How I Learned to be Strong from my Teenage Daughter

Be Strong

This past year, my daughter’s life has taught me a lot – – especially in my weakest parts. My privilege as her mom is not easy. She is strong in ways I’ve had to learn to step into in my own life. I love and respect her deeply for this.

As I turn the spotlight to what I have learned from her life, I welcome you to open your eyes to people in your life. God may have for you some important revelations and growth opportunities right in front of you.

Pick up Good Habits and Stick with Them (everyday)

I see my daughter learn new things from others, try them in her own life and stick to the new things that work for her. This strength starts with an open mind. The mindset of openness is twofold. First, start with the character traits of humility and clarity. We don’t know everything there is know about who we want to be, what we want to pursue or how to become either in our lives. Be open. Be humble. Learn from others.

With humility comes wisdom.

Proverbs 11:2

Second, know who you want to be and what you want to pursue to the best of your ability, i.e clarity. My daughter picks up habits from young women who are pursing optimal internal health and a fit, flexible body. She incorporates habits into her life that move her toward those goals. She doesn’t put regular effort into pursuing habits outside of her clear goals for her current life.

When you have clarity, flow, momentum, deep work and habits are all easy. When you lack clarity, you get mired in excessive consumption and sources of distraction.

7 Character Traits on People Who Accomplish Great Things, Srinivas Rao

Finally, look above at that the eight-letter word in parenthesis.

Everyday

That word is intimidating for me. I don’t know what the day will bring. Someone may need me. Maybe I’ll be disillusioned or tired. A work problem may demand attention. That’s my personality. As an enneagram nine, I often relate more to the needs of others than to mine – – if I can even actually figure out mine! However, being faithful with the important, daily things God has called us to is the result of humility and clarity. I am inspired by my daughter to embrace Everyday even when my mind or heart wants to go elsewhere.

Prayer

Lord, help us be women of great humility and great clarity so that our lives will be characterized as faithful.

When your Plate is Full, and Something Important takes Upstage, Keep Moving Forward

This may be one my greatest revelations of 2022. Please remember that I am walking a fine line of sharing what I’ve learned from my daughter without oversharing my daughter’s life. Without telling the circumstances, here is the healthy way she saw the world while under pressure.

My Daughter’s Quagmire: I have three things to do in this season. All three are loaded with enormous pressure to perform and achieve. These three things connect to my success as a high school student and college applicant. If I add the hours these three things demand on my body and mind, I will not likely sleep for close to three months. If I prioritize them equally, I may jeopardize my physical and/or mental health.

Mom’s Thoughts: Panic. All three matter equally. Stay up all night. Be afraid. Deny yourself rest. Don’t ruin your future.

Her Healthy Conclusion: The first thing will take precedence until the job is done. The second thing will move into first place until that job is done. When the third thing moves into first place, time to prepare will be limited. That’s okay. This is the season I am in and my best will be enough.

Mom’s Revelation Through Teenage Daughter:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

Prayer

Lord, help us be women who trust you with our lives. Help us to keep moving forward with a godly mindset even when we are strapped with jobs to do. Help us prioritize in a healthy manner. Father, let us not be conformed to the pressures of this world, but help us to renew our mind with your truth. Help us live in a godly, healthy way under pressure.

Even When You are on a Deadline, Take Breaks and Sleep at Night

Most of you who are reading this are likely to be in your 40s or 50s. We will likely rationalize the deadline (whether family, work or volunteer) over our own well-being. We will do this until our back is out; until we get sick; or depressed. I almost don’t want younger women to read this. I don’t want them to know that their mothers, aunts and older sisters (blood or otherwise) have done so poorly in this area of self-care. I want us to learn this lesson together:

Honor God with your body.

1 Corinthians 6:20

I want us to teach our daughters, nieces and younger sisters to value their body because God values their body. Our frame has the responsibility to support our mental, emotional and spiritual output. If we deny it, our body will eventually no longer have the strength to support our monumental output. I have more to say on this on a post, hopefully, coming soon. For now, learn the lesson of my daughter:

Even When You are on a Deadline, Take Breaks and Sleep at Night

Take Tough Realities in Stride

As my daughter faced the three things in her life at one time, she plain out acknowledged to me that there were some hard parts. With strength, she simply told me that one of the things would probably not get a gold star. Despite her best, this year, there would most likely be a silver star. (There are no actual stars here, just making a point).

The reality was that one area was proving to be harder than in the past. Given the timing of the other two things, there was not more time or effort to give to the thing that needed more.

To me, that’s a rock and a hard place.

To her, that was fact to take in and a fact to live out with resilience and maturity.

To be gritty, in my view, is to have passion and perseverance about something in your life. This doesn’t mean that you necessarily engage in all possible pursuits with equivalent passion and perseverance. And indeed, the limits of time and energy suggest that focusing on one thing means focusing less on others. You can’t pursue becoming a great pianist and at the same time a great mathematician, and a great sprinter and chef and philosopher…But it’s also true, I think, that to be gritty means to pursue something with consistency of interest and effort. Some people choose not to pursue anything in a committed way, and that, to me, is lack of grit.

Angela Duckworth

Prayer

God, help us be women of reality, resilience and maturity. Help us know the meaning of grit and empower us live it to your glory.

Focus on your Gifting and Grow it

For the last nine or so years, I have seen my daughter pursue one thing above others. She has said no to a lot of other things she loves and is good at. But she chooses to focus on this gifting and grow it. That means that her life choices point toward growth in that area of gifting, time and time again.

How she spends her time is a big factor in the growth trajectory. She gives up free spirited summers, early mornings and countless hours every week to the one thing.

Do you know what is important in your current season? Are you setting aside other things that matter to grow in that area of gifting?

On the path of growing her gifting, she has experienced obstacles and setbacks. Some of those setbacks had a ripple effect where she just had to wait for her time to come (again). In those times, I have never seen her train so hard or stay more committed. When I may have reserved some time for pity parties, dark days and guilty pleasures, she worked harder.

On the path, she’s seen others improve faster and shine when she would have liked to. My daughter doesn’t get long term discouraged by the pace or accolades of another’s growth. She shares her point of view out loud (once), releases it and returns to her personal best. How many times have I stayed stuck or stunted from growth in my gifting because I’ve measured my success against another or felt small about my personal growth?

The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

Luke 8:14-15

Prayer

Lord, help us lean into our gifting by the choices we make and by the way we spend our God-given time. Help us work with all our heart; not for human masters, but for you. Remind us that we have an audience of one. Help us stay on the path you have set before us rather than the path you have set before others. Help us grow even when we feel slow or small.

Dear Sisters

I will end where I started.

This past year, my daughter’s life has taught me a lot. I love and respect her deeply for this. I pray that you learn from her life too. And, I welcome you to open your eyes to people in your life. God may have for you some important revelations and growth opportunities right in front of you.

Love always,

Sasha

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Five Reasons Why Pursuing Your Calling is the Key to Inner Peace

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If you have breath, you have a call. No exclusions or exceptions. No mistakes or passing over.  As God breathed your soul, spirit, and body into existence, He also infused you with passion and calling. Like tea steeps into water, God imbued you with individual purpose and calling.

Calling Vs. Identity – Understanding the Differences

Your calling is part of who you are made to be over your lifetime. Your call is woven into your personality, gifts, talents, and good deeds prepared for you before your life began. Because of the intimate dance between your true self and your calling, pursuing your passions will always be key to realizing inner peace. Without the exploration and pursuit of your passion and calling, your inner self can feel dry or even bankrupt.

Calling, however is not the same as identity. Your identity is the understanding of who you are in light of your relationships. Your identity is not the same thing as pursing the passion God gave you to take ground in His name. For women, calling can be easily rolled into our identity as a mother, sister, friend, daughter, and wife. We value our relationships the most and are wholly devoted to them. We want the same inner peace we desire for ourselves to flow into our most precious relationships. Consequently, our value is often tied to key relationships, but that is not the whole story.

Coming from a legal background, when I think of calling, I think of the word ‘summons’ which is defined as “an authoritative or urgent call to someone to be present or to do something.” It’s God’s individually crafted “summons” over you – the combination of God infused passion and action made for you and you only. Calling goes beyond the roles (identity) we live out in our lives. Certainly, your call may bring you to a specific focus as a mother, sister, friend, daughter, or wife, but the call does not begin there.  When we roll calling and identity into one, we angle ourselves to the left or right of inner peace.

Calling is the standing God gave you as His child with a purpose and mission to live out in the service of others. When we focus on our roles instead of our calling, we miss the intersection of our passion and purpose. We miss the fullness of who we were made to be. The resulting tragedy is the simultaneous unmet longing of so many women: Inner Peace.

Five Reasons Why Pursuing Your Calling is the Key to Inner Peace:

1.  Knowing your calling provides purpose for your soul

What makes your heart beat fast? What fires up your desire for justice or equality? What causes tears to stream down your cheeks? What could you just keep doing forever because you love it and you thrive from it? What keeps you up at night or gets you up early? What do you want to stand on a podium and talk about? Is there something that breaks your heart and you can do something about it?

Purpose gives life to the part of you that was intended to be active and alive. When we verbalize and memorialize our calling, we are invigorated with energy and determination to do the thing we were made to do. When we are in sync with our God given desires and can name them out loud or on paper, the inner self invites and welcomes peace.

2.  Living out your purpose satisfies the cravings of the soul

Women often fear that they have missed the mark. With the exception of the failures and mistakes that are part of living, the fear of missing the mark is related to whether a woman is pursuing her calling. There is an internal craving that exists inside of us until we live out our calling. Just like many describe salvation as the God-sized keyhole of the heart, calling is a go button waiting to be pushed. The green go button lights up again and again as it waits to be pushed. The blinking light continues until activation and so does our craving. Inner peace is not realized until the self is living out who the self was made to be. When your calling is unleashed, pursued and active, the soul is at peace, satisfied and fulfilled.

3.  Avoiding or setting aside your calling disrupts inner peace

Pursuit of a good cause, intention, project or relationship that is not in line with your personal calling may be a factor in thwarting inner peace. In a recent survey of passionate, intentional women, I found that almost all the women were pursuing projects and building relationships. The same resourceful, creative women also stated they desire inner peace the most.

We cannot ignore the difference between pursuing positive projects and relationships and pursing projects and relationships that are aligned with your God infused passion. There is correlation between inner peace and whether you are pursuing the calling that your Creator designed for you. Inner peace does not arrive until your pursuit becomes a pursuit that was God breathed into your being.

4.  Pain is healed by pursuing your calling

Women experience deep pain arising from their own self-image, difficulties in parenting and marriage, financial uncertainty and death and loss. The pain is not just in the season of difficulty but in moving forward from the hardship. If we are not careful, we will take our pain with us far beyond the season. We will see our lives through the lens of pain. We will live our lives consumed by wounds and brokenness. In effect, we will narrow the course of our lives instead of expand the ground we take for God and for his glory.

When we have pinpointed our passion and calling and pursue it, our pain is met with purpose and hope. Healing comes. Healing does not necessarily come from the resolution of the hardship, but it comes from gathering up your gifts, talents and abilities towards your God imbued passion and calling. Pursuing your calling is not about distraction from pain, it is about working through the pain by honoring a part of yourself that is meant to be expressed no matter the circumstances. Pain disrupts inner peace, but passion and calling are a spring board for healing.

5.  The pursuit of your calling connects you to community

Women often hide their struggles. Strong women hide their fears. Balanced women hide desperation and hopelessness. Confident women hide idols of perfectionism. Grounded women hide how lost they feel. Together women hide how undone they really are. Hidden struggles chisel away at inner peace. Hidden struggles strip down and immobilize passion and purpose. Connection, however, gives way to voice, revelation and freedom.

Connection breaks down the walls of silence that are marring the self-worth and self-image of women. As we verbalize struggles and passion among sisters, we become connected. When we set out to pursue calling, our team of sisters support us, act as resources for us and remind us why our passion matters. When we are supported and heard, inner peace increases. Our passion and peace grow side by side in community.

The pursuit of passion and calling is the key to inner peace. The soul craves purpose. The soul finds healing in the path of passion and calling. The soul finds her voice in the presence of community. The one thing she desires most for herself and her family can’t be found in her roles, although exponentially important. The one thing she desires most can’t be found when calling is side stepped or avoided. Inner peace is found in living out the God-imbued calling over her life. She will find peace when she lives out her calling.

 

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