The Cool Factor- on holding dissapointments with our children

This week we had two of our sons face a disappointment. I guess the depth of each will be revealed in hindsight.

Disappointment #0ne

Thomas is extremely active and to say he loves his hockey is but a massive understatement. He is in a good team at school and he joined up to play club hockey, along with James, this year. This is no small thing. These teens are playing with grown men who are stronger and so the level of play is huge in all sorts of ways.

Over the years, Thomas has played many sports. He has played tennis and squash and hockey and basketball. He is good at them all. He loves some more than others. 

It was the squash , we think, that began the pain under his kneecap. And so a visit to a specialist revealed information and he had to rest and stop some sport. This seemed to help and so we press on, with his beloved hockey on track.

This year, half way through the season he experiences enormous pain under both knees. This time we find a local doc who has an interest in sports injuries and bam . we have it in a nut shell.

This doc was really great at explaining the situation TO Thomas and so we left knowing that he has to cut 50% of his jumping, running sport. This message to an active ADHD boy of 14 feels like a death sentence.

And so we begin the journey of helping him hold is disappointment.

It is with pain that a parent looks on as a child reconciles news and then sits down in it.

My awesome , wise doctor told we that we grieve the losses with our children, and she is right.

Disapointment #two

James is in grade 10 and is a great young man. He is responsible and kind and has owned his faith very firmly and publicly. He is one of the least demanding people I know and is very easily satisfied. He does not ask much but gives a great deal. 

He plays sport and though he loves hockey more he also enjoys water polo. Water polo in SA schools is much like rugby in its cool value and acceptance factor. It gives kids that something that sport does for them. Hero status and The Cool Factor. One can not be touched by this if you play THE sport. For both Doug and I the Cool Factor is BLAH to say the least and we would not hang their with or for our sons.

However it is real and it is.

James has played in the first team this year and he is a solid play. 

There are 11 of them. The second tour is on the horizon and James gets the cut. All 10 are going and " sorry James you are not". No coach explanation, in fact   not    a    word, actually FROM the coach and the teacher involved who has the Cool Factor Naturally. These two young men have come up  really uncool for us.

One would really expect teachers and coaches to practise and grow in EQ especially when working with teens. Thimpact of these experiences can be huge and have devastating consequences. 101 teen work!  I have to say my own personal disappointment at HOW these two have dealt with this is huge and both Doug and I are equally very, unimpressed.

So in one week we get to HOLD another deep disappointment. A really sad one. One that will pass but none the less, that is.

And so we do...

head on and straight up.

I talk and ask and talk some more. Doug talks and ask and we PRAY!! I share our story with a mother who just HAPPENED to be at our house and she tells me that this is not the first time and that the young man last year had the same experience . I hear his name -- Hugo..... and resolve to share with James.

James says these profound words. 

"Mom, of all the people who said something , Hugo came to me and said the most meaningful......."

 " James I know how you feel. It took a while but I am so over Water Polo."
The realness and deep sharing from this young man was admirable. I know that Jamse was touched and pray he will be brave enough to do the same next year.

When we hold our child's disappointments, in Christ , we never hold them alone. God holds them and is working them out for his glory and for our childs  good.

That a grade 11 teen found James and shared pain and experience with him was huge and it was God holding James in that teenage place where adults dare not tread.
Sharing vulnerabilirty is enormous for teens and especially for boys.
I do not know you Hugo but I think you rock young man!

We will get through these and many more disappointments together, with Jesus in the mess.

Thank you Lord!!

The Road has Called

Many, many times in life we are called to journey down a road we never imagined.. The road of sickness..... A certain kind of sickness of the body or of the mind. The kind you read about or hear about and never really think that you might be called to endure.

Or what about the road of broken relationship.. We all experience this one but perhaps we never quite anticipated THAT friendship or that spouse or father or mother walking so easily away.

Then there is the deepest and longest journey of grief. Perhaps that road of loss has called.. The one where a precious spouse or darling child has left this world.

The road we never quite imagined ourselves on has called us and we have to walk down ut.. There is no escape.

How do we do manage to do this journey.. The one that is the most difficult. Un imagined journey?

Today my sweet friend and her family bury their baby Samuel.. He has been with them for just over a year. His broken body could no longer stay.. He was deeply loved, earnestly prayed for, preciously tended and held by Jesus..

Today..... This road they did not see comming they MUST walk down.

In His strength we face the most painful road.
In his grace we step..... One foot in front of the other.
We entrust ourselves to his beautiful care.
We ask for his perfect comfort in those deep places.
We rest in his forgiveness.
We worship at his feet.
We give glory to his work.

Helping our Teens live with Jesus as saviour and LORD

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I write this blog post while still in the thick of things. We have not gone through these teen years and are not yet on the other side. Our boys are 10 , 12 , 14 and 16 and so, we are very much in it.

I guess I write this blog with a very heavy heart. That young men and women profess Christ as Saviour stands and in our community precious young people are baptized as a public declaration that Jesus is their saviour.

and then......

They struggle on in a world that is increasingly hostile to Jesus and a world that offers them thrill and pleasure .  Being cool and being accepted are still the same age old pulls but the offers of what that looks like hold a heavy price for Teens who call themselves Christ Followers.

Teenagers have  real choices to make. 

* to swear or not to swear as a way of talking ( not the odd  mistake)

* to honour the opposite sex and not hook up at parties or hook up

* to date or not to date

* to drink 

* to drug

* to love others as Christ has loved them or to live a self serving life

* to work hard or to opt out

* to honour their parents or to disregard them

All these choices and many more stand before them continuously.

The answers seem clear to me and the choices certain and yet around us we see the sad reality of young people professing Christ as saviour but failing to live with him as LORD.

Families loosing their children to the choice of living life in the world.

Choosing Jesus over the world is a very, very difficult choice to make , especially when you are 16 but to know Jesus is to choose him. But it is a real choice and one that Jesus himself will honour. Those who honour him in this life, he will honour.

And so , how do we , as parents and friends to these precious young people, offer Jesus as the choice.

Our approach is to offer him in and through his word which is certain and tue and where I know he will speak to their hearts. We offer Jesus by talking , talking, talking Christ into ALL of life and we offer Jesus as he is and as he finds us- messy and human.

We pray!!!

We trust God.

We forgive when they muck up and point them to Jesus.

The gospel is for our teens.

What we do not do is say this, " They are going to do it anyway and so here is the safe way to help them." 

If this blog post does anything at all, I pray it will stir those parents on who have given up. Do not give up!!

Stand up and speak life into your teens world. Help them by loving them and showing them who Jesus is in all his glory so that they too can know him and need not take the wide road that leads to destruction but the narrow road that leads to life.

They may still choose not to profess Jesus but not because you were quiet.

Why would you want anything other for your teen?

All the hooking up and feeling up not only dishonours and breaks the other person but it brings Christs name into disrepute. 

Not only that but the freedom sought and thought of in all this hooking up is not freedom at all. 

It is bondage and breakage for the future.

Saying no is a godly choice and God will strengthen and honour you. Your teen may not be cool at school but he is cool to the king.

Cry that Day, our Beloved Country

What did the young teenagers of Soweto most desire on that day ?

What were their collective heart longing  on THAT  day..

June 16th, 1976!

 I live with a home full of teenagers and pre- teens. I love spending time with them just chatting.  It is interesting sharing this part of our South African experience with them - its joys, frustrations and heartaches. The broken reality in which our children are growing up in modern, post-Apartheid South Africa is a far cry from the devastating experience of young people 40 years ago.

We have enormous obstacles to navigate as a country still divided by wealth, culture and language and indeed colour.  

And yet, if we dare to take an honest look back to those "40 years ago days", we will find a nation at war with itself in a very different way.

There is something particularly evil with a government that rules its people with tyranny.

 It was a very, very different South Africa in 1976. 

http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising

On this day, 40 years ago, black teenagers decided to do something that would change their course and indeed the whole course of our country. They decided to stand up and say NO!

Full of courage and unity and hope, they set off on their protest.

They were met with the full force o and brutality of the governments evil who did not hold back in killing again, even killing  children.

Many people joined the protests that spanned the days that followed. Soweto was locked down. No one knows how many people died but 176 is the number given. ( it is thought to be closer to 800)

Today we look back and remember their bravery- for it is a very, very brave thing to stand up in the face of violence and death. 

We look back and say salute that youth of 1976.  I was a little girl of 6 on that day. White South Africans carried on with life as if nothing was happening. We were "shielded" from the hell that was.

But I would hope that we would also look forward 

with a greater vision. 

I pray we would somehow find a common purpose to build a new and better South Africa.

Lets pull up our sleeves and each of us do what we can to build into the youth of today so that we can have a just South Africa  for tomorrow.

The Great Sugar Story

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Welcome to the world in which we all  live!

The world of delicious food and a plethora of choice .

 Just take pizza as an example. 

What kid of topping might you choose? What sort of base? To cheese or not to cheese ? TO bant or not to bant.

Food is good and good food is fun to eat and share with those we love. 

The question on the table here is....

Is the food we eat every day making us sick?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uaWekLrilY

This movie about sugar suggests that it is and all because of the added sugar that goes into 80% of the food we eat. The hidden sugar that we consume on a daily basis adds up to a substantial amount indeed. More than our bodies are designed to cope with.

I have become a sugar detective. Convinced by my doctor who is no quack but a regular GP with regular treating methods, that I should cut out the sugar in my diet, I gave it a go. Not before having purchased a good book to read on the subject and having watched some great TED on it too

Watch this TED https://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver?language=en

or this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM.

The key reason my doctor was keen for me to get off sugar was that I have had pain and inflamation for about the last 10 years.

The pain I experience was with me constantly, every day and would often wake me up in the night. 

Sugar causes inflamation and so it would make sence that I try remove the sugar part of my diet.

Just to clear, I am no sugar junkie. I do not take sugar in my tea or coffee. I do not eat loads of cake. In fact my only sugar intake was probably the one chocolate I had probably every day and the hidden sugar in the food I ate. 

So --- I cut it out!!

My experience in my body has been profound.  The key 2 things that have changed are these...

1. the pain in my hip has disappeared

2. my craving for sugary, sweet things has gone

The interesting thing is that if I should eat a something with sugar in , which is on the rare occasion, I will wake up in the night that follows in great pain. 

I have kept a careful note of this sugar vs pain response in my body  and without any doubt this is the resuslt. I realise this is anecdotal evidence but it does seem to bear witness to the information being found and shared in the media.

I encourage you to do some investigation and see if the claim that sugar is making us sick might just hold some truth. 

I recall visiting a sugar mill while on holiday in Kwazulu. It was a great excursion and extremely educational. Those who have visited Natal will recall the beautiful rolling hills of sugar cane. Sugar is what makes this place tick. 

The movie Amazing Grace is about slavery and the fight to bring it to an end. The key comodity that people where transporting apart from people was  indeed SUGAR.

Sugar has been with us for a long, long time but perhaps it has had its day.

Find out for yourself!!

on the complexity of relathionships ....

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Relathionships

Relationships hold the potential to be both exceptionally beautiful and building and vicious and destroying. Sometimes they simply hover in the in-between. that space which is neither building or breaking but just irritating.

Relationships are complex and complicated.

They are grown and expressed through the web of life, love, disappointments and circumstances , not forgetting the "stuff" that childhood brings with it nor the realities of difficulties brought through ADHD; depression; bi-polar and other personal struggles.

and so I say this...

Relationships are complex.

Healthy relationships take a great deal of commitment, honesty and jolly hard work.

I have experienced both the joy and beauty of good, healthy relationships and the deep sadness of those that just do not make it.

Like many people reading this post, I have witnessed relationships dear and near to me simply break down and break up and people walk away from each other with deep wounds and scars.

I carry each of you in my heart and prayers, regularly!

As a Christian, there are some key truths that hold with any and every relationship. These I have found , not just as words found in an old , dusty , irrelevant book. But just as I found the truths written in that old , perhaps long forgotten book - the bible- living and breathing and alive. True!

Grasping the first is in essence the key that unlocks all the others. In any relationship, there are two sinful people. Sin is such a deceiver. It whispers the lie that it is the other to blame and or that I deserve better. Sin is no friend of good , healthy , growing relationships. It is bossy, power seeking, self- seeking and deeply, deeply selfish. It is the " always having to be right"  and" I have to have my needs met" stuff. Sin holds onto hurts and refuses forgiveness. In recognising myself as a sinner I recognise that I hold a very important part of any good and bad relationship.

The second truth of all relationships flows from the first. If I recognise my sin ( and as a Christian I have found forgiveness in Jesus ) well, then it is regular and real that I will hold out the hand of forgiveness to others, especially those near and dear. 

Forgiveness is a key to good, healthy growing relationships. It is the very thing that affords any troubled relationship that opportunity to change. It is the space created for something else. It is not cheap and it came at a cost but if I truly understand my forgiveness before a holy God then I can and must offer forgiveness towards others.

Tim Keller describes forgiveness in a helpful way. It is recognising a debt is owed and absorbing the debt into yourself. That is exactly what Jesus did for me and for you on the cross.

The path and choice of forgiveness is a journey. One I have had to walk and no doubt will have to walk in the future. It is painful and can be lengthy. How do you know if you have forgiven someone.

Well, do you pick up the "thing" and hold it against them or have you laid it down?

The third truth in relationships is also linked to the first. Good relationships will not flourish if I am self- serving and self- seeking. If I choose to serve others in love then there is a space created for kindness and joy to flourish.

I have a very good friend who is an excellent example of this truth. Her husband has been really unwell for about 2 years now. One of the things that has helped him, is a radical and drastic change in all things diet. This has fallen very heavily onto her shoulders. I have only 2x seen her get really frustrated about her husbands situation( not hers mind you) and I have watched her and continue to watch her serve him, cook his weird food, love him with kindness that is self denying and through this she shines out Jesus love to him and to others. thank you my friend for this example!!

These 3 truths are by no means the ONLY things that help in relationships but for now these are them.

recognising your position - a sinner

offering and living in constant forgiveness

serving others

Finally I would like to write a word about God and his work in our relationships.

Romans 8:28 tells us that God is at work in ALL situations - for his glory and our good - if we belong to him.

In the messiness of relationships , and boy they can get messy:(,  God is at work. I have held on to this truth and experienced it in my life. God has worked a miracle in my  life and he can in yours BUT you have to work with him and trust him and obey!

Chatting to people who are in the thick of things, I often will remind them of this truth , and there is a real wall of non-belief. I guess this is because the pain and hardship weighs to heavy. I get this. I truly do! I have sat in that chair. What I did was, I chose to trust God DESPITE what the circumstances looked like.  But having come out the other side and seen God at work , I can testify that he will help you and he can save that relationship, if you just let him.

It is worth it.

What a Farewell!

This is our Tom!!

It is a night to celebrate and thank God for. We are grateful for our second sons achievements at his primary school. Sweet Valley has been a great school for him. Tonight we celebrate and thank God for his gift of intellect that our Tom has. 

 He is a brother  to 3 boys  who love him very, very much!!

He has a darling teacher in Althea Muller and she has really brought the best out in him!! And many more, Ian, Paul and Cindy.... thank you!

Tonight, Tom earned the best overall academic award of the grade 7 year. He came top of his grade. Not only was I proud, but I really loved the support of friends who trully love our Tom and came to congratulate him. Despite his ADHD he has overcome, thanks be to God!! Tom we salute your hard work and dedication. You trully earned your reward!