Chapter Three

From Raising Your Children With No Regrets...

You Can Live Peacefully in the Teenage Years
Principle Three: Be Intentional about Being a Vision Keeper

If you dread something long enough, it becomes as bad as you imagined.

If you define your children or teens by a moment in time or by a series of events, you tell them they are defined by what they do and not who they are. In an age that saturates our youth with superficial definitions of value, we must speak the voice of truth to our kids' hearts and minds.

Remember when your kids were born? Your children planted hopes and dreams in your heart-a vision for their lives that brought meaning and excitement to your life. You believed the best for them and imagined them to be the best at whatever they chose to do. You had a vision for them that was fresh, filled with hope and confidence.

Crises show us-and our teens-our true opinion of them. In other words, if your vision for their future is still as meaningful as when they were born, they'll see that in you, even in the midst of difficult circumstances. Yet the opposite is also true: they'll notice if your vision for them is now tarnished.

It is easy to be at your best when things are going well and life is sweet. However, teens need you to be your best when they are at their worst. At those moments you must be the keeper of the vision God gave you when your teenager was a newborn baby.

Your job as a mom is critical to your teens in the challenging moments of life because they will look to you to see what you truly believe about them. They need to see confidence and hope when no one else sees it for them-perhaps not even themselves.

At some point, no matter how encouraging and affirming you've been to your kids, when they become teens they will try their wings and test the boundaries. At this point, their choices and mistakes will challenge you to keep alive the big picture-the vision-for their lives.

Mothers are responsible to hold out hope for their children when everyone else has lost it.

When our children make mistakes, and they will, we have an opportunity to help them become wiser. The issue isn't what they did but who they can become as a result of the experience.

Our children must be defined by God's definition of them and love for them, not by their behavior or our fears. It is simply unfair to allow a season of development-adolescence-to frame their entire value, especially at a time when they are so desperately trying to figure out who they are and where they are headed.

We can't teach our children principles and values that we haven't learned ourselves.

Motherhood is God's way of showing us how inadequate we are and how much we truly need him.

When a mother begins to see that her faith is in Christ, and not her children or herself, the tension eases. This allows both mother and child to feel valued, and to focus on their own journey. Instilling this sense of value in your children frees them to learn the life lessons Gods needs them to grasp before they move to the next stage in life.

If we stand strong and firm while being kind and supportive, it will give them strength, security, and hope as they discover who they are and how to make decisions in life.

Peace can be your when you walk through the deep waters, because you will know that this is a journey for your children, not their definition.