psalmthing to chew on: psalm 68

¹ May God arise, may his enemies be scattered;
    may his foes flee before him.
² May you blow them away like smoke—
    as wax melts before the fire,
    may the wicked perish before God.

i’m not going to lie, i often don’t quite know what to do with some of the anger and violence of the Old Testament. When i was young it was as black and white as an old A-team episode [google it, kids!] where there were the good guys and the bad  guys and the good guys beat the bad guys. But then one day when i got older, i realised that the bad guys might have moms and wives and children. And suddenly it got a whole lot more complicated.

i do still, however, feel that the evidence of a good God is overwhelming and so this doesn’t make me question God, but it does make me try a little bit harder to understand why things got a little hectic earlier on.

Cos let’s face it – ‘blow them away like smoke as wax melts before the fire’ – sounds a little hectic to me. But it’s the bad guys, so it’s okay. Oh but wait, maybe these bad guys have families too? Argh.

Well, i’m not sure i know the answers, so let’s start with that confession as the base point, BUT perhaps there are some clues that may help.

In the second half of verse 6, after talking about people God looks after, it says, ‘but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.’

Okay, so that is helpful. These enemies of God are people who rebel. Turn against. Refuse to follow God.

²¹ Surely God will crush the heads of his enemies,
    the hairy crowns of those who go on in their sins.

i think this verse is helpful as well as it suggests the idea of going on in their sins. So not necessarily people who have just got it wrong or made a mistake or been born in the wrong tribe or anything like that. These are people who repeatedly continue to choose a path away from God and to their sin, whatever that particular sin is.

The verses after that get a little edgy in their description of the treatment of the enemies and perhaps what is helpful to get our minds around that is knowing it was spoken into a specific context in the language of the people of the day. This whole piece is a poem, or more correctly a song, and so poetic licence is given in terms of the language used not necessarily being literal but more emotive and colourful.

Because if we only read those verses, we can get a very particular picture of God, but let’s see how else He is described here:

⁴ Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
    extol him who rides on the clouds^[];
    rejoice before him—his name is the Lord.
⁵ A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
    is God in his holy dwelling.
⁶ God sets the lonely in families,^[]
    he leads out the prisoners with singing;
    but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

I love that phrase, ‘God sets the lonely in families’ [Could read a whole subtext of ‘Adoption’ into that one phrase, or ‘Community’ or both].

‘A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows’ and He ‘leads out the prisoners with singing’

Okay, so suddenly this God is sounding a lot more likeable.

⁹ You gave abundant showers, O God;
    you refreshed your weary inheritance.
¹⁰ Your people settled in it,
    and from your bounty, God, you provided for the poor.

That is really great as well, ‘from your bounty, you provided for the poor.’ We can start to get a picture for the kind of people God seems to strongly gravitate towards – those who can’t seem to look after themselves as easily or well.

This is a long Psalm and so worth reading through the whole thing by yourself, maybe multiple times, to really get the meat of it. But there is still a piece or two i would like to draw attention to:

¹⁹ Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
    who daily bears our burdens.
²⁰ Our God is a God who saves;
    from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.

The God we serve is the God who ‘daily bears our burdens’ and He is a ‘God who saves’. Those are both powerful statements ad remind me a lot more of the God i am drawn towards and know.

i think it is important to know that there is a difference between ‘bearing our burdens’ and ‘removing our burdens’ as often we would love fr God to just take away all the bad stuff in our life, but this image is of God carrying it alongside us. So being with us and helping make the burden lighter as opposed to necessarily taking it away altogether.

And lastly this song finishes off with a flourish:

³² Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth,

    sing praise to the Lord,
³³ to him who rides across the highest heavens, the ancient heavens,
    who thunders with mighty voice.
³⁴ Proclaim the power of God,
    whose majesty is over Israel,
    whose power is in the heavens.
³⁵ You, God, are awesome in your sanctuary;
    the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people.

Praise be to God!

Awesome in your sanctuary. This is out God. Praise be to Him.

[To return to the Intro page and be connected to any of the other Psalms i have walked through before now, click here]

Whose Taboo Topic is it anyway?

My favourite space on my blog is probably the Taboo Topics section where we look at topics rarely spoken about such as losing a baby or infertility, singleness or being a parent of young children when it’s really really hard, abortion and adoption, issues of race and many more… with one exception these posts take the form of stories of real live people who put their names and faces on them to help make them more relatable and i think they have been extremely powerful and will hopefully continue to be so…

For the most part i have not had a strategy or plan of what topics i would like to see happening on Taboo Topics but have rather let it create itself in a sense. As i have heard a story from someone and asked them if they would be up to sharing or as i have felt a particular topic weigh more heavily on my heart, so i have introduced it and stories have followed. So there are probably fifty more topics waiting to happen, but until i feel it is the right time or i receive a story that feels like it needs to be shared, i will continue with what i have…

A topic i posted on recently was about people who have lost people in their lives – now while losing a baby and losing a child are both obviously that, this was one i started to cover people who have had more grown up people in their lives die and because these can cover so many different relationships [parent, sibling, good friend, grandparent] there is a lot of space for a whole host of different stories to be added there. I understand that for some people this can be an extremely difficult piece to write on but i imagine these stories in particular can be so helpful for other people who have suffered recent loss to read. So if you have lost someone and feel up to writing a story to share, please get hold of me [brettfish@hotmail.com] and let’s chat:

Two Brand New Topics i was asked to share on in the last week were these:

[1] People dissing/hating on South Africa – i guess this might be those still there who are always whining about the place or else those who have fled the country and are constantly breaking it down from outside. So i guess i would be looking at someone who has something to say to those people and maybe thinks differently…

[2] The second topic i was asked to share about was Sexual Abuse, which i am going to put on hold at the moment, simply because it is such a sensitive topic and i need to figure out the best way to deal with and share a topic of such a nature so as to make sure it is handled in the best possible way. So i think i need to put a pause on that for now. This is definitely something i would like to see addressed in some way and maybe i have an older friend who i know well and trust who has a post they can write on it rather than treating it as another Taboo Topic… so let me think about that one and get back to you… if anyone has good links to sites where people have shared stories like this well in the meantime it would be helpful if you could provide a link in the comments section. Thank you.

So if you have a story to share that is prompted by anything you have read in this post so far, drop me an email at brettfish@hotmail.com and let me know what you’re thinking and i can give you some tips on how your share might be shaped and we can take it from there. [i cannot guarantee that i will share it – this is my blog and i always have final say on what i choose to post, but i have rarely said no to anyone and so the chances are good].

Don’t nominate someone else’s story, but if you know someone who has a story that fits well into any of the topics we have run and you think they might be up to sharing it, then please have a conversation with them and if they are up to it get them to contact me directly.

i trust and hope this continued conversation will both encourage those who are struggling in silence and also just help us overall to feel more comfortable in talking about rarely spoken of things…

also if you see a topic that you know relates to someone you know but are struggling to figure out how to share it with them directly, why not SHARE the topic link on your facebook or twitterer page and give them the option of choosing to view it or not? Or else if EVERYONE who reads this can share the Taboo Topics intro link:

https://brettfish.wordpress.com/taboo-topics-contents-page

There are bound to be many people you know who would benefit from some of the stories here…

[To see the Taboo Topics that have already been covered, click here]

Taboo Topics: Adoption – Meet Mariska de Beer

Well, as a first time blogger I’m not really sure where to start and what to write.  I cannot say that I am really good with words, but this I know….I do not want to keep quiet about this and if writing gives me an opportunity to be heard then I’m grabbing hold of this with everything I’ve got.

I’ve always known that I will adopt children one day…not sure why – I guess it is just something God deposited in me when He formed me.  It also just made sense to me as God is very clear in His Word that we (everybody that believes in Him) should take care of the orphans and the widows.  So I guess for me taking care of them meant adopting and not just silently praying that hopefully God You will send somebody to do it!  I thought that I would get married, have a child of my own and then adopt as many as we possibly can!  I turned 40 this year and have up to date not met my husband….so last year (being 39 then) it was just suddenly in April while visiting and exploring the Transkei that I felt God telling me to “go for it”.  I went back to Stellenbosch knowing that I had to start the process of adopting…  Now, I’ve had no “baby training”, I had no idea of what I’m in for, but I was so excited because I knew I was walking in what God wanted me to do.

Actually I need to backtrack a bit for you to grasp the whole picture of how amazing this is!  I had the privilege to visit Israel in 2012.  While walking through Hiskia’s tunnel in the City of David I knew this was a significant moment…. God is going to at some stage ask me to walk in faith where I just need to listen to Him and trust that the person walking from the other side will also listen to Him so that we can connect (just like to 2 teams digging in the tunnel had to listen to one another so that they could connect).

Okay, so I’ll keep this short.  When I went for my first interview, mostly an info session at the adoption agency I was driving back and I just knew, I knew that this was a given…and I knew that this will not be a long process (people told me you wait up to a year for a child to be matched with you), I also knew that my son had already been born.  Again….just stuff God deposited into my Spirit.  This excited me so much, I could not wait to get the process going and I prayed for my son (whom I called Willempie at that stage) so much, our whole church prayed for him….we did not know who he was, where he was, but we knew he was my son and that was amazing!  I’m not sure how you feel when you are pregnant, but what I felt during these months I cannot in words describe to anybody!

I went through the process with the adoption agency and they were fantastic, at times it was nerve wrecking as they have to say you are okay or not okay to be a mother…. For me, the most mind blowing thing was that God okayed me….He was thinking “Mariska you are okay to be a mother to one of my precious children”.  I knew Willempie was taken care of, I got the picture of God selecting him specifically from all the babies and giving him to one of His biggest most handsome angels and told the angel to just walk where He instructs him to walk…..he will connect with me, His mother at the time God already knew!  This gave me so much peace!  I knew I also just had to keep listening to God, and then I will connect with Willempie!

Middle October my screening was finished and a few hours after that I got the phone call I thought I would have to wait for….. “Mariska we are sure we have your son, he is ready for placement on the 3 Oct”.  Now again….to try and explain what went through my heart and mind is impossible…  I could go in, in a weeks time to look at his profile and get a picture of him.  I asked God to if possible let Willempie’s birthday be significant.  When I asked when he was born the date was a day apart from my brothers date where God called him home….I knew then and I will never doubt that he is my son, the one God choose before time even to be my son!  I will never doubt that!

So, the next 2 weeks after that was chaos as I was only home for 3 days to prepare for him coming home!  I still wanted to go for some baby training, but no time for that, haha!

The day we went to fetch him was amazing!  All I cared about is to be able to hold him for the first time, and secretly I thought “please don’t cry, I’m not sure what to do yet”.  He was amazing, and it was love at first sight, and I know that we had a bond already as I’ve prayed for him so much!

It’s now been almost 8 months later and I will on a weekly basis keep writing more about things we’ve experienced and went through during this time.  It’s been an amazing journey so far, my saving grace continuous to be that I know I am doing what God called me to do and that He is with us.  Being a single mom has its challenges, but I’m loving and embracing each one of them.  I love my son whose name is now Walter – His name is Willem Walter de Beer.  Walter meaning “commander of the army” and Willem meaning “protector”, both very strong family names from both sides of my family.

My heart goes out to all the other babies out there who do not have families taking them in as their own, and in my mind I cannot understand how it can be that in the whole of SA there are not enough families and people willing to stand up and just “go for it”!  How can it be that the church are not seeing that the need is enormous and that we need to step up and do what God is telling us in His Word to do?  Why is it that we are still looking at color as an excuse, how is it that we got to this stage where we are still allowing satan to influence us by playing the color card?  I’ve had many comments mostly from people that do not know me….as a white single mom adopting a black baby….I seriously do not get it and it makes me so angry, at times angry at the church as it seems to me they are conveniently overlooking this part in God’s Word where He instructs us to take care of the orphans and widows.  I’m not saying we should all adopt, I’m just saying we should all pray and ask God how He wants us and as a church to be involved in the care of these children of His.

I do not see Walter as my black son, He is my son and if people see color and raise their eyebrows I have to just stand still for a moment….then make the choice to not be rude and use the opportunity as a teaching moment.  But it is so sad for me!  I cannot imagine how sad and angry God must be!  I wish I could take more kids in.  I cannot come to terms with the thoughts of babies and children out there not having anybody to love them and to provide in their basic needs.

That all for now, I  would love to hear from you.  I know we need to do something to wake the church and people loving God up to see the need and to help us to do something about it!

[For more stories on Adoption, click here]

God of the impossible

Can two contrasting answers to a one answer question both be right?

At church yesterday an Indian guy called Peter shared his testimony of how he was adopted by American parents after his father had had to put him and his brother up for adoption after his mother died [two of the six children were put up for adoption as the father thought they would get a better life that way].

Before that his American parents-to-be had already had four children of their own, and due to medical reasons could not have any more, but the mom believed that she had two more children. But she wanted the dad to come to the same decision. One night he went to a church meeting that she was supposed to go to in which a missionary from India spoke and he came home and announced to his wife that he thought they had the capacity for two more children. So they started the process of investigation.

During that time two different sets of people were praying for them and believed God told them the ages of their children. The one couple told them their children would be 6 and 8 years old and the second couple told them they would be 11 and 13 years old. [Now this is going to be a tough one for God to make happen, right? Wrong.] Peter and his brother were 6 and 8 years old when their American parents met them for the first time… and they were 11 and 13 when they arrived in Americaland to be joined to their new family.

DOES THAT NOT BLOW YOU AWAY? It really should. The ‘nah, coincidence’ people are going to have a tough time with that one. And it would have been great to be able to hear the parent’s account of the story because before you know the end to it, you hear the different ages and your initial thought is, ‘Hm, i wonder which one got it wrong.’ But no, God is faithful and it is stories like this which just help prove it. We serve the God of the absolutely impossible.

This reminds me of an ex convict marching up to a national leader and declaring to him, “Let my people go!” Or a nation marching around a city seven times and blowing some musical instruments and shouting and seeing the walls collapse on the city. It reminds me of a shepherd boy with a catty and five little stones facing down a giant of a military man or another little kid with a severely reduced army taking on an army, described as many as the grains of sand on a beach,  with 300 people armed with torches and trumpets.

And so on… and it is not the miracle that is as attractive as the love and power of an involved God that it points towards. Something about trusting in the Lord, with all of our hearts, and leaning not on our own understanding. In all our ways acknowledging Him and watching as He makes our paths straight. [paraphrase of Proverbs 3.5-6]

Taboo Topics: Infertility – meet Melanie and Willem

Answering the ‘baby’ question

The way I work through things is different to how many others do. I experience something, think and pray about it and when I feel that I’ve heard God about something, I write about it. Sharing what God has taught me in challenging situations is like the ‘acceptance’ phase of grief. This blog post has been several months in the making and tells the story of something that we have battled with in 2012. But in the end, there is great hope.
A strange thing happened after Willem and I got married. Babies started to act differently around us. They’d giggle and smile at us and coo adorably. We would never hear loud wailing or witness tantrums, only sweet parenting moments like a mother and baby giggling together or a father taking his daughter out for a stroll in her pram.

It was like a conspiracy – these babies sensing our newly-married-ness and using cuteness propaganda to convince us that we wanted one too. They’d look at us with an expression saying, “Have one of us, one of us.”

Then, the family and friends joined in by asking us questions like, “So when are you going to have children?” When you start dating everyone questions you about when you are going to get married and as soon as you get the wedding band, the baby question comes up. It’s like people are constantly pushing you into the next life stage. They have good intentions, but sometimes they aren’t aware of the pressure that places on people.
Willem and I have been married for five years. We have our own place, secure jobs and a steady income. He’s in his early thirties and I’m in my late twenties. This makes us prime candidates for the ‘baby’ question. I have even had a friend tell me that my biological clock is ticking so we should hurry up! So, why haven’t we started a family yet?

We can’t.

That’s the simple answer, but the journey to this answer has been anything but simple. It started over two years ago when Willem and I decided that we were ready to start a family. We were emotionally, financially and spiritually ready to enter the next life stage – parenthood.

Almost immediately, life became all about schedule and watching the calendar. We changed our diet and tried to get healthier. Life became about sacrificing anything that could get in the way of us having healthy children. I even refused to take any medication that wasn’t safe for pregnant women in case I was pregnant. I made mental lists of pregnancy symptoms and every hint of nausea became a sign.

It was an emotional time of negative pregnancy tests and anxious prayers. It was so difficult to be disappointed every month. During this time of heightened health awareness, Willem discovered a lump in his testicle. It was malignant – he had testicular cancer.

He had surgery to have the lump removed. Thankfully, they managed to remove all the cancer but he went for radiation treatment as a precautionary measure. It was the most difficult experience that we had been through as a couple (you can read about how we got through this time by reading my blog post ‘The One you can cling to.’)

Willem’s treatment finished and all his blood work came back clear. Earlier this year we had a scare, but, praise God, the cells they were concerned about were benign. We felt comforted by the fact that the cancer was gone, and that the treatment wouldn’t have affected our ability to have children.
But still, I was not falling pregnant. In our desperation, we decided to get professional help. We visited my gynaecologist and Willem’s urologist and went for several tests. Willem also went for a biopsy. In a two week period it was discovered that Willem’s body does not produce sperm cells and that our chances of having a baby are very close to none. The only possibility we have of conceiving is a very expensive and invasive surgery with a very slight chance of being successful.

It’s difficult to describe how I’ve felt since getting the news. I’ve gone from feeling devastated because I’ve always had the desire to be a mom, to feeling guilty for not being strong enough for my husband whose own sense of loss was magnified by my sadness. I’ve had mornings when I just wanted to stay in bed and cry.

I have learnt that I am not strong enough to deal with difficult times but that God is the one who is strong and I’ve needed to draw on His strength daily.

Our friends, colleagues and family have been so amazingly supportive. Our church family has been so wonderful with their prayers and encouragement. The first place we went to after we got the bad news was church where our pastor’s wife prayed for us. It was just what we needed – to stay God-focused during such a painful time.

I’ve had people tell me not to give up, that it’s God’s will for us to have children. Others have encouraged us to adopt. It’s been tough to really figure out what to do. I really felt strongly that God wanted us to have children and I’ve had prophetic words from others backing that up. I started to question whether I heard from God or if it was just my voice, or whether He meant that one day we would adopt and that’s how we’d become parents.
I’ve had to let go of the schedule, ignore the calendar. It may seem strange to find this difficult. For two years I had made trying to have a baby a huge priority. I’ve had to let go – and it’s been hard. I’ve learnt that it gave me a sense of control and being able to have this control made me feel more secure.

The truth is that we can’t control this situation. There’s nothing we can do to fall pregnant. This is out of our hands now. It’s been very frustrating…but also freeing in a way. We have to take a step back, there’s nothing we can do. We can only leave it up to God. After months of pain, I feel at peace with this. I feel secure in trusting God with this matter.

There are times when I do get emotional about the situation and all the pain floods back, but I then run to Him for comfort. My focus is on entering into His rest – a place where I don’t forget His promises amidst the negative situation I’m in. He has promised to give me life, and life to the full (John 10:10.) He has promised to prosper me and give me hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11.) Whether these plans include us becoming parents, or not – they are perfect.

So, if someone asks me when we are going to start a family, I will say, “I don’t know.” I don’t know if we will conceive naturally of if we’ll adopt. I don’t know if it’ll happen next year or when we’re in our forties. All I do know is that I trust in a God of the impossible, in a God whose timing is perfect.

It’s all in His hands now. And I’m finally okay with it.

I’d really like to thank my dear friends who have been on this journey with us- friends who I have confided in from the beginning; friends who comforted me when I’ve struggled or had moments of weakness in the marking room, who have asked me if I was okay when I needed to vent. Thank you for your support and prayers, thank you for your understanding and patience. You are amazing blessings.

[to connect with Melanie or follow her and her writing, you can visit her blog here]

Taboo Topics: Contents Page

Taboo Topics is a series dedicated to sharing stories from real live people [mostly who i know] on real life issues, situations or experiences that are seldom spoken about for various reasons. So far the topics that have been addressed [with links to all the stories] are the following:

Abortion

Adoption

Eating Disorders

Infertility

Losing a Baby

Pornography and Masturbation

Singleness

I hope these will be of encouragement to you and to friends and family who you know who have been through similar things – please feel free to share the stories or send links to people who you think might appreciate them.

love brett “fish” [brettfish@hotmail.com]

remembering the unique within the deluge…

i said to my beautiful wife Valerie the other day something along the lines of ‘what do people write statuses [stati?] about on Facebook if they are not entering into a relationship or having a baby? [or these days in americaland making some kind of staunchly pro this party or anti that one political statement] as it just seemed like the majority of statuses [stati?] i was reading were about one of those…

and two things come out of that, the one for those of you who are not the ones celebrating is this:

it is easy to get caught up in the fact that in the last week you have witnessed thirteen new relationships, seven new engagements, two weddings and heard that four of your friends have announced their pregnancy, an adoption came through and two other friends had a baby just from reading statuses [stati?] on Facebook…

it can begin to feel like a deluge and “aw no, not another one” can quickly become the response and the temptation to write some less than authentic comment on the latest pic can be strong…

but it is important to remember that for each individual involved it is not “another one”, it is their one. it is important and significant and it is beautiful and worth celebrating and it is special and life-changing [at least for today but probably for the rest of their lives] and that as much as it might feel like a deluge for you, the witness, for them it is unique… and has to be treated that way.

[which may be extremely tough if you are the person who has just broken up with your significant other, or been broken upped upon, or not been able to fall pregnant, or lost a child]

and so the call to get your mind into that place of realising that each announcement or declaration or celebration that happens on the social networks you are a part of, means something significant to the people posting/sharing it and to not simply treat it [even in your mind] as “aw, another one” but to try and celebrate with your friends and let them grasp the fullness of the uniquity of their occasion.

i think a great way of doing that is by stepping beyond the social network – making a phone call or taking them out for some caffeine-enriched beverage or inviting them round for a meal or something live where you can face to face [or mouth to ear] let them know that their thing is a big deal… and you choose to celebrate with them.

thoughts?

to make sure you are aware of the deluge in your unique, read this