My eight year-old son, Jesse, is playing organized basketball for the first time this year. I’ve always loved watching sports and I’m Jesse’s biggest fan, so I knew I would enjoy watching his games even if he mostly sat on the bench. But he doesn’t sit on the bench. He starts, which in his own words means, “when the game STARTS, I’ll be playing!”

He plays tough defense and has made a few points. But what I love the most is who he is on the court. When he makes one of those few shots, he acts like every one is the game winner. Hands up, cheering for himself, high stepping to get back on defense – he embraces the moment of joy and accomplishment.

He is also the first guy to offer assistance to an injured player, even if that player is on the other team!

Tonight Jesse’s game happened to be played in the gym of my old high school. Many, many hours logged on those wooden bleachers. When old friends and acquaintances would ask, “Do you have a kid out there?” I would very proudly point to Jesse and say, “Right there. Number Ten. He’s mine.” It doesn’t matter to me if he’s the high scorer. I’m proud of how he smiles at me when he first notices me sitting in the stands. How he runs as fast as his little legs can carry him all the time – from the beginning to the end of the game. How he skips a little when he hits his mark at the wing position.

When it comes down to it, I just love him. Isn’t it cool that this is how God thinks about us? We don’t have to be the best. He’s just happy with how we look like Him, how we try hard, how we care about others.

Yep. That one right there, He says, she’s mine.

Being a teenager is kind of like living in a communist country. Have I mentioned that?

Communication within said communist country is severely limited. No messages are allowed in. Few messages are allowed out. The regime (teenage queen bees or any other group of friends) cuts you off from all other sources of influence until you forget you are living in a world bigger than the small area of your immediate proximity.

Remember that feeling? As a teenager you feel the watchful eyes of your peers even when they are nowhere in sight. You feel their judgment and think of ways to win their approval. It is a nasty regime. A manipulative government.

My parents did an awesome thing during my years behind the Iron Curtain. Like the smartest outsiders who were able to send in secret messages of hope to the prisoners inside the communist controlled countries, my parents found a way to penetrate the walls of my too-small world.

When everyone else in my sophomore class ordered a class ring, my mom made me a better offer – a daughter’s ring. Even now I’m not sure how she did that. Mom, how did you do that? But somehow, even though teenagers are known for temporary decisions and not foresight, I remember thinking I would wear the daughter’s ring longer than I would wear a chunky ring with an eagle inscribed on the band. We told the jeweler my birthday month and the birthday months of both of my parents.

What arrived was the most beautiful ring I had ever seen. In the middle was a pale aquamarine stone; one each side were the smaller birthstones of my parents, one golden topaz and one dark purple amethyst. The setting was silver, another sign of my weakened state since I picked it to match my braces. Like I said, it’s a rough country.

That ring was a parenting stroke of genius. Every time I wore that ring I was reminded of my real place in this world. I was reminded that I belonged to something bigger than the high school corridors I walked and the teenage relationships I cherished. Like the leaflets dropped from bombers during war, my little aquamarine sat on my finger and whispered messages of hope and safe passage.

*The ring in this photo is an antique from the Flikr account Camellia Collection.

Ada looked like this when we started calling her Ada Bean. She was just so cute and round! When she was in preschool her teacher asked her what her full name was and she said, “Ada Bean Jewel White.” We still call her Bean or Beanie.

Sometimes we call her Little Mama, too, because she mothers us all. This year Claire is moving into her own room upstairs and Ada is happily taking on Macy as her new roommate. I don’t think having her own room has even crossed her mind. She is a giver, a lover, a friend.

This morning at breakfast she was explaining to me that she and Jesse had decided NOT to sign up for the school reading program at school that would earn them free tickets to Six Flags because “Macy and Claire would still be too afraid to ride those rides, so we can go when we’re all older.”

She took to school a package of candy bracelets and watches and was plotting in her little mind which of her classmates would choose which sticky accessory and making sure she would have enough.

I couldn’t love this girl more.

Happy Birthday, Our Ada Bean Jewel White! Six years old TODAY!

You know we’re football fans at our house. College, NFL, flag in the backyard, we like it all! When I say WE I mostly mean Dan, Jesse, and me, but when we told the girls about the joy that is a Super Bowl Party they were suddenly interested in our beloved sport. (Much like the rest of America, I’m sure. Football game? No, thanks. All the best kinds of snack food, drinks a plenty, funny commercials, hype, AND my friends? See you there!)

We are a Sunday night kind of church, so we had to DVR the game to watch later at our very own Family Super Bowl Party. Pizza, spinach dip, bean dip, chips (of the pretzel and tortilla varieties), individual sized sodas, and brownies. We were all in the spirit.

As we loaded our plates and settled in downstairs (a place the kids don’t usually get to eat), Macy looked at the TV and called out, “I watch Carly” – that’s iCarly and, yeah, she totally missed the point. And was very upset about it.

Claire tried to do better. At one point she cheerfully shouted out, “Go Texas!” Which is very strange since we never cheer for Texas and this was an NFL game – New Orleans and Indianapolis. The wiser among us chuckled a bit so she tried again, “Or – whoever is playing!”

It was just fun to be together – no matter what happened in the game, as far as family time – We Won! It was also fun to see Drew Brees kissing his infant son while confetti filled the air above them. Oh, and it was pretty nice to win my Fantasy league over my father-in-law and brother-in-law who spend actual time thinking about it and calculating their decisions.

Yeah, that was definitely fun! : )

There is nothing better than starting your day with this simple reminder:

Breakfast with Macy from Felicity White on Vimeo.

I should wax eloquent today on the brilliance of Martin Luther King, Jr. In round-a-bout way, I will. I have read few pieces as moving as his “I Have a Dream” speech or his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” He knew how to put his faith to work and inspired a nation with his passion. Saturday night Jesse gathered up the girls and read to them from a picture book that tells the story of the civil rights activist’s life.

It was so precious to hear my son’s sweet voice reading King’s pleas for peaceful resistance and brotherly love even in the face of evil. The girls eyes were wide when Jesse read about King’s assassination. It was a sobering little picture book, and I think I’m fine with that. I realize my blonde-headed, blue-eyed babies see the world through very narrow glasses. Which I’m also fine with, but I don’t mind introducing them to injustice in degrees.

With recent events in Haiti, we’ve had even more reason to discuss the advantages of our life here in rural America. I have often tried to convince my husband that we should adopt from an impoverished nation. But even Jesse was reluctant, claiming he would “rather have a brother that looks like [him].” Fine, I always said. After seeing a few images of orphaned Haitian babies crying for milk and sleeping on the ground, he changed his tune. In fact, during the sermon last night he was trying to figure out how we could get chocolate ice cream to Haiti in coolers because those kids had probably never tasted it before. And they would like it.

Last night at church also included a family testimony. It was the story of a family we dearly love, but the path they have taken has been both heartbreaking and redemptive. It is the heartbreaking stuff that makes a testimony of redemption so beautiful. This testimony included divorce, drugs, alcohol, abandonment, abuse, molestation, and poverty.

As if in a culmination of all the week’s events and as a blast of encouragement right into my heart, Jesse listened intently and finally turned to me whispering, “I think if I ever have to give my testimony, I’m going to say I had a really good childhood.”

. . . to Yours!