It's All Over

It All Over— it is a sad title to start any blog or story isn’t it? On a whole we don’t like sad things, they make us feel uncomfortable, spoil our day generally putting a dampener on all around us.

But be that as it may be Christmas is all over for another year. Was that a sigh of relief I heard? I think if we all were to answer honestly we would say that Christmas is probably one of the most stressful times of the year.

Please don’t misunderstand me here. Capt. Corsair and I and the two spitfires had a lovely time; for the first time since the boys were born we spent Christmas Day together at the farm— by ourselves, no rellies. It was awesome! Not that we are against family Christmas gatherings however they are tiring and this Christmas we enjoyed our own company.Sometimes I think we need to take time out and enjoy our family without the fuss and fooster of a celebratory Christmas dinner complete with hot lunch and the inevitable hot tempers as well.Our Lord told us to “ Be quiet and know that I am lord” Amongst the media push to spend spend and spend again, our minds are full of thoughts of have we got the right gift for everyone and did I get enough food?We forget the real reason we celebrate Christmas anyway. We don’t have time to think of it. The presents to be got and wrapped, cooking to be done places to go, people to see— when all our bodies want is to STOP and chill out. 

Try it one year, everything seems to come easier. I am not saying problems don’t happen— they do, but it seems that you are able to handle them better, without the frustration. I wish I had learnt this secret sooner!!

The Eye of the Storm

Yesterday afternoon Captain Corsair and JB and I experienced our own personal storm. We knew things weren’t going to be good when the weight of the storm turned around and came back on the farm from the south. Never a good thing! Rolls of loud resounding thunder rumbled round us followed in turn by the ear-splitting crack of lightning that sounded as if it was in the next room. OK, by this time we had battened down all hatches that can be in an eighty year old farm house and waited for the onslaught. Outside in the paddocks stood our summer crop of sorghum and corn. Tiny little plants just beginning to flourish. And to the south- an ominously green sky was bearing down on us.

A disaster of any proportion in devastating. I have lived on this farm for twenty two years now, and I had never seen crops stripped as these were. Golf ball sized jagged hail stones don’t mess about. Oh, it was all over in fifteen minutes, but it caused the same heartache as the twenty year drought before it had. A years salary and weeks of blood sweat and tears torn to shreds. It made me think of the various disasters that have happened over that last few years, of the losses that people have suffered and will continue to suffer. We lost only a season’s crop, but for those who lost a home or family member the devastation must be as a searing pain, one that can’t be fixed by replanting a crop. As hard as the lesson is to take, I believe that we don’t really understand the lose of others until we experience loss ourselves.