“The good outweighs the bad.” That was my youngest son’s response as we discussed our family’s move from Northwest Iowa to St. Paul over the weekend. In many ways, the move was most difficult on him. He had a fantastic group of sweet friends who shared his interests and innocent sense of humor. This boy is not interested in being the most popular boy in school; he is concerned with having a good friend or two, ones who truly know him. Of course friendships take time, even for 6th grade boys, but he is getting there. It’s brought great joy to watch him emerge from his shell during these past few months and find his place in this new world. We’ve been living in St. Paul for ten months now, and after two months of silence on my blog, it feels like a good time to pause and reflect on what this move has done for our family. After several years of running his own business, Chris initially took a job for a medium-sized corporation here. It wasn’t the best fit, but like he always does, Chris stuck it out with a genuine smile on his face. After several months there, he took a job with the banking software company he used to work for back in our Missouri days. In an ironic twist, he now works from home, meaning that we could live nearly anywhere. But we’re here now, and St. Paul feels like home. It’s a very snowy home right now, but home nevertheless. In really practical ways, our world is filled with more diversity. During the boys’ basketball season this winter, they have never been the only Black kids on the court. We went to the theater on opening weekend of Black Panther, and my children were far from the only kids of color in the theater. Their church youth group is a sea of color. This week my youngest will attend The Wiz with this theater class, and in two weeks both boys will attend the Timberwolves-Warriors game with friends from church. Life is rich with culture and experience. Now we are in an era of nuance and identity, of providing them the opportunities to figure out this crazy “who am I?” thing. Figuring out who you are is hard for any middle school student. You have to navigate friendships and relationships while juggling homework and extracurriculars. Now we throw social media and technology into the mix along with the struggle to figure out what it means to be Black in America and how that differs from Ethiopian culture. We are trying to help the boys find their ways in all of those worlds while also helping them figure out what it means to be raised by white parents. They practice new words and experiment with different worlds. Of course we still push them to be themselves and find their identity in Christ. Their heads must be swimming. My boys are crazy resilient with wicked senses of humor, and I couldn’t be prouder to be their mom. I pray each day for wisdom and abounding grace for all of us, and He is faithful.
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September 2020
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