Miracles

I had a strange day last Wednesday.

I had been rostered on for Antenatal Clinic (my favorite!) - where I get to scan pregnant tums and marvel at the miracle growing within.

And somewhere in the middle of my clinic was a woman who had booked an appointment in my clinic to discuss the various options of how to go about aborting her 6 week old miracle.
I stared at her in shock. My mouth dried up.
"But this is the antenatal clinic" I said, "we don't plan abortions here!"
And then she began to cry.

I didn't know what to say and had to excuse myself from the room. I didn't want any part in plotting the death of this baby, but I felt like my hands were tied - I had an obligation to help this woman.

Fortunately, my boss walked by at this moment and I was able to defer to her.

I have just looked at abortion stats for Australia which showed an overal number of abortions exeeding 71000 in 2006, the vast majority (28000) were women between the ages of 25-34, ie the age group that probably are working, educated, even in stable relationships... so, not the group of women that have no other option. It seems abortion has become so accepted that it no longer is the choice of the "last resort"....

*sigh

Diamonds

When we got engaged 5 years ago, my husband, who is just so romantic and creative designed the most beautiful ring. We were on the beach and he drew the lines in the sand, using shells to represent where the shells would be.

The finished product is platinum, shaped like the Greek symbol for infinity and it encases this beautiful diamond. It's a tension setting and the platinum hugged the diamond quite tightly. The problem was that when my husband had designed the ring we had thought only of the properties of platinum – being so much stronger and more valuable than gold, that we hadn't stopped to consider the physical properties of the diamond. It wasn't just good to look at, it is so much harder than any metal we could have set it in.

Gradually, over time, the diamond wore away the platinum. After a few years of wearing the ring I noticed that sometimes the diamond could make a little ½ turn in the setting. And then over time, the little ½ turn became a full turn. Next thing I know it wasn't only turning around, it could now move up and down as well. It had taken a few years, and it had been doing it so subtly that I hadn't even noticed, but the diamond had been changing it's environment, reshaping its setting and was now just about ready to escape its platinum bonds.

Naturally I was rather distressed about the possibility of losing my precious gem. I was thinking about this ring when I should have been having my quiet time, and I felt God say to me that we should be like that diamond. As Christians, we should be shining, true and consistent. But by being like diamonds, those properties will cause us to change our environment. Gradually we will erode the World from it's grip on our lives. Christians will determine the environment they're in.

So often we think that our lives are inconsequential, that our actions don't achieve much in this world. We don't realize the impact we're actually having. It's like ripples in a pond, it starts out small, but the effect is far-reaching. Slowly, by continuing to walk with Jesus, we will change our environment, a little every day.

Previous occupant

Mucking about in the shed, (like all blokes should) I heard a noise and then a squeak and saw the desperate face of a mouse or rat entwined in the tightening coils of a snake. So much for this new house being unoccupied when we moved in.

Anyway, this being Australia, home to seven of the worlds ten most deadly snakes, and me not been too clued up on snake identification, I did the most responsible thing I could......

I called my mate.

"Hey mate, I found something in my shed....."
"A snake? Was it a snake?" He asked impatiently with great expectation.
"Yeah, and I........"
"Address! What's your address??" He demanded and hung up on me as the words trailed off my tongue. I found myself telling the dial tone that I think the snake caught a mouse.

My wife saw me speaking into a quiet cell phone and asked what was going on, so I did the next most responsible thing I could do, I avoided the topic, like any bloke should. And then added: "Oh buy the way Honey, my mate might pop round soon." And that's when his 4 wheel drive pulled up and out he jumped with a snake catching pole and apologized for being late. (?)

So together we approached the shed, a formidable team, one warrior with a grin on his face and a snake catching pole in his hand, and the other a little uncertain of the wisdom of all this, suddenly volunteering to 'fetch a torch' just to remain out of striking distance of this unknown foe.

When I returned to the shed I heard stuff falling everywhere, hoping that if my snake catching mate was in the dying throws of envenomation that he had at least taken the bulk of venom and left the snake dry and harmless. In reality he was merely throwing all my stored timber on the floor desperately trying to find its hiding place.

"Gotcha!" he cried and promptly pulled a python from a dark recess.

We were heroes!

But I was sure there was a rat involved. How did it swallow an entire rat in minutes? Did it leave it behind and try and hide when we approached? Do I now have the carcass of a rat hiding in my shed?

Anyway, my mate had to go back to work so he left, "I'll let my little girls play with it then I'll let it go." I'm trying not to be surprised by this place anymore.

I got to work some hours later, (we do shift work), and he casually told me the python is in his pigeon hole in the ward, and he thinks it was overstimulated a little because it promptly regurgitated a dead sticky adult rat onto the hands of a young English girl who was visibly shaken by this whole encounter but none of the local Aussies batted an eyelid. All in a days work in the outback. (I decided not to include a picture of the rat in this blog as we would like to keep it family friendly but email me for pictures if you want.)

At least I knew I wasn't hallucinating when I thought I saw it catch a rat.

We decided that this python is rather necessary in controlling the rat population in the shed so my mate will return it on a day that the wife is not at home and once his kids have had a good play with it.

So soon we'll have two pets, a dog in the garden and a python in the shed! Welcome to rural Australia!

Koh-Mitt-Mint-Foh-Bia!

We've bought a house!
It's beautiful, big and breezy and we love it.
Hubby and I were having lunch on the deck yesterday, Puppy at our feet when we suddenly felt Very Grown Up.
What happened to the pair of tumble-weeds we used to be?
Now we have Responsibility, a home that doesn't have wheels, a garden with a fishpond and a Mortgage!
I guess Hubby is well and truly over his commitment-phobia :)
.... Time for babies....