In the sermon 'Ladies Luncheon — Donna', the speaker addresses the challenges and joys of raising teenagers and preparing them for adulthood. By drawing on Psalm 127, the speaker emphasizes the importance of viewing children as gifts from God that need to be nurtured and launched responsibly. The speaker highlights the developmental changes teenagers undergo, particularly the brain remodeling that explains heightened emotions and risk-taking behaviors. Parents are encouraged to transition their roles from commanders to coaches and, eventually, consultants as their children grow. This transition involves teaching submission to God's authority, instilling godly wisdom, and encouraging autonomy under God. The speaker stresses the importance of modeling Christian values, maintaining strong relationships, and fostering an environment of open communication. The role of the church is highlighted as a central pillar in a teenager's upbringing. Parents are encouraged to prepare their children practically and spiritually for life's challenges, ensuring they are grounded in faith and capable of thriving in the world.

All right, I get to be the one that follows her. But I'm going to be joyful about it. Because, yeah, I have to now. OK. So Deborah gave me the assignment, Even though I am the oldest of the three, I reminded her, yes.

I should have gotten menopause. But anyways, I had the assignment of in about 15 minutes talking about raising teens and launching them. And it's been, I think, about nine years since I've had a teenager in my home, but I do have skin in the game and some memories die off slower than others. And those teenage years are fun and they are challenging. And I do have my first grandchild that hit the teen years.

So that's fun, being able to watch my kids start traveling this road and, you know, just living that with them. So anyways Psalm 127 we're all familiar verses 3 & 4 behold Children are a heritage from the Lord. We could stop there full stop. What a blessing What a privilege that we get to pour into these little lives. The fruit of the womb is a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior.

So are the children of one's youth. And I know you've heard this before. Why do we have arrows? We have to launch them. So we raise them up to launch them.

These children are gifts to us and we need to steward those gifts well. Tempus fugit is the Latin phrase as any homeschooler would know for time flies. And isn't that true about these years we have with our children? So the dedicated time of influence in our children's lives is very limited. It's very short.

So every day counts. And in light of that, I just want to offer some encouragements. It's not exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination, but just some things for you to ruminate on and think about. As you are a teenager, I see some teenagers in the room as you're raising teenagers, she may have grandchildren that are teenagers. Anyways, just one reminder, I'm also a pediatric nurse.

I think it's really important that we remember this about teenagers. If we have blessed amnesia about the time when we were teenagers, we need to be reminded when we have teenagers that during that time between say 13 to 21 and even beyond, the brain is going through an incredible time of remodeling, reformation if you will, and it's dramatic and it can create personality changes, heightened emotions, mood swings, anxiety, impulsivity, heightened risk taking behavior because the reformation starts back here and that's the emotional response and it slowly remodels to the front where all the judgment is. So if you haven't thought about that before, that explains a lot, does it not? And in the midst of that, they're going through puberty, acne, body odor, voice changes, body shape changes. All these questions arise as their brains are being remodeled about who am I, and what am I gonna do?

Do I go to college? Do I get a vocation? Will I be married? What if I'm single? What do I do then?

And then also there's these development of, developments of big ideas and big philosophies. The most important one is what is my relationship to my creator? And that's where we really need to pour into them. And some will say this is a challenging time, some will say it's a volcanic time for the child and for the parent. But again, it can also be a time of tremendous blessing, relationship building that will serve you as your children launch.

You want to maintain that relationship. And it's a wonderful time to watch them develop and step into the role that God has planned for them. And we could spend hours talking about any of these little nuances of being a teenager, but I wanted to zero in on something that was really helpful to Tom and I as we were raising our kids, and that was what we called getting the transitions right. In other words, you can't parent a teen like you parent a toddler and if you try to you're going to have years of heartache and trouble. And to make it more challenging, when my first daughter, my oldest one, became a teen, I also had a newborn, which obviously in this group is probably true for many of you.

And so it feels a little schizophrenic because you're raising these little ones this way as you ought, but you know you've got to transition with how you're dealing with your team. So we had to adjust our parenting intentionally and thoughtfully during these changes, and we had to respond accordingly as our children were changing. And something that helped us, Tom thought of this, I thought it was brilliant, is you become your commander when those little ones are little. You are the commander and unless the husband's in the home all the time, mama, you have to be a commander too in his absence. You have that that vested authority that your husband has given you to raise these children during that time.

So from commander you segue to coach and from coach you segue to consultant and I'll talk just a little bit about some of that but especially in those early years of parenting you must establish yourself as the commander. I loved what Tilly said about too many women submit to their children. That is not what a commander does. You do not submit to your children, but it is very important and foundational for you to establish yourself as the commander in your home when you are with your children. So from infancy to about preschool, the key issue that you want to teach them is submission to God's authority.

Obedience is the main lesson. And failure to bring the child into submission here in this phase is setting up major battles for the teenage years. Trust me on this one. Then from school age to preteen you're starting to sort of segue transition little by little. There's no hard and fast, and every kid is different.

So you've got to know your kids, you've got to study your kids. Husband needs to help tremendously with this. But the key issue during those school-age preteen years is commitment to godly wisdom. They're starting to internalize biblical values that God willing you've been teaching them all these years. They're developing their character.

And the application here is that you help your child begin to understand himself and see himself and see his actions in the light of God's word. Then we hit the teen years. And by this time, If you've not transitioned from the chiefly commander role to a coach role, and I'll explain what I mean by that, it's going to be more difficult if you haven't started that transition. So when you become the coach, you still, What does a coach do? I don't know how many of y'all do sports, but we were a big basketball family.

My husband coached homeschool girls basketball team for 17 years, award winning. He said he was never gonna coach girls after the first practice, but here we go. Okay, so anyways, we had five daughters, one son, so it made sense for him to do that. So what the coach does, you're teaching, you're instructing, but they are the ones that get on the court. They have to play the game.

Now as a coach, what can you do? If they're not following your instruction, you're teaching, they're freestyling too much, you bench them. So you see, you're not the commander anymore, you're the coach. You're cheering them on, you're helping them to learn skills. 1 Corinthians 13, 11, it's a great verse thinking about for teenagers.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. So the goal when your kid hits those teenage years is maturity and growing independence. So we need to equip our children to put away those childless things and help them to become functioning and thriving and hopefully enjoyable adults. It's a gradual process, but it's an important one. So these teenage, like puberty to young adulthood, the key issue there is developing autonomy under God.

They have to have personal dealings with God and the main lesson obviously is to teach them to walk in the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. That's Proverbs 1-7. So they're learning self-governance, they're developing independence, they're making decisions that will have an impact on the rest of their lives.

It's an important, important time. And I think sometimes we as moms, we just get tired. You've gone through those newborn stages that are hard. The two biggest challenges for me, I told Deborah this in parenting, potty training, especially when you're the commander. You really don't have a lot of control over that.

And then this transition into teens and launching. So I speak from someone who's who had to learn some hard lessons Sony is the parent-child relationship naturally changes With the maturity of the child when they are little your control over them is at its peak It's up here and your influence is very little. You can talk to your newborn about the importance of a good night's sleep and how mommy would be so much more pleasant if you didn't wake her up every hour. You don't reason with a newborn that way. And I told a mom of a three-year-old this week, you don't reason with a toddler the way you're reasoning with the toddler.

I don't care how bright they are. They need to learn obedience to your word. So anyways, but that changes as they get older. You will inevitably have less ability to control them. So the illustration of bedtime, infants totally controlled.

Plop them in the bed, they may not sleep, but they're staying in the bed. Ten-year-old can be somewhat controlled. They're told to stay in bed, but they can still get out. That's where you've got to exercise some authority. Teenager can hardly be controlled.

Not only can he get out of bed, he can actually sneak out of the house. So you see how the control is less. So by that time, as your opportunity to control them through size, I mean, I'm a small woman. My kids outgrew me very early. All of them did.

Right Jennifer? They're all tower over me. So I lost my ability to control them through size while they were still quite young. Even through power. So my ability was to control them was decreasing, but the ability to influence them is increasing.

I'm not doing a very good graph, but controls up here. Here's influence. Control goes this way as they age. Influence goes this way And that's an important thing to think about. Does this mean that children lose influence over, I mean that parents lose influence over their children?

No. It's not a diminishing of authority, but rather it's a change of how it is exercised. So commands and demands segue to counsel, guidance, suggestions. Rules give way to principles. Does that mean there's no more rules?

No, it doesn't. But you want to teach your team to live a more principled life. Again, our aim is maturity. Our aim is making them joyful adults, wise adults. So for a two-year-old, do not hit your sister, right?

There's a rule. A 12-year-old, you want to do something more like you need to exercise self-control. What does that mean? It means, so if you say to a 12-year-old, don't hit your sister, What are they going to do? Boom, there goes the foot.

Well, you didn't say don't kick her. No, you want to be able for them to put those dots together, right? So when you say exercise self-control, It means don't hit, don't kick, don't body slam. All those things are built in there. So you maintain your standards, but you change your approach.

You respect their growing autonomy, their growing self-governance. If you're trying to govern them at that point, again so frustrating. You want them to learn self-governance while they're in the protection of your home. You want to help them discover rather than simply inform. You want to be an example of what you want them to be.

And as my friend Bodie would say, if you can't say amen, say ouch. Example is a powerful teacher. It's more powerful than words in some ways. So you've heard that phrase, I can't hear what you're saying because I see what you're doing. Kids have built-in radars to detect hypocrisy and inconsistency.

So here's some application to that. Ask yourself what sort of influence are you having in your child's life? Are you demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit? Are you just demanding it of them? Are you asking your child to be self-control when you fly off the handle when they cross you?

What is your attitude about the good work that God has given you to do? And it is good work ladies. It's hard, but it's good. Do you grumble and complain? So much this speaks to what Tilly was saying.

A real practical thing, do you want your child to love reading? Model that for them. Enjoy reading yourself. Read aloud to them. Yes, even your teens.

They may act like they don't like it, but it's a fun thing. What is your relationship to your phone, to social media? If you don't want your children to have to struggle inordinately with that, then you need to model that for them. How do you respond to the body that God has given you, especially moms of teen girls? And then is your home a joyful place to be?

Are you setting that sort of temperature for your home? So another really practical, I'm hitting the big applications first, Be a real Christian and act like it. That's true for every age and stage of your child. What does that look like? Living by faith, trusting God's promises amid hard providences, repenting, personal and family devotions.

Talk about your relationship with Christ to your children. Share your testimony. Share what the Lord is teaching you right now and demonstrate to them what repentance and forgiveness looks like. When you sin against them, repent to them. When they sin against you, forgive them.

I get emotional about this because my kids, when we asked them, we were doing, I can't remember what it was, some book project or something. So Tom and I sat them down as adults and said, what was the most impactful thing you did? So my husband has always been my kid's pastor. So he's preached to them year after year after year, sermon after sermon. I homeschooled them.

Goodness knows, I, you know, I could have been at this great nurse, probably running the hospital by now, And I gave all that up. So we're waiting for their answers. And you know what they said? One of the most impactful things we did is that when we sinned against them, we repented to them. You don't know in that moment how powerful your actions are to your kids and the things that they will zero in on.

So model what walking by faith looks like. Don't shy away from talking about your own struggles appropriately. You're still not necessarily at that friendship. You shouldn't be at that friendship stage with your kids. That will come if you launch them well.

So some things may not be appropriate to talk about, but don't present this image that all's Pollyanna that you don't struggle. That's not gonna be helpful to them. Secondly, find a healthy, I guess this is thirdly, finally, get it together girl, find a healthy church and build your life around it. Don't be a 90-minute church member and expect your child to think that Christ is important to you. Hebrews 10 25 says, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.

While they are in your home, going to church should not be optional. Design your life and schedule around the church. This will make it easy when making decisions regarding other activities, including sports, especially traveling teams, vacations, recreation, friendships, et cetera. Even though we homeschooled our kids, we had one daughter who really, she's tall, she's athletic, she's strong. She was a baller ladies if you all know what that means.

And we had a Christian school recruit her to play a year of basketball for their school and we could still homeschool her and she participated. She came back for her senior year to play under her daddy, we're so grateful for it. It was not a good experience for her, but in the midst of that she was recruited heavily to play on traveling teams. And of course the first thing you ask is what's your practice schedule? What's your tournament schedule?

And she didn't even have to ask us. She's like, nope, not doing it. Church is the Lord's day. So you cannot change your child's heart, but you can raise them having been saturated in gospel truth. It'll be hard for them to run away from.

Again, your attitude about how you serve in the church, how you talk about the church and respond to the elders, how you prepare for the Lord's Day are all going to set the tone for how your children view the church. Some other things, don't sweat their doubts and questions. It's normal for them to have them. Don't be shocked by their sin or knocked off course by their moments of rebellion. We are all sinners in need of grace.

We all need Jesus. We all must learn to live by the gospel every day. The Christian life is marked by repentance and faith. Sometimes rebellion is a misguided attempt at independence, so you've got to see that, you've got to recognize it, and help them find a way to better gain independence in better ways. Remind them that we are all people, yourself included, under God's authority.

And then don't take it personally. The unkind words, the disrespectful attitude, remember when their brain's remodeling, it's a little bit like temporary insanity. And I say temporary, do not, I know there are exceptions to the rule. Please, do not rush your children into therapy. There's a, we did a whole parenting conference on that, but that's for another time.

You know, talk to your elders, get some help first, some different help first. Okay, so don't take it personally, keep doing what you're doing, always pointing them to the gospel, find your worth and identity in Christ, and rest there. Rest there. Work to maintain the relationship. As they mature, give them more responsibilities, privileges.

Let them try new things under your tutelage. Set them up for success and advanced problem solving. Let them make their own decisions. Guide them to make decisions that are wise and honoring to God. And then let them fail.

Do not come in for the quick rescue. I think it's particularly hard for homeschooling moms because it's kind of a personal thing. You don't want to see your children fail because you think that's all on me. I'm it. The buck stops right here.

It's not true. But you want to let them fail while they're home and they're around people that love them and can help them. So don't come in for the quick rescue. The struggle is good. Think about that butterfly in the chrysalis.

You don't ever want to cut the chrysalis. You're going to cripple that butterfly for life. But also be ready to help when needed. And that doesn't mean when they think it's needed. The struggle is good.

If you let them fail small at home, then the failure will be much more manageable outside of the home. Get to know your teens friends, open your home to them, make your home the favorite hangout spot. And this will give you some insight into the influences that they have outside of you. And allow, it will also allow you to speak into the lives of their friends. Communication during this time becomes increasingly important.

Express your heart to your child. Encourage them to express their hearts. Try to understand what's going on inside of them. Learn their values, joys, goals, struggles, priorities. Try hard.

Watch your face when they say something that shocks you. Like, I didn't see that. It's like, oh, okay, tell me more. Yeah, I'd like to know about that. Don't make any subject off limits.

Talk about money, work, sex, politics, friendships, gender dysphoria. I mean the list goes on and on. Again, don't be shocked. If you don't know, say, oh That's an interesting subject. Let me think about it, talk to your dad about it.

We'll get back to you. It's OK to say, I don't know. But don't make it off limits. If that's what's on their mind, you want to be the one talking to them about it. We made dinner time discussions.

I have on here, make dinner time discussions and debates great again. That was the time where we taught worldview. Oftentimes Tom would play devil's advocate. And I gave her for instance to some ladies earlier when Colorado was voting on legalizing marijuana, we would ask our kids, take a position, tell us why you think, should or shouldn't be. And just get them to start thinking about these things.

Be ready to lose sleep when your teen wants to talk. Those times provided some of those rich conversations in the lives of us and our teens. Recognize the difference between a dialogue and a monologue. Be an active listener. Sit up, put down your phone, turn off the TV, restate what you heard.

Be an active listener to your kids. And also too, about the dinner time, phones off the table. Let it just be you and your family. Ask the Lord to put a guard over your lips and help you to open your mouth with wisdom with the teaching of kindness on your tongue. Encourage, instruct, correct, and treat, warn, and pray.

Oh, I got a few more minutes. Okay, especially during the teen years, parents must become spiritual cardiologists. What is the nature of the struggle that's going inside your kid? Because there is a struggle. It's a struggle inside your kid.

Find out what it is. Now quickly preparing them to launch. Prepare your own heart for their own departure. Again, I see this in homeschooling circles all over. Don't be a hindrance to them leaving home when the time is right.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, you raise them up to launch them. Each child is different. We had one son, five daughters. Not all of them launched the same way or at the same age. So be wise, but do not cling.

The goal of this high and holy calling is to raise responsible godly adults that will be useful in the kingdom of God. Equip them spiritually, evangelize them. Our children can know all the right answers and still be unconverted. Never stop pointing them to Jesus. Pray for them and with them regularly.

Expect God to save them. He placed them in your home for a reason. Never presume upon God's grace in their salvation, but remember that he makes no mistakes and he delights in showing mercy. Disciple them, teach them the truth about God. When you sit, when you walk by the way, Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7, engage in regular family worship.

Hearing Michael Foster speak this morning about having to start fresh with their family. We were raised in Christian homes, Tom and I, but the concept of regular family worship was foreign to us. It was a learn as you go, and it was so important to our family and to our family structure. And God clearly instructs parents to do this. It doesn't have to be complicated.

Read God's word, talk about it. How does it apply to current world issues? Ask probing questions, have family prayer and sing. Easy, and husbands should lead out in this. Catechize them.

It was the way I learned good theology, was teaching my kids the catechism. It will provide them, again, a strong theological foundation that will be very hard for them to walk away from. Teach them how to navigate life in a fallen world with the truths of God's Word. And that means what do you do about higher education when you send them off to college? When we sent our older daughter off to college we realized we had to educate her in curse words because she had a newly minted PhD that wanted to be cool teaching all these college students so every other word was a curse word and my daughter came home and she said the kids are laughing at jokes I don't understand and we said we're really sorry about that.

Now this is, my daughter was an adult at that time. It's not like we just sent her out in the wolves, with the wolves. And this was part of the way that we were helping her to navigate the world. Just say, okay, go to this dual enrollment class, come home, and tell us what you're learning. And we would talk about it.

And that was one of the things we had to educate your kids about things you're going to hear in the world. Friendships, romance, vocation, how to live life as a Christian a post-Christian culture Rosaria Butterfield has this great quote that says worldviews have consequences bad ones have casualties So help them think through and learn how to defend what they believe. So it's one thing for them to say to their friends and when they're out in the world, this is what I believe, but they need to know why they believe it. Okay, skipping ahead, wrapping it up. Equip them practically, obviously.

Remember that your example and attitude in the home speaks volumes. Again, this is not exhaustive. Teach them how to work. What is good work? Not to shy away from hard work.

How to cook and keep house. Now, again, five daughters, one son. But I also taught my son how to cook. I taught him how to iron. My dad was military.

He had to know how to iron uniforms when my mom wasn't with him. My son ended up being a really good cook and he's been such a blessing to his wife on those days when she's postpartum and things like that. So it ended up being a blessing, but teaching him to cook was a bit of a challenge for me. He had different ideas about how to season things. But our rule was, you know, we don't have gobs of money.

Whatever is cooked, we eat. So he made spaghetti one time with fish sauce. Thankfully, we only ate it for one meal. So teach them all how to cook and keep house. And honestly, I love my son.

He's so sweet. He's a little quirky, a little nerdy. And I thought, I don't know if he can find the perfect girl. And so what if he's single for a really long time? I want him to know how to take care of himself.

How to handle money. Budget, saving, giving, model that. Bring them in on the discussion as they get ready to launch. Manners, please, please teach your children how to talk to people other than their peers. How to handle social media and technology.

Again, model this for them. If you are constantly living online and are attached to your phone, they will see that as extremely valuable and desirable. So model how to handle all that. Real relationships cannot thrive when in competition with screen time. So once they launch, your role in their life shifts once again to one of a support role.

And this is where we did commander, we did coach, and then you become the consultant. You encourage, you support, you befriend, you offer counsel, but you wait to be asked. No consultant marches into a company and says, I'm here to consult you. The company reaches out to them and says, we need your counsel. And that's harder than you know ladies.

When you see your adult children and they're making these decisions, you're going, oh that's interesting, and you think this could end very badly. And there may be a time, we're not talking about sin issues here, because then it's Christian to Christian, brother and sister, sister to sister. We're just talking about things that may not go very well and it may. You may have been wrong. So anyways, but you wait to be asked.

It's the time when you have no more control over your child, but if you've grown that influence over them that remains and it's precious. All right, final thoughts. Do not despise the season you're in. Even the teen years. Do not run from it.

Do not have a bad attitude about it. See it as a gift from the Lord and commit yourself to live it for His glory. Instead of being unhappy or even fearful about where you are, rejoice, Trust the Lord, gird yourself with strength and rejoice and laugh at the days to come because laughter will come again. Thank you.