Five Minute Friday - Risk

So, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.

"It’s Five Minute Friday free write time!

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

OK, are you ready? Please give me your best five minutes on:

Risk…"

I don't remember how many years ago it was that my biggest boy played his first game of Risk... you know... that Hasbro strategy board game where to win, you must conquer the world... you know... that kind of game boys really get into. He might have only been 5 or 6 years old.

Actually though? I didn't know.

I'd probably seen the box before in the board game aisle of the toy stores where my parents would take me growing up. But, I was clueless. I prefered games like Head of the Class, chess and checkers (particularly Chinese checkers), Trivial Pursuit. Even a good game of Connect Four could capture my attention.

Spades and Scrabble were my two favorite. So this game was not only a complete unknown... it was also one that had absolutely so little appeal to me that it had remained a complete unknown for 20 something years of my life.

My husband, on the other hand? Growing up with brothers and a dad who enjoyed strategy games? He knew all about it. Through the years, my big boy, his daddy, his friends, sometimes sisters and lately my little boy - have engaged in too many to count, seemingly unending contests - striving to elimate the competition and conquer the world.

I've always found it interesting that my guys love this game so much, because in real life, I'd be hard pressed to describe any of them as risk-takers. Brendan can attest to the ad-nauseaum number of times I've encouraged him to try something that puts him outside of his comfort zone - I see that he has so much potential in so many areas - and yet he is so seemingly reluctant. Risk, by definition, includes the real possibility that my specific choice will lead to some significant loss or undesirable, unwanted result. As his mama, I want him to strive for something beyond mediocrity... or mundane normalness. I want to see him excel.   And I probably push too hard for him to accept my acceptable perilous outcomes, closing my eyes to all of the very real challenges my becoming young man risks every day.

To think I once thought...

Parenting littlers through learning to love Jesus, scary tropical diseases, long airplane rides, long goodbyes to grandparents and cousins, tumultuous foreign political situations and national, different language schools...

carried more imminent and inherent risk than 

parenting those biggers by coming alongside as we traverse broken hearts, friendship losses and painful goodbyes, peer pressure, final exams, college decisions,  scholarships and financial aid, teachers who don't get MY kid, questions about God and how significant He will be in their  young-but-almost-adult-lives, and all of those other future-impacting choices and life-changing decisions. No, the jeopardies and hazards have only grown.

But so have the possibilities.