Blog: To stay or not to stay?

I wake up. It is half past se­ven. It is a lo­ve­ly mor­ning, and the sun is shi­ning. I quick­ly get up, step on the cool floor, and go to col­lect the mor­ning pa­per from the mail­box. I can still sen­se the strong, eart­hy smell of the night. The noi­se of traf­fic tel­ls me that the town is wa­king up and pe­op­le are going to work. I make cof­fee and open the pa­per. There is no hur­ry. Or, ac­tu­al­ly, there would be no hur­ry, but I find it hard to get rid of my im­pa­tient na­tu­re.

Blog: What are yo­ur hob­bies?

"What are yo­ur hob­bies?" the school doc­tor as­ked. "I don’t re­al­ly have hob­bies", my child ans­we­red qui­et­ly. The doc­tor gave her a puz­z­led look and then loo­ked at me. I was so as­to­nis­hed I was speech­less.

Blog: Re­mem­ber me!

When pe­op­le say good­bye, they of­ten al­so say: ”Re­mem­ber me when you pray to the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her.” Or simp­ly: ”Re­mem­ber me.” I have thought that this re­qu­est is not me­re­ly a be­au­ti­ful phrase. It is the pe­ti­ti­on of a poor Chris­ti­an that I would pray on his or her be­half. For a per­son who ma­kes this re­qu­est the most im­por­tant thing is to re­main be­lie­ving and to get in­to he­a­ven.

Blog: My very own thing

I re­mem­ber one late eve­ning when I sha­red my thoughts with my hus­band: ”No prin­ci­pal in their right mind should hire a mot­her of six lit­t­le kids. It would be best for our fa­mi­ly that I still stay at home for a while.” I gu­ess I was qui­te con­vin­cing, as my hus­band see­med to be­lie­ve me. By that time in my life I had wor­ked as class te­ac­her for three pe­ri­ods of dif­fe­rent lengths and had then sta­yed at home for four ye­ars.

Blog: Eve­ry­day an­gels

Have you ever met an­gels? I mean eve­ry­day an­gels. Dear friends who have wan­ted to dis­cuss the most im­por­tant mat­ters of life and have pre­ac­hed you for­gi­ve­ness even though you have not as­ked for it yet. These friends should not be ta­ken for gran­ted. They are gifts from the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her and a cau­se of gra­ti­tu­de and joy.

Blog: Di­men­si­ons of pa­rent­hood

Pa­rent­hood is a mul­ti­di­men­si­o­nal task. My own ex­pe­rien­ces of pa­rent­hood have va­ried wi­de­ly, de­pen­ding on fa­mi­ly size and my per­so­nal re­sour­ces. You be­co­me a pa­rent when you hear the first cry of yo­ur first baby and re­main a pa­rent un­til the end of yo­ur life.

Blog: Bles­sings

When our work or ot­her ef­forts are suc­ces­s­ful, we of­ten say that they were bles­sed. This ap­p­lies equ­al­ly to bu­si­ness pro­jects, stu­dies, mar­ri­a­ge or al­most anyt­hing.

Blog: Cal­led to ser­ve

A few weeks ago I was ha­ving a cup of cof­fee with my friends at Hel­sin­ki rau­ha­nyh­dis­tys. I was about to le­a­ve when a spe­a­ker brot­her tap­ped on my shoul­der and as­ked me to come along. He said it was not about anyt­hing ter­rib­le.

Blog: Stu­dent’s mind

I am wri­ting this du­ring the Stu­dents’ Men­tal He­alth week. We have all kinds of theme days and spe­ci­al weeks no­wa­da­ys. I usu­al­ly hard­ly no­ti­ce them, but I made a note of this week in my ca­len­dar. I al­so pos­ted some pic­tu­res and thoughts on this to­pic on my so­ci­al me­dia ac­counts.

Blog: Care and com­pas­si­on

It is a bril­li­ant March day. I sit down to rest my feet and wait for the cof­fee to drip. I just came in af­ter a skiing trip. The sun spark­led on the snow, and my skis made a nice crunc­hing noi­se on the snow. Spar­rows twit­te­red in the shrub­be­ry, and wa­ter was drip­ping cheer­ful­ly from the ea­ves. While skiing wit­hout any ca­res, my me­mo­ries tra­ve­led back to some old events and ex­pe­rien­ces.