This post is dedicated to my friend, Matt!

Happy 31st Birthday, Matt!

You’re a great friend and am grateful for what God did 31 years ago.

Every team needs something to rally around.  A goal that can only be achieved together.

Winning the Championship… Earning a Top Honor… Defeating a Record

These are accomplished when a team unites, focuses on a goal and attacks it together.

Families are teams.

Just as a sports team works together, each one contributing their individual talents, your family can work together to accomplish more than you could ever ask, think or imagine.

Imagine what would happen if families viewed their world through a missional lens.  Imagine a family rallied around a cause.  Their own personal ‘Championship’ to attain.  Imagine what lengths they’ll go to build lasting, meaningful relationships.

Maybe the cause is…

…sponsoring a child through Compassion International.

…adopting a single parent family in the area.

…serving at the homeless shelter.

How would a rally point like these transform relationships within the family?  How would they transform relationships outside the family?

It’s the final day of Guest Blogging on Swerve with the Kendra Golden.  Don’t miss it!

Continuing the discussion from David Staal’s book, Words Kids Need to Hear.  Here is #5 of 7 things my kids need to hear from me.

#5…

“Because”

Here are my takeaways…

• …the difference between a boy or girl just hearing your voice and actually believing what you say depends on whether or not you provide an authentic rationale – the words you add after you say, “because”.
• This word, used effectively as the start of a reasoned, rational statement, offers you a unique opportunity to make your messages powerful.
• How can a child distinguish a parent’s authentic affirmation, commitment, or affection from the hollow hype she hears virtually everywhere else?
• It’s time for we parents to take back authenticity – one “because” at a time

Does your child take what you say to heart?

McClain Family Pictures 2008 from Gina McClain on Vimeo.

i got on a rant today.  someone asked for my 2 cents… i gave a little extra.

a friend receieved an email from someone asking his opinion on divorce.  here was the question

Do you think it’s possible for God to allow a married couple (even after trying very hard to fix things) to fight so much to the point that they desperately want their single lives back, in order  to make the point that He didn’t want them to be together in the first place? 

i admit, i’ve never been in this place.  i cannot speak from experience.  but as a woman married for 14 years… here were my thoughts.

Whether God did or did not want them together at this point is no longer relevant.  If you made the wrong decision at ‘square one’, He will not draw you back to square one to remake the decision.  Instead He’ll start from where you are. 

I would question how much they’ve worked on their marriage.  How long?  How have they invested?  Counseling?  Mentoring? 

I have a seriously hard time believing that if they both truly wanted to make this work and were willing to throw off everything that hinders them in order to make it work that God won’t bless that.  God is the author of “that lovin’ feeling”.  So if they’ve lost it towards each other then they need to seek the only One that can give it back. 

It’s not an overnight solution.  It may take a long time.  But they have no kids.  They have only their jobs.  From my perspective they’ve got a lot of free time to focus on the right things that will make the relationship work.  

Whether or not God wanted them to become ‘one’ in marriage is irrelevant.  They are now one.  They need to do whatever is necessary to function as one rather than seeking validation to walk away from that.  

like i said… my two cents.  what would you say?

it amazes me just how unceremonious God-moments can be. and yet they are no less God ordained, amazing moments.

sitting at lunch with my daughter, between bites of her ham sandwiches, she asks, “mom, what’s sin?”

me… “honey, you know what sin is.”

josie… “you mean, things we do that are wrong?”

me… “pretty much.”

josie… “mom, i’ve sinned.”

me… “i know. so have i.”

josie… “but Jesus, he never sinned.”

slowly josie begins connecting the dots. she’s heard it before. she knows the story. but that day she understood this applied to her. and she had a decision to make.

so she asked Jesus into her life… over a ham sandwich

that’s pretty cool

From my kids…

• 2 year olds don’t like it when they don’t get their way.  i’ve always known this, but my son feels the need to remind me occassionally.
• there are certain socks for certain shoes.  it has nothing to do with the sock color but has everything to do with the seam, where it sits on the toe and how it is affected by the shoe.  oh. my. word.
• my 8 year old can eat his weight in cereal
• a spider man pajama top can double for their shirt the following day.  sweet

from reading…

• my worship is very self-centered… but i’m learning how to change that
• my world is too safe
• sometimes i just don’t agree with what Paul says (heresy, i know)

from my friends…

• focusing too much on a problem brings me to a place of worshiping the problem.  focusing on God and submitting the problem to Him keeps me in a place of worshiping Him
• the holy discontent God placed inside me is easily buried by the tyranny of the urgent

hope all my blogging peeps have a great weekend.  see you on twitter 

I would love to think that I can protect my kids from hearing, seeing or (heaven forbid) doing things they shouldn’t.  But that’s not reality, is it?

My friend, Cindy B, talks about a recent conversation with her 10-year old son.  The fact is… Cindy is right.  Locking our kids up in a room with no access to the outside world might do the trick, but that’s not practical.  Not to mention DHS tends to frown on such parenting tactics.  (sigh)

Kyle and I had our own opportunity for lessons in discernment with our 9-year old son this past weekend.  We took the kids to visit our alma mater on Sunday.  Wanting to hit a few ‘old haunts’ while we were in town, we had a late lunch at a pizza place just across the street from campus.  Sitting in this restaraunt 14 years later with our kids.  Very odd feelings.

The funny things is… little has changed about the place.  Even the artwork.  Oh, I forgot about the artwork.  Dangit!

As a student, I waited tables in this hippy pizza joint.  Everything was tye-dyed, Grateful Dead was the musical staple and fried mushrooms were the healthiest thing you could get your hands on.  The walls were either lined with provacative artwork or collages that dated back to the late 60’s.  One wall is lined with sketches of women playing musical instruments wearing little more than their birthday suits.  I can remember seating families at tables that lined this wall.  Some parents didn’t care.  Some were indignant and insisted on sitting elsewhere.  We disregarded most comments.  

It was art.  

Nothing more beautiful than the human body… right?

hmmm

Fast-forward 14 years (and 3 kids later) and my feelings are a little different.  Sitting in the restaraunt, I look across the table to find my son entranced… staring at the wall.  The wall.

So now my mind is in over-drive.  Keep it calm, Gina.  Don’t overreact.  It’s healthy curiosity.

Did I insist on moving to a different table?  No

Did I ridicule the restaraunt for such appaling ‘artwork’, exposing my child to something entirely inappropriate?  No

Whether I agree with the artwork or not… that’s irrelevant.  What is relevant is the opportunity to teach my son to value purity.  

That he has direct control over what he sees.  

The art of ‘bouncing the eyes’.

We had a good conversation.  I didn’t chide him for looking.  He was embarrassed enough.

We talked about what he saw.  And how somehow he knew that he didn’t need to look at it.  And the value of listening to that spirit-check… that little voice inside that says, “Maybe I don’t need to look at this.”

Is that the last time we’ll discuss the value of purity?  I hope not.  

Will it get any easier?  Who knows.  

But it will always make for a great post!  :)

Setting:  Working on the computer listening to the kids playing in the backyard.  Laughter turns to yelling.  Door opens… kids pour in the house.

Friend:  “Umm.  Miss Gina, I’m sorry to bother you and I don’t mean to be a tattle-tail, but Josie keeps throwing the baseball at me.”

Josie (pleading her case):  “I was not!  He just keeps standing in the place I want to throw it!”

For the love of all things holy… How would you address this?

It’s like a right of passage for the 2-year old. The idea that he can say, “No”.

It’s not just the word. It’s the inflection. The way the word roles off the tongue. Reverberates through the room filling the space around him. Clearly defining his opinion on the subject.

Like bullets spraying from a machine gun.

Water jetting from a rotary sprinkler.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!

It’s still ringing in my ears.