The Elephant in the Bathroom! - A dose of Encouragement

Earlier this year I wrote about some hotel rooms and the various features or lack of features therein.

Today I'm writing about a hotel room again but from a completely different viewpoint.

Last month I wrote about various animals and the thoughts I had from our experiences with them and today I'm talking about another animal.

So what is this strange connection between a hotel room and an animal?

In the early part of February this year my husband Fred was away travelling with work and I had an appointment first thing in the morning in Belfast during a time of snowy weather so my son Daniel came down to Banbridge from Belfast and drove me up in the early evening the night before.

I could have driven up myself but I'm not a keen driver in any amount of snow after an incident many years ago when the children were young, and Daniel wanted to "take care of me" with his dad being away.

I had gone on the internet the day before and found a hotel which offered a good price and was near my appointment location even though I had never stayed there before.

So having arrived at the hotel and been greeted by a very pleasant girl on reception we booked a table in their restaurant to have a meal and headed up to leave my bag in the room.

That's when we saw the elephant in the bathroom.

In this day and age what is the first thing any of us do now when we see anything funny, interesting or just different from the norm?

Yes we take a picture!

So out comes the mobile phone and I'm snapping away with Daniel laughing and saying to me

 "I bet that will make it's way into your blog sometime"

Now at this point I want to include for the record that I was not the only one who had their mobile phone out clicking away at pictures!!!    Right Daniel!


And he doesn't even write a blog.


Okay so let's get back to today's animal.

Here it is

Isn't it cute?


Well you can guess what I thought about after taking a few pictures.


Yes   -   "I wonder how they did that?" 

and so then began another round of pictures as I took the elephant apart bit by bit to see how it had been made.

Then can you guess what I thought about after that?


The well known phrase

"The Elephant in the Room" 

referring to something that is there, that is not being spoken about, but everyone is conscious of that overhanging situation.


Well that could have fitted in with my situation that evening.

It could even have been thought that there was an "Elephant in the room" all the time for the previous 2 months as I had waited for this appointment to take place.


The appointment was at the Breast Clinic.


I was in that band of women who, having been checked out by their doctor, are referred to the clinic as not immediate (to be seen within two weeks) but should be seen within 6-8 weeks.

So basically the doctor is rather concerned but not sure that there is definitely something wrong there.

It had been at the start of December that I had seen the doctor and that meant I had to wait through Christmas and the New Year.

Fred & I have always been of the mindset that we pray about every situation and then try to leave it with God knowing that He knows best so that is what we did but that doesn't mean we didn't think about it often. and we did continue to pray about it during the time of waiting.

Our biggest concern was not to worry the kids (all grown up now with one 30 mins away from us and the other two living in two different countries) because that is what parents do; they try to protect their kids from things that may hurt them in any way.

However things did not go as planned and to cut a long story short I did end up telling one of the kids and then the other two had to be told as well.

So that was how I ended up being "taken care of" by my son on my appointment at the hospital.

Now God knows in advance what we are going to need.

And God plans in advance how He will meet that need.

Because 


God takes care of us.

If I had not told the kids then Daniel would not have known that there was an opportunity to help his mum.

If Daniel had not come to drive me to Belfast I would have had to drive myself and I would have dreaded that in the snowy weather.

If Daniel had not been with me the night before I would have been alone in Belfast and that would not have been as pleasant as an evening chatting and joking with my son over a lovely meal.

If Daniel had not been with me the morning of the appointment then I would have felt very lonely sitting on my own waiting in the hospital for the scan and mammogram and then the results.

If Daniel had not been with me after the appointment who would I have had to be thankful with that it was not cancer?

God had planned it all.

He planned that I would tell the kids because He had planned how He would show me His love and care for me through them.

God wants to take care of you.

There is no doubt about it.


God loves us.


God can meet our needs.


God wants to take care of us.

Are you facing a problem?     Do you have an "Elephant in the room"?

Talk to God about it and give it over to Him.

Then let God take care of you.

Let God take care of you.

Because

God wants to take care of you.

His Pyjamas on Another Bed! - A Dose of Encouragement

My husband Fred has been travelling more frequently with work in the last few months so a lot of our communication is via email, text messages, Kakaotalk, and Facetime.

I used to hate texting but now with three kids grown up and all living a distance from us I am well used to it even if my fingers seem to so often hit the buttons beside the ones I mean to hit so that I say things like  "I live yoi" instead of "I love you".

With our daughter Linda being in South Korea the rest of us were all introduced to Kakaotalk which is free messaging throughout the world provided you have wifi (Just like WhatsApp).

We message in groups of all of us and pairs of us and trios of us so we just decide who needs to be in the conversation and pick that group.

We can also send pictures and cute clipart things that Kakaotalk provide for us.

I love the sound of a message coming in - it actually goes "Kakao" in a little squeaky voice.


Then of course who couldn't like Facetime where I can prop the iPad up and sit and chat and make faces at the person at the other end of the call.  It is nice to see their faces when they are far away and we don't meet up for months on end.

So of course when Fred is away I am thankful that we can Facetime to have a proper chat but sometimes our time zones are different or when one of us is free the other one isn't so the Kakaotalk using comes into force then.

Well, being the type of people we are in this family there is usually something "random" that occurs or something we find funny or strange or just something that's different to normal and we have to send a picture or when on Facetime we wander round the house or room to show the other person something, angling the iPad as best we can.


This is exactly what happened the other day.


Fred is in Morocco at the moment (yet again) but this time he was in a different hotel to his previous trips.

This is what he showed me on facetime

Yes His Pyjamas on another bed!

Well you might say

 "What do you expect when he's travelling?"

My answer is

"Not him getting interested in some other woman setting his pyjamas out in a fancy way

 on the bed!"

He told me this was the second time it had been done and probably would have been the third but the day before he had thrown his pyjamas in his case so they didn't appear neatly presented on the bed that night.

Well we had a nice laugh about it.

And I said

"You should have taken a picture"

So he did then and there with the iPad.

THEN

This is the picture he sent me yesterday when he had moved to another location so another different hotel.

His comment was

"It must be a Moroccan thing"

"Not quite as fancy as Marrakech, but still!!"

Now let's go back to my thoughts from the first time.

I have to be honest and tell you that the woman responsible for that nice act was not the focus of my thoughts then.


The thing I was honing in on was

"He'd better not expect me to be placing his pyjamas on our bed neatly and artistically 

each day - or even once a week or once a year!"

We actually thought it was a lovely gesture that the cleaners would take the time to place the pyjamas not just folded on the bed but to arrange them neatly and with some thought put into it and in the first instance not only the pyjamas arranged so nicely but the covers on the bed presented differently too.

Obviously I am not as artistic or patient to take the time to do that.


But then later I thought about it again and

NO! I still did not think I was meant to start doing this for Fred

instead I considered this small act of kindness towards my husband and all the other people staying there on business trips

made by ladies who did not know them

ladies who were already busy

ladies working all day

but ladies who made people smile when they walked back into their rooms and saw that someone had just made that little bit of extra effort for them; and I was thankful for them.

"Obviously I am not as artistic or patient to take the time to do that!" she said.

So what kind of small things, that just take a little extra effort from us, can we do to make someone else feel more cared for?


Or what small things have others actually done for us that we can go around not noticing?

I encourage you today to think of some small things you can do each week just to take a little more care in something you normally do but that could just put a smile on someone's face or make them feel more appreciated.


I also encourage you today to notice these types of things when they are done for you and extend a smile and a word of thanks to show that you have appreciated the effort.