You're Beautiful

"I see your face in every sunrise

The colours of the morning are inside your eyes

The world awakes in the light of the day

I look up to the sky and say

You're beautiful"

Singing these words over in church this morning, I wondered if I really knew what they meant. Struck by just how difficult it was for my tiny mind to comprehend just how beautiful He is. How I just had no idea.  And then words from years ago echoed in my head. A wise and wonderful preacher I once knew who said "If you don't think you love God enough, then really, you don't know how much God loves you".

And then flashback. It's the early hours of the morning. I'm standing at the operating table in bright theatre lights. It's been a long night. This woman is one of many I've got to know over the last nine hours or so. We've been in and out of her room on labour ward all night. Things have moved slowly, there have been concerns about the baby, and we've ended up here, doing a C-section. Her partner has been with her all the while. He sits by her head, just behind the screen, but I can just see him in my peripheral vision. Silent, grey-faced, worried-looking. Concerned at her pain, perhaps more concerned about what will happen to her ultimately, what will happen to their baby. He hasn't been the type to ask a lot of questions. He looks more worried now, uncomfortable in theatre scrubs. I doubt he finds any reassurance from us, unrecognisable scrubbed for theatre, masked and gowned. He waits.

I do my job and think nothing of it. As I step back from the table at the end of the operation, he has just been passed his baby.

His face is changed. The colour has come back. The lines of worry are smoothed, lifted to lines of joy. I barely recognise him. The happiness as he looks down at his newest child. The beeping machines of theatre, the bright lights, all of this has faded away. This is not his first baby, but in that moment, he can see no other person. No other being can compare to the beauty he sees before him. And his face says all that.

That's when it strikes me that this is how God sees each one of us.
"Look at you, my child. You are so beautiful."
And his fatherly face filled with love and kindness.

We can focus on our worries, our uncertainty... Even our uncertainty about whether we love God enough, or whether we understand His true beauty. Or we can turn away, turn into his face and listen to him tell us, "You're beautiful".

Promised Land

Israel. The word conjures memories. Hammocks swaying in the warm air of lemon-groved gardens. Gazing up at the stars in the black sky. Grown-ups laughing round the table; drinking wine, eating. Sunsets on the beach. Swimming in the sea, splashing in the pool. Kind faces. Friends. But then. An undertone of fear. Bomb-shelters in basements. The numbers I noticed on the arm of an elderly friend. Explosions heard from the same poolside. "Planes breaking the sound barrier," I was told.

Growing up, Israel was present. In our conversation. In our art. In our bookshelves. In our food. In our family holidays. My family are not Jewish. Not by bloodline, anyway. My step-father, attracted by the concept of communal living, spent time post-university living and working on a kibbutz in the north of the country.  And in the long-running 'conflict' with the Palestinians, there was no hiding the fact that the sympathy of my parents lay with the Israelis; friends who lived in fear of their teenage children boarding buses and being the next victims of a suicide bomber.

But now, years later I see Gaza. Fear-stricken-faces running through rubble. Bodies of children stretched out on hospital trolleys, tortured eyes, broken limbs, bullet holes. Head-scarved old women, covering their eyes. Wailing. Brothers and Uncles, angry. Fists punching air. My heart pounds and my stomach twists and turns. Two hospitals hit by Israeli fire in two weeks. Families killed sheltering in UN buildings.

I was 21 years old, on the other side of the world when I met A. Palestinian born and raised, but he looked like he could have been my brother. Same pale skin, freckles, slightly red-toned hair. Immediately the conversation turned to this homeland. His manner was mild, gentle and kind. But he spoke with conviction and his tone was firm. Looking back, the patience he had with my utter ignorance of the plight of his people astounds me.

 He spoke to me of his grandparents, dispossessed of their land after World War II. He told me about his life, a medical student in East Jerusalem. The struggles getting to and from University via unpredictable road blocks. He told me about The Wall. About Palestinians trying to reach medical facilities dying whilst Israeli soldiers looked on. About Israeli soldiers throwing grenades at Palestinian children on their way to school. About what he lacked growing up as a refugee.

I was no longer able to defend the actions of the country I loved. But I continued to love its people. And part of love is to let the other party know when you know they are wrong.

So I have often found myself on the pro-Palestinian side of the lines during violent uprisings and incursions. And I did yesterday. I won't agree with everything the protesters chant. But I will stand up for the weakest in the face of a stronger aggressor. My son, aged 4, asked why we were going. I explained to him frankly that in a country quite far away, there were people who were hurting each other. That lots of children were getting hurt. I explained that God loved all these people, and that we loved them too. We were going to ask them to stop the fighting. But I let him draw Palestinian flags and buy himself a 'Free Palestine' badge.



Arriving at Piccadilly Gardens, I was impressed by the diverse turnout. Especially with the presence of Jews For Justice For Palestinians. The rhetoric from the microphone was peaceful. We were to demonstrate without violence, without hatred, without antisemitism, without racism.  We were to let businesses investing in Israel know that we would be boycotting them whilst this action against Gaza continued. After about an hour and a half, my family broke away from our side of the protest. Manchester was sending it's best downpour. My husband had no jacket. The baby had woken up and was not pleased about being strapped into a pushchair. We left the protest as it snaked from Barclays to Marks and Spencers.



Suddenly, we turned a corner and were face to face with blue and white, Stars of David. We were outside Kedem, an Israeli-owned business selling goods from the Dead Sea. I'd heard tales from the pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathering there daily to encourage shoppers to boycott. Pro-Israeli protesters gathered to oppose them, cheering as the names of dead Palestinian children killed int he military action that week were read aloud.  My Muslim friend had racist abuse yelled at her as she stood peacefully and silently holding signs outside the shop. This was not somewhere I wanted to be with a small boy waving his hand-crayoned Palestinian flag. We hurried through. I noted a policewoman in her uniform embracing a man wrapped in the Israeli flag.

We stood on the other side of the road, watching. Bitterness, anger, hate afflicted their faces. My son asked what they were shouting. I was at a loss.  It had seemed easier when I hadn't had two opposing sides to explain. He kept asking as I gazed at the 4-5 pro-Palestinian protesters being swallowed by the sea of white and blue. Their banner had shown a  premature baby on a ventilator who had been delivered from a dead mother, killed in the fighting. She disappeared. I shuddered to think what would happen here later when the black, red and green arrived. I wondered what hope there was for peace where the bombs fell, when we so far removed from the violence could not even speak kindly, act peacefully.

Some men held banners proclaiming their reason for supporting Israel today was their Christianity.

I wondered. Where would Jesus stand today? I know he wouldn't be muttering about 'complex issues' and changing the subject. I know He wouldn't be rolling into Gaza on a tank. I know He wouldn't be firing rockets into Israel for Hamas.

He of immeasurable love and justice, where would He be found? I imagine Him standing in the middle, between these two groups. I imagine He would see straight to the fear, the insecurity, the generations of hurt on each side. I imagine Him open his arms to Muslim, Jew, Christian, saddened by the disrespect and hatred expressed one for the other.

The Name for God

'Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of little children'
- William Thackery

Mothering Sunday. Pink everywhere. Florists breaking their traditional working hours to trade on a Sunday. On the streets unkempt men walk quickly having 'just popped out for something', clutching paper and plastic-wrapped carnations in one hand and a pint of milk in the other. Restaurants have papered over their usual Sunday offers, knowing they won't need to sweeten the deal to haul the customers in today. Mothers of young children unwrap delicate parcels to find painted pasta necklaces and hand-printed cards. Dads everywhere breathe a sigh of relief that preschool teachers had the forethought they lacked.

This is the day we celebrate motherhood. We celebrate it because we recognize the sacrifice that it entails. Or we think we do. Before I was a mother myself I knew that there was something mysterious about  motherhood, that I didn't quite grasp. Then I became a mum, and now I know that there are things about being in this role that only other mothers can relate to.  The following are the three things I find most difficult about being a mum.

First of all there is the, sheer, utter, complete exhaustion. As a student I frequently stayed up til dawn debating, talking, joking with friends... sometimes night after night. Then I'd spend the whole of the next day awake. I was tired. But not like this. As a junior doctor I've done night-shift after night-shift responsible for all the medical or surgical patients in a large hospital, with sick patients and grumpy medical registrars. It was tiring. But not like this. When the sun rose, I  drove home, responsible for no one but myself, and could crawl under the duvet and sleep all day long in reasonable amounts of peace (barring the occasional knock from a postman with a parcel or a drill on the road outside). With a baby, the jolts from sleep are unrelenting. The somebody who needs you (and only you) is indifferent to the colour of the sky, the number of hours you have been on duty or the last time you ate. If you're lucky, you might get a nap in the daytime whilst the baby sleeps. If you're unlucky, the baby falls asleep, you rush round tidying, putting on washing, maybe preparing some dinner, then fall into bed hoping for sleep just as the baby's familiar tones drift across the baby monitor, pulling you to your feet again. If you have an older child, your chances of sleep in the day are slim to none. You might as well just forget it and slug down the coffee. Gradually, thinking and dreaming about sleep becomes boring.  You resign yourself to achieving fewer and fewer hours of the mythical stuff. You stop talking about it, and just laugh hollowly when asked about it.

Then there is the extreme lack of alone time. Not even when you want to use the bathroom. If you shut the door when you're on the loo, somebody is soon shouting for you from downstairs. Or has clocked where you've gone to, and started asking you questions through the door. Currently my younger child will not tolerate being separated from me for the time it takes for a quick trip to the loo. Thus, I rarely get through an entire wee without having to stop (very good for the pelvic floor) and rescue my crawler from the shower tray, trapping her finger in the bathroom cupboards or bumping her face off the bath as she pulls to stand. When people ask me how I'm getting on back at work, how am I managing four full days a week in a busy A&E department and having two wee ones at home, I often smile and say that I appreciate that I at least get to go to the loo on my own at work. And that I get to finish an entire cup of (still hot) tea during my breaks. And if I can't perform normal bodily functions alone, the chances that I can do much else alone are totally scuppered.

A third problem that is particularly true for mothers who breastfeed is the claustrophobic feeling that your body is no longer your own. Your time, your patience and your multi-tasking skills are being tested to the limit, but if that weren't enough, these little people even want your very physical being. It starts before they're born. I enjoyed my first pregnancy immensely, but even then there was the feeling that my body had been hijacked by a tiny human holding court somewhere deep inside. By the end of my second pregnancy, suffering from antenatal depression and a variety of seemingly trivial, but utterly agonising pregnancy-related physical complaints, I looked forward to nothing more than my abdomen and pelvis being vacated. And this despite the fact that this time I knew what to expect from labour (ie not the candles, birth pools and massage oils I'd dreamed up during my first pregnancy). Then they're out. Breastfeeding is beautiful. I can hand on heart say that it saved my bond with my first child during the long months of post-natal depression I suffered after his birth. But it does mean (at least with my babies) that you have someone literally sucking the life out of you pretty much round the clock. I'm not kidding. I was trying to wash my hair in the bath the other day and my youngest latched on for a post-breakfast snack. Your body when you have young children is not only exhausted, but beaten and bruised from feeding them, carrying them around on your hip all day and sleeping awkwardly so that you don't disrupt their fragile sleep-wake balance.

I realise I am not making motherhood sound massively attractive. It's not glamorous. It's a massive sacrifice. I've struggled with this, and not gracefully. I love my children more than I could ever have imagined I would. I know how extremely blessed I am to have been able to conceive them and carry them. But I've been bitter, I've felt resentful of my husband and I've just felt that none of this sacrifice was very fair. At times this has led to streams of silent tears, or fits of rage and tantrums a toddler would be proud of.  At other times, I have silently got on with it, enjoyed the good days, accepted the bad and drunk an awful lot of coffee and the odd gin and tonic.

This weekend I had my perspective changed. I attended a wonderful day conference for Christian mums. I was privileged to be joined by some of my best friends. We were like children ourselves, practically giddy at the prospect of a day without kids or work. It felt wonderful to be in the presence of other people who knew my struggles. Who knew how hard it was to try my best to be a good and godly mum, and to feel like I fail at this an awful lot of the time. But best of all was the insight and truth brought by keynote speaker, Ness Wilson.  She described mothers as a 'perfect snapshot of God's perfect love'. I sniggered inside, hoping beyond hope that God loves better than I. But it went further. How we nurture and tend to our children builds a framework on which they will then be able to see and receive God's love. They will know the love of God and recognise it for what it is when they are first loved by a mother who will sacrifice all for them. And God knows about sacrifice. Did He not make the ultimate sacrifice for us in giving up His very own son, coming to earth in the form of a man and suffering torture and death in order that we might be restored to full righteousness? I know this, but maybe such a sacrifice is too big for my tiny brain to compute. How about Jesus and the Disciples? They were busy. Really busy. The bible tells us that the demands on their time were so great that they barely had time to eat and rest. Mothers can relate to that.

I regularly pay lip service to the idea of ‘giving my all’ for God. I sing it in church often enough. And I’ve always thought I meant it. When I think about it now, I think I meant that I would give my all for the things I felt God was calling me to, the things I am passionate about. Yes, I will give my all to fight global poverty, to bring healthcare to those who don’t have it, to stand up for refugees and asylum seekers to have no voice, to serve the homeless… Will I give my all for the little things? Will I put my all into helping my 3-year-old cellotape his toilet roll vehicle creations? Will I lay aside the work I’m doing on my laptop help him get the colour of his homemade playdough just right?

So when I get up for the third time in the night and stumble towards the crying voice of my baby girl, lift her from her cot and sit feeding her in the darkness of her room... The comfort and love I show to her then will help her know how God loves her, how he longs to tend to her every need and sound, how he will never ignore her cry in the dark. What a privilege.