Just the Way You Are

       By the time my children started becoming teenagers, I decided that any embarrassment I caused them was pure justice for all the times they embarrassed their parents.  Especially since at that age, all it takes on a parent's part to cause embarrassment is to simply show up.
       I remember the day it happened with my daughter.  We had spent the summer doing fun things together even taking along her friends.  But then came the evening of registration and orientation for high school.  I drove to the high school and parked the car.  We got out and started walking when she took off on her own.  I found her sitting inside and was going to sit by her when I got "the look".  I'd seen it before, that don't you dare half-command, half-pleading glare so I sat somewhere else.
       The good part of this phase is that you can usually console yourself with the thought that you really haven't done anything wrong or odd or strange to cause such acute embarrassment.  Unless you go over the bounds of good behavior by actually kissing, hugging, or otherwise "parenting" your child in front of other teenagers with public displays of affection (PDA's) or instruction (PDI's).
       Teenagers on the other hand, are perfectly capable of doing or saying or wearing things that really do drive us nuts.   The trick of parenting is learning to let go of the little things and save the battle for things that really matter such as behavior that could be dangerous, illegal, or life-changing.
       However, there are distinct disadvantages for having gone to college in the early seventies.  It makes it really difficult to be self-righteously judgmental with your children about certain things.  Like the time one of the guys was growing his hair long and wearing a pony-tail.  It didn't take long after a set-to about his hair for him to come up from the basement with photos of his parents looking like long-haired hippies.   It changed the conversation because we had to begin with confessing that we agreed that we didn't look that great like that either.  It was uncomfortable to be confronted with the fact that we didn't look nearly as cool and unique as we thought at the time.  Kind of like old pictures of guys in powder-blue tuxedos with ruffled shirts; the judgment of time is not always gracious.
       If it is a good thing to be humbled by past experience (and I think it probably is), then we should not be afraid of it.  Our youthful follies are useful reminders that we have every reason to be gracious and forgiving with the people around us.  None of us make it to adulthood without making many mistakes whether by intent or accident.  Before we pipe up in judgment of others, we need to remember our own mistakes so that we can welcome others as they are the same way God welcomes us just as we are.
       How wonderful that God accepts us with love, forgives us, and gives us the freedom and chance to try again.  We never get so embarrassing that God leaves us behind or refuses to  acknowledge us.  Instead, God takes us just the way we are with or without purple hair, tattoos, or stuffed shirts and wraps us up in love.  All God asks in return is that we extend that same welcome, love, and forgiveness to all of God's children around us.  Read Psalm 25:6-10