Thursday, July 07, 2011


Whirpool of Life.
I feel I have been launched into the ocean. My three children are with me, all in different age groups; a two year old - incredibly independent, an eleven year old - amazing academic and hard worker, and finally my only son aged thirteen who struggles to excel in anything except being wonderfully delightful and evoking histerical images of Kev and Perry as he wears his cap and argues with everything I say!

My husband died in May 2011 after fighting Head and Neck Cancer for five years. After many operations and treatment he was finally told at the end of January 2011 that he had perhaps six months to live and that death would be very painful. The surgeon was obviously devestated as were we. It was a very hard end to a very productive and wonderful life. And so the ocean I have been launched into - single parenting.

Last night as I lay in bed with my youngest still clinging to me I felt that actually I have found myself in a whirlpool struggling to tread water. Where is God in all this? Well, I reflect, I do indeed trust that God will ensure that the whirlpool will release me onto dry land, somewhere, I can only hope it is the Caribean or some such wonderful landing! So then surely I do not need to be treading water. What I need to do is rest in the whirlpool of life.

There does not seem to be anything that will make the rush and change of life slow down, nothing that will help the children settle and find peace except perhaps if I lead the way and hold onto the knowledge I have that in everything God is with me and Christ has been here in the pressure and pain of life. What an amazing knowledge that my God is not an idol, an empty symbol or system but a God who has entered our earth and opened the way for us -

And so I pray perhaps with many thousands of single parents and married parents whose lives are way off from the stable lands of shore- open my eyes lord, and help me to see, open my ears Lord, help me to hear, open my heart Lord, help me to love.