When it is all out of your hands.

It has been 14 weeks now since we stopped being Kinship carers for my 14 year old niece.  For 13 of those weeks she has been in a mental health unit with self-harming and aggressive behaviour getting worse and worse.  We could never have guessed just how damaged she was.  It has taken till now for me to feel like writing any of this down.  I have been very low and I know that a lot of that has been about 'control' being taken away from me.  My organised and perfectionist nature does not allow me to take kindly to 'failing'.  It doesn't seem to matter how much I can rationalise what has happened as not being a failure, seeing the success of us managing for 2 years where the authorities have not been coping in just these past weeks.  I will keep trying to feel it as well as know it, who knows, there is a chance that it might just seep into my heart that way.

We are still keeping in touch with her.  My husband goes to visit every 10 days or so.  I am in touch with those looking after her but not with her directly.  This causes me just to much pain at the moment.  The only thing we can practically do now is pray for her well-being and for the right placement to be funded for her.  What her social worker and the mental health unit feel is the right place has been found it looks amazing, and covers all the areas that she has got particular problems with.  So far the authorities have been refusing to fund it, however they are presently reviewing that decision and on the 1st September we should know whether they have changed their minds or what else they will offer in it's place.  I would greatly appreciate prayers from all of you dear readers who do pray, that the next step will be His way for her.

It is a long time since I have added to my list of 1000 things to be grateful for but as we were reminded at our church service of the importance showing our gratitude, it seems like the best time to get back on with it!

606.  A day out at the beach with my husband, my two children and my puppy dog.
607.  Home-made plum jam from a friend
608.  A big bag of plums from another to eat as they were and make puddings.
609.  New school uniforms all purchased, labelled and waiting in wardrobes.
610.  A friend trusting me with the most personal of issues.
611.  Seeing old friends after way to long.
612.  Teaching an 11 year old boy how to cast off and on with his knitting.
613.  Getting a gift in the post - see photo below, from him with a lovely letter one week later.
614.  Seeing the Lego all over my sons bedroom floor being played with every day for weeks.
615.  My daughter and her BF bathing the dog without being asked to!
616.  Being completely pampered by my 10 year old daughter, with bubbly bath and foot, shoulder and hand massages. (Okay so I know it was a ploy to get me to let her stay up real late - but it was worth it)
617. The pumpkin plants in my veg patch taking on the forms of triffids and travelling around my garden.
618. My crochet wave blanket of promises which is slowly growing.
619. My dear blog followers who are bearing with me through this barren patch.

To find out more about why it is good to count our blessings visit Ann Voskamps site by clicking on the picture below:

href="http://www.aholyexperience.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff162/annvoskamp/multitudesonmondaysbutton2-1.jpg" >

Musings on Marriage

I seem to have gotten to that stage in life where the marriages of my peers are falling apart.  This has inevitably led me to look at my marriage.  Life has not been plain sailing in our marriage, especially when the children were small.  We watched a film recently, 'Marley and Me', there is a scene in that when Jennifer Annistons character completely loses the plot with her husband.  They have young children and are both fighting against the feelings that a change and giving up of roles brings on.  It is the closest interpretation of one of our fights that I had ever seen - quite frightful.

So why is my marriage still strong 15 years on.  I have learnt many lessons these are just a five that immediately come to mind:

• Accepting that there will be rough times and setting your mind on resolving to battle through is essential.  Even if this means writing down the pros and cons of making your marriage work and purposely ensuring you write more pros (this might be burying your head in the sand but in a crisis it has worked for me).
• Make your partner your best friend.  I have been blessed with some lovely female friendships through my marriage, however it was only after the breakdown of one that I realised how destructive this relationship had actually been to my marriage.  If the person you want to text, chat and joke with most in the world is not your partner, maybe it is time to re-evaluate that friendship.  For the last couple of years I have deepened friendships but now have much clearer boundaries that I am willing to abide by to protect the best friend status of my partner.
• Saying sorry, repeatedly if necessary, it's a biblical principle and though we might not always feel sorry, saying it is more likely to get us to a place where we mean it than not saying it will.
• Laughing, we have managed to get into some really silly arguments in the past and it has been good to revisit those times and laugh about them. They won't stop happening but it's much harder to have an argument about something you know you are going to end up laughing about.
• Learn each others love language (Gary Chapman).  This has been so helpful to us, when your love languages are very different (as ours are) it is very easy to think that you are showing your partner love by speaking your love language to them and not theirs.  Since discovering the things that really make us feel loved even when we are struggling it is easy to show each other small acts of kindness in the appropriate language.

There are many things that I know we could do better on, praying together is one of those, we seem to go through spates of doing this and then not but I do believe that it is very important.  Turning the television off is another one or shutting down the computer to give each other your full attention.  It is strange that it is only when you do those two things that you realise just how obtrusive they are.

I know I can only say these things coming from the perspective of having a husband who shares the same ideals as I do.  Where there is disparity on agreeing what is right for a marriage I can see that the hurdles become immense.

The fall out from broken relationships seems to be immense, it doesn't seem to matter what age any children from the relationship are, damage occurs in one way or another.  My husbands parents were about to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary when they split!  I would love to know what you think about marriage, what has worked for you?  What hasn't worked for you?  Are there relationships that get so broken that they cannot be repaired?  I do hope no-one reading this feels condemned in anyway about their relationships, that is not my intention, I am just trying to get my head around a subject I seem to be surrounded by.

Where I am.

Sorry to have not been around much dear readers, the stress of the last few years has finally caught up with me.  There has been so much change and this week has brought some more.  The photo above is of my two babies (oooh they do hate it when I call them that!) walking to their primary school together for the last time.  Realistically I know that it is probably the last time they will ever walk to school together. So yesterday was the start of their school summer holidays and off they went together to the park 10 minutes away from us for a couple of hours by themselves!  Now that is going to take some getting used to - they are getting all grown up.

I am doing something new to try and get back on track, I am going to have therapy.   Eeeek what am I letting myself in for.  God has been so good to me and managed to quiet me enough to let me hear the advice of my doctor, my employers and my friends.  In fact one friend has cunningly told me that if I did it, it might make her brave enough to go and get help on a specific issue. I'm sure she knew that giving me a reason that made me feel as though I might be helping someone else would work!  I am using a Christian charity based locally, that was on the advice of my lovely employers and my Christian family doctor.

Yesterday I had my initial session, for them to assess what they feel they will be able to offer me, it wasn't a therapy session.  However I am amazed at the insights that were revealed to me as I just talked. I won't be starting properly until after the school holidays.  It feels important that this is something I do in my time and not the time I have for my children, so I have requested appointments during their school day which I can fit my work around.  This will also give me time to complete the summer holiday clubs that I am running at the beginning and end of the holidays at work.

I realise that it is going to be hard work, your prayers would be very much appreciated.  Where I can I will try and share what I am learning about myself.

Thanks for bearing with me.   Jane x.

Being Still

I have been dipping in and out of an amazing little book the last few weeks

I was given it many years ago when I was a new Christian and to be honest never really 'got' it.  However in the last few years I have dipped into it and found it a really good aid to prayer and for encouraging me to get into my Bible more.

It is split into daily readings which are dated and I generally will look around the date that it is to find something to catch my eye.  The day before yesterday the reading I looked at was all about Being Still.  It was a reflection on what happens in life when storms are raging (rather pertinent for me at the mo!).  It reflected on the way Jesus taught, when in a storm his words to the storm were Be Still, there were no instructions given to the disciples (just a little expressed exasperation!).  However when Jesus had much teaching to impart, he takes his disciples (and sometimes thousands of others) to hill sides, to beaches, quiet places.

I find this so reassuring.  I know that the stormy experiences I am going through at the moment are going to change me some what.  It is lovely though to remember that I do not need to try and work out what those things are while the storms are raging.  All I need to do is Trust Him and let him tell those storms to Be Still.

When you realise what you have been praying.

A few weeks ago I wrote this post  about finding a phrase that I was using like a mantra when my stress levels were spiralling.  The phrase was 'Jesus shine your light'.  Since then not a lot has changed on the outside, if anything for the week after I started things got considerably worse in the situations I was praying for His light to shine.  It wasn't until I went to see my Fairy God Mother last week that she shone a little light on what I was saying.

When you ask Jesus to shine His light on situations you are going to see everything illuminated - not just good stuff.  Maybe what is happening inside of me now is the revelation the Light can give.  When his light is shining and illuminating situations, the cracks, the brokenness will be revealed, they can no longer hide shrouded in darkness and secrecy.

How amazing that God can answer prayers that we are praying without us even realising what we are saying/praying.

Of course now that His light is shining and those dark areas are being lit by His light, His healing can come in to restore and renew.  I wonder what other prayers I am saying that I do not realise the fullness of yet?  Has anyone else had this sort of experience?

Continuing to count my blessings with the Gratitude community today.

595. Dirt in the bath as the water empties and the dog stands clean.
596. Time to talk.
597. Quiet times in my Green Room.
598. Messy kitchen, happy daughter, lots of cakes.
599. Tears of sorrow.
600. Pink flowers.
601. A weeks washing drying on the line despite the showers.
602. Goodbye and Goodnight kisses from both my children.
603. The encouragement of fellow bloggers.
604. The facebook chat with a person I can't talk to at the moment.

The Green Room

As the decision has most finally been made that my niece will not be coming back to live with us we have decided to turn her old bedroom back into a room we can use.  It is only a little room but we decided to keep a bed in here to be a guest room (which is a good job as it has been used already). My husband suggested that it would be good to let the children keep their musical instruments and stands up in this room to encourage them to play a little more often (their rooms are not very big either).  I rather fancied being able to have somewhere to sit and be quiet.  The result is - The Green Room.

The walls have been painted Dulux Putting Green, it took two coats of paint, but we only used a small tin :o).

The mirror was already in situ.  The two little white wooden shelves are from Ikea

The chair was a bargain buy from ikea for just £40.00 it is cream and so I have covered it with a throw which will hopefully help it to wear a little better.  All the pictures we already have, the three on the same wall are cross stitch embroideries that I did in the early 1990's.  The iris picture was made by my sister and given to us as a present in 2004.

The little bedside table was another good purchase for just under £40.00, the lamp was £5.00 these were both from The Range.  The lovely little green glass candle holders were £1.00 from ikea and I already had the beautiful holding cross lying on the table.

One of my favourite things in this room are the curtains and the bedcover.  These have been in storage for 12 years!  I made them for a little room we had in our first house.  I had completely forgotten I had made three curtains and it took some thinking to remember where the third one went - it was over the door as the door had glass panels to lighten up an otherwise very dark hallway.  This is perfect as the extra curtain works great as a bedcover over the top of the bedding so that does not get grubby from the children using the room to play their music.  We purchased the wooden curtain pole for £15.00, the lightshade from the Fairtrade Shop which is local to us for £10.00 and three cushions from the Range to give the bed that bit more of a comfy look.

This is my one real extravagance for the room, I saw it and just could not resist, it was not very expensive and I think it just adds that last little something to what has become a very peace filled room.

The extra advantage of making this room so cosy and peaceful is that it is always a place where I know I can always go and pray for my niece, feeling extra close to her, as it was the room where she laid her head for 2 whole years.

What I love about Facebook (and God)

I have just had a most lovely surprise, but first let me set the scene.  I have been on facebook for around 3 years now.  In all that time I have never done a cull of my accumulated friends.  Part of the reason for that is because I have tried to be very wise with whom I have friended in the first place.  However no matter how hard I tried there were still a few that I did press accept to without thinking very hard about it.  I thought hard about the people who I was going to delete, my criteria was roughly

• how often do I correspond with them 
• how often do they correspond with me
• has facebook enhanced our relationship
• will either they or me lose anything by deleting them.

The last one was the hardest by far and I have to trust God that I have made the correct decisions on the few that went because of this point. I deleted over 25 people!  A lot of these were people who I had come into contact with through kinship caring pages.  It feels right as I am no longer caring for my niece to put a little distance between myself and those that are.  I have kept a couple who I have made a connection with, one of whom has gone through a similar scenario causing her to no longer care for her nieces and another who lives near by and I would like to be able to continue supporting her (and catching the odd coffee together).  I can still use the kinship care pages and am sure that all those affected will understand my reasons.  It felt very good, like having a good spring clean once I had done it.

So what is the lovely surprise?  This evening I have been 'found' on facebook by a wonderful lady who was my line manager when I last worked as an Occupational Therapist in West London.  The surprise is heightened for me because she is a self confessed technophobe!  It is almost 12 years since I worked with her, computers were only just coming into our offices and she hated them.  Since them we have kept in contact at Christmas, met up occasionally and exchanged the odd e-mail, but facebook would be one of the last places I would have expected her to be using.  She is a fantastic 'quiet' Christian, extolling all the virtues that St Francis of Assisi extolled.  I worked in a lovely little 'dream team' with a Christian physiotherapist and social worker as well as this lovely lady.

It feels like a lovely little gift from my oh so loving Father.  I so need the wisdom, love and prayers of those that love Jesus at the moment.  As previous posts may have indicated I am struggling with depression, which affects all areas of my life at the moment.  Daily decisions like what I should make for tea, can be so difficult and it only takes one small upset to totally floor me.  I am clinging on though.  I was reminded by a fellow twitterer earlier of 2Corinthians  chapter 4 verses16 to 18:

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Praise God!