NUMU
If you search TWeber as the artist, you will find the two songs he recorded for his music exam at Northgate school a year ago.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Monday, 15 March 2010
Monday, 8 March 2010
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Bitter-sweet ...
Today is a funny day for me because today, 23 years ago, I gave birth to my only daughter. She only lived for a few hours yet today, 23 years later, I still feel the impact of that very brief life.
Rando & Klass, 2 American writers say that for parents the death of a child contains dimensions not seen in other losses, including a sense of failure in their parental role as ‘protector’.
And Father Dominica on the website, I-WITNESS, says that to live through the death of your child is perhaps one of the most painful experiences known to humankind. It is instinctive in parents to nourish and protect their child. Death is to be fought, even to the point of sacrificing your own life, but sometimes the fight is lost. Life is literally beyond control. The death of your child leaves you feeling helpless, guilty, powerless and broken.
In some ways, that is absolutely true. Our brains are hardwired to expect that our children will outlive us. We assume that they will bury us and grieve for us, not the other way around. So when the unexpected happens, it can threaten destruction, sometimes even the very relationships from which the child sprang.
But God is ultimately far more gracious than we could ever imagine. Maybe it's because He made us and so He knows us even better than we know ourselves. Or perhaps it's because He too knows the pain of the ultimate sacrifice. Whatever the reason, He provides a way for us to continue living.
For me grace has come in two ways: Samantha-Lyn was our only daughter. After that, I gave birth to three boys. So there hasn't been the constant comparison; the need for any of them to live up to the unachievable expectations of 'what might have been'. Then there were our god-daughters, Robyn Jade and Ash. In many ways they became my daughters, something for which I can never thank Bonny and Julian enough.
Finally, though, the greatest gift has been the realisation that although living through the death of your child is painful, healing does come. Maybe not in the way we expect or in the time that we would like, but it does come. So today when I think about Samantha-Lyn, I do think about what might have been: would she have looked more like her dad or me; would she have gone to university; what about boyfriends - would she have had any or would her dad have chased them all away with a shotgun? But then I think about those few hours when her body battled to do what it needed to do to preserve itself, and failed, and I know that her Heavenly Father (and mine) looked at that little body, saw its pain and decided that He did not want her to suffer any more. And I know that it was for her good.
Which brings me back to the title of this blog: bitter-sweet ...
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Reflections ...
There are moments in life that lend themselves perfectly to reflection; today is one of them. It is cold and wet and grey and it feels like we've been living in winter forever. It's tempting to complain, but then I'm reminded that we have a roof over our heads, so we are dry: the house has double-glazing so we are warm; and the sun will be out tomorrow. Moreover, as I look out through the living room windows, I see the trees at the edge of the village that will grow even more beautiful because of the rain ...
I have three sons and I love them all. In some ways they are very similar: if you line them up, you will be able to tell that they are brothers; they love sport and music; they are fiercely competitive and they enjoy the same films. However, they are also very different: Christopher is the most gifted; Timothy is the most determined and focused and Daniel, he has some of Christopher’s giftedness, some of Timothy’s determination and focus, and a great heart for people.
Sometimes I give one son more time, other times I give one more money (not often). Does this mean that I love the others less? Of course not! My love for them is not a finite entity that is limited to a concept like percentages; I don’t have to limit my love for one in order to love the other. Yet how often do questions much like these impact on and cloud our relationship with and understanding of God. We measure our importance to Him by how well we’ve done (or not) or the extent to which our experiences mirror those of people around us. So, when life takes a detour or our dreams don’t come true in the way that we had hoped, we flounder; we doubt; we question.
The truth is simple: ‘you have never ceased to be important and beautiful to God. Even though you have grown older, God still sees in you the heart of a child. Even though you have changed, even though your beauty may have faded, God’s heart still swells with love for you. Even though you have wandered far away from Him, His wish for you is still that you come back to Him and love Him as He loves you. He created you to love you, and He has a special place in His heart for you. He will love you for all eternity.’ (Adapted from the website: A Grain of Wheat)
Sometimes we make life way too complicated: we analyse and rationalise instead of just trusting that our Heavenly Father loves us, that He made us in His image and we can measure our worth by the fact that He was willing to give Himself to win us back to Himself. The truth is simple: He has no favourites.
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