Raise Your Children With True Love
The kind that teaches them how to live an honorable life.
Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, I discuss how to raise your children with true love.
Raise Your Children With True Love
Our little school community was rocked with terrible news right before Christmas. A child from one of our families was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. It’s been incredible to witness the family handle the devastation with peace and grace. Not one of their other children has missed an event or practice during this time. They’ve done a fantastic job of straddling the opposing worlds of hospital stays and surgeries with basketball games and Christmas parties.
As a community, we are trying our best to support them in any way they need. The family has rides for their children, a meal train, and help with finishing off the Christmas shopping. The way your community steps up in your time of need is so important. And we want to help bring peace to a scary and chaotic time in their lives.
Still, the most inspiring part of this awful ordeal has been watching their oldest daughter rise to the occasion. She is a beautiful representation of their family. She is two years older than my daughter, but they both play on the Varsity basketball team together.
I remember the day her brother went into surgery, her parents wanted her to play in the game that night. I assume it was to keep her in her regular routine. During warm-ups, her face told two stories. On the surface, she was calm and focused. She went through the drills with precision. But behind her quiet expression lay eyes that were worried and sad. I don’t know if anyone except for the people who knew her recognized the battle she was fighting inside.
In the weeks after, I watched her attack every game with the same determination as if winning meant so much more to her than it ever had before. She’s an incredible athlete, so it’s not hard to have fun watching her play, but it was clear she was using basketball as an outlet for the emotional pain she was carrying. Still, when the game is over, she immediately reverts back to being soft, kind, and caring. She leaves the pain on the court, not daring to take it home with her.
It’s more than just basketball. She cares for her younger siblings. She helps them with homework and around the house. She is loving her family so tenderly and with a strength that only comes from having been intentionally raised this way.
I look at her and the example she is setting for the rest of the high school in awe. Most people wouldn’t have judged her had she fallen apart, but she hasn’t. She has stood firm during the chaos, refusing to break.
I sat down recently to tell my husband about all the feelings I have as a mother from watching this young woman handle the pain so gracefully. After I finished telling him about all of her incredible acts of love for her family, I collapsed into his shoulder. I needed to be comforted by his strength.
“She’s so young,” I said to him with a bit of fear and trepidation behind the words. I wondered silently to myself if I’ve raised my daughters to react the same way.
And as if he could read my mind, he said to me, “She is, but she’s doing what needs to be done. Our girls would do the same and have.”
He reminds me of how they reacted to his incident in August when we almost lost him. I was out of the country on a work trip when he rushed himself to the emergency room. When my mother got to our house, my oldest daughter was cleaning. My mom said she walked in while she was sweeping the floor. The counters had already been wiped down, and the dishwasher was running.
I talked to her about this after my husband was home from the hospital. She said there wasn’t anything she could do to get me home faster or help Daddy in the hospital, but she could make sure the house was clean when we got back. I knew all of this had affected her deeply, but I didn’t realize how much until I was proofreading her theology paper last week on the Blessed Trinity.
She retold the story of her father almost dying as a personal example of the Holy Trinity being present at a moment in her life.
“The doctors told us that it was a miracle he survived,” she wrote. “This could have gone very differently if God had not protected and guided our family. We could have lost the head of our family. While people might call it luck or chance, my family will always know that if it were not for the love and mercy of the Trinity, my family would be mourning the loss of my father.”
“The Holy Trinity is mysterious, and we will never know why my dad and our family were spared, but we can comprehend that it was out of love,” she added.
Love. It’s why our daughter cleaned the house during our hardest moment. And it’s also why their daughter is caring for them the best way she knows how.
As parents, we hope that we are raising our children with true love. The kind that teaches them how to live an honorable life. But you never really know unless they are tested. You hope it’s not like these girls have been tested this year, but if it is, you pray they have what they need to continue the fight.
WHAT I SAW THIS WEEK:
Gavin Newsom’s attempt to justify radical transgender policy by invoking a personal relationship exposes a deeper problem than partisan disagreement. When private sentiment replaces moral duty and public responsibility, governance collapses into self-indulgence. Even more troubling is the use of sacred language to shield policies that permanently harm children, turning spiritual responsibility into political cover. You can read all about this here: ROOKE: Gavin Newsom Talking About ‘Godson’ Proves He’s Not Qualified For Anything
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Love your story today , just beautiful!!!