A kiss from God.

A kiss from God. I woke up the other morning and laid there still half asleep my eyes closed. I sensed my door being opened and my dad walking into the room. He often does to wake me up. I feel him step on my matrices which are on the floor and stand over me watching me though loving fatherly eyes. Then He bends over and gently kisses me on the cheek. A few seconds later my mum is at my door and tells me to wake up. Opening my eyes I am surprised to not see my dad in the room also. All day I think about that morning, wonder whether I was just in a weird sleep, wether I imagined it. I know I wasn’t asleep because when my mum came in the room she didn’t wake me up, I was already awake.

Praying that night in bed I suddenly realise what had happened. It was not my dad kissing me or my imagination or a dream, it was God who kissed me. Reaching up to touch the cheek that was kissed I smile and thank God for something so simple yet so beautiful.

We ordered five passports. Five! That is everyone’s passports done except mum. Her visa is complicated and confusing and the best way I can explain it is either we get a job and she can apply for the visa or we go anyway, her using her six month holiday visa, and get a job and in six months she comes back and applies. Either way we are going around the end of July. What excitement there is in this family! We have started looking at flights and even have our car up for sale. So everyone over there in the country of cold; Be prepared because this Irwin family are a'comn!

God is love ❤

Today is a day to celebrate. To rejoice in new life given to us. To celebrate the footsteps God leaves when he walks next to us through everything we go through. Today is Easter.

The church service today was amazing, the worship being the best part for me. Just the amazing atmosphere there alone is something I let touch my heart. All these amazing people coming to worship and praise the one and only God who has risen. The moment my family and I stepped into the room of worship there is nothing I could do but sway to the music, throw my head back and sing to the Lord. Spinning Martha around and around as she laughed her voice rising with everyone else’s as one to God.

It has been said, and said again but the message doesn’t seem to get across to people. Everywhere on this Easter weekend everyone is experiencing a day for God. This is for God. The God who died for us. Who hang on that cross and died for us! They may ignore it, take it as a chance to eat chocolate until it can be eaten no more, spend hundreds on chocolate but really what they are buying is Chocolate Easter eggs, bunnies and chicks. What do they represent? NEW LIFE!! Praise the Lord for new life! For hanging on that cross and dying for us!

That is love.

God

Is

Love

Happy Easter everyone! xxx ~H

Thank you

Haven’t written in ages, the first culprit is laziness and the second is business. There is some progress in process England I can share with all of you; we have officially ordered the babies passports! Once they are here we can get mummy’s visa and book the tickets! Less than three months and we are gone! My room consists of a matric and a temporary couch which is sold. The boys are the same. We have sold all of our garage worthy bits and pieces and bit by bit we say bye bye to our furniture!

It amazes me how things can change! I was just reading through my old diary I wrote years ago when the babies were just about to be born. Every day I counted down to the day they would be here and I counted down the weeks until we got our dog flora. I read back over my friend problems and how much I struggled with twelve year old arguments. I mean, what twelve year olds don’t have silly little arguments with friends? How much I have changed though! How much stronger I am. Through what we have experienced I think I have learnt that closure is a very rare thing. With my friends out of the picture and no closure there it has just shown me how much stronger I am not letting those things get me down. If I had been experiencing the things we are now such as the waiting, the not knowing, the relationships lost both in the family and friends I would not be coping. That is why God has put us where we are at this moment in time. Because this moment in time is where we can cope, where we can grow and improve and thrive, three weeks to a year earlier we might be reacting differently.

We are where God wants us to be and I wouldn’t change that for the world. I couldn’t change the experiences we have had or the things we have done or where we are now and what we are working towards, I wouldn’t change it for anything. And I wouldn’t be here with anyone else but my beautiful family. My mother is the most loving selfless person I know. My dad has a strong heart and being pulled into his arms is the most reassuring thing. My siblings are pure happiness and joy. They are life; full of potential. And God, God gave them all to me. To me! What more can I say other than thankyou? Thank you to the Father who places this amazing family in my life, thank you to Him who leads us in process England and thank you to Him to brings us into his protective arms and never lets us go.

 

Tears will fall but they wont last forever.

There are always hard times in life. Especially when moving half way across the world, things seem bigger then. But this post has nothing to do with movving.  One second something is there, the next instant everything is moving out from under your feet. I tell you what, though, no matter how fast or long you fall God always catches you.

Our family have recently said goodbye to a much loved cat. After suffering for four days, vomiting and not being able to drink we realised after she ate some string it had got caught in her intestines. Her condition blew out of proportion when she developed a fever. After we found her hiding in the toilet on the tiles to keep cool we knew she couldn’t suffer any more and made the decision. Everybody kissed beautiful Maisey and said goodbye and daddy and I took her to the vet to release her from her pain. This is the most heart breaking thing I have ever been though. I knew if I wasn’t there holding her till the end I would beat myself up about it forever. I felt she would feel alone and scared and I wanted to be able to be there letting her know it was all going to be ok. In the car I pushed the air from the car onto her to keep her cool and held her tight. I felt how thin she was and how she hadn’t cleaned herself for days. She just laid on me limp and I knew it was time. I knew this was right.

In the vets I couldn’t contain my tears. They just flowed and there was nothing I could do. All I knew was this is the right thing to do and that I was so relived I was there to hold Maisey. We were called in and they took her away to place a drip where the needle would go in. It seemed she was gone forever and all i wanted was to be holding her while I could. Finally she came back in with a cute little cast which broke my heart because I knew we were so close to what was happening.

'You look so pretty Maisey' I choke back tears. She is sat on the bench and she just lies down like she knows it is time. I brace my hands over her body whispering I love her in her ear. The vet starts to inject her and I see her head relax as she is released of her pain. Sobbing I bury my face in her fur breathing her smell as if to lock it in my heart forever. The vet gives us a minute and I hug Maisey close. I try to close her eyes which are still open but they don’t which makes me more upset. I know she is happy now and she knew it was time. She didn’t fight, she knew it was time. She knew.

The vey comes back with a blanket and we place Maisey on it. She looks happily asleep as the vet curls her up in a natural sleeping position. Her eyes are still open so I pull her tail over her face and thank the Lord for this beautiful cat’s life. And thank Him she was loved and we were able do this and she didn’t die a painful death.

I am crying as I type this but for the first time in three days since she has been done I am peaceful. She is happy now and no longer in pain. Although my heart is aching for her and I miss the touch of her fur and I am upset our other cat Rose has lost her sister I know we haven’t lost everything. We still have each other and what we did was the right decision.

God has guided us and never left our sides. We are never alone.

Happiness

Blogging time!

I love my little sisters! Well I love all of my siblings but I am about to talk about the twins. They come home from day care and I plop them in the bath and they bring so much joy! As I was bathing them today I just thanked God for them and prayed that they would keep safe and healthy. There was a little girl at day care today who looked so unwell. She was just laying limp on a big pillow with a temp. I sent a prayer up for her and also thanked God that my sisters are well and such a blessing. In the bath Olive stuffs her mouth full of bubbles and I watch her then cringe and spit it out. She looked like she had a bubble tongue and because I laughed at her she cracked up too. The little things in life that make my day.

Home schooling is going exceptionally well. I teach Milly and have really found a passion for teaching her. When I watch her working out her maths using the methods I have shown her I feel so accomplished. One of the best moments in my day is when I see she has understood something she didn’t yesterday. I see the click and am on a high for like a week after just because she has learnt something new. Something has changed. I am feeling the happiest I have been in forever. Not saying I have been unhappy but I feel different. I think it is God. I think God is holding us together with love and affection. He is filling me with it and I am just overflowing and giving it to everything else. Even when I have down moments I can pull myself back up with strength I know is not mine. It’s Gods.

We have started fresh with the job hunting. We have applied for jobs all over but with a new energy. There is not an anxious 'We have to get a job, we have to get a job. This is our rock! We have to get a job!' No, we are completely in trust of God because he is our rock and come August, we are moving to England with or without a job. We hope we get a job sooner because if we do we will go but August is our deadline and it is all up to God. He will lead us.

I am writing with so much energy today my fingers are bouncing off the keypad. It's an amazing feeling. I could keep writing about nothing if I wanted to but dinner is ready so I need to go. That saves all of you from reading a load of nonsense!

 Not sure how to close this one so I think I will just say goodbye. Bye! ~H

Inspiration

Waiting for inspiration to hit me so I can start writing again. No inspiration. So I give up and here I am. Maybe having no inspiration is my inspiration. Or maybe I am just getting desperate...

These past few days have been intense. Mummy just came out of hospital from having an operation and has been in bed recovering. I felt so frustrated I couldn’t just take the pain away for her. Because I couldn’t do that I made sure I did everything else. Helping her where she needed it and giving her ice packs to ease the pain, making sure her water was with ice and sitting holding her hand while she fought the pain. Now she is feeling better, I feel better and know we were all there to support her where she needed it. And God was there with his healing hand.  

When a parent is away things always seem to go wrong. How wrong? Mummy is in hospital and Olive splits her head open wrong. She is rushed off to hospital and with myself in charge I step into place kneeling down to calm a distressed little sister and smooth the frightened tears away from my brother who left the room. Bringing us all together we kneel and pray lifting Olive up to the Lord and also mummy who was going through the operation at the time. When we have all settled it is baths and showers. I go into mummy’s bathroom where Olive had slit her head and, blocking my nose (who knew blood smelt?) I start cleaning. Once that is done I give My brother another hug to reassure him everything will be ok before I get on the phone to Mummy’s best friend Emily and tell her what happened. Before I finish what I am saying she is out the door and on the way over. When she gets here it’s my turn to cry. I now call Emily my second Mama. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her. I have been thanking God every day for giving my family Emily and her family and their help and support.

Just goes to show even though things can seem hard they do get better. Mummy is now out of bed and almost back her normal self and Olive struts around extremely proud of her three stitches! And me? I found my inspiration. My family and God. Simple. why couldn’t I see that before?

Open

When God closes one door He opens a better one. I am so grateful for this because the job is Reading is not ours. I think we are doing ok now but it was a knock back at first and left us all feeling low and defeated for a good twenty four hours. When I found out about the job it was about nine at night, I wondered into the kitchen and grabbed some chocolate and ate it in silence everything just sinking in. Then I sat on the bench not knowing what to do or how to get rid of my heavy heart. I started to pray, my face crumpled as I cried and I thanked God for not giving us that job because as much as we all wanted it, it obviously was not right for us. God just saved us and will turn us towards a better job.

The next day we start applying for more jobs and not giving up on God. I think the Reading job has helped us heal relationships with family and show us what is more important, God is more important than the job. We have become stronger and God was there to catch us as we fell and place us back on our feet, holding our hands.

As I type this our bunny Willow is jumping around my room and has now come up to my bed and is peering at me from below his big eyes checking me out. Oh, and now he is chasing the cat around the room. This morning we went swimming and tomorrow we will start home schooling. Although I thought things had stopped when the job disappeared I now realise how wrong I am. Things are still moving, we are all healthy and well. We will find another job, we will move to England, we will find a house and no matter how many times we fall God will be there ready to catch us. We really are very blessed.