We took our mandatory spring break trip to Six Flags with TJ and Tori. Taylor was on a mission trip in Guatemala. The weather was great, and the lines were really short. It had rained enough to close the park the previous 2 days, so we were really surprised.
Is it just me, or is Tori really excited in this picture with Scooby Doo?
TJ had a little out patient surgery today to repair a hernia. All went perfectly as expected with no problems. He gets to take it easy for a week or so, and then things should be pretty much back to normal.
After all the beans were counted, TJ scored almost $4000 when you count school, church and Baylor matching. Thanks to all of you that have been praying for us, and please keep it up until we survive this weekend. I hate to say it, but I’ll be glad once the ceremony is over and all the people have gone home and we can have a couple of reasonably normal months until time to pack and leave.
I know that a lot of what I’ve been writing about recently has been TJ, but that is a lot of what’s been going on. After the Lion’s Club and Distinguished Student awards last week, here comes the MHS awards tonight. In two weeks are the scholarship awards. We are praying for big time favor from both the church and the McKinney Education Foundation. All college is expensive. Private college is ridiculously expensive. We’ll know the answer of those by 5/20. He’s a varsity athlete, number 5 in his class, and recipient of the Baylor Presidential Scholarship. I have no doubt that there is nothing he cannot accomplish, if he so chooses. If he says he is going to be a pediatrician, then I believe he’ll be a pediatrician.
We found out yesterday that he has been asked to give the invocation at Baccalaureate. He says the leaders and sponsor of the FCA who get to recommend the candidate, “Know how he rolls.” I have no doubt. When he told us he had been nominated for Prom King, I was a little surprised. Never one to jeopardize his witness, he has shunned fast girls and parties his whole high school career. He has chosen to be as popular as he wants to be, not whatever his friends or classmates think he should be. In spite of all his other accomplishments, I think this is one of the things of which I am most proud. It just goes to show that when you honor God above all other things, sometimes the most unlikely of things comes out of it.
As we walk through this time with him, looking back on how much of the past 18 years has been spent on him, it’s hard not to be a little melancholy. All of my kids are special, and God has blessed me greatly, but having almost arrived at the end of this part of the race it’s hard to imagine life at the Benson house without TJ there. He has an almost obnoxious over abundance of personality and has spent the better part of the last two decades alternating between trying our patience and making us more proud than any parent deserves to be. He burns white hot, and when he is gone, our world will be a little dimmer. Tammy asked me last night, “Who are we going to be when he leaves? We’ve always been TJ’s parents.”
I know our work is not yet done with him, and I know we have two more kids still to go, but all of this brings up a point we were discussing in small group a couple of weeks ago. It’s a good thing that Tammy and I have a marriage with Christ and the foundation and we know our identity comes from who we are in Him, not from being TJ’s parents. We share common things apart from the kids, like our common involvement in ministry. If all we were was parents, I can easily understand how you could wake up one day and feel like the world had been pulled out from under you.
When we do wake up on that day in August and he is gone, it will be an interesting time as we embark on the next phase of our lives. Trying to get Taylor through high school, and Tori though elementary school. Refocusing on what amazing gifts God has given us in them, and helping them to find out what His calling is on their lives. It will give them a chance to grow and thrive a little more out of his shadow. It will be lots of things, but the main one is that it will be here too soon…
Last week TJ was honored by the McKinney Lions Club as the outstanding male student from MISD for the month of April. Last night, we attended a banquet where he was recognized as 1 of 12 Distinguished Students from McKinney High School from various disciplines. TJ’s award was for excelling at a foreign language.
As he prepares to wrap up his high school career and head off to college, I think these awards have meant a lot to him. He has made a lot of sacrifices for his grades over the years. Ones that I know I didn’t make. I guess that’s why I didn’t graduate number 5 in my class like he is going to do.
As he gets ready to go to Baylor in August as the recipient of one of their Presidential Scholarships, I am thankful that as one of our friends put it “God has been able to straighten out all of our failings as parents.” people always ask us for parenting tips because they think our kids are so great I just assure them that they are great in spite of me, and that with enough prayer, God can make their kids great too.
I look forward to seeing the plan that God has for TJ’s life coming to fruition in the next few months. Please join me in praying that it will be perfectly obvious to TJ exactly what it is.
Last week was a rough week for TJ. His girlfriend of almost 8 months dumped him without really explaining why, and then to top it off, for some reason he thought it would be a good idea to slam his car into a light pole in the Lifetime Fitness parking lot. I kept telling him all the reasons it was not a big deal, but he didn’t really want to hear it at that particular time. Nobody got hurt, he didn’t run into someone else’s car, and the damage to his car, though pretty expensive, was not of the type that will ruin a car forever. No damage to the engine, no damage to the frame, just some plastic and metal.
We took a few minutes and talked about Job, and how in the grand scheme of things, it really wasn’t that bad. He contemplated going down the “Curse God and die” road, but decided against it.
We went to Aparicio’s for lunch after church with the Johnson family. Marty the Magician, who is always good, was in rare form. After several of his usual tricks with the scarfs and balls, he did the “stick the card from the middle of the deck to the ceiling” trick.
He then proceeded to make balloon figures for everybody. TJ got one of everything. A hat, a holster with sword and pistol, and a motorcycle. It was a ton of fun.
____________ Sent from my Dash Smartphone!
As I mentioned last week, TJ and Taylor went on a mission trip to Mexico over Spring Break. I haven’t gotten a lot of details from Taylor yet, but TJ could hardly contain his excitement over the trip. They were supposed to have translators, but that didn’t work out. That meant that as a 4th year spanish student, TJ became the resident expert.
Fortunately he prepared before he left by having his spanish teacher translate some “ministry” type words for him. It’s not like he learned to say “worship” in class. Equiped with his cheat sheet, he proceeded to be the translator for all of the group activities. He got to preach twice, and give his testimony six times. He was also able to explain salvation to seven people and lead them in a prayer accepting Jesus as their Lord. ALL IN SPANISH!
He was wavering a little bit on what he wants to do when he gets to college now that the time is almost here. I think that this trip, and his ability to be an integral part of reaching people, and not just along for the ride, really helped to remind him why he had chosen to go pre-med so he could become a medical missionary.
TJ and Taylor have spent the last week in Mexico on FBC’s Youth Mission Trip. It has been a good thing for me, as we were all on pretty bad terms when they left. Sometimes kids are kids, and even when they’re 18 they do boneheaded things that get on your nerves.
That is one of the reasons I am truely thankful that FBC sends kids on mission trips. Not beach trips or ski trips, but trips to places that kids should see. They get to have a chance to partner with God in the work he is doing around the world, and they also get to see how most of the rest of the world lives. It’s a great reality check to go into Mexica, or South Africa, or even rural Arkansas and see what it is like. From a purely selfish standpoint, I find the next couple of months after they come back to be really pleasant. There’s nothing quite like perspective.
This was Taylor’s first trip abroad, if you can call Mexico abroad. I look forward to hearing what she thought, and what God did in her life while she was there.
Well, what is there to say? It went well. TJ was blown away and his mother liked it a lot. It’s hard not to like a place where they open the get acquainted assembly with a prayer. The combination of a great pre-med program and the ability to get a minor in religion might be just the ticket he’s looking for if he truly wants to be a medical missionary.
