Last Christmas as Ellie was sitting opening her presents I had a strong sense of dis-ease. She ripped the paper off one, glanced at it then moved on to the next. (I know she’s 2 and I know this is normal.) There were so many presents she was overwhelmed. A good thing or a bad thing?

But as she was doing this I was wondering, ‘what are we teaching her?’ By giving her so much stuff – that she may never ever use or need what are we communicating to her even at this age?

I was talking with our local cafe staff about ths yesterday and we are all feeling disturbed at this problem of wanting to love our kids and give them good things without teaching them that life is about ‘stuff’.

I know this Christmas we have bought Ellie a number of gifts that she will enjoy. But how much is enough? A big part of me wants to ‘cut back’, but should a child suffer for her father’s ideals?

Then again would the child be suffering?

And then again, again… maybe her dad has too much stuff too…

Disturbed yet?

At last my life is taking a little shape.

After a year of fairly chaotic living I can look to next year and see some direction forming. I will be dividing my time between three main roles (in terms of day to day activity).

– leading the Brighton team – maybe 2-3 days (we still don’t have a name so ‘the Brighton team’ is all I can think of to call us)
– developing Forge here in WA for around 1-2 days
– teaching Phys Ed to year 6 & 7 students at Kingsway Christian College on Thursdays and Fridays

The Brighton/Forge stuff overlaps nicely and the teaching will be a good place to ‘rest’ from leadership responsibilities. As much as I enjoy taking the initiative and developing new things there are days when it becomes tiring.

I didn’t want to teach at first, but I see it as a place where I can do something that I can do easily and well and even get paid for it. I am thinking I’ll maybe even enjoy it!