Tragic news this week from Nashville that the youngest daughter of Steven Curtis Chapman, Maria, was killed in an accident at their home. News like this sends me into a tail spin of emotions (we lost an infant daughter 5 years ago and the randomness still haunts me), but I have one focus today: dads matter.

Steven Curtis Chapman is almost as well known for his reputation as a great dad as he is for his prolific music career. He and his wife created an incredible foundation called Shaohanna’s Hope. The Chapman’s adopted three daughters from China themselves, and the foundation is helping other families do the same.

In a time of loss such as the one the Chapman’s are experiencing now, I would venture to say that none of their public ministries are as important to them as the clearly loving job they have done as parents. Chapman wrote a song that my husband jokingly says he hates, “Cinderella.” He only says that because as a father of three daughters it makes him breakdown and cry every single time he hears it. The message of the song is that even when the pressures of life are pushing us to rush past a moment, instead, we should take the time to “dance with Cinderella … ‘Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight/ And she’ll be gone.”

I hate that this family is facing the sadness of this loss, but I know the power of the faith we share. It is a faith that does not always provide answers, but always gives comfort. I know this: I am so glad little Maria got to experience her earthly life with a father that loved her and made time for her. If our world was full of dads like Steven Curtis Chapman, we would see a world full of beautiful little girls grow up to be confident, powerful women who make a difference.

Listen to this song today and remember the little Rare Rocks in your life. And say a prayer for the Chapman’s; I know they are glad they made the choice to celebrate Maria’s life everyday, but I also imagine they mourn the fact that they are so aware of that choice right now.

This will be a new Tag on my blog. I say on my About page that “figuring this out is as much about them as it is about me.” What I’m trying to figure out is how to be the most beautiful believer I can be. I want to defy the box that most people put around a “Christian woman” at the same time that I want to support those who live there. I want to discover the feminine role that is uniquely mine. In her interview on Oprah, Salma Hayek claimed being a girl is more difficult in our culture than being a boy, and I think she is probably right in many ways. So, I look for inspiration wherever I can find it, and right now I’m getting loads from my beautiful daughters, the very ones I thought I was trying to help.

Today as we dressed for church, Ada put on a new spring patterned dress from her grandma and discovered that the collar “felt strange.” She decided not to wear it, to which I responded, oh, yes, you are going to wear it! I proceeded with a lecture about how we are to be grateful for the many outfits that we own since many children all over the world have almost nothing to wear. Also, how is Grandma going to feel if you never wear the dress she picked out especially for you? You can hear this, right? I was in full-on Perfect Mother mode.

After a while, Ada gave in and decided she looked beautiful anyway, so a little collar problem wasn’t going to get in her way. In the meantime, I walked into my ridiculously huge closet stuffed with rows of clothes I never wear and I wanted to disappear. I hate hypocrisy, and yet I found it stamped across my forehead. I made a vow to purge that closet at my earliest possible convenience.

Then I grabbed the clean blue shirt and gray pinstriped pants that I wore just last week around all the very same people I would see today. I put them on and felt beautiful!

I had the strangest dream this week. It was like a romantic comedy I’d never seen before, and my husband and I were the lead roles. Of course, as dreams often go, we weren’t married. In the dream we were just friends with some kind of romantic attempt in our past that didn’t quite work out. You know how dreams are – I knew all of this without it being explicitly explained. Anyway, at some point, after a failed attempt at another relationship, Dan surprised me with a video montage of our lifetime of friendship. In the video he had all our friends and family members speaking on camera (aka, an Oprah special) about why we belonged together and how perfectly we were matched for each other.

I woke up with that satisfied feeling you have after watching a circular Hollywood love potion. It was a cute movie (in my dream mind). I also woke up with a new crush on my husband. It was the opposite of that icky feeling you have after waking up from a nightmare and you can’t really tell for a little bit if someone really did just fill your room with snakes or if that was probably just a dream.

Nothing in our relationship actually changed. For all I know, I went to bed frustrated with him for some stupid reason or another, but in the morning I woke up different. The only thing that had changed was the way I had been thinking about him.

This is the power of emotions to maintain passion in a committed relationship. My sister says I have an uncanny ability to have movie-like dreams with subjects of my own choosing. I did manage to have some pretty sweet dreams about me and Kirk Cameron back in the day, but I didn’t plan this one about Dan. And channeling my emotions of good doesn’t have to be about a dream. It could be about a conscious decision to remember the feelings I had when Dan and I first met. Or about the choice to write him a love note even when I don’t feel necessarily loving. When I make the decision, my emotions start to follow.

My little sister got married here at this park in St. Joseph. Isn’t it beautiful? For Christmas I printed copies of this picture and put it in a nice frame. My thought was that every time she walked by it, even though it is just a landscape, she would remember the feelings of that gorgeous August day. It would stir the emotions of new love even when her love grows older. I know it makes a difference. My grandpa has never failed, in over 60 years of marriage, to take my grandmother out to dinner on their anniversary, even if it is just cold sandwiches at a diner. Decisions make a difference and the strength of our marriages (or other committed relationships) will be the beneficiaries. Dream on, sisters!

You know I want to talk about Miley, right? But I won’t. Not today. You know I want to relate her recent controversy to my post about small decisions, right. But I won’t. Not today.

My son Jesse is on an early vacation to his grandparent’s house for the week. We miss him, but the girls and I try to use the time for some extra girly extravaganzas. Last night after bath time, I painted the girls’ nails while we fast-forwarded through American Idol. I will also not talk about that. Not today. My daughters’ fabulous aunt bought them the purple polish and they had literally been waiting WEEKS for me to finally let them wear it.

There are few things in this world more difficult than painting tiny, wiggly toenails! But we did it and fingers, too. Ada was so proud of her look that she started planning her outfit for the next day in a matching hue. She’s 4.

You all know Claire. Because of her CP, she has to be careful what kind of shoes she wears and this is an constant source of frustration for her. Her favorite pair of “clocky” shoes (black patent leather – I think her nickname for them must come from the sound they make on the floor) were deemed unsuitable by her physical therapist because of the raised heel. If you could see the face I got EVERY MORNING when we had that discussion!

So, even though I am almost always prepared for Claire to be upset about what kind of shoes she is going to wear each day, I was not prepared for what she said this morning. Walking into my bathroom in her bare feet, she asked me if she could wear flip-flops today. Simple answer: no, flip-flops are against dress code at school and they always rub a blister on your heel. Claire looked down at her skinny toes with sparkly purple tips, “Aw, man! My polish is going to get rubbed off!”

What pains we will go to for the sake of fashion! And it starts so young! (But don’t forget, I am NOT talking about Miley today.)

Abbey Curran is the reigning Miss Iowa and she recently competed in the Miss USA pageant as well. A beauty contest wouldn’t be the first place I’d look for a Rare Rock. Don’t misunderstand me, my sister and I relished watching these contests as a kid. It didn’t matter if it was a small-town festival or the big night on TV when all the fifty states were represented by some perky 20-year old in sequins. We loved it all. But now I’m trying to look for a standard beyond outward beauty to determine winners in this visually driven world.

Our country is obsessed with image and it is affecting the youngest of our girls. (I love Hannah Montanna, but you DO NOT want me to get into a discussion concerning her behavior at the Idol Gives Back show – seriously, don’t make me do it.) You may think I’m prudish about this, but it really is more than that.

One of my beautiful daughters has Cerebral Palsy. Just a few weeks ago Claire begged us to let her quit dance class. I cried when she said, “It’s too hard for me.” Last year she was twirling on the stage without a care in the world and this year she understands that her body is not moving in the same patterns as the little girls around her, including her younger sister. Claire’s left side has high tone, meaning the quad and calf muscles in that leg don’t relax the way they should. It gives Claire a little catch in her step and, until this year, kept her from running.

I’m not one to let my kids quit something just because it gets hard, but this was different. My husband and I had always talked about the fact that someday Claire would realize that dancing is a body-centric sport and even girls without disabilities find it difficult. We knew eventually she would find a hobby that challenged her but didn’t subject her to the prying eyes of an audience that didn’t understand. We didn’t expect it to happen when she was 5!

So we let her quit. She still dances at home with her sister and sometimes just on her own. She is at peace with this and so are we, but you can imagine my trauma for several days. I cried and I was pretty sure we should go out and buy her a fluffy puppy.

Yesterday Serenity told me about Abbey Curran, who also has cerebral palsy, and I watched her appearance on Ellen.

This is a Rare Rock. She is fighting a stereotype and going after her dreams. She has to fight her own insecurities every time she takes the stage, every time she goes to the mall. I showed Claire the video thinking it would be great inspiration, but since Claire really doesn’t comprehend that she has CP, and because it comes in so many different forms, the moment was kind of lost on her.

But I got it. Thank you, Abbey Curran!

This is what I’ve been doing lately:

That’s me listening to an online lecture from my fabulous English professor (I’m not being sarcastic about that – I love her!). Notice the crazy hair, the intense eyes, oh… and the baby slobber on my shoulder. With research papers looming, this is the view of me that my computer sees most often right now.

This is Claire:

I think my computer might like seeing her a little more often!

Disclaimer: Homework is seriously kicking my butt, however, I am compelled to share this story.

Tonight between putting the girls in bed and actually closing their door for the final time, I had to run upstairs for Claire’s nighttime meds. When I came back into their mostly dark room I could hear Ada’s little voice:

“I am bee-u-tee-ful. The Bible says, God loves meeeee.”

Best song ever.