Dear Cam and Scott
Here’s a synopsis of this week’s weather
on the outside and the inside of our lives.
Outside:
It’s October and glorious. Most
afternoons you’re wallowing lukewarm in the lid of the sandpit or riding bikes
or we’re playing spaceship on beds upstairs or your cousins are here and you’re
best friends / fighting / best friends. You’ve had an amazing run of health,
though now you have colds. Scott, you’re only waking up once or twice every
night so I feel brand new in the mornings and I suspect that sections of my
brain may even regain life. You are totally loving the idea of undies though
the actual concept of potty training still largely eludes you. You have also
been experimenting with artistic expression and nakedness.
Baby Mia is very sick. She struggles to
breathe because her trachea doesn’t look like most other tracheas. Uncle
Lampies and Aunty Joey are very tired. They haven’t slept in, like, five months.
Mia is in hospital and it looks like she’s going to be ok but things won’t be
easy for quite some time. I’ve learned not to say to people, ‘I know what
you’re going through.’ But Cam, it comes back to me in splinters of fear – that
feeling when they wheeled you into theatre and we didn’t know the answers to
the if-what-when-how questions that rose hot and desperate or echoed cold and empty.
So I can relate a little to their pain, which I guess has been an outside and
an inside thing. We are praying and praying and praying.
On Sunday morning Dad and I did a trail
run. (I did more of a trail walk with intermittent bursts of running. Sort of.)
It was a splendid respite – bush veld, boulders, blistering mountain slopes and
always the river. Then home for quiet croissants, coffee and the stiffness
seeping in. You guys went to The Hill church with Aunty Coral and Meags. Cam,
you told us about how ‘the guy’ prayed for a girl who’d had a shark attack and
that we should keep praying for her, too.
Inside:
Some high pressure systems developing over
the interior.
We’re learning about decision making –
about watching and waiting and leaning hard into God to guide and sustain us.
About not making decisions until
we’ve turned on the industrial heart-cleaning hoses – scrubbing out guilt with
confession, anger with forgiveness, greed with generosity, jealousy with
celebration. You’ve also been learning about this stuff. Cam, every day I ask
you about your heart: Anyone make you mad at school? Anything frustrating you?
Did something happen to make you sad? We talk about having cockroaches in your
heart (bad stuff) or marshmallows (good stuff) – an idea we’ve borrowed from Toby. The other day you said, ‘I
don’t feel cockroaches or marshmallows. I don’t feel anything in my heart. Just
love.’
We’re learning about how having the courage to
be vulnerable – to take the first step, to break the silence, to share our
story – cracks open the stories of others and there’s trust and the freedom to
be defenceless.
Lastly I feel I should say to you that friendships are going to be a big chunk
of your life’s purpose. From the day we knew we were expecting each of you, one
of the five things we’ve prayed for you every day has been for your marriage
partners and your friends.
I’m praying for you that you would know
when to let go of friendships, and say, ‘It’s chilled,’ and when to clutch friendships
and breathe life into them. Trust God to make divine appointments for you. Let
him be in charge of path-crossings and gut-feelings and
I-just-know-I-need-to-pray-for-you conversations. Ask him to protect your old
friendships and grow your new ones.
I have to fight the urge to box people
and label the lid. Try not to be like me. It’s frustrating and impossible,
anyway, to categorise humans. We’re too messy.
I pray that God would give you peace
when you’re excluded. And patience when you’re included against your will. I
pray that you would live with it’s-not-about-me perspective and that you’d just
try to be Jesus to your friends. They are gifts from him.
I’m guessing you guys are going to be
hyper sensitive, like both me and Dad. I see it in you already. This is an
incredible strength but it can be a debilitating weakness. Pray that God would
help you to channel your sensitivity into discernment to speak hope into
people’s worlds. Pray against taking everything personally. It will sap your
strength and resolve – annihilate your confidence. Always remember you can’t
possibly know what’s happened in someone’s day-week-lifetime that has brought
them to a point of abrupt discourtesy or some other offensive response. Be
grace. Decide to be a happy, uncomplicated friend.
So, it’s partly cloudy and warm, mostly.
Scattered showers here and there, which is lovely, actually. Eternal forecast: blue
skies.
All my love
Mom
xx
Putting out fires...
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