Kourtney's Blog

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…

“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.