We continue: a non New Year

I’ve always been a lover of fresh starts:
The first coffee of a day full of promise, a new library book, the empty pages of a pristine journal, any Monday – that magical day of the week where a new me begins.
Then there’s the threshold of a shiny new year.
This year though, I’ve no patience for platitudes espousing the charm of the New Year; this sudden turning of the calendar that will somehow fill me with enough motivation to spend the next 365 days fixing, overhauling, primping and becoming.

Maybe it’s just that the lightness of these new years sentiments are too cliché for the heaviness that runs beneath my skin. Beneath our collective skin.

So this year, I’m showing up without grandeur.
Instead of a day to start over, to begin again, I’ll just carry on.
In all of the tiny, quiet ways that matter the most.

Let’s see what happens when we remember that mercies are new every morning.
What would happen if, instead of relying on a fleeting sparkle at midnight (as romantic as that sounds!) we continued in our small steps forward, creating ripples in the future we can’t yet see.

What if we don’t need permission from the pages of a calendar to keep moving toward goodness.
What if we grabbed hold of the mercies that are a heartbeat away?
What if we didn’t need to start afresh, but to simply continue.
What could our year look like if we just continued to show up in all of the unassuming ways that really matter?

I think it’s always been the quiet places within us that beg for our attention, amidst the world’s hustle, its harshness, its hurt.
What if we continued to show up, and kept going, carried on?
What if we didn’t break stride in our journey toward freedom, and resumed the good work of healing the wounds below our skin – facing them and bringing them into places of Light.
What if we just carried on, holding tight and trusting in the God who is writing a greater narrative across our lives. Even when things don’t make sense in the moment. Even in the wrestle.
And then we continue.
Continue to hope, to hold fast, to show up in tiny miraculous ways;
a breath of prayer,
a word of kindness,
a held tongue,
a brave no,
a patient surrender. Again.
Continue, again.

Not in a grandiose approach, but in the daily surrender, and the everyday ordinary.
In the curling up on the old worn couch, in serving my family in all of the daily mundane holy ways. I’ll show up in a run by the river and in the snatched prayer of a taxi-mum, and the late night whispers of encouragement over my husband. I’ll continue the welcome home to messy community around our dining table and the lunchbreak phone calls to the trusted friend, and the neighbourhood bike rides with my daughters.
I’ll keep praying, running, reading, writing, loving, serving, bringing. Walking toward goodness.
Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s not Monday, or January.

So, today, on the first day of a new year, I begin simply by carrying on.

xx

Cafe Series 2: Longer tables, loving thy neighbour

Cafe series: I’m writing from a different cafe each week, as a form of discipline, and self-care, and time management (when I’m here, in a cafe, I can’t distract myself with the books on my bedside or the dirty laundry basket. I’m just here, with a laptop and my words.).

Cafe: Twig & Sparrow, Woodpecker Avenue, Willetton
Drink: Chai lattes for two; Eden has joined me rather than go to school with a cold

Our new nearer-to-the-city suburb has pockets of higher density living than we’re used to. Our old house sat on an almost-sprawling block with a leafy backyard and room for cartwheels in the front yard, too. Here we’ve a pocket of lawn out the front, and the back is entirely paved, save for a tiny garden bed from which two pomegranite trees grow. We are one of four houses squished on subdivided blocks, and though our fences separate us, we are close. Close enough to be familiar with neighbour voices that float from living rooms, and food smells that waft from barbeques.
We’ve said hello to our neighbours in passing, had a chat at the letterbox or as we’ve wheeled bins to the curb, waved from cars coming and going.

One family is shy. They have been in Australia for years but the English language barrier still brings insecurity. Their faces are open and friendly, their four year old daughter remembering my name easily because of her love of Emma Wiggle.
Another are emigrants from the UK, friendly and warm—they’ve lived in their home for 12 years, and know all of the gossip about what once was, the history of our houses and their former owners.
The third family, our next door neighbours are gregarious, generous. “Come for Indian tea!” they said, “We’re inviting the neighbours!”
And then there we sat on a Sunday evening. With a merchant sailor, a doctor, mothers and husbands and us; sipping tea with crushed fennel and cardamom, and eating vegetables disguised deliciously and fried until golden.
And it was golden.
Listening to the stories of others.
Embracing their language, their food.

I looked around at my literal neighbours, our diversity, our obvious differences and the not so obvious ones – the journeys we’ve each walked, the experiences we’ve had. From colourful Mumbai to the cobbled streets of Manchester. To us, who have been born and bred here in our tiny city.
And it made me realise the beauty of the table, of invitation, of swinging wide our front doors and allowing others to enter our stories.
There is such a wild beauty in diversity, and it’s not until we sit down together, and look into each other’s eyes, listening to the stories of each human experience that we can truly acknowledge it.

There’s so much ‘other’ online. There’s so much ‘them’ and ‘us’. There are fences springing up all over the place, between communities who’d once smile and wave through all their comings and goings, but now look the other way, or worse. Fences are heightened, walls are built, doors are closed and blinds are drawn. As if differences in opinions, in backgrounds, in skin colours, in language, in religion, somehow all makes us too different to share a table; to bring our food, and our stories. To apprehensively taste something we haven’t ever tried before and discover new flavours dancing across our tongues, and a new generosity flowing from them.
“Your English is great!”
“You should come to our place soon!”
“This is delicious, what do you call it?”
“No, I promise we don’t hear you yelling at all!” Laughs.

Fences are barriers between us, but we can yell over them, across them – open them, walk around them. Tear them down.
With generous open lives, that make the effort to cross boundaries, move past discomfort, listen—no really, listen.
Because our children are watching, and embracing, and learning to tear down fences, too.
“Mum, my friend wears a scarf on her head and it’s called a hijab. It looks really pretty on her.”

xx

Cafe Series 1: It smells like Eucalyptus

Cafe series: I’m writing from a different cafe each week, as a form of discipline, and self-care, and time management (when I’m here, in a cafe, I can’t distract myself with the books on my bedside or the dirty laundry basket. I’m just here, with a laptop and my words.).

Cafe: Bespoke by Barista HQ, Albany Highway, Victoria Park
Drink: Prana Chai latte (and a sneaky spinach and feta quiche which was incredible!)

It was the first thing I noticed, the smell.
It was the peak of summer, and the air was still and hot in the evening, I guess we were now too far from the ocean for the early sea breeze that I’d been used to. But the stillness of the air carried a different scent – eucalyptus. A green and woody aroma, with the unmistakable mint of gum trees.
It surprised me, like so many things did when we moved.
I wasn’t expecting a fresh, foresty smell so close to the city.
I wasn’t expecting it to feel like home so soon, either.
On one of our first weekends, I discovered our local IGA had fresh donuts delivered every Sunday.
As we sat at our kitchen table, trying salted caramel and passionfruit donuts, licking the filling from our fingers and the cinnamon sugar from our top lip, I asked the kids, “Does it feel strange here, weird living in a new neighbourhood?”
Where everything is unfamiliar. Where we’re not sure which turn to take, or where to get our groceries from, or who does the best fish and chips.
Where the light falls differently through the windows.
Where we’re discovering where the floor creaks, and which light switch to use.

They replied, “No? It feels just the same.”
Of course, it didn’t feel just the same. Everything was different.
Except us. We were still the same.
It was the same us, dancing in the kitchen at breakfast, and sitting at our familiar dining table.
The same mum using puns, and the same teens, eyerolling.
The same dad, and the same familiar sound of the coffee machine at the same time in the morning.
So they shrugged their shoulders and I knew that whatever adventures lay ahead, we’d do it together, because our together doesn’t change.

There’s so much fun and adventure (and terror and dread!) in change. I know people who absolutely hate change, and others who can’t sit still and the thought of doing the same thing daily for them is terrifying and restricting.
But there is beauty in stability.
I’m a girl who thrives on routine.
I like it when I can map my days, my weeks.
Same doesn’t have to mean boring.
Doing the same thing over and over can release us from carrying heavy mental loads, because the muscle memory does the work for us.
Which means we have more space (mentally, and in the laundry!) to do the fun stuff.

There’s comfort in sameness.
Comfort in the friend who’s always there – she’s changed over the years yes, and so have we, but our friendship hasn’t. It’s stable, trustworthy, reliable – through the storms and waves of life and different seasons, it’s steadfast.
But regardless of what comfort we find in things unchanging, we’ll inevitably face times of unsteadyness. When life doesn’t look the way it did, or the way we expected.
And in the midst of all that is changing across the landscape of our lives, we’re beseeched by scripture to still ourselves and drop anchor.
To hold tight amidst the varying seasons, jobs, family, and the shifting of what our world looks like – we’re to hold fast to the One who doesn’t change.
To trust that the unchanging nature of God will carry us, unwavering, even as we ourselves waver and wobble.

It’s then I can look to Him and say wholly, honestly, “It feels just the same.”
Because whatever shifts and moves and whirls around me, I know that He doesn’t.
He stays the same.

So, it doesn’t smell like the ocean here, but the eucalypt is fresh and the river bekons, and although the light falls differently, there’s still light. And hope.

xx

embracing slow, again

Once upon a time, my friend and I wrote a blog series in the lead up to Lent, a significant time period in the Christian calendar from Ash Wednesday up until Easter. We wanted to slow down, to stop with the hustle, to sink our hands into work that felt wholesome and quiet, and unhurried instead being pulled along by the the noisy tug of the rushing world around us. For about 7 weeks, we each wrote one post.
Later, we compiled all of these essays into a printed book, and called it Embracing Slow.
(Side note: I still have a little stash of our second print run, that I’ve just packed into moving boxes – if you’d like one, let me know. They’re $20, including postage.)

During those days I was fairly busy (well, I thought I was) – I was at uni, finishing off my undergrad full time, looking after my family, leading a women’s ministry…

But lately my ’embracing slow’ message has seemed somewhat peremptory.
Now that I’m in the middle of packing up my house, starting a new job, continuing to work at my previous job, as well as managing the emotions and easing the transition into a very new space for my kiddos, and trying to have conversations with my husband before my eyes get too heavy of a night… well. I want to apologise.
I’m sorry if you felt inadequate.
I’m sorry if, while I was baking home made sourdough, and telling you to embrace slow, you were working two jobs, or caring for an unwell family member, or homeschooling multiple children.
I’m sorry if it sounded hubristic, if you felt lacking—if it made you feel like there was just one more thing you couldn’t do.
Because I’m there right now.
While it’s the holiday season in Australia, and schools don’t return until February, and many of us are enjoying slow mornings and bare feet and salty beach hair, I’m not (okay I’m still enjoying salty beach hair most afternoons, I’ll admit).
I’m working a crazy amount of hours, as well as packing up a house and wiping dust from forgotten corners, and brainstorming the simplest meals to make the family. I’m not complaining, and I am so grateful for my work, my income, and for finally packing to make a move we’ve been planning for a year!
I’m simply saying that I know now how irrational it can sound, this sprouting of the ’embracing slow’ message, to someone who is living a life without the luxury of time off work, or a slow summer holiday period to enjoy.

But the thing is, the embracing slow message has grown and flourished deep, and even in this busy season I’m reaping a harvest of deliberately unrushed and gentle rhythms, that I’ve been sowing for years.
So if you’re feeling like you’re drowning in busy, I’m literally there with you girlfriend, and here’s a few things I’ve learned to do in the process:

• Stop the scroll. Don’t pick up your phone as soon as you wake up. Charge it in a different room over night if you have to. Wake up slowly. Even if it’s to a 5:30am alarm, you can still wake up slow. Stretch each limb. Let your eyes adjust. Notice the light. Make a mental list of the things you’re grateful for. Take deep breaths. And without spending twenty minutes scrolling, you’ve now got time to sip a cup of tea or your morning coffee by the window, or on the front porch, or read a chapter of a novel, or the Bible. Embrace mornings.
• Let go of perfection. I’ve learned this out of utter necessity. There just has NOT been time to do everything. Some things I’ve had to let go of. Like the ironing basket – I’ll get to it when I get to it. No need to stress myself out about it. I’ll go to the beach instead thank you, please.
• Meet in the kitchen. Our island bench is our communal space – it’s where we prep meals, eat breakfast, do homework, sip coffee, play card games (Monopoly Bid is our favourite, at the moment). I’ve made a conscious effort to stop here. At the end of a long day at work, it would be easy to hurry along the evening routine, but instead I’ll sit at the island bench. Often all three kids amble in, pull up stools, or lean against a cupboard, and tell me all of the inconsequential moments in their day. I could rush them, but then I’d miss this sacred, slow connectedness that comes from a stopping and eye contact. It might only be 10 minutes, but its one of the best ways I intentionally embrace slow.
• Prioritise real rest… whatever brings rest for you. For me, lately, it’s quality time with old friends, wine, or coffee, and food, and good conversation. I’m scheduling it in, prioritising it, writing it in my calendar and smiling as it approaches. Life is busy, but we can’t wait for it to stop so that we can do the things that fill our soul. Make the space and time to do those things regardless of the busy.
• Cook big meals. This is my secret superpower. Who cares if you have to eat the same meal twice? It means you’ve just saved a WHOLE night in the kitchen. (Also teaching your kids to cook is a win… Eden made us chicken and bacon fettuccini carbonara all by herself tonight and it was a fist pump moment).

One day, maybe you won’t be so busy.
But even in the midst of this crazy busy life, I believe firmly that there are always ways we can embrace slow and breathe deep, and snatch moments of deliberate calm in the midst of our day. I’m holding on to this today anyway.

Yours, knee-deep in moving boxes.

xx

The one where I pack up my house.

Packing boxes are strewn haphazardly throughout our house.
Last week we signed our first ever official tenancy agreement.
We have an official moving date.
We’re on the move.

Signing that piece of paper signified signing off the end of an era—the end of our lives being lived in our beloved beachside suburb, the end of daily driving these familiar streets, the end of my oceanside runs, and quick corner store trips for bread and a sneaky croissant. It’s goodbye to our little primary school just a handful of metres away, that has faithfully schooled all three of our children and was one of the best decisions we’d ever made for them.
I’m believing that we’ll look back on this decision one day – one that we made slowly, carefully, over the course of this year – and say exactly that: well THAT was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.
Staying put, in many senses of the word, just doesn’t make sense for us any longer.
While it isn’t easy, this stretching and growing, and ground-taking, and intentionally pursuing the things we know are calling us forward, it’s also exhilarating.
The big smoke has been calling us, and we’re answering the call with gallant gusto.

Yes, to adventure. Yes, to new. Yes, to refusing to become stuck.

Signing that piece of paper also signified the miraculous provision of God.

You see, we’ve been hunting for a home in a particular area, for months. I’ve been watching the rental market since February, seeing beautiful homes come and go. In the last six months though, Western Australia has become a very attractive place to live – thanks mostly to our closed borders, and zero community spread of Coronavirus. So suddenly the rental market is flooded. We began viewing homes, and applying against hundreds of other applicants. Emails beginning with, “We regret to inform you…” had become a regular part of my week. We stopped showing the kids the houses we’d viewed, because we were getting their hopes up for naught.
What are you up to, God?! What can I learn in this? How can I trust You more? Why do you hate me? Became regular prayers thrown up in exasperation, or anxiety, or anger, or trust and surrender (sometimes all of those emotions in quick succession, on the daily).
What if we didn’t get a house?
“Well, we can just stay here another year. Re-enrol the kids back into their old school.”
The thought made us all feel suffocated.

I journaled this on the 13th December:

“Everything and everyone is annoying me. Everything hurts. Like when you get those invisible prickles in your skin, and you’re mildly aware that they’re there and then something brushes against you and it hurts. Everything is brushing up against my prickles. It feels like nothing is moving forward — there’s resistance in everything we want to do.”

Two days later I received a message, in response to a post I’d made in a Perth Rentals Facebook group, which went a little bit like this: “Hi Emma, I’ve seen your post. Here’s a link to a house I’ve put an offer on in the area you’re looking at. It settles early January, and I’m looking for tenants.”
My heart leapt, until I saw the price she was asking for the rent.
I replied. “Thank you so much for reaching out, the house is beautiful and in the perfect area, but unfortunately out of our price range. This is the maximum we can afford. I’m sure you’ll find tenants very quickly in this market. Thanks again anyway.”

A couple of hours later, the miracle: “It’s more important to me to find the right tenants. I can drop the rent to your price.”

I was tentatively hopeful – after all, this could be a scam.
But what followed was a phone conversation in which our future landlord says, “I think you guys are the answer to my prayers”, and then a meeting for coffee, in which we discover mutual friends (friends we had only just made at church a few weeks before, and who happened to pray for us to find a house there and then, standing outside church), and in which confirmed the authenticity of what was happening.

I’ll be honest. A part of me was still worried this wasn’t real, or that something would go wrong. Maybe when we viewed the house in person, it would be too small. Maybe she was just a very good scammer. Maybe she’d find another tenant who could pay her original price. Surely this is the miracle we’d been hoping for… it’s too far-fetched to fall apart.

A week later we’d seen the house and signed the paperwork.

Now, we have a house to move into, and a story to tell.
The story I’ll tell myself when I doubt God’s faithfulness, or His timing, or when I try to anticipate the way in which He’ll answer my prayers.
Because He’s always escaping the boxes I try to confine Him in.
I must remember to let Him work His way, and stop worrying about the way He’ll show up or not, and let Him surprise and delight us His way.

Praying that you find the same surprise and delight this year too.

Here’s to packing a house, and new adventures.

xx

Glancing back, moving forward

For a very long time, I’ve had a quote up on a letter board in my home: Keep leading us forward. It’s a verse from the book of Proverbs. I believe it’s God’s heart for us, for us to keep looking ahead, to keep being lead forward, not to dwell “on the former things”.

However, the other day I had a glance back. I’m an old fashioned, page-turning-ink-smudging diary kind of gal, and while Google calendars have definitely helped manage my all-over-the-place hours, and keep the family in the loop, I cannot shake the habit of a paper diary. As a young girl, one of my favourite things to do between Christmas and the New Year, was to prepare my diary (and probably only bookish, nerdy 90’s Australian girls would remember those fold out Dinky diaries with aaaaall of the stickers?!). I would add in all the addresses of my family members, and everyone’s birthdays, term dates, and then write lists: best friends, favourite pets, boys I hated.

Now, my favourite paper diary of the last four years is the Moleskine week to an opening, with one whole lined page for notes and lists and scribbles. My 2020 Alice In Wonderland has made me smile all year!

So, the other day in the city I bought my 2021 Moleskine. On the train on my way home I got busy transferring some information from the old to the new, when I began to flick through the pages of twenty twenty. It wasn’t just work shifts I found scrawled in there, but coffee dates with my husband, dinners with girlfriends, a girls weekend away (um, did that even happen this year?!), a once-in-a-lifetime contract opportunity with the State Library, the date Amie started learning ukulele, my gum graft surgery, the date Joel went for an interview and landed his first job, that month that I ran almost 40km because I’d lost a friend and running eased the hurt.

There were the private victories—high-fives in our marriage, in our parenting; a bonfire of paperwork signifying the end of hard times, birthday stargazing and a debt paid.

How could so much be squeezed into one year?! While it’s been so easy to focus on what’s missing in these last few months of 2020, having a glance back made me re-discover the highlights, the wins. And reminded me again the importance of writing it all down. Write it all down.

One of my favourite verses penned by the prophet Habakkuk tells us to, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.”
‭‭

Sometimes I’m not aware of where I’ve run to, until I reflect on where I’ve been. And I can do that because I’ve written it, made it plain to myself, so I can remember the faithfulness of God in times my prayers don’t seem to be heard.

I listed out all of these wins, losses, victories, and hopes of 2020, and I smiled. It’s a visible reminder of all this year held—awe and loss, gratitude and surrender. I feel proud of the things I’ve carried this year, carried and carried on. I feel grateful for the community we’ve built, for new friends, and the loyal ones that are still here after all this time.

And I feel hopeful still, that the best is yet to come.

xx

PS my friend Amanda Viviers is the queen of end of year reflections. In fact, she’s got a tool to help you do just that; a book with reflection questions and lots of space to process your year and your hopes for the one ahead. It’s an incredible tool to help you to move into new days. You can find it here.

My act of defiance: hoping again

I was awake before the birds this morning.
Awake to hear my husband’s alarm ring out, awake to see the darkness fade into bright sky through that one crooked slat in the blinds. Awake to notice I’d opened my eyes to a Christmas carol, it’s tune softly humming in my mind, my favourite: O Holy Night.
This line A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices over and over.

Hope, I think to myself, head still heavy on the pillow, feet straying to a warm patch over by his feet, what is hope?
My mind immediately answers in the words of Dickinson, because my brain is always a jumble of quotes and poetry, Hope is this thing with feathers, that perches in the soul.
I don’t know Emily, I ponder, rolling over, I think hope is heavier than feathers.

There were moments this year that I’ve tasted hopelessness.
Where hope has seemed less like the thrill from my favourite carol, and more like a far away idea, evasive and selective. Where are you? I’d whisper to the dark, Is there hope to be found here?
And through valleys of hopelessness, I found that hope was something I could not escape.
I cannot hide from it.
I cannot give it up.
I cannot let it go.
Somehow, hope is my act of defiance.
That I dare hold on to hope, in the face of so much that feels hopeless.
That I defiantly keep believing that tomorrow will bring the answers. And if not tomorrow, then the day after that.

I’ve found time and again, that hope is the life raft in a rough sea.
Hope doesn’t still the storm, or placate the waves, but it gives us something to hold on to. Something that causes us to say, with a defiant upward tilt of our chin, Well I think the answer might still come. Maybe tomorrow.
And after a thousand tomorrows, after disappointment threatens to drown us, still we cling to that raft, and we stay afloat, buoyant in the churning and unpredictable waves.
The defiance in us dares to believe that tomorrow is a new day, and there it is, the fresh hope again that in this new day the answer will come, the miracle will arrive, the storm will cease.
We cling on for dear life to the life raft, and we feel our fingers slipping and we’re tired, and it takes everything for us to say the words out loud;
This is hard.
I feel alone.
I need help.

And I’ve found that even if my aching fingers slip, loosen, let go, instead of drowning, I find myself pulled in, and up.
It was a phone call, with a smiling voice on the other end.
It was a gift, a book wrapped in paper, unexpected.
It was an aunty’s empathetic ear over a morning cup of tea.
It was a city jaunt in the comforting company of old friends.
And then I realise that I don’t have to hold so tight after all, there are other hands holding us, that had already laid hold of us, as we laid a hold of all the hope we could muster.

And it anchors our souls, this knowing we are held, not adrift in a sea of chaos*

And right now, more than ever, our world is weary.
We’ve lost jobs, businesses, loved ones, friendships, communities, certainty.
Here’s a hand though – grab hold if you need to. Reach out, call for help, hold on.
Tomorrow is a new day.

xx

* Elisabeth Eliot

dear you—take heart

I bought a t-shirt, and I’ve been living in it.
Take heart, I whisper to myself when I hear news reports.
Take heart, I murmer again when our rental application is declined.
Take heart, I sob when I hear back after a job interview and I’m not the chosen candidate.
Take heart, I breathe into her hair as my arms wrap around my daughter.
Take heart, I belt out in song in the car, when the sun is shining on a new day.

I know it’s not easy. I know you’re probably facing tough things too.
But taking heart is an active verb, a holding on with both hands.

I’ve (still) been reading through the Psalms. It’s my go-to when I don’t understand, when I don’t have the answers, when my prayers don’t seem to be heard.
Today I read Psalm 73.
Yes! I thought, Yes! The prosperous don’t seem to have any troubles. (v 5) There they are just enjoying life. They don’t have to worry about where they’re going to live, or what will happen if they don’t get a permanent job, or how they’ll pay the mechanic. Yes! Their hearts overflow with follies (v7) because they don’t seem to have anything important to worry about.
The Psalmists just seem to get how I feel. Yes I’m envious. Yes. It feels like I keep my heart clean all in vain! It feels like I keep believing and hoping all for nothing, every morning I’m rebuked—I’m told no to the house, the job. I’m stricken! Yes! (v14)

And always, in the Psalms, I’m given permission to feel.
To feel the envy. To feel stricken. To feel weary.
But then I’m reminded again and again to take heart. It’s not about the here and now.

“But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God” (v 17)

His counsel and wisdom are ours. He holds our hands, continually with us.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.

So I take heart again. Two-handed.
I write lists of what I’m grateful for in the here and now.
I entrust the future to Him.
I do what I can, and breathe prayers as I let it go today and watch the daisies dance on my doorstep.
I bring the little I can, I say yes, I offer my portion, I laugh a little and it loosens the knots in my stomach.
I look around at this, here; look what He’s given me!
I lather on things that smell good; lotions and oils, and I mascara my eyelashes and brush my teeth twice a day, and string up some twinkling lights. I stay up too late reading, I bake bread, and sweep the floor, and hang the laundry. I take fresh sourdough to work and the smell of it fills the workroom; by morning tea it’s almost all gone, and I’ve shared what’s in my hand while I shelf books and make jokes and smile inside that I’m here.

I let go of what I can’t control, and then I take heart and take it hard and fast and refuse to let go.

Because whatever you’re holding tight for will come, and we can simultaneously take heart and let go and dance.
Because if it’s not this messy middle today, it’ll be a different one tomorrow.
Because today is filled with the answered prayers of yesterday so take heart, He’ll overcome again, and again.

And again I’m grateful and the gratitude is what keeps us from sinking.

xx

Classic Weet-Bix Slice

Ahh the classic afternoon tea treat of West Aussie kids.
Weet-bix slice.
Any time we were called in from playing backyard cricket in the cul-de-sac, and served up a square of chocolatey goodness was a happy day – especially if we were allowed red cordial with it, am I right?
I’ve tweaked it over the years, reducing the sugar, adding extra coconut, and discovering a whole packet of chocolate melts create a thick, crisp icing.

Our eldest daughter makes it often in our house, she doesn’t have to twist dad’s arm for a trip to IGA for chocolate melts, he knows exactly what they’re for and he’s got the car keys in his hand before she can finish the sentence.

I hope you read all of this in the most ocker accent, straight from the 1990’s because that’s certainly how it was written.

“Kids, come inside! Ya mum’s made afternoon tea!”

Enjoy x

• Servings: 10-12
• Time: 20 mins
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

We find it easy to weigh the butter into the Thermomix and melt, then add all the ingredients together and blend until combined. But you can definitely do it the old-school way by melting the butter and stirring in the crushed weet-bix and other ingredients by hand.

Ingredients

• 125g butter
• 6 crushed weet-bix (60g)
• 1 cup self raising flour (120g)
• 1/2 cup desiccated coconut (30g)
• 1/4 cup cocoa (15g)
• 2/3 cup caster sugar (we do around 90g)
• Icing sugar and cocoa for the top, plus additional castor sugar OR use chocolate melts with olive oil for a chocolatey top (definitely our go-to!)

Directions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 (Celcius)
2. Melt the butter
3. Add the dry ingredients and stir through until combined
4. Press into baking tin, and bake for about 15 minutes (it hardens a little on cooling so don’t overcook it or it’ll get too crispy!)
5. Wait till it cools (the hardest part!) and spread liberally with a mix of icing sugar, cocoa and a bit of milk to make a chocolatey icing, or melted baking chocolate with a tbsp of oil.
6. Make yourself a cuppa and dig in!

dear you — you don’t have to have all the answers

Dear You,

I know. You see it there with its soft layer of dust and you want to gently wipe it down, pick it up. But it’s hard isn’t it? There’s always something else vying for your attention. There’s always another book to read, instead.
Maybe you manage to pick it up and open it, and then you glance beside it to your phone, and your world is there instead, so you open that, scroll through and are left… well, empty.
Maybe you’re like me, and you want to read, and you want to understand but gosh, so much just does not. make. sense.
Why does Jesus want to keep His miracles a secret? (Mark 5)
Why did Jesus always talk in parables? They’re riddle-like, and what if they don’t mean what you you think they do? (Mark 6)
What does it mean when it says the disciples hearts were hardened? (Mark 6)
Why does Jesus refer to the Gentile woman as a dog?! (Mark 7)

And not understanding frustrates you, and makes you feel foolish, I know. Me too.
We frown at these ancient texts and we try to squeeze them to fit into our modern culture and when they don’t fit, we throw up our hands and leave the whole book to amass a fresh layer of dust.

But you, like me, need to know this:

You don’t need to have all the answers.

There’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of faith.
The Bible isn’t written in stories and parables to keep us out, but to draw us in.
It’s written to lead us to the good questions, the big questions, the hard questions.
It pulls us to conversation, to going around and around and asking each other, what if? What if it means this? Today, it spoke to my heart this way.
It asks us to imagine; imagine walking dusty roads to Jerusalem.
Imagine walking up stone steps to the temple, or piling stones along the way to remember what was behind you, and hope for what lies ahead.
The Bible calls us to imagine what mercy and justice would look like in our time, in our day, and to walk that out humbly with our words, our actions, our service.

Ancient poetry moves us towards the bigness of God—the one who keeps the sea in its boundaries, the moon in its place, the sun rising another day. It grounds us into self-reflection, the reality of our own human failings, our messes and mistakes; and then shows us a God who is kind, in a Son who walked the earth teaching us to love our neighbours.

Dear You, why don’t you find a quiet place today. Retreat. Open the book, flick through it’s fine pages. Rest in the Psalms, or land in the gospels and follow Jesus through Israel as He sought to show us how to lift our eyes to an invisible kingdom. One where friends lay their lives down for one another, one where the stranger crosses the street to help another who looks and speaks differently to himself. A kingdom where hustling puts you in last place, but allowing others to go first is what wins the prize.

I found Him this week in the Gospel of Mark, calling a woman who’d been bleeding for a decade, Daughter. I found him, asking the blind man, What would you like me to do for you? and then restoring his sight to him. I found him getting hungry, tired, grieving, compassionate. Human.

Along with the questions and the lack of our understanding, I’ve had glimpses of this Jesus and the band of imperfect, often faithless men who followed him, hungry for all he had to teach them. And I saw myself in those disciples too; often getting it wrong, often full of fear not faith, yet still hungry for all He has to teach me.

Dear You, don’t worry if you don’t have the answers.
None of us do, but it won’t stop us from looking.

xx

PS reading through the gospels this September with Hannah Brencher and a whole bunch of girls all around the world and it is good.