Welcoming a New Year, not dreading it

Well it has been a couple of months but I finally ran my race. I completed the 13.1 miles in less than 2 ½ hours with some of my closest friends. It was a great experience and I would highly recommend it for any of you thinking about running.

Now that I have had a break from that race and have sunk back into bad habits of eating and not running or exercising, I have realized how easy it is to get back into these bad habits. The reality is our nature is to be lazy and to just let things happen to us. When we do this it simply concedes to whatever other people or situations wish for us. However, if we are intentional with our actions, even forcing ourselves to do things that may but difficult but beneficial, we will live much happier and rewarding lives and even have a stronger impact on the lives of those around us. With that in mind here are my suggestions for goals (because resolutions too often fail) for 2010.

- Do things intentionally. This will help you fell much more in control and not like things just happen to you. If you think about things before they happen, researching the possibilities and acting in an informed manor you will be more successful and productive.
- At TL we are faith based. What this means is that we believe in order to live life better, God must be included in whatever is going on. In addition a relationship with his Son Jesus, has a positive infectious effect on your life. Not only benefiting you, but those around you as well.
- Complain less. I found that complaining while running only made things worse. I focused on how hard it was and it made me want to stop. In life if we focus on the negative it makes it harder for us to keep going. If we instead focus on the positive things, or even look for ways to make things positive, we will be much happier where we are and not always looking for a way out.

This is not an end all for how to live, it is only a start. If you have more suggestions for how you have lived life better, leave a comment. You never know the impact it may have on the person that reads it.

Fields of Faith 2009

I wanted to share briefly about the experience TL was excited to be a part of last night. A group of volunteers from Teen Lifeline gathered with several hundred students at Birdville ISD’s stadium for an evening of refocusing. The event was put on by FCA but was open to any students in the North Tarrant area. The night opened with a worship band that invited the students to let go of the things that were weighing them down by focusing on God and worshiping him. Then several students gave their testimony about how God had worked in their life to show them how He was walking with them and that He would always be there. This was followed by more worship and a speaker. This is where we came in. The speaker, a youth pastor in the area, invited students to go to one of three areas on the football field. One was for students committing to Christ for the first time, the second for those that wanted to recommit, and the third was our area where students could address an issue they are dealing with. It was amazing to see a lot of students wanting to pray about recommitting. It was exciting and actually required us to send over some volunteers to pray with the mass of students wanting to do that. Then students began to come to us. I know was at work because it can’t be easy for these students to come forward and admit what is going on for them. We prayed about everything from pride and self-esteem to cutting and drugs. It was an amazing time and a great way to use the gifts God has given us to pray with the students. The follow up will be happening through local churches so continue to be in prayer about that.

It was an amazing blessing to be a part of such a great night. If you were unable to participate this year, definitely make a note to look for Fields of Faith next year, where ever you are in the U.S. It definitely promotes a life lived better.

The Surprise Hill

About the same time I was feeling good about the hill I had overcome. I started noticing that there was a new hill that was giving me problems. This hill was at the end of our run when I was the most tired and ready to be done.
This gives me two thoughts. One, know when you are good at facing challenges and when you aren’t. When I was facing the other hill at mile 2 or 3 I was able to conquer it. But when I was facing this hill at the end of the run I was struggeling. This applies in life when you are just tired. We are all so busy and just keep going and going. We need to be able to recognize when we need a break. This is what vacation should be about. Not always just going to do something we don’t usually get to do. Sometimes it should be just taking time to relax. Using this time wisely will help reduce the stress that everyday tends to bring.
Second sometimes you have to know when to go another direction. We have decided the last few weeks to avoid this hill and instead go around another way. This is proving to be a good break from something I was beginning to dread. I hope that when we start going that way again I will appreciate the time away and start looking for the good it does me to take on this challenge again.

Take a moment to share a challenge you have overcome or maybe just how you avoid challenges at difficult times. All with the purpose of living life better.

Conquering the Hills

As we started training we realized that we didn’t really have any hills in our route. Which we were fine with but at the same time knew would hurt us if we ran a race where there were hills. So we decided to find some hills to help us with our training. We did and they were killer. I had such a hard time with those hills every time we ran them. Then we started training for another race coming up in November and we ran the hills again. I noticed I didn’t dread the hills as much as I had before. I commented about this to my running partner and he agreed. The more I thought about this I tried to think about how this could apply to helping us live life better.
My take is this. As I ran those hills more and more and ran some hills, bigger and smaller, my body got used to running them and my head realized that I could do it. The deal was it took time and doing something I didn’t want to do over and over again to reap the benefit that I finally got, just this past August. In life I think there are challenges that we face often. Maybe it is a person or a boss or a car that keeps breaking down. There are several things we can realize in this. One that we will get some benefit out of the situation. Whether it is learning to deal with people, submitting to authority, or being able to appreciate a new car even more after dealing with one that has problems all the time. For me it has been facing those challenges head on time after time when I don’t want to and finally reaping the benefit and knowing that I made it through a season or a rough time in my life. This increases my confidence and helps me know even more that I can face the next challenge without breaking.
Share your story of overcoming challenges in the comments. I’m always encouraged by reading about other peoples stories too. I hope you’re encouraged by mine.

What I’ve learned about life from running

I never really thought I’d write something like this. Especially since I hate running. I know hate is a strong word but that’s pretty much how I feel. So why do I run? So I can eat what I want, comradory, and the feeling of accomplishment after finishing a race.
My reasons for running make it hard to come up with life applications. Every time I run I just focus on finishing (a blog for later). All that said here is the first thing I’ve goten out of it.
The more you run the easier it gets. How does this apply? Well in life, the more you experince and the longer you live the more you realize what is important. The more you start to put those things at the forefront of what you focus on.
I have now been running for about 3 years. When I started I could barely make it 2 or 3 miles. The thought of 13.1 miles made me almost sick. But as I worked up and added 1 mile at a time I realized that building gradually I was able to handle the amount of running I had set out to do. In life I’ve seen the same thing. Some people are forced to grow up more quickly causing them to not be able to handle their life quite as easily as if it hadn’t been rushed. I was one of those people. I had to be the man of the house starting in 9th grade. This has caused some problems, both in my relationship with my siblings and now with my own wife and kids. You see what happened was I was forced into a position I was not prepared for and learned to be “the man” in the wrong way. Now some of those wrong ways of handling parenting still exist and I am having to unlearn them and learn the way that my kids need me to be their parent.
In my running I am now able to say I miss it when I don’t get to run and I even say “I’m only running 5 today”, something I never thought I’d say. As I’ve increased mileage I’ve also increased in confidence and have learned that I can run that far. As I grow and mature I’ve learned that I can be who I need to be and that it takes being willing to learn that a little at a time to accomplish being able to keep moving toward the finish without killing myself.
This is only the beginning of what I have learned. I’ll be posting more. Please leave comments, especially ones that promote a Life Lived Better.

New, Exciting news

Teen Lifeline is excited to annonce a new additon to our staff. As of August 15th Chris Hatchett has joined Teen Lifeline as our Executive Director. Having previously served on the TL board, Chris is a welcome additon and will help Teen Lifeline better focus on helping teenagers in our community.

Chris brings 20 years of ministry experience and a passion for helping families in the North Tarrant community and beyond. He has worked with the Richland Hills Church of Christ as Youth Minister and more recently as Spiritual Formation Minister. His role in that and as our Executive Director will complement each other as he is able to utilize resources from both arenas.

Chris is married and has 3 kids of his own. His oldest being a senior and the youngest starting 5th grade this year. He has a lot of life experience to bring to the table to help others deal with the different stages in life.

As we press on Chris hopes to expand our vision and help us accomplish our goal of helping all kinds of teenagers in this community. This will happen through our programs, research, and networking, but also by being accesible to those that need him. If you would like to contact him please call the Teen Lifeline office or email him at hatch@lifelivedbetter.org. You can also read more about him on our staff page by clicking TL Staff.

Help me welcome Chris as we all seek to help teenagers Live Life Better.

Where is your worth found?

This really doesn’t need a lot of introduction. If you have 6 minutes it is well worth your time. If you have a daughter, like I do, it is even more worth your time. As you watch think about how you would share with your daughter, or a daughter you know, the importance of realizing where your worth lies. It is not in how you look, or how popular you are, but rather it is found in something, or someone, outside yourself.

The video disappeared from YouTube but you can find it through the link below.

I AM SECOND – ASHLEY

Don’t let what the world holds up as most important be what drives you. Find something more important and use it as your motivation to be who you know you should be. Let that be what helps you Live Life Better.

Leave a comment about what you think about the video or about what it is that helps you know who you are. Who knows maybe it will help someone else as well.

New times, New Baby

Two things are really on my mind right now.

1. We have a new baby. She will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. We already had 2 boys who we love and are the best ever but she completes our desire in having kids by being our baby girl. It reminds me of a couple of things. First, how much being a parent is about being selfless. I am reminded every day how much I have to give to take care of my kids, not because I have to but because I choose to and I love them more than I want to do what I want to do. Second, it is tough. I don’t want to be selfless all of the time. Sometimes (okay a lot) I want to do what I want to do. It is hard sometimes to remember that I don’t get to do that anymore and so I keep giving, again because I want to, not because I am being made to.

2. Our world is changing so fast. Things always change a lot, but we really are in a time when things are really changing. From MySpace to Facebook to Twitter and hundreds more, our world is so saturated with information and messages sometimes it is hard to filter through it all. This is not about finding out how to do that, but a suggestion to parents to make sure that you set the foundation for your kids before they start (which is very early). As a parent our job is to be proactive in helping our kids grow up. If we give them nothing before they jump into the world of media, we will fail because they will be so overwhelmed. The foundation must be set starting at day one. To do this you must know what your foundation is and then pass it on.

As you read through this you problem thought about the first moments with one of your kids and hopefully about what your foundation is. Share those thoughts and memories and help the rest of us work harder at better ourselves for the good of our kids.

Being A Parent

As Teen Lifeline continues to work with teens, there is that ever present parent factor. You know the one where you wish you could say just the right thing to the parent to help them better connect and guide their child(ren). A couple of things bring this home for me. I spent an hour or so at the CareNow clinic this weekend so that my 17 month old could get stitches for trying to fight with the bed frame (he lost). So he now has 4 stitches right between the eyes, which I am sure will be a scar to proudly show friends one day. Amid all that went into that happening, the nurse was putting a Sponge Bob band aid on his nose. As she did she asked if he liked Sponge Bob (to which I thought, really he is way too young). Good thing I didn’t say anything because she followed that with saying her 18 month old really likes it. I was a little stunned. Not enough to react but still stunned. Here her child can’t even talk yet and is already being influenced by Sponge Bob. I am not a fanatic against SB but the episodes I have seen tend to promote bad attitude and rude comments at the least. And one day she will wonder why her child has such a bad attitude and is so sarcastic, hmm let me guess.
The second was at the mall today. It was very much a first impression and so a judgement on my part. However, even if it didn’t apply here it does in other situations I’ve seen. My wife and I were eating at the food court with our boys and a family walked by. The mom was very lazily holding her baby and goofing off with whoever was with her. My wife and I looked at each other just thinking about, if she would hold the baby like that how well does she really care for it. Like I said this isn’t necessarily the case but there are definitely cases like that where parents really don’t care for their children well. The hard thing is it gets so much worse as they grow into teenagers and the repercussions are that too many times the cycle is repeated rather than avoided.
So for you parents out there that are looking for some help, here is one resource. A book by Dr. Walt Mueller that I have begun reading. It is called The Space Between. Just real quickly I want to wet your appetite for finding out more. At the end of chapter two he outlines what a parents job is. He says,

“My job as a parent is to seize the God-given opportunity to come alongside my kids, encourage and help them to make good decisions, support them, teach them, pray for them, and help them prioritize their “plates” so they can move through adolescence and on into the independence of a God-glorifying adulthood. In effect, parents are to gradually ease their children into taking ownership of their own lives.” (The Space Between, p. 35)

The thing is this should be a relief, but for so many parents it is not. They want to hold on and help their little ones as long as possible and then when they are ready to let go the child is still that, a child and doesn’t know what to do. Even as my oldest turns 3 I am already thinking about what I am doing to help him take ownership of his own life.

So here is my question for you as a parent, what are you doing to release your child rather than trying to shelter them? How can you start now preparing your son or daughter for the day that they will launch into their own future? The goal for them, and you, is to have a Life Lived Better.

Parenting from the Teen Perspective

I want to share what I experienced the last two weeks. As I spoke to students last week the subject of parents kept coming up. Two groups independently wanted to address the topic and so we did. As we talked I realized that the students needed to get this out, so we continued the discussion this week.

The topic of parents is not an easy one to address. As a new parent myself I have already made many mistakes and had to apologize even to my 3 year old about my inability as a parent (specifically, getting angry over nothing and not handling things correctly). As I sought to help these students vent their frustrations, I hoped to help focus them as well on what would be helpful for them to know about dealing with parents.

Here are the questions that I used to help lead the discussion:
What is your purpose in life?
What is your parents purpose for your life?
What things are your parents doing to help you succeed?
What about things that are in the way of you succeeding?
What would you do differently than your parents have done?
How do you deal with not being able to control your parents?
What can you learn from situations you are in with your parents?

In order to not make this too long I will hit the highlights.

The first thing I noticed was that about half of the students have at least an idea of what their “purpose” is. All I wanted them to do was think about the possibility of a purpose for their life and several had. The sad thing was almost all of those said their parents had a different plan for their life than what they were thinking and that the ones that couldn’t verbalize a purpose did know what their parents plan was. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t all bad. I think it is great for these parents to let their kids know their expectations. The problem is, the fact that teens didn’t know what they wanted to do themselves says to me that parents don’t ask that either, they just tell what they want.

Secondly, almost all of the students could come up with ideas for what they would do different from their parents. The problem is that most of them will not follow through. Why is that? I believe because they don’t think they really can or don’t see any reason to (goes back to the purpose question.) They will do what many of us do and fall back into what we know. So how do we change that? Teen Lifeline is hoping that these groups and in the future working with parents will stop the cycle of bad parenting and start helping the next generations know how to parent well.

Finally, I have a question. How do we balance the fact that teens are immature but yet need to grow up? I believe this balance is possible by having a mix of boundaries and responsibilities that teenagers know and accept. This is complicated when you have multiple teens and the boundaries and responsibilities needs to be different for each one. That is why it is up to the parents and why Teen Lifeline is looking for ways to help equip parents to have the tools they need to find that right balance.

As I have been doing these groups about parents I have also been reading a good book about parenting. It is called The Space Between by Walt Mueler. Take the time to find it at a store or on Amazon.com and then read it or something like it. It will help you be a better parent and may even help your kids be better teenagers. Allowing you both to Live Life Better.