Decision Time

Hands up who has ever done a personality test! If you’re “fortunate” enough to have done more than one (employers, university, churches, annoying friends…) you may have discovered that your personality is prone to some seriously conflicting traits, depending on which test is in fashion that year. In the last ten years, I have been confidently pronounced extroverted, introverted, bossy, shy, highly motivated, lazy, a dreamer and a pragmatist. As schizophrenic as these conclusions may describe me, two characteristics are always inevitably clear: 1) I have absolutely no musical talent to speak of and 2) I am a highly decisive person.

How ironic then, that what is apparently my strongest character trait, has inexplicably evaporated during the last six months of my life, leaving in its place a cloud of unrecognisable apathetic confusion. Way to go, brain. You’ve pulled out the big guns on this one!

During our last four and a half months back in New Zealand, there has been no escaping one significant decision looming over our horizon: When will we return to Iris Latin America? Being confident strategists, we have made that final decision approximately half a dozen times and counting. We have made, argued about and re-made so many plans since returning home that I have found myself fighting the urge to bolt if someone asks what I might like for lunch. “Where will you be staying?” “Will you be in town when…?” “Will we see you at the family dinner?” You would think by now I would have perfected the art of eloquent non-commitment: “Why yes! We would love to attend! Assuming of course we remain in the relevant location on the day of your event, we would be delighted!” Unfortunately for me, my responses have bordered on unanticipated hysteria: “Excuse me?! Don’t you know I am prone to making life-changing decisions on a whim of frustration that could have us halfway across the world by tomorrow?? We have no IDEA where we will be when…”

And so, after four and a half months of summoning the courage to face our demons and get back into a head space capable of serving with Iris, we have come to One. Single. Conclusion: It is beyond us. The ability to make a plan. The ability to stick to it. The ability wait on God. To confidently hear from God. To confidently achieve anything at all. All of it escapes us. What once was a passionate drive to live and serve the poor in Brazil no matter what it takes, has become a distant, withered up possibility requiring a focused commitment that eludes us. We can’t even commit to a coffee date. For a coffee lover, this a pretty sad state of affairs.

It is in this bewildered state then, that we have ruled out any decisions which would take us overseas this year. It is time for the dust to settle. Time to find our feet. Time to get back to basics, and after a solid year of living out of backpacks, it is time to find a home. As with many events in the last twelve months, the need to be settled is not something we could have anticipated, and yet here it is.

As a missionary friend stated last year, having finished living in Mozambique, “Here goes. Back to Disneyland.”

Brazil Needs Midwives

I Know. Just tell me how to get there.

My kids will be taking iPads to school…

In a previous life, long before mission and midwifery, I used to work as a nanny. While back in Wellington with time to fill in, I offered to do some child minding with the gorgeous 9 yr old Ollie and 6 yr old Eva; a precious nanny family I’m still in touch with. It is always fun to hang out with these guys as they are pretty low-maintenance as far as kid-wrangling goes; this week though, was an example of how even the easiest of child-care tasks can escalate into meltdown level stress and had me grateful for my child free lifestyle…

Being the last week of the school holidays we inevitably found ourselves in a Warehouse Stationary store, stocking up to get the kids back to school. I began the outing naively thinking we would be searching out cool pencil-case-type gadgets and playing with everything. Instead, I found myself resisting the urge to strangle stupid people while Ollie and Eva grew eerily quiet, probably in fear that my head was about to explode.

Within minutes of arriving, Ollie dilligently filled our trolley with all his listed items while I marvelled at his ability to differentiate between 1B5s, JWBs, 14B8s and some weird thing called a Jovi. Unbeknown to Ollie and I, Eva efficiently removed the listed items from our trolley and replaced them with what she considered to be far more important for school: a bunch of giant glue sticks! I had the fun job of scouting out our list all over again, while simultaneously realising the stationary codes at this particular store were different to others and the necessary books could only be identified using a code differentiation chart. (Are you kidding me?! I have sat pharmacology exams more simple than this!)

Still amazed at how Ollie had instinctively known which stationary was which, I planned to bribe him into doing it all over again, just in time to hear his distressed voice, “Gillian, I NEED to go to the toilet!”
“What?! Right now?”
“Yeah, I can’t hold it in.”
“Ollie, there’s no toilets here, are you sure you can’t wait?”
“Nooooooo, it’s a number two emergency.”
Enough said! Abandoning our half-filled list, we made a dash for the door and were saved by a sympathetic staff member offering an employee toilet. Relieved to find a toilet, but wondering if I should be worried about an unknown man leading Ollie to a bathroom, I was approached by a school mum, her daughter in Eva’s class. She picked this moment to grill me on the price difference between stationary outlets and was curious if this particular store was the cheapest.
“I don’t know, sorry.” I said distractedly.
“You don’t know?” she persisted.
“We’re here because their mum has an account…”
“Oh, you’re not their mum?”
Great, this is always a fun conversation. Eva meanwhile, was busy filling our trolley back up with glue sticks. I endured the curious questions which extended to requesting a copy of our stationary list and asking for help to use the photocopier, all the while Ollie and the mystery man were taking their time in the bathroom.

A barrage of questions and ten giant glue sticks later Ollie finally emerged, clearly annoyed by my questions about a sore tummy (there are only so many ways you can ask a 9 year old if he has diarrhoea in public!). We went back to our trolley only to find a helpful person had stacked the half-completed stash on the counter, and helped themselves to our trolley. Brilliant. Lucky for me Eva was on the job by telling the person in no uncertain terms that they had taken our trolley. Already being scanned by the sales clerk, I left our account card with the pile and explained we would return with the other half of the items. This took a long time while we waited for the stationary list to be returned by our photocopier-challenged friend.

A ridiculous amount of time later we approached the sales desk where, predictably, the sales clerk did not know which stationary was ours or where our account card now sat; suddenly unsure if I had actually left the card with our stash, we began a store-wide search, Eva heading straight for the trolley-thief and asking to look through their stuff! After seriously considering leaving the store and calling the kids’ mum to say I had failed miserably at stationary shopping, we again approached the sales desk, ignoring a man loudly pointing out that we had ‘skipped the que’.

“Ooooooh!” exclaimed the sales clerk, “I did have your card, I meant to tell you that it was in your pile of stationary.” Note to self: resist urge to strangle innocent people, no matter how stupid. Finally, we made it out of the store with all necessary stationary. That night I read a newspaper article outlining local schools advocating the use of iPads instead of textbooks. Lets hope this trend catches on before I ever have to do this again!

Being A Midwife

This article recently appeared on the blog of Canadian midwife Gloria LeMay. I can relate to almost every aspect of it so couldn’t help but include it. You can read the original post here.

Written at Burnaby Correctional Center for Women in 2002.
First published in Midwifery Today Magazine Issue 68, Winter 2003

Being a midwife starts with the ego. Our “ego selves” see the status, admiration and responsibility of the job as an attraction. What the ego cannot see is that the aspiring midwife has placed her foot on a road by taking up the work. This road will take her on a journey, which she will only finish when they chisel the word “midwife” on her gravestone.

The midwife will know days when the road is clear and smooth and her heart is bursting with joy. Along the road, she will also be ambushed and attacked. This is the nature of life and it is not personal, but it will seem to be personal. Childbirth is so pivotal to society and there have been so many years of misinformation that the attack that befalls midwives is swift and harsh—it is not for the faint of heart. Many good women have left the midwifery road because the attacks were just too violent for their spirits in this lifetime.

The midwife who sticks to the road learns to temper her pride in her work, knowing that, to the degree that she is pumped up by success she will be devastated by failure. Failure and success become less important to her as she walks the road and her focus on the birthing family becomes more important. She begins to disappear as an individual and a personality and, in that disappearing, her true Self emerges.

She learns from the mothers. The most important things are the simplest: be on time, keep your word, keep confidences, be organized and, above all, be patient. These things take a lifetime of mistakes to master. She constantly looks critically at herself to unearth her failings in these areas. The midwife makes many mistakes. There can be no learning or growth without mistakes. She doesn’t make the same mistakes over and over. She listens to the experiences of others to avoid those mistakes she can avoid and is grateful for the teaching. She is able to be honest with herself and her clients about what she learns.

She is averse to condemning other practitioners, knowing there is a karmic come-uppance that comes with self-righteousness.

She understands that her words are remembered for a lifetime and chooses them wisely. How she speaks results in the birthing woman being honored, respected and dignified. She knows her role is to be transparent in the process of birth. She has a quiet, dignified way of being. Her context for each birth is, “This is the only one.” Her actions and attitude at the birth will affect the family for the rest of their days. She is trusted because she has shown by her actions and speech that she is trustworthy. She has no need to prove anything and is able to discover some new lesson from every birth.

Numbers of births, degrees and licenses do not concern her. She knows that she chose her profession with all its inherent risks and she refuses to portray herself as a victim.

She takes responsibility for passing on the knowledge to the new ones; her legacy will be generations of women who emulate her. She teaches the old ways because birth is ancient and it works. She distances herself from the crowd. She takes the time and space to develop and formulate her own values and ideals.

She has known the warmth of the placenta, the tear-filled eyes of a happy new father, the devastation of miscarriage, the freedom of a fast car and the fear of imprisonment. She has been honored and insulted, blessed and cursed, loved and hated and has reached a place where she likes the woman who gazes back at her in the mirror. She is excited about her future and at peace with her past. All this she brings to the birthing chamber as her contribution.

Amazon Adventure

This is a recent Facebook update from Elizabeth, a South African team member from Iris Latin America. It’s hard to know what to make of experiences like these, especially knowing there will be much is going on behind the scenes that the team do not complain about. Our return to the team is not looking any closer as yet and after reading this update, I will be making the most of every hot shower and good meal before we leave New Zealand shores again.

A brief summary of my week in the Amazon in Ecuador:

The jungle was good, a total adventure. We arrived in a town called Puyo with absolutely no plan. We prayed and the Holy Spirit totally set things up for us. We randomly “happened” to find a church (we were looking for another church and went round in circles for ages before we found this church) last friday when we arrived in this town, Puyo. They are a missionary focused church so we had a meeting with them and they hooked us up with a missionary pilot who we met for breakfast on Sat at 7am. We chatted and got to grips with where we are, the tribe we wanted to go to (Shuar), etc. before we knew it we were on the road
in a couple of 4x4s to a “town” (there´s nothing there it´s so small!!!) called Chapintza which is the end of the road. We then had to be flown into the village of Shuar people call Ayui where we connected with a Cuban missionary couple.

Last Wednesday we were supposed to be fetched but the weather was so bad the pilot couldn´t really fly so he made some flights and basically of the 13 in our group, 10 were flown out okay, and got the bus back to stay in Shell Mera safely. Stephen (our leader) was left at Ayui and spent the night no problem with the Cuban missionaries, another guy and me had the adventure of being left (with the idea of being picked up) at the end of a flight strip in a tiny village called San Carlos in the rain. We were supposed to be fetched but the weather was so bad the plane couldn´t fly.

So after standing in the rain for a while, some guy came over and invited to sit on the porch of a house out of the rain. After a
while it got dark, we realised we weren´t being fetched, a couple of girls told us we could sleep inside that house, and that was it. A mom came in with her 4 kids and slept in another room, we went to bedearly (it was dark and we had nothing to do and hardly anything with us to eat, just some of my muesli I made in Colombia), then Thurs morning we waited until we got fetched.

I actually loved my overnight in this small village, the people really crept into my heart, I actually had mixed feelings when I was fetched the next day – on the one hand I was relieved to see our pilot, but a part of my heart felt ripped out leaving the kids I started building relationships with.

Flew to Chapintza and were told the bus is in 6 hours. Shew. So we ordered the only food we could (rice and eggs) (we were starving as hadn´t eaten much in a couple of days) and then hitched a ride back in a truck.

So, I have learned a few things:
1. I can survive without showering for 7 days
2. I can survive without washing my hair for 6 days
3. I can survive skipping meals
4. I can eat just rice for dinner
5. I can eat soup for 8 meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner)
6. I can eat rice for breakfast
7. I can go without water for 36 hours
8. Going without water for 36 hours also means I will only need the
toilet once a day (without really needing it)
9. I can go hiking through a jungle for hours and be knee deep in mud
and wet and soooo dirty and still be okay.
10. I can get wet and dry and wet and dry (it rains all the time in
the jungle) etc etc all in one day.
11. I can put on wet socks and shoes in the morning and hike out of a
jungle without complaining
12. I can go a week without chocolate and coffee
13. ALWAYS take granola with you for emergency supplies
14. Through everything, God is good, ALL the time, I am never alone
and He is always in control and I am safe in His arms
15. I can’t wait to go back to the jungle…

“If Jesus came to your church, would they actually let him in?”

This poem was uploaded to YouTube a little over a month ago and in that time has had close to 19 MILLION hits. It has sparked a cascade of atheist and muslim responses. The author does not publish his name so I am unable to give him direct credit in this post, all I can say is, NICE WORK BRO, YOU NAILED IT!!

These are the author’s own words:
A poem I wrote to highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion. In the scriptures Jesus received the most opposition from the most religious people of his day. At it’s core Jesus’ gospel and the good news of the Cross is in pure opposition to self-righteousness/self-justification. Religion is man centered, Jesus is God-centered. This poem highlights my journey to discover this truth. Religion either ends in pride or despair. Pride because you make a list and can do it and act better than everyone, or despair because you can’t do your own list of rules and feel “not good enough” for God. With Jesus though you have humble confident joy because He represents you, you don’t represent yourself and His sacrifice is perfect putting us in perfect standing with God the Father.

Overdue

Some beautiful friends of ours recently had an even more beautiful baby, and being back in NZ to share this event had us rejoicing in our decision to return early from the Latin America Outreach. As the clock ticked closer to our friend’s impending due-date, Rowan and I found ourselves trying to casualise a time for our friends that is universally tense: being overdue with your first baby.

I mustered up my best midwifery voice to repeat a statement I have made to so many others in their position, “It may not feel like it right now, but this is a blessing in disguise. The more fed-up you are with being pregnant, the more you will welcome labour, and the more you welcome labour, the easier it will be for you to give birth.” Every time I make that statement, the words of midwifery grandmothers echoe through my mind, “Mother nature, in her wisdom, made the final days of pregnancy intolerable on purpose. If she did not, women would not have the determination to give whatever is required of them to bring their babies into the world.”

As a midwife I have looked into enough blank stares by now to recognise the predictable inner dialogue: it’s easy to say that when you’re not OVERDUE!! I have also cared for enough first time mothers holding brand new babies to witness this logic sinking in, “I can’t believe I just did that! Where did I get the strength?” It’s tempting for me to add, “from refusing to be pregnant for one more day”. Yes, the final days of a pregnancy can stretch into an eternity, and, at least in my experience, no amount of advice can cause them to be appreciated.

Having given this advice to our friends, the real wisdom in it did not hit me until weeks later: your frustration is an asset. If it builds for long enough, you will have all the boldness and determination you need to face whatever comes next. Whatever is required of you to bring the next phase of life into the world. Oh Lordy, how we need to hear that!

It has now been two months since we returned to NZ to work through the paralysing frustrations I experienced in Latin America. As we peer down the barrel of 2012, we are utterly clueless as to what it might hold for us. Predicting our return date to the Iris Latin America team seems as futile as our restless friends predicting the arrival of their overdue bub, but one thing is for sure, our discomfort is building.

True, it is hard to explain why the thought of endless weeks not working, hanging out with friends and enjoying good food, wine and coffee over summer is no longer appealing. No doubt there are many who would happily swap lives with us right now, but the reality of waiting to return to the mission field is not as comfortable for us as you might think. The world beyond NZ shores is groaning with need, we are willing to offer whatever we can, desperate to serve the nation of Brazil, and yet here we sit in NZ, waiting for the Lord to give us a green light.

The days tick slowly by, our ‘due date’ looming ahead, with no sign of the next phase in life beginning. I suspect the Lord is playing midwife with me: “I, in my wisdom, made this phase of life intolerable on purpose. If I did not, you would not have the boldness and determination to give whatever is required of you to bring my life into the world.” I hope that Rowan and I will one day look at what has been achieved in Brazil and wonder where we ever got the strength; it would not surprise me to hear the Lord say, “from refusing to live comfortably for one more day.”

The final product of that long wait: Rowan with Harper Wordsworth.

The Gospel Of Life Without Sugar

Those readers who know us personally will be aware that in the last 18 months, Rowan and I have attempted a drastic change in lifestyle. Well, okay, multiple drastic changes in lifestyle.  Apparently giving up western life to volunteer in the third world wasn’t challenging enough, so we thought we would throw another one into the mix: Life Without Sugar.

This decision, like many others made in the last 12 months which have left me questioning my sanity, is up there with some of the toughest undertakings we have ever attempted. It began eighteen months ago during an afternoon when I was blindsided by a wicked headache, nausea and the shakes. Having suffered migraines most of my life I assumed this was the beginning of another and went to bed to await the usual vomit-inducing misery. It didn’t come. The shaky hands continued two hours later while I eliminated a mental list of possible triggers. Despite two earlier coffees, I concluded caffeine must somehow be the culprit and opted for a third fix in the form of a coke.

Before I had even made it halfway through the can, my hands were back to steady, the nausea had disappeared and my head no longer seemed to be splitting at the seems. “Might be time to cut down on the caffeine” I thought to myself, but I knew something didn’t add up. I had been drowning myself in coffee since the early days of my around-the-clock midwifery training and never had an overdue cup left me feeling this bad. I thought back to the two weeks of travel that Rowan and I had just completed, our resulting change in routines…and eating habits. I was hit with the realisation that, through what can only be described as irresponsible negligence, I had not eaten any sugar for two and a half days! I was a sugar dependent addict, in the depths of accidental withdrawal.

I was faced with a decision; complete the process I had inadvertently started, or vow never to make that punishing mistake again and eat lots of chocolate right away. The sadist in me chose the former; reasoning, in addictive naievity, that a little sugar withdrawal couldn’t possibly get worse than this and I must surely be coming through the other side of it by now. What I wouldn’t give to rethink that decision…!

Three days later I emerged from what I can only describe as self-hatred-level torment. That headache had come and gone for a total of five days, during which the nausea, trembling, restlessness and irritability were easily comparable to nicotine withdrawal. In fact, I had never witnessed hubby experience these symptoms after giving up cigarettes, but the sad part is, no one wants to congratulate a person who is giving up sugar! No, no, we instead, are faced with society’s sugar-fueled contempt, “You’re giving up what? So technically we’re not supposed to smoke, drink, or do chocolate? What are you? Vegan?!”

Months later I was living in Melbourne – the Disneyland of cake shops – and in the blissful grip of sugar saturated relapse. Hubby was delivering his favourite form of adoring encouragement, “Stop thinking about food!” while I was distracted by the image of a shiny pink donut, drawing me to itself in Homer Simpson-like fashion. The title printed underneath the donut must not have registered, otherwise I would never have bought a copy of David Gillespie’s book, “The Sweet Poison Quit Plan” reviewed in this Sydney Morning Herald article “How hard can it be to cut sugar?”

By the time I had started reading, a part of me had been inspired that quite frankly, I wish had been drowned by my years of sugar overdosing. Unfortunately for me, it not only survived but has been invigorated by the benefits of avoiding sugar, as the solution to health issues I didn’t even know I had found their way into my consciousness.

Since being back in the land of reliable internet, Rowan and I have discovered we are not the only crazy people adopting the unnatural sugar-free lifestyle, and becoming more convinced that society’s understanding of ‘healthy eating’ and in particular the importance of a low-fat diet, is based around generations of misinformation.

I have recently discovered photographer Eve Schaub’s blog about her family’s year of no sugar, triggered by this thought-provoking video on YouTube:

Now, let me explain myself, the thought of life without chocolate or wine is pretty up there on the crazy list, (probably right below life without coffee) so, much to David Gillespie’s disgust, we make exceptions for special occasions and well, good quality chocolate or wine in general; but the longer we wrestle with the sugar-free lifestyle, the more convinced we are that we have stumbled across a healthy living breakthrough. In some ways this is inspiring, in others it is defeating. As we realise that if mainstream wisdom can be misleading in such a fundamental issue as what we eat, what other misbeliefs have we lived by for too long? In healthcare? In education? In politics? And how do we go about finding the right information?

It is a sad fact of life it seems, that ignorance really is bliss.

Wandering Wellington

Wellington City recently lost a public figure, the homeless Ben Hana. Known by locals for as long as I can remember as Blanket-Man, Mr. Hana preferred to go by the name Tarzan, and dressed appropriately. I was once involved with a drug awareness and relief movement (Drug-Arm) and spent a few friday nights bringing Tarzan and his friends food, coffee and blankets. Tarzan could often be spotted lazing in the sun on Wellington streets, where his presence was largely tolerated. Tarzan even inspired some impressively accurate rugby sevens costumes, complete with dreads, loin cloths and matching purple blankets. I last spotted Tarzan during a meandering walk down Courtney Place at Christmas, reminding me of just what a city we live in.

Directly across the road from Tarzan, lay a young Maori guy spread out on the cobbled path, propped on one elbow as though sunbathing. He greeted me casually and politely asked for money. I emptied my wallet of annoying coins, before concluding as I walked away that NZ has one of the better social welfare systems in the world there is simply no need for Kiwis to beg. I wondered how on earth this guy ended up begging so casually on the streets at Christmas time, and what his family were doing right now.

Later that afternoon, I noticed a heavily tattooed woman with hairy legs and a shaved head. Defying her tough appearance she chatted cheerfully with a barefooted couple sharing a bicycle. As she walked in front of me for a while I wondered what her story was, and watched as the young Maori guy greeted her, again, politely asking for money.

“Ohhhh, what’s it for then?” She groaned as she reached into her pocket, “Alcohol?”
“For whatever,” he replied slowly, “for survival”.
“Well what have I got? ” she wondered aloud, “Fuck all!… Here y’are” and dropped a note into his hand.
“Thankya kindly!” he said gratefully.
“No worries mate. You have a good day.”
“You too, You too.”

Wellington is cheeky like that. You never quite know what to expect. People-watching in Wellington is always entertaining. Recently though, I have found myself growing tired of the place, and I suspect it has grown tired of me. I couldn’t help but comment on a regular coffee I ordered, unable to comprehend the rise from $3.80 to a pricey $4.70 in my 18 month absence. “Sorry love,” the woman replied unsympathetically, “price o’milk’s gone up.” My recent travel has confirmed that Wellington really does have some of the best coffee in the world, but still, I wondered, for that price her milk had better have bloody gold dust in it.

I drank the coffee slowly as the rich aroma was absorbed somewhere deep into my soul. Who was I kidding?? I would pay for a flight across the world for this stuff. It really is unbeatable. My eyes roamed the cafe. “Pretentious…” a friend’s words echoed in my mind, “Wellington has become a bit pretentious.” The truth of her casual statement caught me off-guard. She had recently left Wellington after six years and was in the process of building a new life for herself. I looked at the city passing me by through the window. Art hitting you in the face on every central street, and yes, more cafes and restaurants per capita than New York. Prices equally comparable. She could be right.

Later that day I choked down my shock as a shop owner announced my small diet coke cost a whopping $4.20. I couldn’t help it, “Are you serious?” “Yes miss.” “The price of oil is cheaper than that!” needless to say, after paying US$0.30 for Coke in Latin America, I suddenly lost my desire for it and walked away. Yes, NZ offers an inviting quality of life that is hard to beat, but sadly, that quality comes with an eye-rolling price tag. Despite the lively street culture that Welly is famous for, this local is ready for broader horizons.

Life, Expanded

When Rowan and I first announced our decision to shut down our succesful businesses, sell everything we own and spend a year or more traveling through Latin America to share the richness of God’s love with the poor, there were a few raised eyebrows. For every encouraging email or supporting dollar donated, there seemed as many friends and family members politely re-phrasing the question, “Are you bloody mad?!” To which there is only one answer…Yes. Yes we are.

As hard as it was for friends and family to understand our decision, it was even harder still for my Brazilian host family to make sense of it. Unbound by cultural norms, my host family and I have always enjoyed a frank relationship where language barriers have given way to bluntness, and third-world realities to protective concern. Knowing that I am accepted by my loving host family despite our glaring cultural differences, these people were free to ask us the questions that many others were thinking: But what will you do for money? Don’t you want to buy a house? And when will you give me Kiwi grand-babies? To which our answers did little to reassure them, “We are going to pray. A lot.”

Returning home to the overdrive of pre-Christmas consumerism, it is hard not to be vividly aware of our lacking house, jobs, vehicles and personal belongings. Here in this country where it seems failure is more elusive than success, it would be easy to fall for the trap of recuperating the lifestyle we chose to let go of. As pleasent as settled Kiwi life may seem right now, we know deep down that it is not for us. When the time is right, life for us will be chasing down thirty-odd Harvest School students through the prisons and slums of South America. God help us.

To keep me reminded of this, the Lord has recently given me a few good reasons to chase down life with Him over houses, money and Kiwi grand-babies. Personally, I find them difficult to argue with:

“God’s blessings make life rich, nothing we do can expand on God.”
- Proverbs 10:22

“The Fear-Of-God expands your life. A wicked life is a puny life.”
- Proverbs 10:27

“The wage of a good person is EXUBERANT LIFE!!”
-Proverbs 10:16