Marilynn Griffith stops by today to provide a peek into her world of motherhood and family. She’s the author of eight novels, mother to seven children, wife to a deacon and proof of God’s enduring mercy. You can catch Marilynn sharing her family adventures all week on the Mom’s the Word Blog Tour.

The Mom Less Traveled

Tonight, my daughter went to her senior prom. The reality that she is moving into another stage of life (and I am too) is fully dawning on me. And yet, I’m not really freaking out.

I’ve done that already. A few years ago, when my daughter turned sixteen, feelings of panic and unrelenting reminders of my own mortality hit me without warning. I was determined to find the perfect scripture about launching out and leaving shore, but the thought of the driving, the dating… Was I really ready? Absolutely not.

When my husband and had set this age as the gateway to growing upwhile filling in the blanks of parenting workbooks, sixteen had seemed so reasonable, so far away. Well, the idealism I had a sweet Christian twenty-something has been shattered. The things I’ve dealt with in the
past four years weren’t covered in our course on godly parenting back then. (MySpace hadn’t been invented). Our biggest concern then had been boys calling girls, not the other way around. And weren’t low riders cowboys back then?

Oy.

During the past few years, I’ve done quite a bit of running around with my books, but this past year, my teen queen prompted a new approach that I now teach at writer’s conferences: 100 mile marketing. It works. Especially when you harness said teen in the van and put her behind the book table far away from the fawning boy who keeps ringing her cell phone at ungodly hours.

Or at least that’s what I thought on the eve of sixteen. Two years later, as graduation and her eighteenth birthday approaches, I’ve learned that my faith is not transferable. God has no grandchildren. We all must stand before God alone. That’s a hard thing for a mother to swallow. I can see now what I put my own mother through and appreciate her all the more. And yet, she never stopped praying for me, never stopped believing that God would do something amazing in my life. And He has. He is.

And yet, it hurts to think that all those sermons, years of homeschool, Christmas plays, weeks of VBS and hours of prayer may not have been heard. If the kid didn’t get it, it’s not my fault is it? Of course it is. What scares me most is not that she’s been hearing me all these years but that she’s been watching me. It’s blesses me too when she doesn’t something cool and Jesusy in spite of me, something I never would have thought of. Times when she’s taken the bus to
volunteer at camp even though the kids were rowdy and she’s not getting paid. She wants her word to mean something, her life to mean something.

So do I as watch her so tall and beautiful, stepping away from me out into the world. Today, Jesus holds my hand, reminding me of all the things He brought me through. Today, I don’t worry about the books I might have sold or what I could have accomplished if I’d traveled more or spent more time away from home. Today, I’m the mom less traveled and glad of it as new things crest the horizon for me and for my daughter. The road hasn’t always been easy, but it’s been good.

About the Book

When her tall, dark, delicious husband joins their three kids in calling her “Mom,” Karol Simons has an identity crisis. Sure she loves the pint-size trio, but what’s happened to her dreams of writing a novel? Determined to have it all, she turns to her neighbor for help.

Dyanne Thornton is thrilled to stand in as Mom for three weeks so Karol can write. Bursting with baby fever, the career-woman trades her glamorous clothes and four-inch heels for the playground and potty training. She hopes to convince her reluctant husband they should start a family of their own, right away.

Everyone’s in for some big surprises…

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