Tag: Parenting Page 1 of 2

Don’t Stress So Much About Creating Memories

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On June 2, 2026

In Parenting

Parents of little ones, you can relax. Your kids’ memories will not be what you expect.

We were at Disneyland, Josiah was five years old, and we were chatting as he held my hand. 

“Mommy, is it true that Disneyland is the happiest place on earth?” he asked me. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I think that there are a lot of happy places. Like Chaza Mwamba [our favorite beach house in Tanzania].”

He thought about this for a moment and then decided, “I think the plane is the happiest place.”

I’m not sure I had learned the Required Parent Poker Face at this point in my parenting.

“The plane?” I sputtered.

The plane, for me, was probably the Least Happiest Place on Earth. Being locked in a metal tube for sixteen hours, thirty thousand feet above the earth, unable to sleep, is not my idea of fun.

“I get to watch so many movies,” Josiah explained. 

‘Tis true. Long-haul flights were the only time in my children’s lives when they got to watch as many movies as they wanted, pausing only to eat the endless snacks handed to them by smiling flight attendants. I suppose, for a five-year-old, this was the definition of a bliss even greater than Disneyland.

creating memories

In the summer of 2017, my parents took us to the awe-inspiring Zion National Park in Utah, where we rode bikes through valleys guarded by massive red-rock cliffs. My children’s memories of that trip? Playing Wiffle Ball in the sprinklers with Gil and playing four square with their grandparents at our Airbnb. They remember nothing about Zion.

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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

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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The Mystery of Salvation: My Story of Doubt and Faith

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On August 21, 2023

In Book Recommendations, Liberian Childhood, My Memoirs

I remember the indignation I felt over the miniature potted plant. 

I was eight years old, and it was Sunday School at the big Baptist church on the hill. The fluorescent lights flickered as we squirmed in our metal folding chairs while the teacher asked us to raise our hands if we wanted to invite Jesus into our hearts. She reminded us that every head was bowed and every eye was closed because, apparently, this was a secret decision. We peeked behind fingers laced in front of our eyes. 

A brown-haired girl was summoned behind the room divider and reappeared a few minutes later, surrounded by the approving gaze of the teachers. She seemed rather flippant for one who had just done something that required the rest of us to sit so solemnly with every-head-bowed-and-every-eye-closed.

I knew what had happened behind the room divider; the drill was familiar, even with only eight years under my belt. The teacher would have recited a prayer; the girl would have repeated it, and presto: Jesus was now in her heart. 

When the brown-haired girl emerged, she was holding a fake miniature potted plant: a prize, presumably, for raising her hand. Jealously flamed. I loved anything miniature, and I briefly contemplated raising my hand too. Yet I was caught in a conundrum: I had learned that you could only ask Jesus into your heart once, and I had already done so with my mother when I was five years old, right next to the record player that sat under the dining room window. There was nothing I could do to get myself that prize. I wondered, should this decision even warrant a prize? The unfairness planted itself as a memory.

By 12, my faith had grown with my shoe size. In Liberia, I was incubated in an extraordinary community of multicultural Christians. Why wouldn’t I want to align myself with their God? Every night, I sat on my bed and read five chapters of the Bible, framed by the old-fashioned brown-flowered wallpaper in my bedroom. I went straight through until I got bogged down in Isaiah and skipped to the New Testament. I wrote little notes with goals for myself on how to improve in one fruit of the Spirit each month. I cried when I prayed for my unsaved family members. 

I told my Dad I was ready to be baptized. In Liberia, the school gymnasium was also the church, representing the worst of times (P.E.) and the best of times (Psalty musicals). One Sunday, I stood outside that gymnasium while the cover was pulled off of the small concrete baptismal, and I stood in line in the red dust with several others. “Why do you want to be baptized?” the pastor asked me. “So that I can show the world I’m a Christian,” was my confident reply.

But yet, I had doubts. When did I actually become a Christian? I had no dramatic conversion story; I couldn’t remember not believing.  So was my faith legitimate? What else did I need to do? Fear of being Left Behind permeated my generation. How could I be sure I was in?  

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Have I Failed My Children?

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On March 1, 2023

In Adoption, Parenting

“It’s such a shame that they failed two of their children.” 

I was in college, and my friend was referring to a Christian family with adult children, two of whom had gone off the rails into drugs and unwed pregnancy. 

My friend had young children of her own, and as someone several years ahead of me, she was a mom I greatly admired. She and I both knew that she would certainly not fail her children. I tucked away this lesson: My children’s choices would be a reflection of me. 

***

Around the same time, I attended a large children’s ministry conference where a seminar speaker declared that ADHD was not a real condition – a child who couldn’t pay attention or sit still was the sad result of bad parenting. As an elementary teacher, I suspected the speaker was wrong, but it didn’t stop me from being marinated in the idea that I was responsible for my children’s behavior. 

“First-time obedience” was the mantra of my era of Christian parenting. None of this “count to three” stuff; you were not a good parent if you had to ask twice. If they didn’t obey, it was on you. Being a responsible, perfectionist person, I took this seriously. I was up for the challenge. 

When I first became a parent, this worked. I’d been trained as a teacher. I knew how to hold children to high expectations without raising my voice or losing my cool. And my stubbornness could match the most strong-willed of children. I remember a fellow mom responding with amazement at how quickly my kids complied when summoned from the playground. Yep. I was not going to fail my children. No siree.

It worked, that is, until it didn’t work. Then it became a dumpster fire. And demanding “first-time obedience” became the gasoline that made the fire explode. With one child in particular, the more I dug in my heels and expected obedience, the more the opposite happened. As I increased the consequences, so did my child’s unhinged behavior. 

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