child smiling behind trifle with 1/2 candles

She did what she could

One of my favourite traditions that we’ve developed as a family is celebrating half-birthdays. There’s no party or presents, just cake and candles, the family singing “happy half-birthday”, and a girl grinning in surprise because she hadn’t done the math herself.

I love making cake almost as much as I like eating it, so usually the effort to make it happen isn’t onerous. But on this occasion the mental load was high and the emotional reserves were low, so I did something that old Maja never could have: I just bought a thing. No hand-crafted cake for this girl’s half-birthday, it was a short-dated trifle that I grabbed from the supermarket in between running errands. While she was out of the room, we whipped it out of the back of the fridge and I hastily (and badly) stuck in some pre-used candles.

Not a thing of beauty, and I couldn’t eat a spoonful, but she loved it.

As a recovering perfectionist, that crappy trifle was a sign of real personal growth for me. And, believe it or not, it was prompted by my reading of Mark 14:3-9 that morning.

Yes, your devotional reading of Scripture can guide your dessert choices — this is practical theology.

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close-up of Michelangelo's statue of Moses

Unqualified?

When I was in my final year of high school (way back when we called it “form 7”), we were all encouraged to complete a career aptitude test. It was a computerised quiz that asked us a bunch of questions and then spat out some suggestions about what kind of careers might be a good fit for us pursue. It was good for a laugh.

20 years later, I thought I’d try it out again. Turns out I should reconsider retraining as a Forestry Scientist, Economist, Zoologist, Landscaper, or Obstetrician — no, no, nope, maybe, no way.

There is some merit in them I’m sure. It’s worth figuring out if you have an aptitude for a vocation before you pursue it… kind of.

If you think about the kind of person who was taking on the role of public speaker and leader of a nation, there are a few personal aptitudes that it would be helpful; not least the ability to speak fairly well. After all, it’s a public speaking role.

But then there’s Moses.

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Deep calls to deep

If there was ever a good place to have a meltdown, it has to be in the shower. It’s usually private, you’re alone with your thoughts, and because the water is already flowing the tears come easier somehow. At the least, the fact you’re having a good cry is a good reason to stay there a little longer, and, let’s be honest, any reason will do.

It’s in those moments that Psalm 42:7 often comes to my mind

Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

However great your water pressure is, you’re never literally experiencing the desperate flooding the psalmist describes, but sometimes, in your heart, you are.

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Embracing limitation

I admit it, I’ve been jealous of people who have been isolating at home without kids during this pandemic. And all that talk about how we can binge-watch Netflix while learning Spanish and crochet and making sourdough after we’ve cleaned out every single cupboard… it grates. Yes, I have been watching more TV than usual and, yes, I have made sourdough (poorly), but having four kids at home means it’s a juggle to do all the things. All the things are not getting done.

Those four little people have put a serious damper on my productivity, and I struggle with the limitations of that… I struggle with limitations all together, but not in a good way.

It can seem like a noble pursuit to be always pushing against your limits. I’m still working my way out of an unhealthy mindset of ministry where a good girl is one who’s run off her feet, forever saying “yes,” and prioritising everyone else’s needs not out of love but out of obligation.

But it’s sin that has us forever pushing at the boundaries — dissatisfied with Eden and grasping for more, instead of being content that we already have everything we need. Not satisfied with being made in God’s image (Gen 1:26-7), the first Adam wanted to become divine (Gen 3:5). The second Adam (that’s Jesus) instead lay down his divine nature (Phil 2:6) to embrace the limitation of the human nature.

To be limited is a very human thing.

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Working it out in you(r body).

For the longest time I’ve been trying to like exercise. I remember a moment, almost 20 years ago, when I was out for a jog (at that pace, I don’t think it merited the term “run”), and I was struck with a joyous realisation that I was finally being someone who I wanted to be. But I was getting married later that summer, so the wedding-dress motivation was strong.

Fast-forward through a couple of half-marathons and four babies and I am still working at identifying as a person who runs. I don’t do it for the wedding dress, or any dress, any more. I do it for the sanity.

I’m learning more and more that I have to work out my feelings in my body, that I need to deal with stress in my body, and more generally that I just need to be a person in my body – and not a person with a body.

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Go slow

We used to joke that one of our daughters had only one speed in the morning: SLOTH. It was painful to watch as she struggled out of bed, dawdled her way through breakfast and the morning jobs, and then scrabbled to pull it all together as we headed out the door to school. No matter if she was first up, she was always the last to be ready to leave. It used to drive me nuts when we were in a hurry to go somewhere.

But these days, courtesy of the COVID-19 lockdown, we’re not in a hurry, and we’re not going anywhere.

I’ve recently finished John Mark Comer’s book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which is all about “how to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world” (find the book here, or listen to his teaching on the topic here). And it was like a prescription from heaven for my heart.

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Find and feel his presence

“We just don’t expect enough of the Holy Spirit” – that’s not the kind of thing you usually read in theology books. Well actually, that was my translation, Brian Brock said it this way:

“The problem of not being able to receive every human being with open arms turns out not to be an insufficiently inclusive anthropology, but an atrophied pneumatology”
Brian Brock , 2019, Wondrously Wounded: Theology, Disability, and the Body of Christ

Brock is writing about intellectual disability here, but I think the same idea extends to every human being whom we might have difficulty receiving as a gift.

And that can mean our own family.

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Physical distancing doesn't have to mean social isolation

We all knew it was coming, but it still felt like a shock: the news that New Zealand is shutting down for the next four weeks to try and curb the spread of COVID-19. I’d been planning a little, running some scenarios through my head, but my brain was still left spinning when I understood that once I got the kids home that day, we were home for the duration. Of course, my first thought was to assess our supply of library books – only natural right? For a panicked moment I thought the library had already closed, but praise God we managed to get there before they closed, and boy did we stock up.

Because, let’s be honest, this is kind of an introvert’s dream, right?! You know, apart from the pandemic part of it.

As much as part of me would like to go to ground, hold my little ones close, and just read, garden, and bake my way through, I also know that I’m going to go crazy if that’s the only plan.

We can’t let physical isolation mean social isolation.

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Lean into connection

Life is at a low ebb in our home right now. Mostly it’s that we’ve all been sick in turn over a few weeks now (when you’re a family of 6 it takes a while before a virus is done with you), and there are a few stressors from without that are causing turmoil within. It’s just a short season, we know that, but even in those it’s easy to lose perspective.

In the past, my response to times like this was to just knuckle down and press on through; maybe practice thankfulness like a good Christian, or maybe stuff down a bit of resentment… y’know, either/or. But it was about doing something, about pushing an attitude or an action to create a different feeling, or just sucking it up for the sake of my family until things felt better.

But more recently I’ve been drawn to a different, gentler approach: leaning into connection with my family.

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We have everything we need

Air rage – I’ve never experienced it, only read about it thankfully. Angry people make me uncomfortable, so the thought of being trapped with an angry person while 30,000 feet in the air sounds terrible. But it happens. And it happens a whole lot more on planes with first class cabins.

It’s not the pampered rich up front who are kicking up a stink, it’s the act of walking through the first class cabin on your way to cramped economy that significantly increases the incidence of air rage. If you enter the plane from the middle or rear, skipping that envy-inducing walk, the incidence of air rage is the same as if everyone was seated in economy (read the paper here).

As humans we’re wired to make comparisons with others, and usually it’s upwards to those who have more and are more than us. (I enjoyed this podcast from NPR’s Hidden Brain on the subject). While it mightn’t make you mad enough to act out on a plane, it can be demoralising and discontenting. And it’s so darn pervasive.

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