When "It's Going To Be Okay" Just Isn't Cutting It

"It's going to be okay."

We tell our kids this because we want to comfort them, want to reassure them, want to lift some of their load off of them.

And a lot of the time, thank goodness, it's true: it IS going to be okay. A lot of the time, it's really already okay, and our kids mainly need us to reset them and reassure them of that.

"It's going to be okay."

Except sometimes, it's not...or at least, "okay" isn't showing up ANYTIME SOON.

This is the land of mom limbo, and personally, I'd rather not go there ever again. But it's a place we have to go sometimes with our kids for the love of our kids. And when we're there with them, they need us to do a few things while we're not saying, "It will be okay."

Let them feel what they feel.

Our modern society favors a short list of emotions: happy, cheerful, optimistic, and fine. People who are sad or discouraged or upset are encouraged to get over it...now. On top of this, as moms, we yearn to heal what is sick, mend what is broken, and right what is wrong.

But there are times we have to let our children walk through, not around, what Ecclesiastes 3:4 calls "a time to weep and a time to laugh."

We have to be patient while they process new realities and grieve unmet expectations and mourn dreams that don't come true. We have to learn to strike "everything will be okay" from our stock-phrase vocabulary, along with "cheer up!" or "what's wrong?" When in doubt, we fall back on some standbys that are classics for a reason: a hug (if they want one or will let us give them one), a genuine "I'm sorry," and the simply profound, "I love you."

At the right time, direct their minds away from The Thing toward Something Else.

This isn't about rushing our kids past their realities or dishonoring their feelings. Mental processing has to happen. But there comes a point when continually stirring The Thing That's Bothering You around and around in your head serves no purpose and accomplishes no good. This is when our kids need us to help them come up with Something Else to direct their minds (and hearts) toward. Something else could be a Bible verse, a prayer, a list of what they're looking forward to, lyrics to an uplifting song, or a review of the available flavors at a favorite ice cream shop. The point is to give their minds somewhere safe and comforting to land.

Check in...but give some space.

When our kids are in Unokay Land, we can't spend the duration constantly asking, "Are you okay? What's the matter?" We know they're not okay, and we usually know what's the matter. But neither do we want to ignore them if they need to talk again or if something else has come up.

Here, it can be helpful to settle on a couple guideposts: 1)if something else is wrong or they want to talk further about The Thing we already know is wrong, they need to tell us so we don't have to guess (maybe inaccurately) what the look their face means; and 2)if we want to confirm the look we're seeing is because of what we already know is wrong, it can be helpful to have some sort of code phrase or code "sign language" just to confirm and acknowledge.

Give good medicine.

When my younger daughter was a tween, she had a day when she was in the very beginning stages of heavy grief over the loss from regular life of two friends due to situational changes. That day, she was scheduled to help out at a class function, and I took her to it, hoping the activity would distract her from thinking. But she was bored and had plenty of time to think. On the way home, her face was heavy with sorrow, and I was scrambling through all my mom tricks to figure out what I could do to help her.

A few minutes after we walked in the door, my older daughter called to her from our family room. "Come out here! I have to show you something!" My heavy-hearted girl went to her sister (grudgingly), and within a couple minutes, I heard both of them howling with laughter. My firstborn had dug up an old camera she hadn't used since her pre-iPod days and hooked it up to her laptop to play a slide show. While the girls watched old "modeling" videos they'd made and clicked through pictures of their elementary-aged selves, they laughed...and laughed...and laughed. From the other room, I could hardly reconcile the sound I was hearing from my tween with the despairing look I'd seen on her face minutes before.

At the computer, listening, I typed a Facebook post thanking my older daughter for her big-sister gift. She said to me later, "Did you hear how I had her laughing? I knew those pictures would do it." I told her, "I just posted about it." I loved how her idea beautifully proved the wisdom of Proverbs 17:22: "A cheerful heart is good medicine." 

There is a time to weep, and we have to let our kids have it. But there are times to laugh, too, and—here's the crux of it—usually these "times" are not compartmentalized but rather woven together in the messy mix of life.

Milk the power of looking forward.

None of us, including our kids, can live in the future. Today is the day we've been given, and it must be lived as well as possible. But giving our unokay kids something tangible to look forward to and plan and be excited about in the future can go a long ways toward reenergizing them for what they're dealing with in the present.

Go the distance.

When our kids are hurting, the crisis often passes quickly. (Thank God.) More times than I can count, my girls have come home distraught over some issue with school or a friend, yet a few texts, a few snacks, and a few hours later, they're over it. But the time you're in with your kids right now might not be that time. This time might be a marathon, not a sprint. As moms, we have to remind ourselves that while we might be getting used to the idea of whatever's going on with our kids, they still might not be used to the reality of it. There might not be any quick fix. There might only be patience and grace and time and a commitment to the long haul.

There are seasons in mom life when we just have to learn to clamp our mouths shut on "everything will be okay" and tell our best beloveds a few things that are probably more true:

I know life isn't all that great right now. But it can still be good. 

This is not your whole story. It's a page or even a chapter in it, but it's not the whole tale. 

Life will get better. But you might not realize it's better until a little ways down the road. While you're on the way to better, I'm here with you and for you. 

And also? I love you like crazy.

Part Of My Heart Will Always Be Wherever My Children Are

When you become a mom, you become a heart donor. From that moment on, a piece of your heart goes walking around outside your body.

It's not that other things and people—a spouse, jobs, friends, callings, passions, goals and dreams—don’t have your heart, too. It's just that your children have written their names on pieces of your heart in indelible love.

Because of this, part of a mom's heart is always where her children are.

When my children were little, my heart was often in my arms or on my lap or wrapped around my legs while I was trying to make dinner.

Then it was at a school desk or on a bus or at a friend’s house for a playdate or a sleepover.

Now that my children are young adults, my heart is, at various times, walking across a university campus or teaching 4th grade. At other times, it's lifting weights in a gym or cooking dinner in a first apartment. It’s often in a car, on a road I pray is safe.

Sometimes—the best times—all of my heart is in my living room.

Depending on where their own children are, other moms' hearts are in other places right now, I know.

Somewhere, there is a mom whose heart is in another room in the same house...only a few physical steps away but many emotional miles away.

There is a mom whose heart is on the job, in an office or a shop or a factory.

There is a mom whose heart is on a military base.

There is a mom whose heart is in a hospital room.

There is a mom whose heart is in heaven.

There is a mom whose heart is in a house across town or halfway around the world, maybe raising other little hearts who also have this mom's heart.

There is a mom whose heart is someplace she does not know, because she does not know where the child who has her heart is.

There is a mom whose heart is at home, waiting for her child to come back to her.

Many times since I became a mom, I've commented that I don't know where my mind went. But I know where my heart went. I know where it is. I know where it will always be.

8 Things Moms of Daughters Have To Look Forward To (Really!)

I am a mom of two daughters and no sons. 

When you are a mom of daughters and no sons, here are two things you hear a lot:

#1: “So, when are you going to try for a boy?”

#2: “They’re cute now, but just wait until they get to be teenagers.”

To #1, I usually responded, “Actually, we’re not going to try for a boy. We’re going to try for a goldfish instead.”

To #2, I usually made some sort of conciliatory “I know” noises while my mind frantically whipped up all possible worst-case scenarios lying in wait for a mom of girls who would eventually hit puberty.

I didn’t particularly look forward to my girls’ older years. But now that I’m camped out in them, I realize something: I should have.

I have one teen daughter and one young-adult daughter, and it is mostly fabulous.

Yes, there is drama. Yes, there are hormones. Yes, there is crying. But enough about me. (Just kidding. Okay, not really.)

And while it is true that I’d be able to get that fancy farmhouse sink I want for my kitchen if I got paid psychotherapist’s fees for the emotional rehab I do after school every day, I’ve discovered that having an older daughter is a joy-ride in the best possible way. Here are eight things I didn't know to look forward to then that I've been loving for a few years now.

1. When you are trying on a mail-order dress the color of a tangerine and you aren’t sure if it makes you look stunning or like an orange sack, you summon your daughter for an assessment. With no prompting or coaching, she takes one look and says, “It makes you look like an orange sack.” So then you know.

2. You have a handy reference guide for the meaning of such phrases as “I've got tea.” (Spill it? Pour it? I can never remember.)

3. When you shop with your daughter, you actually shop. Often in the same department. For clothes you might share.

4. When you are out shopping with your daughter, you may see, for instance, a “performance-gear” hoodie in a gorgeous aqua color that would boost your workout efficacy by at least 50 percent. You comment (within your daughter’s hearing) “I want that” but do not buy it because it is not on sale and you don’t HAVE to have it. The next time your husband takes your daughter out to lunch, she tells him, “We have to go to the store and buy mom a birthday gift. She wants a hoodie. I know exactly which one.”

5. Instead of preschool-era rounds of Princess Memory, et al, you get to play games you would actually choose on your own and which do not make your head explode.

6. You no longer host playdates in your home; now (until your daughter drives herself, anyway) you facilitate hang-outs at the mall. Your daughter and her friends “shop” while you lounge somewhere in their vicinity and drink a fancy coffee drink and read a magazine and do not make eye contact and do not show any sign you know them. All of which they are fine with and, in fact, insist on.

7. You have a chick-in-residence with whom you can watch flicks your husband won’t touch.

8. Your daughter sometimes puts up social media posts about how she loved spending the day at the beach with you and will remember it for a long time. And by the time you have finished reading the post, a decade-plus of motherhood has been 100% worth it.

I’m very aware I’m not “done” raising my girls. Anything could still happen. 

And the beach/movie/mall days when everyone loves and even likes each other are balanced by an equal number of days when we'd trade each other just for faster WiFi. 

I also know so many moms have genuinely agonizing stories about raising their older daughters, and my heart truly breaks for them.

But you’re supposed to write what you know, and this is what I know so far: my answer to the “just wait until they get to be teenagers” comment should have been, “I’m looking forward to it.”