Warming: This could be a long one. Long time no write.

The idea of community is very foreign to some but with experience in community (not a weird naked-loving one by the way), I am keen on it for it’s many facets. Truthfully I feel part of the Television community on some nights. I feel drawn into their stories and often am provoked in my thoughts or moved in my emotions when their ‘unreal’ situations are happening. Funny. True.

I am driven crazy by it too but that is family aye. Community is family. Life in community (church I’m talking) has it’s ups and downs because people are human and we all do dumb stuff. As I write this I’ve been aware that mostly I am totally in love with the Church but am also challenged by the attitudes in our hearts that come to the surface when we rub shoulders with others. (photo is a recent get-together of wonder-woman friends, spectacular fun!)

I was feeling rather stretched in my mind as to what my future held, not necessarily because I was on my own, but that definitely made it feel more tricky if I thought about it for too long! I’d just started working for a few hours a week and that was great but after that came a few more job offers and opportunities. Opportunities to do some things which made me feel excited! Feeling like I could give up the kidswork I was doing at church voluntarily, to do other stuff. Then a dear friend reminded me of what I was good at, what I was passionate about and how that passion had excited her to come and work with me to reach out to kids.

“The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work that you most need to do and the word most needs to have done…. Thus, the place God calls you is the place your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. Frederick Buechner

Another friend agreed with my ‘silly’ idea of trying to help other mums and dads who found themselves on their own with their children. Sometimes a simple word from another, can help direct the course of your life I guess! I am constantly aware of how good this community thing is. It is a challenge too but a worthwhile one.

We’ve been fortunate enough to stumble across the Anne of Green Gables series. I was flooded with memories of it – her being called Carrots, the delicious Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, her bosom buddy Dianna and her outrageous approach to being herself. What a great example of someone who was so comfy in her own skin, even though she is a fictional character. We’ve just started the littlest house on the praire – oh how delicious. I’m so glad I’ve got girls I can re-watch those priceless movies with (or girls I can make watch the things I want to!).

The girls had different understandings of what a bossom buddy (Anne of Green G) was – k (the 7 year old) seemed to get it straight away and listed a few of her dearest friends. L just kept looking at my chest, giggling. Kindred Spirits.

One of my bosom buddies text me the other night to see if I wanted to see her latest purchases on skype. It was like a teenage expose of her new clothes and trendy hand-bag. She was elated and did cute wee curtsies at me, prancing around her kitchen infront of the small camera. I loved it.

I had decided that this year was the year of the high-heel. I have one pair and my mind had thought that maybe now that I was getting older, my shoes could be even more mature. The year of the heals is going to be fabulous. Some years it’s just the year of “Oh my goodness I have no clothes” but I wasn’t feeling that. I experimented a bit with scarves last year so maybe that was last years ‘thing’. Anyway another bosom buddy gave me a generous gift to go towards a pair of heels.

On the whole ‘being just 3’ situation, we are doing well. Mostly we are walking along the road of our life, routines and all, and doing well. I am aware that grief is a part of my process more than the girls and I have to be aware of the simple fact that I am grieving the loss of something rather big. But I can say we are laughing, enjoying others, loving life and growing together in all of that. Are there moments of complete ahhhhhhh? Yes. But we sort out and keep walking. It’s colder now and I’m not enjoying that. I realize that with every change of season in the natural, I always feel so umprepared. I am in my summer wardrobe, not ready for merino wool again, but so glad I have it (thank you glassons for reasonably priced merino!).

We’ve had some cool surprises along the way recently. Letter-box gifts of money and presents. Lunches being shouted, coffees being given. In those small or big moments, I have very glad and grateful.

Joan D Chittister, ‘Scarred by Struggle, transformed by hope’.

Struggle is not one thing; it is many things. It’s not simply an event, a happening, a disappointment. It’s all the internal processes that accompany a blow to the psyche so momentous, so sudden, so unexpected, so unwanted that there is no way whatsoever to prepare for its coming.

Struggle forces us to confront our illusions both about the world and ourselves.

Hope is greater than faith because hope not only believes in the presence of the God of Eternity. Hope believes, as well, in the God of Time who companions us now and waits for us in a beneficent future as we discover in struggle all the layers of life within us that go basically unseasoned in times of plenty but wax in times of lean.

It is the gift of new life in disguise. A hard gift, perhaps. A strong gift, indeed. But a gift without which we run the risk of going to our graves only half alive.

12^th century Persian poet Jalaluddin Rumi

I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow

And called out,

“It tastes sweet, does it not?”

“You’ve caught me,” Grief answered,

“And you’ve ruined my business.

How can I sell sorrow

When you know it’s a blessing?”

There is beauty in the dark valleys of life. It is called hope. Helen Keller, “The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.”

some education

I’m reading ‘Lunch in Paris’ by Elizabeth Band. It’s a fun romantic read. It has recipes too which is an added bonus. Making French mint tea could be my next taste sensation.

The girls and I (through them waking up so flippin early and myself needing to wake to have some devotion) are reading in my bed together each morning. It’s a quiet time. I’ve mentioned the word devotion – being devoted to one who loves us. So L has a Princess Bible (with some bling on the front!) which she is devouring and K has a daily story-thing about some girls with ponytails and a follow-up bible story with some activities. She is in love with that too. It’s really sweet. It’s really simple. It’s simply us connecting with God in a simple way. Sometimes I cant recall what I’ve read and only seem to manage half a chapter of the particular book of the Bible that I’m reading. Little questions come up so I’m trying to have grace for that, whilst waking myself up, trying to read something challenging for myself. There were three in the bed ………

We are going to milo cricket. The girls love it as they get free treats each week – a cricket ball, a hat. We are learning sports.

Our verse (that sounds very nerdy indeed but it’s usually just a quick thought or a big issue that has surfaced that calls for a new verse!) for the next few months (after writing, colouring, reciting and surprisingly memorising 1 Corinthians 13 (part of it anyway)) is this:

Luke 6 verse 27 – bless those who persecute you, love those who hate you, be kind to those who ill-treat you (something like that).

And the prayers that followed went like this:

L – thank you that these words are the truth, that they are not fake words. Help us to pray for those who are mean to us.

It is this particular verse for several reasons – the 7 year old is no kinder to the annoying lad in class, than any of her class mates. And she didn’t want to have a heart change. Little does she realise that this verse will change her, where my words could not. They are also for me. I have had some heart breaking moments since the ‘severe heart break’, that have caused me to remember this verse and act on it. Life is so tough sometimes but his Word is so enduring. I have lacked direction in my pain and have wanted out of it not knowing what to do. And then the verse comes to mind. Yippie. Not, but it is a relief. It is like a surprising medicine. To pray for someone who is like an enemy. To pray for someone I have wished not-alive. To pray for a cruel one, an excuse-maker, a heart-breaker.

Some great wisdom that is teaching from another friend: "But there is a right and a wrong kind of surrendering. The Anabaptists used to speak of "Gelassenheit" - of self-surrender to the will of God, of not striving to achieve but simply trusting. Perhaps that's what you need now - a good dose of Gelassenheit!

The image of the weaned child in Ps 131.. God's ways are much too hard for us to understand, so that the only option is to sit, like a recently fed baby on its mother's lap, and simply trust in the goodness and security of God's care, and give up trying to understand."

Can I or we, do that? It's a great picture to have, it's a great aim to have. I like and need pictures to help me relate to laying stuff down or just simply coping. we all seem to cope differently but i love the help friends give from their own experience and struggle.

Sarah S from the UK, thanks so much for your kindness to me. I got your chocy parcel in the post today. Thank you for the words, thanks for reading the blog, thanks so much for thinking of me in such a radical way. LOVE IT! Lindt. There is no other chocolate. That's a lifetime of education right there.

(photo - it's what we look like in the morning - all smiley and so glad to be awake! well the girls anyway.)

The Livster

Hello my lovely girl.

This is a week or so late, but it’s been loads of thoughts going around my head, all about YOU!

You turned 6. Wowsers.

You love hearing about when you were a baby and how you were a lovely surprise to your mummy and daddy. Well you are still full of wonderful surprises.

You say the funniest things – tonight you talked to your hamburger bun at dinner time, introducing it as a noodle bun, as you politely shoved 2 minute noodles into it. K and I laughed.

You talk to me about how you like my hair – you start to say I look better without a fringe but then you seem to think that’s rude so you tell me it’s cool however I wear it. You are sensitive to others. I like that Liv.

You risk being told off by telling the truth. You want to be known to be truthful, especially in helping me parent. You correct me and mostly that is rather helpful. You take real joy in other peoples happiness. You love hearing their news and congratulating them. I love it when you offer your food or things to your sister. You are so kind.

At the moment you are desperate to be reading chapter books like your sister. When we read together in the morning (in my bed), silently, you join us with your special books from the library. They are smaller chapter books, real special liv!

At your birthday party you had 3 different nationalities. You love people and have a crazy mix of friends. I pray for lovely friends for you this year. People that you can love and people that will love you for who you are. Not just K’s friends. Your own special friends.

I love overhearing you talk to yourself. It’s so funny! You put on funny voices at the dinner table to entertain us. You can laugh at yourself.

You are serious. You are sensitive. You are loud and you are quiet. You are a beautiful mix Liv. I pray that I can help you have a super year being 6. I am so proud of you. You are a wonderful student at school and a fun girl to be with at home. I also hope we can master riding a bike this year and that you can keep growing in God and his ways.

He loves you so much Liv. You know that too which I’m glad of. You pray to him with such a big heart – you tell Him he is wonderful and powerful and Worthy. It is so cute listening and so encouraging. You are a pretty girl, my beautiful princess.

I am so happy being your mum. Have a great year being 6. Enjoy every moment – that’s what I’ll be telling you. Love mum

A poem

I'm a bit lost with what to write at the moment, can't seem to find words or time to do words. But i got this from a daily spiritual blurb i get and again Henri Nouwen is bliss. Thankful for His words, becoming my prayer.

Gentle Voice

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Dear God,
Speak gently in my silence.
When the loud outer noises of my surroundings
and the loud inner noises of my fears
keep pulling me away from you,
help me to trust that you are still there
even when I am unable to hear you.
Give me ears to listen to your small, soft voice saying:
"Come to me, you who are overburdened,
and I will give you rest...
for I am gentle and humble of heart."
Let that loving voice be my guide.
Amen.

Source

Small catch-up

This past week has been a tiring blur.

It’s been so busy (of which I’m mostly glad) I’ve been kept from really touching base with my heart. I’m not sure what I think of the last weekends happenings. I’m kind of not even sure how to process it.

Instead I’ve started a wee job.

Had a darling ones birthday celebration, dance classes and school picnics,




Organised and executed a party (with some particularly bratty 6 year olds), followed by ‘have-a-go’ cricket for both the sweethearts, all with the daddy present (so grateful for that visual reminder of recent pain – not)

And been exceptionally tired (not just because I read Miley Cyrus’s biography in a few hours!).

Hopeful for a slightly more down-to-earth (yet calling out heavenwards) week even though we include trialling girls brigade, more dance lessons, cricket and homework. Mothers are miracle workers at times, I feel.

Well done mothers. My mum was here this week and she is amazing. I hope that whatever your week has held, mother or not, you are finding solace for yourself even if it is reading a few chapters of an easy read like the above. Whatever it is, I hope for time for you, to do something kind for your heart. I hope that for myself too. Where are you big heart and what is happening with you?

I’ve been a bit agro at a few things, like why the weather has been rainy when I need it to be sun-filled (‘so confused sometimes God’! ….. a line from a prayer whispered today). The agro has to lead me to Him. Even though the weather was not what I needed, the outcome was one hundred times better than expected. Ta muchly for that surprise Father G.

Slightly overwhelmed

Hard one to write today.

Perhaps a short one too (yeah right!).

Overwhelmed due to:

the end of the marriage

the mostly pleasant conversation that was had

the texts, prayers, love and help from my pals and whanau

free from that person and all that it held (ahhh what does that look like)

the realisation of permanent singleness for this time

the crazy crying that keeps happening

not wearing wedding rings

the thought of moving on

And in all of this, i feel and know it's gonna be OK.

Funny. Wow.

Some of the painful things that were said, i've had to balance out with the truth that I know and that i'm told by close ones. Not things said to 'grease-up' from close ones but simple truths, things i had never worried bout before but needed a prayer or an assurance.

There did come an apology.

Then came the reasons for the man leaving. They were ok to hear but some were very personal and that was crying material. not needed aye.

I was able to shed some light and there were loads of tears from the man's eyes, which was comforting (as i didn't need to knife him to get that to happen. he he, gotta laugh at some things!).

Crazy. As my kind amazing bro said, "I'm just glad you're free now sez ......" Thanks matt, you and that beautiful wahine of yours always make my day. Thanks BP for prayers and loving listening to my pain. Prayer changes things and i indeed felt much better after that.

Love and thanks, always. xx

hello toothies

Hey my precious girls.

Toothie one and Toothie two (or three as you have 3 out at the same time! how windy it must be in your mouth!).

You may never get to read this, or maybe you will but this one's for you.

I had such a fun time this afternoon doing the fancy pantsy afternoon t. I'd tried all week to do it and after such a dreadful start to our Fri with me doing a grand rant, i was glad i had planned it for today.

You squeeled with delight and were full of thanks. The garden was even done so we were surrounded by a cleared environment and a few green tomatoes. You have been doing so well and are amazing wee girls.

This has been a hard few years and I am so sorry that you have had it rough. I always wanted (and thought it 100 percent possibility) that you would grow up in a nice wee cocoon. Or at least grow up with both parents and perhaps a dog. I never imagined that your daddy would choose a different path to lead and not be with us. That is pretty tough for an adult to grasp let alone two cute sweet-hearts like yourselves.

But golly, you have done amazingly well. You are courageous and brave, strong in heart and conviction and lovers of great fun and family times, despite the sadness of 08/09 ........

I am very proud of you. I am convinced and have seen it already, that what was planned for 'no good', God will use for great. I know that the pain and broken-ness we have felt together, will be able to help others in some way. And I also know that our God has good plans for us.

You have been a great help to your old mum and i am so glad of you both. You and your crazy teeth make me smile a lot and i wouldn't be the same without you. Thanks for singing, dancing, loving, and caring for me. Thanks for praying, for sharing, for weeping, with me. Thanks for your love for God too. Thanks for catching me out in my crazy ways and helping lead me in a better direction.

My mum, your Grandma, said something great when we first moved to Palmy. She said we needed to enjoy our life, whilst waiting for your dad to decide if he was going to join us again. And we have done that. We have lived and will keep doing that together. What great advice i can pass onto you - no matter what is going on, we can still choose to live life and live it well.

We can forgive, love, care, heal and walk together.

My heart has always been that daddy would choose to be with me again, so we could be a family. I'm sorry if he doesn't choose that. And even though i can't change that, I can still keep choosing great choices for our family. And we will keep choosing Him, our God, and we will keep choosing to live no matter what comes our way.

Love you my babes, Liv i can't believe you are going to be 6 on Tues! Wahooooooo

soft bullets to thine heart

Not heaps to say at the mo, perhaps it's the heat of summer and i don't want to lash that on my blog as it's been a long time coming!

Yeah for the sun and sweat and exhaustion from it! Yeah for rivers and pools and icy cold water to drink.

I just told a friend that school starting has been hard, only because i have to get up at a certain time and can no longer laze in my bed surfing or reading or slowly drinking my home-grown late'. The girls are grumpyish due to school routine and i've realised i'm not much better due to the emotions that are flying around my head at present.

Weird and slightly funny how you can think you're all in control or all OK about something or maybe just even numb, and then you realise you're not as you're screeching at someone or just being more subdued than normal.

Got some advice, some wisdom, some loving care from some wonderful sages (is that even the right word?), re my up and coming talk with d.

Here are my notes which i needed to take. I can't blame baby brain anymore but wish i could. i just can't seem to retain all the advice i'm given. And what i loved about the wisdom, was that as they finished our time in prayer, they told God he could change anything they had said that may not be right. cool people.

Forgiveness is the right way to respond when someone says sorry. It's also important that they truly know what they have been forgiven for.

Perhaps a list (suggested 3 main painful things that i have worked on forgiving), not too many as to overwhelm or loose the person, and then asking something like: "Is this what you're sorry for?"

NOTE: to say these things in a soft manner is like 'soft bullets to the heart' or as Proverbs says (something like this from memory) 'soft words break bones' - that sounds harsh so it perhaps is not the exact thing that was said, sorry ahhhh baby brain.

another q to ask: So what does sorry mean from now on? or what does sorry mean in terms of adjusting your actions for the future?

NOTE: These questions or statements are meant to be helpful to shed more light on the situation for the person coming to say sorry. So they can truly have an understanding of what they sorry for otherwise it's just like an easy way to get let off the hook. Of course it's talking about people perhaps who aren't fully aware of the pain they have caused the other. It's not a way of shooting that person down or meaning to condemn them at all. It's meant to be done in kindness so people can move on ......

another q to ask: So do you honestly think God is leading you out of this marriage?

Wow what would you say to that? now that is one interesting q! And it's one that needs to be asked.

I need to write these questions down for myself, for processing how i will tackle the next assignment of my heart. These may not be helpful to anyone else but they certainly have given me a framework to work within for this meeting that is just around the corner.

Prayers are needed. Grace too.

Thanks again to friends and family for great advice and those prayers.

I made an avocado dip today with reduced cream - read off the back of a packet.

looked like it would be a cracker!

saute some garlic, coriander, chilli and oil, add that to a mashed avo with lemon juice and add some fresh coriander to the finish product. It was pretty plain, probably because i'd burnt the saute bit so the flavour was possibly gone! but we added sweet chilli sauce and salt to it and it was a nice dip! My one good idea for this year is to try something new every week in regards to food. This was my second for the week.

Hope your week has some really great moments like mine has. Amidst all the new TV shows coming back on, making school lunches again, being an emotional crazy-lady, and being HOT in the heat, I got a job. A small job working a few hours each week. Oh Ye ha. (it seems i do have stuff to say)

2 years and counting

Looking back over the last two years is a good thing to indulge in:

Fabulous new friends who have been life to me and the girls.

Surprise gifts of money in the letterbox, my handbag, a chewing gum container, posted many times, adding up to well over 4 g. We have been blessed.

Parcels in the mail, just because people want to surprise us.

A dear friend ringing faithfully every Mon to pray with me no matter what my emotions are doing. Always a prayer. Always a mention of scripture to encourage.

Finding the creative side in me.

Buying a new wardrobe of clothes miraculously. Amazing. Fun!

A trip to London and beyond.

Food parcels, diet coke by the box-full, firewood, lamb and venison to fill the freezer, vouchers, coffee (so much coffee), cards, emails ….

A beautiful cottage to live in, in a fabulous suburb

Older and wiser people visiting and allowing me to visit and wallow or inquire

Having a voice to ask for help and using that voice

Being accepted with the gifting I have and being used in that @ church

Ah so much to remember and to remind what God has done in this time. To be able to look at a painful period in my life and to say there was joy and love and definitely laughter.

Discovering a small liking of wine, not an indulgent liking thankfully.

Going to movies with my mum. My mum giving us so much, my brothers and their families doing the same.

The visits from youth and families that were in our church previous to now and them valuing who I am and not distancing themselves because of where I’m at.

Flowers – so many flowers

Sharing and praying and teaching my girls through this time. Knowing that what we have been through will help others and will aid us in the future.

The countdown is on. This weekend d will come and talk. Not really sure what I think about it all. It’s pretty obvious in many ways that it will be the end.

It’s been two years. L turns 6 next week and it was on that day that d announced his unlove for me in a undemonstrative way. I’m hoping this week will go fast with school going back etc. I’m hopeful in God that I’ll not erupt like a lava-filled mountain but will have some clues beforehand as to how I can respond to whatever the heck d may say.

As I’ve admitted before, I get anxious before big situations and I anticipate it all going rather badly. I’ve already planned some meanish things I can say on the weekend to him, so this week I’ll try and boot them out of the way, so that I don’t feel the need to protect myself from rejection. Big sentence. I always find that I needn’t have anticipated the worst outcome of a situation and that God pleasantly surprises me.

Things to think about this week: There are some options with jobs this year, so I’m going to look into that this week. Exciting. Planning L’s no 6 cake is on the agenda plus the invites – ahhhhh. Covering school books. Meal planning? Baking stuff for school lunches. Focusing on the known and not the unknown.

Planetshakers latest album has a song, which has a line or two saying this: 'You are good all the time and your love endures forever'. That is the known. The weekend is the unknown and that makes it scary. But I will try and sit and relax in the known.

10 things i love about .......

Ten things making me happy

Thanks for the tag beautiful Amy. Here is my list. It’s good to stop and recall some of what makes my heart beat loudly.

A fun and romantic movie def does

Humour. Being able to laugh at oneself and with others.

Coffee

Faith in the presence of a companioning God

Beauty – in things, art, people or words. God speaking through his creation.

Playing games with the girls or cards with friends – thanks for the latest one Cazzie, you rock!

Baking and eating it

Creating - stuff, a new look in a room .......

Walking outdoors with a friend

Togetherness - Family meaning blood and other combos of friends. Remembering to celebrate.

These two make me smile outloud and ridiculously happy.

When the heart has to wait

Here are a few notes (Sue Monk Kidd – When the heart waits) I took awhile ago. I thought rewriting them would be helpful to me and maybe you when you read this. Love me xx

The life of the Spirit is never static. We’re born on one level only to find some new struggle toward wholeness gestating within. That’s the sacred intent of life, of God, to move us continually toward growth, toward recovering all that is lost and orphaned within us and restoring the divine image imprinted on our soul.

A cocoon is no escape. It’s an in-between house where the change takes place. When you wait, taking the long way, you are trusting that there’s a transforming discovering lying pooled along the way. Thoreau – “nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried.” Where is our willingness to incubate pain and let it birth something new? Jesus experienced a sense of Gods absence. “My God, where are you? Why have you forsaken me?”

God making a home with us during our waiting, sharing the experience no q asked. Creating a “merciful being together”.

I feared waiting because such pauses in life brought me close to the dark holes and empty pockets inside me, to the rigidities and self-lies I had fashioned.

Contemplative waiting is consenting to be where we really are.

We have to learn to stand still in order to continue our journey…. The more we run around, the more we lose touch with ourselves, the less of us there is …. Allan Jones

We tend to align ourselves with the rhythm and pace around us. If you want to stay in your waiting, you’ll need to refrain from the frantic pace around you.

We can go on and on, waiting for the next “happening of life”. Hurrying toward it, trying to make it happen. We live from peak event to peak event, from brightness to brightness, resisting the flat terrain of ordinary time – the in-between time. Waiting is the in-between time. It calls us to be in this moment/season, without leaning so far into the future that we tear our roots from the present.

“A lifetime burning in every moment” TS Elliot.

An attitude of expected beingness – not intent upon results and not concerned.

Giving up our need to control and manipulate, we can relax and relate to life with a faithful knowing that if we cease to act, life itself will not cease. It may, in fact, grow full.

In waiting (Meister Eckhart) we find God new and immediate in every moment, not something “out there” to be grasped some other time.

The heart

Proverbs 27:19 As water reflects a face, so a mans heart reflects the man.

We heard a great preach yesterday at churchie re the heart. Keeping it soft. Keeping it close to God rather than far away. A preach on how Spiritual formation is happening all the time, whether we notice it or not!

On reflection, I notice it. The same morning, yesterday morning, I made the youngest of my two fully tidy her new pink (hand me down) desk or I threatened to give it to the older one. Ahhhhh, poor darling didn’t have any idea how to tidy it and I was a rambling mother making her tidy something just for my own picky-nature.

On a normal day, having given good instructions and plenty of time, it would have been an achievable task for the just about 6 year old. But as I rushed to wash my hair in the shower I realised that I had acted out some of my inner agro on her. And I hadn’t even got to church to hear the preach on the heart.

On the way home from church I whispered my sorry to her. I wanted my heart to be right with her. I realised I was holding some rough stuff inside yet acting it out on others.

Man it’s great to be self-aware. I’m so grateful for the prompting and soft voice of my maker who makes me aware. He said he would never leave us or forsake us. He said he would leave the comforter, the Holy Spirit, to guide us and to lead us. Appreciating that.

I’m feeling like we’re a little bit small. 3. I’m feeling like we are a little boat on a big sea. We were 4 and that felt tidy, complete. Maybe just needing a dog. But now each of us, in our way, desire more companionship than our current number. We do love days of being on our own and having a rest from crowds. But mostly we love going back to the crowd of friends we have.

I know a little of what the girls feel from hearing them speak. Their screams of delight when I announce a plan with friends. I feel it mostly at night at the mo. The routine of getting girls in bed, making a cuppa and sitting down to watch something. I am missing d and the company we had, when it was healthy. I miss the ‘us’ factor when I’m around others at the mo.

I’m reading a book by Joan D Chittister – ‘Scarred by struggle, transformed by hope’ which goes through the different struggles you face when you have a disaster come upon you and the gifts that come with that. She is a nun I think. She is brilliant at writing and insightful. ‘The gift of surrender …… There are times to let a thing go. There is a time to put a thing down, however unresolved, however baffling, however wrong, however unjust it may be. There are some things in life that cannot be changed, however intent we are to change them. There is a time to let surrender take over so that the past does not consume the present, so that new life can come, so that joy has a chance to surprise us again.’ Two years ago, this month, d left us. Sometime in the next few weeks (or months if it’s his normal timing with doing the hard stuff!) he will be coming to talk to me. An apology of some sort is on his agenda. Maybe an explanation. Maybe and highly probably, he walks after he apologises. I’m totally not sure which way it will be but it’s certainly on my mind. Will I have to lay that dream completely down? Will I have to start all over again and how weird and/or fun could that be? How weird would it be starting again with d boy? How will I keep doing repair work with the girls as they go through the grief process at different ages?

So many questions and continually not many answers. But there is the peace that surpasses my own understanding and there is Joy in the pain of it all. I can only marvel at the last two years in how we have survived and lived and loved.

Other books I’m enjoying are Annabel Langbeins ‘eat fresh, and ‘Etcetera etc’ by Sibella Court (beautiful, home-stuff design book).

Life is certainly not always happy-happy, clappy-clappy but in life there is always a choice. To live and to tend the garden of my heart. Another good challenge for tweeeeny ten.

tweny-10

Hello twenty-ten. I really like your name for this year. It’s short and snappy. It’s rather cool.

I’m thinking it’s important to look back a little on last year, not to get depressed (“you’re soooo last year!”) but to take the good stuff into tweny-ten. I’d also like to look forward to this year, maybe a goal or two. I haven’t done that kind of thing for awhile – Main goal has been SURVIVAL.

09 saw me get better at saying NO to offers or jobs that I didn’t need. That was good.

09 saw me eat something special just about every night after dinner whilst watching yet another borrowed movie. I’d like to see less of that and more reading maybe. Definitely.

09 was a year where I made some great connections with all sorts of people. To take that to another level where I invite them home for a meal or support them in some way, to invest in their lives and to perhaps be a little or a lot more of Jesus to them, is always something I wanna do.

Coffee was a stable and daily thing. A sure stayer.

Creativity was allowed to flow more in the fullness of my life – in problems, in home deco and baking. I love you creativity. I love seeing you in others and I love you being more at home with me.

I’d like to read more this year. I have some amazing books. I have some lovely spots around my house to lounge about in reading those books. You can do it Sarah!

2009 was another opportunity, to show my girls that we could live life despite the sad normality of our smaller family situation. I’m hoping that we will be able to find and see more of God in the vulnerability of our situation. L, the just about 6 year old, is expressing herself incredibly well at present. She talks of ‘finding it so hard with the life-change we are having’. “Mum”, she whispers at midnight recently, “is the life-change hard for you too? Does it make you sad mum?”

“It is just so sad. I sometimes don’t even know why I cry mum”.

I’m hoping, as the ‘captain’ of this crazy ship we are riding on, that I will have the wisdom to navigate our way round, allowing the waves of tears and emotions to flow without reserve and judgement.

K, the delightful 7 year old, wants peace and love for each parent. She wants to please each one and not cause any tidal waves. K is in a different place. A place where it seems very normal and acceptable. She writes beautiful notes and says caring things to each of us, so that we are OK. She even asks me about how d is my boyfriend?! I’m not sure if she thinks that is how a normal boyfriend behaves. I’m not sure if this is her way of responding. Whatever the case, I’m hopeful I will hear God’s wisdom and have His strength to navigate the ship for her too.

Together, the three amigos that we are, love people. We love being invited.
We love being involved and being around folk. Christmas time was different for sure, not having the girls here. But it was so full of relatives (esp my amazing bro) and lovely friends that I hadn’t seen for yonks, that it became less painful and more joyful.

Having the girls arrive home a few days after Christmas, was joy.

Love you my precious girls. Thanks to my beloved friends. You are needed and appreciated.

(I’ll be back soon, we’re off again for a few days at Grandmas. There is of course way more to say about what one must leave behind and what one must gather up for the new year.)