I have two children, one girl and one boy. They have been my life's focus since they were born. I am a reader of parenting books, a planner, a goal setter and an action oriented person. I worked part time when they were small but still was able to find time to seek out the parenting techniques and tools that seemed the best for us and for them.
When we release our children in the world we have hopes and dreams; fears and trepidations.
About a year ago I was lucky enough to see the documentary, Race to Nowhere. If you have not seen this movie and have kids 20 years of age or less, see it! This documentary brings to life the pressures our children are under in the school system, the sports system, the competition system, the society system; just pick a system and name it! It was real to me, very disturbing, but true nonetheless. It made sense to me, but I left the movie feeling very frustrated. If you are at all like me, you are happy to discuss problems but only if the discussion is wrapped up with a conclusion, a course, a path, a plan of action. I would not be an effective 'think tank' person. I want action. In-action, when there is an obvious problem, frustrates me. The movie's 'call to action' was to spread the word to begin, and fuel, a grass roots movement to challenge the educational and societal system that our children are operating within. What does that grass roots movement look like? I had no idea. What was I to move toward? What grass needed roots? What needed to be watered? What needed to be cultivated?
No, I don't want my children to race to nowhere. Yes, I want them to be understood for who they are and what their unique talents are and I want that to be celebrated in their lives. I want them to be what God created them to be.... WAIT! What God created them to be! That was the answer, like no illumination or vision I have ever had, God said to me there is a 'Journey to Somewhere'! I had been running, for exercise, not from the Lord, and thinking through the movie and my need for action and a solution.
Each of us has a 'Journey to Somewhere'. That is the crux of Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart."
Our precious children have been entrusted to us, by God, for a time. We put them into the society machine in good faith. We don't want to see them stressed out, but we want them to learn, we don't want them to strive for things they don't want, but we want them to do better than we did. What is a family to do? Do we remove ourselves from the machine, take our kids out of the craziness, find a remote location to live in, let them run free in the fields and wait for the Lord to return and gather his people to him? While that may sound, in many ways, divinely wonderful, it is not reality and it does not create a future for our precious little ones. So, what is a focused, active, loving parent to do?
That is where this writing began. With a movie, a run, an epiphany and the grace of God to move forward. We need to equip our children for the path God has created them for. Thus the beginning of Imagine Parenting and the Journey to Somewhere.
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