Painter lady, paint me a wall

I'm pooped! Mum and I began painting the kitchen and loungeroom today (as you can see, they need it badly). It's hard work, but it's going to be great when it's finished. While we're on it, we're going to do the other living room and the hallway.

We chose a fairly neutral colour. I'll show you what it looks like when we're done.

Everyday heroes

It is a job that earns no salary. There are no prospects for promotion or for bonuses. There are few, if any, holidays. One is rarely thanked, hardly ever acknowledged, and often criticized. It is a job that lacks prestige in the eyes of the world, and is often done alone, with great economic hardship and little support.

Who would do it? It would take a hero to do a job like this.

The job is motherhood, and can I say, we do not value it enough, nor do we give mothers the recognition they deserve. In fact, the Australian Government is putting measures in place to get women to leave the home and work sooner, meaning that more and more children will come home to an empty house after school each day, that is, if they do come home right away.

Yet we should be realising after hearing endless news reports of young people who have surprised their parents with sudden violent, suicidal or murderous behaviour, that we need more parents who will be willing to be with their children through the important formative years of childhood and adolescence. Parents of children who have, to cite some recent examples, made a pact to commit suicide with a friend, assaulted innocent people as part of a gang, or who have gone to school with a gun and murdered dozens of classmates, these parents most often say 'I had no idea what was going on in their head that made them do this'. In other words, they simply do not know what is really happening in the private, inner world of their son or daughter.
Why? Largely because parents are absent. Young people often come home to an empty house, out of the supervision of their parents for hours on end. They walk out the door to 'go out' at night, and don't return until the early hours of the morning. Who knows what they do when they're 'out there'? They sit in their room surfing the internet, and who knows what sites they are visiting or who they are chatting to (their parents certainly don't, they're too busy vegging out on the couch after a hard day's work).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not completely blaming parents (although I do think parents need to consider working less hours and going without to prioritise raising their children). The fact is, society and the government are putting more and more pressure on parents to work at the expense of their family. My own mother, who wants to raise her 12 year old son to be a responsible, decent person, is getting pressure almost weekly from the Government to go out and work because her son is deemed to be old enough to be by himself when he is not at school. But she wants to be there for him when he comes home from school, not to have him wandering the streets and getting into trouble. This choice, however, is simply not valued.

Another important pressure on parents is peer pressure. Motherhood is not valued as an occupation; I see it all the time. People ask my mother, 'So, what do you do?', and when she says 'I'm at home', or 'I look after the kids', she gets all sorts of looks and comments as if motherhood is not as good as being a secretary or a teacher or one of the other professions.

Don't people realise that 'the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world'? Don't they realise that if no one is there to rock the cradle, society eventually suffers big-time? Our society forces mothers back to work at its own peril.

I just want to salute mothers today. I value you. No one should force you to leave your children for work and risk them getting in with the wrong crowd. People should stand and applaud you for what you do.

Her children respect and bless her; her husband joins in with words of praise: "Many women have done wonderful things, but you've outclassed them all!"
(Proverbs 31:28-29).

And I challenge you, reader, to value the mothers around you. When someone says they stay at home with the kids, tell them how valuable and precious their job is. Give them a pat on the back. Don't allow people to pull them down because they've made the tough choice to be at home.

Look at the birds

Where have I been all this time? Put simply, I've been off running a kids holiday program. But that's a whole other post...

What else has been happening? Heaps. But one thing I've been re-learning (or reinforcing?) this week is to do with just trusting God to provide my needs. I was a bit worried because I wasn't getting a lot of work, and the money was running low... but I believe that if God calls me to do something, then he'll provide the finances I need to do it. Anyway, I was encouraged today because work rang me at 6am. This was an answer to my prayers of the night before. And believe me, for once it was not a struggle to get out of bed for work.

One thing I'll add: don't sit there and think "Well, it's all right for her, she's got a job... she doesn't know what I go through". Well, maybe I don't. But I do know what it's like to do it tough. Our family's relied on social security for just about ten years, we're a single parent family, and I've been a student for what feels like forever. So I know what it's like to shop in the 'reduced to clear' section of the supermarket, and to enjoy a night out as a 5-times a year luxury. Not that I'm complaining, of course: In fact, I'm thankful that I've gone through those times, because it's made me much more thankful for what I have, and has probably improved my money-management skills.

A group of birds feed on someone's leftover Maccas meal.

Birds don't stress about where their next meal's coming from: They know that somehow, somewhere, someone will leave something behind for them. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from these creatures...

So now that we've cleared that up, I encourage you the reader to reflect on how you respond when you get hit hard in the back pocket, so to speak. Have you discovered the incredible secret of trusting God to provide your needs when the going gets tough? Or do you instantly break out in sweat and acne? I think it's amazing that God says we don't need to worry for those things, just to trust him to provide. And believe me, or at least believe God's promises: He really does prove himself faithful.

P.S. To all you out there who are struggling, to those of you who battle doubt and fear about the future, my heart goes out to you. I know the place you're in - and sometimes I end up there myself. Just be assured that God understands your situation, and he cares. He just calls you to trust him, that's all; He'll deal with the rest.