monday morning musing

'We want to feel, acknowledge, and see how exaggerated, eccessive, and absurd our false energy really is. If we own and take responsibility for our darkness, if we feel how it has wounded ourselves and others, how it has allowed us not to love and not to be loved- if we do that,.. we will become alert to the other side, to our greatest gift, or rather, the actual depth of our gift. Our gift is our sin sublimated and transformed by grace.'
 Richard Rohr, The Enneagram

 and some baby photos just because:

the last two weeks :: 1

Where to start and to coherently describe the last two weeks with a foggy, lack of sleep state of being that I'm in? It might be easier to copy a page from my journal, my ongoing list of things I'm thanking God for :

:: the gift of staying at our friends home (which was minutes from the hospital), and it truly felt like home, so much so that the kids cooked and played as if in thier own space

:: bottles. yes bottles-this time would have been so much harder if I had been the only one feeding these two babies.

:: the big kids helping to settle and soothe

:: a beautiful German girl able to help and occupy the kids

being close to the shops and getting all the school needs including haircuts, which would have been much harder being at home

 :: friends to help pass the time away

:: being able to walk to see daddy at the hospital each day

:: these two cute little babies, I'm so thankful for when they're not crying and I can see more of who they are

2012

I was going to start this new year, this first month of 2012, marking moments. The mundane, the everyday- the stuff that makes our lives.
I was going to celebrate the new year with friends..I imagine we would of had a bonfire outside, red wine in, talk of our heart whispers for the coming year, reflect on the amazing year that was.
I imagine laughter and lots of kids running around, plenty of hands to hold unsettled babies, a BBQ on and a trip at the waterhole.

This 2012 has not at all begun the way I'd imagined.

New years Eve found Matthew being helicoptered to hospital after having an accident at the waterhole, we are waiting to hear more news at the seriousness of his injuries.
Friends did come- to support and hold unsettled babies. Make coffee, take big kids for a swim, pray.

Despite not having time to reflect or savor the passing of one year to the next I hold close the fresh reminder that  - life is a gift. And the everyday moments of our lives are extraordinary: a friend who wraps their arms around you, a hot cup of coffee, a child's laughter, a friends offer to mind the kids, a meal shared,
-it's all a gift.

 

I go into 2012 not at all how i imagined but I go in feeling deeply rich and with the knowledge that though dark times come there are flickers of hope everywhere if i look. I hope that 2012 finds me more full of thanksgiving and contentment than ever before as I fully live the mundane, the everyday moments: the extraordinary.

today I'm thankful for

managing to think of a simple craft that enables this one to get her hands messy

a new toy from a dear friend- so fun and now I can instantly glue moments to remember in my journal

summer fruit

her wonder

green views outside

seeing my oldest and youngest boys together

these babies will have a thousand kisses

sleepless nights, anxious thoughts

Another Sleepless Night
I'm turning in my bed
long before the red sun rises.
In these early hours
I'm falling again
into the river of my worries.

When the river runs away
I find a Shelter in Your Name:
JESUS...only Light on the shore,
Only Hope in the Storm.
Jesus, let me fly to Your Side
There I would hide, JESUS.

Hear my anxious Prayer
The beating of my Heart
The pulse and the measure of my unbelief
Speak Your Words to me
before I come apart
Help me BELIEVE in what I cannot see
Before the river runs away
I will call upon Your Name:
JESUS...only Light on the shore
Only Hope in the Storm
Jesus, let me fly to Your Side
There I would hide, Jesus.

Amen.
song by Fernando Ortega

a moment to remember

and so it begins

the newness
the milky smell
on me on babies
the finally getting to put head on pillow
yet it was just five minutes and I'm up again
the washing piles getting higher each day
the gazing into those windows of the soul
as they start to be awake a little bit more each day
the relearning of so many things
but oh how it all does come back
and yes I'm more confident than I realized I would be
the worries
are they getting enough milk
why are they so windy
am I eating something that causes it
the skin still looks a little yellow
the unspeakable joy
she's looking at me Mama!
soft skin on my skin
I'll get the wipes for you Mama!
the windy smiles
the little clenched fists around my finger
the open, eager mouth searching for Mama's sustenance


despite this being the fifth (and sixth) time it's all new and I'm
marveling at the wonder of birth and new life