Happiness (and it involves pigeons).....

I am happy. Not because i am no longer going to work due to my glorious maternity leave, nor because i have two gorgeous daughters whom i smile with love at the thought of. No. Its because just lately i have started to glimpses the beginnings of achieving some of my life long goals.

These are perhaps not your typical bucket list achievements, what to do before you are 40 etc, but they are what i really want to achieve: 1) to run a welcoming home and 2) to help the pigeons.

Ok the pigeon one might seem funny, but along with my love of massive trainers with big tongues, God has given me a love of pigeons (in the bible it says that God created us carefully in the womb, although its easy to see this as a babies organs develop, he also is choosing our character/predisposition to certain things, one of mine is pigeon loving). So i have been encouraging Starbucks to feed the birds that arrive in our garden, and we now have some regular pigeon type visitors. My favorite is the one with only one foot, as i feel especially guilty about the fact that human kind probably contributed to this (this is odd as i dont care as much about the suffering we inflict on pets). One-foot even started to fly into our windows to get our attention to feed her. I really like that we have now established ourselves as a place that these birds can come to feed, a little haven in the middle of a tarmac-ed plain. Somewhere to get easy food on a cold winters day in London. To me this is an achievement, and one i'm proud of. Odd? oh well.

The second is to run the sort of home where stray teenagers feel welcome. Having always beenthe kid   with nowhere to be as a teenager, I really want to correct this by welcoming others. The sort of place where my friends kids can come, and still feel welcome once my kids have tired if their presence and left them alone in the lounge. I love teenagers, but the welcome extends to all.

Since the addition of Cookie to our family, our house has seemed much warmer. Perhaps as I am now out numbered. People come, get more involved with my kids and then get wrapped up in family life and forget to leave. It's a loving nurturing oasis, again, in a cold harsh city. I love that recently a couple of people have said that they didn't want to leave our house and spent ages cuddling Cookie. If cuddling a small cute baby for an hour doesn't send you back out into the world a happier, better person, I don't know what will.

Loving daddy

Starbucks and I are sitting at the dinner table sharing a yogurt while Xss paces the floor trying.  To get Cookie to sleep.

Me: 'Starbucks, what was your favourite thing we did today? Was it our trip to the dentist? When Bobby came over to play? Lunch at the cafe? When we made biscuits? Playing play-doh?'
Starbucks: 'when daddy came home'

This is how we know what love is- Perhaps what i should have told Lovely.

My starting point for understanding the principle of Christianity is this story:

 Imagine a pedestrian crossing your local residential road, tree lined street, houses everywhere, steps out in front of a car. It's an inevitable fatality but a middle aged man on the pavement sees. He takes decisive action, darts out from between two parked cars and shoves the pedestrian firmly to the side (and safety) but has no time to move his feet and save himself. He turns to face the oncoming driver  calmly accepting his fate and dies.

Now imagine that the pedestrian is a teenager, dressed in gang colours and darts in front of the car as he is running away from a mugging with an old woman's hand bag. The man does exactly the same thing. Perhaps he doesn't know what this lad has done? Say the pedestrian Is a girl, she's shouting on her phone while crossing the road, she sees the man looking at her and shouts out, 'what you looking at you Fucking Paedo?' He saves her from the car and dies.

Lastly, imagine the man knew all about the pedestrian. Perhaps he's psychic or something, a time traveler bespoke to their life. When the pedestrian goes to cross the road he knows all the bad things he has already done, he knows the hatred and racism in his heart, he knows what he will do with his life -nothing, and he knows that immediately after he dies saving his life today the pedestrian will accuse him of being the most evil person he's ever met, calling him 'fame-hungry' and 'disingenuine'. The pedestrian will claim that he managed to save himself from the cars path (but can't explain why this man is lying dead on the road), and nobody cares thanks to his carry on. Knowing all this, the man still steps in the road to save him and face certain death.

The man is Jesus. The pedestrians us. Imagine starting your life knowing that someone loves you so much that they died for you. Even if you never acknowledge it, even if you never become the best person you can, even if you never manage to have a career, or cheat on every partner you have. Even if you have a life time of stories that could get you on the Jeremy Kyle show.

How would you feel if somebody died for you? Knowing you intimately, bad bits and all. He did it, and loves you despite whatever reaction you give.

One of my favourite verses in the bible is Romans 5:7-8.
'7 It is a difficult thing for someone to die for a righteous person. It may even be that someone might dare to die for a good person. 8 But God has shown us how much he loves us - it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us'

In anticipation of our reaction to this news, the bible also challenges us to, 'Be still and know that I am God' (Psalm 46:10). Accept the above and know that many things in life are inevitable, you cannot change them, you cannot change God loving you, or the person he made you, so go with the flow rather than fight your way through on your own.