Work has been busy and the children have had a lot on. My husband had had a lot of evening appointments and commitments, which had made life even more busy. I had gratefully had a couple of days of feeling not too bad, actually, in fact pretty good. I said thank you rather a lot to the Lord for that! Then Wednesday afternoon I started to feel unwell again. This continued, but I still managed to keep working and on Thursday evening I tackled showering/ bathing our youngest two children. They can mostly sort themselves out, so its not too bad, but they do need supervision or they end up putting pyjamas onto wet bodies (as they can't be bothered to dry themselves properly!), or they get distracted. I was so pleased to tell my husband when he came in that they were all done (it was a job I had had to stop doing for a quite a while whilst very unwell). I moved onto the hair drying before bed, and then my youngest told me her head itched.
Oh no, I thought. 'I think I've got nits Mummy, as my head is very itchy.' Urgh!
I don't do creepy crawlies. With great trepidation I looked. Oh, I thought, I didn't know she had a small mole there on her scalp. And then the 'mole' moved!
Don't worry if you've not heard of nits. Their proper name is head lice. And for some reason English schools always seem to be rife with them. They only apparently like clean hair, so its not to do with being unwashed or gross, thank goodness. I am grateful that in four children this is only the second time we have encountered the dreaded nits in nearly 15 years. Needless to say we were up that night and the next until late, treating hair with a special solution, changing sheets and doing a lot of washing! My poor husband is just doing another treatment on our youngest as it looked like they were trying to make a come back. Yuk!
On Friday I awoke with a very sore, stiff neck and throat. When I ventured a look in the mirror I noticed a strange lump under my chin, which was most tender. Wonderful, I thought, there is something else wrong with me. I was not happy!
I had to leave work very early to nip to a Doctor's appointment and felt most grumpy. However I should have known the Lord was in control. Normally when you have a lump in your neck or throat, the Dr says 'You must have a virus, it will clear by itself.' But not this time. Apparently I had an infection in my saliva glands and I had to take antibiotics. It was a good job I'd gone. But not only that, the Dr offered me another blood test to check my Vitamin D levels (which I suspect are low as I'm feeling very tired and rather grotty), plus he gave me some new, better medication for when I become unwell. So my irritation turned to gratitude - it was a very worthwhile visit! The new medication should also help me to get out a bit more without all the adrenalin over-reaction. Yay!
The last major problem we had was with our eldest. It turns out she had been making some questionable decisions with a new friend, and then working hard to deceive us about it. She has always been my reliable one - helpful, mature, honest and lovely. But for a little while, whilst getting close to this new friend, she had become a little different - distant, sullen, snappy, at times rather rude and disrespectful - she had been like another child altogether. I had been asking the Lord for guidance about the friendship and asking Him to intervene. I had prayed for the friend's salvation and for our daughter to be a good influence on them. We'd had the new friend over lots of times and done our best to be loving and kind. In essence I had truly done my best.
I can't be specific about what they'd been up to, even anonymously, but it was incredibly unwise and it was only by the grace of God (oh, how he looks after us, even when we doubt him!) that things came to light. Praise God, if they hadn't, things could have become irreparable.
Sorting things out even now though has been quite a pickle. We have had to involve a number of people and it is potentially serious. We have reluctantly had to break up the friendship as it has become clear that they simply cannot make wise decisions or be trusted together. And we have had to realise, that for now, until things can be built up again, we cannot trust our eldest with anything, not even to babysit (so no going out for us for while). She had demonstrated a clear ability to lie convincingly to our face - how do you proceed from that point? How long does it take to rebuild trust? Can I walk the dog and leave her alone, or do we need to be with her 24/ 7 for a while in case the friend turns up, or she uses her phone, laptop or our landline (all of which have been removed from her)?
Parenting is such a terribly steep learning curve. One minute you're handed a beautiful little bundle and you cannot believe that this little treasure is yours. The next they're almost ruining their life - and believe me, she'd not had much opportunity to get up to anything! I tell you, it's tutus and ballet shoes one minute, and teenagers and well, I can't say what, but dreadful things the next! It's probably a good thing they don't come with manuals. We'd all skip to age 13 upwards and run for the hills!
Praise God, after the initial shock (and some very late nights dealing with the issues involved, and some very horrendous phone calls) I have been actually not too bad. I have known, amidst the storm, a great serenity and peace that is completely other-worldly and not my own. I can only believe that all those special moments over the past years, particularly when dealing with finance and health, when I have ignored the fear and reached out to the Lord in trust and blind faith, have built something new in me.
Even the moments I have written of recently, after my friend's 40th and during the night, where I have chosen to trust in spite of circumstances, have achieved something quite supernatural. Not only this other-worldly peace, but also the improvements I have felt in my health have been supernatural. I have still had some grotty moments, but I can feel inwardly a shift, a change - just like going up a gear. I do believe I am near the end of the very bad health problems. The Lord has even been helping me, with very little effort on my part, get off medication I've been on for 8 years that is quite addictive (I've still needed it, which is why I continued to take it, but even the symptoms are improving!). He seems to be doing nothing, then bam! He comes in like a flood, but is so stealthy about it sometimes that we don't immediately realise.
So as for the strange title of this blog: We have been so busy these past months, that even simple tasks like mowing the lawn have become almost impossible, and recently our lawn resembled a meadow. Do I concentrate on the long grass that we can't mow, or do I look instead at our apple tree that has produced a bumper harvest?
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| Do I focus on the meadow where our lawn used to be? |
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| Or do I focus on the bumper apple crop? |
I am learning that if I want to know God's presence in my life more and more, then it has to be the apple every time. It works. And today I am so very grateful that although I cannot be everywhere, looking after everyone and everything, He is, and I can trust Him to keep doing it very well. Thank you Lord.
May you know His presence and His peace, and may we all start to focus a little more on the apples, instead of the long grass : ) God bless you!
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