Floppy Doll

Man, it’s all happening. Life is never dull around here, ‘specially at the moment.

We are in a season of visas and travels plans, extra lessons and exams for the older children and nightmares, bed wetting and teething pain for the younger ones. The days require action and the nights are interrupted. Everywhere I turn there is a conversation to have, a message to send, an appointment to make or an email to check. In it all, the washing machine faithfully churns out washed and spun clothes day in and day out and the meals get bought, prepared and eaten in predictable patterns. The children, cats and dogs never stop rushing in and out and are constantly making new plans (the children, not the cats and dogs) because their schedules are, clearly, not looking as full as mine.

I would be quite happy to lie on a picnic blanket outside and watch tiny creatures scuttling about in the grass.

It’s just a season and I’m trying to be organised and prepared but often things do not go according to plan. I am not sure who said it, but someone said, “Interruptions are not ruining my life, they are my life,” and I have never forgotten that. Unexpected occurrences are not pulling me away from the plan, they are allowing the plan to unfold. God works everything out for our good (Romans 8 v 28) and that’s especially comforting when ‘everything’ includes hardship, the unforeseen, disappointments and trials.

In the midst of this crazy season I have realised something, though: I am living the dream!

When I was a little girl, I just wanted to be a mother. It was and is my main ambition. I kept all my dolls on a shelving unit above my bed. Those dolls were my pride and joy and when I wasn’t at school, I was attending to their needs. I had some beautiful dolls but the first one I ever got, a hand me down from my own mother, carried the most weight for me. She was ugly as anything because she had been loved for a long time, and when human beings get loved for a long time they get more and more beautiful, but when dolls get loved for a long time they fall apart. She had a head full of little holes where there had once been hair and her eyelids got stuck from time to time, but her face was sweet and her body was just the right softness and oh, how I loved her. I didn’t ever name her, she was just Floppy Doll.

Floppy Doll went on to be played with by some of my own children until she was very tired indeed, and in a moment of strength I eventually let her go during a necessary tidy out. I had to tell myself, “She is just a doll.” It was a healthy letting go (we cannot let possessions turn into idols or shrines) but it was painful. See, she wasn’t just a doll to me, she was something like faith. She was a sort of forerunner of all that was to come; kind of like a promise before the breath gets blown into it and it comes alive. She was the substance of what I hoped for: a child, children, a big, old, busy, interrupted home full to the brim with love.

It’s a full season requiring hard work and a, “I am weary, God, but I can prevail” (Proverbs 30 v 1) attitude. This evening, the sky didn’t know that and it blushed translucent pink all over the land; a gesture of goodwill for anyone who would stop and take notice. As if that wasn’t enough, a gleaming slither of moon floated up like a heartfelt smile, a great star beneath it like a dimple on a chin.

It’s not all perfect and the days can be tough, but I’m living my best life. From Floppy Doll and my world of make believe to a brood of magnificent children in a world that’s for reals, I’ll take the whole package; the highs, lows and all the in-betweens.