Dysfunctional??

This I am going to write about -

Scenario:
The two sibs (and their families) of my man live up Gauteng way (about 2 hours flight time)
We don't see them very often but as far as I know, there have been no family fall outs or anything like that.
It turns out that they have all been in our neighbourhood for a good few days, socialising with DH's parents, even braai-ing just down our street.
And not one of them so much as called him!

I am gobsmacked.
And gutted for him
He just takes it in his stride (or says he does)
I specially cannot understand how his parents could have let this happen.
Or what caused his sibs to be so cruel.

Now
I want to phone the parentals
And ask them to explain.
As nicely as I can
When I want to scream down the phone:
"What were you THINKING?!"

Would you phone them?
Or is it best left alone for the family to sort out?
What would you do?

Inspiration Frustration

Major things have been happening in our lives - huge, life changing things.
You'd think this would be a blogger's dream -
Getting down on paper (or up, in cyber-space) all that's been going on -
But no-o-o
I find I can't write about it because our stuf'f  is also invariably linked to other people's stuff.
Nothing is 'ring fenced' so that I can talk about it here without implicating other people.

Could this be the height of writer's frustration?

What Difference Would It Make?

What difference would it make to Christians if we had no idea that we were supposed to become conformed to the image of Christ?
I can't help wondering about that.
Imagine if all we knew was that God had sent Jesus Christ so we could again be part of His family. . .
What if the Epistles only had the first parts, which are all about Christ -
and not the second bits about behaviour? 
How would that affect us?


Would we be freer to worship Him?
Would we be freer of self scrutiny with its inevitable pride or condemnation outflow.
Wouldn't we judge each other less, criticise each other less because we wouldn't have expectations of one another?
No one would be saying, "Call yourself a Christian!?" accusingly, because not-Christians wouldn't have those expectations of us either.
Because, let's face it, no one has a problem with Jesus -
But with the church, and with Christians?
Ohhhh yes.
But not with Him.


So much pain comes from our, and others' expectation that we be more like Jesus.
They point fingers at our awful failure.
And we spend ridiculous amounts of time thinking about ourselves
Trying to find ways to move this boulder of 'ME-ness' out of the way

We try SO hard, for so long, in so many ways . . .
For us, we are the immovable object.
Seriously.
We may think we can do it but
There is only One who can.
And His way is so odd.

He does it when we are not trying to do it.

He does it by Himself so we can't feel proud of ourselves.

He does it when we know we can't

He does it when we are caught up in how wonderful He is.

By taking our own spiritual temperatures, we slow the whole process down

And get in His way, like clumsy baby fingers 'helping' Dad.

Now God doesn't make mistakes
He's not  going to read this post and think, "Gosh, she's right! Maybe I should have done things differently!"
Let's face it, if we could have made ourselves "good" without Him, Jesus would never have needed to come here.


He has very good reasons for His doing things this way
Its to do with realising how much we need Him
Amongst other things.
But that's another story.

Breathless

The last couple of days I have felt horrible
Low spirited, dark grey and directionless.
And seemingly unable to pick myself up although I know the theory of "self up-picking"

And then last night, when I had nothing to offer but my emptiness: nothing to bring but my empty hands and numb heart, God met me.
In power.
In reality.
In breathtaking, rivetting truth.

And lifted helpless, hungering, me right up again
And overwhelmed me with His huge kindness, His unthinkable Father-ness.

Today, i dance again
With gratitude and joy.

Absorbing

"Grace absorbs the pain"

When there is ill treatment, malice, thoughtlessness, dismissiveness, contempt - there is pain.
The ways people can damage each other are legion  and it always hurts to be at the receiving end.
But what do we do with the pain?

I suppose it boils down to 3 choices: hit back, retreat or forgive.
The desire for revenge is pretty natural - after all, it seems only fair.
They have hurt you; they should pay.

Then there are those souls who feel that somehow they must have deserved being treated so badly, so they withdraw into themselves and become almost reclusive, afraid of being so hurt again.

The decision to forgive.
Thats a biggie
Because when there is bad treatment it causes pain and someone has to take that pain -
either the perpetrator by the repercussions of their actions - or
The forgiver, who decides not to retaliate.

The pain of forgiveness is real.
The story of Amy Biel and her parents is a legend in South Africa.
This young American student came to SA and poured herself out, helping black youth.
In a fit of rage they killed her - a national disgrace - a blight on our country.
Her parents, in a stunning display of grace, came here, publicly forgave the killers of their daughter and have worked tirelessly with these same young men, wanting the best for them.

We can be sure, it was agony for these parents to have lost their daughter in this way.
The brutality, the injustice, the senselessness of it must have made it worse.
It would have been natural for them to want to make these men suffer in turn for their deed.
Make them bear the pain.
But they didn't
They bore it, and let the others free.
Not only that, they blessed them in many ways - these killers of their beloved daughter.

That's not natural behaviour - it is way past what we can do naturally.
But it sure makes people ask "What gives them the ability to be like that?"

Which leads us back to Jesus Christ.
Thinking about Him, I was thanking the Holy Spirit for taking care of Jesus while He was in His mortal body (you may think thats a childish prayer!) and the thought ocurred to me that the sufferings of Jesus must actually have started much earlier than the Cross.
I hadn't really thought of it much before but - all that rejection, even from His family!
The rejection by His closest friends; the betrayal; the being misunderstood; the loneliness; the ingratitude -
This Man of grace absorbed so much, even before His final sufferings.
Is it possible that it is only by seeing this, that we are set free to be pain-absorbers too?

All around my Hat . . .

I found out something great today.
If you stick a flower in your hat, people smile at you.
Some will even stop and chat awhile

If that sounds like a completely random statement, it isn't really.
If you'd like to see what led up to this, read here -

I didn't do the flower-in-hat thing to get the smiles.
I did it because its a beautiful day; I was going a-walking again (same route); and the flower was there, begging to be plucked from its place of obscurity and displayed.
And lo and behold, every shape, size, colour and age of people passing, smiled at me as I swung along humming "All around my hat, I will wear a green ri-i-bbon"
(Well, not quite accurate, but close)

You know what else that flower-in-hat did?
Made me feel different -
Young, carefree, happy, free -

So, maybe its worth a try for anyone feeling heavy-laden
Cheap at zero cost
Its possible the pharmaceutical companies might find themselves in trouble . . .

Painting Paradise?

Today was to be "Art Day" for moi.
I've been looking forward to it the whole week
It was all arranged: DH had appointments all day, so voila! the day was to be mine.

You already know what I'm going to say, don't you?

The collapse of my carefully crafted plan started with an early phone call cancelling DH's first meeting.

It was all downhill from there.

Art-wise, I mean.

(I guess you know that trying to find your painting mojo with a tea/coffee/snack/conversation/ hungry DH in the immediate surroundings is a laughable thought?)

He did finally go off on the late appointment and my opportunity arrived.

But - suddenly- unexpectedly, painting was the very last thing in the world I felt like doing!

However, squaring my shoulders bravely, I entered my studio.

The rows of tubes of acrylics lying on the table looked like bared teeth, daring me to try anything.

Do you know its possible to be intimidated by a sheet of blank paper?

Probably the least said about what transpired between me and that piece of paper the better.

Let's just say I have obviously got a LOT more work to do with The Artist's Way.

I wonder if there's a chapter on dealing with frustration in the book . . .

I had hoped that my creative flair would finally find some outlet in this post -

But as you see, today has not been the the artistic paradise I'd hoped for.

Maybe tomorrow . . .