Live the Lesson

Well everyone, I’m finally back at it – I’ve been thinking about restarting this blog for some time but have been dragging my feet over here. The last time I wrote, the Bengals were in the Super Bowl! Many things have changed since then . . .. Despite my reluctance, God continues to nudge me to start writing again. So here we are. Thanks for reading and for humoring me while I attempt to put my thoughts on paper.

My kids are getting older. Despite what my bio says, they are now 13, 11, 10, 8, and 6 years old. As they’ve gotten older, my relationship with them has changed. For some of them we’ve left the “king” phase of parenting and have entered a solid “coaching” phase. Sometimes we swing back and forth a bit, but we are definitely in a new season. In this season I find that I am continually convicted by my words. I say things to the kids, and then I think: “Do I do that?” So often I am lecturing these kids on how to be tough, or how to be a good friend, or how to rise above a difficult situation. And often there’s that little voice in the back of my head asking me if I live out my own advice. Let me give you an example.

A couple of weeks ago, its hard to believe at the moment, but it was hot–like so very hot. Over the past few months (years maybe) I’ve been trying to push myself to run a few times a week. I don’t particularly love to do this when its over maybe 80, or even 75 degrees. But let’s be honest, there’s always a reason not to run or to workout–theres always next week. Well, I’ve “next weeked” myself out of quite a few years of my life. Now that I have five children and am officially in my 40s, the circumstances always seem to be against me. Perhaps they always were, or perhaps thats just always been my perception. But on this particular day it was at least 90 degrees. I had taken my two younger kids to a golf class down by Lunken and I had over an hour of free time. Say what?!? No excuses, right?

Well . . . I started listing those “reasons” off in my head about why I shouldn’t run: (1) its too hot, it’ll cool down next week; (2) I had a headache this morning; (3) what if someone gets hurt at golf and I’m a mile away?; (4) there is literally no shade here, it is directly in the sun. Listen, there are always reasons not to do the things we know we should do–there are always circumstances that make us just want to forget about the goals we’ve set for ourselves. We say, we’ll start again….next week. But I’ve spent far too long letting those excuses and circumstances rule over me. And yet, I was there, in my running shoes, all ready to go, having an argument with myself on whether I really needed to run right now, in this weather.

But on this particular day, as I stood there and debated how to spend my time, I kept hearing this one thing in the back of my mind. It was one small conversation I had with my 11-year-old daughter just two days before. Lizzie’s soccer team had made it to the final for a soccer tournament and it was a very hot afternoon. She tends to struggle in the heat. She had scored 3 goals so far in the tournament and I didn’t want the heat to slow her down. I pulled her aside before the final and gave her this “pregame speech” as my husband likes to call it. I told her,

“The heat doesn’t determine the outcome of this game. It doesn’t determine your effort. It doesn’t determine how hard you play. That is simply a decision you make for yourself, regardless of the circumstances. Circumstances don’t determine the outcome, discipline does.”

I wanted Lizzie to know that she could choose to set hard circumstances aside, she could ignore them, not fixate on what was uncomfortable, but push through. Lizzie can do hard things. She knows this. I wanted to remind her.

But what about me? Can I do hard things? Do I know this? Do I push through when the circumstances are stacked against me? Or do I choose to let them overtake me? Do I choose to let the circumstances determine whether I’ll actually take that next step toward my goals. Do I weigh the discomfort and quit on the things that are important to me if the scale tips even just slightly?

So often I encourage my children to push through hard things, be the best that they can be, strive for excellence. But what about me? Do I hold myself to the same standard that I push for them? No matter what my words may be, no matter what lesson I might be trying to teach them, if I’m not living it out day by day, what are they really learning? We all know they are watching, they see our lives, they see what we DO. What is my life teaching them?

This got me thinking. What if truly lived out these lessons that I’m trying to teach them? What if I encouraged and called myself to live the same way that I want them to? What if I lived the lessons? So, I ran that day. I ran 3 miles in the sweltering heat. It was hard. And it was good. I can do hard things, just like Lizzie can.

I know there are so many more lessons that I recite over and over to those kids that I need to live out as well. Thats why I’m starting to listen to my own words. I want to live the lesson not just lecture it to my children. If you want to be more intentional about living out your words as well, follow me here or on instagram. Perhaps we can encourage one another to be all that we encourage our children to be.

@myhamperrunnethover #livethelesson