A vacation on a campground and how realities can be completely different
The past two weeks I have been on a campground with my children. We were in a tent, enjoying the warmth of a beautiful autumn.
Since the campground was one of only a few which were open during this fall season, my sister was there with her family during almost the same period of time. She stayed in a bungalow with her husband and her three kids.
I sent some holiday pictures to my other sisters and to my mom. My pictures looked like this:






The same day, the same beach, our children playing together in the sand… hers clothed like it was chilly, mine like it was pleasantly warm.
So how should we handle these differences? What kind of differences will you allow in your own family? What reality are you holding on to? What is your ultimate truth?
So how can we become what we truly are, how can we give our children the freedom to live it?
My experience to this question is simple, yet profound:In knowing the one who made us.God is the one that knows us, made us, loves us. And he is the ultimate truth. The word of God tells us what’s right and wrong, who God is, what he thinks about us.
Differences are not scary or threatening anymore, but they make our kids even more lovable, interesting and special.

Like I already said, we slept in a tent and the temperature went down to between 12-16°C (53-61°F) during the night. I dressed myself warmly and was never feeling too hot. Of course I wanted to dress my children the same way, in order that they wouldn’t get a cold.
But one of my kids refused. He told me: Mom, I will be sweating if I put all these clothes on! Knowing that indeed he does not get cold easily, I agreed to let him dress more lightly. In the mornings (or when I woke up in the middle of the night when I checked if all my kids were well covered) he was never cold.
So what was the reality about that situation? Well…That the temperature outside was between 12-16 degrees (53-61°F).
That’s it.
I guess, you’ll be able to recall plenty of similar situations in your own life where the reality of your child was different from yours.
The beautiful thing is – there is no reason to make them feel about things the same way you do! It rather is our task to understand how they feel about it, and to teach them to move in their awareness of life in order to become these unique, successful adults they are designed to be.