“Why do you have a white board hanging in your dining room?”

Question #1 posed to dear friends last week while visiting their new home.

“What does it mean?”

Question #2. The answer produced a compelling three minute explanation of a book they’d read that helped them solidify their families’ strategic plan.

“Can I borrow the book?”

Question #3. Little did I know that their affirmative answer would drastically alter the course of our near future.

The dear friends are huge fans of Patrick Lencioni. They recently read his book called The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family. I asked. They explained. They lent. I read. I shared with Rich. We now have a white board in our kitchen residing comfortably beside our weekly schedule and menu.

Lencioni is a corporate leadership development specialist. He helps businesses improve for a living. What he found was that the families of his corporate executives were struggling with issues of productivity similar to their businesses. The families were more important than work but were getting the leftovers when it came to strategic focus. Sound familiar?

The book is a parable about a fictional family named the Cousins. Lencioni uses story to teach a simple family strategic planning process that involves answering three questions:

1. What makes your family unique? The answer to this is what makes your family different from all others.

2. What are your standard objectives? Patrick calls these “those regular, ongoing responsibilities that a family must pay attention to in order to keep its head above water.”

3. What is your family’s top priority–rallying cry–right now? This is the thing that is the most important thing for your family to focus on for the next two to six months. An example of this would be “Get Joseph healthy.” This would have been our stated rallying cry for October 2009-July 2010.

Lencioni believes that if you evaluate each area in a 10-20 minute marriage staff mtg. each week, your life will begin changing. Each category is given a green, yellow, or red dry erase mark based on the health of that area.

We did it. We are living by it. It’s the honeymoon stage, but I we are hopeful. I said my first really difficult “no” this week after evaluating the request through the grid of our Family Scoreboard (Lencioni’s title for your dry erase board.) I am about to send an email with another difficult “no” tomorrow. The “yes” to my family is worth the “no” to other things that I love very much. Trading the good for the best. Living out our rally cry.

The Street Family Score Board

A. What Makes Our Family Unique?

• Our family motto is Love God, Love Others, and Have Fun! Our life is centered around faith, family and friends. We believe in being passionate and emotionally invested in whatever we do.

B. Our Rally Cry?

Settle the SS Street! Settle, systems, and stability.

The defining objectives of our rally cry are the following:

• Unpacking and settling our nest after living in Colorado for seven months.

•  Developing our fall educational plan.

• Creating and implementing our fall ministry plan.

• Creating and implementing our fall weekly schedule and chore system.

C. What are our standard objectives?

• Faith
• Marriage
• Education
• Health
• Finances
• Ministry
• Home Maintenance

 The book is an easy, two hour max read. Care to join us?

“Mom, I like you. But don’t tell anybody. Especially my Sunday School teacher.”

David whispered these words while we were sitting in his closet putting on his church clothes.

“Mom, we just had THE MOST SPECIAL time together outside.”

Rich shouted these words after playing football, shirtless in the rain with his little brothers Friday afternoon.

“Mom, we have to throw away our fuzzy animal board book.” “Why, Joseph?” “Because they killed farm animals to make the part that you can touch and feel.”

Joseph was so relieved when I told him that animals did not die in the production of his old book.

“David, do you think Jesus likes that song?” “Mom, I don’t like Jesus anymore.” “Why, David?” “Cause Jesus kicked me in the head while I was standing on Daddy’s ladder.”

These are the conversations that happen 24/7 in our house. My life is full of great material.

My friend Ken recently blogged about writing about what you are passionate about, what you are knowledgeable about, and writing consistently. I’ve been stuck to his words. There are so many things that I passion. My life is too short to write about everything that I love. But right now the greatest material involves my sons, my marriage, and maybe a little miscellaneous.

So I hope you enjoy my narrowed focus. My feeble, hopefully at least weekly attempts to share my heart, hone my dusty writing skills, and prayerfully, bless you in the process.

God often speaks to me thematically. When I allow enough white space in my life, I see the connections–the places where He wants to get my attention. I am in a season where God is unveiling a dot to dot puzzle inside my heart, and I can’t color fast enough to keep up with him. It is thrilling and terrifying all at the same time. He’s outlining a path for me to be more of who I was intended to be. But I have to leave a big suitcase behind. And although I have baggage, it’s really cute and it matches my other accessories. It’s hard to let go.

One of the dots was connected the other night when a dear friend came over to hang out after the kids went to bed. It was one of those peaceful nights when the kids were asleep before she arrived, and the living room was picked up. I’d Windexed the sliding glass window, lit some candles, and added soulish itunes to the air. Rich is on a trip, so it was girls’ night. Our goal was to speak more than three sentences to each other without a child crawling on us. She brought her jammies. I’d been wearing mine for hours. We talked about the stuff from your guts that you bravely whisper out loud only a handful of times in your life. It was holy.

One of the things I keep thinking about was a conversation we had about marriage. How when you marry the right person, when you don’t give up in the hard times, you start to become more of who you were made to be. I was reminded of how many times I am able to hide who I really am and what I am really thinking, feeling, and battling when I am going about day to day life. I try so hard to be ‘good’ and what I think that others want and need me to be. I am trying to do less of this, but old habits die hard.

Then I get home and I try to hide from Rich, but it doesn’t work anymore–especially after almost 13 years of marriage. He’s figured me out. He knows when I am trying to hide. He sees the licked spoon in the kitchen sink, sees the withdrawal for Starbucks on the debit card past my monthly coffee budget, knows when I’ve hit the snooze button for the third time, and trips over the pile of laundry that still isn’t folded. Sometimes I think that I don’t really want to be known so well. The darkness tells me that it isn’t safe for someone to know what a mess you really are.

The baffling thing is that in spite of all of this, Rich loves me the most. I am his favorite, and he is mine.

The reality is that Rich is the one who has learned how to preemptively grab me in the dark when I’m about to have a nightmare. Rich is the one who holds me in the light when the tears come gushing as I battle the voices that taunt me with lies about who I am. He knows my tactics, bad habits, and sorrows better than anyone ever has. He knows my deepest darkest secrets. He’s the one who once shelved his dream to put our family first. He’s the one who continues to prioritize us day in and day out when there are things he’s rather be doing.

I just walked our dog and enjoyed a few minutes to think more about the conversation the other night. I was pondering the implications in my life that I am Rich’s favorite. On the sidewalk, it dawned on me that the thing that Rich does the best is love. He’s really good at strategy sessions. He can plan a ministry and has an excellent ear for foreign languages. He’s an Eagle Scout. He’s a great athlete. He’s a world traveler. But at the end of the day, what he does best is that he loves people well. He is fiercely loyal. He is a cheerleader. He is generous. He is brave and courageous with his love.

He’s exactly what I needed. My husband is not perfect. But he is perfect for me.

I found, well Rich found, a new blog that I LOVE. Her name is Julie, and she is a MOM! She wrote the following article, but first I want to give you the back story.

I pride myself (oops that should have been my first sign that there was a problem) on not yelling. But yesterday, in the Chick-fil-a drive through, with low blood sugar, PMS, bickering kids, and a husband on the phone delivering bad news that I didn’t want to hear, I LOST IT! I mean, I really lost it. At the top of my lungs, with hubby on the line, I yell “EVERYBODY–BE QUIET NOW!”

Awestruck faces and absolute silence in the car and on the other end of the phone.

“Kourt, are you o.k.? I’ve never heard you do that before?”

I wanted to say “Do I sound o.k.? What part of EVERYBODY BE QUIET NOW sounds o.k.?” But thankfully, I didn’t. I just said, “Babe, I need to call you back.” Then I profusely apologize to my kids for yelling, smile my good southern smile at the perky employee whose pleasure it was to serve me, and drive to the nearest place where I can sob and cry and finally pull it together enough to apologize to my kids again. “Mommy is REALLY sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. Will you forgive me?”

The first redemptive part of the story is when my kids say “Mommy, why are you crying? We already forgave you. Can we just get to our playdate?”

The second redemptive part of the story is when my precious husband calls in the middle of my picnic with two other mommies (who knew I’d lost it with my kids) and says, I just ran across something I think you’ll want to hear. I don’t really want to explain why. I just want to read it to you, is that o.k.? I said, o.k. and proceeded to hear the following words from my new best friend Julie who lives in Fort Worth, is a mommy to three young boys and wife to one brave soldier.

Thank you Rich for saving the day.

Panic.  Attack. I was sitting at a red light when it happened.  Sitting in my SUV, my 2 boys in tow and it happened.  I had an anxiety attack.  Just sitting there.  Seemingly waiting for a green light to move, to go, and I was suddenly in a sweat, beating heart, mind spinning, stricken with fear. All sitting at a red light listening to the Wiggles. I recovered.  But soon found myself sitting and weeping before the Lord, then screaming and shouting.  Was God pleased at all with me?  Where had I gone wrong?  I was better than this.  How was I making any difference?

A Mom.  A broken Mom.  My visions were gone, probably vanished somewhere between poopy diapers and sleepless nights.  I didn’t go places anymore.  I surely wasn’t reaching the lost.  I put puzzles together, made mac-n-cheese, and disciplined senseless arguing.

Suffocated.

My head spoke of staying home with my boys, keeping our home in order, creating peace for my husband, loving my Lord; but my heart bled with fear.  Dreaded fear like I’d never known until I held my firstborn son.  Fear of doing it all wrong.  Fear of messing it all up.  Fear that was suffocating me.

I thought surely I am worth more than this daily list of chores, sometimes forgetting to shower, and hardly being noticed.  I was equipped for much greater.  But my desperation ran even deeper.  Like a ton of bricks strapped to each ankle was my bondage, my shackles.   With each baby I birthed, it was as if I picked up a few shackles on my way out of the hospital.   Perfectionism. Control.  Pride.  Performance-based living.  Significance in others.  Shackled.  Shackled.

I needed the gospel.  I needed my Jesus.  I needed to let the Holy Scriptures rain down upon my motherhood and fill me with hope.  Hope everlasting.

I am saved by grace through faith when I speak with an impatient harsh voice toward my son who just flooded the entire bathroom.

I can do all things, including changing diapers, making mac-n-cheese, and disciplining senseless arguing, through Christ who strengthens me.

I must go therefore, down the hallway with a cheerful heart, showered and ready for my ministry, and make disciples of all nations.  I greet my boys with gladness.

He rejoices over me with singing and quiets me with His love.  His love is not attached to my perceived greatness or performance.  I’m not popular with hardly anyone, apart from my handsome husband and brave boys.  Fruit comes slow in this ministry.  I’m on my knees.  I talk less.  I listen more.

And so I continue.  I still sit at red lights; now in a mini-van with 3 boys in tow, jamming to Toby Mac.  Our days are crazy, but I’m thankful He does all things well.  My visions are back, just with new faces.  I’m in full-time ministry for the Kingdom.  I get up and put on my full armor cause there’s no doubt I’m going into battle for the day.  I fight for my marriage and I battle for the future hearts of 3 young men.

A babysitter.  The world tells me I’m just a babysitter.  I rethink.  I am an ambassador in my home, for my family, to the glory of my God.  I am a Mom.