A new perspective

A year and a half a go I panicked.  30 months until I am 30! Aaargh!  But now I realised that it was completely unnecessary.


I was worried that my life wasn't interesting.  You see, I had a plan when I was a teenager.  Finish school, go to teacher's college, work overseas to earn money for a few years, do missions work for a few years, come back to NZ when I was 30, get married, have four kids .... and on it went.


Life didn't go according to that plan.  A year and a half ago I thought that being married, being a mum to Miss B, working in a daycare centre and living in a village meant I was prematurely old and boring.  But in the last couple of months I have learnt that it certainly isn't true.  Life may not have gone according to my plan but it is interesting and amazing.


Proverbs  16:9 says "We can make plans, but the Lord determines our steps"


I feel like I have walked away from my plan and into God's.  While I was completing my teaching Degree for my own reasons, God was directing my steps towards an amazingly gentle man who became my best friend and husband (when I was 22).


In 2006 when I moved away from Tauranga it wasn't on an overseas adventure but to Wanganui, with my husband to set up a home for the family we wanted to have.  Nothing could have prepared us for the heartache we experienced as miscarriages and struggles with infertility became the norm.  But through all that God had positioned us so we were ready, willing and available for a 21 month old Princess who needed a home.


Come the middle of 2009, there was a sense of change in the air.  Hubby had applied for jobs in different places, interviewed well but wasn't quite the right person for the job.  There's an ad for a job in Martinborough, where? Exactly, I never knew it existed but the idea of living in a rural village sounded like fun.  Moving away from family, selling our lovely home, arriving in a small town where we knew nobody.  Maybe life isn't so boring after all!


Just as we were starting to get the hang of our new life, constant pain and sickness became my new reality.  How could this be?  Our new start, our adventure that was so full of hope and happiness had become a daily struggle.  No parents just down the road to help out.  But determination grew, I had a husband and daughter that needed to be fed, have their clothes washed and their house cleaned.  There were lots of children (and work mates) at the local daycare centre that relied on me turning up to work and being part of their lives.


9 months after the pain started, it ended with a hysterectomy.  So many tears had been shed, and still continue to be shed.  My hearts aches at times for the babies I will meet one day in heaven.  I felt ridiculous for being jealous of expectant Mum's who get to go out and buy nappy bags and set up their nursery.  I find myself wondering 'Why me?"


Peace comes.  After feeling like I had lost my faith and my conclusions about life were taking me away from the God I had known so closely, I discovered I was actually right where I should be.  I found solace and complete understanding in His word.



Job 2:7-10
"Satan left God and struck Job with terrible sores. Job was ulcers and scabs from head to foot. They itched and oozed so badly that he took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself, then went and sat on a trash heap, among the ashes.
His wife said, "Still holding on to your precious integrity, are you? Curse God and be done with it!"
He told her, "You're talking like an empty-headed fool. We take the good days from God—why not also the bad days?"
Not once through all this did Job sin. He said nothing against God."



Bad stuff happens to good people.  I don't know why but I know will all my heart that if I had never experience 'bad' things, I'd never understand the goodness of God.


I have found inspiration in the song 'If you want me to' by Ginny Owens.  I wont write all the word here but it starts off with


"The pathway is broken and the signs are unclear and I don't know the reasons that you bought me here. But just because you love me the way that you do, I'm going to walk through the valley if you want me to."


Moving along to right here and now.  I'm living in Masterton. An amazing town that is now home to my family.  God has placed us in a loving church family that we know is where we belong.  I have friends that I haven't known for long but our friendships feel like they've existed for a lifetime.  There are opportunities for me every week to use my skills and talents serving in the church.  Miss B is at school and loving it.  I'm helping at school with a reading programme.  Miss B has a friend who doesn't live far from us and we are showing them God's love and blessing them while trusting God to reveal his love to them.  I am doing all I can to support friends who are living in Uganda and hoping to raise enough money to adopt 2 more children while they are their.


I don't need a list of things to do before I'm 30 to make my life interesting.  It is interesting and full.  I am not going to seek to spend money doing things just to tick them off a list.  Yes there are things on the list I want to do but I know over time I will.  I will walk confidently in the knowledge that God is directing my steps and not stress about a number.  


2011 for my family is about being content with what we have and using what God has given us to bless others.