Ma Wa Gray

The thing about a virus is that you don’t know how bad it is going to get.  The thing about a virus is that it takes over your body and alters the very way you function.  The thing about a virus is that you have to ride it out and take as many precautions as you can.  The thing about a virus is that it’s scary.  The thing about a mob is that you dont know how bad it’s going to get.  The thing about a mob is that it takes over your body and alters the very way you function.  The thing about a mob is that you have to ride it out and take as many precautions as possible.  The thing about a mob is that it’s scary.  The thing about Jesus is that He knows the virus and He knows the mob - all the mobs, even the ones we are a part of.  He is present in the microscopic and the macroscopic.  He heals viruses and He stills the crowd.  He is a champion for the hopeless, the angry, the hungry and the lost. And He knows why we do what we do....

When Stephen saw me emerge from my Cave of Wonders this morning wearing jeans he looked positively hopeful. I then told him to ease up cowboy the only reason I am wearing jeans today is that all my tracksuit pants are in the laundry basket.  I did manage to hang up a load of laundry this morning. As I was doing it I was reminded of the very slow tortoise in the intro to the delightful BBC comedy ‘One Foot in the Grave’. Although I suspect that the tortoise moved faster than me. And he didn’t have to check his oximeter afterwards.  There have been some silver linings to this whole covid quarantine. Eva has gone through one of the most important milestones in childhood development - she is now choosing to watch Paw Patrol rather than Peppa Pig. I think we can all agree that this moment in parenting is very special and deserves to be celebrated with a marshmallow before breakfast.  Gray has pretty much gone feral. I don’t really see him all day because he’s busy rutting arou...

  When we speak of war and it’s heroes we raise monuments. We tell stories of heroism and sacrifice. We make movies that show the grand gestures and often individual feats that raise one human above the others. Our heroes are often loud, decorated and somehow superhuman.  But today, as I lie here recovering from a very mild dose of Covid, these are my heroes… The paediatric nurse, Debbie, who slipped her personal phone number into my handbag yesterday after giving me my third (and final) covid test. I told her that Eva had been having fevers and she told me to contact her if needed. Last night after trying in vain to get Eva’s fever of 40 down we phoned her and she gave us all the advice we needed. She stayed up into the night waiting for us to phone back with a progress report and this morning she has seen to our little girl and has confirmed both an ear infection and tonsillitis. If it wasn’t for her I don’t know what we would have done.  The friend, Cherrie, who, on th...

I have been in the teaching business for some time now. And when you've been in the teaching business for some time you walk some pretty intense journeys with the varying types of children in your care. There are the supported and ambitious kids, the neglected but trying hard kids, the neglected but have given up kids, the kids who are a little different, the kids who can kick a ball hard but battle to write a sentence, the middle of the range, sunny kids - and within these varying classifications are a myriad of others who all speak of the rainbow that can make up a classroom at any given moment in time. Within this rainbow is a very special group of children. And most of them have a very special something to them. They are the kids whose parents (very often moms) have cancer. This post comes entirely from my perspective as a teacher and at the start I want to acknowledge that I will never know the full extent of how it must feel for either a parent or chi...

  Let me just say that you were golden long before a buzzer told you that you were golden. And you are alive with more life than most people I've ever seen. And you are most certainly Chosen. I just read some of your blogs. And I just have to say a very broken, sobbing thank you. Thank you for bringing God into the ugly, human places. Thank you for acknowledging Him through the vomit and spit. Thank you for encouraging us to get low. Thank you for guaranteeing that He will get low with us. It is very rare to find a writer who speaks the breath of God so directly through their words, but you do. They move in a way that is both completely human and completely not. I suppose that is His constant hope for us - to be made of sand but to have spirits that live elsewhere. I will be praying for you. I will be praying that you will have enough energy to face what must be an overwhelmingly exhausting outpouring of love. That your body will be able to absorb as much adoration that it needs wi...

I don't know if you've noticed but there are a lot of pretty tired people walking around of late. I would argue that the predominant group of tired people falls in the category of anyone with a child under seven. This year with a return to school our children have been hit with a cocktail of viruses that should only really take place during the End Days. I'm talking about fountains of snot and vomit as far as the eyes can see. I'm taking Vaseline drenched 'bum sweets' administered to shaking babies in the early hours of the morning. I'm talking emergency trips to the ER with dehydrated six year olds. My immediate circle of family and friends have seen it all of late. Last night, for example, a work colleague, my sister-in-law and I were doing conference calls at 22:00 to gauge the treatment of a vomiting, fevered 14 month year old.  Talking about the End Days I recon Revelations should mention Calpol and tepid baths at least nine times. John (the author) was...

  I remember the moment I fell in love with with my husband. It was the opposite of first sight. In fact we were probably a good 300km away from each other. I was sitting in my moms parked car outside the only grocery store that the little South African village of Winterton has and Stephen was sitting at his desk in Johannesburg distractedly text messaging a curly haired girl he had met while he was supposed to be writing some article on a 4x4 truck. It was a text message that did it. I still remember the words - ‘carry the four’. Stephen had made a joke about math and I still laugh about it 11 years later.  I was so paralytic with mirth by the time my mom got back to the car that I could barely speak.  It is also Stephen who has recently introduced me to your writing. He is the gift that keeps on giving. We wake up in the morning and silently read your next offering and if needs be we have our little post match chat about it as we prepare our children’s breakfast. That’s...