Morning Lord. I’m doing the old hide-in-the-bathroom thing at the moment since I want to try and spend just a little time with you today in spite of having Nathan home, Linley home and a whole heap to do with Christmas now only nine days away. Nine days! How am I ever going to be ready?
Thank you for the news that Bryce is doing a little better. There seems no doubt he will pull through, although to what I’m not sure. Cameron said the experts at the hospital are trying to get to the bottom of whether the overdose was accidental or deliberate but that Bryce is being very vague about the whole thing. Cameron said to him it’s a bit of a moot point – taking drugs recreationally is just another way of killing yourself anyway – it just takes longer. So, Lord, I continue to pray for your healing hand and that some sort of long term help could be found for Bryce to get him out of this bad place he has ended up in.
Meanwhile, Andrew has invited Cameron to come to us for Christmas – which, if Linley is still around (and I very much suspect she will be), makes the four of us, the four grandparents, Linley and now Cameron – and possibly even his new girlfriend. If they all come that will be eleven of us. Hmm. Oh, plus Ashley and maybe her new boyfriend. That would be thirteen. That’s sounding more baker’s nightmare than baker’s dozen to me.
And even more meanwhile, could I just say at this point that Linley is driving me a little crazy? She’s forever picking holes in my mothering, not always verbally, but just with little looks of disapproval or with tuts of remonstrance if I so much as let either of them off the hook over the simplest of misdemeanours. I mean, I know I was guilty of judging other mothers before I had my own children, but surely I was never this bad? How quickly you learn that motherhood is all about making the best choices for your children, not the right choices for you, and how you really have to be sure that the hill is worth dying for before wading into battle over it.
It reminded me of something Caroline said last week when we had our very brief telephone conversation. She said one thing she was daily learning was how the weight of expectations of others was the most difficult thing to deal with where Christian was concerned. She said she had never realised just what a huge role expectation plays in our lives, and that people could be so unjust by having expectations that were just too unrealistic and too judgmental. I’m beginning to see how right she is about that.
So, Lord, I pray for your patience to work in and through me and for your wisdom with Linley and with the children – to know what to say to them and when – for the best. Funny how I’ve lumped Linley in with the children, but where motherhood is concerned she’s as innocent as a babe in arms!
In your name I pray…Amen