Dear Ashlyn,
You turned 9 yesterday. I asked you want you wanted to do for your birthday. In typical Ashlyn style, you had a full plan for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and pretty much every moment in between–decorations, diner, fresh toast, a visit to school for lunch, $.90 ice cream treats from the cafeteria, cheeseburgers and fries, candy apples and a golden snitch cake, and maybe a few gifts to open.

I’m sorta glad you kept me busy. Kept me from thinking too too much about the fact that you’re now 9 years old and keep getting bigger despite my demands that you stay small.

At the risk of you rolling your eyes at me a little, I’ve got one last gift for you.

Seems like you’ve been growing up a lot lately leading up to this birthday. You understand things more deeply. You care about things more deeply. And, I’ve seen you love more deeply.

I know you are dreaming about things like a trip to Disney World sometime in your ninth year of life. But, I’ve got another dream for you this year. I am dreaming of watching you grow in wisdom. As your body grows and your heart grows, I am praying you grow in wisdom so that you know how to best honor your body and your heart in a way that pleases the One who made them in the first place. I want you to grow strong–I know you already are doing just that. And, I want you to grow in mercy–and I see glimpses of that that make my heart soar. But, I want you to also learn wisdom to know when to give of yourself and when to guard yourself.

Wisdom isn’t an easy thing to learn. Reading every single book on that new Kindle of yours can teach you a lot, but wisdom isn’t one of them. The only way to start learning wisdom is know who God is and who you are–His daughter, the daughter of the King. As you are sitting at your desk working on some project and as you are laying in bed at night reading, I want you to think about what that might mean. And, when things aren’t so quiet, when you are at recess at school or playing outside with your brothers and sister, I want you to remember what you are learning. And, you may just start to notice the fruit of wisdom growing on those branches, dear Ashlyn, my tree planted by the water.

It’s a big year–your last one as a single digit. So, if you think I’m all wordy and giving you too much to think about now, you just wait until next year. Surely, two digits means at least twice the amount of words from your mama.

Dear ….

Over the last several weeks, we’ve been doing advent readings every night at dinner. These readings have been preparing our hearts for Christmas in a significant way as we talk together about things like what it means that God came down to rescue us in the form of a baby. We’ve been talking about the choice to love and what it means to sacrifice.

Christmas gives an opportunity to talk more about sacrifice as we give and receive gifts. But, nothing could better demonstrate sacrifice to them than the stories of the teachers who gave their lives Friday to protect the children in their care. We spent some time talking with them about what happened and how sad it is that we live in a broken world but that there is hope even in that brokenness–we’ve been reading about that hope every night.

We do all we can to protect our children. As parents, we worry and fret and often try to micromanage and keep things as much under our control as possible! But, as you know full well, we can’t always be with them, guarding them at every step. What a blessing to know that when we drop them off every morning at 8:20 and drive away from that school, they are in the hands of people like those teachers in Connecticut who would sacrifice to protect them at great cost as well. And, we can rest knowing that they are ours only for time and really belong to the God who made them, the only one is always with them at every step.

Thank you for your service and commitment to my child and to the children who have filled your classroom over the years. On behalf of every parent whose child you have sacrificed for on a daily basis and would sacrifice for if needed, thank you.

Genuinely,
Kelly

They were playing mall. Drew put on his Halloween costume from last year and the other 3 lined up to sit on his lap and tell him all sorts of goodies they might want. Then, they’d get back in line and do it again.

A few minutes later, they were making signs and gathering supplies like a clipboard with paper and pen to take it on the road. I confess, the idea made me proud (given the fact that I tried to start my own karaoke business at age 9).

$1 for a picture with Santa. Not a bad deal given that I would have to download the pics, edit them, and then email them off to each parent.

Given the fact that it was a busy day at the park across the street but most folks there walked there like us, it took about 5 minutes for them to drop the price to $.50 a pop.

But, somehow, with the freebies they gave away (all in the name of marketing, perhaps?) and the lack of wallets among parents there, they made a whole $1 total which they judicially decided to split with Drew getting $.50 and Evan and Ashlyn getting $.25 each.

Several children insisted on telling this 3 1/2 ft. Santa what they wanted for Christmas, and a few folks asked if they’d be back again so they’d bring their money this time.

Would it be totally wrong for me to encourage them to do just that given that they’ve got some debt to repay for some Christmas shopping they’ve each done?