the best advice ever

No hide, no Christmas box.

Right now, your face is blank. Unless you're among the privileged few who has heard this phrase before. Think about it for a minute... Got it?

Nothing?

Well, think of it this way: No courage, no reward.

There are mothers who raise their kids with oodles of cuddles and lashings of sympathy. There are mothers who raise their kids with a hands-off, you-can-do-it attitude. And there are mothers who raise their kids with pithy sayings.

My mum, like her mum before her, was one of the last kind (the first kind, too). I've had no cause to regret it. Present me with a sticky situation, and you can be pretty sure that one of my mum's sayings is on the tip of my brain, rescuing me from my not-so-carefree personality.

The other day, I asked a sales assistant to take half the price off a half-way-through-the-year Tolkien calendar, and she did. I'm not the type to approach a stranger and ask for something, so I've got my mum to thank for the extra money in my wallet. No hide, no Christmas box.

Here's another. Imagine your son is the saddest-looking clown in school, not having a shiny wig like all the other clowns, just a random collection of drooping clothes from his sister's dress-ups. Not that this would ever happen to me. But if it did, I might happen to say, as my mother said to me, It's not the end of the world. Because it's not.
 
I was once on the tram, scrambling for my ticket, when something embarrassing and *cough* feminine may or may not have fallen out of my handbag, in full view of the passengers. It must run in the family: my Grandma carried out an entire conversation with the milkman at the door ignoring the underpants around her ankles, the elastic having given way thanks to a bad case of pregnancy belly. Oh well, You've got to laugh or you'd cry.

You know those little phrases that get handed down like a family fingerprint? Every time my mum and I set off on a mother-daughter outing, the seat belts would click and she'd say, Well, this is fun! Much to my daughter's annoyance, it pops out of my mouth (I can't help saying it! I have to say it!) when we set off anywhere. I tell her she'll say it to her daughter one day. She tells me she won't. We'll see.

Now let's put them together.

Let's say, theoretically of course, that your boys are behaving, as boys will, with maximum noise and falling-about, right in the middle of Myer, despite all your tellings-off, and they pull over, of all things, a rack of expensive suits, and the women at the counter gives you a dirty look when you apologise, and says, in a fierce hiss, "I'll fix it", when you offer to put them back ...

It's not the end of the world. Now you're feeling a little better.

You've got to laugh or you'd cry. Now you're giggling.

Isn't this fun? Now you're talking like my mum, and all the better for it.



Written, very, very late - with apologies, but holidays are important, people! - in response to Meredith's writing challenge.

what I'm reading: how well do you know God?

On my mornings off, I go to a cafe and pull out a book. I read a chapter, slowly and carefully. I drink it in, along with my spiced chai.

It's one of the highlights of my week. That slow, meditative reading feeds me, reshapes me, and fills me with thoughts of God and Jesus and the cross.

I've just started a new book: JI Packer's Knowing God. Or maybe I should say an old one. I've read it before. It's one of the greatest Christian classics of all time.

You might like to join me! Let me know if you'd like to read Knowing God along with me. I'm sure a few quotes and reflections will make their way onto this blog.

Here's a quote that helps me realise how much I need to grow in my knowledge of God.

I walked in the sunshine with a scholar who had effectively forfeited his prospects of academic advancement by clashing with church dignitaries over the gospel of grace.

“But it doesn’t matter,” he said at length, “for I’ve known God and they haven’t.”

The remark was a mere parenthesis, a passing comment on something I had said, but it has stuck with me, and set me thinking.

Not many of us, I think, would ever naturally say that we have known God. The words imply a definiteness and matter-of-factness of experience to which most of us, if we are honest, have to admit that we are still strangers. ...

Would it occur to us to say, without hesitation, and with reference to particular events in our personal history, that we have known God?

I doubt it, for I suspect that with most of us experience of God has never become so vivid as that.

Nor, I think, would many of us ever naturally say that, in the light of the knowledge of God which we have come to enjoy, past disappointments and present heartbreaks, as the world counts heartbreaks, don’t matter. ...

Those who really know God ... never brood on might-have-beens; they never think of the things they have missed, only of what they have gained. ...

What normal person spends his time nostalgically dreaming of manure? (Phil 3:7-10) Yet this, in effect, is what many of us do.

It shows how little we have in the way of true knowledge of God.

Time to get reading! Let me know if you want to read this Christian classic with me.

online meanderings

Comfort in, dump out and Encouragement and the languages of love - Simple but profound.

Seeing in the dark - "How could there be beauty in a boy that would never whisper his love to me?"

9 reasons why Christian leaders struggle to pray - Challenging, yes, but also helpful.

Exercise and anxiety and Controlling our worries- I've found techniques like these help turn down the emotional "noise" so I can begin to remind myself of God's truth.

Ode to the Whole Duty of Parents and 5 things every parent should say to their child as often as possible - Good food for parents.

Bible versions as Star Wars characters - Funny and insightful (and why I don't love the ESV, even though I like Yoda).

By the book - An interesting interview about books, atheism, and science.

When I am tired and feel that I must have time for myself, I am free to give a bit more.
When I think the finances won’t go any further, I am free to trust and be generous.
When I think I am being mistreated, I am free to eat that mistreatment for the sake of another.
When I think I am under appreciated, I am free to continue to give my all regardless of who sees.
When someone has truly wronged me, I am free to fully forgive them. Wendy Alsup

He shows up in big and small ways. He meets us in those moments of defeated silence, and He moves us from despair to strong hope in Him. Michael Kelley

To see more links and quotes, click here (Facebook) or here (Twitter). 

should we forgive the unrepentant?

A few weeks ago Deb asked, Can you forgive someone who doesn't ask for your forgiveness?

In other words, "Should we forgive the unrepentant?"

I've always suspected the answer is "yes", even though lots of people I respect answer "no". For a start, I can't imagine how family relationships would work otherwise. I'm not going to wait around for my child, or husband, to say sorry before I get on with forgiving and loving them. I can't defend this view with any depth, and I don't have time to explore it; it's just a hunch.

So instead of doing the work myself, here's a very excellent answer from a friend. Our pastor John posted this on our church's Facebook page:

Here are the wise words of Gordon Cheng regarding this topic:

"I think we can forgive without repentance on the part of the other person.

I don't believe that Jesus' words on the cross, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do', were conditional on the repentance of his hearers.

Of course, their mocking continued, and for some, that state of mind continued until their death, temporal and eternal. There is an unforgivable sin.

That sin, as I paraphrase it, is the sin of not repenting.

But what is ruined, for eternity, is reconciliation.

The word of forgiveness is not taken back.

To use a weak analogy, you've dumped a bag of gold that you couldn't afford to part with on the doorstep of your worst enemy.

Now, no driving past the house to see if the bag is still sitting there, unless you dropped past to add more gold to the pile.

(In which case, add the gold and leave, and only return to keep adding!)"

To which [my pastor John] asked: "So if I understand you correctly forgiveness is offered but without acceptance there is no reconciliation?"

And Gordo replied: "yep, no reconciliation without acceptance of forgiveness.

These things can be partial and implied, of course.

So Joe the sinner might smile sheepishly and shake my hand effusively, having previously refused to apologize.

What should I do then?

I think I should, as far as it lies in my power, accept what is offered.

And more, if I can.

or if God so empowers me to do."

Here's a video by Phillip Jensen where he answers the question:

online meanderings

What faith is - Faith is not a leap in the dark. It is seeing, yet living with our eyes closed.

My favourite Russell - A story that gives hope when people don't respond to the gospel.

The "good" of suffering and How trauma can lead to growth - There's some profound wisdom here.

7 ways to stop gossip - 'Nuff said.

"Whatever it takes..." - Seven good-and-scary ways to pray for your heart.

The best ministry comes through presence - "Some of the pastor's most precious moments are the ones when you are there."

Mothering through depression and chronic illness - Honest and heart-felt, with some helpful advice.

She strengthens me - A husband writes about his wife, and what it means to be a "helper".

All the known audio of CS Lewis speaking and Tolkien on video and in his own voice - Another great Justin Taylor resource.

How might our neighbors' attitudes change if we told stories of marriage in its gritty beauty, such as the relationship between Eric and Tami Taylor in Friday Night Lights? Collin Hansen

You are tired and weary and you feel at times it is too much for you? Go back and look at your life and put it into the context of eternity. Stop and ask yourself what it all means. It is nothing but a preparatory school. This life is but the ante-chamber of eternity and all we do in this world is but anticipatory of that. Our greatest joys are but the first fruits and the foretaste of the eternal joy that is coming. How important it is to remind ourselves of that. It is the sheer grind of daily life that gets us down. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

To see more links and quotes, click here (Facebook) or here (Twitter).

what I'm reading: when the earth's shoes don't fit

One of the hardest things about suffering is that it's difficult to get any perspective.

Suffering befuddles your brain. It strips away the things you once thought you knew. You can't think clearly.

In the middle of this, the Bible invites you to look at things from a new perspective - from the future. Not easy when you're swallowed up by pain!

But these words from Joni Eareckson's When God Weeps invited me to do just that. They made me smile through my tears. 

Time is slippery stuff ... When we recall pain in the past, we do so with a perspective we simply didn't have when going through it ...

When looking back on heartache, the pain fades like a hazy memory. The trauma has dulled like an old photograph. Only the results survive, the things of lasting importance ...

When we come "through the valley of the shadow of death", we are different people. Better, stronger, and wiser ...

The Bible constantly tries to get us to look at life this way. It steadfastly tries to implant the perspective of the future into our present ... It's a view that separates what is lasting from what will fall by the wayside, ... always underscoring the final results - the heart settled, the soul rejoicing. ...

Human nature gags on such a perspective. It tries to rivet you to the pain of the present, blinding you to the realities of the future. Human nature would rather lick its wounds and sneer, "That's pie in the sky. The future doesn't count."

But it does count. So much so that

everything else, no matter how real it seems to us, is treated as insubstantial, hardly world a snort ... That is why Scripture can seem at times so blithely and irritatingly out of touch with reality, brushing past huge philosophical problems and personal agony. That is just how life is when you are looking from the end. Perspective changes everything. What seemed so important at the time has no significance at all.*

The Bible blatantly tells us to "rejoice in suffering" and "welcome trials as friends" because God wants us to step into the reality he has in mind for us, the only reality that ultimately counts ... God wants his people aflame with his hope. ...

It doesn't happen without suffering. Affliction is what fuels the furnace of this heaven-hearted hope ... Suffering...turns our hearts toward the future ...

Earth's pain keeps crushing our hopes, reminding us this world can never satisfy; only heaven can. And every time we begin to nestle too comfortably on this planet, God cracks open the locks of the dam to allow an ice-cold splash of suffering to wake us from our spiritual slumber ...

Suffering keeps swelling our feet so that earth's shoes won't fit.

*Tim Stafford

some wisdom from The Screwtape Letters

I'd like to print out this 1 sentence summary of Screwtape's letters and stick it in the front of my book.

Here are 5 points I want to remember (a "devil" wrote these, so read them in reverse).

• Keep him from seriously intending to pray at all, and if that fails, subtly misdirect his focus to himself or an object rather than a Person. I am brilliant at this; my prayers constantly turn into reflections on myself.
• Make good use of your patient’s series of troughs and peaks (i.e., “the law of undulation”), and beware that the Enemy relies on the troughs more than the peaks. I was just thinking yesterday how easy it is to think that my current emotional state is a true guide to reality.
• Don’t allow him to experience real pleasures because they are a touchstone of reality. This is why I go for walks, jog, laugh with a friend, enjoy God's good world...they puncture moods of anxiety and discouragement like nothing else.
• Make him live in the future rather than the present. I have a PhD in living in the future (and the past); I just prayed this morning that God will help me to hand this term over to him, and take it "one day at a time" in the grace and strength he provides.
• Convince him to use the pronoun “my” in the fully possessive sense of ownership (e.g., “my time,” “my boots,” “my wife,” and “my God”). Got home yesterday, walked in the door thinking, "Finally I can sit down and have some time to myself", when the phone rang and I had to pick up a sick child from school. The result? Grumpiness and self-pity. Better to trust God to give me what is truly best!

how we're going (and a bit about chronic pain)

Well, friends, it feels like we've just passed through a very dark tunnel; but we're beginning to see the light at the end (cliche, anyone?). Hope feels fragile and uncertain, like we can't quite put our weight on it. But I am so thankful to God for his mercy to our family.

Ben and I visited the OT at the hospital last week, and were actually told - get this! - that we might be seeing too many doctors, and did we want to stop seeing her? We didn't (she's wonderful); but we did put off our next appointment for a month.

Picture me mentally dancing around the room at the thought that we might not have 3-hour-round-trip doctors' visits most weeks, and sometimes twice a week, this term!

If I'm tempted to hopelessness - and I am - I only have to compare the start of this term to the last one. It was a black dog of a term, take it any way you like. Endless trips to doctors and the hospital. Ben still missing heaps of school. By the end, I was battling pretty intense anxiety. In God's grace, I'm recovering; and Ben is looking healthier and stronger.

Looking back, here were some turning points:

• Ben's diagnoses after a few years of illness: migraines (2012) and chronic daily headaches (2013)
• a phone-call I made to the paediatrician late last term, when I said, "This can't go on. I think Ben's just going to have to go to school even when he's feeling horrible!" and she said, "Yes." Hard, but good.*
• attending a pain education clinic and reading a book on chronic pain. I now understand what we did to contribute to this situation (ouch!) and what we can do to help Ben get better.
• a meeting with the hospital psychologist in the final week of last term, when she said, "You need to stop asking Ben about his pain." I did, and it helps him to focus less on his pain and more on living.
• 2 weeks holidays and lots of exercise - soccer, ropes' course, boogy boarding - helped Ben regain strength and energy.

Here's what I'm learning about chronic pain:

• Chronic pain can happen when you respond to ongoing pain as you would to acute pain.
• You rest, so your body becomes weak. 
• You protect the area, and your nerves become super-sensitive. 
• You get help, but begin to rely on others. 
• You avoid danger, until everything looks dangerous. 
• The result is that your whole system becomes oversensitised to pain. Your nerves grow extra sensors. Your brain lays down pathways that reinforce the pain. Your nervous system becomes overly responsive to stress. Migraines often turn into chronic daily headaches this way.
• What's needed is to reset your system. Your brain needs to learn new pathways; your nerves need to be desensitized; your body needs to be strengthened. Normal function generally returns before pain decreases. A slow process!

Here's the plan (otherwise known as "how to deal with chronic pain in children 101"**):

• get on with life despite the pain, slowly and steadily, as you are able. Don't focus on the pain (and, if you're a bystander, don't ask about it); instead, do things that distract you. This turns down the brain's awareness of pain.
• set achievable individual goals - e.g. a 2 hour visit with friends every weekend - and build up slowly
• pace yourself: 16 hours playing with your brothers on the weekend is great, but you need regular short breaks to rest, or you'll overload your system
• gradually work your way back into normal life as your system re-adjusts - we're planning Ben's first full day's school next week (now put off by a week due to migraines - such is our halting progress!). By the end of the year, our goal, God willing, is for Ben to be doing full weeks.
• get daily exercise: swimming, walking, strength training ... Some kids have to start by walking to the door and back again. Thankfully, we're further on than this, but it takes perseverance and commitment.
• learn to do relaxation exercises, because anxiety contributes to chronic pain. Ben dislikes these, so we're still working on this one!
• learn to read your body, manage your stress, and know when you need rest. Ben is getting very good at this.

So we start this term with new energy and new hope. Last week, Ben did 4 1/2 hour school days, as planned, though he was in pain every day. This week a full-blown migraine shortened his days, but he's making it to a bit of school each day - a great achievement. If he goes downhill, we'll rethink things. But at least we now understand what is happening and what to do.

Thank God for his mercy and his grace, and keep praying for us. God hears and answers your prayers.


* If this sounds remarkably like advice I received many months earlier, let's just say that it takes time and experience to realise just how much pain it's possible to be in, yet for it still to be the right thing to go to school.
** Disclaimer: I am not a professional, and this is not medical advice. You can find a good practical guide to some of the current thinking on chronic pain at MoodJuice.

online meanderings

Lay aside the weight of "not feeling like it" - Part of a great series by Jon Bloom.

Why I love psalm 137 - Putting our hope in the unseen.

Where was God when I suffered? - Helpful answers to a hard question.

What makes a church beautiful? - I always enjoy what Elisha Galotti writes.

The passive-aggressive pride of self-pity - I found this challenging.

Embracing sufferers for the things they offer you - Profound and helpful.

When past sin blindsides you - Some reflections on regret and guilt.

Teaching the Bible to kids - How not to turn it into a moral story.

It is a sorry friend who tries to talk someone out of conviction for their sins. Wendy Alsup

Remember this, all the sighing, mourning, sobbing, and complaining in the world, doth not so undeniably evidence a man to be humble, as his overlooking his own righteousness, and living really and purely upon the righteousness of Christ. This is the greatest demonstration of humility. Thomas Brooks

To see more links and quotes, click here (Facebook) or here (Twitter).

CS Lewis on how to read books from a different time

Ben's English teacher (or, as a French textbook might have it, The English Teacher Of My Son Ben) has encouraged him to read some books from Ye Olde England. Guess I'll be reading along.

My mouth is watering. I finally get to fill in some of the yawning gaps in my education!

When you do science all the way through school, and only come to Arts several years later (after an abortive attempt at Medicine), and then choose to study lots of modern literature (what was I thinking?!) ... well, let's just say that I've got a lot of catching up to do.

On the list are The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Beowulf (translated from Old English) and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (Middle English). Also Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, although I'll check the content first.
 
But how do you read books from such different times to our own? CS Lewis told his friend Arthur Greeves, who was obviously struggling with Beowulf and Malory,

Remember that nearly all your reading is confined to about 150 years of one particular country: this is no disgrace to you, most people's circle is far smaller. But still, compared with the world this one little period of English is very small and tho' you (and I of course) are so accustomed to the particular kinds of art we find inside it, yet we must remember that there are an infinite variety outside it, quite as good in different ways.

And so, if you suddenly go back to an Anglo-Saxon gleeman's lay, you come up against something absolutely different - a different world. If you are to enjoy it, you must forget your previous ideas of what a book should be and try and put yourself back in the position of the people for whom it was first made.

When I was reading it I tried to imagine myself as an old Saxon thane sitting in my hall of a winter’s night, with the wolves & storm outside and the old fellow singing his story. In this way you get the atmosphere of terror that runs through it—the horror of the old barbarous days when the land was all forests and when you though that a demon might come to your house any night & carry you off.

The description of Grendel stalking up from his ‘fen and fastness’ thrilled me. Besides, I loved the simplicity of the old life it represents: it comes as a relief to get away from all complications about characters & ‘problems’ to a time when hunting, fighting, eating, drinking & loving were all a man had to think of it.

(Letters, 143; Nov 1^st, 1916).