Thankfulness? {fmf}

It looks like a flower but is it? pc unsplash

Seeing people post on Facebook what they are thankful for during the pandemic recently reminded me of how I feel something unpleasant (maybe cynical?) when I think about being thankful.

How did I end up here? And didn't I already think through this and came up with a new perspective back here? 

And then scrolling further I found some posts on "toxic positivity", forcing happiness. Maybe that's what I had actually been doing? I was calling it "being thankful" but another perspective one could call it toxic positivity.  During a difficult season I would try to find things to be thankful for- there were plenty I could list. I had food, shelter, friends. The Bible tells us to be thankful, wasn't that what I was supposed to do?

But this week as I've been doing the Velvet Ashes retreat and I'm wondering if what I was missing was focusing on the eternal. So I did have all those good things I listed, but I also had a lot of pain, which I didn't really know how to notice at the time. And there is always going to be pain this side of the new creation, but one day all will be restored. Maybe if that had been the one big thing on my thankful list I would have a better relationship with giving thanks now?

A Five Minute Friday write on the word PERSPECTIVE.

Sick, Stateless and Starving. (January 2020 catch-up journal)

"This month feels like an impossible mountain to climb. It also feels like time travel, as if we are back in 2006."

I didn't post on this blog for a few months as I lost interest in reading and wrting, but now I'm feeling ok, I feel like catching up. So here is a bit of what I wrote to friends in early January: 

"Hi friends, hope you are staying cool and safe today, the news from Australia is awful!

This month feels like an impossible mountain to climb. It also feels like time travel, as if we are back in 2006.

If we don't hike up the mountain of our January to-do list it feels like we will be sick, stateless and starving.

Happily we have reconnected with 4 friends from 2006 who are helping us with this mountain.

......... life admin is going to consume more time, energy and money than usual this month. Feeling overwhelmed!"

Expat life admin means a trip to the capital city

Also that month on Facebook I posted a link to a news article about a new virus. During SARS in 2003 I lived in China so I was interested to read about this new corona virus. 

I started remembering all the crazy things that happened during that time, and all the hype around it. 

Friends evacuated back to the USA overnight, no time to say goodbye. 
I had a go bag packed AND was stocking up on food. Go or stay??? 
We were constantly checking the CDC and the WHO websites, as well as news sites and exchanging all the wild stories people were telling. Thankfully no Facebook back then or it would have felt even crazier.
Those 5 days in quarantine  when a friend was in hospital as a suspected SARS case. 

I decided that I wouldn't get caught up in all the hype this time around, it was fun last time, but I don't have spare time and energy now, with a family and sickness. Planned to try to stay informed but to try not to become too obsessed. 

If I wrote this at the time I probably would not have thought to include a bit about the 'Rona, but as I'm writing in April, after it turned the world upside down, it gets a mention.

Photo credit: unsplash

Time capsule 2019

Contents page of my 2019 family news posts on the blog

January- New!
New! New! New? New year?

February (and a bit of March) Full of firsts and fun.

Hot season (end of March and April)- when I write it I'll link it here. Only a year late? I have notes and photos somewhere.. I did also write this: Hot season, homeschool and holidays

EDIT UPDATE: here is hot season 2019, 2 years late...

May? I think I just enjoyed the cooler weather and finally cleaned the homeschool room after letting it go over hot season.

June- 4 surprises
as well as A sandwich of sickness stories

July- Healthcation

August- September- more health posts such as I was happy to find out again that my thyroid....


October 

...and then November and December I just didn't feel like reading or writing at all- weird.

Returning, Riding out 'Rona and the great rescue

Remembering God's rescue with the help of grape flavoured re-hydration drink.

Returning...

So since November I haven't felt like reading blogs or writing here either, weird. It was the thing I did for fun, and to handle the stress of sickness. But just recently starting to feel a bit better and started thinking about the monthly link up on A Chronic Voice. Maybe I'm returning to blogging?

Stressing while riding out 'Rona in the Reap

As an Australian living in Cambodia, I've seen a few fellow foreigners make a quick exit . As the virus situation changed overnight, less and less flights available and borders closing. We are staying put here in Siem Reap. Two big stressors with that are that we feel cut off from good medical care, normally nearby Thailand would be our option for a big emergency, and the other one is that the whole town lives off an industry (tourism) which has sharply decline over the last few months with no end in sight. When will tourists come back? December this year? Not till next year?  This blog explains the institution here: Move to Cambodia, Staying in Siem Reap...


Celebrating Jesus' resurrection

In the weeks leading up to Easter we read out loud from an English translation of the Hebrew scriptures about how God saved his people out of slavery. We also read from the book of Matthew and Mark, the final chapters about the events leading up to Jesus' death and resurrection, also about how God saved his people. Our kids really got into drawing while we read out loud.

It felt like the whole world turned upside down in March, but also like we are still at home with our kids as normal.

Long time no write.

So normally reading and writing is fun for me, but in November last year I stopped reading the blogs I normally read and stopped posting here, I don't think I wrote much in my journal around that time either. I'm just starting to think about all this again, feeling a bit better.

 Like others around the world the first week of March was pretty normal for us, but after that it felt like the world was being turned upside down.  Expat life in the time of a new virus- these blog links below tell some of our life over the last 5 weeks, some of it happening to us, other parts happening around us or impacting us in some way.

From "Everyone Needs a little Grace in their lives" comes this story of having to unexpectedly say a huge quick goodbye. 

From "A Life Overseas" this one about what it is like when some are staying and some are leaving.

"For most though, the decision has already been made and you are where you are for the foreseeable future. For some, that decision was yours to make. But for plenty of others, that decision was made for you…whether by your sending agency or home church, by airline cancellations, or by your host or passport country’s government policies that have kept you put where you are. 

Some are happy with the decisions that have been made. Some though are understandably upset that they were never given the chance to make a decision at all. Some are satisfied with where they’ve ended up and others are disappointed. Some consider themselves “stuck” abroad while others consider themselves “stuck” at home. 

Some people feel like others are overreacting, while some people feel like others are underreacting. People are getting angry and disappointed with the “others” for “not getting it.” "

From "Taking Route" written by a stayer

And from "Move to Cambodia" this one about life in Siem Reap these days.