one I shouldn’t have been blogging so psychotically and consistently the last two weeks. If you’ve been wondering why I’ve become your morning cup of coffee it’s because I’ve been supposed to be writing a talk for Intervarsity for this evening. Being the kind of person that I am, I’ve been doing everything I possibly can to distract myself from this morbid and terrifying reality. Don’t worry, my talk is written but only by the grace of God. I did... Read more
{pretty} It is objectively pretty. It is. I awknowledge that it is objectively beautiful. However, I am a sinner and so I am unmoved by the beauty. I don’t like it. Really just don’t like it. {happy} By happy I guess I really mean angry (me), whiney and cold (the children), and sick (Matt). I didn’t start out angry but by the time everyone was dressed and outside I was cursing the day I was born. Then they only stayed... Read more
It’s snowing. To put it mildly. All the children are stuffed up and whiny and suffering from deep unhappiness of various kinds. I’ve read thirty five blog posts on how to avoid February burnout but I think it’s already too little too late. Let the children paint in the middle of the day yesterday because I’d lost my will to live. Can’t tell you how much I loath a room full of children painting. The water everywhere. The paint smeared... Read more
Woke up with a bad headache and the shifting shadow of a bad dream confusing my angry morning darkness. Gladys was shouting that her head hurt and Baby (still nameless) was “patting” me sharply on the face and bellowing my name. The dream wasn’t about bad children, though, it was one of those horrid ones where you’re trying to get away from a thug but you’re too slow and stupid to enact any kind of plan. I think I was... Read more
We baptized a new Christian yesterday, in church–young man who has had a rough go it up till two or three months ago, made a lot of bad choices and had things turn out unhappily. If I’d wanted to engage in some nefarious and shadowy activity, he could have been my guide. In the gray light of day, on the feast of presentation of Jesus in the temple, he stood on the step facing the congregation renouncing Satan and all... Read more
I’ve lately been saying to any about to be married couple we come across that they shouldn’t worry so much about roles and headship and submission. Certainly, they should worry enough to try to obey the scripture. The man should be a man and should love his wife. The woman should be a woman and should respect her husband unconditionally, even if he doesn’t deserve it. That’s the whole point. He imputes love to her that she doesn’t deserve. She... Read more
Today is my Shepherd’s Bowl day and it’s not a good moment for me to miss any school At All so it’s going to be a long possibly tiresome day involving a trip to the store in this hideous cold and pushing the children solidly through the morning so that we have enough time to cook. And because I’m really tired and don’t want to deal, it will be Regular Soup with ground beef, chickpeas, tomatoe, curry powder and whatever... Read more
Finally cleaned out the fridge on Monday, after needing to do it for like a couple of years or something, while Matt baked a pizza for the kids and devised a divine chorizo, steak and egg concoction for me (and him). I took everything out of the fridge and piled it on top of the week’s groceries which hadn’t been put away and then poured myself a glass of wine and started scrubbing and slinging soap around while children ran... Read more
The first many years of parenting are an anxious and fraught time. The main worry is keeping the child alive for the next 24 hours and praying they won’t fall out of the tree they’re climbing, or off of the back of the couch which they are using as some sort of gymnastic device. And, of course, you want them to eat every kind of food and become literate and it’s so perilous. There’s so many possibilities for anxiety and... Read more
The snow is swirling wildly outside my window and the temperature apparently is falling another degree each hour. Matt has decided not to walk after all. Discovered, as I rushed along to church yesterday in my stupidly thin coat, that whenever I look out of the window or scuttle through the snow covered landscape, that I am always thinking only of summer. And more even, my mind has been playing tricks. When I open the door of the church and... Read more
Preventing Grace
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