One of my favorite quotes is by Mother Theresa;

“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family”

It’s comforted me in times when I felt like I wasn’t contributing enough to the world, my community and even in my neighborhood because my husband and I chose to have me home full time with our 4 kids.  It was never my calling, it was never my intention!  I was going to be a missionary in some exotic foreign country serving the needs of orphans and villages all across the globe.  I had a purpose and a plan and it was big, it was wide, vast and incredibly adventurous.  So when I got married and we had an instafamily within months and daycare costs just didn’t make sense next to my income, decisions were made and sacrifices were made that ultimately ruled out my personal plans and kept me home, full time and still am 16 years later.

For years I fought resentment and anger towards the unfulfilled dreams and plans I had to serve the less fortunate across the world.  I felt like my contribution was so small and completely unnoticed.  I knew it made sense for us and I knew that my sacrifices were not in vain, but I just simply could not lay these two positions down side by side on a table, analyze their value and consider them to be equal.  It was a daily struggle and I fought it hard.  Then it happened!   I woke up for my normal quiet time with God, sat down with my cup of coffee in hand and once again poured my soul bare before him screaming to understand what my purpose was and why this felt so empty and unfulfilling.  I often journal my time with God and occasionally I will receive such a strong impression on my spirit that it is truly Him that is speaking to me, pen to paper.  Sometimes the words are flying so fast that my hand can’t keep up with what I’m hearing.  God spoke to me loud and clear that morning and told me that I was on a missions trip and I was serving the lesser than and I was 100% in ministry teaching and equipping people….my people, the 4 little humans he so richly blessed me with.  My heart sank as the realization hit me like a ton of bricks and I was immediately filled with incredible joy and excitement but also the weight of what was being asked of me and the job that I had in front of me.

From that moment on, I never looked at my role or parenting in the same light.  I knew that I was on assignment and I knew that my husband and I both had some serious work on our hands to raise these people to be well rounded, honest, contributing members to society who showed respect, humility, kindness and love to any other person they came in contact with.  This has required exhausting moments of intense conversations, painful punishments, meaningful interactions, purposeful engaged time with our children.   We have made it a priority to have sit down family dinners through our week, family movie or game night once a week, both my husband and I take each of our kids on individual dates and spend one on one time with them.  We invest into our kids, we invest into their hearts, minds, souls and spirits.  We’ve said no to cable TV, and limited video games.  We have resisted the begging and pleadings for smart phones and more technology.  We pour as much healthy, pure, holy, light, lovely, joyful, fun, meaningful and inspirational information into their minds, ears and eyes.  We believe that the programming of the mind begins and ends with what we are watching and listening to and monitor that with vigor so as to keep our children sensitive, caring and compassionate humans.  I believe that is the job of every parent on this planet and I know there are a lot of you out there doing it with every fiber of your being and I’m so grateful for the sacrifices you make too!

But then I pause and take a breath and look up and notice that something is shifting in our society, something is changing and I’m finding that there are less and less of my fellow comrades in arms, fighting the same fight for our next generation and there is more and more distraction, division, disillusionment, deception and despair.  More and more parents are both working full time, grueling hours and they are exhausted…I can’t blame them, I honestly don’t know how you do it!  To manage to juggle both and do it well is quite the challenge and hardship and foundations start to crack, things start to slip, priorities start to shift and all the sudden you find that it’s easier to turn an eye, agree to their requests and shew them away for a moment of rest.  Don’t get me wrong, I have had those moments and many of them where I just wanted to cave and just give in to whatever their demands were in hopes of 10 minutes of solitude…I truly can’t imagine if this wasn’t my full-time job and I had to juggle other things as well, please don’t hear judgment!

But we have to have this conversation because Parkland, Florida happened and 17 people died…17 lives taken from this earth too early and far too carelessly and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about why and how and what is happening to us.  Of course I thought of my own kids who are in public school and their safety and wanting to protect them from anything like that happening to them, us and our community.  I thought of the Mother Theresa quote and then thought of my own personal sacrifices to raise up this next generation and then I thought of the slips and cracks and the foundation falling apart in our society and wondered..is this where we start?  Do we just raise up as a society of parents and say, “enough excuses!”  Do we stop blaming every dang other thing on this type of behavior and start analyzing where we fit in to the puzzle and how our lives play a key role in all of this?  Our kids are desensitized, they’ve lost their moral code, decency and value system and it’s because WE as their parents have failed them, it’s not their fault that we’ve been too busy to show them what it looks like to revere and respect life, humanity and the basic core values that have been encoded in our DNA for generations but have somehow been shoved to the recesses of our minds because it’s just easier to not uphold them then to take the time to implement them.   ALL LIFE MATTERS!!  Every human on this planet is valuable, important, purposed and planned and until we can look into the face of each other (and this includes the faces that are hiding behind screens) and recognize each others humanity and have care for one another instead of hate – evil will always win and our world will continue to crumble and fall apart.

So, I end with this thought and it takes Mother Theresa’s quote to another level for us as a society.  She says, “if you want to change the world then go home and love your family” and I say, “if you want to change the world then go home and love your family, AND the barista at Starbucks who accidentally got your drink wrong, or the guy who cut you off on your way to work, and the woman in the checkout line who gave you a glare because you have more then 15 items in the express lane, the frustrated neighbor who yelled at you for not bringing in your trash cans or the random stranger who just blew up at you on the street for no apparent reason.  It begins with us and it looks a lot like average, normal, day to day interactions that have an incredible trickle affect on the rest of humanity.  Once we raise our white flag, lay down our pride and quick to be defensive egos and make intentional decisions in our interactions with our loved ones and those we come in contact with daily is when change, REAL change will happen in society…it begins with us!  It begins with me!