Something was confirmed yesterday  that I had suspected for a long time now.  I''m losing my ''cool''.  My daughter is the keeper of the ''cool quotient'' and with no words at all, she let me know that I was sliding down the scale quickly. 

It started innocently enough. We were having a fascinating discussion on some of the national celebrities and I said,"Remember when Jennifer Lopez was dating Tupac?"  That''s when I got "the look".  You know the one? It''s when your child looks at you with such pity, rolls their eyes and sighs because you have said something ridiculous and you aren''t even aware of what it is.  She responded, "You mean Diddy , right Mom?"    Well, how the heck should I know...Tupac...Diddy...they''re all just rappers to me!  So of course I tried to cover, by acting nonchalant and saying, "Yeah, whatever!"   Of course I knew that my confusing the two rappers was as unbelievable to her as it would have been to me if someone confused Luther Vandross with Michael Jackson!

That''s when I knew I was losing my ''cool''.  I thought about it all the next day and wondered, when does the transition from being hip and cool change to being out of date and (dare I say it)...old?  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that some of my transition started due to this very same child coming into my life.  I remembered how I started neglecting keeping up with all the ''cool'' things so that I could fill my mind with tunes from Barney, The Little Mermaid, and Veggie Tales.  Who had time to be ''cool'' when there was Adventures in Odyssey to listen to and the Bernstein Bears to read?  Why waste time with staying ''cool'' when I could play with Barbie again and bake delectable goodies in her Easy Bake Oven?  My days had been spent recapturing the joys and wonder of childhood, while planting seeds of her great value in the heart of my daughter.  To me it was time well spent.

So my ''cool'' quotient has definitely come down a notch or two but I take comfort in knowing there is someone who always thinks we’re cool.  He says it like this: "For the Lord sees not as people see: people look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."  (1 Samuel 16:7)

And that''s the standard I''m choosing to live by. I want to have a heart that pleases God.  I believe when that becomes our focus, we can be certain that we are just ''cool'' enough.