A Beloved's Journey

For weeks I have been looking forward to Athletics Day at school. My five and six year olds have been practicing their sack races and egg and spoon races every afternoon. I couldn't wait to see their excited faces bouncing towards me on the day. When we first started sack races the children were apprehensive about the idea with some children even telling me that they wouldn't be doing it (isn't it amazing how fear of failure binds us from such a young age). We had a chat about resilience and giving it a go, and on that first practice every child had a large grin on their face as they bounced towards me in their bright green sacks. So today was the day I had waited for in expectation for weeks.. and I spent it lying in bed with laryngitis.  I was guttered. They had worked so hard. I had been looking forward to this day and I was confined to bed. This is often the case for our expectations. Reality is often quite different. Our expectations are often what bring us down. Rel...

The pops rang out among the audience, bodies dropped to the ground, people screamed, and I sat in my living room watching it on TV, trying to understand why and how and who. Like you, I couldn't comprehend how somebody could get to the mental state where killing dozens of strangers was okay. I automatically wanted to blame it on ISIS, surely only they would do something like this, and if not them, then who? The biggest question was WHY? Why would somebody pre-plan an attack like this? Why would this happen in our world? And then, as I was praying for the victims and the families of the deceased, as I was calling out to God for answers, as I'm sure many of you did too, I was once again struck by the truth that our world is broken. Shattered beyond repair, unfixable. We walk with a limp. Many things have happened in the past year, here in New Zealand, while I was in Uganda and all around the world on the news, that continue to shock me and when I cry out to God in agony and dis...