Ugh! Another early start when, by rights, I should be still snoring away in my bed. You aren’t waking me up early, Lord, are you, so I don’t skip spending time with you? If I promise not to be neglectful can I go back to having sleep-ins?
Anyway, I guess it will do me no harm to spend some time with you now and to rejoice that yesterday is over. What chaos! Thank you that I survived the party and I would say thank you for the fact that, for the first time ever, Emily made it through her own party without bursting into floods of tears, but it didn’t end up a completely tear-free zone. Madison ended up in tears instead since one of the other little monsters teased her about how old fashioned her party dress was which nearly broke my heart. Poor Jess probably had to spend money she didn’t have to buy that dress! I could see that Emily was a bit conflicted as to what to do. It seems apparent that Madison is no longer deemed to be a ‘cool’ person to be friends with and I could see Emily torn between wanting to be loyal to Madison and wanting to fit in with everyone else. But that was nothing compared to how hurt Madison looked. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Anyway, the mean girl in question got her come-uppance and herself ended up in tears as Nathan sneakily tied the ribbons on the back of her dress to her shoes while the kids were playing pass-the-parcel (where does he get these ideas, Lord?) so that when the game was over, and she tried to stand up, she fell right back down again. Just as well her dress was sturdy otherwise she may have been disrobed! I did feel a bit sorry for the girl but not so much that I firmly disciplined Nathan. Perhaps that wasn’t quite the wisest thing to have done, but really.
Then there was dinner in the evening. Clearly my father decided that, on account of it being his birthday, he was entitled to say whatever he wanted. So he decided to have a subversive go at William by suggesting to him that religion was no longer the opiate of the masses (in itself an insult) but that religion has been outmoded by technology. According to my father technology is busy enslaving millions and not only that, is milking the masses of vast amounts of money in the process – just like organised religion has done for years. I thought William was going to have a heart attack! It seemed clear he didn’t quite know what to refute first.
Of course James joined in with much gusto, and even my mother seemed in the mood to add in a jibe or two (clearly still annoyed at having been left out of the last birthday celebrations) to the point where I was about to send both sets of parents to their rooms – or the parent equivalent. I wish the Copelands could see that it’s just one of those stupid debates designed to go absolutely nowhere and do more harm than good. Religion is one of my least favourite words anyway – mentioned only five times in my Bible and really only in a questioning way. Out of the sixty-six books surely that must tell people something.
Anyway, I pray that today might be a chance to regroup and to have gained back some semblance of order before Cameron comes tonight. Thank you for your love again…Amen.