upgradeyourlife

Entries in Vision (2)

Thursday

Jun122014

Ask Your Children Big-Picture Questions

As a special Father’s Day post and to help us Upgrade our parenting and/or ministry to children, I asked my friend, Nancy Leigh DeMoss of Revive Our Hearts ministry to share with us. So much of her life was shaped by the life example of her parents—especially her father. She often talks and writes about him. In 2013, Nancy wrote about a question her dad asked that helped her shape her life and ministry. *

“The scene is indelibly etched in my memory,” Nancy wrote. “I was 19 years old. My family was on a mission trip in Haiti—my parents’ (and my) favorite type of family 'vacation.'”

Reader, does this give you some insight into the type of family Nancy grew up in? This vacation is only a slice of the big picture of life and ministry her parents embraced.

Nancy continues ...

We were worshiping in a small Haitian church, sitting on hard wood benches. In the middle of the service, my dad leaned over to me and whispered,

“Honey, what are your 50-year goals?”

Now, I’ll confess I hadn’t given a lot of thought to my 50-year goals, prior to that moment. But over the next weeks, I set out to respond to his question. Of course, I didn’t know things like whether I would be married or single or what my specific ministry path would look like. But I tried to record what I wanted to be true of my life in 50 years—by the time I was 69—if the Lord was pleased to give me that many years.

Periodically I’ve gone back and reviewed the document that resulted from that exercise more than 35 years ago. It has proved to be a valuable reminder to be intentional, stay the course, and focus on the things that matter most.

While I would no doubt craft these goals a bit differently today, these are the same basic categories that I still believe are important. Even this week, in re-reading this list, I’ve been challenged to recalibrate my thinking in one particular area.

As a teen sitting in that Haitian church, 50 years seemed like an eternity away. I could not have imagined how quickly those years would pass—or how easy it would be to fritter away days, months, years—a lifetime.

Today, with less than 15 years left till I turn 69, I wish I were a whole lot further along toward these goals. I haven’t even come close to attaining all of them. But I’m confident I have grown more in these areas than I might have if it hadn’t been for my dad’s question. So for challenging me to this exercise—and for so much more—thank you, Dad!

I believe there is value in doing this kind of thinking at various points in life. And not only for yourself . . .

Don’t underestimate the potential impact of encouraging your children, grandchildren, and young friends to think through these kinds of big-picture questions.

Less than two years after I wrote these goals, on the weekend of my 21st birthday, my dad died suddenly of a heart attack.

I’m so thankful for his efforts to encourage me to live a purposeful life to the glory of God. And that he didn’t think the teen years were too young to challenge me to seek and embrace God’s vision for my future.

What questions could you ask your child, grandchild or another child you want to influence, to help shape big-picture thinking and priorities?

Nancy Leigh DeMoss is a mentor and "spiritual mother" to hundreds of thousands of women who have read her best-selling books and who listen to her two daily radio programs, Revive Our Hearts and Seeking Him. She communicates a love for the Lord and the Word that is infectious! Nancy is the author of many books, including Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free. Learn more about her ministry and women’s revival conferences at Revive Our Hearts and True Woman.

* This post is part of an article at TrueWoman.com titled “My Dad’s Impromptu Challenge.” The article includes the goals that Nancy wrote when she was 19.

Bricks into Cathedrals

Dawn Wilson

Sue Badeau is an amazing, caring woman. She loves to give children roots and wings. She and her husband are the lifetime parents of twenty-two children (two by birth and twenty through adoption). She knows a lot about “care-giving,” and I invited her to share some insights with us.

“As a caregiver, when you feel like you’re running into brick walls,” Sue says, “you’re well on the way to supporting healing and wholeness for your loved one.”

I have to tell you, I [Dawn] wept when I read this post. My own sister was a caregiver for my grandmother, and now she cares for my mom. I can’t wait to share this precious post with her.

Sue continues …

Caregiving is hard and may feel like there’s no end in sight. Whether caring for a child, spouse, sibling or aging parent coping with physical or mental challenges, grief or trauma, we need a hopeful vision.

A folktale challenges us to reframe our perspective:

A person on a journey came upon workers laying bricks. She stopped, asking the first, “What are you doing?”

“I’m laying bricks,” the first worker replied.

Not satisfied, she asked a second worker, “What are you doing?”

“I’m building a great and strong brick wall.”

Still seeking to better understand, the wayfarer asked a third worker, “What are you doing?”

The third worker responded with enthusiasm, “I’m building a soaring cathedral to last throughout time, drawing men and women to the glory of God."*

Laying bricks is important work. Each contributes to the whole. But don't focus solely on bricks. Upgrade your perspective. Today’s caregiving tasks are bricks helping the person you love to achieve his or her life purpose with dignity. Can you envision the sturdy wall you are building with today’s bricks?

Now, upgrade again. Stretch your vision to extend beyond the wall until you see the soaring cathedral. Are you able to enthusiastically and purposefully undertake your role contributing bricks, one-by-one, to the cathedral—even if it takes years or decades to complete?

Effective parents and caregivers must have a soaring vision and then work towards this vision on a daily basis.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18).

Here are four tips for upgrading your life by developing and implementing cathedral visions to sustain you through the brick-laying work of parenting and caregiving:

(1) Imagine the future. What are all the hopes and possibilities for the child or person you are caring for? Engage the person him or herself in describing their own “cathedral.” Dream big!

(2) Place a visual representation of your “cathedral” to be seen daily. Whenever you’re discouraged, it’ll remind you of the cathedral you’re building!

For example, one of our daughters was told she’d never walk due to cerebral palsy. She longed to dance. Her vision of dancing was her hope for a future of self-expression and independence. We placed a music box with a ballerina on top on her dresser. It was a visual reminder of the reason we slogged through difficult physical therapy (brick-laying) exercises.

(3) Break the vision into smaller components. Just as a cathedral-builder’s blueprint will include the layout of all necessary walls (See I Kings 6-7), for our daughter, components included learning to feed and dress herself, walk and climb stairs.

(4) Prepare to make adjustments. Our daughter’s love for dance was the inspiration she—and we—needed to lay bricks for her to become the person God created her to be.

Today she is able to dance, but she is not defined as a dancer. Her cathedral changed as it soared to new heights. She is an independent adult, raising two children. The dance vision wasn’t the full cathedral, but it gave us all the perspective we needed to keep at it day after day.

Who are you caring for, laying bricks each day? Can you upgrade this to a Cathedral vision? (How about your own life—are you building a Cathedral?) Sue (and Dawn) would love to hear about your caregiving experiences.

Sue Badeau is a nationally known speaker, author, child welfare and trauma expert. Sue and her husband, Hector, are lifetime parents of twenty-two children, two by birth and twenty adopted. They wrote the book Are We There Yet: The Ultimate Road Trip Adopting and Raising 22 Kids. Learn more about Sue at suebadeau.com and badeaufamily.com.

* Cathedral story adapted, author unknown. Photo of the cathedral taken by Sue Badeau.