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A Love Letter to H

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 abou...