Almost a year ago, God blessed me with the kindness of a stranger who showed me the ropes of living Gluten-free. I wrote this post hours after returning from a crash course at her home. Since I implemented her plan, Joseph has continued to grow, and I’ve been able to return the favor to other wonderful mommies who are attempting to cook and live differently so that their children with gluten related issues will thrive.

I am not sure why I didn’t initially publish this. Maybe it felt too vulnerable to share the hope that cooking Gluten-free was going to be part of the answer to Joseph’s health struggles. As many of you know, the changes have made a huge difference. So in honor of the almost 9 month anniversary of living Gluten Free, I am finally pressing ‘publish.’

This weekend I was incredibly blessed to spend 2 hours at the home of an amazing woman who quite possibly might be an angel disguised as a mom. She is a dear friend of my dear friend Babette.  Kennedy, as she is called by her buddies, cooks G-free for her family as they almost all have Celiac Disease. She opened her kitchen and heart to me as she showed me the ropes of snacking and cooking without gluten so that your kids and their friends don’t know it. I left with a stack of recipes and resources, a bag of their favorite G-free foods, and a heart that was brimming with thankfulness that she would spend her Saturday afternoon with a total stranger to ensure that I didn’t have to figure things out on my own the way that she did.

There is such a sacredness to this season in our family. Moments like Saturday, experiencing the kindness of a stranger in such a profound way that I know that God is literally cheering us on and urging us to move forward. Of course if I could snap my fingers, or cut off my fingers, for Joseph to be totally well I would.  But until then, thanks Kennedy and thanks God for sending her.

On their kitchen wall was a plaque that touched me deeply. I copied it, and now it’s one of the first things that you see when you walk in our home. (I added the part about the messes and spills b/c you just can’t describe a family full of boys without it!)

In the Streets’ Home

We do second chances.

We do grace.

We do real.

We do messes and spills.

We do mistakes.

We do I’m sorrys.

We do loud really well.

We do hugs.

We do family.

We do love.

Thanks, Kennedy. Thanks, God.

What do you think helps Christian kids want to walk with God in college and beyond?

Personally, I would like to think that it is because they have kind mothers who patiently rub their backs each night even when they are dog tired. Or maybe it’s because they have fathers that injure their shoulders because they spend so much time throwing passes and pitches to their sons in the backyard each evening. Or better yet it is because they have seen their Christian parents patiently endure trials with their faith intact.

Hopefully these things make a huge difference, but the newly quoted statistic about the number one factor is not anything close. The current research says that the common denominator between kids from Christian families who will choose to continue their faith journey when they aren’t living with their parents anymore is that they are consistently exposed to people ten years ahead of them who are walking with God and pursuing their relationship with him.

The more I thought about this, the more it makes total sense to me. I have always craved meaningful relationships with people 10 years ahead of me who were doing things I aspired to.

In middle school, it was my weekly date with Melissa Garza. Melissa was a senior when I was in 7th grade. She was the Head Varsity Cheerleader, and I just knew that the planets revolved around her. Melissa picked me up from school one afternoon each week, bought me a cherry coke at the local DQ, and listened to me pour out my ‘new kid in school’ woes, all under the guise of coaching me in cheerleading. I don’t think that I would have made it to 8th grade emotionally intact without her. Seriously.

In high school, Kama Andrews stepped in and truly shaped the course of my story. True confession, if you want to know why I changed my name from Courtney to Kourtney, look no further. Kama drove me to school each morning of my freshman year and after school to my job at a local jewelry store. She was everything I aspired to be. I made what at the time were major life decisions because of things that she did, and I am so thankful for the way that she included me in her world all those years when she didn’t have to. Apart from my parents, no one had more of an impact in my life than Kama did.

The stakes got higher as I got older.

In college, when I was tangled in a destructive relationship and my world was falling apart, Julie Woody gave me a priceless birthday present. Julie was a successful attorney, almost rector’s wife, and mother to two amazing sons.  When I turned 22, while Julie’s dear hubby was out of town and her boys were finally sleeping, Julie told me her life story, sparing not a detail. Her mid-twenties struggles paralleled my own so closely that for the first time, I had hope that I might really make it. Her brutal honesty unlocked my shackles.  I ached to follow in her courageous footsteps and have a story with a happy ending like hers. I did follow in her footsteps, and I am living the happy ending.

During that same season, Gayle Greenwood Clark mentored me. One morning a week at her wooden kitchen table, Gayle listened with loving ears and a tender heart. She opened her tattered Bible and consistently pointed me to the Words that would heal and nourish my broken heart and aching soul. She talked with honesty and integrity about things I will never forget. Many years have passed. I regularly call Gayle and tearfully thank her for not giving up on me during those years that I dabbled in darkness while aching for the light. My prayer is that I will listen and encourage the younger women in my life with such empathy and wisdom that I still find in the honesty and safety of my friendship with Gayle.

In Colorado, it was my counselor, Jean. Just the mention of her name brings peace. I have no words to express her impact on my life…

Living in France for almost five years wound my path around the homes of Giselle Timbie and Mary Petersen. I am convinced that if for no other reason than to do life with these noble women, God took our family to the land of vin, baguettes and fromage. I am blessed with Part II of this journey as Mary has recently moved to Orlando, and we are once again doing life together consistently.

This list is not exhaustive.

As a wife and mother, the sisterhood of noble women who have taught me how to love my husband and sons is priceless to me. My blog isn’t long enough to write about each of the women 10 years ahead who have impacted me. I see them as extravagant gifts from God, provided like North Stars pointing me in the direction that He wants me to go. No longer do I want to be exactly like them. However, I want to emulate a strength that they possess, and I choose to mine the treasures of their lives and stories to learn from them.

The longer I am a mother, the more I realize that my sons already need Godly, patient men to journey with them. Noble people to fill in the gaps that Rich and I  leave despite our best intentions in parenting them. I have already seen the craving in the hearts of our boys satisfied as our family serves high school and college students through our ministry. The young men and women who lavish their patient attention on our impressionable boys are role models paving the way for them…10 years ahead…

And so I pray for a brotherhood…