CHAPTER 8

THAT MESSY PEACH PIE

Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter, unless it is about loving God and loving the people He has made?

FRANCIS CHAN

I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. Here we were, not even home two weeks from our first family trip to Kenya, and my kids had the audacity to complain because I asked them to share their candy with each other.

And so I went there. “How can you complain about sharing something so insignificant when you stood in a shack the size of my closet that was shared by six people? I thought going to Africa would show you how much we have. I thought it would change you!” I watched Jon-Avery’s face fall and Madison’s eyes fill, but I was too wrapped up in myself to respond as I stormed off, muttering about my ungrateful kids.

We had taken them on this amazing journey for many reasons, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I hoped it would produce more thankfulness in them. Don’t get me wrong, I have good kids. No, great kids. But they are human . . . a lot like their mom; we can all stand to complain less and be more thankful.

After I cooled off, my daughter found me. “Mom, you’re right, we can share. I’m sorry.”

Triumph.

But she wasn’t done. “Mom, Africa did change me. I feel angry at what I saw. I am different. I’m trying to figure all this out, but I’m still an American kid. I don’t live in Africa. But I will never be the same because of what I experienced. I’m still trying to figure out what God wants me to do about what I saw and experienced. Please don’t say that it didn’t change me.”

It was time for my face to fall. I knew that I had deeply hurt my kids with my words. I was doing the very thing I condemned them for: complaining. Later, I shared my frustration with a good friend, someone who knows me well and loves my kids dearly.

“Kristen, you’re seeing your kids up close, all the time. Step back. Look at them. They are world changers. They love the lost and poor and put others first. Your kids are amazing.”

She was right. It broke my heart that I couldn’t see it for myself. Later that day, I apologized to them and asked for forgiveness. “Madison and Jon-Avery, I’m sorry. I am so proud of you and how you handled our trip to Kenya. You served every day, you helped with your little sister, you encouraged the staff, you spent time with the mommas-to-be. You ‘loved mercy’ well. I’m sorry for being so hard on y’all. Will you forgive me?”

They did, and I did what I should have done in the first place: I let them feel and process in their own way. Every trip to Kenya leaves us reeling, trying to fit what we know into what we’ve seen. It’s a process and we haven’t figured it out completely, but I’m confident we are raising truly great kids who are already successful.

And that’s when I realized we were in the process of redefining success for our family. We were bucking against the world, which says success is how popular you are or how much money you make. Ever since we went to Africa, we see through a global lens, and it has deeply altered our view. Following this God-sized dream has reshaped us. Our goal isn’t a fat 401(k) so we can live comfortably for ourselves; our kids aren’t on the path that many of their peers are on, vying for popularity and more stuff.

That’s not to say my kids don’t want to be popular or have more stuff; they are kids, after all. They just recognize there’s more to life. They have seen how the rest of the world lives, and they get it. They aren’t weird or misfits, and they’ve been able to find small pockets of community in their public schools and at church. But they are known as Christians. They attend school Bible clubs before school led by Christian teachers and invite friends to church. They talk about their trips to Kenya and share their world perspective. It’s not easy. It’s hard when your normal isn’t normal.

It’s even harder when you’re a kid and society demands that the number one goal is to fit in —and you don’t. Madison explains it this way: “I love the latest fashions and having fun with my friends. I don’t have social media accounts or boyfriends like most of the kids at my school, but I don’t want to be like everyone else. Sure, I’m different from a lot of kids, but I feel respected for living my life this way.”

Success in God’s upside-down economy is supposed to look different. It’s becoming less so He can be more. It’s putting yourself second, others first. It’s letting your kids ask hard questions and letting them teach you about true greatness. Jon-Avery asked me one night why some of his Christian friends were allowed to play teen-rated video games. I explained that parents and kids have to make their own decisions, and I asked him if we should reconsider letting him play older games.

“No, Mom. I’m glad you don’t let me. I don’t want that stuff in my mind,” he said.

Yet we are still a very human, typical family. There’s about as much dysfunction in my family as there probably is in yours. We have arguments and dirty rooms and piles of laundry. Some days I mop the entire floor with a wet paper towel because I don’t want to do it for real. We take vacations and attend after-school events and have meltdowns in the toy aisle at Target too.

This journey has taught me so much about my family. How we are like a team, pitching in our strength when others are weak, making hard choices and standing together no matter what. The rest of the time we’re being goofy and relaxed, passionately debating the color of the sky and picking on each other. As blogger Robert Brault has said, “Family life is a bit like a runny peach pie —not perfect but who’s complaining?”[10] I think what we have as a family is deliciously healthy even though there are times when we definitely don’t have it all together.

I hope you can take heart in that. I think sometimes we like to tell ourselves when we see a family serving or doing something bigger than they are that they are better than we are, that there is no way to catch up with what they have accomplished. Let me dispel the myth that doing something big for God happens only when we reach a certain stage or have moved past particularly trying phases. That’s not the way it works.

God wants us right in the middle of our mess because it’s the perfect place for Him to shine through our imperfections. When Adam and Eve —the first family —disobeyed and believed the lie that God didn’t love them, God’s perfect creation started to unravel from sin. But God went on to use people like them to be part of the love story that culminated with a baby named Jesus who rescued and redeemed God’s children.

Since the family is God’s means of telling His story, our goal is to build a strong family. One key aspect is having respect for each other. It doesn’t say much about me if I excel at loving others (locally or globally) yet I’m mad at my daughter for losing my favorite earrings and verbally abuse her. Romans 12:10 says, “Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other” (NLT). Our preference is to show appreciation for each other on a regular basis.

Sometimes at our house I still hear, “You are the meanest mom!” I used to cringe when my kids said this. Now I just nod my head and remind myself that I must be doing something right. And you probably are too. But the world won’t always see it that way.

I try to say yes when I can, but let’s be honest —sometimes the answer needs to be no. Unfortunately, this isn’t popular in our world. We live in a culture that thinks it’s more important to be a yes parent —to make sure kids are happy all the time, beginning with iPads at age three, cell phones at seven, an extracurricular activity almost every night at eight, $150 shoes at nine, unlimited freedom at eleven, and dating privileges at twelve.

I’m sure some people will never see me as a good parent. Saying yes is a whole lot easier than saying no. No takes courage and strength (especially if God has blessed you with strong-willed children like mine). Whenever my kids disobey, show major disrespect, or start putting on an attitude of entitlement, I send them out to the yard. We have tall, ugly weeds in the mulched areas of our front and back yards. Y’all, we’ve gone months and months without a single weed.

In an effort to raise a strong family that can withstand the shifting cultural storms that blow our way, Terrell and I are committed to raising our kids counterculturally. We take these words of pastor Francis Chan to heart: “Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers.”[11] We are trying our best to build a strong family by being consistent, offering grace and understanding along the way.

And we manage to mess up every day. I lose it over Madison’s room. I’m a neat freak (my kids call me obsessive about a clean house). Madison is a musician and a deep thinker. Her canvas is often her room. I have yelled and screamed and regretted making her bedroom a battleground. We finally compromised at letting her live freely in her space during the week and cleaning up her array of clothes and hangers and shoes on the weekends.

If you visited our house, you’d hear us before you saw us. We are loud and passionate. We laugh, we cry, we argue. We sing off-key, we dance in the kitchen, we complain when we shouldn’t. Madison mothers Jon-Avery, telling him what to do. Jon-Avery does the same to Emerson, and Emerson takes it out on the pets.

Before you feel sorry for my kids, you should know we also provide them with love and affection; we meet every one of their physical needs and many, many of their wants. We splurge occasionally (which I think is absolutely necessary), and we invite our kids to talk to us about anything, as long as they can do it respectfully. When our kids were younger, we had “What’s Your Beef?” nights every once in a while. It was a time for our kids to share their frustrations with Terrell and me.

I remember my kids telling me that they needed a space to be messy without having to pick things up the minute they were untidy, and they really felt like they needed an allowance. These nights established a good routine for my kids to talk openly and honestly with us. Of course, we don’t always discuss things with the right attitude or tone, and we have hurt each other with our words, like most families. But we keep trying.

I know there are many families on the same path with us, and I hope we can encourage each other. Choosing to live counterculturally isn’t easy. You will be misunderstood, even pitied. You won’t fit in and neither will your kids. Your children probably will resist in some areas. Nothing is harder for kids. It means your kids won’t be like everyone else. Most days my kids are okay with this, but some days it’s hard for all of us. We continually teach them to trust us as we try to follow God, but we know there are some things they will never understand or like. Which brings me back to being the meanest parents ever. And honestly, I’m okay with that.

Here are twelve areas we are focusing on as a family to live counterculturally:

  1. We have a family mission statement.
  2. We resist spending money we don’t have. Kids watch you even if you don’t realize it. We try to be an example of someone who has good spending habits. And if we should overspend, it’s important to attack the debt immediately because debt becomes an encumbrance.
  3. We tell our kids no if what they are asking for or wanting to do isn’t right for our family. We strive to be intentional with our choices.
  4. We expect our kids to work. Hard work creates a sense of pride and ownership. It encourages kids to work for what they want. We don’t just buy them everything. We keep a job jar in the kitchen and reward their effort.
  5. We differentiate between needs and wants. There’s a lot of pressure as parents to give our kids the best of everything, but it’s important to determine what they really need. We try never to skimp on what God says they need —unconditional love and grace. We make it our goal to laugh every day and be grateful.
  6. We make family meals a priority.
  7. We don’t overschedule our kids. It’s not uncommon to hear moms in my community talk about shuttling their kids around for hours every day after school. I think kids need unscheduled time at home. We limit activities outside the home.
  8. We encourage alternative choices to what others are doing, challenging our kids to creatively express themselves and think outside of the box. One example I’ve heard of that I loved was a group of kids giving the $100 to charity that they would have spent on a homecoming football mum. They let everyone know by wearing T-shirts that said so. There’s nothing wrong with a mum or splurging for a special occasion, but the average family spends a thousand dollars on the prom. I think money can be spent more wisely.
  9. We limit screen time (video games, computer, and TV). There are different ways to do this: You can set a certain time limit for each day, make it weekends only, or have a “no technology day” once or twice a week —whatever works for you. At our house, we limit the kids to thirty minutes of individual screen time a day. We try hard to enforce this during school and are more lenient in the summer. Last year, we started screen-free Sundays. When we told our kids, they flipped out. Their reaction reinforced exactly why we needed to do it. The key is consistency. Before long, we noticed our kids expected it. But we aren’t legalistic about it. Some of our best memories are made when we break our own rules, pile on our bed, and watch a movie together on a Sunday afternoon.
  10. We expect more from our kids than culture demands. Society says kids need stuff and all teens are lazy. We read the book Do Hard Things as a family. The authors, Alex and Brett Harris, challenge kids to live above what the world expects of them.
  11. We allow our kids to make their own mistakes and to see ours. We don’t fix everything. It’s important to teach children responsibility by letting them fail sometimes. If we always rush to bail them out of problems and mistakes, they will continue to make them.
  12. We splurge. It’s fun to surprise the kids every once in a while by breaking one of the rules.

Disclaimer: I am the first to admit that we struggle with this list. One or more of the rules might be easy to keep consistently, whereas others are difficult. We can’t be put on a pedestal for being a model family. Our main goal is to keep our focus on God and Him alone. Even with our shortcomings, I know that it’s important for us to persevere. If Satan can convince us that we aren’t good enough as a family to leave a positive imprint on this world, then he wins. We can’t let that happen.

Because when it’s all said and done, I want what we succeed at to matter for eternity. Tim Kizziar said it well: “Our greatest fear . . . should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”[12]

If these twelve rules seem overwhelming to you, start with a few and add to the list over time. I recommend two to begin with: crafting a family mission statement and gathering for a family meal each day.

CREATE A FAMILY MISSION STATEMENT

When we wrote a family mission statement in 2008, it felt bold. I had been blogging about a year, and I knew our family needed goals, something to work toward together. Our kids were all under eight years old and it seemed like a good time to teach them about intentional living.

We started by brainstorming about some goals we wanted to accomplish as a family. We talked about going on a family mission trip instead of a regular vacation and making a point to have fun on a regular basis. My kids threw the word adoption in there, too, and we suggested they pray for Mommy and Daddy. We talked about the two important things we knew God wanted us to do: love Him and others, based on Jesus’ greatest command reflected throughout the New Testament.

The most important commandment is this: . . .“You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” The second is equally important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” No other commandment is greater than these. MARK 12:29-31, NLT

Here’s the mission statement we came up with in 2008:

To make a difference in the world, a single light, shining brightly in such a way that we keep Jesus our focus, listen closely to His voice, and enjoy life. So that we can say at the end of the day, we’ve touched others and thrived.

Two years later, I made my first trip to Kenya. We had no idea when we wrote that statement, framed it, and hung it on the wall that we would found a nonprofit to help people on the other side of the world. It’s amazing (and no coincidence) that what we are doing now fulfills our mission statement in every way.

Kristen's family mission statement

Our family mission statement

I honestly believe that writing down our mission statement set our hearts and lives in motion to say yes to the next steps as they came. Last year, I found an old wooden pallet and my kids helped me stencil the mission statement on it in bright colors. It hangs over our mantel as a clear directive for our family.

If I’ve learned anything in this life, it’s that life is going to happen whether or not we are intentional. It’s better to lead your life rather than let it lead you. When we were beginning to think about drafting our family mission statement, we looked for ideas at Families with Purpose, a company that helps parents create meaningful families. They confirmed that a family mission statement

Ultimately, a family mission statement asks this important question: Why are we doing this? Often when we ask ourselves why we’re working ourselves sick or why we are missing dinner for nightly football practice, we discover that we are doing it because that’s what everyone else is doing. That’s never the right answer for any family. That’s not to say that we can’t work long hours or enjoy extracurricular activities, but there must be a balance of priorities. Goals are different from a mission statement. Goals are things you want to do, to accomplish. Mission statements are the whys behind what you do. Creating a family mission statement will help focus your family on what you’re trying to accomplish and remind you that what you do needs to have a purpose.

GUARD THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY

There is an hour in my day that I protect fiercely. I hold off the undeniable force that tries to threaten this time —when my family gathers around the table for dinner.

I fight for dinner.

Even when there are fights at dinner.

A couple of years ago, I downloaded a great little family Lent devotional guide and envisioned healthy spiritual discussions around the table with my husband and children as we prepared our hearts for Easter.

Um, so about that.

Life happened and there were interruptions and we got nine days behind, and the last time I opened it, one of my kids was under the table having a meltdown because two of her veggies were touching something else on her plate.

In a very grown-up way, I slammed down my Kindle and said, “Just forget it.” Because sometimes I forget the reason behind my intentions. I work to create an atmosphere of holiness and happiness in our home, and then humanity gets in the way or veggies touch.

We did the dishes, and as I huffed and puffed my way through them, I heard a whisper from the risen one who is Easter. “Kristen, I love you for who you are and not what you do.”

That’s what dinner is about too. It’s not about the food, which I’m grateful for because sometimes my culinary creations are good, sometimes not so much. (You can have tacos —our favorite family meal —only so many nights in a week.) It’s not about perfection or even fulfilling a carefully laid plan. Dinner is about the conversation, the laughter, the being together. It’s about unplugging and connecting.

As my kids get older, I have noticed a stronger pull away from this family time. There may be playdates waiting at the door, sport practices, meetings at work and school, but I fight them all. Even though I occasionally lose the battle and dinner is a mismatched, haphazard attempt with a traveling husband or a dash out the door to a meeting, I won’t give in to this battle.

Studies like one conducted by the University of Florida have discovered positive things about families that eat dinner together:

And when teenagers were polled about the importance of regular family meals, an overwhelming majority craved family mealtime together more often. So basically, it’s healthy in every way for your family.

I like to keep my family around the table for as long as possible, and some nights long is twenty minutes —total. I’ve found some practical ways that help us connect around the table:

So no more excuses! (I don’t like to cook, there are practices and busy schedules, etc.) Change it. Make dinner a priority. Be creative to get that hour together because, really, we’re talking about a lot more than food on a table.

UNPINNED FAITH

Are you ready to reclaim your family from the world? I suggest that you begin with two foundational things: a family mission statement and family dinners. Both are strong methods to unite your family. For us, writing a family mission statement defined who we were and who we wanted to be. It is a constant reminder that we are here on earth to serve God and reflect His love to others.

If you don’t have a clue how to create a family mission statement, Families with Purpose suggests this helpful formula as a starting point:

What about family dinners? Are you ready to make them a high priority at your house? What do you need to change to make that happen?

Start today to

No two families will have the same answers or solutions. Each dinnertime will be as unique as the people who are participating. The important thing is to commit to making it happen.