During my senior year I spent Friday nights under the lights, cheerleading at my high school’s football and basketball games. Our job was to support and encourage the home team, but we spent more time perfecting our cheers and dance routines than studying the nuances of the game. Once a coach gave us a mini clinic to make sure we understood the sport well enough to do the right cheer at the appropriate time.
I no longer fit in those short, pleated skirts or carry a crinkly pair of red and blue pom poms, but parenting and adulthood continually provide opportunities to hone cheerleading skills of a different sort in support of friends, family, and the students I teach one day a week in our Classical Conversations program. Just as often, those same friends and family — and yes, even the students — bless me with the same.
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up . . .
1 Thessalonians 5:11
When my kids were younger, I served as president of our homeschool group. I soon learned that the best way to serve was not to take on more work for myself but to delegate authority to other moms and then step aside and become their cheerleader. If you’re a perfectionist like me, it can be hard to let go, but it allows someone else the chance to shine and it gives you the opportunity to cheer them on with grace and humility.
To read more about cheering on the people in our lives, please visit me today at (in)courage.
