Blog: Ba­lan­ce bet­ween work and rest

Sum­mer in Fin­land is short in­deed. Is it even shor­ter now than when I was a child? Or have I just, in the mid­d­le of the hust­le and bust­le of dai­ly life, for­got­ten to pau­se and en­joy the warmth of the sum­mer, the soft bree­ze and the buz­zing in­sects?

Blog: Back to ser­vi­ces

Deep in thought I walk through the doub­le doors. There is a tab­le with four hand sa­ni­ti­zer dis­pen­sers. I rub the li­quid in­to my hands and look around. Cheer­ful exp­res­si­ons. But al­so some be­wil­der­ment. How should we go about this?

Blog: Can I help?

That eve­ning I sat slum­ped on the ed­ge of my bed. I did not have the ener­gy to cry, but the te­ars on my cheeks kept flo­wing on their own. I was thin­king about my own and my hus­band’s he­alth. I was won­de­ring if our child­ren would get enough joy and sup­port. I was wor­ried about our mort­ga­ge, the price of the con­fir­ma­ti­on camp, the high cost of the up­co­ming opis­to ye­ar, the num­ber of me­di­cal ap­point­ments. All things that pi­led up to make a bur­den. I tried to cal­cu­la­te the equ­a­ti­on of sick­ness be­ne­fits and home care al­lo­wan­ce, un­til I just could not go on any more. I sta­red ahe­ad with un­see­ing ey­es and pra­yed.

Blog: Lo­ne­so­me for Mot­her

Last spring I was es­pe­ci­al­ly lo­ne­so­me for my mot­her. The mot­her who was re­a­dy to ma­na­ge and take care of all things, with whom I could share my joys and sor­rows, who hel­ped me plant to­ma­to­es seed­lings and let­tu­ce, tend to flo­wers, and mar­vel at the mi­rac­les of spring and sum­mer. The mot­her with whom I sat at ser­vi­ces and shed te­ars of joy while sin­ging a touc­hing song. The mot­her who al­wa­ys as­ked me if I had had a good day and saw right away if things had not been good.

Blog: Let­ter to my mot­her

Thank you, Mot­her, for te­ac­hing me the ABC of life. You were lo­ving and ca­ring. By yo­ur examp­le and ad­vi­ce you taught me about simp­le faith. You trus­ted in me, though I was not al­wa­ys wort­hy of yo­ur trust. You were hard-wor­king and the­re­by taught me to ap­p­re­ci­a­te work.

Blog: Mu­sic – a sour­ce of ener­gy and joy

When I wake up in the mor­ning, I like to be­gin my day by put­ting on some mu­sic. That helps me get star­ted with my dai­ly cho­res.

Blog: Sum­mer of psalms

We had ser­vi­ces in Ter­vo­la church on the se­cond Sun­day of July. There was one ser­mon and some sin­ging. I me­ant to re­mem­ber the psalm text that was read as an int­ro­duc­ti­on to the ser­mon, but I for­got it. I won­der if it was Psalm 85 or 86? or 84?

Blog: Half of my life

On May 13th this ye­ar my hus­band had spent half of his life with me. For me, that mi­les­to­ne date was al­re­a­dy in No­vem­ber last ye­ar. I had on­ce cal­cu­la­ted those da­tes just for fun, but in the bust­le of dai­ly life I had for­got­ten my own mi­les­to­ne date.

Blog: Ex­cep­ti­o­nal­ly sen­si­ti­ve cons­cien­ce

I will write about a to­pic that I, and pro­bab­ly many of those who are like me, would rat­her not dis­cuss with ot­her pe­op­le. I hope that what I say here will ser­ve as peer sup­port to those tor­men­ted by si­mi­lar an­xie­ties.

Blog: Ex­pe­rien­ces of sup­port and fos­ter pa­ren­ting

While fol­lo­wing the li­ves of my sib­lings’ fa­mi­lies and child­ren as a yo­ung girl, I dre­a­med of a fa­mi­ly of my own. But the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her had dif­fe­rent plans for me.