Yesterday my son’s Xbox subscription ended. Why is that significant? Because it was his choice.
After many years of my older two begging to be able to have a gaming system, once they got it, they never really played it much. But the few times they did, their younger brother was watching. How can you keep him away from the one TV we have in the middle of the house where everyone hangs out all the time? I tried to limit his exposure but it was hard and my baby LOVED to play. Years later, my son realized his older brothers were right and there was more to life than video games and so he intentionally ended his subscription to help him make better choices for the use of his time.
Then came COVID. Everything changed and in the dead of winter, being told he would not be going back to school for a while, he wouldn’t be able to see his friends, we couldn’t be going to movies or skiing or bowling or any of the fun things we would do that time of year, my son decided to renew his subscription to Xbox. But knowing why he quit it in the first place, and against my encouragement, he chose the $25 subscription for 3 months instead of the $60 one for a year. And he told me, “Mom, this will be over by summer and my friends and I will be able to do all the things we once did and I don’t want to have the Xbox as an option that long.”
It’s been three months since we went into lock down and all the hope we had for things to be back to normal by now is replaced by a huge sense of uncertainty. We can no longer be certain about the fundamentals…Am I safe to go out in public? Does this package on my front step have coronavirus on it? Will I still have a job tomorrow? Can local businesses stay open? Will I find toilet paper on the shelves at the grocery store? Will my kids be able to go back to school?
And it is almost impossible to know what is true. Should I wear a mask to protect others or is it more dangerous for me to do so if I am not sick? Is our government trying to suppress our freedom or are they trying to protect us? Is the virus as dangerous as people say it is or is it just like the flu? Is it all a conspiracy of the richest men in the world or are they trying to bring us together to care for one another?
It is a crazy, unpredictable, unprecedented, uncertain time and we thought it would be over by the time my son’s Xbox subscription expired.
The one thing that has carried me through so far is faith. I keep telling myself over and over that God has great plans for me, plans for my welfare, not for my woe. (Jeremah 29:11) And I know it is not just for me he has these plans for, but it is for all of his children. It’s that faith that made my son desire to do better things this summer than play on his Xbox.
Faith is a complete trust and confidence in someone or something. The bible says “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1
As a world community, I have faith that we all have the ability to make changes for the better, to take care of one another, to end our harmful habits, to be more conscious of our actions, and even to do things like intentionally care for the earth and the sea and the sky for our children and our children’s children to be able to enjoy it in the future.
I know we are going to get through this. “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power, love, and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7
Like my son’s Xbox subscription, it is time to end our bad habits, our limiting beliefs and start making better choices to live the life we really want to live.
As I write this I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have a teenage son who exhibits such power and self control to make such good choices for his life that he would willingly end his Xbox subscription. It’s almost unbelievable. And that his sadness over his subscription ending is not that he can no longer play but that we thought we would be through this COVID uncertainty by now. I am so inspired by him.
Although God created my son with so many incredible gifts, I believe God guided me throughout my motherhood journey to help him and all my children use their gifts of power, love and self control to make good choices and become the people who God meant for them to be.
It’s been about 22 years now that I have asked myself daily, “What would Mother Mary do?” I always knew God meant for me to share this beautiful mission with the world, I just didn’t understand how. I have been blogging for 6 years now and in the beginning I believed perhaps I was supposed to offer specific parenting advice but when people would ask me, what they should do, I only had a general response…”How do you think Mother Mary would handle it if Jesus were doing that or had this problem or needed this help?”
There are never any easy answers to parenting nor one that fits everyone perfectly but I finally realized last year that I wasn’t meant to share specific advice, but I was supposed to show people the way to create a vision for your family, align it with God’s will and support your family throughout their life journey to follow the straight and narrow way to the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s what Mother Mary did.
For over a year now I have been working on developing a course for mothers who have a vision of how they want their families’ lives to be but don’t know how to help them get there. My course is based on God’s principles of offering us the Kingdom of Heaven, providing us an example and a way to get there and supporting us along the way.
In these times of uncertainty, we need more than ever to strengthen our families. To help our children become resilient in difficult times and to know how to make good decisions that will shape their future into something bright. It’s about partnering with God, it’s about having faith in God’s plan, it’s about using our gifts to lead others and guiding our families to move closer to God in Heaven with every choice we make.
God has been preparing me for this and in the next few weeks I’ll have the course completed and I truly hope the tools and insights in it will change your life as they have for me. It’s called, “A Mother’s Mission.” Look for it…it’s coming soon.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6