Disappointingly Present

I don’t think pregnant women should be told they could give birth any time from 37 weeks pregnant to 41 weeks pregnant.  It creates this expectation from 37 weeks that labour could begin any time.  By the time you get to your due date at 40 weeks you’ve been in a state of expectation for three weeks and you don’t want to wait any longer.  Well at least, that’s how I’m feeling!

The reality is that most first pregnancies don’t happen early (before the due date).  And they do tell you this, but you hope to be early anyway.  They’ve given you a four to five week window and the due date isn’t right in the middle, so you’d think your chances of being early are greater. 

But I’ve discovered that this expectation in the pregnant mother’s mind doesn’t just come from medical professionals.  It’s from other people around you too.  It’s like everyone is expecting that you’ll give birth before or on your due date because as that date gets closer people remark on the fact that you’re still pregnant. 

Now that I’ve gone over my due date (by only one day mind you!) I feel like I’m disappointing people when I turn up to events, or pick up the phone, or respond to a text message.  I understand this.  I’m disappointed too that I haven’t gone into labour yet.  But this started before I even reached my due date. 

I think it’s probably more likely that my family and friends are just excited about the impending birth and any sign that it’s happening (e.g. I don’t answer my phone).  Perhaps they don’t remember exactly when I’m due but they know I’m really pregnant and it could happen any time! 

I didn’t think I’d get to my due date, I thought the baby would come early.  But I find myself here, still waiting and wondering why I expected this when I was told that first pregnancies are usually late.  Why did I think I would be one of the minority? 

Maybe it’s the words “due date”.  For everything else in life a due date is the last date possible.  The milk has a due date and you usually wouldn’t drink it after that date has passed!  But it seems that a pregnancy due date (technically called “Expected Date of Delivery”) is just a ball-park date.  Babies can’t be relied upon to be on time!  I knew this, which is why I wasn’t too worried about having February 29th as our due date.  But there’s still something disappointing about going “overdue”. 

So I was thinking that maybe doctors should change the way they talk about when a baby could be born.  They should tell you that it’s fine if the baby is born at 37 weeks, they’re developed enough to thrive.  But calling this “full term” invites expectation and disappointment for too long. 

I don’t think I’m going to change the way medical staff talk to pregnant women just because of my disappointments!  I write this in the hope that I can help other pregnant women handle their expectations, and that I can remember to be sensitive to those who may in future go over their due date in pregnancy.  The baby will come when the baby is ready and that’s probably for the best. 

The Awkward Friend

Some people are brilliant conversationalists.  They know exactly what to say when they meet new people, and always know how to keep a conversation flowing, even with people they already know (and have conceivably exhausted the get-to-know-you topics). 

I am not one of these people.  I don’t often enjoy meeting new people because I can never think of what to talk to them about.  When it comes to a lull in the conversation with friends I feel awkward and unsure about what happens next.  (Of course, there are some friends with whom you can easily sit in silence with and it’s not awkward at all, but that’s a special kind of friendship.) 

I found myself wondering if other people have picked up on my awkwardness and therefore find it harder to be friends with me or to talk to me.  Am I missing out on social opportunities because of my awkwardness?  Am I lowered on friends’ preference lists?  But I was reminded of something that I learnt in a college Ministry and Mission class.  If you want a friend, be a friend. 

And as I chatted with J about this topic I remembered a conversations with a friend where she expressed similar feelings of awkwardness in conversations, but I don’t remember ever thinking that she was an awkward person, or feeling uncomfortable talking to her.  So maybe my awkwardness is just something I feel and not something others see.  Or maybe we’re all a little bit awkward in conversational lulls and blame ourselves, without realising that the other person may be feeling the same way.  

But even so, I would like to work on my conversation skills, to not feel awkward or make others feel awkward.  And I think this will mean taking more opportunities to talk to people.  If you want a friend, be a friend.  I hope I can make some more friends in the process. 

When life is hard

Generally I like my life.  Sure, more storage space in my house would be nice, but I can’t really complain about my life. 

But when life is hard (read: I have any sort of deadline coming up) I sometimes wish that I didn’t exist.  Or, more like I wish that I was a bird or a tree and didn’t have to do things like exams.  I just want to escape. 

Last night I had a panic/depressed/pessimistic moment about my upcoming exams and the study that I’ve done.  I don’t feel I know my material like I should, there’s not enough time to learn it properly, and I feel like I don’t know enough to do my exams. 

But when the thought of being a bird came into my head last night it fizzled out.  I realised that the escape–my–life–and–its–problems feeling wasn’t there.  It’s not just my life that I’m in charge of at the moment.  I’m supporting another little life inside of me.  I couldn’t wish to not exist because a little life relies on me to exist. 

Of course, I know that it is God who sustains our baby but my involvement in this has changed my outlook on when life is hard.  I am humbled.  I am maturing.  I’m not so focused on myself.  Life is more than just these upcoming exams. 

I’m glad that this exam period is my last.  I’m sick of study–stress.  But I have to get through four exams before it’s over.  Please pray for me as I study, and for my memory during exams.  I don’t know if I have baby–brain (yet?), but it’s a convenient excuse if I don’t do well in my exams.  But I don’t want to have to use it.  I want to finish college well and be satisfied with my exam efforts. 

I am reminded by a friend who also posted about exam study today that while exam results are correlated with my effort, life results are not.  It’s incredibly freeing that none of my effort counts when it comes to God.  I don’t have to worry about if I’ve worked hard enough, or performed well enough.  I don’t have to wish for an escape when I feel like I’m failing.  Jesus has done all that is necessary for my salvation and my everlasting with God.  Hallelujah!

When things are broken

It makes me really sad when things get broken or damaged.  Today I dropped my phone on a brick and the edge of the phone got dented.  Now I'm really sad because it's less than perfect.  I know that this is a trivial problem and I could console myself with the fact that at least the screen is still intact and everything is working fine.  But I'm still sad about the damage. 

I've written about this before.  Not in a blogpost, but in an old journal.  In year 12 I accidentally cracked the spine of a new book and was really sad about it.  It was ridiculous to be that sad about a book, and I knew that.  I reflected then about what it says about me that I felt like a book with a cracked spine was now 'ruined'.  The new book was less lovely because of its flaw.  I didn't really come up with an answer back then, I just hoped that I would get over it.  And of course I did get over it. 

So I was thinking today.  Who doesn't get upset when something is broken or damaged?  Of course it depends on the original value of the object, not just monetary value but sentimental, and use value as well.  When things get broken we know this is bad, that something has gone wrong.  We have this innate knowledge that this shouldn't happen.  But it does happen.  We live in a broken world so of course things break and are damaged.   

But I think there is also something wrong with the fact that I love something like my phone so much.  I'm not always aware of how much I love things until they are damaged or destroyed.  There is idolatry in my heart, which too easily loves created things rather than the creator of all things.  

So I'm looking forward to a time when things won't get broken.  When I won't love things as much as I do because they won't come near to comparing to the joy I have in God and the wonder of worshiping him forever.

Suspend your morals while I tell you a story

Last night I watched a romantic comedy with a friend and I couldn’t help remembering something J said to me once (or maybe it was someone else, or I read it somewhere.  Anyway, I just remember the conversation I had with J about it).  I’ll tell you what it was in a moment, first I want to write about the movie. 

In the movie we watched there was this guy and girl, best friends, who clearly felt more for each other than friendship, but were always missing each other and were never able to be together until the end (…spoiler?  I haven’t even named the movie, but it’s a romantic film so of course they get together in the end).  All through the movie I groaned whenever one of them was close to telling the other how they felt only to find that the other was in a relationship with someone else. 

As I reflect, this movie wasn’t as bad (subjective term) as some romantic films.  Neither of the main characters cheated on their clearly-wrong-for-them-partner to be with their best friend (a.k.a. love of their life).  But both of them ended up with dissolved marriages before the end.  But that’s okay, right?  They can finally be together now. 

And I know there are other films where you as the viewer are waiting and hoping for a marriage to break up so that the ‘real’ lovers can freely be together.  Of course, the film makers always spin it to make it okay in our minds.  The marriage wasn’t happy, the spouse was having an affair, the spouse was…etc. (because it’s often the spouse’s fault).   

Here’s what J said:  Why is it that in movies we still root for the characters who have fallen in love, waiting and hoping for them to get together, when it is at the expense of a spouse or partner?  We want them to be together even if it means breaking up an existing relationship that one (or both of them) has.  Why are we okay with broken marriages in movies for the sake of ‘true love’?  Somehow we suspend our morals, not just our disbelief, when we get hooked into such a story. 

While I suspended my belief in the importance of marriage during this movie there were a number of other things in the film that did grate against my morals, and I noticed them.  Drunkenness (when does good ever come of it?), lying (this one especially grates when you just want the character to tell the truth about their feelings!), and sex outside of marriage (this one doesn’t always grate, particularly if it’s with the ‘right’ person, the love interest).  So I didn’t suspend all my morals.  But it’s not as though the film was asking me to endorse those things in the same way. 

More could be said on this topic from the perspective of the action or crime-drama genre.  Sometimes we suspend our belief that every life is valuable and murder is wrong when we watch these genres.  We may even suspend our views on justice if it means the bad guy gets caught. 

So what should I do?  Give up romantic comedies and just watch G-rated films (or no films at all)?  Maybe.  I don’t want my culture (or the pop-culture seen in films) to shape my morals.  But I don’t want to disengage completely from my culture either. 

I guess part of this issue can be dealt with by moderating the amount of input these things have in our lives.  As a Christian I get my beliefs and morals from what God says is right and wrong because I believe that he created the whole world and everything in it, including us, and so he not only knows, but made, the best way to live.  So the input of the Bible, God’s words, in my life should be far greater than any input I get from my culture.  In fact, the Bible should shape the way that I view my culture, and everything else. 

I’m sorry that movies can cause me to suspend my morals for the sake of the story.  But after it is over I remember reality, I turn again to look at God and ask him to shape me, knowing that I am a work in progress.  And maybe in the next film, whatever genre it is, I’ll see more of it through God’s eyes. 

Through family eyes

Sometimes life is busy and things happen that I’d love to update you all about, but then the next thing happens and I don’t seem to find a time to sit down and write about it.  There will (may…) be a few posts up this week about things that happened last week that I’d love to reflect on and write about.  I get frustrated writing about things late that I almost give up on writing about them at all, but there have been some great things that I’d like to write about so I’ll swallow the discomfort and write anyway. 

I went with a family of five to The Easter Show on Tuesday last week.  They have a five-seater car but were able to borrow a bigger car from one of our neighbours so that I could ride in the car with them.  The three kids seats took up the middle row of seats and the back row would normally have been accessed from this middle row.  So I climbed over the back of my seat to get in.  The kids couldn’t see me but we entertained each other by high-fives over the back of their seats and surprise tickles on their hands when they were within my reach. 

I had a lot of fun at The Show, helping keep track of the children, visiting the animals, dodging the rain (okay maybe that bit wasn’t so much fun), watching the wood chopping, keeping the children entertained (and being entertained by them), eating show food and marvelling at the food displays. 

It was nice to experience a bit of life with three children, and to help the parents, whether it was holding a little hand or pushing the pram.  I wasn’t bothered about rides or particularly adult things to do at The Show (if there are things that are particularly adult…) and it was fun to watch little faces light up as they spun around in a giant teacup.  I protected a two-year-old from the piglet in the petting pen when she decided she didn’t really want to pat it, reminded her that Hoot had to go home and we said goodbye to him already, and told an-almost-four-year-old the story of the three little pigs. 

The Show through family eyes was fun.  I found myself looking at certain things from a child’s perspective (piglets are quite large when you’re the size of a two-year-old).  But I also saw the parent perspective: constantly on the look out for the children, following her if she wandered in the other direction, and dealing with tantrums.  And it made The Show enjoyable in a different way being there with a different focus that I would at The Show back home. 

Thanks friends for letting me tag along with you and be part of your family for the day!

Sharing is caring. Or is it?

This week after Bible study we started sharing about our families and how we met our husbands and things like that.  It was fun to hear a bit about other people’s stories.  Sometimes I felt like exclaiming, “Oh, me too!  That happened to me!”  But I didn’t.  I’ll tell you why in a moment. 

We get excited when we have experienced what someone else has experienced.  In part I think it’s because it validates our own experiences.  But I sense that it’s more than that.  I know that I get excited about a shared experience because it’s a way of connecting with the other person.  It says I understand what that was like, I understand you, and hopefully then, you understand me too.  Because we all have this fundamental desire to be known. 

And this reminds me that birds of a feather really do flock together.  It’s much rarer that opposites attract.  Even with friends who seem like opposites you’ll probably find that there’s a number of major similarities between them that attracted them to each other in the first place.

I wanted to exclaim that I shared that experience.  But I didn’t say anything.  Because I’ve been trying to listen.  That might sound odd from someone who you know stands pretty often on the listener side of the line in group situations.  What I mean is that I’ve been trying to listen to the other person without speaking to make the conversation about me. 

I went looking for a picture for this post and found these two guinea pigs who illustrate my point quite nicely.  While they are sharing the leaf, it certainly looks like one is trying to take it away from the other. 

Instead of pointing out a shared experience and bringing attention in the conversation to me, I want to stay focused on the other person as I listen to them speak.  I want to care by giving them my attention and not thinking about myself. 

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”  - C. S. Lewis

Of course there are times when it’s great to share that you understand someone’s experience, especially if they ask!  Often it can be greatly comforting in a hard situation to know that you’re not alone or someone else has been through it before.  But perhaps especially in these times I think we need to be careful about showing the other person that we are listening to them, to their particular situation and feelings.  We can’t assume that they feel the same way as we did just because we’ve experienced the same situation. 

But maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe exclaiming “me too!” is caring and I’m just being overly sensitive thinking that I’m being attention-seeking when I say that.  I don’t think that I have all the answers and I’d love to hear from you if you have some further thoughts.  What do you think?

Someone to Blame

Last week J and I went to see Into the Woods at the cinema.  It was a fun movie to go and see if you like fairytales and musicals, which we do.  Into the Woods was originally a stage musical (lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine).  It combines the classic fairytales of Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel and Cinderella with a fifth storyline linking them all together. 

After the movie J and I got talking about a particular song.  This song was all about blame.  Because each of the characters’ stories were linked together there was always a way for everyone to excuse the consequences of their behaviour by blaming it on someone else.  Some of the lyrics include:

Baker:  It's because of you there's a giant in our midst,
               and my wife is dead!
Jack:    But it isn't my fault, I was given those beans!
               You persuaded me to trade away my cow for beans!
               And without those beans, there'd have been no stalk
               To get up to the giant in the first place!
Baker: Wait a minute, magic beans for a cow so old
               That you had to tell a lie to sell it, which you told!
               Were they worthless beans?  Were they oversold?
               Oh, and tell us who persuaded you to steal that gold!

The characters go on at this, trading the blame back and forth between them all.  The witch eventually concedes to accepting the blame herself if that’s what they want.  But she still thinks that she is right. 

The movie (/musical/song writer?) offered a kind of solution to the problem of the blame game.  I also found this song very interesting.  Here are some of the lyrics: 

People make mistakes,
Holding to their own,
Thinking they're alone.
…
Witches can be right, giants can be good.
You decide what's right, you decide what's good.
Just remember:
Someone is on your side.   (Our side)
Our side--
Someone else is not.
While we're seeing our side   (Our side)
Our side--
Maybe we forgot: they are not alone.

This song gave a very relativist idea of what is right.  It was a good reminder to look at things from other peoples’ perspectives of course, but after singing this the characters still did what they had originally planned to do. 

One way of presenting the atonement (Jesus’ death on our behalf) is that there is a dilemma between God’s justice that says evil and sin must be punished, and God’s love for his creation which means he doesn’t want anyone to die.  God solves this dilemma by talking the blame and the punishment upon himself in Jesus. 

The characters in the movie were all to blame but no one was willing to accept a punishment for their actions (or anyone else’s), there were enough other people to pass the blame off on anyway.  They solved their problem by killing the punishment (the only innocent party in the movie).  But that doesn’t really finish the issue. 

Even if you play the blame game forever eventually someone has to take the punishment.  Someone has to pay for what has happened.  Someone has to make it right. 

Jesus did this, ending the blame game once and for all.  He willingly took the punishment for all the blame in the world, even though none of it was his.  And he made things right, he made things good.