things I think about when I have time to think

My friend, Lisa's, beautiful 4kg  baby boy was born yesterday. And today my clucky self got to hold  warm sweet Samuel against my chest and breathe him in, ...rocking him gently, eyes tightly shut, little mewing murmers , ...and kiss his downy head , ....unpeeling his  newborn clenched fists , so I could wrap his tiny long fingers around mine, ...and hold his  flat onsie-d feet in the palms of my hand.   There is nothing like the joy of a newborn child , ... all that newness ,  ....and yet the knowledge that you will  watch him grow ...   ....and become , ....and BE ... God's greatest gift to you.   In the words of Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, "Don't you see that children are God's best gift? the fruit of the womb his generous legacy? Like a warrior's fistful of arrows are the children of a vig

this blog is dedicated to my friend, Lisa, who has just today delivered her brand new Baby Samuel.. . When our own babies were this age, my husband used to say that Solomon, in all his wisdom , left out perhaps one of THE most pleasurable moments in his account of these in the Bible... ...and that is the sweet breathing heaviness of a sleep ing baby on your chest, ....their milky soft skin against your own,  ....the rising and falling of your own breaths as you absorb their weight,  ....just resting in that protected moment, watching them in that perfect repose,... lips puckered, downy head ,   .... soaking in the beauty of this new life , the one who has your eyes, or his nose, ...or maybe Grandpa's hair, ...there is the delight in discovering it all and just pausing for that time and cocooning . I will always remember that and savour it.... the rememberies of my sweet 5 babies, watching them grow. And needless to say, we were the t

  "I believe in You." Every time he comes to see me, I tell him the same thing, "I believe in you". And he always responds the same way. He looks at me, teary eyes, and pauses,.... lifts his face to mine, ....soaks it in, ....and then slowly brightens. "No one else has ever told me that," he says. Every time.  Paul has been my patient for several months. He has an addiction to alcohol, and as such, cannot work. I have organised social benefits for him and psychotherapy, and slowly started the process of counselling him to address the problem with his substance abuse. "I believe in You." This has been the most powerful therapy I have been able to provide him so far. It is what has kept him coming back to me each week, sometimes more than weekly. And it is how I am reaching him, slowly unpeeling the layers of his damaged life. Paul's mother has been married and divorced several times, and he g

a guest-blog: another story written by my 12-year old, Tianna MooShoo The Hatchet English Assessment Year 7, Term 2, 2012 By Tianna Just a week ago, my younger-by-a-year brother came back from the wilderness. He hasn’t acted this strange before, not even when he could only say “dada” and “mama”, because even back then he made more sense! I am not talking about the crazy weird, I’m talking about the kind of weird where you think your brother is super annoying, but after two months, it’s like you don’t even know him!  I guess I can’t blame him. He was on his way to our Aunt Kristy and Uncle Robert’s house in Scotland, because I went last year and it was “his turn”. Anyway, he was in a two-seater plane with a pilot named John Bentley. Apparently, the pilot had just been telling Jacob all about how he felt like eating a burger, when, all of a sudden, the pilot had a heart attack. Since Jacob had no idea what to do, and since the pilot was either dead or in a coma