things I think about when I have time to think

For Ali and Sime, our forever-family-friends. ---------------  This morning we swap 2 of our kids for another 2. It's sleepover-maths , it's school holidays, this is the second round, and the kids love it. I overhear them as they are packing, the older ones instructing the younger -   "now let's pack you 6 pairs of undies and 6 socks" .  And I am left wondering whether they're coming back tomorrow? Or have I just taught them the neurosis of never having enough underwear?   Later in the day, my friend sends me news of the happy chaos that is unfolding in her backyard...   She has gone from mother-of-2 to manager-of-4 with aplomb, and shares the pics. There is one of my 7 yo son wielding the hairclippers, buzz-cutting her husband's hair in their garage! ....Apparently my 5 yo has advised that she "really should consider getting a dog" , and has also whipped all the other kids in their water-pistol fights. Did

40% of the Australian population has a diagnosis of mental illness at some stage in their lives.   50% of those with a mental illness also have a significant physical illness at the same time.  Staggering statistics. It is not a stigma, it is not a rarity,..... it is Truth in General Practice, every day. My natural reaction with these patients had always been to listen with sympathy, sometimes even personal empathy , ...to give them my full attention, ...and then to linger a little longer in the quiet of my own thoughts, often absent-mindedly carrying these burdens home with me. Sometimes I lingered too much , and my family began to find that my mind was too often elsewhere...  I began to identify with the reality of GP burnout. Yet every day there was someone new who needed help , ....help that I did not feel equipped to give . And my role continued to be one of listening, and encouraging patients to seek formal therapy, ....with psych

I was speaking to a struggling friend at church tonight... ....and reflecting once again on how we were never meant to live under the extreme pressure s which are placed upon us. And yet, as women, most of us willingly take on these pressures, seeing it as normal to continually strive to do it all and be it all . I believe that God's design for us was to live in communities, caring for each other, nurturing, living together side-by-side as families and friends,    ...not isolated in our expensively mortgaged houses, struggling to maintain the expectations of coping, doing it alone,  ....either as working mothers, single parents, or stay-at-home mums struggling to meet the demands of caring for children without the generational support of grandmothers and aunties and nieces to help,  ....while our husbands, and often ourselves too, are out working long hours to pay for the lifestyles which we think we should be leading. I see this as

A blogging friend, Mrs B , recently posed this question - Who do we write for? I HAVE to write… I always have... ....it’s like thinking for me… processing something. For a long long time, I didn’t write, ....just little jots here and there in so many notebooks scattered throughout the house, that they followed no real cohesion… the early blurred years of my parenting …   ....taking a few moments here-and-there to write down a thought while a child napped, or I stirred dinnner,  …I kept meaning to collect all the bits and collate them, but the collected fragments are all still in shoe-boxes gathering dust,  …and I’ve probably moved on… a season that has passed. I think during that time , a small part of me was dying... In all the busy-ness of life, ... I just didn' t know it. Then one day, I just sat down at my computer and started a blog – BAM! How awesome it is to put  my millions of thoughts into words , just for ME , but really,

Little girls learn early that  tea and friendship go hand in hand..... I'm reflecting on a wonderful afternoon with 3 very special God-given friends, lots of cups of tea and heart-felt words... God gave me a man to so tenderly love and to hold me, but He also surrounded me with women to live alongside.... raising our children together, sharing our stories , encouraging one another, nurturing...   These simple things, so freely given carry such worth and weight in my life. From girlhood to womanhood, we need tea and friends....

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