Please rise and turn to… 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…
It seems to me this is a pretty good description of love. A commitment rather than a wobbly feeling or a nice idea. Unconditional. Unwavering. Based on its own merits not on the expectation of others. Something you give without the anticipation of it being returned. A choice and a decision.
Love is not a word I use lightly, and never have. If I have ever told you I love you then, that love never ends…
Thank you, you may be seated…
I’ve been feeling funny lately. Not haha funny but sort of odd kind of funny. I have just finished a ten day course of antibiotics. I swallowed two horse sized tablets of amoxicillin twice a day for the last week and a half. Last night, when taking my last dose, I looked at the box for the first time (well, I don’t usually understand the outside of boxes over here so I don’t always read the box) and noticed what it said…
...this could explain it all.
After 11 years, 3 different homes in Scotland and 4 here in Belgium. Having serviced 4 children as they passed through the yoghurt and potty training stages, the old suite has been traded in for a lovely new leather one. Cozily nestled in my front room there is a 3 seater a 2 seater and an arm chair for Daddy. So with a Happy Ho Ho Ho to me please know I will be lounging comfortably in the glow of my twinkly Christmas lights tonight. Feast thine eyes on my beautiful new divan and please feel free compliment me on my fabulous taste!
Oh and boys… why don’t you come and lie on my couch! *wink*
I remember playing hide-and-seek once as a child when I hid so well that I was never found! The hiding place of choice was the spare bedroom. But we never went there, it was just too scary. It’s not that the room itself was scary, but we had to pass the wall furnace in the hall to get to the room. And the wall furnace was surely a tool of the devil himself to instil fear in us and keep us in bed at night. It was one of those old gas units that hung on the wall were you could see the pilot light inside, and the bar of flames running across the front. At night, when all the lights were off, this metal contraption hanging on the wall was nothing more than a cage for the monster or even worse the *gasp* demon face of fire inside it. We held a healthy respect for that furnace, and in turn for the whole hall and the bedrooms beyond it. But, as it was the middle of the day in the middle of the summer somewhere in Oklahoma, I braved the hall of fear and as my sister counted to 50 I made my way under a pile of blankets in the corner of the spare room. And I waited. I waited, and waited and waited… but no one came to find me. I remember the suffocating heat under the blankets. I remember the sweat starting to roll down my brow and how it stung as it spilled into my eyes. But I still waited. It was The Best hiding place I had ever had and I hid there fantasising about how everyone would congratulate me on such a wonderful hiding place I’d found… but they never came. The blankets weighed soooo heavy on my little head and shoulders. I was nearly bent in two with the load on top of me…
In searching for a description of how I have felt for the last few days weeks months, this was the closest I have come to it. The childhood memory of being weighed down by heavy blankets. Only now, I am not physically bowed, but in the same way the weight of my hiding place put pressure on me, I feel somehow my head and heart have been burdened. Emotionally I have had what seemed to be a weighty shroud resting on me. I have had some valid, big (read huge, ginormous, whoppingly fantastic) stress, and I have had a few extremely petty things hanging on me. The petty ones have become HUGE. Things that would normally never even faze me have totally floored me!!
The good news though, I think I am finding the way out from under my metaphoric pile of blankets. I will try tomorrow to tell you about one of the petty, parasitical things that has been threatin’ my mojo!! It is (now) fun to tell, if I can do it justice in writing… but the full resolution won’t be in place until tomorrow morning!
PS. They never did find me under all those blankets AND I was accused of cheating when I crawled out an eternity later, hair matted to my head with sweat!! That still pisses me off 30 years later!! (yes, I *am* that old… but chances are, you are too!)
We’re off to Brussels to finish the Christmas shopping…
Here’s the promised picture of my nose ring. It’s not very clear because I took it with the web cam but I will try and get a better one today. But nothing says ‘Hey, I love me baby, who do you love?’ like trying to take pictures of your nose ring in crowded places!
“Aaaa! Doan wowray! I geeve you wwwon teeer! Jez wwwon teeer!” said the lovely little Chinese woman as she tried to convince me to set aside me fear and go ahead with my noise piercing. “Aaaa! You ha babeez! Babeeez iz big pain… You feeeee no pain here! I beee weeel fazt! I no hur you!”
Maybe I should have walked away then, but this was something I wanted to do… for ME. I braced myself and as she hefted her 4’9” frame high enough to create a great enough down ward thrust to plunge the pin through my nose (she was amazingly strong!!) and then… time.stood.still! It was like a scene out of CSI. In my mind’s eye I could see, in slow motion, the stud puncturing my nose, passing through the tissue and exiting into my nostril. Then, as the blood began flow, dripping into my hair, time resumed it’s normal pace and I am sure I shouted a string of profanities that would make a decent woman blush…
“Aaaa! You eat spiceeez? You eat spiceeez you bleeed big!” At that point, her high pitched chatter seemed to fade into the distance and all I could see was the look of horror on her assistant’s face. My world threatened to turn black. Somehow I clutched onto consciousness as she twisted the bent stud into place, gave me the ointment and care instruction, and complimented me on my newly acquired sparkly thing. “Aaaaa! You aww vewwy bootiful!”
It took a glass of red to calm me, and much to my surprise, I nearly passed out several times on the way to the wine bar… But that was all two months ago.
The (puncture) wound has healed; I have been in no real discomfort. Like a good little girl, I kept it very clean, and no, the whole blowing/picking your nose thing hasn’t been an issue. And YES! I love my nose ring!
BUT, this morning I decided to change the stud. And now *sob* I can’t get the ‘bobbyhead’ thing back in my ‘bobby-head’ nose!!!
If I succeed, and it is a big if as I have been trying to all day and haven’t managed, I will show you a picture tomorrow. Ok? Ok.
Now excuse me as I go try and to manipulate this thing into place whilst I endeavour to blot out the sounds of… “Aaaaa! I geeve you wwwon teeer! Jez wwwon teeer!"… that are echoing through this blonde head of mine!
...I have bronchitis. I am supposed to take my antibiotics and “try and do nothing for the next several days”. Yeah, Riiiiight!
I am sick! I have been sick off and on (more on than off) since I returned from the States in October. I have a horrendous cough. You know, one of the ones where you often lose the contents of your stomach as you try to cough up your toenails. Two weeks ago the doctor said she thought I had some sort of sinus thing going on and the drainage (*shudder* Oh! hate that word!) is causing me to have an asthma-like reaction… Well, I took all the meds, and have religiously been using my inhaler but I can’t see that it’s made a blind bit of difference. Today I feel worse than ever, I think I actually have a fever now… AND the kids are all sick again.
You know, I don’t feel like nursing my kids today. I feel like being nursed myself. I don’t feel like fetching glasses of water and tissues or doling out the medicine. I don’t want to make soup for lunch… I don’t even want to eat lunch! I just want to cuddle up on the couch in my fleecy blanket, put on some cello music and watch the flickering lights on the tree, dozing. I want someone to make me hot drinks and to stroke my forehead… I want someone to peek in on me while I’m sleeping, just to see that I’m ok.
But no, today, I’m Moma… There must have been many times when my mother felt like I do today. When she brushed my hair from my face and sang quietly to me despite any discomfort she was in… Today, I want my moma, but I must try to be for my own children what she was for me. Why do I feel so inadequate?
I don’t get it. I really don’t. But let me start with what I do get. What I do get is this… I ‘GET’ Need To Know. I understand curiosity; Oh! I understand the curiosity thing all right. Curiosity, like a deep, painful itch, can drive me to distraction. I’ve a curiosity that could match even the most inquisitive of feline. I just love to know and I love to be in the know. But then, you know what? I can hold.my.friggin’.tongue!!! Yes, that’s right folks, I can keep a secret. I don’t even have to let anyone else know I know. I know how to be a confidante. I possess the ability to do nothing with information I have gained.
So, what don’t I get? Well, why does it seem like no one else I know possess this same quality (except for you of course). Why do I feel so vulnerable when I bare my soul (except with you, that is). How is it that the grapevines that twist and wind around me whisper thoughts I’ve had before… It always seems to me that repeating a confidence can create a curvature of the truth, no? I am a trustworthy and a staunchly loyal friend. I understand that there are times when you (yes, probably even you) will need a refuge where you know you’ll be safe. I know how to be that type of friend and then, I know how to.keep.it.to.myself! Is it wrong to feel aggrieved when that type of confidence is not reciprocated? I’m just saying…
And no, silly this post in NOT about you!
