Forgiven

So I stuffed up last weekend.  Not just a teensy little boo boo - this was something REALLY BIG.  Not only did this BIG stuff up hurt a lot of people who love me, it was also the catalyst for another disaster.  Beloved got such a shock that he suffered a massive blood clot in his lung and nearly died.  In fact hospital staff were amazed that he didn't.

But he didn't.

And God knows what I did.

And He loves me and forgives me anyway. 

He really is a very very nice God.

I'm a girl and I can sulk if I want to

 Apparantly when we come up against conflict, the human instinct is fight or flight. I'm not so sure if this is God's instinct which is more likely to involve such things as Grace, compassion and forgiveness. Since I'm "me" however, I can choose to do one of the former, and since I'm a woman, I can do both. So when Beloved innocently pushes the wrong buttons - I say "innocently" because he is just a man who hasn't fully worked out how complex the female mind actually is - it's perfectly logical to offer a piece of my mind before hitting the metal in the van and screeching up the street at a full 40 kms/ph (hey, just because I'm moody doesn't make me a law breaker).  I'm getting quite clever now because in the early days of our marriage I used to take off on foot, sometimes in barefeet and often without my handbag. I'm older and wiser now and take transport and a cardi.

I found myself hooning up the road the other evening. What normally takes place during one of my drives shall remain my secret because I'm mysterious and enigmatic. On this occasion though, I noticed that the sun was setting so I headed for the beach to watch. I sat at the waterfront feeling sorry for myself and told God that while I appreciate His cool artistic talents in making a pretty sunset, I wasn't listening and was going to put my ipod in my ears, so there!

Some how All American Reject's "Hope It Gives You Hell" wasn't lifting my mood so I flicked forward and came across Evie. And it wasn't even downloaded illegally from the internet (as if I would!). About a year ago the lovely Evie Karlsson mailed me a couple of her CDs herself in response to the fan page I set up on Facebook. So Evie came through with one of my favourite songs.  I think God wanted me to hear this:

He never said you'd only see sunshine.
He never said there'd be no rain.
He only promised us a heart full of singing.
At the very thing that once caused pain.

Give them all...
Give them all...
Give them all to Jesus
Shattered dreams, wounded hearts, broken toys.
Give then all...
Give them all...
Give them all to Jesus
And He will turn your sorrow into joy.

Errrm, thanks Lord. Nice sunset by the way :-)

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow

Errrrmmm....Church Christmas Production is on the 19th December. I'm on the "team" that is producing said production...one of the actors...one of the writers.  Ummm...Lord is it okay that my bits aren't exactly fully written yet? After all, I still have eight days until show time.

It's not that I'm putting things off. I'm simply planning my schedule.  I wonder if procrastination is a sin. I should imagine it is, since it's something I do so well. I just read in Proverbs that "the hand of the diligent shall rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labour." Hmmm....You rule R, Siborg and Kez (the other team members who are far better organised than me)! And this clearly explains why I am put to forced labour cleaning toilets, doing washing and cleaning up cat poo on a daily basis.  For this reason, I WILL get the 70s and 90s scenes written TODAY! Or maybe tomorrow.

But I DO have the costumes organised! I got onto that pretty quickly.  Last year's production was planned entirely around my top notch Santa suit. Praise the Lord for Santa.

There is one thing I'm glad I didn't put off in my life. When Jesus was knocking on the door of my heart, I just let Him in. Mind you, 36 years later (don't do the Maths!) I still haven't exactly tidied up in there and cleared a space for Him to sit on the couch without wondering what that squelchy thing is that He just sat on. I really should get around to it instead of just leaving it for Him to clean up.

As for the production, "it'll be all right on the night" (or in this case, morning). Not knowing exactly what I'm doing and yet somehow it all comes together year after year once everyone else knows what they're doing - it's exhilerating! Meanwhile, has anyone noticed that I turned my laptop on about an hour ago to get started on tweaking my script? I haven't actually looked at that this morning because I got sidetracked looking at procrastination cartoons and then decided to share some of them here. 

This is what it's like living inside my life. I live on the edge of risk-taking and danger - or I would if I could be bothered getting out of bed on a Saturday morning. It's how I roll...

Ha ha God. Very funny!

I love Angels and Mortals week at work. Everyone involved gives an anonymous little treat to two people twice a week. Just something to spoil them - a present, a good deed - nice idea, huh? I love doing all that secret squirrel stuff and get a warm fuzzy glow when I spot someone enjoying something I discreetly left in their pidgeon hole. I like most people. Even those EGR (Extra Grace Required) types have good points that I can generally appreciate. But God, what WERE You thinking when You assigned me the only person out of a staff of 150 odd people that I really struggle to...er...appreciate? Nice one Lord. I'll bet You had the angels rolling about on the golden paving slabs when you pulled this one out of Your hat.

Really Lord, are you SERIOUSLY asking me to do THIS?

So, I admit it, someone stung me a while back and I've avoided them ever since. So initially I wasn't too happy about being their secret angel. Smiley and Lill thought it was hilarious when they got a peek at my covert orders. Bet you were laughing too, huh God.

Ummm...does this not-liking-everyone mean I'm not a nice person? Possibly, but I prefer to go with the notion that God actually considers me important enough to take a little lesson from Him.  Maybe He can see potential in me to become someone more like Him...eventually... Well since there's still a heck of a lot of work to do, that's probably going to take a while...so I guess training starts now.

Hey, I'm only human...good thing God's a lot bigger than me :)

So this is the weekend...

The mouth of the Pike River Mine

It's been a funny old weekend. We've had a couple of extra fosties, which has kept me on my toes. I'll probably write more on that next week. It's odd sometimes how we hang out for Friday afternoons to bring in the weekend and then something bizaare can happen which throws a spanner into the whole thing. As if having a major earthquake (right where my eldest daughter lives) wasn't enough to test the resilience of our little country, an exploding mine in Greymouth has given us something else to talk to our Majestical Bestie about. As I'm writing this, up to thirty men are missing underground, with their loved ones not knowing if they're living or not, while explosive gases are delaying the rescue effort. It seems like such a copycat disaster, considering the fame of the Chilean mine...but I don't think it's deliberate.  New Zealand already has a foot in the door of the movie industry but Chile's example can offer us some hope that things just might turn out all right.

So something crazy can happen and still the weekend continues. Meanwhile, someone might tell a cracking good joke and we start laughing. It's strange having life carry on when something so awful is happening. Am I the only one who feels guilty for it? I don't think that's the way Jesus wants us to be but hey, I'm human. Major disasters take their toll emotionally and if I were to add up every catastrophe around the globe, I think it would blow my brains and yet somehow God has managed to take every bit of it onto His own shoulders. Don't ask me how - I guess that's why God is God and I'm...just human. My job is to talk to Him about it - and to keep living and loving the people in my life, which means that it's probably okay to smile and go about my usual business. Maybe that's sort of how we're made. Hitching a ride to Greymouth on Jetstar just to stand at the mouth of the mine won't help. I'm not sure sure any miner would want mine to be the first face they see after being trapped underground without food, water or Facebook for days on end. I'd probably be all hysterical and get in the way anyway. Kind of makes you feel ineffective really. But we're not totally without clout. We can pray. If you happen to be someone who doesn't really believe in this God stuff, fair enough. But even the most hardcore atheist would have to agree that it's better than doing nothing. Praying is doing SOMETHING. And in my opinion, it's doing something freaking awesome.

To be honest, I'm a terrible pray-er. I never know quite what words to use and I'm not very clued up on all that thee and thou stuff. Thankfully, God doesn't expect me to go all Shakespearean on Him. Any way that I can find to talk with Him is just fine.

Yup, it's been a funny sort of weekend. As our pastor puts it, we had a "good dunking" at church this morning, which almost sounds like what they used to do to witches a few hundred years ago. Mind you, the beautiful young woman being baptised is the furthest thing from a witch, and our pastor, to the best of my knowledge, is nothing like a Salem executioner. Another cool thing about the baptism is that while Beloved went up the front with the kids so they could have a poolside view, I was able to sneak a couple of Tic Tacs in my mouth without having to share with the whole family. I'm thinking that the good Lord was right in that tank of water smiling with joy as He watched His little girl, the apple of His eye, get dunked this morning. And even at the same time, I think He was cuddling up to all those frightened and distraught people in the South Island and feeling every bit of anxiety that they feel. That's not an easy concept for little human me to get my tiny wee head around. So I'm glad that God is God and I'm...just me.

 

UPDATE 24th November 2010: Sadly at about 2:30pm today, five days after the initial explosion and collapse, there was an even bigger explosion at the mine. It's now believed that no-one could havepossibly survived it. 29 men have lost their lives. The youngest had only just turned 17. 

Early Miner's Candle

Thank you Uncle Arthur

My 6 year old, C, is a deep thinker. Today she asked me "How did God get born?", which pretty much amounts to that age old question that has bugged mankind for thousands of years: "Who made God?".
I thought I had an answer that would satisfy most normal kids who still watch Kidzone on telly, "Well, Jesus was born and Mary was His Mum". It didn't satisfy her.
"But before then. How was GOD born? Jesus' Dad?"
"Ummmm....."
I think she gave up on me so she came up with a plan "I'll type it into the computer."
"Hmmmm....ummm...."
She disappeared downstairs for a while. Eventually she ran back up, out of breath with excitement.
"Mum, you have to carry ALL my Bibles downstairs! I have to show you something!"
"Huh?"

She was doing her best to be patient with me but decided the only way to get me to understand was to grab my arm and drag me into her room, where I found all ten volumes of Arthur S Maxwell's "The Bible Story" spread out on her bed. She commissioned me to carry all ten of the books downstairs...to the computer. So that's what had been keeping her quiet for so long. My clever 6 year old had followed her mum's example and when she couldn't find a satisfactory answer to her question she decided to ask Mr Google. She can type? I didn't know that. Smart kid! On screen was a powerpoint display with some of the very same pictures featured in her Bible Story books. Don't ask me how she'd come up with that!

C has this picture on her bedroom wall. We like to pretend that the children with our Bestie are members of our family. That's C, sitting on His lap, M is sitting on the grass, Zeeb is wearing the blue dress and (since our family is pretty big at times) everyone else must be playing hide and seek behind the lillies.

I tried to help C find the answer to her question and asked Mr Google myself but I didn't come up with anything nearly as good - just a lot of dry, theological ramblings that I didn't understand. In the end I think I mumbled something to C about God always being there right from before time even began. I'm just not too bright on heavy doctrinal stuff - I just believe what I know in my heart and the guts of that (oooh, lots of organs and body parts being mentioned now!) is that Jesus thinks I'm something special and because I'm His kid, that's good enough for me. Somehow my rambling seemed enough for her and she was delighted to watch the powerpoint display Mr Google had given her, but if anybody can come up with something better please post it in the comments below and I'll pass it on to her. Or maybe one day C will come up with the answer herself and she'll tell me - then I can pass it on to you.

As for Arthur S Maxwell - aka Uncle Arthur - he's the one who taught me about Jesus in the first place. Somewhere along the line, my mum had bought the set of books and when I was about 11 years old, with a smidge of Methodist Sunday School under my belt, I took it upon myself to read every single volume. The books were written in the 1950s and were old fashioned even for the 1970s, but the story in the books is relevant and life changing to any heart that's open to it. The illustrations are gorgeous too.

Note: Not actual picture of actual "Me" reading actual Bible Story books. Cute though, eh?

So thanks Uncle Arthur for telling me all the stuff I needed to know when I was 11. I don't know where I'd be today without you.

Hang In There

Now that the dust has settled with one of our fosties moving on, I've taken a moment to reflect. Just hours before life got turned upside down - umm...actually, it was desks being turned upside down but I wasn't to know that it was happening at the time - I was our having lunch with a friend.

Shhhh! Don't tell those that had to deal with our boy while he was running amok. It was my day off work and I was blissfully unaware of what was happening.

Anyway, I was having lunch with a friend at a local shopping mall. We were wandering around some of the shops and my friend bought a card for my wallet. She really is a sweetie. Althought I read it at the time, the words didn't really sink in until I needed them to. It was so well-timed and significant that I thought I'd pop the card's message on here:

"Hang In There
If you get discouraged, remember I am thinking of you...believing in you...and hoping you know that no matter how big a problem seems or how hopeless you feel, you are never alone, as God's grace is only one request away!"

The first thing I love about it is the use of ellipses (I think that's what they're called). I have a fondness for ellipses...as you can see. I used them...often...dot...dot...dot...

Another cool thing about the card is that at the very moment my friend innocently placed it into my hand, our fostie was creating havoc in his classroom, which ultimately resulted in the previous sad post ("Please Say Amen"). I've just happened to catch sight of that card my wallet a few times during the last couple of weeks and it's been like a gentle pat on the shoulder (if I was a more demonstrative person I'd say a hug, but I'm not into all that touchy, feely stuff).  I'll be meeting my friend for a much-needed banana split tonight so I really must tell her that she has fabulous timing.  Do you suppose God gave her a nudge to get it for me? Am I really that special? It's nice to know that He knew what was happening in Room 12 at G Intermediate School, even though we didn't have a clue at the time.  I guess He really is in control. Things didn't turn out the way I would have planned but I'm not in charge of this messy world - thankfully - so I'm just going to hand it over the my Majestic Bestie and let Him take care of things.