Murder! #tencommandments #learning #listening

We were reading a story the other day as part of our Sonlight homeschool curriculum. Just to put in a little word : I 'Heart' sonlight!

The word that came up was murder.
Me: Isaac do you know what murder means
I was little annoyed because Isaac looked very distracted as I had been reading to him. Read aloud is big part of our daily routine. Thanks to so many books to read aloud I have been reading books after a long time.
Isaac: Being angry with your brother!
FULLSTOP.
Me (a mixture of a lot of emotions) :What? Where did you learn that Isaac?
Isaac (a little more attentive): Cain and Abel in the bible
I want to take a moment here to hug all Isaac's Sunday school teachers!!!!
Isaac (like me) doesn't have very good control over his emotions. Anger being one of the key emotions that we both struggle with. I believe (sorry for sounding holy) it is a curse I have passed on to him and I pray daily that we both will be freed from this bondage I call 'ANGER'.
In a matter of seconds it seemed like we had switched roles. He being the teacher and me being the learner! It was like my son was preaching to me.
Well all these wonderful holy things comes to me with a dash of guilt. Am I overdoing it? Was I teaching them all the right things and not helping them practice it!
Last week at carecell as we were writing down prayer points, Sapna, one of the youth at church, was joking about something and she happened to say this dialogue ' Where you go I will go ...'
Ziva completed it for her : 'Your people shall me my people'
I stopped short and when Ziva noticed she had got all our attention she added with a big smile ' Ruth said it to Naomi'

I shared my fear of how my kids knew all the stories too well that one day they would just accept everything without actually having an experience with the God that created them :)
I got a lot of encouragement that evening. I hold on to it. Sapna responded saying, that knowing all this would help them live a life towards HIM. Susan added saying that it was all these teachings and her parents life lived out, that helped her during tough situations in her life.
As I write this blog, I am reminded of the story of a boy who didn't want to read the bible because he could not understand it. His grandfather makes him carry water in a coal basket. While the basket never holds any of the water, it eventually washes away the coal making the basket clean.

Maybe that is how all these stories will help Isaac and Ziva. As they live in this world, maybe these stories will build them up slowly and steadily and keep them strong in the tough storms of life.
Holding On and Pressing On.


Full story of the Coal Basket here: https://www.crossroad.to/Victory/stories/coal-basket.htm

Life is not a snapshot!

If I can just get past this exam, I will be great.

If I can just get into a good engineering college , I will be fine.

If I can just get into 'an' engineering college, I will be good.

If I can just  make it past these 4 years,  life will be normal again.

If I can just find a job, I will be good.

If I can just get into grad school, things will work out.

If I can just make it past my thesis defense, I will party.

If I can just finish my residency, I am sure I will get a great job.

If I can just find a perfect guy, life will be a piece of cake.

If I can just get married to the nice guy without the world being at war with me, things would be perfect.

If I can just have a child, life would be super duper

If I can .....

 
We all go through those stages of life. Each stage seems uncertain and scary. It always seems like if you can just pass those scary stages, life will be perfect. If you can just pass this one crazy phase in life then all will work out.
But life is not a snapshot! Its not about that one moment of pain when you lose someone you love. Its not about that one moment of joy when you hold your child in your arms. Yes those are the special moments. But life is all the craziness in the middle. Sometimes in the midst of all the craziness there is a strong desire to press the eject button. My way of 'eject button' is to go into hiding. Stay low and let the wave go over!

The above statements describes all of me for the past 40 years. Initially stressing about each and every exam. Then the jobs and then getting married etc. Half the time I didn't know what I was doing.
To put it in F.R.I.E.N.D.S philosophy : It seemed like there was a plan ... everything was all figured out ..But now its just 'floopy'.
Actually ... if you look around almost no one has a clue of what is going on. Some are just getting rocked about by the waves of life and ... others are the waves of life!
But again with the F.R.I.E.N.D.S philosophy: It's all gonna come together and it's gonna be un-floopy!

Notice after the last line ... I kind of stopped....
If I can just have a child, life would be super duper

.... Once Isaac came, life was super duper for sure. But there were so many floopy moments still. Moments where I felt like I was going to drown. But some how it became un-floopy and I rose above the wave. It was around the time that Suresh's mom passed away. A big wave for me! Maybe my faith got hit more than anything and it washed me to the shore till I picked up and decided to dive back into the ocean called L.I.F.E. You can't sit on the shore forever! With the arrival of Ziva, I had another round of floopy to un-floopy. I had been wallowing so long in the self-pity of being a terrible mother that I was honestly terrified of baby #2. But the ease of being her mother made me realize - motherhood was not a snapshot. There were going to be floopy and un-floopy moments!

Life is not about losing that job or getting it.
Life is not about buying that dream house or moving.
Life is not about an empty womb or one abundantly filled.
Life is not perfect ... but if you rise above the wave each time... look around ...It's beautiful!




Before the morning - Josh Wilson


Do you wonder why you have to,
Feel the things that hurt you,
If there's a God who loves you,
Where is He now?

Or maybe, there are things you can't see
And all those things are happening
To bring a better ending
Some day, some how, you'll see, you'll see

Would you dare, would you dare, to believe,
That you still have a reason to sing,
'Cause the pain that you've been feeling,
It can't compare to the joy that's coming

So hold on, you gotta wait for the light
Press on, and just fight the good fight
'Cause the pain that you've been feeling,
It's just the dark before the morning

Marriage, miracles, mistakes and many returns!

16 years since we met ... 13.5 years being married..

Yet everyday we figure out something new about each other. That's what keeps a marriage going. I am glad for this union of ours (and I hope Suresh is glad too.)

Do we fight? Yes of course! Are there days I want to strangle Suresh? Yes there are!  And I bet there are days when he would like to give me a slap and say 'grow up'.
But we are still together. No its not because we are madly in love with it each other. Well there are days we think we will go mad. That, however, has more to do with the byproducts of this Union than either of us.

Whats keeps us together? What keeps a couple together?
We had a wonderful couples meeting in the summer 0f 2010 at our annual Church retreat in  Summit Grove, Pennsylvania. Led by Bill and Claudia Teubl, we got great advice and confirmation on some ways of life.

Here is my little tit-bit for those who want to take it.
Have a common goals -
Before we even got together or decided we wanted to get married - we had discussed some of our life's goals or desires. Somehow neither of us talked about what we wanted our career path to be or how much money we wanted to make. The only thing that seemed to come out strong was 'We wanted to move back to India at some point of time'. Sitting on my couch in pleasant and cool Bangalore, I am glad of that conversation. Talking about going back 'home' sometime. I put in a bid - 'No Chennai' and Suresh topped it off with a 'No Mumbai' - God's plan could not be more perfect than to put us here in Bangalore!

Sane Finances:
Try not to get into debt. If you are in debt, get out of it as soon as possible. You don't have to have a ton of money in your savings account. But you will have a lot of peace knowing that you don't owe anybody anything!
The Teubl's took it a notch higher for us and said - no house loans - no car loans. They didn't mean that you need to have a down payment for the entire sum your house would have. Just make it a goal to pay off the house as soon as possible. We had the pleasure of spending some time with Becky Teubl the third child of the Teubl's. She mentioned how her mother had divided a picture of the house into neat bricks each representing the payment for a month for the house. Coloring out a brick a month indicated they owned that portion when they paid the mortgage. A lovely way to involve children in finances. Becky said that one month the children brought money together and gave it to their dad to pay the months mortgage and had the pleasure of being 'involved' in the coloring.
Dave Ramsey 'finance Guru' says that finances is a big reason couples split -- so stay out of debt.

Witnessing those miracles and trials together.
Life will throw all kinds of stuff at you. Big rocks, small stones. They all hurt - but stick together - because when those miracles happen, its no fun sitting alone and enjoying it. Its means much more when there is someone joining in the happiness.
Isaac and Ziva are our miracles and trials all in one bundle. We have enjoyed every minute of them. I can think of no other man who would sit by me day after day as I cried for a child. I can think of no other man to give me those IVF shots and  I can think of no other man who would wake up in the middle of the night to put a new born to sleep.
Losing parents has also been something that kept us together. When folks ask us why we moved back to India - my first reason is losing 3 parents in 3 years was not easy and we needed family around to overcome the grief.

Plenty of difference in opinions:
Are we different? As different as North and South pole. Isn't that what they say - poles apart! But even at these two poles the climate is kind of chilly and icy and the same. So poles apart and yet so much in common. That's what keeps things interesting.

A little screaming and yelling
We were not big fighters. Then we attended a marriage seminar by George and Pooja Cherian, where they  spoke about 'How to fight good!'. It brought out a lot of hidden resentment. I used to pride myself on fighting about silly stuff and keeping the big stuff within. But now I like that we fight good and sort our differences and anxieties! It builds the relationship on stronger ground!


Union in thinking
We have a lot of common ideas about parenting and finance. I like that when I think of something and make an eye connection with hubby dear across the room, I know he is thinking the same. You can say the same strings hit a rhythm within us! How did we get there? Talking lots and lots of talking.

Last and the most important the big guys upstairs!
I would be insane not to mention the big Guy upstairs who brought us together and has kept us so far.
If it was not for our faith in Jesus and constantly keeping Him in the center of our relationship ... things would have surely been a mess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZEURntrQOg


Union of Suresh Emmanuel Joel and Rohini George:  13.5 years

30 December 2002 -- to Present

By products : Isaac George Joel
                      Ziva Esther Joel

And knowing I wanted to be with you for the rest of my life : 14 years on January 27 2001

God is so Good - Ziva's World

So I have been singing
" God is so Good, God is so Good, God is so good to me"

Ziva's rendition
"God is a good girl ... god is a good girl ..."

hmmmm