The Freshman Group

My stomach did somersaults as I shuffled timidly to the door of a house I had never been in before.

I was meeting with people I'd never met before.

I was terrified. But I sucked in a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

A year ago this month, I agreed to be a mentor to a group of rising freshman girls at church during their summer study.

I realized on my very first day with them that there was something very different about these girls and their leaders. They were strangely mature for having just graduated middle school. And their leaders truly lead them in biblical truth. They didn't shy away from what the Word said, or how important it is to study it.

I quickly found myself fitting in more than I had in any other youth group - and that's saying a lot. I'd been in various groups with various leaders throughout my high school years, and I had never felt so at home.

I wanted desperately to ask the leaders to let me be a part of the group during the year, but knew that it wouldn't be an appropriate request. I would have to be invited.

And, praise be to God, I was. Everything fell together for me to be a part of this group of freshman girls throughout my senior year.

Many of the other seniors were confused at my leaving my current group to join a freshman one.

"You want to be in a freshman group?" I was asked over and over again.

My answer then was a resounding yes.

And my answer now would be the same, but with a few added remarks.

Yes, because I love them dearly.

Yes, because they made me feel more loved and more welcomed than any of my previous groups.

Yes, because I've grown in my faith and in the Word more this year than in any other.

Yes, because I love being a big sister to them.

Yes, because I belong with them.

I'm sad that the year is coming to an end, and that I'll be in another state after this year's summer study.

As my girls move into their sophomore year of high school and I move into my freshman year of college, I hope they know that I won't forget them when I go to college.

In fact, it will be quite the opposite. I will miss them immensely.

I hope they know that I always want to hear from them. I always want to be there for them.

I hope they know that I will love them just as dearly from afar as I do from up close.

True friendship transcends state lines and grades.

And I am proud to call each of these beautiful, wonderful sophomore girls is a true friend.

Mothers Got a Hard Road

It's career day at school.

There's a mom who is a lawyer.

A dad who's a fireman.

A contractor.

A chef.

There is hardly ever a mom who is simply a mom at career day.

Unfortunately, our culture has defamed the name of mother into a side-job, an unimportant, unappealing choice.

Lawyer moms are seen as heroes while mom moms are seen as burdens on society.

There is no hero like a mother, though.

My mom gets up before five some mornings with Levi. She makes him homemade smoothies for the day - spinach, carrots, fruits, juices, coconut water, almond milk, proteins, vitamins.

She changes his diaper (a much more arduous process than you would think), gives him his medicine through his mic-key button, and gets him ready for school.

She makes sure Jace has all his homework before he heads out the door at 6:56.

Then she gets Evan up, changes her diaper, gets her dressed, and feeds her breakfast.

Sometimes Levi throws things at people. Sometimes he takes something from Evan, and she starts sobbing. Mom has to fix it.

It takes a good ten minutes sometimes to get the kicking, screaming Levi out of the car at school at 8:30.

Then she does things like running errands, going to IEPs, scheduling therapies, and learning how to help Levi talk with a communication device.

After a three-hour hiatus from motherhood while the kids are at school, she goes to pick them up, taking them to two different places to get fries. McDonald's because they're the only ones that are gluten-free for Evan. Then Zaxby's because Levi asked for them, and she wants to instill in him that his voice has value.

Sometimes they come home and do bubbles. Sometimes they paint or color. Sometimes they play outside and draw with chalk. Sometimes they have a dance party.

During the dance party, Evan will annoy Levi. He'll throw something at her head. Evan will start crying. Levi will dart under the table to avoid his impending punishment. Mom will have to fish him out, and hold him in a "time-in", while trying to calm Evan down at the same time.

Three hours later, she'll lift Evan over the gate that blocks off our stairs, and send her up to bed with an iPad. She'll sit in Levi's dark bedroom for an hour, waiting for him to fall asleep, since he cries when no one's in his room with him.

When they wake up, Levi will want cheese puffs. They'll sit out for a few minutes while he's distracted by his trains, and by then he'll want new ones. Some days Evan will have reached into her diaper and smeared poop all over herself and her sheets. Another load of laundry, a washcloth-bath.

Then she'll fix dinner, waiting for Dad to get home. Sometimes Dad has to work late, though, and she'll be alone with the kids for the rest of the night. Jace will need a ride to church, so she'll pile all three kids in the car and drive them to Brentwood.

After dinner comes diaper-changing and pajamas. Levi spills his medicine and it has to be made again. Evan is crying because she can't get over the gate to go to bed.

Then she sings with both of them, says a prayer and kisses them goodnight. Exhausted, she still finds time to ask how my day was, or watch an episode of the The Voice.

She goes to sleep, knowing that the same thing will happen again tomorrow.

That is a job.

That is a career.

And that is why moms are heroes.

Especially mine.

Summer, College, and Other Life-Changing Events

I despise the spring.

I know that normal people love it - minus the allergies. Everything is new and fresh and beautiful. The sun comes out and its warm enough for t-shirts and iced coffee again.

I love all of that. But I hate bugs.

And the bugs come out in droves in the spring.

We always have at least one wasp nest lurking in or around our garage. Every day before stepping out the door, I have to take deep breaths and prepare myself for the wasp war zone that is my twenty-foot walk to my car.

I have to sit with the fact that I probably look like I'm insane when I sprint to my car every day, too afraid of the wasp horde to stop.

This is spring with a bug phobia.

So, naturally, during the spring my anxiety levels are high. Anything and everything makes me more nervous than I would usually be.

Only this spring is worse.

This spring I'm preparing to go both to Russia for a month with ROOF and to college this fall.

Yesterday, I decided (finally) to go to Asbury University in the fall. I couldn't be more thrilled or more terrified.

I assumed that once I made this decision, my worries would simply evaporate and fly off into the cool, spring air (hopefully with the wasps). But I had no such luck.

My stomach twisted into knots, and I found that I was more anxious than ever. Because now that the limbo of choosing colleges was gone, I was faced with the reality that in three or four months, I'll be living in a new state. In a new place. At a new school. With new people. All of whom I have never met.

And a month before that, I'll be going to a new country with new people to do new things with orphans.

As a person who can't stand change, that's a whole lot of newness for less than a year.

My life is changing. I'm changing. And it scares me.

And the only thing that I can do is give it to God. Give Him all my concerns and worries and doubts that I selfishly want to harbor and handle myself. It's like trying to carry all the grocery bags to the cars yourself instead of letting the bag boy help you carry them - and then they're too much, too heavy and you end up dropping them all over the road.

I always end up thinking, if only I'd swallowed that pride. If only I'd loosened my grip just a little. So maybe I can give a couple of bags to God. A preemptive move. Maybe, just maybe, if I let them go, they won't end up spilled on the street.