Just do it

That was my advice to a group of teachers and principals over the weekend. I was delivering a workshop on the flipped classroom, and was encouraging them to stop thinking of excuses, and just to start, with a single lesson if needs be. Yet I know how hard it can be to just start something, how difficult it is to take my own advice.

Over the last few weeks several different themes have come to the fore in my life - about where I find my identity, about my purpose in life, about my strengths and talents, about my spiritual gifts, about the importance of self-leadership and character development. Foundational to all this is my relationship with Jesus.

As part of my struggle over the years since Zoe died I have lost the habit of a daily time with God. At various times I have heard the call to return to it, felt the encouragement of God, yet I have failed to implement it, for a variety of reasons. Now, once again, I have had my eyes opened to the age-old truth that I need to spend time with God, and in His word, on a daily basis, if I am to grow and develop as a person, let alone as a believer.

Just do it.

As I have been pondering Lent, I realised that I have already given up so much (sugar, grains, carbs), that there isn't really anything I can give up in my diet for Lent. I could give up technology, but then I couldn't do my job, so that doesn't really work. I don't watch TV much, so that wouldn't work. Instead, I felt led to take something on.

So, rather than making grand plans of what I will do in these times, or how I will try to schedule them into my day, or which devotional method I will use, etc. I have decided to just start.

Just do it.

Storms

I often find that when I'm low, physically, I feel low emotionally too. When I'm stressed, or tired, or sick, I wind up saying and doing things I wouldn't otherwise do - things that often hurt others. It's like the filter in my brain gets switched off, and instead of really thinking about what I'm doing, I react immediately to things - and often, my first reaction is the wrong one.

Given how stressed and sick I've been recently, I'm sure you can imagine some of the stuff ups I've made. I'm still fairly sure that with one of the colossal mistakes I've made in recent weeks I've burnt bridges which will never be fully restored.

Which brings me to Paul's reflections in Romans 7:15. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Every fibre of my being resonates with Paul's sentiments. I hate what I do. I hate that I can't do the good that I want to do. I don't understand why I can't just do what Jesus teaches, why I often do the EXACT opposite. I don't understand why, when I know how to be pure, good, loving, faithful, kind, generous, peaceful, lovely, and all the other holy attributes, the core from which my emotions overflow continues to be selfish, angry, hate-filled, arrogant, mean-spirited, jealous, and all the other evil attributes.

As I reflect on my actions, I find myself turning to self-loathing. In the very core of my being there is rottenness, evil, horrible filth. I wonder afresh at how anyone could really love me, when inside of me lurks this horrid monster that apparently cannot be tamed, that apparently has not been changed by the love of God, that rears its head when I am most vulnerable, hurting those around me (and myself). I wonder afresh at whether the world would not be a better place if I were no longer in it*. I find myself thinking, once again, that I would be better off if I were not in this world - because by dying, I would no longer have to struggle with this resident evil. Hopelessness surrounds me, because I cannot see how things will EVER be different, how this fundamental portion of my being can EVER be fixed, changed, redeemed, set free.

We're doing a series in church at the moment, looking at the different religions that are followed in Cape Town. It's called "Coexist", and if you're interested in that kind of thing, then I'd recommend you check out these talks... very powerful while being respectful. There are several things about Christianity that I believe make it unique. One of those things is grace.

Grace is something VERY hard to grasp, let alone to appropriate. Grace is the unmerited favour of God. It is completely scandalous; it's offensive to the core. If some part of you doesn't find it offensive, then you probably haven't understood it properly. (For an explanation of why it is scandalous and offensive, you might want to read this blog post.) 

Back in 2004 the movie 'The Passion of the Christ' (directed by Mel Gibson) was released. I went to see it with a girlfriend. When I came out, I had gouged my palms with my nails in the (unsuccessful) attempt to control my emotions. I walked out of that movie with one lasting, overarching impression: How could I be worth the price that God was willing to pay? I can't comprehend why God was willing to pay such an extravagant price for me, when I am clearly so unworthy. In comparison to his glory, even the very best parts of me, the person I most strive to be - even THIS part of me is like excrement-covered rags next to him.

I particularly wonder about this incredible love at times like this, when I have messed up YET again. Why does God put up with me, when time and time again, I fail to learn the lessons, when I repeat the mistakes of the past, and let Him, myself and everyone around me down again? I am completely perplexed by his long-suffering patience with me, by his deep, abiding passion for me. What on earth does he see in me? I marvel at how a perfect God could love such an imperfect creation as myself, and not just love me, but love me enough to be willing to suffer ALL THAT. 

Grace.

In times like this, when I'm feeling incredibly low, and hopeless, it is the grace of God I cling to. I have stuffed up, and done a pretty good job of that too. Yet, as I turn to him and confess how wretched I am, I hear his voice speaking words of comfort to me. "I did this all for YOU because I love YOU and YOU are worth this price to me. Your sin is not the end of the story. You sin is not what defines you. I am what defines you. I am the end of your story."

Grace.

Thank God for grace.

____________________________________________________________
*I should point out that I was suicidal years before. There is a vast difference between how desperate I felt then and how I feel now. I can assure you that I'm nowhere near that level now, and I'm not about to try to kill myself.

Plants aren't as passive as they look

When I was growing up my step-mom used to tell me about stuff she was learning or reading, mostly through the Org (Church of Scientology). One of the stories that stuck in my head was about how plants had been used to identify a murderer - The Secret Life of Plants (http://www.pureinsight.org/node/1496). Lyall Watson, a South African, was one of the researchers, back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

As a teacher of science, part of me considers this book to be complete trash - pseudoscience at best. Yet, something about this particular story has stuck with me. Plants do react better, albeit anecdotally, to people who treat them well - talk and sing to them, and it's not just about increasing CO2 levels. Science has shown that plants do react to sound.

Since that book was published, other studies have shown that plants do produce stress chemicals - jasmonates are produced when plants become infected, or wounded by herbivory. They are also released into the air as volatile compounds, which nearby plants react to by increasing their own production of jasmonates, in preparation for herbivory or preventing infection. (Nitric oxide is another, also used as a cellular signal to kick-start the immune response in plants.)

What strikes me about this, is that plants whose roots or leaves are not touching are able to communicate with each other, and warn each other about potential impending danger. Recent research also shows that plants appear to be MAKING sounds, with their roots, to communicate with other plants. It appears that some plant roots produce and respond to sound in the 200Hz range (humans hearing range is from 20- 20000 Hz). It has also been shown that plants in danger produce a higher pitch sound than when they are not threatened - the equivalent of screaming or shouting.

 Obviously, there is a lot more going on than we currently understand. But all this begs the question - were Lyall and his cronies onto something? Were they just ahead of the curve? Are plants sentient in some way?

While the Bible is often metaphorical and allegorical in its language, I can't but help thinking of certain texts with fresh eyes now...

Is 55:12 the trees of the field will clap their hands...

Ps 96:12 ...let all the trees of the forest sing for joy...

When the trees clap their hands, when they sing, I wonder... are they wafting praise chemicals around??? It's an interesting thought, isn't it?

In the quietness...

I am amazed to look back and see how far God has brought me on my journey of grief and healing. I can see the deep, dark hole I was in, and I can see where I am now - and they are miles apart! Yet, I can still see the long road ahead of me, to get to where I'd like to be with God.

Something that I've really struggled with is spending that one-on-one time with God. In part, that's because I feel I've lost the ability to hear God's quiet voice. In part, it's because I'm scared that I'll sit there, anticipating, and then hear nothing - that it will feel like God's abandoned me yet again. In part, it's that I don't feel I can make the time. In part, it's that I'm just too lazy to apply myself.

This is the area God has been tackling for a while now. I do hear God. I know I hear him - his Spirit has spoken quiet words into my heart, growing a longing in me to read the Word, to hear God speak to me through his Word. But there's always a good reason why I can't put it into practice, or so I thought.

Over the past few weeks, at church, to start off the year, we've been learning about why it's not only important, but also beneficial, to have a regular time with God, reading his Word and praying. Last year, I know that God was preparing my heart to hear this message, and so I've found myself receptive to it. I've found a few things startling though, about what has been said, and the way it has been said.

Firstly, something I've found really helpful is the idea that we don't read the Bible for what WE can get out of it. Rather, we read the Bible to expose our lives to it - to let IT read US.

Secondly, I've been impressed with the lack of side-stepping the issue the preachers have shown. While their messages have been sensitive and inclusive, the clear message is that having a quiet time in the morning, and having one every single morning, is best. There are good reasons for this, which, if you want to know, you can download off the church website (www.commongroundchurch.org.za) (or is it .co.za?).

Usually, preachers are so careful not to offend those who are night owls, who work shifts, who are dyslexic, or whatever, that they don't lay down the law in this way, as it were. Again, although they DID make allowances, it was made abundantly clear that for most of us, failing to read the Bible, or failing to read it first thing in the morning, is simply a cop-out.

Thirdly, I was struck by the fact that if God is first in my life, this is something that should come first too.

Now I am NOT a morning person. I'm a night owl. I can work, very happily until 3am. Ask me to get up before 6am (8am on weekends) and you're going to get your head bitten off. Mornings are also really busy for me - kids to get ready, lunches to make, drop-offs at school, morning meeting at 7.45am.... So I figured that, if this is so important to God, He had better help me find a time to do it in the morning.

And He has. He identified 10 mins in the morning for me when I can just sit and read the Word. It's amazing. I'd never seen it before, but it was there, right in front of me all the time. So now I have a time slot, in the morning, without me having to get up extra early!

Fourthly, I was struck by the idea that if this is going to be important to me, I cannot allow distractions - even good ones (like my kids, or minor emergencies at work), to disturb me. And this is exactly where I fell down. All was going well for the first 5 days, and then there was "just" something I quickly needed to do in that slot. In the blink of an eye, I lost my time-slot as I allowed it to be eaten up by other things.

But it's not all doom and gloom. The next Sunday, the preach was on a useful method to employ during your quiet time with God - VIP. V - choose one verse to memorise. I - what insight can you gain by reflecting on it. P - how will you pray in response to that insight? The idea is that you journal those 3 points every day. I've also found a devotional study for 21 days for Busy Women! So, I'm back on the wagon. A fresh week, a fresh determination to spend that time with God, reading His word. A habit is formed in 48 days... let's see if I can make it through the week and weekend first. Then we'll tackle the following 41 days!

Thank God for 2nd chances! (and 3rd, and 4th, and 5th, and 6th....).

What's his name again?

It's not often these days that I feel a sermon is particularly brilliant. While many are good, they don't always strike that perfect balance of entertainment value coupled with hard-hitting message. Usually they're either one or the other, or neither.

But this Sunday past was one of those rare occasions when I heard what I think must be the best sermon I've heard all year.

Sibs Sibanda. Google him. You'll find very little as far as his bio is concerned, but lots of links to his sermons. He's a preacher (part of a team of people) at a church in Jo'burg called Godfirst.

The man is a gifted communicator. No. He's a genius at communicating.

While he's driving home the most incredibly hard-hitting stuff, he has the ability to give a little humourous aside that allows the congregation to chuckle, without losing the building tension of the message itself. Brilliant! I want to learn to do that.

Plus he's just very funny.

Plus he really has a gift for opening up the scriptures to us.

I would say I know my Bible pretty well. I've read it through more times than I can remember. (Not lately, of course, but in the course of my Christian life.) For this reason I find I often skim read passages, because I feel like I know them so well I can't really learn anything new from them anymore - I can just be reminded of what I already know. I recognise, of course, that that is just my own arrogance, but that's the way I often feel.

Well, Sibs Sibanda shure showed me. He took a passage I was very familiar with and blew it completely wide open for me. He showed me things I'd never realised before (about the passage, I mean).

Oh. My. Word.

All the while, making me both laugh at myself and take a good, long, hard look at my sin.

PLUS - not once did he make me feel judged or inferior.

Incredible.

Just incredible.

I don't ever download the podcasts from the sermons. I think I just might have to download this one to listen to it again. If you want to have a listen, you can find the mp3 here. Give it a listen, seriously. It'll be worth both your time and your bandwidth.

Arise!

A milestone reached.... Graeme and I went to the evening service at church on our own for the first time EVER since we've returned home, and I think even for the first time since Janel was born.

The preacher was a friend of ours who runs a project called 'The Warehouse'. Their aim is community upliftment through various projects that they run. As a result, he works with the poor a lot. More about that in a moment though.

Being in church was both amazing and unbearable. Graeme and I have really been struggling with the issue of not really feeling like we belong to a church, and therefore, with trying to find somewhere to belong to. Before we left SA in 2000, we were members of the evening service. Since our return, we've been going to the family service. We don't know the people there, and it's really not a service we feel comfortable in for various other reasons that I don't want to air here. Mostly, we want a community like we had at the Ascension. We want to be part of a small to medium sized church where you can actually know everyone by sight, and where you can actually know a large number of people by name. We also want a church that has great teaching, great worship, and great children's church. So, not much then really.

In the past, when I've moved churches, I've known which church was the right one to join by the feeling of coming home I had when I sat down in the church. It's happened every single time I've moved to a church that has blessed me and challenged me. As yet, I haven't had that feeling when we've been back to our 'old' church, and I haven't felt that in any church we've visited.

Sadly, I didn't feel that last night either. (I bet you thought that was where this story was going, didn't you?!) However, as I looked around at the people in the service it struck me how many of the faces were familiar. When we left Ascension, everyone there had stood round us, as communities ought to, in grief over losing Zoe. I looked at these dear people, who had meant so much to us, but who really had never known us. I wondered how they would have reacted if we had lost Zoe here instead of in the UK. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by a desire to share our story with them, to tell them about our loss, to have them put their arms around us and enfold us in love.

It struck me though, that it was in this community, rather than any we had thus far experienced, that we were probably most likely to find the depth of relationship I am craving. I know these people loved us in their own way before, and they could do so again. Revelation #1.

As we began to worship, I promptly burst into tears, and proceeded to spend the rest of the worship with my eyes and nose overflowing, and no tissues anywhere in sight. I was battling to sing the words and mean them. All I kept thinking was, 'How can I say You are worthy of praise, or God Almighty, when you let my child die?' - or thoughts to that effect. I know that my real problem is that I'm struggling to trust God. As C.S.Lewis expressed it - the problem of pain is that the only solution to it seems to be that either God is not all-powerful, or he is not all-loving.

As I was grappling with this, I heard God's quiet voice asking me just to let go and trust Him, not to try and reason it out. And I just couldn't. I want an explanation. I want to know why. I'm not sure what effect knowing will have, whether it will drive me further away or give me a way out.

As I continued grappling, once again God spoke quietly to me. He reminded me of the last time He asked the seemingly impossible of me. For most people, if you asked them what they would most hate God to ask them to do, it would be to go to China as a missionary (or something similar). For me, it was to give up my dream of coming back to SA and staying in the UK permanently. I grappled with that question for months before I could come to a place of relinquishing my home and my family and saying, 'Not my will, but Yours, o Lord.'

But God hadn't asked me to give up my family, or South Africa. In a sense, at that time, I felt like Abraham, who had been given the son he craved, the son God had promised, and then had been asked to sacrifice him. He got to the point of having tied up his son, put him on the altar, and was raising the knife to kill him, when God stopped him. At the time, I felt like God granted me a reprieve. Once I was able to submit, He told me that he didn't require that of me. (Sjoe! That was a close one!)

As I was remembering all this though, it suddenly struck me that God was now asking the 'impossible' of me. The 'impossible' thing God requires of me is not to give up my family, or my home. It is not to give up my job and live without an income. It is not even to give up my own body and live as a disabled person. No, the 'impossible' thing God requires of me is to give up my child, my little Zoe, and to trust that even though she died, God is still all-powerful AND all-loving. Revelation #2.

From experience, I know that until I can do that, I'm not going to move forward in my relationship with God. We've reached an impasse, and God is not going to surrender to me! However, again, from experience, I know that God is patient. He will give me the space and time I need to work through this until I can do the seemingly impossible.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, someone shared a passage that had been given to a group she was praying with on Saturday. It was given in the context of praying for transformation in South Africa. The passage? Isaiah 43:18-19. For the benefit of those who aren't good Jews and can recite the Old Testament prophets at will...

"Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland."

Well, I think you can gather how startled I was as that passage was shared. In fact, in reading through the whole chapter earlier today, I nearly wept (especially at verses 5-7). The first part of that chapter has always had deep significance for me. It's one that God has given me time and time again at crucial times in my life.

Then, the Bible message email thingy I belong to sent me the following verse today...

"ARISE [from the depression in which circumstances have kept you - rise to a new life]! Shine (be radiant), for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!" Isaiah 60:1, from the Amplified Bible.

Do you think God is trying to say something to me? Just maybe?

Isaiah has to be one of my favourite books in the Bible. God has spoken to me through it so often. It strikes me then as no real surprise that these two passages are both from Isaiah.

I guess the question is: will I have the guts to step into the unknown and let go of my need to understand? Will I trust God despite my lack of understanding. Will I stretch out my hand to take hold of the one He is stretching out to me?

And if I do, what will the implications of that be? Does that mean I will never again be allowed to remember my baby girl, or miss her, or grieve her? Does that mean I will never again allow myself to ask the question my heart most longs to have answered?

Who knows?! Who knows. What I do know is that at the moment I'm stuck, and I'm not capable of moving forward on my own. And I also know that if I continue to stay in this place, I am going to lose my faith - as a consequence of neglect, rather than anything else - and then where will I be? I think this is what is euphemistically referred to as being between a rock and a hard place.

Edited to add... sorry, I forgot to tell you about the sermon. I'm exhausted now, so will do that another time.

Before they call, I will answer

I've been thinking recently about the state of my relationship with God. While everything else is slowing getting back on track and life is returning to normal (or as normal as it ever gets with us), I can't say the same for my relationship with God.

Immediately after Zoe's death, and in the weeks that followed, I had such a sense of God's nearness, presence and love. Even in the midst of all the pain, I felt I could still say that God was loving and knew best, and I could, in some measure at least, praise Him.

That has now gone. In it's place is this vacuum. Now, I have no inclination to praise Him, no inclination to do anything vaguely spiritual. In church this morning, I was really hoping that I could connect with Him on some level, but that was not to be. Nellie was unable to be on her own in creche, and as I figured Graeme needed the break more than I did (we are both SO exhausted at the moment... probably just from hay fever more than anything else), I went in to play with her.

When we got home, I decided I needed to take time to read through the collection of emails we've had since Thursday that I hadn't had time to read. In amongst them, was one of those emails that asks you to forward it on to all your friends. Unlike many though, it wasn't promising you anything if you did/ didn't. I have no idea how true the story it contained is, but I've heard so many similar stories whose content I can verify that I trust this to be true.

It made me cry, because it seemed to me that God was letting me know that He knows where I'm at, and that even before I feel able to call out for help, He has answered; that even before I know I'm in trouble, He has already set in motion a plan to rescue me; that even though I currently feel nothing, He has not abandoned me. Which is exactly what I needed to hear this morning. Which is why I cried.

A quick aside about emotions: I know that emotion is a peculiarly charismatic thing, both a strength and a weakness. The strength is that I think it reconnects our heart with our minds. All too often I think religion seeks to disconnect them, which Jesus never did. The weakness is that, all too often, charismatics allow the pendulum to swing too far and disregard the mind completely, which Jesus never did either.

I am learning to keep the two in balance, but as I am an emotional person anyway, feeling things is very important to me. For me, to go through the motions of anything (not just religious stuff) without the feeling to back it up feels fraudulent to me somehow, like I'm lying.

I know there are times when I have to, or need to, but I much prefer it if the emotion is there underpinning what I'm doing, especially when it comes to my faith. Not to feel like praising God, or talking to Him, or reading the Bible, or just spending time with Him... that's a pretty big deal for me, and I'd rather not pretend otherwise. I'd rather not sing songs whose words I can't echo in my heart. I'd rather not read the Bible or pray out of a sense of duty. And if that's the only thing I feel - a sense of duty - then I'm not going to do those things. I'd rather not lie by omission, or perjure myself before the Judge of the world.

If I'm in trouble for not being spiritual enough, or for not giving God the honour & glory He is due irrespective of how I feel, or for taking grace for granted, then that's enough of a crime. I don't want to add to it by going through the motions and being hypocritical.

So here's the story. It's written by a doctor in Africa.

One night I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all we could do, she died leaving us with a tiny premature baby and a crying two-year-old daughter. We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive, as we had no incubator (we had no electricity to run an incubator).

We also had no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts. One student midwife went for the box we had for such babies and the cotton wool that the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle. She came back shortly in distress to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst (rubber perishes easily in tropical climates). "And it is our last hot water bottle!" she exclaimed. As in the West, it is no good crying over spilled milk so in Central Africa it might be considered no good crying over burst water bottles They do not grow on trees, and there are no drugstores down forest pathways.

"All right," I said, "put the baby as near the fire as you safely can, and sleep between the baby and the door to keep it free from drafts. Your job is to keep the baby warm."

The following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with any of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby. I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle, and that the baby could so easily die if it got chills. I also told them of the two-year-old sister, crying because her mother had died.

During prayer time, one ten-year old girl, Ruth, prayed with the usual blunt conciseness of our African children. "Please, God" she prayed, "send us a water bottle. It'll be no good tomorrow, God, as the baby will be dead, so please send it this afternoon." While I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer, she added, "And while You are about it, would You please send a dolly for the little girl so she'll know You really love her?"

As often with children's prayers, I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say, "Amen". I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything, the Bible says so. But there are limits, aren't there? The only way God could answer this particular prayer would be by sending me a parcel from homeland. I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time, and I had never, ever received a parcel from home. Anyway, if anyone did send me a parcel, who would put in a hot water bottle? I lived on the equator! Halfway through the afternoon, while I was teaching in the nurses' training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door.

By the time I reached home, the car had gone, but there, on the veranda, was a large twenty-two pound parcel. I felt tears pricking my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone, so I sent for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string, carefully undoing each knot. We folded the paper, taking care not to tear it unduly. Excitement was mounting.

Some thirty or forty pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box. From the top, I lifted out brightly colored, knitted jerseys. Eyes sparkled as I gave them out. Then there were the knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children looked a little bored. Then came a box of mixed raisins and sultanas - that would make a batch of buns for the weekend. Then, as I put my hand in again, I felt the.....could it really be? I grasped it and pulled it out - yes, a brand-new, rubber hot water bottle. I cried. I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could. Ruth was in the front row of the children. She rushed forward, crying out, "If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly too!"

Rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed dolly. Her eyes shone! She had never doubted! Looking up at me, she asked: "Can I go over with you and give this dolly to that little girl, so she'll know that Jesus really loves her?"

That parcel had been on the way for five whole months. Packed up by my former Sunday school class, whose leader had heard and obeyed God's prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. And one of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child - five months before, in answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old to bring it "that afternoon."

"Before they call, I will answer" (Isaiah 65:24)

The point of it all

My day was fairly productive, all things considered. I wrote a few letters that I've been putting off for weeks. I also started and finished Zoe's scrapbook - sticking the photos of her into her baby book, and then filling the pages we will never use with the cards and emails we've received. It was hard work trying not to look at the photos or read the cards. I tried hard not to think about what they really portrayed, or think about the emotions I felt at the time.

As I was driving to collect Nellie this afternoon, I found myself wondering what the point to life is. I feel so empty and adrift, and nothing seems to have any meaning. Before Nellie was born life seemed to be exactly as the old cliche portrays it - dig a ditch to earn the money to buy the food to give you the strength to dig a ditch.... Surely there must be more to life than this, especially as a spirit-filled Christian, right? Then Nellie was born, and I found a new reason for living. While work still had little meaning, caring for Nellie was the most amazing and incredible (and frustrating and exhausting!) experience.

Now, with Zoe gone, I'm back in that place, wondering what the point to life is. There must be more to life than merely waking up to repeat the same old monotony of working, eating and sleeping. Life has lost all colour and joy, and the only reason I get out of bed at all is because that's what I'm supposed to do - get up, have a shower, eat, brush my teeth, get dressed... but for what? I've lost all vision and sense of purpose. My purpose at this point in time was supposed to be nurturing Zoe, and now that's gone. What is left in its place?

I know this is normal, so there's no need to worry about my mental state of health. I know this will pass and I'll rediscover the joy of life. Right now though, there seems no point to anything. I eat because food is put in front of me. I get dressed because someone tells me to. I'm exhausted, but I seem to lie awake for hours at night unable to relax enough to sleep.

With Qohelet's author I find myself crying, "Meaningless, meaningless, ... utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." (Eccl 1:2) Let's hope this phase doesn't last too long...

Like, DUH!

On my way home tonight from dropping my mom off, it struck me that sometimes I can be really dense! Like, DUH! dense....

This Good Friday there's another person I have a connection with... Jesus' mother! Having lost Zoe, whom I hardly knew, I can barely begin to imagine what Mary would have gone through - raising her firstborn, seeing him mature and grow into a man, spending 30 plus years loving him, and then have to watch him being tortured and killed... believing he was DEAD for 3 days.... I can't even begin to imagine her personal hell that first Good Friday!!

Somehow, that puts my suffering into some sort of perspective.

Alternative versions

An old school friend posted an alternative version of Ps 121, for those who are interested.

Teach a child...

I went to one of those old-fashioned girls' high schools where tradition was a big deal. At the start and end of every term our headmistress would read Ps 121. Ever since Zoe's birth, I've had bits of it running through my mind.

The old adage about 'teach a child the way to go and when he is grown he will not depart from it' has apparently worked with me. The words of all the praise and worship songs from the '80's and early '90's when I was at school are the only ones I can remember - the new stuff (which I thought I valued more because they were more expressive) I just can't remember; either the tunes or the words!

Anyway, this evening, I found myself praying the bits of Ps 121 that I could remember over Janel as I put her to bed, so I thought I'd look it up and read it again. I know that God watches over us; I know that He is here in the midst of our suffering; I know that (despite how things look) He loves us. On reading it again, it seems so appropriate that I thought I'd share it here.

Ps 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills -
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip -
He who watches over you will not slumber;
Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you -
The Lord is your shade upon your right hand;
The sun will not smite you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from harm -
He will watch over your life;
The Lord will watch over your coming and going
Both now and forever more.