Deanna Doss Shrodes

  Dustin moved out on Sunday night. I always expected I would break down and sob when this happened. Instead, I was too preoccupied with the tasks at hand, to have a meltdown. I'm sure Dustin was grateful. Since there was only a day to get the room ready for Lexi and Brody to move in, I had to get busy. Everyone knows how much I adore Dustin. Not that I don't adore all my kids, for I do! However, everyone remarks about how much Dustin and I are alike and it's true.  We are both INFJ's. Musicians. Poets. Preachers. Writers. We both crave quiet spaces and places. Being away from noise. Out in the woods. Books. We are hard working people. (Neither of us can stand laziness.) We both go to the wall for what we believe. We'd die for it. We're both deeply introspective introverts. We interact with people when we need to in order to lead. Because we can't help but lead. It's in our blood. In our bones. We came out of the womb ...

If we're not careful, we can go from being our child's advocate to exerting undue interference that renders them unprepared for adult life. Yes...this REALLY happened... Years ago at our church , we had a pastoral staff member in their late twenties whose mother from out of state contacted my husband and me -- TWICE -- to tell us how she thought her son's work issues should be handled. Apparently she didn't agree with some of our decisions. We were absolutely dumbfounded.  Needless to say, the interference on the part of the staffer's mother only made things go from bad to worse. Opportunities for Growth... Giving children opportunity to gain experience in solving problems of all kinds begins not when they turn 18 or 21, but all throughout their growing up years. Living in the era of helicopter parenting , many children and teens miss opportunities to learn problem solving skills. During the course of my children's school years we have had relative...

Twenty four years ago today at 12:45 AM, at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, in Camden, New Jersey... it happened.  I became the mother of one of the greatest people to ever walk the planet. And, I met my first blood relative. It was my first time to ever look into the face of a relative who resembled me in any way. I will never forget looking into his little face, and seeing something of myself. This was that moment... Looking at my newborn son while the cord is cut... The wonder. The awe. Life with him has been the best experience, ever. With his Daddy after getting all cleaned up. Our new little family, a few days after he was born.   His first Sunday in church, one week after birth. He has always loved pizza. This works out well now that he's a youth pastor. He has always loved to sleep. He rarely gets to these days, he's so busy. He has always been drawn to music, and gifted at it. He figured out how to program the keyboar...

  "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much." ~Jackie Kennedy Today I take time to dwell on how great it is to be a Mom. I think about that all the time, actually...not just today. I've done a lot of things in life but nothing compares to being a mother. I have four kids...one in heaven waiting for me, three on earth. I know, two of them are not exactly "kids" anymore. The first is a 23 year old youth pastor. The second is a 22 year old senior risk representative at Capital One. The third is almost an adult. Yet they will always be my kids...my babies. I enjoy them so much. This photo above is them sitting by the Christmas tree throwing packing peanuts in the air after opening their gifts. As usual Jordan and Savanna threw them and Dustin sat there wondering why they were doing it. I am so proud of them. Yes, they are caring human beings who have accomplished wonderful thi...

So, here's all we had to concern ourselves with, here in the past 24 hours... I sat in front of the fireplace and wrote to my heart's content in the quiet, while occasionally glancing out the window. Love the change of scenery while I write. Jordan was king of the mountain. Savanna made snow angels. We stayed in this beautiful place. We watched two movies last night. Made dinner, did the dishes, tidied things up, sunk down into a bath. Slept. That's all folks...  

Last night was the Celebration Church Thanksgiving dinner. It's one of the highlights of the year. After we share d a fabulous meal together, our worship team rocked the place and then people had opportunity to share what they are grateful for. Our son Jordan was one of the first people to come to the microphone and speak. Before sharing about his new job he pointed to Larry and me and said: "I'd like to thank God for these two people, for the privilege of growing up in their home, and having them as parents." Shortly after, our son Dustin (who is now the youth pastor at our church) got up and the first words out of his mouth were, "I'd just like to thank God for my family..." Wow. So, of course no matter how many times I hear stuff like this it just makes my buttons bust. (Well, that and all the weight I've gained...) After the boys spoke, I began thinking: what makes a family great to be part of? What makes a house a home you can't...

It's been a while since I've written anything about my kids. Okay, so it's actually only been since October 29th. A lot of people comment about how amazing my kids are. No argument there. They rock. Mostly not because of me. I've actually made a ton of mistakes. Nevertheless, people ask me, "how do you raise kids that grow up to be Christians? How do you guide them into developing Godly morals that they actually keep into adulthood?" I don't claim to be an expert and beside the point, I've only raised three kids. Well, I've actually raised two to adulthood and one to teenage years to be perfectly technical. But these are five things that have helped us thus far: 1) Don't just talk about Jesus. Live Jesus. It's more caught than taught. 2) Love the heck out of them. Love covers a multiude of sins . I'm a terrible sinner at times , but I sure do love my kids.  3) Go to church with them, don't just drop them off. And once y...

Before I wrap up blogging this weekend, I thought I'd share some highlights from Dustin's birthday... The table was set with his favorite meal ~ pot roast and all the trimmings...including... Homemade yeast rolls...yummo... And the one thing he wanted more than anything...a Batman cake. It seemed to make him real happy... And that's good because Moms are happy when their children are happy. We've got a full day at Celebration Church today and our Holy Roller Night Outreach tonight. So much fun! I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Much love,

He's 23 today. Twenty-freakin'-three. [sigh] Time stand still? Please stand still. Changes are hard. Even good ones. And they just keep coming. And there's nothing I can do about it. Nothing. Lord knows I've tried. And like most other things in life, it's out of my control. (And that's probably a good thing, most times.) At least he's turned out perfectly wonderful. The best a parent could ask for. I'm talking about one, Dustin Michael Shrodes, if you didn't know by now. He's our youth pastor now, by the way. Just in case you crawled out from under a rock and didn't know. Or you are reading my blog for the first time and have no idea who the main characters in this real life scenario are. Please meet my absolutely perfect first born son: You can read some day-to-day happenings of his early years in a hand written blog I kept and shared here a while ago. You'll love it, I promise, if you have any sentimental...

1) Believe in them.  Every kid wants more than anything for their parent to believe in them. Believe in them every single day.  Let them know you do, often. Over and over again. Until they are sick of hearing it! (They might act like they are tired of you telling them. Don't believe it. Keep telling them. If you're going to change their lives every day you  have to tell them good things every day.) 2) Be excited every time you see them.  Do your eyes light up when they walk in the room? These are your kids. Your amazing offspring. Let them see the excitement every time they show up. I realize some of you have little kids and they are running in the room a few hundred times a day. You might wish they would run out. I know you are frustrated, but please realize, your kids are the most amazing thing you will ever create. So get excited!!  Today as I was doing a hospital visit for one of our church members, my 22 year old son Dustin walked in the room. Immed...

I've never in the history of my blog written about what I'm going to write about today. I've been asked to by a few people, and some even begged me. But I never have. I'll just tell you that up front, today is an experiment.  It may be the first and last time I write about it. Why have I never ventured to this topic? Because I can't handle people disagreeing with me about it. That's rare. By nature I am very open to feedback. I welcome differing points of view and open conversation. I know how important healthy disagreement and even debate is. But on this, I'm just telling you, I can't go there. I'm still working on it. I've met a lot of people who spout off platitudes on this topic, especially if they aren't in the same shoes. And it gets messy. And hurtful. So I stay quiet. Because I'm not into messy or hurtful, at least never on purpose. I only talk to a few close friends who I know understand about this issue. They typic...