{"id":4499,"date":"2010-11-11T00:18:26","date_gmt":"2010-11-11T05:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/?p=4499"},"modified":"2010-11-11T00:49:51","modified_gmt":"2010-11-11T05:49:51","slug":"real-experienced-mom-judy-douglass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/real-experienced-mom-judy-douglass\/","title":{"rendered":"Real (Experienced) Mom Judy Douglass"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=Douglassclan22.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Douglassclan22.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" width=\"380\" height=\"284\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I love the way the internet can bring people together.<\/p>\n<p>Not too long ago I was tweeting about my love of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/20\/wanna-help-fulfill-the-great-commission\/\" target=\"_blank\">Global Media Outreach<\/a>, when my tweet was retweeted and a relationship was born between two previous strangers.<\/p>\n<p>I have never met Judy in person (although, interestingly, we do know and cherish several of the same people!), but I have already been inspired by her in many ways and hope to meet her in person one day.<\/p>\n<p>Many of you might already know of her, as she serves as the Director of Women&#8217;s Resources for <a href=\"http:\/\/campuscrusadeforchrist.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Campus Crusade for Christ<\/a>, serving alongside her husband to lead the organization worldwide. She says her God-assigned role is to to love and encourage CCC staff around the world. Her preferred activities are listening, speaking and writing. I think you&#8217;ll agree that she does those well, as many other things.<\/p>\n<h2>Please meet Real (Experienced) Mom, Judy Douglass<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=Douglassformalnightoncruise.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Douglassformalnightoncruise.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" width=\"287\" height=\"341\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>What are the approximate ages of your children now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Debbie, 30, is married to Nick.<\/li>\n<li>Michelle, 28, is married to Brad.<\/li>\n<li>Joshua, 28, is married to Brandon (yes, a girl)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Do you have grandchildren?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Delightfully so\u20144 of them:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Madison, Josh\u2019s stepdaughter, is 8.<\/li>\n<li>Debbie has 3 boys\u2014Carter, 4; Aidan, 3; and Ethan, 19 months<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What are some of the qualities that you admire in your children?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Many things.<\/p>\n<p>Debbie is an amazing mom\u2014calm, consistent, fun-loving.\u00a0 I love watching her with her boys.<\/p>\n<p>Michelle listens so well\u2014and gives very wise advice.<\/p>\n<p>Joshua, who came to us at 9 from a difficult background, has become a hard-working, responsible man.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How much of their personality now was a part of them as children?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A fair amount with the girls.<\/p>\n<p>Debbie has always been driven, goal-oriented, disciplined, organized.\u00a0 Those characteristics are still with her, though they are softer with the children.\u00a0 She is more relaxed.<\/p>\n<p>Michelle is fairly opposite of that\u2014nothing competitive about her, take it easy, artistic.\u00a0 Most of that is still true, though she has added some discipline to her life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Before your children were of traditional school age, were you a stay at home mom or were you employed outside the home? At the time, how did you feel about that decision? How do you feel about it now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In between.\u00a0 I have always been in ministry.\u00a0 When Debbie was born, I left my job as a magazine editor and<\/p>\n<p>Director of Publications.\u00a0 It\u00a0 took me awhile to figure out who I was\u2014I had been in that job for 14 years.<\/p>\n<p>I continued to have some minor responsibilities with the ministry, plus I wrote a couple of books and began to do a lot of speaking.\u00a0 My mother-in-law moved nearby to help with the kids so I could do these things with more freedom.\u00a0 But my children were always my priority.<\/p>\n<p>Looking back, I have no regrets.\u00a0 I believe God has called each of his children to be part of reaching out to others for His Kingdom.\u00a0 The way my children will know that is by seeing me live it out.\u00a0 I was able to include them in ministry, and much of my personal outreach was with their friends and their families.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe I slighted the needs of my family, so, no, I wouldn\u2019t change my choice now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell me about a difficult decision you remember making as a mom concerning one of your children. If you could do it over, would you make the same choice?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When Josh came to us, he had many needs.\u00a0 As he became a teenager, he made many bad choices, required lots of attention and supervision.\u00a0 My life became very focused on him, and that was difficult for the girls.\u00a0 I would not make the same choice\u2014I would work much harder to keep better balance in being there for all three of them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell me about something you feel you did &#8216;right&#8217; as a mom.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Several things I think I did right:\u00a0 I was totally involved in their activities\u2014Debbie and Josh played soccer for years; Michelle did for awhile.\u00a0 I became a coach to be with them.\u00a0 Michelle then turned to her real love\u2014art\u2014and I went to many art shows.<\/p>\n<p>I read to them all the time!<\/p>\n<p>I prayed for them so much!!!<\/p>\n<p>And I just kept loving them\u2014especially Josh, who for many years made it difficult to love him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What were some of your family&#8217;s favorite meals that you served? Would you mind sharing any of those recipes? <em>(Follow linked text for recipes!)<\/em><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/peach-cobbler-colonial-judy-douglass\/\" target=\"_blank\">Peach cobbler<\/a> was always a favorite.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/texas-bbq-brisket\/\" target=\"_blank\">Texas BBQ Brisket<\/a>\u2014just made it for Josh\u2019s birthday this week.<\/p>\n<p>Serve my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/judys-texas-cornbread\/\" target=\"_blank\">Texas cornbread<\/a> with that.<\/p>\n<p>Most of my cooking is pretty Texan, but every Christmas morning I made <a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/swedish-pancakes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Swedish pancakes<\/a> for my Swedish husband\u2014the kids still love them.<\/p>\n<p>And they still love the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/taco-pie\/\" target=\"_blank\">taco pie<\/a> my mother made and I made.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you establish or follow any family traditions with your children that you especially cherished&#8230; then or now? Tell me about a few of your favorites.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Celebrate with the angels:\u00a0 Whenever any one of us had the privilege of being a part of someone coming to know Christ, we had a celebrate with the angels party.\u00a0 We lit our angel candles, talked about the fact there was a party in heaven because of a new child of God, and thanked God for the privilege.\u00a0 Then we had a treat\u2014sometimes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/peach-cobbler-colonial-judy-douglass\/\" target=\"_blank\">peach cobbler<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Christmas has lots of traditions\u2014chili and tamales on Christmas Eve, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/swedish-pancakes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Swedish pancakes<\/a> Christmas morning, and turkey and cornbread dressing and all for Christmas dinner.\u00a0 We opened gifts Christmas Eve, then had stockings on Christmas morning.\u00a0 We still do that\u2014and everyone looks forward to the surprises in their stockings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=DouglassgchildrenIMG_0300.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/DouglassgchildrenIMG_0300.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" width=\"360\" height=\"322\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>How did you celebrate birthdays with your children?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We started with family parties.\u00a0 When they got to be about 4, we started to have kids come over\u2014about 1 per year of age.\u00a0 Playing soccer grew that number, because we often had a whole team over for a sleepover.<\/p>\n<p>Usually we had a meal, then a dessert\u2014sometimes a cake, but no one in our family is really a cake fan.\u00a0 So sometimes ice cream cake, or a cookie cake, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/peach-cobbler-colonial-judy-douglass\/\" target=\"_blank\">peach cobbler<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now we have a birthday dinner for the honored one.\u00a0 Usually I make it. \u00a0They choose it.<\/p>\n<p>And we are doing it again with the grandkids.\u00a0 I have to restrain my gift giving, though.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What were some of your family&#8217;s favorite things to do together when you had preschoolers? Elementary-school age children? High schoolers? Now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We tried to do a family vacation each year\u2014beach, mountains, fishing, hiking.\u00a0 We are now trying to do it every other year\u2014it so much harder when you have all those in-laws to consider, and people have real jobs and can\u2019t get off work.<\/p>\n<p>We did so many slumber parties\u2014mostly with soccer teams.\u00a0 It was a great time to love on all those kids and sometimes to talk with them about the Lord.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What memories of their youth do you think your children recall most fondly now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Two things stand out, besides those already mentioned:<\/p>\n<p>We often went to my family\u2019s farm in East Texas.\u00a0 The kids wish we had something like that now.\u00a0 Horses, ATV\u2019s, driving the truck, fishing, hunting, chasing cows, painting on the pump house walls, midnight walks through the woods.\u00a0 And lots of good eating.\u00a0 Picking blackberries and shelling black-eyed peas.<\/p>\n<p>Equally memorable is every other summer in Ft Collins, CO for the CCC biannual staff conference.\u00a0 Not only did we have fun running around Colorado\u2014hiking, waterskiing, whitewater rafting, but each summer there they got renew friendships from around the nation and make new friends.\u00a0 During the conference, we had a wonderful children\u2019s program and teen\u2019s program.\u00a0 When Debbie got married, she talked her new husband into coming to the conference for a few days\u2014she had never missed and didn\u2019t want to.\u00a0 Now they are on staff, so their kids are enjoying the same experience.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 227px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=DouglassMaddysfirsthaircut.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/DouglassMaddysfirsthaircut.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" width=\"227\" height=\"319\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Judy&#39;s granddaughter, Madison, after getting her first haircut ever\u2014and giving her hair to locks of love<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p><strong>Is there anything about your parenting that you are especially proud of? What is it? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think I was\u2014and still am\u2014really good at encouraging my kids\u2014that they are special, that they can do it\u2014whatever it is.\u00a0 They tell me they learned about saying thank you to God in all circumstances and please forgive me to them when I blew it.\u00a0 And I think I mostly did a good job of living an authentic walk with God in front of them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is there anything about your parenting that you now regret? Do you mind sharing that with us?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I am not a strong disciplinarian.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that is all bad, but I think I could have used more consistent consequences for them.\u00a0 I just like people to make right choices, do the right thing, and I was annoyed when they didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Be assured, there was discipline and there were consequences, but I was not always consistent and could be pretty wussy.<\/p>\n<p>And as I said, I regret letting the needs of our son steal so much of my attention from the girls.<\/p>\n<p><strong>When your children were very young, did you have any hobbies you enjoyed just for yourself? If so, what were they?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Probably my only hobby at that time was reading.\u00a0 I tried hard to make sure I got time to read.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you could give newer moms three pieces of advice, what would they be?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Keep God first in your heart.<\/p>\n<p>Love and enjoy your husband.<\/p>\n<p>Pray for your kids all the time.<\/p>\n<p>Relax, laugh, enjoy your children.\u00a0 It really goes by so fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is there a question I haven&#8217;t asked that you would like to answer?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I strongly believe that God has called every one of his children to be on His kingdom building team.\u00a0 That should permeate every area of my life.\u00a0 Including my parenting.\u00a0 I need to live out before them what it means to walk with God, to love Him and serve Him, to reach out to others in many ways.\u00a0 I need to teach it and model it.\u00a0 Therefore I must be careful with these little disciples to not let them think the world\/my world revolves only around them.\u00a0 Or they won\u2019t get it\u2014it\u2019s about letting God love people through me.\u00a0 Sure, they are my first priority ministry.\u00a0 But sometimes another\u2019s needs will take precedence.\u00a0 They need to be exposed to the opportunities to love and care and share Christ with many people in different places.<\/p>\n<p>(I wrote a whole book about this\u2014What Can a Mother Do?\u00a0 An updated revision will be out summer 2011.)<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for giving me this opportunity.\u00a0 I love talking about all this.<\/p>\n<p><em>Thank you, Judy, for taking the time to share your beautiful and inspiring stories with us. I tremendously appreciate it!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>To read more about a few of Judy&#8217;s projects, visit:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mygcx.org\/GlobalStaffWomenReferenceSheet\/screen\/home\" target=\"_blank\">GlobalStaffWomen.com<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesignificantwoman.com\/screen\/home\" target=\"_blank\">The SignificantWoman.com<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/synergytoday.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">SynergyToday.org<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inkindle.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">InKindle<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Did anything Judy shared strike you especially? If so, what? (Aside from all those delicious recipes!!!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love the way the internet can bring people together. Not too long ago I was tweeting about my love of Global Media Outreach, when my tweet was retweeted and a relationship was born between two previous strangers. I have never met Judy in person (although, interestingly, we do know and cherish several of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-real-experienced-moms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4499"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4563,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499\/revisions\/4563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}