Morning Lord.  I must say I am feeling a lot more positive today and am really looking forward to the weekend.  I’m thinking of suggesting to Andrew that we try and find a babysitter and go out for a meal tomorrow night which would be just the ticket I think.  Nothing like a meal you haven’t had to cook yourself to cheer a girl up.

Or at least I should say that half of me is feeling positive and the other, not so much.  Bible Study was great again yesterday.  Libby took us on a small study on the concept of relying on your love as a parent.  She talked about 1 Corinthians 13, the passage on what love is, and how the things said in these verses describe you.  You are patient, you are kind.  You do not envy, boast or have pride.  You are not rude or self-seeking.  You are not easily angered.  You do not rejoice in evil but you rejoice with the truth.  You always protect, always are faithful, always persevere.  The only small question came about the bit where it says that love keeps no record of wrongs, and we had a discussion about what you do in this regard.  We talked about how on the one hand we will all be called to account on the day of judgment, but on the other how Psalms tells us that as far as the east is from the west, so far have you removed our transgressions from us.  I must say I find this sort of conversation most interesting and instructive, much more so than I ever pictured.  At the end of the day, though, I’m just grateful for my salvation.

Anyway, the point was that, in the same way we can rely on you as we do with faith, and as I do with wisdom, we can also rely on your love working in and through us as parents.  Boy, this is good news for me since I am definitely not most of those things listed in 1 Corinthians 13.

The other half of me is feeling not-so-positive because Caroline and Linely both called.  Linley called to see how much storage we would have for all her things (gulp) while Caroline called to say she’d had a terrible time with Christian and just needed to talk to someone.  It sounds as though things are going very badly in their household.  She’d taken Christian to the mall, thinking she could very quickly transact her business and be home in a flash but she turned away for a moment and Christian was gone.  After looking for a few minutes and fruitlessly calling his name she enlisted the help of the security team who finally discovered Christian in the supermarket ripping open packets of chocolate and shovelling them into his mouth as fast as he could.  Store staff tried to prevent him from doing this, first verbally, but then when they got no response, physically, at which point Christian started howling, screaming and smashing things like they were trying to murder him.

Poor Caroline.  She said Christian caused hundred of dollars of damage, and the supermarket have asked Caroline never come again in this lifetime, or the next.  Logan was no help.  He blamed Caroline for her lack of attention and said she had better sort the boy out.  It sounds as though they had a huge fight.  Everything is becoming harder by the day for Caroline.  Even trying to take Christian out so that Trinity can go to piano lessons is a living nightmare from what Caroline said.

I really didn’t know what to say other than giving Caroline my utmost sympathy.  What can be done?  I figure the only thing I can do is bring her before you and pray you would be with her and bring some relief to this very difficult situation….in Jesus’ name…Amen

Morning Lord.  I’m a bit bleary eyed this morning on account of the pounding headache I managed to contract in the two-hour duration of the party.  There’s something distinctly toxic about a small group of rabid boys.  Mind you, to be fair, they were pretty good really, apart from overeating when the food came out and trying to outdo each other in the toilet-humour stakes.  Diana would have likely expired had she heard some of the things said.

My headache was not helped out when, in the afternoon, Linley popped around, in tears and desperate.  It hasn’t quite been two weeks since she lost her job and already things have gone from bad to worse.  The bank have somehow learned she has lost her job and have refused to give Linley an extension on her bank overdraft, meaning her rent payment did not go out last week.  The landlord was furious and demanded she pay straight away, and when she told him there might be a small technical hitch in this regard (a polite way of describing complete financial meltdown) he served her notice and told her she had to get out in two weeks.  It sounds as though he already has some high paying clients ready to move in…hardly surprising since it is a lovely property.  I always did wonder how Linley afforded it, to which the answer was “Only just and now not at all”.

Anyway, with her credit card maxed out, and very few new job opportunities looming, Linley was wondering, with desperation, whether there might be a possibility of her moving in with us, just for a short while, until she got herself sorted out.  This request, accompanied by a waterfall of tears, was both unexpected and reasonably unwelcome.  Then, just to make things worse she listed off all the places she couldn’t go:  her mother’s (now remarried and living in Australia), her father’s (who lives in a caravan by day and in a wine bottle by night), her sister’s (who lives in Manhattan and is frightfully sophisticated), Caroline’s (on account of Linley’s child allergy – especially ones with autism), Mark’s (he’s moved on already) which really only leaves little old us.  Of course we also do have children so that does put a bit of a dampener on things, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I suddenly had visions of her walking around our house in a glamorous sheer negligee with a glass of wine casually balanced in one hand and a packet of medicated antibacterial wipes in the other, trying to pretend on the one hand that all was well while fending off any hint of kiddy germs with the other.  Anyway, all I could say was that I would talk to Andrew and get back to her as soon as possible.

Andrew, of course, was all in favour of moving directly to Siberia.  Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.  However, when I reminded him that we had opened our home to Cameron in his time of need, he couldn’t really say anything other than, “If we must.”  So, a week from today, Linley is moving in.  Please Lord, I pray you would help us all.  Not only that, I pray you would provide her with a fresh start, new job and a new abode in the shortest time possible.

Bible Study this afternoon!  It will be a highlight of my week I think – although with vomiting, a visit from the in-laws, a birthday party and a friend in need, the competition isn’t that great.  Bless our time together, Lord.

Amen

Morning Lord.  I’ve woken early with pre-party insomnia so before I get on with the last minute things I need to do before the little angels turn up at ten thirty I thought I would check in with you.  If there’s ever a need for divine intervention I’m quite sure a party with six four-year olds must be fairly high on the list…right after the cure for cancer, the end of famine and the need for world peace that is.

I’ve still got to get Emily off to school as well.  She’s all disappointed I’ve decided to have the party during the day when she can’t attend, but having said that we did have family celebrations last night – if you can call takeaways, a cake, two scowling grandparents, one mad grandmother and a grandfather in a mischievous mood a celebration – and I know full well she’d only be a catalyst for yet more showing off should she be here.  Not to mention the fact that Madison would also need to be included.  I had hoped to prevail on Andrew to have the morning off so that he could take Emily to school and then be here to help with proceedings but he’s too busy.  Shame…on so many levels.

Nathan had a great time last night, especially with my father.  The two of them are incorrigible together.  I have my suspicions that Dad was egging Nathan on to even greater heights of silliness than comes naturally.  Thankfully, Dad’s distraction quite blinded Nathan to the fact that Ashley cancelled at the last minute.  Some crisis at work…not so handy for an organization whose purpose is to sort out crises.  Claire was not best pleased, I could tell.  She told me that it has been a while since they’ve even seen Ashley, who always seems to have some excuse for not coming around.  Claire has suspicions Ashley has a man on the go and was clearly fishing to see what I knew.  Hmm… could this be true?  If so, Lord, I pray you would have your hand on this new relationship.  If it is the case, it concerns me that she hasn’t told anyone about it or let us meet this man.  That sort of furtive behaviour is never a good thing.

Anyway, Lord, I commit this to you, and also pray for as much divine intervention as you can spare to be on the party today.  May everyone have a blessed time!  I pray for your intervention against the ills of sugar, food colouring and juvenile testosterone…in the name of Jesus…Amen

Morning Lord!  Nathan’s fourth birthday!  Thankfully he is feeling much better today, is suitably chastened by what happened to him over the past forty-eight hours, and is ready to move on.  He said (it was so cute!) he realised he was a big boy now – only one year to go until he starts school – and that he would be very sensible from now on, and that he would never eat another jellybean again as long as he lived, and please, please, could he still have his party tomorrow?

Of course I have absolutely no confidence in his overnight contrition and newfound maturity which will probably only last until his party starts tomorrow and he starts showing off, but it was very lovely and does give some glimmer of hope.  And, even though it will probably make Claire tut until kingdom come, his party is most definitely on.  I’m only grateful Nathan has revived enough so I can finish all the preparations this afternoon while he goes to kindy.

Be with me as I gear up for the party.  I have a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time and any help you can give me will be most appreciated.  And while I’m out maybe, just maybe, I might even by some more jellybeans…

Amen

Morning Lord.  Here I am, Monday morning – not Monday afternoon – since Nathan is currently asleep and won’t be going to kindy this afternoon – not after the stunt he pulled anyway.  As you know things started when he was a bit interesting yesterday, where he distinguished himself at Sunday School by causing a stir about farting (am I allowed to use that word with you?).  Diana, who had turned a sickly shade of chartreuse, frogmarched him out of Sunday School demanding an apology because he had completely upset proceedings by asking ‘Did Jesus fart?’ and making all the other children uncontrollably giggly.  His question prompted a discussion that Diana then failed to put a lid on, with all manner of other dubious questions being mooted, so that the whole lesson went up in flames.

Of course I really didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or be mad at Nathan, but by Diana’s reaction I could have sworn he’d done something much worse than ask a dodgy question.  It was all a bit of an overreaction, I thought.  Anyway, Andrew and I discussed it when we got home and decided we couldn’t just leave the issue hanging in the air (!) so we talked with him about it.  The question itself was a bit silly, but not so unsurprising from a nearly four year old boy, but we decided he should have known it wasn’t appropriate to discuss such a thing in Sunday School, nor right to egg the other children on.  You could see by his face he’d known exactly what he was up to, the little monkey.

Then (as you know) things took an even more sinister turn for the worse when he came out of his bedroom after his designated time-out, snuck into the kitchen and found the enormous bag of jellybeans I bought for his party on Wednesday (his absolute favourite) and proceeded to scoff the lot!  By evening he was vomiting violently, and of course today, when I need him to be at kindy this afternoon so I can make more party plans, he’s lying asleep, feeling very sorry for himself, and won’t be going anywhere.

So, Lord, I pray you would help me know what to do with him when he gets better enough to be disciplined.  Right now the aftermath of vomiting is punishment enough.  Of course when Andrew let slip to Claire that Nathan had been so naughty she said she would cancel his birthday party forthwith, but I really couldn’t be so harsh.

Meanwhile, Daniel was very good again yesterday.  He talked mostly about the story in John 4 about you meeting the woman at the well, about how your love broke through old traditions and prejudices and opened up salvation to all.  He also talked about how the woman at the well was one of the most effective evangelists in the whole of the New Testament, bringing a whole town to know you through not only the power of what you did, but through the power of story – how you knew her story, and how she testified to your story.  Daniel said we should embrace our personal story as one of the most effective methods of telling others about you and I really think that is true.  Of course getting the opportunities to share that story don’t come along all the time, but I guess you often provide opportunities that we miss through fear or through not knowing what to say.  And, when I think about it, telling our own story really does solve both of those problems.

As usual, I find myself asking you for your wisdom in all these matters in the name of Jesus…Amen

Semi-panic this morning, Lord.  We need to be ready for church in twenty minutes and Emily is still asleep.  Nathan’s glued to his toy soldiers and doesn’t want to go, and Andrew is walking as though he just got off a horse.  I’m thinking he’ll have to go to church with a cushion tied around his backside so he can sit down without yelping.  I knew that cycling was a bad idea – neither he nor Cameron are twenty-one any more, even though their male bravado tells them otherwise.

Anyway, I think I will go regardless, so I just want to come before you and give you thanks and praise for who you are, and that we have the freedom of choice to be able to go to church and openly worship you.  As always I pray you would forgive me my many and plentiful sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness for your namesake.

Bless the rest of the day, Lord, and bring healing to Andrew.  Help me be patient with him because if he’s looking for sympathy he’ll be barking up the wrong tree…Amen

It’s just me and the kids today, Lord, as Cameron called last night to see if Andrew would like to go on a day’s excursion mountain bike riding in that big pine forest just north of here.  Of course I said he could go even though a) it would be nice to spend time as a family this weekend b) it’s pretty hard for me to give him some focused attention when he isn’t here and c) he hasn’t been on a bike in years and will pay for it dearly tomorrow.

It’s been a while since Andrew had a ‘boys’ day (I don’t think the fence building counts) so I guess it’s no big deal.  Besides, I’ve promised Nathan that we will work on planning his party which I’ve hastily decided I’ll do on Wednesday since most of his little compatriots will not have kindy to go to either.  This is bound to involve spending money so I pray you would have your hand on our plans and that we would have a fun time together in the absence of Andrew.

Speaking of which, I pray you would keep both Andrew and Cameron safe, and that neither of them would be possessed with any unnecessary male bravado, and that neither of them would need crutches or airlifting to hospital or anything vaguely medical as a result of their day.

I pray in the name of Jesus…Amen

Friday the 13^th, Lord!  Unlucky for some – or so they say.  Emily heard about it for the first time yesterday from someone at school (otherwise never mentioned by anyone in our family outside of my mother who has one or two strange superstitions) and was a bit concerned which made me wonder what the deal with this is in the first place.  According to some of the things I googled, many people think it’s a reasonably recent idea based around the fact that Fridays are considered by some as unlucky, as is the number thirteen.  In reality, most people love Fridays, I think, since it’s the end of the week – so go figure.  One thing I found that intrigued me was that there is an actual condition to describe a person with an irrational fear of Friday the 13^th – paraskevidekatriaphobia.  I can only imagine what people might make of that if you had to make a medical declaration and wrote that down.

Anyway, the point is, I realised how grateful I am to you that having you in my life means I really don’t have to worry about such things.  I talked about this with Emily and I think it made her feel a lot better.  I suppose the fact that she is being exposed to new ideas through school has its upsides and its downsides, but it does keep you on your toes as a parent, knowing just how to answer.  I guess ultimately anything that provides opportunities to teach and talk about you is a good thing, Lord, and not something to be feared.

Which brings me to the next thing on my mind, Lord, and that is Bible Study yesterday.  I’m weekly discovering how little I know myself and am learning so much.  I’m really pleased you gave me the wisdom to say ‘yes’ to going in the first place.

Yesterday Libby talked about faith, and how important it is to really understand what faith is and how it works.  She said (quite rightly in my case) that too many Christians have no clear understanding of faith – some right and some wrong – and generally, the implication is if things don’t go well, it’ll probably be our own fault for not having enough of it.

Libby gave an illustration that helped me really understand faith a lot more.  She said that there is a real distinction between belief and faith – and that asking if I believed in the abominable snowman was quite a different question than asking me whether I believed in antibiotics.  In the first instance the question is one of whether I actually believe in the existence of the abominable snowman (no!), the other whether I believe that if I take antibiotics they have the power to act on my behalf and help me heal.  Libby said that when we talk of faith it should be of the ‘antibiotic’ sort – do we believe in your power to work in our lives to save and sustain?

She also talked about the fact that the amount of faith we have is secondary to the object of our faith.  She read out an illustration from a writer called Charles Price, about three people on a plane, all with different levels of experience and confidence in the safety of flying, and how all three arrived at their destination at exactly the same time – but some enjoyed the process while others were anxious and fearful.  The object of their faith was up to the task for which it was designed, because in spite of their different levels of faith all arrived safely – and that you are worthy to be the object of our faith because you can save, restore and supply our needs – and the more we relax into this, the more we will enjoy the journey.

Meanwhile Sarah called to talk to me once again about being involved with the Missions team but really, with all I have on, I already feel like I’m on a mission as it is!

Anyway, I do want to do your will so I pray you would lead and guide me in what I do and when…in Jesus’ name…Amen

Morning Lord!  I’ve got the washing machine and the dishwasher whirring away, the beds made and the house as tidy as I can be bothered with, Nathan is playing with the miniature tin soldiers Dad unearthed for him yesterday, so I consider myself quite free to spend a bit of time with you.

Thank you for the blessings of yesterday.  It wasn’t quite the clean sweep of answered prayer I’d hoped for but the day was enjoyable nonetheless.  No one got hurt, I managed to stay headache and blister free, and the only fly in the ointment was a girl in our group called Tayla who wouldn’t obviously recognise a Noctuid Moth if it landed on her extremely freckled nose.  If speed talking ever becomes an Olympic sport she would represent the country with distinction, I think.

Also of interest/concern was watching Emily’s interactions with her peers, and in particular how she treated Madison.  It was clear that Emily was uncomfortable to be too closely associated with Madison to the point where it seemed as though she was embarrassed by a friendship that had passed its ‘use by’ date.

This surprised me a bit because, apart from those initial few days at the beginning of term, the girls seem to get on fine when it’s just the two of them.  It just makes me wonder what price Emily is paying for us helping Jess out – and whether continuing the arrangement is a good thing or not.  Then again, Emily does need to know that it isn’t all right to just dump a person without any thought to their needs or feelings.  Then again, they are only seven, hardly an age of emotional maturity or constancy.  So, as usual, I pray you would give me your wisdom as to what I should do about this situation.

I’m off to Bible Study again this afternoon so I pray that we might have a blessed time, and that you would be with Libby as she brings us a new message from your Word.  I also pray you would prepare our hearts to receive that word, Lord.

Thank you for the many blessing you bestow upon us…in Jesus’ name…Amen

Morning Lord!  I’m up a bit earlier today because I’m going on a school trip with Emily’s class today – to the zoo – and I need to organise some food for me to take and be out the door early enough to drop Nathan at Dad’s before Emily and I head for school.  Dad assures me that having Nathan with him for the best part of the whole day will be a pleasure, especially since Mum will also be around to help out (funny how I don’t automatically think of her as a help!) and that he has a few projects lined up for them to work on together.  As long as Dad makes Nathan some lunch, and not Mum, I suspect all will be well.  If Mum makes lunch Nathan is bound to make inappropriate remarks about whatever she’s served up, and what it reminds him of, so I pray that he might be as tactful as a three (almost four) year old can be.

Speaking of which, with less than a week until his birthday, I really must start organising some sort of party for Nathan.  I can’t believe that four years have gone since he was born.  I don’t know if it’s just me, or a sign of the times, or a sign of old age (gulp) but time really seems to be speeding up.  The older I get the faster the years go by.  I can imagine turning ninety and waking up on New Year’s morning, and by the end of the day it’s back to New Year’s Eve again.  (Actually, I think that’s called Alzheimer’s).

Anyway, I pray for a blessed day with Emily, that all would go well, that the children would keep safe, that my group (whoever they are) will be the next best thing to angels, with the listening skills of a Noctuid Moth (who, according to Emily, have the best hearing of any creature alive), that I might not get a pounding headache on the bus or blisters on my feet as we walk around the zoo.  Hope that isn’t too much to ask for in one go, Lord!

Thank you for this new day and for your love, in the name of Jesus…Amen