AND SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS – ALMOST



Haylee




Five grandchildren













For quite a few of us, Christmas each year is greeted with mixed emotions.

Certainly that has been my own personal experience since I was sixteen years old and my Dad’s funeral was on Christmas Eve that year.

This year has all the promise of a wonderful time together with all our children present.

Our son, daughter-in-law arrived yesterday morning from the Australian mainland on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry. They brought their two gorgeous german shepherd dogs with them. Our grandchildren are thrilled with the dogs and love their Uncle Lance and Auntie Kazza. Our daughter, Gaylene, is a school teacher and flies into Launceston at 8.25a.m tomorrow morning. Our son’s brother-in-law is due at the airport on Christmas Day. Both Mark and Gaylene always spoil their nephews and nieces each year and so extra excitement all around.

But then the phone call came a few minutes ago.

The Department of Health had just rung our son, Craig, to inform him the test results from his children reveals they have whooping cough. Our six grandchildren’s ages range between 9 years old and 9 weeks old. All are coughing except the baby.

And so, this blog has to be brief. I’ve rung my doctor to find out what grandparents who have had heaps of contact with them these last couple of weeks should be doing for our own health and those we come in contact with. The baby’s dedication was planned for Christmas Day and of course now has to be cancelled. The Hawkins house is in “lock down.” And there are folk we need to make sure are aware of the risk of a “cold” and “cough” being symptoms of this nasty disease, especially children at church. Summer school holidays commenced today but we know the Department of Health will still be going through all their protocols for this notifiable disease at the local school.

So, how did Ray & I just cope? Prayer first of all of course and we would appreciate yours also. Many years ago as a nurse, I nursed children with this horrible disease and have to confess am not really surprised by this diagnosis. After hearing that awful, breath taking cough, I’ve discovered even the decades since have not killed the memory.

So, Christmas is only another three days away. How glad I am that the Christ Child became the Christ of the Cross. In HIS loving hands those we love are safe – no matter what!

New Babies – The cuddly kind and...?



Four day old Haylee Mae
and brother Adam


We forget so quickly how tiny a very new baby is. A beautiful addition to our family arrived five days ago. Haylee’s little brother here getting “up close and personal” was about the same size less than two years ago. His little “almost two” personality is becoming more and more evident every day. His latest sentence? Unfortunately it is “Don’t want to!” (And with the exclamation mark.) Mmm...wonder how old Haylee will be when she says similar things as an alternative to “No!”

And so our babies continue to grow until they become more and more independent and we have to release them at last into their own big world “out there.” Haylee reminded both my husband and I so vividly what her father looked like all those years ago - about the same size with that thick mop of very black hair that these days shows tinges of gray. And when he moved out of home to start university a long way from home, it wasn’t always easy to let him go. I am sure he will find it also hard when Haylee and our five other wonderful grandchildren want to spread their wings.

Besides my own birth-pangs with our three children, I’ve had other very different, but still “birth-pangs”, with each manuscript I’ve written. Certainly most of them have taken longer than 9 months before they have developed enough to say they are “full term” and “The End” at last written. However, then comes more waiting time as we had with our own three children and now our grandchildren. The manuscript still has to “grow” through that careful read through. (Watching for any gaps in plot, characters acting “out of character”, dialogue. correct Point of View.) No head-hopping allowed? And as each new baby teaches the parent more, so this writer continues to learn with every one of her written “babies”.

And after each manuscript has been sighed over and I have at last had to resist trying to change anything, it has to be sent out into the wide world of editors, publishers. Hopefully, one day it will be out there on bookshelves for readers to enjoy, judge it too – first by that cover and then those inner contents.

No matter how attractive (or not) the outward appearances of our precious babies become, I pray they will have that true and lasting inner beauty that only the indwelling of Christ by His Holy Spirit can bestow upon them. We can try to teach and nurture by example and words, but it is still those babies growing to maturity who ultimately have to find their own destinies. My greatest “tool” as a grandmother is to maintain my own relationship with Christ and pray and pray and “be there” for them when needed.

Ray on Monday - God, the Master Weaver

Our son Craig and his Baby
Adam who is now turning
 two years old  in November.

From almost the time of conception through to the child’s birth we saw our little grandchild’s progress. That modern technology ultrasound afforded us the privilege of seeing this young life grow within the mother’s womb. How awesome! How beautiful! How wonderful! Words are incapable of describing the miracle of birth.

Psalm 139 is the classic description of God’s sovereign interest in the unborn child. In verse 15 it says “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”

There is a lovely idea undergirding the Hebrew word translated ‘woven’in the above verse. It means to embroider. It’s as though God embroiders the make-up of the child from the material supplied by his or her mum and dad. In fact, probably at least four generations have ‘genetic yarn’ woven by God into the body, personality and soul of the child. Is it any wonder God calls people to holiness if for no other reason than the well-being of a future child.

With only the power of outward sight, how did the Psalmist understand the wonder of a baby in the womb? God in His mercy made it known to David so that people even before ultrasound images would appreciate the uniqueness of the unborn and the priceless worth of a child.

Why am I so caught up with this today? Simply because last Saturday at 6pm Haylee Mae Hawkins, our 6th grandchild and 2nd grand-daughter, came into the world.

Some of you would know I’ve written a devotional of 31 days about God’s special interest. It is children! Ps 139 is featured in it. As I cast my eyes across the community and see the neglect, abuse and exploitation of children I not only grieve, I tremble. For God states in the Bible His sternest judgements upon such perpetrators.

In whatever capacity we relate to children, our Heavenly Father instructs us to safeguard the life and worth of a child. We are to be His stepping stones for them to get to know of His love and grace. Let us not be stumbling stones.

Ray (a proud grand-father once again) Hawkins.