What I learn from my children Part 2

It is 3:30am in the morning and I have just finished giving Lilly her bottle. Miraculously both girls are fast asleep and so is my husband who went to bed at 01:00am after studying. I really am blessed with a hardworking, passionate, dedicated and loving husband who also happens to be a SUPER dad to the girls.

While all is quiet at TheVan residence I am wide awake as I fell asleep at 20:30pm while putting Lexie-Grace to bed. So 6 ½ hours’ sleep feels as if I have hit the jackpot. So rather lying in bed listening to Lilly’s breathing rhythm as she lie in her cot I decided to Blog. This is my quiet time for now.

I have been unexpectedly overwhelmed by the response of the few entries I put on my Blog. I have been inundated with emails from friends, acquaintances and strangers about how my truth and vulnerability has touched them. If you are reading this and have emailed me and I have not replied, please know that I will get back to you eventually.

I am pleasantly surprised that:
1. people actually read my Blog
2. it actually makes sense
3. my simplicity is helping people in their darkest hour.

I am extremely humbled by the response and all you need to know that this Blog isn’t intended for ratings but for my own reflection of events, situations and life in general.

The response has mainly been from ladies and I honestly believe that it’s because you can relate to the emotion and not necessarily the details. We live in a man’s world, and that is not a derogatory statement toward men, I don’t have issues with men and I am not planning to become the next leader for the Woman’s Liberation. What I mean when I say we live in a man’s world is; that as woman we try and be like men. We have been told by many men that we should watch our emotions and be careful that they don’t overtake our lives, or that we should get a grip on our feelings etc.

But why do that? As woman that is the essence as to what God created us with; a beautiful array of 10 million emotions that could all be experience in a split second. Our hypersensitivity to pick up what people are feeling without saying a word is a beautiful thing. I believe as woman we portray God’s gentler side to humanity and we don’t always have to be logic, organised and 100% together.
Our emotion gravitates us toward making our house a home, gravitates us to the displacement of the orphan and the vulnerable, our emotion gravitates us toward taking food to a person dying of HIV while no one is watching, our emotion GRAVITATES US TO OUR GOD!!!

I feel that in our day in age men are taught to apologise for their weaknesses and woman are taught to apologise for their strengths.

Now PLEASE I am not advocating running around your office or house crying all the time and screaming at everyone because you have bad PMS or hormone displacement, our emotions should be controlled by us and not the other way round. But they don’t need to be controlled in such a way that you actually become a man in your thinking and approach to situations and events.

It is highly evident that my support base for my blog would be that of woman because I can guarantee you if you are a guy and reading this right now you are thinking to yourself; “okay when is she going to lay down in bullet form what her exact 3 points are”. You see guys, woman don’t always have a point, all we want is for you to acknowledge our emotion and not make us feel bad for using the strength we have been created with.

I have never really been an overly expressive or emotional person (except when my daughter goes missing for 5 minutes, you can ask my sister about that one), from the outside I am perceived as a “tough cookie”. It is strange how people see you as this strong person and are truly shocked to find out that you also bleed and cry. I was the strongest advocate for being in control, never crying and always taking charge of every emotion. And I don’t believe that was okay and do believe it caused some damage in my being as a woman. It has caused me to have a lot of pent up anger at times.

All the above was true until the 12th December 2008 at 07:35am when I held our baby girl, Lexie-Grace, for the very first time in my life. I cried so much while holding her and instantly God opened up the emotional gateway of my heart. At that exact moment it was as if something snapped in my emotional psyche and I kinda had a feeling that things will never be the same again and that I would forever wear my heart on my sleeve and moms, I do believe that this is okay :).

Lexie-Grace is continually teaching me about the importance of expression and the absolute power in being truthful and real in what you see and face in life every day. To be this person who seems to have it together all the time is not relatable and even 1 percent appealing.

THE STRENGTH OF A WOMAN IS HER EMOTION AND HER EXPRESSION!!

“Kindness is more important than wisdom and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.” - Theodore Isaac Rubin