Apparently, when babies are born, they arrive with the capacity for every sound in every language. It is by exposure that over time communication is learned and some of those capacities fall away.
Continue reading “Peeled prayer”Peeled prayer
A raffle, a baby and a heart full of hope
Once upon a time a little 9 year old girl folded her heart full of hope into a tiny piece of paper with her name written on it, to go into a draw for the most desired prize she’d ever heard of. With every fold, her heart was pleading ‘please, please’ to be one of two from the class able to travel with the relief teacher to visit their much adored year 3 teacher at the hospital with her brand new baby.
Continue reading “A raffle, a baby and a heart full of hope”I heard you crying in my dreams
Part 1 written 15 November 2017
Part 2 written 10 November 2018
Broken boys
Oh Lord – he’s 10.
He’s 10 with a broken brain.
Can you mend a 10 year old broken brain?
Of course you can. I know that. But will you?
Would you?
Oh Lord he’s 10.
Or 11.
Maybe he was 10 when he did it and 11 now.
But his brain got broken a long time ago.
This doesn’t just ‘happen’
Are you in the business of mending broken brains?
Sometimes I don’t think so.
But what if that’s because we only see the ones that didn’t get mended.
– or haven’t yet.
What if you’ve mended more brains that we could ever know
Because we haven’t seen the effects of the brokenness?
Oh Lord, he’s 10. Or 11.
Does it even matter?
You Who dwells outside of our now – do you see the man he ‘is’ in a simple pivot of the line of time? Is he a monster? Is he fixable?
Oh Lord – a broken boy.
Please God might you mend him?
Might you put your people around him to help him heal?
Would you protect others in the now, and in the future, from the spread of this specific sadness?
Would you?
Oh Lord he’s 10.
So many fearful others, so sure of the ‘should haves’.
And would I be too in their position?
Oh Lord – the other broken boy.
Heal, protect, love, tear down, build up, surround and restore.
How long oh Lord.
How long.
He’s 8.
Oh Lord.
Written after one boy abused another at a local school.
More than three ways
Something churchy I’ve picked up over the years is that God answers prayer in three ways… that He either says “yes”, “no” or “wait”. I see an incompleteness in this idea… it is so very tidy –and it defines prayer as asking God FOR stuff. Maybe His answers are as diverse as the types of conversations we have with Him and certainly as diverse as those with any OTHER friend. I mean, regular friends often just hang out together and listen to each other and He is certainly not less than that.
Continue reading “More than three ways”A walking prayer
A friendly young voice called out while serving at the register beside me “Hello Mrs McEwan! How are you?” I looked across seeing a hint of familiarity but having to admit (with a smile and a ‘hello’ first) that I couldn’t recognise him. He told me his name and a heap of context whizzed through my mind as I looked at this tall and smiling young man that I hadn’t seen since being about 3 feet tall. He had to serve another customer so I thanked him for saying hello, told him it made me so happy that he had – and asked him to say ‘hey’ to his mum for me.
Continue reading “A walking prayer”Lamenting is worship
I had a long season of grief a few years ago… there was a death but there was also a ‘living’ grief – and it was the living grief that brought me the most pain. I wept and wept for many nights – long into the nights and often felt guilty – or like a failure for crying through the night AGAIN.
Continue reading “Lamenting is worship”An odd prayer and its answer
I asked God for a Scripture about glue (long story). This is how He answered. “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17). Not bad eh!
VSP 🙂
Scary prayers
Reasons God doesn’t answer our prayers. The standard human responses to that question are that He will answer with either a ‘yes’, a ‘no’, or a ‘wait’. There have been many prayers I’ve prayed that I have not seen the answers I desired to see. Many. Some I have still not reached a place of peace about… either because someone I love died, or because I’m still currently waiting and hoping.
Continue reading “Scary prayers”Gran’ma and her prayers
I only have one memory of spending one on one time with my Gran’ma. I have heaps and heaps of wider family memories, but just the one with her by myself. I must have been in primary school at the time as I was left with her for the day while I was sick and Mum had to go do something. I was looking at a piece of her handwriting and noticed the differences between her style of cursive and my own. I loved the old fashioned ‘f’s’ and ‘t’s’ and ‘r’s’ in particular and got her to show me how to form them. She sat so patiently with me and showed me over and over and over how to do them, until I got the flow of it and from that day forward, I started incorporating what she taught me into the way I wrote. The extra curls and swirls were much more artistic than the way that I knew.
Continue reading “Gran’ma and her prayers”