The Long Walk Home

It’s Sunday.

A voice wakes us before 5. Where’s my teddy? Where’s my teddy? We all wake bleary eyed and husbandface stumbles out of bed to deal with the small voice and his freshly woken brother. 

I turn over, toss about and eventually switch on the light. I dive into the end of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run and read with tears falling at a wise heartfelt man, honest about his flaws and deeply in love with his family. 

We stumble through the morning with aching bodies and caffeine fuelled brains. Eventually it is time for church. 

As we sing songs of God’s presence and love in desert times the tears fall once more. Two boys rest tired in parents arms and with swaying singing fall asleep on our shoulders. My arms ache. My heart is full of these small creatures who have stolen so much and yet increased us in so many ways. I long to rest my tired weary head on a warm chest and fall asleep. 

As I sway with the eldest in my arms I sense the presence of the One who holds me. Tears well again. I am so tired. I am so empty. I lean in and imagine myself as held and loved as this boy in my arms. I am loved. I am loved. 

It is Sunday. We are at the end of ourselves. We are held. 

We drive off to friends who are family for lunch. We laugh at small boys. We eat roast chicken. We snooze on sofas and we return to church for some chaotic Christingle joy. 

Son1 belts out My Lighthouse loud and shouty and I want to shout it with him. ‘You will lead us through the storm.’ We sing Joy to the World at a gallop and I feel hope stirring. We hysterically laugh at small boys trying to burn the church down with candles in hands and we hear these words in the chaos. God is love. We are loved. God is love. We are loved. God is love. We are loved. God is love. We are loved. 

Driving home we point at all the Christmas lights and the boys squeal for joy. Pasta and bed. Fish finger sandwiches for us as we wearily stare at each other unable to communicate through tired eyes and hearts. 

We sleep. Small boys disturb us all night but we sleep. 

We are held. We are loved. We are led on in the storm. 

Alright. It’s Friday again. The boys are staring in a dazed manner at Paw Patrol and it’s about time these weekly updates get back to their regular place.

It’s Friday. The last two weeks have been fairly rollercoasterish. Day by day we have survived with a variety of things making that possible. Lovely friends to share the madness with, saying yes to more of the boys requests than no. Early bed and no phone in the bedroom before sleep. The joys of routine helping us know what’s going on each day. Garden centres. So many garden centres. Oh and the utter cuteness of the boys at times. 

Weekends aren’t so rest bringing anymore and I’m starting to slowly adjust my thinking to enter them realising that. It’s hard going and grumpy thoughts happen more often than not. Slow and steady is the order of the day (we should really be watching Thomas if that’s the case). When I take things slowly and quietly and remember how limited we are right now things go much better. 

I realised how on edge I was this week when I cried over spilt coffee, a friend having very reasonable boundaries, having to put our Christmas tree outside because we were allergic to it and my boys going mental on Tuesday afternoon. Hormones have much to do with those episodes but it’s interesting to note how close I am to the irrational. I’m glad to be aware and able to process it. Christmas also seemed like too much stress until I stopped worrying about getting everyone the perfect present and bought some stuff. It will do. Perfection doesn’t exist. (Repeat 10 times) 

Husbandface had to work in London the last half of this week. It’s been an interesting experience in seeing how far I have come in confidence in this parenting lark. Well that, and the prayer that people have been doing for us. Whatever the reason (and it’s probably God eh) we have had a good few days. I don’t feel more exhausted than usual and I have enjoyed my crazies. We’ve had more getting out of the house fun than normal but that’s been great. After a shaky start to the day this morning coffee and painkillers put me right and we are looking forward to getting the beloved Daddie back with us tonight. 

Wow this is more rambling than usual. 

Anyway. Church was once more brilliant this week. I love any chance to sing Joy to the World. I also loved the sermon on disappointment at Advent. Christmas is so overloaded with mental expectations and yet the reality of life goes on through the tinsel and fairy lights. Life doesn’t seem to hold much regard for this time of year and for those of us struggling through it seems particularly incongruous to be surrounded with such bling. Disappointment is part of it all. I can’t imagine how weird it must have been to have been told you’re carrying the Saviour of the world and then to live through baby and toddler years. Seems like there would have been a massive gap between expectation and reality. We live that tension so much at this time of year. We ache for consolation and peace. We ache for the pain to stop in ours and others lives. We ache for the Saviour to come and we try to find some way of walking on with that ache. Disappointment is part of our lives but it is tempered by the presence of the One who promises himself in the midst of the pain and who says one gloriously mental day he will come again and our hearts will ache no more. 

(If you write ache too many times it really looks like it’s spelt all wrong.) 

All in all it’s been a good couple of weeks. We’ve survived and I’m starting to embrace more and more the idea that I can trust friendships to God’s care and not panic if there seems to be no safety net. Mostly he’s been telling me He is our safety net. That’s a good place to be in. Remind me of that once the caffeine has worn off tomorrow morning. 

This round up of the week is so late it might count as an early one for this week. Actually, I can’t remember much of last week. I know we got through it. I know none of us melted down too much along the way. I know we headed to my brothers house for family fun and I know I slightly underestimated how exhausting it would be to navigate family fun with two small ones overwhelmed by all the fun and slightly confused as to why the road trip didn’t involve the much loved Daddy.

He was at home resting and I was discovering that it’s very hard to drive without the extra person to deal with small child demands. Driving tired plus whining from the back is a skill I didn’t want to master but master it I did this weekend. (If getting us all home in one piece counts as mastering it) Aside from small child exhaustion and my own exhaustion leading me to cry randomly throughout the day on Saturday (glad Mum was around to hug lots) it was a lovely weekend to catch up with the excellent brother and sister in law, hear the latest on the exciting new job and enjoy our nephews and niece having fun with their cousins.

I got home to a tired husbandface who after 2 hours of contact again needed to lie down. It’s a bit bleak around here these days. I’m hopeful of some change as meds have been upped after a trip to the doctors today and he is in conversations with work to see what he can stop doing. But still. It’s a long hard road and I’m not all that good at accepting that.

This morning I got to do what I love to do this time of year and lead a session on Advent at Tuesday group. We stopped and were silent. We were still, trusting that sensing the absence of God leads to longing for his presence. We were silent because we live in a dark world and we need to take time to long for the light. There is much going on at the moment that makes me long deeply for the light in our lives, for Jesus to step into the situations of grief and pain.

We are all facing situations of darkness and pain. We are not the only ones facing incomprehensible sorrow daily. We are not the only ones walking wearily down the road. Together we plough onwards and occasionally turn our faces towards the sky longing for answers, for relief, for a new reality, for someone to come and take the pain away. Surely someone can come and take the pain away? We long for Jesus to come, to bring an end to sadness and we long for Jesus to be present in the midst of this darkness in our life and our friends lives.

This morning we listened to Come Thou Long Expected Jesus. It says this:

“Come to earth to taste our sadness,
he whose glories knew no end,
by his life he brings us gladness,
our Redeemer, Shepherd, Friend.
Leaving riches without number,
born within a cattle stall,
this the everlasting wonder,
Christ was born the Lord of all.”

We have a God who tasted our sadness. Who knows what it is like to walk this planet and who knows the ache and sorrow that seems to be close to all of us.

I long for him to show up this Advent time. In the midst of that longing I also long to know the value of small. Although I want to write endless series of posts on Advent, although I want to invite neighbours round for drinks, although I want to get my Christmas on in a big way and fill our diary with people and events, I can’t. This time is a time of small. We have limited stores of energy. My energy must be used in loving my boys and man well. Our life this Christmas will look small and slow and fairly unpopulated. I want to embrace that way of living. I want to know my enough is found in Jesus and not in what I do or how many friends I have. I want to lean into the silence, the small, the dark and find hope in the baby who came into the dark in a very ordinary way.

I want to find him in the midst of the sorrow and exhaustion this year. I want to love my boys as he would want me to and I want to stop long enough on the weary road to hear the angels sing.

About this time of year I always sit down and proclaim we need some light in the gloom. Late November is a hard season to plough on through. The mornings are dark and the light is fading. It’s still too early for Christmas lights to bring cheer and the sun seems to have disappeared for a week or so. The charms of autumn have worn off. The crunchy leaves turning mulchy and slimy underfoot.

I am desperate for Advent to begin on Sunday. I long to put up the sticker calendars we have bought. I’m looking forward to putting the puzzle pieces in their hanging pockets ready for us to put the Christmas story together over December. I must get out and buy an advent candle to help the boys over dinner time imagine light that darkness cannot conquer. I need this season of waiting and longing to come. It’s fairly ironic to be waiting for a season of waiting but here I am. 

In the midst of the gloom I’m feeling pretty hopeful this week. We think we’ve found a church to settle in for the time being. A place where we can start to slowly unfold and get to know people. Our excellent Godfamily already go there and son1 decided we should the first Sunday we tentatively tried it out. It’s in Brighton. It looks like it might speak to where our souls are right now. It seems to bring connection with God. It feels strange stepping into the unknown, into another community but we are ready to get started again. We are ready to start sharing life with others. We are ready to see where God will take us, break us, use us to help others and restore us. It means the world to know we can do this together with friends who know and love us already. 

This Sunday the sermon was on Sabbath. A helpful reminder of the value and necessity of stopping in the midst of life and remembering who we belong to. It was the end prayer that brought the tears. ‘Imagine Jesus is sitting next to you. He’s your brother. He’s here. What is he saying?’. Tears fell down my cheeks as I embraced the intimacy of that moment. The love. The longing. To be sitting with Jesus. I found that he loved me. Wasn’t ashamed to be sitting with me. Knew me. There is much I don’t know. There are many things we are struggling with right now. But I long for more of these times of sitting with Jesus. Times of soaking up his love and delight in me. Words that seem so hard to believe and yet have brought me so much life this week. 

“Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭2:11‬ ‭

Jesus is not ashamed of us. Not ashamed to be in our family. Not ashamed of you. Not ashamed to be identified with us. Numbered amongst us. That’s the wonder of Christmas and God in human form coming to be with us. That’s the only hope of our lives. That’s why I am glad with all my heart to belong to him. He is not ashamed of me.

Preadvent thought over. As you were. 

These weekly reviews seem to say the same thing at the moment. I think it’s still a good discipline but will understand if you want to skip to the end or just go and make yourself another cup of tea. It’s Saturday, I’ve escaped from the small people to queue up and get a haircut and it looks like it’s going to be a long wait. Ah town a few weeks before Christmas.

It’s been another one of those up and down weeks, we had a shouty day early on in the week. Son1’s anger seemed to go through the roof and I wondered what on earth was going on. Stuff at nursery? Weirdly emotionally exhausted parents? The trials of being 4? Thankfully a chat to his nursery teachers gave some clues. Apparently there had been ‘feisty’ (I can only imagine what was behind that overly charming word) behaviour and shifts in friendship groups. Son1 had been fine at nursery but clearly unsettled by what was going on and pouring it out at home. I’m grateful for whatever help they gave him on Wednesday morning after I chatted. He was a different boy for the rest of the week. Phew.

I love understanding my eldest weirdo, advocating for him and seeing change. Like me he’s quiet and compliant in social situations and then it all comes out in his safe place. I’m glad the nursery teachers understand him too and weren’t surprised when I chatted to them, could see why he was affected and were lovely in reassuring me.

The second half of the week was pretty delightful. Lots of stories, interaction, seeing friends and charming conversations. Oh and the return of poo into song lyrics. I have to admire the comic timing and genius when he sang ‘if you’re happy and you know it’ loudly on the bus, replacing clap your hands with clap your poo. So funny. So wrong.

Around that we’ve had a pretty grim head down through the dark kind of a week. It’s November. It’s gloomy. It feels like there are a whole load of question marks in our life at the moment and we feel a little lost. I sat and splurged my swirling thoughts to my Spiritual Director last night and came to the conclusion that I really need advent to start already.

In my book of Bible and prayer I’m going through the church year. Each day I look at the calendar at the top and see if I can head to the page marked Christ the King, the beginning of the Advent season. Each day I am stuck in ordinary time. Oh so true. I took a sneak peak this morning and tomorrow I get to launch into the preface to Advent. I need daily reminders that Emmanuel has come. I need the daily echo of my ache that he should come again. More than ever this year I yearn inside for this broken world to be made new. There feels like too much at stake now. I know so much has improved in our world over the last 100 years but it doesn’t seem like we are getting anywhere in greater love, in recognising our Maker and walking in his ways. I want an end to hurt, to pain, to suffering. I want him to come back so my son can see him and not have to wonder anymore why we can’t see God (a question I’m so with right now).

And there we are. Ploughing on. Seeking hope and reality and getting through the next 5 minutes at a time.

EDIT.

I totally forgot to include the best news ever. Urgh. I am a silly. This week a church has finally seen sense and employed the excellent brother and sister-in-law as a Discipleship Pastor. Leighton Buzzard you are a lucky lucky town (if slightly challenged in the name department). I am obviously extremely delighted and also glad of the bonus joy of them being an hour closer to us.  Thought a happy end to the story was worth a mention here after my ranty rant back in February.