How to spend a fortune?

Facing your own mortality is not a common experience for anyone in their 30s.  Coming out the other side of such an experience has not been how I expected it to be.  Previously, I could never understand friends who had faced cancer in their 30s/40s and suffered depression after they had completed their treatment.  Surely, I would feel grateful to be alive and joyful if I had ever faced death and won?

After my operation, I can remember briefly coming round in ITU, opening my eyes and seeing The Curate stood, smiling at me.  "I'm alive" was my first thought, after all, I had been warned that I had a small chance of not surviving the operation.  My next thought? Honestly? My next thought was "But, I don't want to be".  I had never felt so ill nor been in so much pain (not even if you added up the pain of giving birth five times).  I have never been so desperate to enter heaven in my life.  I felt a huge sense of guilt , especially towards The Curate and our brood, but, I was convinced that I couldn't recover.  I consoled myself that, whilst losing a wife and mother would be devastating for such a young family, God would get them through it.  In my prayers, I tried to convince God that He could get my family through the loss.  "No", came God's reply, "I will get you through it".

A week or so passed and I was making slow progress but it turns out that having some of your brain, spine and skull removed is not conducive to a quick recovery.  I was still in a lot of pain but the painkillers were helping a bit, I was able to walk a short distance and was just starting to be able to keep a little food down.  At that point, I felt that life was a gift and not one that I would squander.  I was determined that the whole experience would miraculously transform me in to a better version of myself.

It's now just over two months since the operation and I'm 'feeling human' most of the time.  But am I feeling grateful to be alive and joyful? Grateful to be alive, yes.  Joyful? Not as much as I thought I would.  Deep down I was feeling something that I couldn't quite put my finger on.  That was, until last night, when The Curate and I finally caught up with the last season of the BBC's Sherlock (I'm glad that I didn't try to watch it before my brain had a chance of following the plot!).  There was one point when Sherlock was explaining how he felt to John Watson following Mary Watson saving his life:

"In saving my life, she conferred a value on it.  It is a currency I do not know how to spend."  (Sherlock Holmes, The Lying Detective)

And there it was.  The explanation of how I had been feeling.  I had not found the answer in my Bible, as I had expected, but on the lips of Sherlock Holmes.

Whilst my perspective on life has changed, life has gone on much the same as it did before.  It's difficult to put in to words how hard that is.  Realising that I have an abundance of life today, but not forever, has been an incredibly difficult gift to receive in my 30s.  I still have time to make major changes and make sure that I don't regret how I have lived my life.  This breaks the mould of 'you never know what you've got until it's gone'.  There is a tension between freedom and responsibility that I am yet to work out.  The possibilities in life are endless, yet life is a finite gift, so what do you choose?

As a Christian, I think working out how to spend my abundance of life is even harder.  I know now, more than ever, that I want to spend this currency by serving God.  I think having experienced that moment in ITU when I was ready to die and to face God, that I want the moment of anticipation before 'meeting my maker' to be one of joy rather than shame or regret.  I know that I can stand there blameless because of Jesus' sacrifice for me but it's not about feeling 'good enough' to get in to heaven or even feeling assured of my salvation in spite of me.  It's about feeling the love of God through his gift of life and wanting to give Him back a gift of a life lived for Him.  I thought that I felt like that before.  Now, I have truly felt the fragility of earthly life, I truly know that there is much more to life than this.

All I have to do now is work out how to spend this fortune.  I think it's going to be an adventure.

Like a hole in the head...

It's been a while.  A long while.  In fact, it's been nearly seven whole months since I blogged and I feel like I owe you all an apology and an explanation.  So, here goes...

I'm sorry.

The last seven months have gone a little like this:

Meningitis (not good)
Brain scan (really not good)
Referral to neurosurgeon (first referral 'lost' then second one went to a neurosurgeon with a special interest - hooray!)
Offered major brain surgery by the neurosurgeon (just a typical day, like you do)
Had major brain surgery (seriously not good)
Vaguely woke up in intensive care (the most not good experience I've ever endured)
Discovered that not only did I desperately need the brain surgery, I'm very 'lucky' to be alive (good, really good, although I'm fairly certain that it was prayer rather than 'luck')
Showered with cards, gifts and LOTS of flowers (also really good)
Ongoing, mainly horizontal recovery and too much pain (occasionally good but mainly painful).

Now that you are all caught up, I can finally resume blogging without feeling like I need to address the elephant in the room.

And on that note, if you're ever bored and happen to know The Curate in real life, then you should ask him to do his elephant noise for a room full of toddlers (it's good, trust me, both the noise and the reaction from the small people).

The life of a curate's wife

It's been a long time since I wrote anything.  Actually I think that I've written in the region of 10,000 words since I last posted a blog, but you know academic essays are a bit... different.

Anyway, it was our wedding anniversary yesterday and I thought about writing a blog about marriage.  After only 12 years of marriage I decided that it would probably be totally arrogant or total rubbish.  But, I do know what it's like to be 'the Curate's wife' and thought that maybe it was time that I shed some light on what it's like being married to the Curate given the title of the blog.

The Curate has been in post for two years now.  I've still not gotten over the fact that when the Rev got his Magic Hands, I wasn't given super powers.  Or a self-cleaning house.  That would have been nice and helpful.  You hear all this talk as a spouse about being called just as much as your Rev.  And then they get ordained, adopt a new title and start wearing strange clothes whilst you get to stay normal (whatever that is), adopt a new label ("the Curate's wife") and start ironing your clothes.  

Yes, the sudden need to iron clothes because of a perceived pressure to look presentable in public did genuinely happen in a blink-and-you-missed-it sort of way.  I'd like to say that I stopped ironing everything in sight because I came to my senses and/or realised that my magnetic personality was enough to detract from the sight of wrinkly clothes.  In reality, I did what I do best and fell pregnant with baby number five.  I was too busy throwing up like it was some sort of extreme sport to be able to stand for long enough to iron anything.  God has a sense of humour.  At least it's better than succumbing to the stereotypical twinset and pearls.

So, apart from the Bishop not blessing me with super-holy powers to support my husband, what is it really like being the Curate's wife? That's a harder question to answer than you would think.  I know that I can only speak from my personal experience and there are many Curate's wives out there who will have very different experiences.  But, even in my own experience, each day varies so much that it's hard to explain what it's like.  

We live in a relatively small and close knit community.  It's the sort of place that still respects their clergy because they are clergy.  That made for a very interesting first few weeks when it felt like the entire community knew who I was but I had no idea who anyone else was.  However, the majority of people didn't seem to know my name, just my affiliation to The Curate - that was irritating and a sure fire way to provoke a total identity crisis in someone who had given up a Proper Job and moved 300 miles away from 'home' to take on such a strange role that is so ill-defined.

There have been plenty of entertaining moments... I could tell you The Bin Story from our very first week living in the Curatage.  Or maybe the story about The Curate dressing up as Super Duck.  Or the stories about the random stuff that just goes missing in the house because The Curate needed it ("where's the dustbin gone?").  Ooooo, or the things that happen when The Proper Vicar goes on leave (frogs in the cellar, bat rescue - we predict a plague of locusts next)

There's also some moments that are harder to know how to deal with.  There are times when it feels like everyone is obsessed with how long it is until you are moving (for the record, they are stuck with us for at least another year) and you can't help but wonder if they want you to stay or are waiting for you to go.  There are also moments when you feel like you can't just, you know, live, without someone commenting on something that you are doing/buying/eating.  It is... interesting when you learn that the contents of your shopping basket has become a source of gossip.  I have learnt to laugh at a lot of things and I have learnt to be less sensitive.  I have come to a point that I generally don't care what people think of me.  I am who I am (well, that phrase was good enough for Jesus).  I like to think that I am a genuine version of me now that we are two years in and more confident, although I'm hopefully a bit more tactful and have a better filter between my brain and my mouth than I had prior to Vicar Factory.

We used to have sessions at Vicar Factory for the spouses when we heard from previous spouses who had been in post for a year.  So many of the spouses said that the hardest thing was hearing other people put their husband down and openly criticising him.  I remember being more worried that everyone would think that the sun shines out of The Curate's backside and I would be the only one who bemoaned his faults.  Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha is the only appropriate response to that.  It is incredibly hard knowing how hard (and how late) The Curate works but the feeling that it is never enough.  There is always more to do than is possible and turning off from that is hard.

So, there's the Day Off.  Great when it happens.  Not a fan of pretty much anything suddenly being scheduled for a Friday.  Only having one day off each week when we have five children always makes the Day Off a toss up between doing jobs around the house and escaping for a few hours.  The house is permanently a mess and the laundry piles are huge.  We choose to escape as often as possible.  Not because we dislike being in the Parish but because it is the easiest way to try and turn off from something that we love so that we can recharge our batteries and carry on serving.

And we do love being The Curate and The Curate's Wife.  We love the people, we love the parish, we love the work even if my 'work' contribution is often unofficial or behind-the-scenes.  I don't think it would be possible to be in full-time ministry if you didn't love it because it is so all-consuming.

I think that's as good as my attempts at describing what it's like to be The Curate's Wife are going to get.  Most of the time I'm just me trying to do the best that I can.  I don't know whether I find it comforting or terrifying that I don't think I have changed that much as The Curate's Wife.  Most of the time when I feel like God should have given The Curate a Holy wife who is equipped to deal with all eventualities, I remember that winging it is always an option.

Dear Mr Devil

Dear Mr Devil,

I thought I'd write you a letter to make one thing clear.  You have not won.

I've written this letter in my mind so many times but I was so angry that all I wanted to do was shout and swear at you.  But I'm not going to sink to your level.  I will not let you win.

You knew that our eldest daughter is so precious and that she has a strong faith in your enemy, Jesus.  And you knew that her illness would raise so many difficult questions.  Why does Jesus allow her to be ill? Why doesn't he make her better? If he is such a loving God then why is he allowing such a bad thing to happen to a good girl?  You knew that it would break my heart to look at my beautiful girl and know that her carefree days were behind her.

But here's the thing.  You aren't Jesus.  So you don't know what it is to love.  You aren't God the Father.  So you don't know what it feels like to see your children suffer because the world is a broken place.  You aren't the Holy Spirit.  So you don't know how to impart the power of God on someone.  If I'm going to put my trust in someone, then I'm going to trust someone who knows love, compassion and encouragement.

I know what you do.  You break people and then you twist the blame on to God.  I cannot listen to someone who chooses to do that.  I will not believe your lies.

You want me to see illness and a broken body.  I see miracles and a determined soul.  I know how dangerously high her blood sugar was.  I also know that it is a miracle that her kidneys are not damaged and that she was not suffering from complications or arriving at hospital in a coma.  I know that the fear I felt was not from God.  It was from you.  And what did I do? I prayed for her and asked as many people as possible to do the same.  I approached the loving God I know for help and he answered our prayers.

I know how she didn't want to play for the first couple of days at home and how sad she looked.  I know how fearful she was of her bedtime injection.  I also know how she conquered that sadness and fear.  I know that she was so determined to live a normal life that she carried on and was awarded a swimming badge.  I know that she conquered her fear of her bedtime injection so that she can go to Brownie Pack Holiday.  I know that her smile is just as beautiful and radiant now as it was before her diagnosis.

I understand that we suffer because we live in a broken world.  I don't like it.  No one does.  But it's not God's fault.  I know many people won't get that.  It's hope of eternal life in heaven that balances out the rubbish of this world.

In the meantime, I know that God can cope with my questions and my emotions.  I know that it's OK to grieve for my daughter's health and to express all of the emotions that I feel whilst grieving when I pray.  God's shoulders are broad enough to take it and he does not have a problem with honesty.

You have a problem with honesty.  And that's why I had to write this letter.  I had to be honest.

Yes, I hurt, but you have not won.  I choose God.  I choose truth.  I choose life.

So my daughter's body needs a bit of external help.  I like to think of it as a few modifications rather than an illness.  A helping hand to function in a way that her body can't manage for herself any more.

I don't know where this leaves you.  I will not fear you - you may seem powerful but you do not have the power of God.

I do know where it leaves me - with my faith intact and with a deeper level of trust between me and my daughter.

I guess you have some thinking to do.

Yours,

The Curate's Wife

FaceBook, FaceBook, how I love-hate thee

'Fasting' from FaceBook during Lent was... Interesting.  If you want to know why I tried to stop using FaceBook during Lent then you can read my previous post here.

So, how did it go? Was it worth it? Did I learn anything? Did anything in my life change? Well, it was a mixture of nightmare and freedom all rolled in to one.  I think that I've learnt five main lessons from my 'FaceBook fast':

• Fasting from FaceBook is hard.  Really hard.

There's something addictive about FaceBook.  I think that I can have a quick peek to keep up with the  news of my loved ones.  The reality is that it takes about an hour a day to catch up with my Newsfeed (yes, I have timed it).  Also, more shamefully, my motivation for reading lots of the status updates is probably more akin to gossip than genuine concern.  I thought it would be relatively easy to switch off from FaceBook but it left a void that was hard to resist the temptation of filling.  I thought that if I could use FaceBook less than I had cracked the issue.  What actually happened was that a quick peek to 'keep up' wasn't enough and I found myself spending more time having a quick peek than I had imagined.  I'm not convinced that it is the ability to be 'connected' with other people that is the addictive quality of FaceBook.  Even as someone who struggles when I don't spend enough time with other people, FaceBook is no substitute for face-to-face time.  I'm not entirely sure what it is that makes FaceBook addictive but I do know that the more time I spend on FaceBook, the more often I check it.

• FaceBook is more about ego than I care to admit.

I don't worry about how many 'likes' my posts get.  But I have realised that I do like to talk about me and my life quite a lot! I don't think that FaceBook is an easy place to remain humble.  It is a snapshot of life that we choose to present.  It's not very often that I see a post that admits to fault, failure or even normality.  We use FaceBook as our own personal platform to declare our priorities to the world.  Even when we just post cute baby photos, they are the cute ones, not the outtakes.  Why? Because we care what people think about us.  Why is that a problem? Because egos are fragile.  They get hurt.  Life isn't about me and I'm not sure that my FaceBook statuses ever reflect that.

• FaceBook over-use is not a symptom of an unhappy life.

It is, however, a cause of an unhappy life.  For me it is, anyway.  Let me explain.  I thought that I used FaceBook as a means of escapism from the Ground Hog Day nature of my life as a stay-at-home mum.  It turns out that I was wrong.  My life isn't boring and I don't feel like escaping from it when I actually engage with it and am present in my life.  I can cope with my life when I face it.  It's not something that I need or want to run away from.  Spending copious amounts of time on FaceBook, even in regular small amounts, transports me from the here and now to an electronic connection with other people's egos.  Even sending a personal text is more rewarding than putting a public announcement on FaceBook.

• 40 days was not long enough.

It turns out that I'm not Jesus.  Who knew?! Whilst 40 days in the wilderness was long enough to prepare Jesus for his public ministry and for Jesus to crack resisting temptation, it hasn't been long enough for me.  I'm still working through some of the stuff that Lent has thrown up.  I'm not sure when or if I will return to FaceBook in the way that I was using it before.  At the moment I'm trying to make sure that God has the loudest voice in my life and that I spend more time listening to him than anything else.  That has to include FaceBook.

• There's nothing wrong with using FaceBook.

The problem is not using FaceBook per se.  The problem is when FaceBook uses you.  I know many people who don't struggle with using FaceBook and they don't have any issues with the way in which it connects them to the world.  Maybe they restrict their friends list to genuine friends rather than acquaintances? Maybe they have more time on their hands? Maybe they post about different things? Maybe they still manage to keep up with real life one-to-one connections and maintaining the public platform that is FaceBook? I don't know.

For the moment, I'm not officially off FaceBook but I'm not exactly on it either.  I'm still working out how to use FaceBook without it using me.  I'm not convinced that there is a set formula to follow.  What I do know is that life is much better when I engage with it.  I'm off to post some snail-mail...

Dear God, could you make my body a little more awesome?

I'm going to let you in on a little secret... that reasonably flat stomach that I have that gets lots of comments about being amazing for a mother of five... I'm sucking it in.  All. The. Time.  My (seemingly permanently) separated stomach muscles leave me in fear of my entire abdominal contents spilling out to never again find their proper place inside me.

Before having babies, my dress size was in single figures and I could get away without wearing a bra if I really wanted to (although, as I recall, I didn't take that opportunity up while I still had the chance).  Now? Well, there is this moment in the film Big Hero 6 when Baymax deflates a bit and has this saggy sort of appearance that wobbles when he walks:



That, folks, is my postnatal body.  Having stretched my abdomen out to beyond a reasonable limit five times now, my stretch marks look like a map of the London Underground and the excess skin that I have from carrying a 9lb13oz baby is never going to snap back.

Some people are all warm and fuzzy about their postnatal bodies, calling their stretchmarks the 'badge of honour of motherhood'.  I call it irritating.

So, I was wondering, just how bad is it to want to change my postnatal body?

Where I used to work, we would regularly have visiting plastic surgeons come to perform the most complex facial surgery.  One of them mainly performed breast reconstruction following mastectomy for breast cancer when he wasn't helping us out.  One day I was chatting with him and joked that I would quite like a 'mummy lift' when I stopped having children.  Apparently it is A Thing.  A list celebrities genuinely do pay for a postnatal tummy tuck and the redundant tissue is then used to perk up postnatal breasts.  Part of me is quite tempted... The rest of me feels guilty for being tempted.  I'm fairly certain that plastic surgery for purely cosmetic (ie vanity) reasons is frowned upon within Christian circles.  I could argue that I'm just wanting to restore my body to how God had made it.  But that seems a bit ridiculous when God made my body capable of bearing children.  I'm not convinced that God would consider stretchmarks or a bit of postnatal sag to be a design flaw.

I know the Bible tells me that I am "fearfully and wonderfully made" and I can marvel at my body for a while when I consider how my skin protects me from infection or my body uses multiple organs to turn food into energy.  But after that moment of wonder, I'm not entirely awestruck by my body.  Let's face it, a few seconds scanning the TV or a magazine and the bodies that can be seen there leave me feeling a little less impressed with my own body.

Maybe God would like to reconsider his plan for my body just a little? You know the odd things that could do with a bit of a tweak so that I'd be feeling a bit more "fearfully and wonderfully made"? A slightly more flashy exterior as a house for the Holy Spirit could be quite uplifting in more ways than one.

Whilst we were having tea tonight, The Oldest Girl told me that I'm just like Baymax.  The Curate knew that I had already started writing this blog and referenced Baymax's appearance so he immediately tried to shush her.  She was somewhat taken aback and then she started to quote some of the things that Baymax says that remind her of mummy:



Maybe that's more what is meant by being "fearfully and wonderfully made"? Not just the exterior stuff but everything that can really make a difference.  The Oldest Girl doesn't care if my body isn't taut anymore but she does care about how I love her.

Or maybe that's still missing the point a bit? I have this huge debate about what I should do in terms of anything to do with my appearance.  As a Christian, should I spend money on having my haircut when I could give that money away to feed a starving family? What about spending money on makeup? Or clothes that look nice but are more expensive than ones that could keep me just as warm? At what point do we decide that it is or isn't OK to do something about our appearance? Because it seems to me that how we look isn't a factor in the grand scheme of eternal life.

And that is the real point of that verse about being fearfully and wonderfully made.  It has nothing to do with appearance.  The emphasis isn't even on us as human beings at all if you read the whole verse:



The emphasis is on praising God.  Being fearfully and wonderfully made isn't about me and my body.  It's about God's work being wonderful.  It's about the awesomeness of God, not me.  Think about it like this: I have a few friends who are brilliant artists.  I do not go around showing off their work with giving them credit.

Maybe if I stop thinking so much about myself when I look at my body and think more about my creator then I will feel a bit more "fearfully and wonderfully made"? And whatever way you look at it, my body may not look totally awesome anymore but it did grow five babies and that in itself is pretty awesome.

Let's talk about sex, Baby

Why don't Christian women talk about sex? (Yes, I'm really going there.)



OK, I know that some women choose not to talk about it because they believe that it should remain a private topic between husband and wife in honour of the sanctity of marriage.  And I'm not so naive as to discount how difficult the topic can be for women who are survivors of sexual abuse and certain words could trigger horrific memories.

But, other than that, why don't Christian women talk about sex?

I can remember being told about sex for the first time as a response to my question 'where do babies come from?' As a parent myself it seems like a fair time to bring the subject up.  After all, I'm not expecting our children to start asking deep and meaningful questions about how we celebrate the intimacy of our marriage.  But I'm not convinced that I will only be discussing the biology of procreation when I discuss sex with our children.  Let's face it, the number of times a couple has sex to make a baby is a relatively small proportion of the thousands of sexual acts that will occur during a lifetime of marriage.  We may have five children but we have had sex a lot more than five times!

Right now I'm sat here cringing because my mum and my brother read this blog and I'm talking about sex.   I've just admitted that we have sex for pleasure.  Out loud.  On the internet... Oh, the shame! And there it is.  The shame.  Why is it that I feel shame when talking about sex with my husband whom I have been married to for nearly 12 years? The world knows that we have sex.  The five children are a bit of a giveaway.  I have a theory about the shame.  As Christians, we spend all of our pre-married life learning that sex is bad, it is not for us, it is shameful, we will not do it... and then we get married.  With a flick of a switch, we are supposed to shake off years of linking sex with shame.

A few weeks ago I joined in with an online discussion amongst Christian women about 'how much sex do you have?' Aye, aye, I thought.  We don't normally talk about sex, but, this woman had been brave and even explained her reasons for asking the question.  I decided to honour her bravery by giving her an honest answer.  We chatted a bit and she was very grateful.  Other women were not so happy with me.  It was like I had broken the unspoken rule that "we do not talk about sex".  My response was frowned upon because it was honest.  Only one other woman answered the question directly.  Every other woman found a way to skirt around the subject and justify themselves.  How sad, I thought, that we cannot even support someone by having an open discussion (on a closed forum) about sex.  I was even more shocked by one person's response that I should feel. at best secretive, at worst ashamed of my answer.

We either believe the Bible or we don't, right? And if we are struggling with something then it can be a good idea to share that with a trusted friend or two, right? Except when it comes to sex.  We seem so focused on teaching about the negative side of sex that we don't teach about the positives.  I can't remember the last time that I heard any good teaching on sex outside of a national conference with a female Christian 'sexpert' speaking.  And I don't think that I can ever remember having a conversation with another Christian woman about any positive to do with sex outside of general 'I'm pregnant' discussions.  How do we expect our daughters to grow up with a healthy understanding of sex and their bodies if we only ever talk about the bio-mechanics and attach negatives to the act? How do we expect our daughters to come and talk to us if we give them the idea that sex is shameful and load guilt upon them before they've even had sex?

I know that in the next year or so I will be starting to talk about sex with our eldest daughter (I have no idea how I have survived parenting to already be at THAT stage).  Whilst I will talk to her about eggs, sperm and implantation, I will also speak to her about desire, pleasure and intimacy.  I have no idea how I'm going to do it yet (let's face it, I didn't exactly plan the chat about periods, boobs and body hair that came from nowhere one day) but with the grace of God, I will talk her through God's brilliant plan for sex in a way that she isn't threatened by it.

I also hope that The Church will wake up and realise that it is threatening generations of marriage because it doesn't teach about sex well, or if it does then it happens once in a blue moon.  During the past five years, I have probably heard teaching about the book of Philemon more often than I've heard any Christian teaching about sex.  And if the church won't support women in this Christian taboo subject, then women are going to have to work out how to talk to each other about sex.  Honestly.  Without judgement.  If we can't even talk about sex then how can we ever have hope of dealing with even more complicated issues like mental wellbeing?

Here is a really good article entitled 'Why Christian Women Need to Talk About Sex'.  If I haven't already persuaded you that this is an issue worth engaging with and conquering then this counsellor might just make you reconsider.