People & Society

Yes just may be my favorite word. It’s so fun to say. I love saying it and I love hearing it. I’m a say-yes wife and a say-yes mom. I’m a say-yes teacher and a say-yes leadership advisor. A woman I look up to once said: “Say yes as often as you can, so that when you say no, they know you mean it.” There is something to that! (She also taught me that every once in a while you have to be willing to ask for forgiveness instead of permission, so maybe take this with a grain of salt! HA!) I know many people view God as a cosmic killjoy and believe that there are more nos in scripture than yeses, but those people would be wrong. I have found so much yes in the freedom of Christ and not sharing it with you would be a tragedy.

THE SAY-YES WIFE: Ok, ladies, hear me out. I get that you are not always in the mood. That my husband is not your husband. Your situation is not my situation. Marriages are not one size fits all. However, maybe you can relate. Early in my relationship with my husband, I resolved to give him all the freedoms of my yeses as often as I possibly could. Yes to hanging out with friends, yes to camping and fishing trips, yes to sex, yes to my time, and yes to our money. (He is even currently at a Fantasy Football Draft thingy as I type.) Honestly, it has been one of the best decisions I have ever made. I know that the saying goes: “If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy!” However, I have found life to be quite the opposite in my home. If my husband is struggling with anything spiritual, vocational, emotional, physical, or all of the above, our home is in complete chaos! He connects with the Lord and is able to refocus when he gets into nature. Allowing or letting him go is never even a question in my mind. OF COURSE, my desire is for him to find his way back to where the Lord is and center. My insecurities about his safety (or even his fidelity) should take a back seat to his relationship with the Lord. He has always come home with a renewed sense of purpose and gratefulness for our life, our home, our family, and our love. I have never regretted saying yes. If you doubt this, you are welcome to drop into his DMs (His insta handle is: aubrishusband – No, it’s not a fake account. No, I didn’t make him pick it. Yes, I think it’s friggin’ awesome. There are just seven hundred John Fosters in the world, and he is the only aubrishusband.) I could go on and on about my theory of saying yes in your marriage, and maybe I’ll make this a series, but I think I’ll move on before this becomes PG-13.

THE SAY-YES MOM: This one has gotten me into more trouble than I have fingers to count on. We have definitely had our fair share of conversations about how me saying yes all the time has forced John to say no more often and thereby making him the bad guy more often. I think this argument is fair and I have learned to be more consistent with our children about the realities of life. But, man it’s fun when we get to say yes together as parents. Our yeses have definitely led to fantastic conversations with our children and taught them to respect our nos. Like most children, they want to know the reasons behind the nos, but because our yeses have been so much more frequent, they also want to know the reasons behind the yeses. Sometimes we have even said yes when we should have said no OR even when they wanted us to say no. This has taught them to choose for themselves which yeses and nos are beneficial and which should be avoided. Now, before you call CPS, we would NEVER say yes to something that was life-threatening or illegal. But in all fairness to our children, they have never really asked us to do anything life-threatening or illegal. I mean, do any children actually ask their parents if that is in their planning? The answer is no. If children are going to do something illegal or life-threatening, they are going to either never tell their parents OR they will tell them after they are home safe. (We were all teenagers once, right?) As parents, we committed from moment one that the children we are raising aren’t ours. They belong to the Lord. We have desired all along that they would come to a saving grace and knowledge of their creator. A relationship with God that is all their own. One that doesn’t have our fingerprints all over it. – When they were little we, of course, said no to lots of things like touching the stove, sticking things in outlets, etc. But as they grew, with all age appropriateness, we said yes to more and more things explaining that they CAN do lots of things, but that doesn’t mean they have to or that everything they can do is actually something they should do. Isn’t that one of our job as parents? To teach our kids that just because we can do things, doesn’t always mean we should. To teach them to be critical thinkers who understand that there are consequences to actions (good and bad) and that choices always affect more people than just yourself. I have so many funny stories of how this parenting strategy has worked, for better or worse, but I do have to say that I am grateful for the relationships I have with my girls and the openness we share as a family because of the trust and freedom that has come with saying yes and allowing them to experience joy and heartache. Walking through the consequences with them of choices that they have had the opportunity to make has been tough, but seeing them grow and learn in the safety of our loving yeses is more than I could have ever imagined. (Maybe this section will turn into something, too! Come back for stories like the time when: Dani whacked herself with the car door, Madi was a “naughty bear” and broke into a cabin, Taylor Swift was seen as the devil, and Madi went to Awana with the words “only on paper” written across her forehead.)

THE SAY-YES TEACHER: I will always tell a student they can use the restroom. I do not want to be the teacher who is known for the time a student pee’d their pants in class. So, whether or not a student actually has to go or not, my answer will always be yes. Well, technically I say things like: “I hope everything comes out OK!” or “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” I have juniors and seniors, they don’t usually know how to respond to this, but I think it’s a little weird that they have to ask me to use the restroom, so my responses correspond with equal awkwardness. I say yes to time, candy, money, space, listening, and even offer a willingness to answer their most awkward questions. The ones they are afraid to ask their parents or friends. I play a game called “fear in a bucket” (much to the chagrin of my principal) in which they can ask me one anonymous question via index card put into a bucket to be read out loud (with appropriate editing by me, of course) and answered with complete honesty. I don’t answer personal questions about my sex life, but I have fielded questions like: If you use a tampon are you still considered a virgin? Are there dogs in heaven? Who would you kiss marry or kill: Elvis, Adam Levine, Bono? – Or more seriously: Is depression a sin? Can I love Jesus and be gay? Do you go to heaven if you commit suicide? – Friends, these are the things our students are thinking about. Everything from dogs in heaven to suicide. If I, as their bible teacher, refuse to have honest and educated conversations about these things in the light of the Gospel (and in partnership with parents and the local church), how in the world will they ever trust an adult before them with their questions? If a student comes to me in need, I will always say yes to meeting their need (*within reason as a mandated reporter, so help me, Jesus.) We have all had good experiences with teachers and bad experiences with teachers that have changed our love for a subject for better or worse. Before I even open my eyes in the morning, I pray for the Lord to be with me in the day to meet the needs of my students and to love them like Jesus. I want to challenge their self-centered thinking toward a Christocentric worldview that places the needs of others before the needs of self. I take Philippians 2:3-4 seriously when it says: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility value others above yourselves, looking not to your own interest, but to the interests of others.” (Our leadership shirts say “You are better than me” – kinda funny, but right on the nose!)

THE SAY-YES LEADER: Our student leaders have brilliant ideas… they also have brilliant ideas that may or may not get someone hurt. Understanding that teenagers have underdeveloped pre-frontal cortexes is a big part of my job as a leadership advisor. Making sound, wise decisions and thinking through all of the consequences of actions isn’t exactly the average teenager’s jam. But, I walk a tightrope every day. One that will either crush the spirit of a student or empower them to think outside the box and produce fun the likes of which the world has never seen. Yes, that is a bit dramatic, but a quickly answered NO to an idea that a student thinks is awesome could result in some serious trust and respect issues. It has been my experience that if we say YES and ask them to flesh out the idea a little further, it will help them come to conclusions about possible outcomes on their own. It’s not to say that there are some times that we have to offer the disappointing no to a group of students. I mean, a student event where everyone trespasses on a golf course to go ice-blocking down a hill is obviously a bad plan on many fronts and deserves a no said with a giggle. But if we can suggest an all-student mini-golf experience where we serve shave ice in lieu of trespassing, maybe that could be a win-win. Can we say no in a way that expresses our desire to say yes and be a child’s champion? Absolutely. I think it all boils down to the heart behind your answer.

This is where it all comes together for me. What is the heart behind my desire to say no to my husband? What is the heart behind my desire to say no to my child? What is the heart behind my desire to say no to my students? I can truly say that the majority of my nos have come from a place of insecurity, fear, control, and even anger. I have never wanted to hold my kids closer and not let them do anything more than after my nephew Jared died in a tragic river incident. Dani was in H.S. and Madi was in M.S. All of a sudden I was saying things like: “No, you can’t ride your bike.” and “No, you cannot shop with your friends. If you need to go to Target, I will take you.” My fear of losing them the way we had lost Jared was all too real. My trust in the Lord was tested, and my insecurities gave way to a need to control every minute of every hour of every day… and it was exhausting. My exhaustion gave way to anger and I found myself frayed and on edge. I had lost focus on the fact that in this life, there will be trouble and that the answer is to take heart and remember that HE has overcome the world. My heart wasn’t focusing on Christ, it was focusing on self, and that is where my trouble came from. (Aubrishusband so gently reminded me of this and quickly said yes to all of my noes and told me to do business with the Lord… I am so thankful that I get to partner with him in our parenting journey.) Here is what I have learned: If my heart is focusing on loving God and others with everything that I am, and trusting God with the roles he has put me in, and my answer is still no – chances are there is a good reason for that no. Otherwise (and as a testimony to my faith in Jesus), my answer should be: Yes & Amen.