Whispers - five minute Friday

I'm joining five-minute friday again, now hosted at http://katemotaung.com/

I wanted to tell him.  I needed to tell him.  We were alone, as if it had been ordained.  It was sunrise on the beach - as romantic as it gets.  But I could only manage a whisper.  And he didn't hear me.  So I had to force my voice to form the words again, but a little louder.  "I like you".

I could admit my deepest feelings through tears and in a whisper.  She was listening intently, I didn't have to repeat myself.

They are sleeping (at last, and thank you God) and I can whisper words of love and prayers for their protection over their little heads.  Finding peace and calm that was completely elusive during their waking minutes but falls so fast with their slumber.

I whisper "help" and "thank you" sending them heavenward so often in the daily struggles.

I walk and walk and whisper Hail Marys as I process those terrible minutes when I thought she was lost.  Mary must understand, she lost Jesus and didn't find him for days until she backtracked to the temple.

I whisper to myself "you can do it" and "it's going to be okay" when I'm worried about this new step in my life.  These whispers are so much better than the internal sneers that I used to hear in my head.

belong - five minute Friday

I walked round the block tonight and it was a very different view from my usual farm animals and mountains.  The view of suburbia was distracting, I noticed the houses that were nicely painted and the yards full of beautiful blooms.  I noticed the houses that were in need of a paint job and their yards with bushes left unpruned. And I wondered do I belong here? I am only here for a vacation, but they are good to try a lifestyle on for a week, right? Do I belong where I can smell the salt in the air, or where the air is clear and always dry, dry, dry? Do I even belong in this land where the flags are striped and starred in red, white and blue? Where the sky is blue instead of grey and the grass is coarse instead of soft and green.

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lost - five minute friday

Lost in storage.  Anyone else have a storage unit?  Isn't it fun when you think of something that you own but can't access because it's in storage.  And your husband can't possibly get it for you as it is "buried".

Lost because of geography.  I had amazing friends.  Then I emigrated.  There is no 'popping round' anymore.  No cups of coffee made with love, or shoulders to cry on.

Lost in time.  I once was a little girl who was always sensible, and mature, and did the right thing.  But in doing so, I lost some of who I was.  I'm learning to go back to find that little girl and help her learn how to have a little fun.

Lost because I don't know which way to go.  God be my compass.

Release - Five Minute Friday

I took off my wedding ring, and gave him over to you.  You know his heart.  You know how his brain works.  You made him.  And everything you make is good.  Even if I can't see it.  I know you made him and declared him good.  I know he has the capacity to love even if he has a very odd way of showing it.  I know you know what this is doing to me.

I wanted to fix him.  I wanted to love him enough for him to change.  I gave him my body.  I gave him children.  I gave him as much patience and understanding as I could muster.  Now I could see it was never going to be enough.

So I gave him to you.  You are the only one who can do the work.  I know you are on our side.  I know you want marriages to work because we stood in front of you and made promises and you take promises seriously.

Today my wedding ring is firmly on my finger, but I still give him to you.  I still give you our marriage, our children, our family.  Because I have held on to that knowledge that I am small and weak and cannot hold things together on my own.  Because I'm not supposed to.  You are the one who holds all things together.  You are the one in which we can rest.  Because we have released it all into your hands.

Nothing - Five Minute Friday

I've been married for nine years.  When we were newly weds, I'd ask my husband what he was thinking and he'd say "nothing".  I didn't believe him.  But it kept happening.  He kept saying the same thing.

If I was asked what I was thinking, I couldn't in good conscience say "nothing" because I'm always thinking something and normally about seventeen things at the same time.  I thought he was being evasive.

It turns out I was wrong.  The male of the species, is apparently able to think absolutely nothing, they can just switch their brains off.  Several therapy and comedic sources finally made me believe that it was possible - they were male, they said it was true.

I have sincerely wished I could do the same, but I cannot.   I was sick last week and I was grateful for the mind-break.  I knew I was better when I tried to go to sleep one night and my brain went 'bing' and started working on oh so many ideas and projects that are unlikely to ever to be put into practise because my early-a.m. body never agrees with my late-p.m. mind that making them manifest is important.

Mess - Five Minute Friday

My house is a mess.  I don't like when it's messy but I apparently don't hate it enough to do anything about it, so it's still a mess.  The legos are no longer in the kitchen though - this is a wonderful victory.  Legos and kitchens don't really go well together.  Instead the lego are under the new loft bed.  Loft beds are a very good invention, except when you are trying to put sheets on the loft bed and have to climb up to do so.

I am now seriously wondering whether Emmet's double decker couch idea (from the Lego Movie), may in fact be awesome.  Especially the storage facility under the seats - that was a really good idea....!

In the meantime we will make do with the loft bed and completely inadequate storage, and probably continue to live in a mess.

Crowd - Five minute Friday

I had my first panic attack because of a crowd.  I couldn't breathe properly and what was supposed to be fun, really wasn't.

You can get lost in a crowd and sometimes that seems like a good idea.

Crowds and children, now there's a bad mix.  The airport was crowded, people were bustling and I was barking.  "Stay close, keep your suitcase out of the way".  They seemed so small, they could so easily get lost.

There's only four of us, but this is a small apartment.  Today I am blissfully alone, but come tomorrow, it's gonna feel crowded in here.  Sometimes that drives me crazy and sometimes it is beautiful.  Proximity is a powerful bonding agent.

The streets will be crowded, and we'll be there for the third time.  In this isolated place that we currently call home.  The horses and mules will pass by in the parade and it will seem funny once again, that I actually live in the Wild West!

Choose - five minute Friday

CHOOSE

I don't like that.  It's hard for me to make decisions.  Choosing something means deciding against something else.  And what if that something else is better?  What if I make the wrong decision?  This conundrum has kept me paralysed often.  But avoiding the decision is choosing as well.  There is no getting away from it.  But I'm learning that the anxiety that decision-making provokes in me, can be abated by TRUST.  Trusting in the God that works ALL things for the good.  If He works ALL things and not just the 'right choices' then I have insurance and assurance.

It's taken me a while to get to the point where I do trust God; especially about the small things.  The big things are always too big for me - I don't want that kind of responsibility, so I'm much quicker handing it over to God.  The small things, well, I think I should be able to handle those.  I'm not confident in my ability to make the small decisions, so much procrastination normally results before I can make an actual choice, but I'm much slower to hand them over to God.  I'm much slower to trust that all will be well in the end.  I'm much more likely to have residual anxiety in my heart.  Still, I'm making the CHOICE to be patient with myself, to give myself more time to choose rather than rushing to cover up my lack of confidence and gifting myself more anxiety and cheating myself of his peace in the process.

Small - Five minute Friday

I used to think that small = insignificant, not very important, not weighty.  Small things were no replacement for the BIG things - like happiness, support, things going my way etc.  But now I've changed my mind.  Because small things add up to become the big things, just like when you look at your supermarket receipt in complete wonderment that it came to that much when all you bought were all those little things.

The idea made it's way to me through a couple of different sources - to keep track of three things each day that were good.  It helped me to stop my exaggerated negative thinking that absolutely everything in my life was terrible.  At that stage, when my mood was black, the small things seemed so meagre but it helped nonetheless.

Finding my voice - Faith Jam

My voice isn't necessarily always in tune.  It gets nervous at the idea of being heard.  It has been compared to others and fallen short.  It has been rejected and deemed not quite good enough.  It has been included in the choir and rejoiced at being part of the chorus.

When it sings to God sometimes it soars.  Someone once asked how it got so strong....probably due to having to fight to even exist.

I didn't dream much about singing in public when I was a schoolgirl - solos were a petrifying idea, even though I liked thinking of the honour attached to being chosen.  But now... I live vicariously through the tv shows and wonder if my idea of taking singing further is a delayed adolescent dream, or something that ultimately might be part of a plan...

Currently my favourite show is "The Voice" - the auditions are conducted in front of a live audience but the judges are facing the other way and cannot see the contestant.  The idea is that they will be judged on their voice alone and not on how they look or anything else.  I like the premise.  I have also been inspired by the criteria they are looking for.  They have 'turned round' for people sometimes who have not sung perfectly, they might have made some small mistakes or their nerves might have become audible, but, their voice is unique, their voice is interesting, their voice expresses their emotions and tells a story.

Those features that they are looking for on 'The Voice' have become my goal for my own voice.  The voice that comes out of my mouth both spoken and sung, my voice here on my blog and my voice that is how I live my life.  I want my voice to be authentically 'me' - it might take a while to evolve, but that's ok.  I want to have the courage to put my voice out there, even if it shakes or hits an occasional bum note, if the message is significant then those things don't matter.  I would rather be judged on my voice than what I look like or other choices I make in my life.  I'm learning that people might actually be interested in my story.

I feel happiest when I sing.  I feel close to God when I worship in song.  It makes my stomach churn with emotion and urgency.  I have a list of songs that tell the story of my life as they are attached to various times of my life.  And then God gave me a new song.  One that was my own.  He gave me the words and then I prayed for the tune and up popped a folk tune that was familiar to me that fitted with the lyrics - amazing!

I carried my song with me for more than a year until I found the right place and time which turned out to be my bible study group.  And now I'm going to be even braver and share it here.

Write (Five-minute Friday)

The unfairness of childhood was what first provoked me to write.  My very first 'diary'.  It was full of frustration.  Always being told what to do, never being allowed to use my own judgement.  Wishing I was old enough to make my own decisions.

Because I wrote it down, I remember.  I remember how it felt.  I can empathise with my son when he complains about how "it's not fair".  Because life is not fair to children.  They are not on equal status with adults but with an adult perspective you know that's usually a good thing.

My journal has been my most faithful friend.  The only friend that I don't censor myself around.  The safest of all spaces.  To write is to know myself.  To get reaquainted with who I am, what I'm thinking, feeling, and what I believe.  To say the things that I can't say out loud.  To say the things that I yearn and wish for without anyone mocking me.  

Hero (five-minute Friday)

My dad was my hero, until that day when he said no.  He said "No, you can't live with me, you should live with your mother".  That was the end.  The beginning of the end of our relationship.

I see it a little different now.  I realise that his heart was broken too.  None of it was how it was supposed to be.

My brothers, I used to look up to them too.  Until that day when they left me out.  They rewrote our childhood as if I wasn't there.  Invisible + scapegoat = runaway.

So here I am, on the other side of the planet.  With one super-hero saviour in my life, and I know this is the right choice.  HE is the only hero I need.  HE is the overcomer.  HE is the redeemer.  HE is THE ONE.

Five minute Friday - encouragement

Encouragement is what I so desperately need and what has always been missing.  As I've given it to my children, they have turned around and given it back to me.  We will ask Jesus and we will keep trying.  We fail.  But even in the last few days, he's started turning it around, the child that struggles with control, his progress is encouraging me.  We're not a lost cause; kindness can appear like a rainbow in the sky when we didn't expect it.  I've always had the urge to encourage others, I can feel the crumbs of their hope, and long with them that they could grow into more.  But right now, I don't know what to do with my own crumbs, they don't make sense to me anymore - old dreams, current reality, the habit of disappointment combine to make my life muddy.  A mustard seed.  That's all I need.  That's what he said.  So I rest on that.

Fly - five minute Friday

In less than a month I will be flying home.  It has been more than two years.  Excited doesn't completely cover it.  In this season of Thanksgiving I am very glad I get to fly instead of travel by road or rail across a continent before sailing a large ocean.  I'm hoping we don't get sick.  I'm hoping being cooped up in a small space with a five and a six year old doesn't test the sanity of me, my husband or the other passengers too much!

Scheduled air travel will be turning 100 years old on January 1st.  I'm dismayed that ticket prices have risen so much in the last 10 years.  I am thankful for the Christmas gift of these plane tickets - they are absolutely priceless.  I will be flying home to cuddle my baby nieces.  I will be flying home for Christmas.  I will be flying home to be reunited with my family and friends.  I will be flying home to discover how much I've changed and what has stayed the same.  I will be flying home in the knowledge that God is with me whichever continent I am on.

5 minute Friday - tree

She and the tree were the constants through three seasons.  Under it's branches I nervously waited for the door to open.  Desperately wanting to be there, but part of me ready to run.  The leaves and the tears fell.  It looked empty and I despaired during the dark days.  When spring came with the blossom, there was warmth and some hope bursting forth.  But fear and anger would sweep in sometimes like the wind and the rain.

Basking in the sun, bright green leaves on the tree, the news came that brought the end.  I'm sure the tree is still there bearing witness to more lost souls knocking on the door.  Where is she?  I don't know.  But I miss her.

Five minute Friday - Laundry

The laundry is like a Dr Seuss book - it's here, it's there, it's everywhere!  Clean, dirty, not quite sure.  Big socks, little socks, always odd socks.  No washing machine in the apartment.  Quarters and effort required.  But thankful for the brilliant sunshine and zero humidity, great drying conditions.

Unlike in the baby years when all those tiny baby clothes were hung on indoor racks and I was 'helped' in my task by little hands and a dehumidifier stopped our house growing so much mold and the windows steaming up!

The giant clothes I don't have to worry about, he does those himself.  But I like to pair his socks and put them away for him, it's just a little thing, a way to be a wife.  I sigh over his inability to ensure the dirty socks make it into the laundry basket, but it's just a little thing, common to most men I'm sure.