Daily Guideposts - 20 Day Sampleಮಾದರಿ

The Times are Changing

On a rainy Friday night, I stand in the walkway at Lincoln Center, waiting to pick up my Student-Rush-ticket-obsessed twelve-year old from the ballet. I watch a family tickle a baby in a stroller as they take shelter from the downpour.

Suddenly, I miss Elizabeth. I check the time, and then text her: "Howz life?"
I smile when my phone beeps that I have a message. She writes back: Decent! Had a kinda rough week, 005 p-set was crazy hard, but it’s done now.

That’s MIT-talk for saying her computer science homework was more than unusually difficult.

I text back: Do you like the class? I know it’s on algorithms, though I have only the vaguest idea what that means.

She says it’s hard but pretty cool overall. My how-stressed-is-she meter registers in the normal zone, and I’m grateful that texting allows for the appearance of nonchalance.

"John doing okay?" she writes, then asks after the others.

I provide short updates, tapping out letters one by one on my cell phone. Texting makes for a highly edited version of life, but there are enough ties to bind us—years, prayers, love—that I don’t worry if a few details are lost.

Besides, long-distance parenting requires different skills and methods. My daughter is growing up; how we stayed close in the past matters less than finding ways to grow close in the future. Which tells me one thing about devotion: It’s more about being open to love than about sticking to the same old methods.

Lord, open my eyes today to new ways to grow closer to You.

—Julia Attaway