The Ministry of Netflix

As Summer embraced us with her lazy ways and long days, I had one supreme goal:

Spend as much time with this girl as possible, doing things that we both love. No hidden motives. No forced conversations. 

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Teenagers can sniff out an agenda a mile away. This is frustrating but weirdly freeing! Because it means you can just relax and enjoy the show.

And that’s literally what we did.

We burned through four seasons of LOST, two seasons of Friday Night Lights, and jumped back into Gilmore Girls.

We went shopping.

We ate dinner together on the sofa.

We yelled at characters when they made stupid decisions and cried together when they died.

We laughed our faces off at Sawyer’s nicknames for people and rolled our eyes at Lyla Garrity because hashtag sheisoannoying.

It was one of the best summers I’ve ever had.

As we began to settle in to our summer routine of Netflix, followed by more Netflix, a funny thing happened. She began to talk. About real stuff. The kind of stuff that’s deep and honest. And I wasn’t the one who started the conversations.

This is still happening. And it feels like magic.

Spending time with her in seemingly superficial ways opened up the door to meaningful, substantial dialogue. That part wasn’t even the goal, but it’s been the sweetest gift ever. All these months later, we’re still watching our shows and hanging out on the sofa. And because our relational roots have grown deeper, I’ve earned the privilege of being able to speak into her life and even teach her in ways that she’ll actually receive.

At one point over the summer, she mentioned that she wasn’t as excited about going to a sleepover because it would mean we couldn’t watch our shows together. What?!?

Why didn’t anyone ever tell me I was making it too hard?


Marian Vischer
Marian Vischer
Marian is a wife, mom, Communications Director for a local non-profit, and writer. She's been writing on the Internet since 2007 and in scattered journals since adolescence. Marian believes in the power of personal stories to tell a greater story and she inspires others to recapture the hope and possibility of their right-now lives, no matter how messy or impossible things seem. When she's not running a taxi service for her three kids, you can find her at local thrift stores hunting for buried treasure or on her screen porch with a book. She loves personality tests, solitude, making things pretty, taking pictures, and leaning ever more into the love of Jesus. You can follow her blog at MarianVischer.com.

Related Posts

Comments

Recent Stories