A friend I really admire recently shared the following medley of object lessons with me. I was very blessed by the beautiful imagery of Christ being involved in every single step of our spiritual growth and journey until the very end. I’d like to share it with you so that you may also be blessed!
My beautiful cyclamen plant has been providing my house with vibrant red flowers for the past few months. I have been faithfully watering the dish when it gets dry and removing the dead blooms. I was getting proud of my once brown thumb now turning green. But the past couple of days there have been more dead blooms than live ones and the lush, green leaves are turning yellow. Dismayed, I thought, “Are my brown thumbs showing their true colours?”
I work with children. While they are still learning many things, there is one thing children are not short on – a sense of justice. Kids are very quick to pick up on injustices in the playground, classroom and, I dare say, in the home. Most are so egocentric that they may not notice when they commit an injustice against someone else, but they certainly make it known when they are the victim!
A few weeks ago, Joshua had an adenoidectomy, a surgery to remove the adenoids behind his nose. The Ear Nose & Throat specialist recommended it because in 2.5 years Joshua never slept well; he usually woke up 1-10 times a night, crying and struggling to breathe.
The surgery itself only took 20 minutes, but he had to undergo general anaesthesia. When he woke up, he was surrounded by strangers and under the effect of the drugs, so he must have panicked. When the nurses paged me that he was awake, I could hear his screams down the hallway as I raced to him.
Recently my family was un-invited on a trip at the last minute. It was not a nice experience to say the least. Feelings of betrayal, rejection, anger, and frustration swirled around and formed a volatile cocktail in my head and heart. Although all of these are normal and valid reactions, they were ruining our holiday time.
My friend wanted to test out the Tinder app so he created a profile. He was surprised by how many outspoken and entitled people are out there. Many of them listed requirements that ranged from fairly reasonable to outrageous. One of the ladies listed “no poly” as a requirement. My friend was taken aback as he is Polynesian but he later found out that it actually meant polyamorous.
I snuck quietly behind Roy so that Joshua would see him first as he walked into the yard of the childcare centre.
At first, he stared, blinked, then as recognition and reality set in he ran to him, crying, “Daddy!” He clung to Roy like a koala for the rest of the day.
It had been two weeks since Roy had been home and the boys had missed him very much.
I like reunions because people get to express how much they care for each other; feelings of joy, relief, and tenderness exude from the face and body as people greet each other after separation.
Of course, reunions are only as good as the relationships represented.
In high school art class, one term we learned pottery. I can remember the teacher demonstrating how to use the pottery wheel. He was the type to wax on and on about this and that and never get to the point. And it seemed that was what he was doing with the clay.
He had smacked a lump of clay onto the wheel and was demonstrating how to centre the clay. He did it over and over again and it just looked like keeping your hands still. He stressed the importance of having centred clay before moving on. It looked boring and like a waste of time.
It is a constant of modern living that we always seem busy. running here, running there, running everywhere! It amazes me just how much humans can do at one time. I have witnessed many a student listening to music, reading information from a computer screen and taking notes all at the same time. I am guilty of perpetuating this in my classroom – filling every spare moment with some kind of educationally valuable activity.
God has created a truly diverse and amazing world. On Saturday I shared about the Japanese puffer fish that creates complex and beautiful sand art on the sea floor to attract a female using only its fin.
Another creature that astounds me with their innate skills is the tailorbird.
