Parenting With Intensity and Intentionality

It was the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. The U.S.A. Gymnastics team was on its way to winning its first Olympic team gold medal. All they had to do was survive the last apparatus of the competition: the vault.

If you remember this night, you know the intensity of what was about to happen. Famously known, little 14-year-old Dominique Moceanu, was up next. Assuming she would at least hit one of the vaults, the crowd knew they had this in the bag. But lo and behold, she fell right onto her bottom on both vaults. The stakes were high. The emotions high. The volume high, as the Georgia Dome exploded with cheers of angst and worry as there was one gymnast left.

Kerri Strug.

She stood at the beginning of the run, looking as poised as ever. She catapulted off the vault, with 2 feet landing on the ground, but falling backwards awkwardly, with her one foot up in the air, as if to favor it. After slowing getting up and limping to the side, she was clearly trying to walk off an injury. She played it off, as if nothing was going to stop her, with her coach, Bela Karolyi, confidently and intensely saying, with his fist pumping, “YOU CAN DO IT.” His eyes locked in on hers. His voice firm and almost forceful, ensuring Kerri too, believed that she could do it.

YOU CAN DO IT.

If you’ve seen the replays, you know the intensity with which he spoke to her. He had an insurmountable belief in her because he knew what led up to that point. He knew the intentionality he had every day leading up to that. The countless hours of practice spent in the gym. The words he knew that worked with her. The tone with which he used them. Showing up to every meet, expecting each routine to go just as how they practiced it.

I want to parent with that same intensity.

You see, Kerri’s coach could’ve met her at the practice gym and just let her do her thing. He could’ve shown up at meets and not say a word. He could DO all the right things, but if he never encouraged her or let his actions not be paired with words, what good was it just showing up?

As parents, we can take our kids to church, read the Bible, pray, or even pay for them to go to a Christian school, but if they don’t see our passion for God or if our actions contradict our words, we are missing the ENTIRE point.

We are called to be imitators of God, reflecting what we see through our actions and words. We are to invest in the Kingdom of God, not just its pleasures. Are our words matching our actions? Are we INVESTING in our kids in a way that our words catapult them to live out their faith as they see us living out ours?

When Kerri looked at her coach with a fear in her eyes, he looked at her, with a surety she needed to SEE AND HEAR – “YOU CAN DO THIS”.

I want our daughter to leave our home knowing that in this world, she will have trouble. Unfortunately, she has already experienced a fair share of that. But I don’t want her to just go through the motions in her life, but to have a PASSION for her faith. For GOD. For HIS KINGDOM.

But if I don’t model that for her, if I choose to just go through the motions and not use my own words of passion to encourage her faith, how would I EVER expect her to share that faith with others?

Parent with intensity and intentionality. These years that they are in our home, are the practice sessions leading up to the “meets” (going into the world, leaving our homes, getting married, having their own kids, etc.) This, I need to remind myself of often. Complacent, comfortable faith is easy. Passion, intensity, and intentionality, is not. It takes energy and effort. But this is the life we are called to. A life of passion for God in gratitude for the God who has passion for us. A God who laid down His OWN SON for ME.

If that’s not parenting with intensity, I don’t know what is.

YOU CAN DO THIS.

(In case you’re wondering how it ended…the crowd as nervous and intense as ever, with their cheers patting Kerri on the back all the way down the runway, she catapulted once again, landing on 2 feet, and the crowd ERUPTED, knowing she helped the team win the gold medal. She erupted in tears, as she tore ligaments in her ankle. BUT, in the end, they WON THE GOLD MEDAL. All because of the intensity with which they lived.