Cheerleader

When your children are young you are their cheerleader.  Cheering them on in baseball, basketball or any number of sports activities; encouraging them if they are artists, musicians or dancers.  Buying chemistry sets if they love science.  Scouring stores for detective books if they want to be one when they "grow up". As a Mom you will "freeze" as you sit on metal bleachers or every spring get the "baseball" sunburn.  This is the sunburn that happens when you forget sunscreen and you are stuck at a ballpark for eight hours.  It usually is on one side of your body and if you wear glasses you will look like an owl when you take them off.  You will stand in long, crowded, lines to buy the perfect gift.  As a Mom you feel this gift will help them achieve their goal on one day becoming that chemist, ballerina, artist, baseball player or fill in the blank.  You will stay up late in the night helping them complete school projects that they have had three months to do; but somehow forgot until the night before the project was due.  Why?  Why does a parent go the extra mile for a child?  Because we are driven by love, we may not be perfect, we may not have all the answers, we may not always have the money our children think they need, but we love our children!

Yesterday I started a blog called "Discouragement" and as I wrote it I too became discouraged.  I kept thinking why would anyone want to read this?  Who am I write a blog on parenting?  So I stopped writing and turned off my computer.  Last night I woke up at around 3:00 AM and could not sleep, so I took out my Kindle and looked at Facebook, read the news and still I could not sleep.  So I opened a book I bought called "Start" by Jon Acuff.  The reason I had bought this book was because my oldest daughter, Sarah, had encouraged me to read it. My daughter encouraged me!  She also encouraged me to write this blog.  In fact she set it up for me; interesting the same daughter that I encouraged, encouraged me.

As I read the book, which I highly recommend by the way, I realized that sometimes you just have to do what the author says:  START.  So this is my "Start".  But instead of just encouraging Moms, I will begin by introducing myself to you and my journey in Motherhood.  Then you can judge if my encouragement and dare I say "insight" is valid.  Since I have been married for thirty one years and have seven children I will write my story in a number of blogs. 

 But for today as you encourage your children realize this at some point they will become your cheerleader.  So as you invest encouragement in your children know this is one investment that pays great dividends.  Thank you Sarah for the encouragement and recommending "Start"!