Well, as some of you may know, this past year I have been writing a parenting book.  I have spent many late nights (and many tears, mind you) tarrying over the right words, petitioning the Father for the right information to pass on to parents, and asking Him for the strength and confidence to keep going.  With His pressing in and urging on, the book is at the printer as I write to you this morning!  

Why write a parenting book?  Why did it seem like God put this on my heart so long ago and would not relent until it was complete?  Here’s why…

One normal afternoon changed my life.  I was working diligently on something and I am sure it was extremely important when our receptionist came in and asked me if I could visit with a family that had come in.  I walked up front and there stood four precious adults.  Both the dad and the granddad were farmers and “guys-guys”…tall and strong from doing what the Lord had called them to do.  The mom and the grandmother were absolutely adorable and I fell in love with all of them immediately.  All four were there looking for a life preserver.  The younger couple had a teenage daughter that was literally being pulled under, actively drowning, in her culture.  The father was an active, well-known, and respected man in their small community and their daughter had nude photos of herself shared via a cell phone by the young man she was dating, a young man her family did not approve of.  The daughter had also recently found out she was pregnant.  This family needed a lifeguard…and they need one now. I will never forget the look in that hurting daddy’s eyes as he said, “Can you help us?”  I replied, “If you can get her here, we will help her, because He will be here waiting.” 

A few days passed and in came the receptionist again. This time, her eyes were as big as saucers as she said, “We need you up front.”  When I walked into the waiting room, I saw the most beautiful young woman sobbing in a chair and looked up to see that sweet daddy with tears streaming down his face and he said, “You said if we got her here, you would help us.”  Turns out that sweet, desperate daddy had literally picked up his half-drowned daughter out of the floor of her closet, loaded her up and brought her to “shore” so to speak. 

            How did they get here?  I could almost read his mind from one parent’s heart to another…I could see images of her birth, of her running through fields of flowers and rushing to be first in line for the slide.  I could see her in dance recitals and being baptized.  I could see her playing sports and receiving awards at school.  I could see her potential…I could see her warm and dry, skipping along the beach.  But I could also see her brokenness, I saw her literally drenched in shame, regret, and poor choices to find her place in heavy seas with a society that has an undertow that words cannot describe.  I saw them.

But I saw God, too.

            “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion.  The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”  He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!”  Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?”  They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this?  Even the wind and the waves obey him!”  Mark 4:37-41