And the answer is...Pass

My daughter C recently had her 7th birthday and, despite not having one of my kids' party extravaganzas (bouncy castle and exotic costumes mandatory), she seemed to do quite well out of it. She's into makeup at the moment - usually mine - so to help alleviate the drain on my budget branded cosmetics, my friend R bought C some makeup of her own. She bought her Clinique eyeshadow and lip gloss! So now it's me sneaking in to borrow C's makeup. At least I was until she caught me in the act and hid it from me.

Not actually C or actual Clinique makeup. Image blatantly lifted off the internet.

So now that C is 7, she wants to know everything. This had been brewing for a while with an endless stream of questions on the daily drive home from school. Really deep and spiritually profound stuff:

Why don't people in planes see God when they go up in the sky?
If God made the flowers, who made the seeds?
How was God born?
Who made God?

I'm impressed. I've done my best to answer most of her questions as simply as I can but C's getting to the point where she's able to tell if I'm fluffing it. The truth is, that I just don't know all the answers to all the questions. I'll never know whether or not Adam and Eve had a belly button - at least not this side of Heaven. So I'm finding that the truth is the best answer I can give her.

I don't think God expects us to know all things about Him either. I came across this verse the other day:
"As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things."
(Ecclesiastes 11:5)

I think I just found the perfect answer to a lot of C's questions. One size fits all: "I don't know. That's why God is God and I'm just a little human being"
She seems content with that for the time being. Even so, I fully intend to ask Jesus lots of questions when I get to see Him face to face.

Just a little side thought about the mysteries of how the body is formed in a mother's womb...they didn't have the advantage of scans during Old Testament times so there was no peeking. I guess it really was an enigma with nobody having any idea of what was really going on in there.

Speaking of wombs, which makes me think of placentas, which makes me think of belly buttons...did they or didn't they? Adam and Eve...bellybuttons...innies or outies...???

When the expected becomes the unexpected

Decades ago, when I was a teenager somebody told me that our parents "never die". That when we're young, we see our parents as always being there, forever. I thought he was talking a load of rubbish. Over the years I barely noticed my mother growing old. Like all mums, she embarrassed me enough times when I was a kid  (I mean really, who sends a 9 year old out to buy a shopping trundler full of cheap sanitary pads?). She called me in 2004 to tell me that my dad, her ex husband, had died in another country and I cried a little for the man I loved and respected but never really knew. Mum plodded along with her leaky valve rendering her breathless and her legs occasionally giving way at inconvenient times. She had major heart surgery, pneumonia, bronchitis...and she always bounced back. She's 84 now and without her walker, she could pass herself off as late sixty-something. She spends most afternoons filling in competitions and puzzles in magazines, with the help of my 15 year old son, M, who adores her and visits her most days.

Yesterday I was reminded of what I was told back in the late 70s. Mum had called and asked if Beloved and I could come and see her as she had some news that she didn't want to tell us over the phone. A weight deposited itself in my stomach and I realised that after years of mental preparation, I wasn't at all rehearsed for this moment. Something along these lines was bound to happen sooner or later. Suddenly I understand what I'd been told all those years ago. Perhaps we kids can tend to take out parents' lives for granted.

So now the malicious Breast Cancer Fairy has visited and left a mark that's going to need cutting out and zapping. She's 84.Surely I knew that something would come up sooner or later. It turns out that she's had it for a while and her previous doctor had ignored my mother's questions about the ominous lump. It's a horrible thing that strikes women of all ages all over the world and it's not fair. But this one is my mum.

I have this thing where I think dying should be a welcome relief when one is very old and very tired.  My plan for the end of my life is to die a healthy death and simply fall into a peaceful sleep and wake up in Heaven where Jesus will give me a huge smile and throw His arms around me. That's my hope for all of my loved ones.