Redirecting

In another part of my life I blogged about another avenue of my life. 

In which I was presented with a scenario I didn't expect and tried to fathom what it meant. Being me, I needed to know, understand and... Yes control, the process.

I have learnt a lot about myself, others and life ... This is a part of that blog, a post I recently put there.

Address for that blog is at the bottom of this post.

Me?
A broken vessel, still. 

Trying hard to be His daughter and worthy but failing miserably at every turn, still.

I do see God's hand.
I see how my research into adoption helped with visiting orphanages with a heart open to truly loving the children there.
I see how the same research and digging gave me an awareness of what is happening in adoption so I could have a heart ready for displaced children.
I see how my focus on one child opened doors that would otherwise have remained closed to my mind.
I see how blogging the mind wanderings led me to people I otherwise would never know. People who adopt more than one child, whose hearts are broken for and by the process, but who know that saving one child gives one child a chance.
I see how I gained more knowledge about special needs and differences.
I see how through showing me this, God broke me and remade me.

I see how I learnt mercy, grace, faith and obedience.
I see how I forget that I learnt all these things on a daily basis, as I am impatient, grumpy, inattentive, judgemental and unforgiving.
I see how far I can and do fall, and how He can pick me up again.

I see how through it all He had a plan.
I also see that it isn't finished yet.


Full blog: http://chinaheartofmine.blogspot.com.au/

Where in the world is common sense?

I am hoping those in power in America sit together and agree to agree on changing and or modifying their gun laws. To my knowledge, nobody is saying people can't have guns, just that they need to be more regulated.

I have friends with a farm who have a gun. They needed a higher calibre to protect the stock on their property from other predatory animals, and went through a veritable circus of paperwork and knock back before finally getting a gun up to the task.

In the same geographic area, I have friends with children who are so dead against guns they don't allow even talk of them in their home. They actually don't allow toy guns either, which means water pistols, nerf guns or gun play of any sort.
They also carefully monitor TV so there is no violence seen.
So who was I to tell them I saw their children play at kindergarten, school and child care and watched as they used a twig or their cocked fingers to simulate a gun to play 'shooting' games? Where did they learnt that?

I also know people who don't keep sharp knives on their kitchen counter in case they have an argument and they're seen as an 'easy' weapon.

Cavemen used rocks, people use glass, others use belts, rolling pins, bare hands... Whatever is handy or suits their needs and physical surroundings.

So while I'm acknowledging the gun issue needs addressing, there must be a piece of the puzzle missing.

And hey don't pull the mental health issue around me either. I happily admit to depression, (no humour intended in that phrasing) and am a pill taker for this. If it were to be suggested this (which IS classed as a mental health issue) makes me more prone to gun toting fury than the angry disgruntled and basically grumpy people I meet every day who refuse to admit they have anger or personality issues, then we're in a bad way.

While the nation and the world mourns the deaths of innocent children from sandy hook, let's not forget that there are gunshot wounds, murders and violent deaths every minute. From knives, cars, guns, fists, drugs.. You name it, innocents are dying. And every death is one too many.

Putting guards in every school isn't a guarantee of safety. 
Giving every teacher a gun isn't a sane answer.
It's also bringing our kids up in false fear and false security. 
It doesn't teach them resilience for life in the real world and it makes them fear life without an armed guard.

I don't know the answer and I'm glad it's not up to me, I just wish the common sense and the politics and the money and the power could all come together.... And make something workable. 

Because what the Internet needs is more stories about cats.

If I believed in reincarnation I would choose to come back as a cat, because life seems pretty good for them.
They can be as persnickety as they like and people shrug, saying "ah but that's cats".
They sleep all day, eat, then stretch and sleep again and people hug them tight, not tell them to get their lazy butt off the couch.
They can turn their back if they don't feel like interacting, ignore owners completely, look down their teeny noses in arrogance, walk away when their human is mid sentence, and what happens?
"Oh that's such a cat thing"

So I'm in.

Before we became dumdog owners, we owned a succession of cats. They have all gone to better places... But not all died.

Chloe was the first cat we both owned, bought from a friend in a moment of weakness (on my part).
I thought having a cat would be nice.
I'm sure for you it is.

But I didn't realise how frustrating having a cat meandering around my feet could be, especially when I was pregnant and couldn't see my feet. Add my already ungood (new word) vision and we had chaos with me tripping over the cat all the time.

Chloe tolerated our daughter while she was immobile, but once said daughter started to walk, things were different. Chloe scratched my baby from the outer corner of her eye across her cheek. (So blessed, so very very blessed it didn't connect with her eye)
We moved house a month later and chloe stayed behind with the neighbours.

Whaaaat....?
With their knowledge, of course!

Then when child one and child two were old enough they nagged for a cat. After about five years I gave in. Someone's cat had kittens and would we like one?
And the someone asked in front of child one and child two.
Who promptly burst into excited happy dancing with their father.....
So that year there were two kittens under the Christmas tree.

A black and white tuxedo señor named Daisy.
She wanted a cat called Daisy, what could I do? Stop looking at me like that, all judgmental like.

And his sister, a tabby called Buddy.
Yeah, yeah, go all side eye on me now. So my kids aren't gender biased in their cat naming. That's a good thing, right?

Daisy and Buddy were quite obedient, surprisingly, and their lives were fairly normal.
If by normal we're talking being dressed up, being locked in a food bin for six hours
taught to say "merl" instead of meow, straddling my husbands shoulders as he gardened,
being used in puppet plays, scaling the pantry shelves ninja style in search of treats...
then yeah, they were normal.
Until the day Buddy ran away. She didn't come for her meals for a few days and we were about to give her up as deceased when a neighbour came over holding her wriggling self.
He was devastated as he asked if it was our children's pet.
Apparently his own cat had died not long before and he was so upset by this he refused to ever have another cat... until a "stray" made itself at home in his shed, eating from the dead cat's bowl, sleeping in the dead cat's bed.... Until someone told him our kids had lost a tabby.

I told him that yes it was ours. Child two was over the moon excited to see his cat, and grateful for her safe return.

Not so Buddy.
Upon hearing our family sounds, smelling our family smells and seeing our family home, Buddy reared up, hissed and sprang violently from the neighbour's arms, turned mid air and ran back to the neighbour's house. She did this several times.

We decided that as she was now effectively a teenager, Buddy had in fact used her angst to run away from home and find refuge in a safe place.
And with that our double feline status was halved.

Daisy was a battle scarred beast at times. I'm sure the neighbourhood cats picked on him for his name and he had to fight for his honour. If that isn't the case then he was just a relentless bully who was compensating for his girly name. Either way, his ripped ears, battered belly and torn out claws gave us many a time of head shaking.

Daisy got old and crotchety but was loved nonetheless by all the other humans in the house. His arthritis, mood swings, deafness and senility began to overtake his youth, much to his own disgust.

Then a phone conversation between child three and her friend, the daughter of the local vet, a conversation which incidentally had started so well, ended with us saying we'd take a kitten off their hands.
The runt of the litter, this teeny tiny little ball of ginger fluff fitted in my cupped hand. Ginger fluff was renamed Jewel, partly in homage to the singer whose music I was flirting with at the time.
Jewel wasn't old enough to lap milk so much time was spent drop feeding and cosseting this 'toy' and thus a bond was being formed, dammit.

Daisy, heretofore, as mentioned, old and crotchety, became Jewel's own Mr Miagi. Hunting, stalking, toileting, ignoring the humans, there was noting too meagre or too grandiose for Daisy to not teach Jewel. The day we found Jewel on top of a garden pole ready to ninja pounce onto the unsuspecting deaf Daisy, we knew the apprenticeship was almost over and 'grasshopper' was ready to leave her mentor.

In another part of life, one of my brothers was going through a rough patch. He loved animals and took a special shine to Jewel, which was reciprocated. I offered him Jewel as his very own so he could have company.
The children were so overjoyed by my offering their pet in this way there was a deafening silence. Broken by I think a sob or a hiccup.

I did know how much the family loved Jewel, and this was not done in malice, which the children understood, but the big empty hole left, filled only by the sullen and grumpy disdain of Daisy, was palpable.

I think I've been forgiven.
Daisy eventually had to visit the vet for his final time. My husband rang me at work to tell me he couldn't stand seeing him in pain any more and the vet would fit him in right now.

Daisy now lives under a tree in our front yard, the same tree he used to sit under to snarl "hey you kids get off my lawn" any time passing children looked like they might be having fun.

And just like any grumpy curmudgeon unable to rest in peace, the stories of his youth are told and retold with more flavour and exaggeration over time. Just as he would wish.

How can we even...

How do we even remotely comprehend?
How can we even start to wonder?
Last Friday rocked the world in a way wars, famine and politics can't. It ripped at our heart strings.

We've all done the "what if it had been me?" thought processing.

Even planned-to-be childless couples understand the depth of the tragedy.

People, including grandparents, with children of all ages, shudder and vow to hold their children tighter.

In a world in which parents are already called too protective, too careful, too disinfected... The world now sees more need to be more protective, more careful and more disinfected.
Because.. 
How can you even...?

How can you sit at work after a terrible morning where you slept in, then grumpily rushed the kids through breakfast, through getting out of bed, through short tempered "you can't wear that it's dirty, hurry up hurry up hurry up" and a hasty peck n the cheek at the "kiss and drop" zone at school....
And wonder if you'll see them tonight to make it better?

How can you sit through the knowledge that they heard you and your husband arguing last night and saw you being distant with each other this morning over a trivial nothing ....
And wonder if you'll see any of them tonight to make it better?

You can't. You just can't.

Because life is full of risks. And we can't prepare for everything.

The chances of a gunman destroying your baby's school day are, what, millions to one?
The chances of the same gunman taking your baby's life at school are maybe rarer.
But it happened.

The chances of anything happening are exactly that, they are chances. Everything we do is full of risk. Even though we want to protect our kids, need to protect our kids, there is danger everywhere around us. 
Living life in a cocoon isn't the answer.

You can't know anyone's story, every person is fighting a battle we don't know about. And how and when their unknown reaction to their unknown battle will erupt is anyone's guess.
And it's not just the mentally ill or the traumatised. It's any person reacting to any situation.

But we can't raise our kids to be terrified, we can't pass our adult fear onto them. 
Depending on their age, they can't process properly. 
We adults can't process this tragedy properly, what hope have our kids got?
They see our tears, they hear our anger and frustration. Much as we try to hide it, they see the fear, sorrow and frustration in our eyes and in our movements. They see us angrily tapping into Facebook, twitter, blogs etc as we express our disbelief and question our government, our nation, our society.

Their innocence has been lost in this world where we ask why children have lost the art of playing, imagining and of fantasy. 

But they need to know there is also good in the world, there is wonder, joy, happiness and fun. 
That there are people who would give them the shirt off their back, the food off their table and the toys from their playroom.

We are the grown ups, the ones who grieve and who hurt.
We need to be the example and the 'safe place'.

We need to let kids know its still okay.
We need to let kids know people care.
We need to let kids see us picking up and going on.
We need to let kids know that there are safe adults.

Love them, give them a safe anchor at home and give them wings.
Pray protection over them, it's the best you can do.
Yes the Sandy Hook parents probably did the same that Friday morning, they did the best that they could do. 
Their hearts and lives will never, ever be the same and their babies didn't come home... Through no fault of their own.

I don't have the answers but I pray for our children growing up the generation of fear. 
They need to be able to soar, and we need to be proud of them stretching their wings and give them the room to be free.

In which I need to repent of Santa

It's more than that his name is an anagram of Satan, and more than that he just creeps me out. What is it I really have against Santa?

Why don't I just accept that he is part of society? 
Or that he stands for something magical? 
Or that he makes kids happy? 
Or that he isn't evil? 
These are all the questions I field when I say I don't "do" Santa. 

Before I had children I was determined that Santa wouldn't play any part of our family Christmas. 
The nativity would feature, and the children would all understand the relevance of the Christ child to their lives. 
They would most likely receive gifts but I would focus more on their birthdays than Christmas, because Christmas is now more about commercialism and their birthdays are about them.
I would be strong in all these thoughts.
I would, I would.

Cue my first child's second Christmas; she was 16 months old and I failed right away by giving in to the obligatory photo with Santa. In which she is seen screaming, arching her back, tears running down her face and Santa is saying "just one more minute"... And I wondered what I was doing.

Her next Christmas, she was therefore 28 months old and quite aware. She heard again the story of the baby in the manger sent as God's gift to the world.
She had a 7 month old brother and I again gave in to the Santa photo. Because I could send it to people, I told myself. But that was as far as Santa went.
Until every store turned into a battle zone of people asking her what Santa was bringing her. When I said "oh we don't do Santa", they smiled and rephrased their question to "oh what is Father Christmas bringing you?"

She looked totally confused, because we hadn't talked about Santa or Father Christmas. We had talked about some presents under our tree and buying daddy a present, and buying baby brother a present, but not this other story.

She grew. She went to child care very rarely, where she asked why they made beards for a picture of a man and why Santa came to visit. I brushed the man in red off but didn't go so far as to say he was a lie. She was too young to be told the world would lie to her, wasn't she? 
I didn't give Santa the credit for the gifts that arrived under the tree. They just appeared, from us.

Then, before many more Christmases, she started kindergarten. The crafts, songs, pictures, colouring in and stories were all about Santa. And the questions increased. 
By now she also had a younger sister, but her brother was just as inquisitive as she was about the man in the red suit who gave them lollies everywhere they went.
This brother was more persistent, however, and wouldn't accept a brush off as an answer. He wanted to know who this man was? 
So... I couched the story. The world was forcing Santa down their throats faster than I could stop it, and I was dizzy with trying to avoid him. I told them that Santa brought a toy. Not because they were good or anything, just because. 

The next year saw more evidence in their lives of Santa. Because their friends, their kindergarten and child care... And everything, just everything was smothered with Santa. Catalogues came in our letterbox, posters on store windows, cards In the mail and on a throne in the shops, his face was everywhere.

And again... I couched the story. I really didn't want to destroy the wonder of their imagination, after all. But this time I told them that mums and dads agree with Santa before hand what is needed so kids don't just ask for anything, and don't always get everything they ask for.
So then the questions...  when did I meet Santa? Or did I ring him? Or did I write to him? Or was it the one in the shop? If it was, which shop? Because there were three shops with Santa, did I talk to them all or just one? 

On Christmas Day, my son asked why everyone gives everyone presents. He was wondering why 'Santa' brought presents, mum and dad gave him presents and all the relatives gave him presents.
I told him it was in remembrance of God giving us His son Jesus as a baby. That was the greatest gift He could give, and we gave each other gifts to recognise that. That the giving of gifts to each other was a tradition; we couldn't hope to match a gift as valuable as God's but it was just a way of showing we cared.
Phew. I'd missed Santa and got in God, yes. 
*Insert imagined high five.*

Then The Visitor In The House said "yes and Santa brings us presents so we remember what Christmas is all about"
*Insert imagined "what the...?"*

The next year, we had another baby boy in the house. Only someone who has had four children close together on one middle income with a mortgage (signed the week before finding about the fourth baby) can know how tight money is. There was no money. There was only just money for the essentials.

Roll to one year later, when the children are 7, 5.5, 3 and 1. Theres still no extra money, and because I'm determined to be a stay at home mum, there won't be. The five and a half year old has outgrown his bike. We all know it. He decides to ask Santa for a bike. And a DVD.
And that's all.
But there's no money for a bike.
I have to tell him.
He says "I didn't ask for much because you said you talk to Santa about it and he only brings what we need. I need a new bike, this is too small and has got wrecked."
I told him it just couldn't happen, I was really sorry but t just couldn't.
He was persistent.

In the end... I couched the story. I told him that Santa brings the presents after the mums and dads buy them, and we didn't have money to buy one.
This blew his mind.

And I cried when I went to bed, because I couldn't give him a bike and because I had compounded my lie so much and had lied to one of the most precious things in my life.
The next day, I sat he and his older sister down and I told them the facts of Christmas. That there was no Santa, that he was made up. Mum and dad buy the presents and wrap them up.
I expected surprise and maybe sadness.
I got anger. I got tantrums and frustration. And confusion. 
I told them that it was pretend and that their friends might still like to believe in Santa, and we wouldn't spoil that. And that while I didn't want to lie to the little kids... maybe we wouldn't tell them just yet, we'd try to let them enjoy Santa because it was hard to fight it.
And mr 5.5 said "what happens when they don't get what they ask for?"

I have since read something which did resonate with me about why I hated the Santa thing so much. In this the author (and I wish I knew who it was so I could link!!) said something along the lines of the following, which will now become my words.

... we tell our kids about Santa and spend years telling them he's real, only to then tell them he's not. 
He gives them things if they've been good, and visits them in person at their child care centre, kindergarten, department store, street party and parade.
We sit our children on his knee, take photos and let him give them gifts and lollies because he's a nice guy. Everybody says so.
He answers their letters and on Christmas morning, the food left out for him is gone and there are presents under the tree.
Magic.

And the world assures them he is real.


We spend years teaching our children about a God they can't see. We assure them He is real.
He doesn't give them everything they ask for, He gives them what they need. And they receive it through His grace and mercy, not through their works or behaviour.
We go to his house, His church, but we don't see His physical presence, because He isn't here. He's everywhere around us if we only look for Him.
He sent His son to earth. People abused him, tortured and killed him. Then He rose from the dead.
We can read His words in the Bible and we can talk to Him through prayer. If we listen heard enough we can hear Him talk, but those who don't know think that we make it up.

And we assure them He is real.

And after we tell our children that Santa isn't real, that the tooth fairy isn't real and the Easter bunny isn't real, we still tell them about Jesus who is real... Jesus who isn't allowed to be read about or talked about in school or kindergarten, who isn't allowed to be part of their education, who is frowned on by some people of the world and other, namely your kids, are teased for believing in Him. 


And so that, gentle reader, is why I don't like Santa. You may think he's only a white lie or a good lie or a little kid lie, but when I'm faced with the reality of them wondering if God is a white lie too, there is no question about the line I wish i had taken.

obstacles

Funny, that experience... 

that when you find out you're pregnant, all you see everywhere are pregnant women. 

Or prams, or babies.

When you're looking for a new car, all you see are new cars.

When you're thinking of buying an elephant statue for the garden, all you see are...

... wait.

No, that one's just me.... ?

So now when I'm thinking about mission trips all I see are blogs about mission trips.

I realise it's all a psychological something, that you actually only tune in to what's been in your face all along anyway, or you sub-consciously seek out these topics, but it's funny the way our mind tricks us into believing this.

I was doing one of my favourite things the other day - no, not the ones involving chocolate and hammocks, one of my other favourite things; listening to a podcast while out walking in the morning. (shh yes okay, it's a NEW favourite thing, don't tell my body or it might decide to give up before it becomes a habit)

In this, I heard the following - and this isn't verbatim, because if I take time out to find the podcast, listen to it, find the spot and write it all down, I'll have seen something else to listen to and completely forget to come back here....

so I heard something like this: 

"Being on a mission trip in a foreign country is different. You walk down the street and all the shop signs, the people, the smells and the food are all different. The main religion is different. Without even trying, you KNOW you're in a foreign country, you are the different one, and every moment, you're reminded of your purpose in being there"

And BAM - it hit me between the eyes ... ain't that the truth.

The speaker continued that as believers we are called to be missionaries where we are, but that it can be harder because where we are... it's not different. We get caught up in the every day and the details and the... familiarity of it all.

And forget our purpose in being here.

And then today I found this:

 "..all I can say is that ministry is way harder [home] than it ever was in [away]. Being an agent for Love and Grace in a place where people truly don't recognize their own need is really tough...
I believe Jesus has competition in the ... suburbs like no place else on Earth. Everyone here is surrounded by so much shiny new stuff, it's hard to see the Light...

Here, poverty is internal, hunger is spiritual, and need feels non-existent. But it's there."

 http://www.theveryworstmissionary.com/2012/11/jesus-in-cougar-town.html

Hands up if your church has a sign on the door as you leave which says "You are now entering the mission field".

Hands up if it occasionally makes you guilty.

Hands up if you've forgotten it's there or will check next Sunday because you can't remember.

The not-so-funny thing is that you could put that sign in front of your face, tattoo it on your hand, post-it note it on your car steering wheel, your workspace, your kitchen sink.

Everywhere you go is "entering the mission field".

Even inside your church. The sign works on the in and the out doors.

The needs all around in the everyday are different, but no less needs. 

There may not be abandoned babies but there are broken "children" of all ages.

There may not be obvious homelessness but there are emotionally displaced people looking for comfort and a safe place.

There may not be abject poverty but there are bankrupt hearts.

The needs are different, but not less.

And that's not saying being the missionary in your own day to day is easy. 

Far from it. There are always distractions, always frustrations.

So much hurt has already been done in the world by Christians using their agenda not God's, and it can be a scary place to go - putting yourself out there. Christians fail every moment of every day because they are human.

Whether overseas or in our backyard, we need open eyes and open hearts to really see what's to be seen. Because sometimes our biggest obstacle is ourselves.