Have you ever found yourself basing your mood and happiness on your teenagers mood and happiness?  I’ve learned that that’s not a good thing to do. If you do, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. We’ve learned that even though we began our parenting adventure with a wonderfully written script. . . a script written by us that looked quite a bit like a Norman Rockwell painting. . . God had a different script for us to live. His script wasn’t 100% percent happy like ours. While it was a struggle for us, we learned that God gives us and our kids the opportunity to struggle through life so that we might grow and mature. If we were all to base our happiness on how well things were going with our kids. . . well, we’d all wind up spending time being miserable people. The Apostle Paul laid out a better way. . . in fact, it’s the right way. He writes in Romans 12: 12, “Base your happiness on your hope in Christ. When trials come endure them patiently, steadfastly maintain the habit of prayer.”