Crucial Conversations

"Mom, I need to look up two definitions on the computer, with pictures," my oldest daughter informed me on the first full week of school.

"Okay, what are they?" I asked distractedly.

"Etapas de desarrollo y pu-ber-tad," she sounded out in Spanish. That was enough to snap me to attention! Stages of development and puberty?! Needless to say the textbooks were pulled out and perused, and Mom (not daughter) located the definitions and appropriate pictures on the internet.

Then I sat down with science book in hand and a pre-teen daughter on either side of me, and we had a "crucial conversation." Yes, THAT conversation. It had been on the to-do list for awhile; I had given them pieces of this information at other times; and I had even purchased a great Christian series on sexuality and the "Passport to Purity" kit to go through with them sometime this year. (Unfortunately the latter two are stuck on our pallet in shipping limbo, and this conversation couldn't wait!)

While the chapter was strictly scientific in its description of the human reproductive system, I was well aware that the commentary of our daughter's classmates might be far less so. Regardless, this was information that I wanted to come from her parents rather than from any other source. In God's perfect timing, it just so happened that Pedro was taking the little boys out for an hour and so the girls and I had all the time necessary for a meaningful conversation on God's awesome creativity concerning the human body and the perfect plan He designed for a husband and wife to enjoy inside the commitment of marriage.

What a sacred trust we are given as parents to protect and prepare our children's hearts and minds for the life they will live and the choices they will make. I know I cannot shelter my kids forever nor should I in every situation, because they do need to know how to stand up for truth on their own. (More on that in tomorrow's post.) But there are times when it truly matters. 

This was one of those times, and for that privilege I am grateful.