2 . When I suggested my 13-year-old try tennis, she quickly refused me. “I’m not sporty; stop trying to get me to do sports,” Julianna said. I had suggested it because some of my happiest recent memories were of playing ping-pong with her. Tennis seemed like a natural progression from ping-pong and a great way to work out some of her growing pains on a larger playing field. But my suggestion was always refused by her.

Still, I was undeterred. I believed that doing some sports would help Julianna manage her emotions. I’ve seen how sports help with stress. It worked for me when I was a teenage girl.

Midway into summer, we stayed at home, and Julianna and I felt really bored. “Do you want to play tennis?” I asked her at lunch one afternoon. Sure, she said. At that time, we were both eager to spend as much time as possible out of the house.

Arriving at the court, we set down our bags, picked up our rackets (球拍), and headed to our sides of the court. The net was like the growing divide between us — I desiring connection and my teenage daughter longing for independence.

I started by hitting a ball over the net, and Julianna took a big swing and missed. We repeated this several more times. I didn’t tell her she was holding the racket too close to the neck or she should step more into her forehand. My daughter wanted the chance to figure these things out for herself. We repeated the pattern of me hitting the ball and her missing it a few times before she finally got it back over the net. “This is fun,” she said with a mixture of surprise and delight and then she smiled widely.

Now we always find time to play tennis. We’re both eager for an activity that can ease tensions between us in daily life. It’s nice to have a place where both of us can release our negative moods and let them go.

3 . I had been saying goodbye to my mom for ten years. That was how ______ she had breast cancer. At first, there was the fear that she would die. But as she ______ series of treatments, life took ______ a new normal. But cancer is an unrelenting (冷酷无情的) foe. It was a journey from ______ to hope again and again, and only painkillers could keep her ______ . At 66, my mom was dying, but we could do nothing. I ______ praying for God to heal her but rather to take her. I learned that dying is the ______ healing. How brokenhearted when a patient or family is ______ a death.

My mother showed me how to fight her foe with knowledge, humor and ______ . And when the time came, she showed me how to die with grace, dignity, humor and wisdom. ______ , while it is hard to escape from the ______ , I want to anticipate the joy of the day when all the pain and hurt of this world will be over. One day, I will die and ______ those I love. One day, those I love will die as well. I don’t want it to envelop me to the point where I cannot enjoy life and make ______ that will last not only in this life, but hopefully into the next.

In those ten years watching my mother die, I learned that we cannot ______ avoid grief in this life. But we can seek out and remind ourselves to anticipate the joy, no matter how ______ things are.

We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

As we search for belonging, teenagers are looking for their identity. They are making the physical and emotional transition to independence and they are constantly looking for the thing that will define their lives. They are asking     1     in order to understand their personhood, eager for the identity that will give them meaning. they want to look to romance. School, friends, popularity, money, technology, or their bodies for that meaning.

We want acceptance, which is what we so often search for online. We fear missing out. because we never want to be the one who doesn’t fit in. Teenagers also want to be known truly and loved deeply.     2    

Some people may have the stereotype(成见)that teenagers are strictly shallow thinkers.     3     That means the teens in your Sunday school class or youth group can understand much more than just listening to simple stories.

The teen years are a time full of trouble and fear can go into almost every area of life-school work, friendships, church, family members, and, perhaps biggest of all, the future. Life feels very much unknown to teenagers. So even though they may feel confident, or promise you they have everything planned out, they are anxious about life.

    5     They have studied history and now they’re ready to take their place in it. They’re ready to make their mark. They want to change the world. Finally, they want their lives to matter forever. And for that to happen, they need the belief.

5 . When my older daughter Hope was five years old, she was looking for a gift to give me for Christmas. Not having any _______ of her own, Hope went to different neighbors and asked if she could do small _______ to make some money. I don’t know how she _______ it, but that Christmas she gave me a gift I will never _______.

Because money was tight, I had not been _______ to subscribe to the newspaper. Reading a newspaper is one of my _______, and I would look for one at doctors’ offices or anywhere else a _______ one might be found.

Hope _______ this as we often read these freebies together. Her gift was wrapped in bright festive paper and taped together with clear tape. _______ enough to be held in my hand, I questioned the ________ of the gift. Hope laughed, “You’ll love it!” Inside were two ________. “It’s for a newspaper,” she said. “We can go and get a ________ one out of the machine!” I held those precious quarters in my hand and knew then that I was a very ________ woman.

That was many years ago. Hope is in college now. When she left for college, I gave her a jar of quarters, a reminder that her love was ________ to me. It was a reminder that love costs nothing, but means ________ to a mother and her daughter.

8 . “Have you checked the oil in the car?” my father used to say to me, his version of “Hello, hope you are well.” Sometimes our phone calls would begin with an inquiry about the oil and end with one about the oil.

Fathers have a lot of love to give, but it’s often supplied through the medium of practical advice. In my experience: It’s mostly about your motor vehicle.

My student car—an old green Toyota bought for $500—was the vehicle for which my father carved his paternal affections（父爱）. I bet it’s always been so. Back in ancient Rome, the father would test the son on the state of his carriage.

Why can’t fathers just say “I love you” or “It’s great to see you”？ The point is: You just have to translate from the language that is Fatherlish. Listen closely enough and the phrase love you can be heard in the slightly lengthier “I could come around Saturday and replace the seal（密封圈）around the base of your toilet because I assume that thing is getting really smelly.”

The affectionate phrase “You made my life better from the moment you were born” may be rarely heard, but there is the more common “I’ll hold the ladder while you get the leaves off the roof.”

When I was 17, I went on my first road trip in that Toyota. My father stood on the comer. “Highways are dangerous,” he said, “so don’t try overtaking anything faster than a horse and carriage. And take a break every two hours. And every time you stop for gas, you really should check the oil.” At the time we thought his speech was pretty funny and would repeat “horse-and-carriage” every time I sped up to overtake some other speeding vehicle.

Dad’s long gone now. But after all these years, I realize that had I owned a copy of the Fatherlish-to-English dictionary, I’d have understood that the speech my friend and I so ignored was simply dad’s attempt at affection.