I wanna tell you guys a story today. The story of the love of my life. To accurately tell the story, I have to give you a bit of a recap as to how we got here in the first place. On June 11, 2007, Hannah Marie Barnes was born. Her mother and I had a 2 1/2 year relationship but had decided to coparent this new life. I had no idea how difficult yet exactly right, that decision was going to be. I never imagined having a child out of wedlock, to begin with. I never imagined having to split time and have half of her days and nights not be under my roof.

Over the next 18 years, it felt like God was forcing my hand at faith… Because I knew more than anything that I had to trust her with him on the days and nights that I wasn’t around. Of course, I trusted her mother with her safety, etc, but to not be a part of her life, in any capacity, hurt enough to surrender that over to God.

Of course, like any parents, coparent, joint partnerships, families… There have been a lot of ups and downs over the last 18 years. You never really know if you are making the right decision for your kids and their upbringing… But I would say that there have been more affirmations as to the route that was chosen for her to have two happy homes instead of one potentially tumultuous one.

We haven’t shared too much about the latest chapter that we’ve been in, but I asked for permission from my daughter Hannah to Share our most recent season. First of all, I wanna say to you, Hannah, as you read this or listen to this, that I am so so so proud of you. Happy Valentine’s Day to you, baby girl. I wanted to reflect a bit today about you, about your journey, and about the woman that I am watching you become in front of my eyes. You are so worthy of celebration. You are so worthy of love and admiration. Never forget, my love, that as much as I love you, your Father in heaven loves you so much more. You are so loved. You are so worthy. No matter where life takes you, always try to get back to the place where you remember that.

As we wrapped up high school, of course, the natural progression is to look into schools and to figure out what the college plan would be. We never pressured Hannah to do anything, but we resolved to support her in any direction that she wanted to go. The college admission process was fun and exciting… So many acceptance letters, so many financial rewards and invitations. It was great! As we decided to move forward into further exploration of Loyola university as Hannah’s next step, I started to notice that the passion for the process was beginning to wear thin. I felt more anxiety than peace .. or joy .. or excitement.

Parents this is where I want to talk to you real quick… As you spend time with your kids, and get to know your kids, and get to see your kids passionate about certain things and more distant from others… don’t be afraid to gently remind them of what you see going on. I think there is a way to navigate this life partnership that you have with your kids without being demeaning or dismissive or condescending. Now, this was not the way that we were brought up, either. Our generation got a lot of tough love and the forceful push to do something that our parents hadn’t even experienced. We HAD to go to college. Even though many, if not most of our parents did not. Those that went to college, had a better life… And at all costs, our parents deeply desired for us to have a life better than theirs. But parents, times have changed. The options are not the same as they were when we were growing up. Understanding evolving technology and a New World order is going to be so important for us supporting our kids well. Also, I want to gently remind every parent out there with a kid that experienced the pandemic… Our kids have a significant chunk of their social development, their resourcefulness, their decision-making processes, that have been significantly affected by the trauma induced during that season. I would also like to gently remind you that growing up in a social media driven world vastly changes our kids outlook on the world. I think it was through consideration of all of these facts and more… In partnership with prayer and conversation with God that it was clear that we had to make a different decision than rushing into school right away.

For the last five years, my mom has flown Hannah to Florida for a week or two with Grandma. It has been pure joy. For my mom, for Hannah, for my family that has gotten to see Hannah. It is one of the happiest things that happens in our family all year. When Hannah got back from her trip, we were supposed to be making some pretty significant moves to pull the trigger on college, but I think I quickly realized that we might be on the wrong path. After a hard conversation, an emotional conversation, one with tears and hugs and vulnerability… we decided to call Loyola that day and cancel her registration for college.

As I had been praying while Hannah was gone about this next chapter, I felt like God gave me a plan for how to handle it. I didn’t know at the time, that what He was trying to show me was that a pause of the plan was necessary… I believed that this was going to happen as she started her first year of college. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized this plan was better suited to a gap year. But this was not just any gap year plan. This has become our Health Year plan.

I’d love to go so much more in-depth about this plan but for the sake of this piece, I’m gonna keep it relatively simple. In order to pull off this healthier plan, we both made a commitment to it being non-negotiable. It’s not a year off from school, it’s not a vacation, it’s not a live off of mom and dad for a year experience. We committed to an outlined plan that had five major pillars of health work:

Physical Health

Mental Health

Emotional Health

Spiritual Health

Financial Health

In each of the five categories, we set realistic goals. Some of the goals were set to be achieved in the full year time span, and some of the goals were set more short term. After we set goals for each category, we went back through and set to do list for how to start, continue, and achieve her goals. I think a big part of beginning this process as a parent, was the understanding that this has to be her project AND also having to understand that she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. There have been so many “firsts” in the first six or seven months of this process. It has been a consistent swing between ‘hands off’ to ‘hands on’ for me as a parent. A lot of mistakes have had to be made.… And what’s kept us largely on track with this whole thing, has been good and healthy and vulnerable communication. We do an intentional check-in lunch or dinner once a month or so. We go through each goal in relation to progress. There have been things that she’s already knocking it out out of the park on… we had to reevaluate what healthy progress even meant. I was telling a friend of mine who was a therapist about this whole health year idea and she thinks that there’s a lot of value here for parents that are in this gap year/health year space. I am doing some work to better organize our approach to the plan and give some loose suggestions on what it might look like for others, but for this piece, I wanted to just highlight the work that my young woman daughter has been doing.

Hannah, I said it earlier, but I am so proud of you and the woman that you are becoming. We’ve been through a lot kid… I know that me being hurt has been a lot on you. I’ve watched you grow in empathy in the face of my adversity. Yeah, it hasn’t always been easy, and like any parent/kid relationship, we’ve had our moments of butting heads or disagreeing, but through every hard conversation we’ve had, we’ve gotten better and better and better. Not just at seeing each other for where we are, but also for understanding how to be better in relationship with each other. You know I talk to uncle Kyle a lot lately and I was telling him the other day that I hope he has a conversation with his daughter where they both cry and hug it out. I feel like our most important conversations and deepest shifts have come from moments like that. Thank you for being a safe space for me. I don’t take it lightly because I haven’t asked for it from you on purpose. I’ve always wanted to be your safe space… I’ve never wanted you to carry more than you had to. I just wanted you to be a kid. But as you have stepped into adulthood and as you do your work… It’s clear that your shoulders are getting so much broader. It’s clear that your heart is growing in size. It’s clear that your mind is getting clearer by the day. I’ve been watching your confidence build in this latest health year season and it’s been so so good to see. Keep working your plan. Keep reflecting on the trajectory of your path with relationship to your goals. Keep giving yourself grace for stepping off the path and even veering off at times.

When we did our last check-in, you were a bit upset about the progress on a couple of your goals. I thought about that conversation a lot since we had it. I’ll reiterate something about that conversation to you today… For Valentine’s Day. Out of your five categories of health, mental, emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual… I think you are killing it at the most important of the five. Your spiritual pursuit of a relationship with God is the most important thing you could do on any goal sheet. It’s funny, because I was the most self-conscious about this exact goal for you. I did not want to overly influence your decision to pursue a relationship with Jesus in any extra way. I know that living with me as a whack-a-do pastor type is already a lot… You hear me on the phone, you see what I’m working on, you get the random convos at your bedroom door about the crazy thing God just showed me… And I know that that is a lot. I know it is. I don’t take it for granted that you are always so encouraging even if you have no idea what the heck I’m talking about… Lol. But I think more than anything, I just have wanted for your relationship to be YOUR relationship with your Father in heaven. So I think I pushed for the spiritual goal the least… However… You have embraced it the most. A couple of the things on your spiritual to-do list were to go to church every Sunday and to memorize the words to at least three worship songs. Not only have you barely missed a Sunday in the last seven months, I think you probably know the words to 10 songs. Matter of fact, as I write this, tears are welling up in my eyes because I can remember faintly hearing you sing in month one. And a little louder by month three. But there is just something that is so so beautiful about standing next to you and hearing you praise God from depths of your soul and your diaphragm being used to push the air of your lungs in to a worship song. The power that you sing with now is the evidence of the Spirit of God growing in you. You are killing it, kid. You are bringing it to God more and more every week. And here’s what I’ll tell you about that as a guy who’s been through a couple of things in the last few years. As long as you are spiritually connected to Him, and spiritually pursuing Him… all the other stuff falls in line. Alright we might be a little off on physical goals, God help us get back on track. We might be short on our financial goals, God show us what You want us to see and where You want us to be. We might not be OK mentally, God point us to the therapist to help, the small group to support, renew our minds God. Emotionally we might be all over the place… God you gave me emotions as a gift of humanity, where am I unhealthy? Where should I work to improve this part of the gift you’ve given me?

I’ve seen a lot of people have their s**t together physically or financially or whatever… But they aren’t glowing the way you’re glowing kid. You walk around and radiate love and empathy. You already are so emotionally intelligent that you can preserve your energy in a room that you feel is draining it. We’ve talked about how you’ve consoled friends and reminded them of their value. I’ve overheard you comparing notes about what you learned at church today and asking your friends what they learned at their church. Matter of fact, tomorrow, you’re bringing one of your friends to church with you. You’re right on track kid. You are not behind. You are healthier than you were seven months ago. You locked in. You did that. I am so proud of you. You are a diamond in a rough world. Be encouraged and be patient… God has set aside a man for you. Until you meet him, do not settle. I know that this advice is not easy or fun… But trust me, He’s got you. Keep doing the work and letting God lead the way. I love you so much! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Love,

Dad

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