Category: Parenting Page 1 of 3

To My Almost-Adult Kids: Don’t Be Afraid of These Three Words

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On November 9, 2025

In Parenting

almost-adult kids

Dear Almost-Adult Kids,

I know you think I worry too much. You look out into this adult world you are entering and see possibility and adventure. But I look out into the same world and see a myriad of landmines that seek to destroy my children. You dream about independence; I have nightmares about all the things I haven’t taught you yet. Trusting God with your independence is the hardest part of parenting so far. 

I try not to tell you about all my worries. But one fear that I want you to know about? I worry you will be afraid to say these three words:

I need help.

Pride might keep you from saying these words. After all, you’ve worked hard for your independence. You might feel like you’ve had to wrestle it away from us at times. You probably want to prove to the world, to me and Dad, and to yourself that you can think for yourself and make adult decisions. Asking for help could make you feel weak or like you’ve failed. 

Shame might keep you from saying these words. You might realize that you’ve blown it and now you’re in over your head. You might worry that you’ve disappointed us, that we taught you to do the opposite thing and now we’ll say “I told you so.” 

I need to own that. I know there have been times when I’ve been too strict or too overbearing or too micro-managing. I know I haven’t always trusted you when I should have. So I get that you might be reluctant to come to me for help, and that’s partly my fault. 

But, my beloved children, please hear me when I say that one thing I’ve learned the hard way is that asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s actually a sign of strength. I’m not talking about the whiny cry from a kid who doesn’t want to do his chores. I mean the kind that comes with maturity – recognizing your God-designed limits and God-intended interdependence. It’s what true wisdom looks like, and it’s a mark of humility. 

It’s okay to admit that you don’t know everything. It takes incredible strength of character to take responsibility for your mistakes. So when your first instinct is to shift blame, shove your sin under the rug, or blunder blindly through a decision, tell yourself that you do have another choice: You can ask for help.

Your dad and I will always be ready to help. But you’ve also got a whole community of people around you who will do the same: grandparents, youth pastors, teachers, coaches – so many people who love you! Never allow yourself to believe that you are alone in this world. 

And perhaps the main reason this is so important to me is because you will never grow in your relationship with God until you are willing to go to him for help. In fact, I would argue that you won’t really understand what salvation means until you find yourself on your face, desperate for help from God. Pride and shame will try to keep you away from him too. But if you want to find life that is truly life? That starts by asking for help. 

Don’t be afraid; God is with you. 

I love you more than you’ll ever know,

Mom

Navigating the Emotions of Adoption: Conversations with Grace

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On August 1, 2025

In Adoption, Parenting

Grace came home to us from an orphanage when she was ten months old, and is now nineteen. She agreed to have this discussion about adoption and has read what I am posting. I’m so grateful for her vulnerability in sharing these things publicly! 

The day she came home

As I look back on how Grace processed adoption, I think she instinctively knew something was wrong in her life even when she was a toddler. 

At eighteen months old, she became obsessed with a book where Dora the Explorer helps a baby bird find his mommy. She wanted to read it again and again, becoming agitated or even crying each time the bird was lost and rejoicing when the mama bird was found. 

At first, I thought it was cute and nothing more, but then it became a pattern in Grace’s life. I discovered that many toddler books have the theme of a child losing his mother, and Grace became increasingly upset by these books. As she got older, she wanted nothing to do with them. This was before she was old enough to understand adoption at all.

Me: Do you remember any of this? 

Grace: As a little kid, I remember reading the monkey book [a board book called Hug]. I remember crying every single time. Bobo [the monkey] lost his mama, and I did too. 

Me: You eventually hated that book and would run away if I brought it out to read to your siblings. But also, you named your stuffed monkey Bobo. What are your earliest memories of understanding adoption? 

Grace: I knew the word because we talked about it all the time. You never hid from us that we were adopted (not that you could!). 

I think I first began to understand on the first day of kindergarten, because people came in with their parents, and all their parents looked like them, and my parents didn’t look like me. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t in a normal situation, that this didn’t happen to everybody. 

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Can I Trust God With My Children?

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On April 14, 2025

In Parenting, What I'm Learning

As a mom, do I have a control problem? Maybe. Do I have a responsibility problem? Definitely. 

I’ve taken the StrengthsFinders assessment twice in the past twenty years; both times, responsibility was way up near the top. If I agree to do something, I will do it, and I will do it well, so help me God – or lose my sanity, my sleep, or my good sense in the attempt. 

Raising teenagers makes me lose all of the above. 

I tried so hard to do All the Good Parenting Things. I made them drink Kiefer, read countless books with them, prayed and played, showed and shared. I taught them to come when I called; I re-learned pre-algebra twice; I put limits on their screen time. I take my job so seriously. I am the Responsiblest Mom of them all. 

And now I have four teenagers, with adulthood lurking around every corner, and I feel the desperate urgency looming over me that my time left with them is short. So Gil and I made an Adulting List that they must check off, and we are teaching them to drive, interview, clean, and budget. As they begin to make their own choices, I warn and cajole, nudge and prod. 

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To My Sunshine

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On May 24, 2024

In Adoption, Parenting

My dear Grace,

Raising you has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.

From the first day I laid eyes on you and you gave me your radiant smile, you have been sunshine in my life. Happy and fearless—that’s the way I would describe you from the time you were a baby. You sang “Amazing Grace” to an entire school full of kids when you were just two years old. Dad taught you to do backflips into the pool when you were three. You are always ready to jump into the next adventure with both feet.

But one of the most special things about you is your love for people. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone more people-oriented than you. When you were a toddler, I remember showing you the HOPAC school yearbook and being flabbergasted by how many names you knew of students and staff. As you grew up, whenever you met a new friend, you would always run into the kitchen and grandly announce, “I love [this person!] and I love her mom too!” I don’t know if you’ve ever met a person you didn’t like. God gave you the gift of loving others enthusiastically. 😊

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This is What 50 Years of Faithfulness Looks Like

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On June 16, 2023

In Parenting, Thoughts on Missions

My parents, Kim and Margaret Coutts, have been married 50 years this month, a milestone that only 5% of American marriages achieve. They have extraordinary lives, worth writing about. 

My dad was serving as a pharmacist at a military hospital at Fort Dix, New Jersey when a fellow officer knocked on his door and asked, “If you died tonight, would you go to heaven?”

My dad was irritated – angry, even – but couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was just one of many instances in their early adulthood when God inserted Himself into their story, and it wasn’t much longer before they turned their lives over to Him. It wasn’t a flippant decision. It was the beginning of an entire re-orientation of their priorities. 

About four years later, my mom and dad attended a missions conference at First Baptist Church in San Jose – the one whose foyer boasted the spiral ramp that surrounded the two-story fountain. When the speaker gave a challenge, while the background music played, they walked forward to the altar to offer their lives in missionary service.

They spent almost a decade of service in missions in Liberia and Ethiopia, despite my mom crying every single day for the first six months. It was a sacrifice: her own mother refused to write or speak to her for the entire first two years. My mom taught elementary school, and my dad served as head pharmacist at ELWA Hospital, then as hospital administrator.

The year we returned, while still working as chief pharmacist at Kaiser, my dad went on to revolutionize the missions program at Hillside Church in San Jose. He started the partnership with Tanzania that changed the course of my life and dozens of others. He began a missions prayer ministry that has continued for three decades. He led numerous other short-term trips and developed several other overseas partnerships. 

Meanwhile, while my mom taught kindergarten, she launched a ministry in the low-income neighborhood down the street from our church. Thirty years later, that ministry has flourished and is thriving. My mom invested in scores of children in that neighborhood, including taking in two of them for several of their college years, enveloping them as surrogate daughters. 

My parents have done some big things in their 50 years of marriage. But what strikes me the most is how they have been faithful in the little things, the things that most people don’t see. 

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