A Letter to My Sons

My dear, sweet, precious boys!

You are young now, but life seems to move at the speed of light. Much too soon for my comfort, you will grow up. You will enter the world of ideas. It’s an exciting, exhilarating, beautiful, and harrowing place! You will begin asking the tough questions of life. You will begin making choices about the life you’ll lead. And you will begin to decide in what or whom you will believe. It’s a lot to take in, but it’s truly a beautiful adventure and one worth living.

I want to share a few thoughts I’ve been jotting down here and there, thoughts that I hope will be part of our conversations when you’re older. By God’s grace, I so long to be a source of light and encouragement to you when you’re navigating the turbulent waters of this world. It’s tricky out there. But I know you’ll do great things! And I hope we’ll get to have lots of wonderful conversations along the way over many cups of good, strong coffee :)

Thoughts from your mama…

·      The world has never had you in it before. YOU possess tremendous capacity to create, change, pour into, and impact this world. Embrace your big ideas. Make an impact. Don’t listen to those who have no imagination or grit.

·      The life imagined is the life more likely to happen. Take time to imagine what you want to do with your life. Put it on paper so your dreams get tethered to reality. Otherwise, what’s most important to you will never ever make it onto your to-do list. What’s important this year in your relationships, your money, your talents, etc.? Write it down. Take time to imagine what you want and then align your choices in that direction.

·      A fulfilling life requires hard work. Lots of it. Just do the work.

·      Learn the art of failing well. Mistakes and failures mean movement. If you’re not moving/growing, you will never mess up. What separates the achievers from the rest is what they do when they mess up. Do you quit or dig your heels in deeper and keep on going? I talk about this with you already when you fall off your bike :)

·      Distraction is a merciless thief of your time and thought and purpose. Make space for sitting alone with your mind, considering ideas, and making plans. Be RUTHLESSLY present in your own life.

 ·    Life and belief and commitment to anything takes grit. Things that come easily do not easily quench the soul’s deepest longings. The most fulfilling, beautiful, soul-quenching nourishment in life is going to take a lot of work, periods of discomfort, intentional choices to persevere, and wisdom to ignore cheap substitutes that don’t satisfy. Because the cheap substitutes and lies will be thrown in your face as distractions to keep you from ever getting close to the very best things in life. Which are also usually the hardest. Parenting, a happy marriage, playing an instrument skillfully, mastering any skill, running a marathon…it’s all going to take grit, but IT IS WORTH IT. Skip the stale dog food on the floor. Work for the sizzling steak at the table.

·      Don’t waste your doubts. Let them propel you deeper. Don’t run from your questions. God gave you your mind to use.

·      Life isn’t about your appearance, fame, or fortune. How much you enjoy your life will depend in part on how good you get at pouring your life out for others—how much value, time, and goodness you pour into those around you. It’s also not about how much knowledge you gather, but rather about using your knowledge to more fully learn about and enjoy God and the world He’s placed you in.

·      You are developing your appetite with the choices you make. When you read, think deeply, practice serving others, and seek God, you are developing in yourself an appetite for those things. As your appetite develops, those are the things you will begin to crave more of. If you are routinely filling your mind and time with fluff, those will become the things you develop an appetite for.

·      Imagination harnessed to reason will open your eyes to a bigger reality and greater potential than what you may be able to see right in front of you. Develop your imagination! You'll need it to find better ways of getting work done, overcoming challenges, and creating beauty. Imagination will also help you envision how you can best meet the needs of others and make the world a better place.

·      Read good books. Then read more. Read the most important books every year as you will take away new inspiration and ideas with every reading.

·      Think deeply, think often. Ask a LOT of questions. Explore answers with openness. Don’t run from uncomfortable ideas. Be willing to engage in the biggest questions.

·      We examine the evidence, cross the bridge of faith for the parts we can’t know, and trust that the other side of life will illuminate this side more fully. EVERYONE does this no matter what they believe. There are certain aspects of life and faith that will just never make complete sense to our human minds, even with best education, the best science, and the best evidence. Do your best to seek answers and resolve even amidst the waiting on this side of life.

·      We can’t control every aspect of our lives, but we do have control over our choices and responses. Don’t underestimate the power of your own choices in shaping the life you will ultimately live. You could think of them as “Arrow” choices. These are the high leverage choices you will make early in adulthood that will launch your life path in one direction or another. What kind of friends will you value? How will you spend your time? What activities will you engage in or choose to turn from? Remember that, when you aim an arrow toward the target, even what originally seemed like a small deviation in aim can land your arrow far from the target. Even a small deviation could mean your arrow ends up in an entirely different field from the one you started out in.  It’s the little decisions and life rhythms and choices you make now that have high leverage and that will set you on or off course 20 years from now. Your choices won’t be perfect, so when you fall, start again and recalibrate the aim of your arrows, making choices more intentionally directed at the target. And do that on repeat.

·      You may find yourself frustrated at times with the way God designed this world. I know because I myself have experienced this frustration. You may find yourself at one time or another longing for more security, freedom from pain, intellectual clarity, guarantee of safety, stable loving relationships that never get interrupted with hurt. There’s a lot of pain here. It’s not a safe place. And then we get mad at God. It’s worth asking: is it possible that these unquenchable desires were made for, and are evidence of, another world/dimension as real as this one? A world where those desires WILL be met? Maybe we don’t have the right senses developed yet to see or experience that other reality, but maybe our unfulfilled longings point to it.

·      Our culture will gnaw at your soul with its quick fixes, empty promises, gospel of comfort, and ideas on how to live life. I hope you’ll begin to see that there’s more here than what culture will sell you. This “more” is found in the quiet places. This “more” isn’t bold, boisterous, or in-your-face. It won’t interfere and compete with the mind-numbing distractibility we are so programmed for in our society. This “more” must be searched for and ruthlessly prioritized.

·      Above all, I hope that you always remember that I love you because you are you and God designed you with value. Nothing you do in life either increases or detracts from my love. It is a constant you can ALWAYS depend on. I love you no matter what choices you make. You cannot “win” more love by doing what I hope or want for you.

Forever,

Your Mama (who loves you with every fiber of her being!)