Category Archives: Children

Sneak Peeks, THRIVE AND SURVIVE

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Several months ago, I blogged about my sister Mary and I writing a book for mothers of children from birth to age five. Though it took more than a decade to finish our project, God graciously allowed us the time we needed—despite Mary’s terminal cancer. 

Our planning and writing was a stop-start process that included endless interruptions but also the happiness of working together in the year before she went to heaven. And now, at last, the end-product is about to launch. It’s titled Thrive and Survive, Zero to Five, with subtitle, “2 sisters, 14 children and what we wish we’d known from the beginning.”

Mary was the one who brought structure to our ideas by outlining the book and creating the Table of Contents. She also wrote 58 sidebars that are sprinkled throughout—bullet-point extras not covered in the text.

The next series of blog posts on this site will offer sneak peeks into the content of Thrive and Survive, keyed to Mary’s sidebars. Then, come the end of August, the book should be available through Amazon and other sources.

Arriving at this point is deeply satisfying—and I hope Mary knows all about it. Her wisdom is laced through the book, and both of us share mothering  fails as well as successes. Our hope has always been that new moms won’t have to make the mistakes we did, and our prayer is that they will truly thrive in their efforts to do the most important job on the planet.  

“May she who gave you birth be happy.” (Proverbs 23:25 NLT)

Taught by a Child

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After several weeks of traveling, I’m thankful to be home, though I’ll be packing my suitcase again soon. Since “my people” are always waiting at the other end of each trip, the motivation to go-go-go is strong.

Recently granddaughter Emerald’s parents let me take her on a flight to Florida where daughter Linnea, her husband Adam, and their six children live. Baby May was born in January, so our trip was a chance to see how she’d grown and to catch up with all the others. It would also be a chance for Emerald to spend time with half of her faraway cousins.

Two words describe our week there: happy hubbub.

Though monitoring seven children ages ten and under is hard work, it borders on entertainment. Without demanding too much of us, the kids moved through each day in a joyful pack.

 

There were plenty of messes, most of them accompanied by high volume, but the cousins came up with one play-plan after another — stringing them together like beads on a pretty necklace.  

On the 7th day, however, something unexpected happened. As we all headed outdoors to watch a parade of skate boards, scooters, and bouncy balls, Emerald came to us with tears in her eyes.

She sat on my lap, sobbing out the details. “I miss my mommy and daddy.” Linnea and I reminded her that our flight home was the very next day, not too many hours from then. Soon after that she recovered.

Later, though, at bedtime, her misty eyes returned. I was bouncing a fussy baby May when Emerald came alongside in search of reassurance. “When are we gonna see my mommy and daddy again?”

She climbed up next to me and looked at the baby, who was crying, too. I recited our flight plan again, but her response was off-topic. While wiping her eyes and studying May’s frown-y face, her own face brightened. “I know!” she said. “The pacifier!”

 

She jumped down and ran to find it with only one thing on her mind: helping the baby. Her own sad thoughts had evaporated.

How true that is for all of us. If we dwell on the parts of our lives that aren’t going well, our troubles stick with us. If we’re willing to tend to the difficulties of another, our problems shrink – or disappear altogether.

God was the one who thought this up when he told us to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). If we follow his instruction, both parties are uplifted by the actions of the one.

After a happy plane ride the next day, Emerald finally connected with her mommy and daddy in a cheerful reunion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She’d forgotten her tears, but I hadn’t. By her example, this old grandma had been challenged to do more for others. And just as God says, if we give to someone else, he’ll give to us.

“Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.” (Luke 6:38)

God’s Perfect Timing

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In a few short weeks a new book will be published. The back story is that my sister Mary and I wrote it together over an 18 year period.

That sounds like a long time to write about raising children from birth to only age five, but it wasn’t the content that stretched our project. It was the raising of children ourselves.

Mary and I first talked about co-writing a book long ago in side-by-side beach chairs. “Some day we should write for younger moms, so they can avoid the many mistakes we’ve made,” she said.

We began praying about it and our sense was that God wanted us to move forward, encouraging mothers whose efforts to raise children these days are often denigrated by our culture.

We set to work, even though finding time together without kids was a challenge. After we would reacquaint ourselves with what we’d written to that point, it was usually time to put it all away again.

As our collective 14 children grew older, though, new pockets of peace popped up, and we began making better headway. Then a giant stop sign planted itself right in front of us:

Mary’s terminal cancer diagnosis.

Her free time quickly filled with medical appointments, surgery, feeding tubes, and chemotherapy – and the book was set aside. I gathered our materials and folded them deep into a basement box.

We assumed Mary’s remaining time would be in days not years, but how fortunate we were to be wrong. About five months after her diagnosis her health was stable, and she was feeling good. One day, again at the beach, she said, “Hey, let’s dig out the book and try again.”

“Really?” I said, grateful for her forward-thinking.

“ Well let’s try, anyway,” she said. “Who knows what’s ahead.”

The next day we dug out the stack of 10×13 yellow envelopes stuffed full of ideas, examples, and Scriptures for each chapter, and spread them out to see where we’d left off.

As we worked, we followed the pace of Mary’s good and bad days, making sure we had lots of creative sessions at (guess where) the beach. 

One day I told Mary that since the Lord was the Initiator behind our book, he might just keep her going until the project was finished. With her usual pluck she said, “Then let’s drag our feet.”

God always finishes what he starts, and two years later, he brought us to our finish line. We began shooting the book through cyber-space to different publishers who each considered it for several months, and we came close. But before we got a yes, the Lord lifted Mary into Paradise.

Both of us trusted God to publish the book whenever he wanted, and now…this appears to be his time. THRIVE AND SURVIVE, ZERO TO FIVE, will be launched in several weeks.

And I like to think Mary knows all about it.

“It is not for you to know times… that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” (Acts 1:7)