♥️ Heart connections blossom from heart reflections—a work in progress ♥️

An example of how a mother or father and child can use the ABCs Journal for a few minutes (almost) every day for 26 days (A—>Z) to establish a connection mindset.

On March 29, 2025, Hendry, our 16 year old son, and I began going through the ABCs Journal and learning together how we could begin to build a bridge of connection that would be strong enough to endure the times when disconnection threatens to break our bond.

Singing the Psalms gives me perspective and energy from God. As the Lord is fully present with me, so I can be fully present. I sense Jesus’ affection for me and my affection for him. In this way, he primes me by removing mental distractions enabling me to sit there with my child to engage through a letter of prompts where we can talk about attitudes and try on new ones.

The activities prompts are opportunities to recall memories and plan to make future ones (or not!). Through these focused conversations of only a few minutes each day, you are able to connect with your child.

Hendry read the page on attitudes. I read the page on activities. Then we talked about what attitude resonates with him, or what attitude he’d like to try on, or how a particular attitude would play out in a relationship.**

We remembered activities either he’s done or that we’ve done together, talked about ones he might pray he gets to do one day, or activities that he or I might never do, like, for me, play the accordion. Hendry is not ready to limit himself just yet!

It is April 24, 2025, and we are making a connection together from the heart, each of us initiating on different days, each of us glad to reciprocate and to be fully engaged no matter who thought of it first. :) The ABCs Journal has been a tool prompting Hendry and me to develop a connection mindset that we can take with us wherever we are. Although we are at “Z” in this round of considering the journal together, we are only just beginning to see how our connection can continue to grow to be a foundational one upon which Hendry can build. I thank the Lord Jesus for the unflappable emotional connection that he has built and is continuing to build with me as he leads me to sing the Psalms. Jesus is the anchor of love that secures our mother-son connection and more. Hendry can key off of the solid connection we are building as a springboard that would help him, because of the love of Jesus, to form meaningful connection with others.

Date	Letter Prompt	Attitudes & Activities Pages	Short Conversation to Connect
March 29, 2025	A		Appreciation. Hendry genuinely wants to appreciate whatever anyone does for him. Hendry enjoys art!
March 30, 2025	B		Bond. Spending this kind of time together helps to form a tight connection that is not easily broken. We know that we have each other’s backs.
March 31, 2025**	C		We discussed what it means to care** and cherish, and Hendry learned what a confidante is.
April 1, 2025	D		We talked about discipline and read Hebrews 12 together on how God disciplines those he loves. We laughed about how we were at this moment dining out together at Chick-Fil-A!
April 2, 2025	E		How you approach eye contact matters. Hendry learned that to esteem someone is to think highly of the person, to honor the person. “Eat out” is what we did yesterday, but mostly, we eat in!
April 3, 2025	F		Faith from Hebrews 11:6 is two things: believing God exists and that he rewards those who seek him. We can trust his care for us! We talked about how there are times to fit in and times to be set apart and looked at pictures of food sculptures together.
April 5, 2025	G		Hendry wanted to talk about what it means to get in touch with your own thoughts which certainly helps you to be able to communicate well, and to have a good grasp of reality, to live under the law and not above the law. We also talked about how gardening can be an activity, but also an attitude of sowing and reaping. God gives us the golden rule so that we would know to treat others the way we want to be treated. An attitude of giggles is a lighthearted, shared laughter and fun between or among people. Hendry has enjoyed seeing glass blowing with his dad. Since they did that together in Florida, “Go to the beach with them” popped out at us, and how much all three of us love doing that together!
April 6, 2025	H		Today’s discussion lightly touched on many of the H words. A noteworthy point was on how to hold hands can be something you physically do or it can be a metaphor for supporting someone when they aren’t able to complete something on their own, symbolically holding their hands through it, so to speak. We remember the many times we have had heartfelt talks, how they’re always preferable over those that are not, and how we often enjoy hiking as a family.
April 7, 2025	I		Hendry wanted to talk about what it means to be interested in others. We talked about how you can be interested in what someone is doing, their thoughts, how they feel, their goals. It’s more than just being interested in what someone looks like on the outside. We also talked about “It’s all how you frame it.” You can decide whether to be bored with someone or to be interested in them. Since God is interested in us, we don’t have to be so interested in ourselves. We can use that energy instead to be interested in God and in others. We both enjoy singing the Psalms that help us be interested in and have affection for God. As we looked at the activities, we didn’t discuss it, but by the look of consideration on his face, it seems as though Hendry is silently wondering whether we will ever do ice sculpting. I wonder the same. We have recently looked at a picture of a green ice sculpture though, and we have often enjoyed ice skating and eating ice cream together.
April 8, 2025	J		Hendry wanted to discuss jocundity. We talked about how we are able to laugh together when the ping-pong ball bounces in unexpected ways when we play it together before school. How different it is when you are able to laugh with someone rather than laughing by yourself at the person. Jenga is a fun game to play and that prompt reminded us that we haven’t played it in a while. I was able to share with him when he asked about Jazzercise, that I used to run from Boston College into downtown Boston to take a Jazzercise class and then run back. Hendry just had a track meet today, and he ran not only the race I used to run, but he also ran the mile in the same meet!
April 9, 2025	K		This evening, we talked about what it means to kill perfectionism, and how doing that can, along with the key concept: forgiveness, keep you from being anxious. We both want to keep learning like athletes that watch film to see what they did well to keep improving and what they did not so well to make adjustments and be better. Kayaking and kite flying make for great family fun!
April 10, 2025***	L		Hendry asked about the attitude, Let them be. That phrase can be opposed to, Let them do do do. Which would you rather, to be a certain way or to be thought of as a certain way? His answer to this question was that he would rather be a certain way. This led to a bit of an in-depth discussion on how we promote peacemaking when we focus on being rather than on doing or on impression management.*** Hendry faintly remembers lullabies and that made him think of and ask for bedtime stories again as we dust off our classical story book!
April 11, 2025	M		As Hendry and I rolled a marble back-and-forth enjoying the sound it made on the granite countertop, we talked about how mercy is what Jesus is to us when we trust him. He takes the punishment that we deserve. He is merciful and kind. Auntie Kim came over from down the street. Hendry likes to play basketball in her driveway. She saw what we were doing, and what resonated with her was to make your house a home. Hendry began thinking and talking about the various kinds of museums we or he might visit! We are halfway through the alphabet!
April 12, 2025	N		Hendry chose to talk about newness each day. We learned from Lamentations 3 that God’s mercies are new every morning and in Psalm 103 that he removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. Wow! In that same spirit, though a person who is only human might need to give us space when we get escalated, we come back together with no grudges. We are very thankful that the Lord gives us naps, that Jesus gives us rest. We remembered nursing home visits fondly, which incidentally are also called rest homes.
April 13, 2025	O		It’s O.K. to make mistakes when you have an attitude of openness and honesty to learn from them. God crafts hearts of obedience: immediate, complete, and happy—not delayed, halfway, and sulky. We talked about orphanage visits and how thankful we are that we got to not only visit Hendry in China but to bring him home with us nearly 10 years ago!
April 14, 2025	P		Hendry’s attitude focus for today is to prioritize his goals, to order in his mind about what he’d most like to achieve. Keeping that before him can help him seek God’s help for how he will think, feel, speak, and act and to choose wisely. As for activities, we enjoy playing ping pong together most mornings before school.
April 15, 2025****	Q		We looked at the poem, If, by Richard Kipling as a great source to quote the classics. When we get so excited that it’s hard to “keep your head”, we like to have some quiet time. The greatest classic is the collection of words breathed from God that we are to not only quote but hide in our heart.****
April 16, 2025	R		To reveal your inner world to them is to share what’s on your heart. We show resilience when we go through a hard time and come out better for it. Wise restraint produces freedom. We take the time to recover from addictions as we would recover from the flu. God gives us life and breath and everything else to make subject to him. He gives us relaxation techniques like taking a deep breath or imagining we’re at the beach or getting to go rafting. Hendry will be running in a track meet this afternoon into the evening and just might find relaxation through it. :)
April 17, 2025	S		We talked about how freeing it is to have space to be creative, to be able to share your weaknesses with God and with one another, being vulnerable and honest. “Set apart?” is that question to consider along with “Fit in?” and when it’s best to do one or the other. Hendry has enjoyed sign language and is curious about the instruments, saxophone and slide guitar. We are so blessed by singing the Psalms and seaside walks. :))
April 18, 2025	T		”Teach them to channel anger and use it for good” sparked rich conversation since anger at its root says, “I care.” Tenderness is a way of speaking to or acting toward someone that communicates gentleness and affection. Loving the truth protects us from being choked out by lies. “Teach them to know where they end and others begin” communicates that it’s important to protect others’ dignity and personal space. We jump out of our stress on the trampoline.
April 19, 2025	U		The attitude of an umpire impartially helps two parties make decisions that they can live with. Coupled with the attitude of uncompromising devotion to God and each family member, contraconditional love is what each person experiences which is even better than unconditional love. This is where you are not loved as you are and left that way but loved to help you become better than you are, all that God envisions you to be. We wrap our minds and hearts around both attitudes: “Visualize them at their best when they are at their worst” and “Vow to give them what they need even when it goes against what they want.” I got to share with Hendry how novel and fun the underground trolley rides are in Boston which is where God first called me to himself and got ahold of me!
April 20, 2025	V		It’s important to know that your child  has value and worth in the eyes of God as his image bearer, so mothers and fathers make it their aim to validate them. To visit friends, to visit those in need, and to treat them with dignity, these proceed from an internalized sense of inherent, God-given worth.
April 21, 2025	W		Wise restraint that produces freedom invokes thoughts of self-control as opposed to needing to be controlled. Discussing what is needed for life and modeling those things displays the attitude of “walk with them.” Yesterday Hendry asked if we could go for a walk today at Dogwood Park. Before we walked, we connected this way on a bench before going on one of our many walks in the woods.
April 22, 2025	X		We thank God for giving us the directive to be fruitful and multiply and for giving us the chromosomal building blocks we need so that many male (XY) and female (XX) image bearers would fill the earth!
April 23, 2025	Y		You as a mother or father yearn for them in the sense of having an affection for and a deep desire to be with your children. You also yearn for them to learn, grow, and become who the Lord Jesus made them to be. Yielding is an attitude that shines brightly in a demanding world that doesn’t like to wait. Hendry wants to try on the attitude of yielding since embracing it helps others to feel at ease. Hendry shared fun memories of wielding a yo-yo when he lived in China as a young boy.
April 24, 2025***** ******	Z		Zest for life stems from a zeal***** to do good things that benefit others. This is how we can keep ourselves in check if things get overstimulating and our excitement threatens to undo us by kicking us out of our skin rather than being comfortable in it. We recalled past zoo trips in Asheboro, NC and Columbia, SC and just yesterday enjoyed the animals we saw at the Schiele Museum in Gastonia, NC. Proverbs 26:4-5****** alerts us to times when it is best to zip the lip or to speak. Jesus is the wisdom of God who helps us discern between the two and beckons us to come to him for rest through all our work and to "Zzzzzzz" sleep when our work is done.

*Hendry hopes that reading about our experiences using the ABCs Journal will help bring about a strong connection between mother and child and father and child wherever it is needed. I have not only his permission but also his support to share our discussion points.

**What if you and your friend want to get together to do something at a set time, but you want to do different things? How can you show care? What would that look like?

Hendry thought of talking about it with a friend. Maybe each of them could do what they wanted to do and then meet up to do something together like get something to eat, go for a walk, or ride a bike.

Each of them could also yield and enjoy doing what the other person wanted to do. And then next time enjoy doing what you wanted to do together.

Or they could talk about it and decide to do what one person wanted to do first and then what the other person wanted to do second as long as there was enough time and money to do that. It could work especially well if they were talking about doing things that don’t cost anything like going for a walk or riding a bike.

What would not be caring?

• Demanding to go do what you want to do and trying to force the other person to do that or make them feel bad about what they want to do.

• Acquiescing with a sulky attitude, giving in but acting like either a doormat or just bitter and miserable about it so that neither of you can have a good time.

We also talked about refraining from behaviors that would make people uncomfortable. It is a kindness to alert one another as to what we are thinking, saying, or doing that might be a blessing to others and what wouldn’t.

***We talked about when a person purposely does what they know is wrong, they are being peace-breakers. When they want people to think they are a certain way, but in reality, they are a completely different way, they are peace-fakers. When they are willing to own up to their mistakes and confess and repent of them, turning to Jesus, they are peacemakers. Not addressing our sin, taking it lightly, saying, I only want to move forward without truly understanding what we did wrong and repenting, puts a wall up. When a sports team loses a game, they don’t say I’m not gonna think about it again, just move forward. They go back and look at film and learn from their mistakes so they can correct them and do better on the next game. That seemed to resonate with Hendry though I still ask that the Lord help him address what he still keeps close to his chest and is not yet ready to process through. 

I also ask the Lord to help me process through what I did not have words for and what might still be stuck in my body and mind that hasn’t yet been brought to consciousness. I have had a lifelong desire to deeply connect with my mother and father. The journal is my contribution in hopes that it can be a tool that God would use to bring about reconciliation for mothers, fathers, and children as I envisioned it growing up. “He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:24

**** “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” ~ Hebrews 4:12-13

***** “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” ~ Titus 2:11-14

****** "Answer not a fool according to his folly,

    lest you be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly,

    lest he be wise in his own eyes." ~ Proverbs 26:4-5