a mature decision, to quit.

For the sake of her future standing in wait for her, I made her commit to a mature decision.  She would have to commit to three more weeks of her new ballet class, trying hard, giving full effort and having a positive attitude.  Then once she completed three weeks, we would revisit the discussion.

As kids grow, so must parenting techniques and relationship.  The mistake I observe in parenting is to try to parent the same way as kids grow older and face more mature situations.

We prayed simple words and committed to simple action.  Packed into the cryptic statement that I began our conversation with bathed in her tears, was truth far simpler and greater than I originally intended.  She understood that she couldn’t just quit because a habit would be given room to grow and that life required perseverance through difficulty.

I’m convinced that a good portion of any parenting success with me is due to a sort of subconsciously driven dumb luck pulling wisdom and experience from my past into their present.

After I picked her up from her new class, she smiled almost slyly like she learned a new secret, and told me that she loves her new ballet class.

Gone were the worries that convinced her she should quit.

2.

Two. What are two years worth? Can days be discarded, undesirable and unwanted ones?

In a telling shortness, the two years behind me are worth all that’s ahead.  I’ve cursed plenty of those days playing the victim drunk stumbling on circumstance violating what I measured fair in my life.  Death never seems fair or fitting in its happening and the lonelier days following.

Tomorrow marks 2 years completed since my wife unexpectedly died.  On a Wednesday like countless other ordinary Wednesdays before it, she was rushed from home to hospital.  And I think it was then, not on the following Monday when she breathed her last, that our paths began to pull apart.  I say this because for five days while she lay in an ICU bed, machines pushed air into her and fluids through her.  She was gone.  All that she was was no more.

Time stopped even as I watched it continue all around me and my life, the one lovingly built with her, ended.  A new one started where I was a minor character in a major lead role, often overwhelmed with wordless emotion swirling in the context of grief resting heavy and constant.

I hated the new life that I had no choosing in.  I resented God and if I’m honest in confession, parts of me still do.  Those are the real hurt parts of me pierced by inexplicable, but not out of the question circumstance of a loved one dying.

Killing those hurting and accusing parts of me by allowing time, love and hope to heal is a daily exercise in trusting God and his goodness both universally for all people, but more intimately, for me.

We all die someday, I suppose.

We certainly do die, everyone of us.  Saying, ‘I suppose,’ comes from one of those hurt parts of me that finds a slighting satisfaction in reminding God that I don’t agree nor expected such tragedy to find me then.  But death and tragedy in its wake did find us.  That’s right where our new life started, the one that we are two years into now.

:::::::

Like morning fogged with sky fallen as low as our feet, Ahead ambiguously hangs on the fading tail of days bled through, lost in and even the smallest celebratory moments in clouds knifed through by sun.  The promise of life in the closing distance warming more with each step away from life tearing apart glows on the horizon.  We are not yet there at the glowing destination where all seems as though it rests only calm and giving.  Maybe we never will be fully there.  And maybe not being there is a good thing; a sort of guiding beauty always prompting us onward to a land and place of promise and peace.

We’re drifting, sliding sideways some days, but mostly moving forward in tossing waves frothing and foaming of grief and grace ...a heart-healing, God-stirred elixir.

Days old and aged in effort given and attempts overcome are also effective little liars.  Creepers finding cracks to grow in; the unwanted searching for higher position than truth just standing stoic.  Those days must be let go of as our hands grasp and hold to a new day.  Faith. Grief. Healing.

Rocks hold well in the sea stirring and are a sure welcomed sight for one drowning, but waves don’t relent in crashing.  Unconcerned of their breaking, they keep coming and breaking, again and again.  Life and waves can feel much of the same in this way.

Rock holds and waves break.

:::::::

So what of the two years behind?

I’m braver. I’m bolder. I’m stronger.

I’m more lost. I’m lonelier. I’m smaller.

I’m more convinced of good. I’m wrapped in dawning grace. I’m rescued.

I’m a better father. I’m a contradicting son. I’m an honest man lying in moments precarious.

...a loser won.

:::::::

And what of them, the girls, my daughters? Well, they’re still watching, always waiting and regularly wondering and dreaming of tomorrow.  They simply are the best thing for me, and I would surely be someone different without them.  My daughters hurt and are still found in tears.  In moments where moms fit appropriately, they have no one of exact measurement.  That is the deepest bruise.  Their little hearts have journeyed further and lived more than mine at that age.  And smiles defy all wrong in their day with an honesty inspiring each of my steps.

:::::::

These two years have beat the hell out of me, honestly.  But I’m here everyday gazing upon a glowing distance still blurry in my eyes.

You are where you are, precisely.  Circumstance, both good and not, will always loom and exist.  Your choosing just as mine is simple: onward and through; no matter the depth nor height.

:::::::

And now three.

starve the monkey.

we like our problems. we say we don’t, but we do.  the back and forth, the need for things to be set aright, we like it.  things needed to be fixed in our lives set as seeds promising harvest, the hope and whisper of life better, easier.  more than our problems, we adore their solutions.  the fix.

on some weird level that makes much more sense than we’d like to think in times when life is thinnest, we like having problems.

you know the friend who is so easily, almost readily, found by problems.  the coworker who takes issue with every issue everyday.  the hurt neighbor who hurts so defaultly.

my heart that only wants to give up while the game is still going on all around, halftime still in the approaching future.

we feed them.  ...the problem. the issue. the burden.

we live and were raised in a culture and context hell bent on helping itself with pills and smiles, drinks and relationships and words and books rehashing strategy for every possible wrong that could ever possibly exist in our lives.  people who need healing from everything behind, cultured to being better ahead and close to our problems lingering now and always.

we feed them.  ...the monkey on our back.

our fed monkeys own our focus and distract us from what really matters.

we’re firestompers running around putting out tiny fires burning instead of firestarters burning clean from all clinging to us. we’re fighters of every little creaking problem and thing that goes bump in the night, chasing shadows, instead of fighters fighting for all the promise that lies in the day ahead and all that really matters.

...the couple reading books about how to make their marriage better while it all just keeps falling apart  ...the leader who always has an answer for everyone else but his own crumbling life

we miss the mark because our hearts really belong to our problems and their fixing.

starve the monkey that rests so heavily and regular on your back.  focus on life and living it each day.  be okay with not being totally ok while you reclaim your life, your focus and determined intent.

your problems will always be there, but that day won’t be.  everyday lived under the primary arch of your problems is another day spent feeding the monkey on your back.  he’ll never go away as long as your feeding him (it).

those problems holding on and being held need to be killed off, starved of your full attention and forgotten, though they don’t give up.

starve the monkey.

[read :: Hebrews 12:1; Psalm 55:22]

feed the dog.

Tomorrow is discovered and conquered and inhabited in every thought allowed residence in passing moments today. And why is tomorrow worth so much?

Today. Now. The day in which my feet stand. The smiles I see. The tears that fall in life too thin. The successes small and big. The sinking seen and untold. The hope and reach for more. The blind following.

These are all made worthy not by what’s behind or for the glory of present, but what’s ahead and in front.

And when what, whatever what is ahead in tomorrow, is lost, maligned or forgotten, we spin aimlessly through today unsatisfied and lost.  Hope runs distant, the day shrinks to minutes needing escape and we fade into the background of our own lives.

Feed the dog.

Maybe you’re like me.  Just maybe you have days traveling in reverse when you feel nothing works in your favor or goes your way.  Stub your toe in the dark of morning and fog of mind type of days when the coffee is not enough and smiles set flat on faces familiar; when deadlines race and friends go missing and you forget who you are.  Those days aren’t so bad, actually.  Everyone expects to have a bad day here and there.  They have a way of making the good days sweeter and forging a fortitude and perseverance in our pace.  No one hopes for those days, the bad ones, to last.  And there’s fear and anxiety all wrapped up in those days lasting longer than you can.

Feed the dog.

Some days, the feeling of inadequacy lingers uninvitedly.  Days age into week.  Week into weeks.  Weeks into months and beyond.  Then I’m living maimed by the acceptance that inadequacy exists as more of a plausible, lasting reality than not.

The book still being written.  The daughters still in need of strong guidance and whole love.

Inadequacy rules in my life when I give it living space unhinging dreams, dismantling hopes, ridiculing courage.

Feed the dog.

There’s a parable of sorts that will always stay with me.  I heard it in my younger years.  It was a simple teaching of a inner struggle and control.  Often, I go back to this teaching when circumstance and thought tilts life too far off path for too long.

"A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: 'Inside of me there are two dogs.  One of the dogs is mean and evil.  The other is good.  The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.'  When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, 'The one I feed the most.'"

Feed the man inside of you who is good and capable and courageous; the man who dreams and wins and pushes through; the man who receives God’s immeasurably good grace to do all that pulses within your heart.

Starve the liar inside breeding contempt and fear and disconnect.

Each day, wrap up tomorrow with the thoughts given lasting residence in your heart.

the mountains whisper tomorrow.

at 3am we left under the cover of morning dark.  life bending flat, brushing close to the ground.  wilting tired from days long and nights somehow longer.  this is precisely when vacation means more than sand and waves and souvenirs lost on the drive home; if you’re even lucky enough for them to last that long.  the dates set aside for no work, the work I run to and find identity in and the work I feel chained to, seemed to rest ahead for weeks.  the closer I got, the more I felt I needed time away, from work, from writing, from planning, from thinking about the next step; disconnect to rest, stretch and allow meandering thoughts to roam and echo with no worry of when they’d return with answer or solution. I knew our vacation held this type of rest when I packed my mountain bike.  a week in the mountains of Colorado without a schedule to ream us in or rush us.  just the four of us, me and the girls, visiting friends that feel more like family.

driving through the early morning dark, they slept warmly in the back seat of the car.  I prayed for moments together, the kind that etch themselves on hearts‘ memory and last forever.  I wanted to see breathtaking beauty, the kind that’s new and foreign, uncommon to everyday and them remember it.  I felt like we needed it, the break together, the fresh breath, the change of pace.

as dark gave way to dawn, each girl began to wake to a new day.  the sun casting gently on the mountains all around us, a sense of adventure freed us from the rut we settled in to.  they shared hopes for the week ahead in the mountains.  together, we explored Pikes Peak, Estes Park, the Rocky Mountains and plenty of other spots holding so much historied beauty.  just the night before we left, after hiking through mountains, standing at waterfalls, being dwarfed by cliffs and feeling like we could touch the sky, Elizabeth, my oldest, popped open her heart deeper.

through warm tears, she shared the pain of her grief, hurts of today in seeing friends with their mothers and fears of tomorrow unknown.  she just cried.  she was letting go again.  “thank God for these mountains,” I thought.

for what felt like an eternal day that I’d never leave, we talked through each pain, hurt and fear.  and she let go.

...and that’s when remembered all over again that parenting is really just about being there.

we lived little adventures during our week in the mountains that will always be owned in our hearts.  the laughs and jokes, the challenges of pushing through physically for miles just to spy a waterfall, the drives to peaks lifting us above all holding to us too tightly, they will always be remembered.  my little girls who are stretching for what’s ahead and me wanting more, we all heard the whispering of tomorrow in the mountains together.

here’s to many more adventures in our lives leading us, stretching us, connecting us together.  it’s my hope and prayer that in each day both regular and exhilarating, God would guide and I would listen.

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at the end of their lives.

Two images set fixed in my mind always.  One projected by my hopes and sweat and prayers, the other locked forever in sweetest memory.  Both hold beginnings.  One day the projected image will exist.  My job is to make sure it is not some maladapted version of what I see and hope for now. For each of my daughters, I hold two images.  I will forever remember the first moment I held them as newborns sucking in life and breathing out identity.

Each time, my heart melted completely different, like it never had before.  As their little eyes opened they couldn’t see much or make sense of what was all around them.  They squirmed and cried announcing arrival and beginning.  That is when the second image began to form: who they would one day be.

The two images fixed in place hold each other in supportive tension.

God had much to do with their first beginning and arrival into the world.  I have a momentous and deeply impressionable role in what I think of as their second beginning when they stand on their own cutting their own way in life.

For now, I am protector and guide to them, and if what I read about father/daughter relationships holds true, years from now at the end of their lives, I will be on their mind.  That’s such a heavy and strong thought that keeps me praying and shaping them with what I learn and know.  So I try to envision the end of their lives, what they might think, remember, have lived through and most importantly how they may have made it.

Did they live well? ...risk all for dreams and desires? ...love deeply and forever?

What I can’t handle is the opposite possibility of what I hope for in their lives.

I never want them to live hemmed in by fear, insecurity or whatever clings and pulls them closer to the ground, remaining small and insignificant.  The thought of them at the end of their lives regretting, lonely for dreams formed in youth, loved incompletely and somehow misaligned from what we once hoped for, absolutely breaks my heart now.

This heartache serves to be a very capable guide for me as their father.  Beyond parenting strategies and developmental challenges, those two images fixed together in my heart in cause and effect relationship, uncover resolve and undying determination to love them despite difficulty and guide them through precarious.  Courage and god-like bravery defy any distortion of who I hope them to be in life.

After all, God made me for this, for them.  And them for me.  I’m sure of it.

As a parent, it is likely easy for you to fall into ruts and routine cut into your relationship with your kids by fear.  Fear that our effort will one day reach a threshold where they overcome by normally accepted statistics and hormonal changes.  I hold tightly to the truth that perfect love casts out fear.  1 John 4:18.

As God perfectly and completely loves me, fear has been displaced.  His love teaches me to love fearlessly as I love and teach my daughters the same.

At the end of their lives, when I’m told I will be on their minds, I want them to still be breathing in life and exhaling identity.  The feeling of satisfaction and love deeply rooted in their hearts as they think of their own kids that they helped steer and establish from the heart that I helped form within them from the beginning of their lives.

in a moment much too big.

“We are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.” from “Ulysses” (Tennyson)

In moments heavy, thinning in the heat of an everlasting day, when I’m not quite sure my heart has clarity to see and feet the fortitude to move another eternal inch, an error clouds thought every time.  I slow to a crawl, forget what got me this far and act like a child or alien to difficulty.  As if this particular time, in all its weighted glory, is the first time my heart feels strain, beats quicker and shallower in the face of difficult circumstance.  I doubt ability, lose sight of tomorrow and beyond and shrink to the size of the moment ...or smaller.

Gone are any traces of faith or courage, valor or bravery, displaced and decayed by worry, fear and everything wrong.

My mistake is to value trust as an option.  Trust is never an option.  That is, it should never be reduced to only an option.

Maybe you’re like me in that trust is yet to mature beyond the grasp of circumstance.  If so, I’d imagine you, too, wrestle with not trusting enough, often responding in difficulty with a heart bent toward doubt and uncertainty.

At any given moment straining, doubt could certainly be seen as a much higher value in my life.  Because they remain opposing options, to trust or to doubt, the one with the higher value, the one that makes more sense and seems inevitable, wins.

Perhaps trust needs no measuring at all.

Maybe trust does not need to be matured to any certain size, but constantly present in the heat of a day burning out of control just as in the cooling calm of an afternoon breeze whispering comfort.

Time and circumstance will weaken you.  You will fall.  You will fail.

Strength comes to those who allow the slightest bit of trust to mix into doubt clouding.  From their knees they rise again standing in a moment much too big.  Where they have failed, they are found.

All we can ever really do is trust.

Proverbs 3:5-6 :: To trust God with all of your heart requires nothing more than the confession that you are not enough; not your actions, nor your ability or heart.

No moment is ever too big for a heart abandoned to trusting God fully.