I'm happy to be an empty-nester

Whilst I do miss the "good ol days" when my children were young, I am so glad that it's over now. I don't think I could cope with it. Having an empty nest does have some advantages: our routine doesn't have to be as inflexible as when we had young ones to look after.

Meals are pretty impromptu affairs. We may plan to have such and such for dinner, but then decide either we aren't hungry or we may eat something like rice bubbles for dinner. Also, the meal hours are according to how we feel. And if I don't feel up to cooking, we will have a frozen dinner. We couldn't do that with young ones.

Bedtime hours are also more flexible as we go to bed when we feel like it. If I can't sleep it's no big deal to get up and make us a cup of tea and go back a few hours later. Waking up late is no problem either, neither are nana naps anymore. I take them as required.

I don't think I would make a good mother these days: Xena often wakes me up to feed her and I feel quite annoyed. I suppose it would be different if it were a child.  

There's also a good reason for menopause: I think if I had a baby now I would forget where I had put it.  And now with fibromyalgia fog, I know I would! 

So even though I miss some aspects of my young mothering days, I am totally content with the flexibility empty nesting has now in my latter years. Besides, I couldn't stand being asleep while the teens get ready to go out. And forget about waiting up all night for them to get home safely. 

No, sometimes I am mighty happy to be an empty-nester! 

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: Ecclesiastes 3:1

Baby hunger and old ladies.

As a woman who is now a great-grandmother, I have come to realise that for most of us women, there is a deep desire to one day becoming a mother. It is how God created us.

Indeed, one sees this inherent virtue in young girls from the time they tenderly place blankets around their dollies or clasp a dolly to their breast in the first bloom of maternal love.

As is natural, after this first blooming, other factors come into play as they learn about the world, books and life. But the seed of maternal desire has been sowed and will spring up in later years.

Nurture of new life is a characteristic of womanhood and that nurturing endures for a lifetime. Ask any aged woman who has reared a family and she will tell you that it still presents itself. It presents itself in memories of her own children now grown, and later in her children's children. And if she is fortunate, in her grandchildren's children.

The ache for a baby to hold is still strong, even though the years for becoming a mother are well and truly gone. Each baby will be scrutinised, exclaimed over and rocked and the wonder of new life and a baby's sweet smell will transport a woman to earlier years and the time she first welcomed each new child of her own into her arms and life.

I remember once when we were at a wedding, my aged aunt begged me to allow her to hold my baby daughter, eagerly holding her arms out to receive her. At the time, I didn't realise how strong baby hunger is, until the last grandchild was born and my arms became empty.

There seem to be less babies these days, in part to feminism trying to tell us that a career is better than wiping little noses and bottoms and advise control of our fertility by having abortions. However, wherever there is a baby, you can be sure of two things- there will be other children and old ladies.

For the young ones, it brings a fascination born of that same inbuilt desire to love and nurture. But why old ladies? you ask. Because most times the God created desire to nurture and the love of new life remains long after the ability to beget children. A newborn brings back the memories of younger fertile years and the children born in that time. It makes her feel young again. Reborn. 

Enjoy your children and grandchildren and always get plenty of cuddles. Baby hunger will be easier to cope with if you get a full diet of infant cuddles while you are still young.... 

I promise, you will feel that longing to fill your empty arms with a baby one day as baby hunger is very real. 

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

He maketh the barren woman to keep house, [and to be] a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD. Psalm 113:9

Created for love

As women, we can often think that God has given us the rough end of a pineapple physically. We have to contend with pre-menstrual stress, periods and later on, pregnancy and childbirth  and menopause. Even our first intercourse is often painful and we wonder if we had the power, if we would have preferred to have been born male.

But I don't think most of us realise that God loves womankind and has designed us to respond to a loving man with a sensitive organ that has no other place than to bring us pleasure in intercourse. Other than humans, no other mammal has one: a clitoris.

In the Song of Solomon, the Shulamite actually requests her Beloved to pleasure her so that her juices may flow out...His left hand is under my head, And his right hand embraces me. Song of Songs 2:6  Awake, O north wind, And come, O south! Blow upon my garden, That its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come to his garden And eat its pleasant fruits. Songs 4:1

The Shulamite is well aware of this gift of love from the LORD. Something that speaks to us of God's love for us and His plan for a happy marriage with His daughters elevated to more than mere sex objects. 

This gift from the LORD is spoken of in many ancient texts and in Latin is known as "the little key" for it opens the pathway to a woman's heart. The French call it "Le petit penis" which is the little penis, so named because in the early fetal stage these two organs develop the same: the male nub growing into a penis and the female nub receding into the clitoris. Both comprised of the same sensitive tissue and nerve endings. Proof that intercourse is not meant to be pleasurable just for men.

It's interesting to note that in non Christian countries where a woman's place is mainly for begetting sons, the clitoris is either cut or fully removed. Supposedly to ensure a woman stays faithful and doesn't gain pleasure from intercourse. In fact, it's just further proof that Satan hates womankind and destroys everything that God says is good.

Married sex is so important in bonding couples that God has created an organ that enhances not only pleasure for women, but for the husbands who delight in pleasing them. This is so critical in building strong marriages and keeping families together. 

Once we get over our embarrassment at reading about the clitoris, we can see that it is a gift to women from a God Who truly loves them.

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

His left hand is under my head,  and his right hand embraces me.  Song of Songs 8:3

Cinnamon buns and Kleenex

                                          

Just recently I have been going through some difficult and emotional times! Not only has my fibromyalgia flared, causing me pain and fatigue through not sleeping soundly and my heart has been paining me, but I have had to contend with hot flushes and the roller coaster of feminine hormones both rising and waning- mostly waning I suspect!

I know I am not the only woman on earth to go through this stage of life- but I can only write about how it has effected me- anything else is hearsay and observation! The curious thing is that I thought I left Menopause City behind, but as I walk through the Path of Life, I have been confronted with another sign post that tells me I am still in the boundaries of the City.

Today, for example, Chris and I were having a coffee and cinnamon bun at our shopping Centre…apart from tiredness, I was feeling OK emotionally. A darling little baby girl was in her stroller eating some of her mother’s cinnamon roll and she was making quite a mess of herself. I was captivated by her- she was so cute! As I turned smiling to mention her to Chris, a very pregnant lady walked past me and my mood suddenly spiralled downwards to regret. 

With intense sadness, the knowledge that pregnancy and motherhood were no longer things which I would enjoy personally, hit me like a blow across the mouth. The realisation that I was not only getting old- but WAS old, took me by surprise and I tried to counteract it’s horrible gripping effect on me by mentioning the delightful baby girl drooling cinnamon icing, to Chris, who was happily sipping his coffee.

To my utter horror, my eyes started to fill up and I could not control the feelings of despair and sadness that threatened to overtake me! As I grabbed a serviette to dab my eyes, and to both of our embarrassment, I started crying into my cinnamon bun! Chris was taken unawares as well and just rubbed my hand. 

I ran to the ladies restrooms, where I cried for the years of childbearing and mothering that flew by too, too fast!…I cried for the hunger to feel a baby kicking inside me, and to smell that irresistible smell of a new-born baby and to feel the velvet skin of a new blessing against me as I breastfed! 

Blowing my nose, I battled the jealousy I felt seeing women carrying babies in their wombs and in their baby slings. I battled the feelings of fear of old age and disappearing waist line and loss of my youthful vigour and health. I panicked momentarily as I realised that I was probably 2 thirds through my life already- and I still felt at times like a girl!I flushed the toilet as I waited until the tears abated, hoping to drown them out from the ears of other people. 

It was a frightening and embarrassing moment! And a puzzling one too! For I “know” I am too old to be a mother..too many health issues too..too fatigued to take on a child 24/7 for the rest of my life…too selfish in a lot of ways now…YET the desires and maternal feelings haven’t died! And now that I have had a cry, thought through the whole thing and had time with the LORD, I feel silly. 

 I suppose I shouldn’t really feel silly…the maternal hormones are a God-given part of being feminine and so too is this season of my life. I just find that sometimes the maternal hormones go on hyperdrive as the childbearing ones wane. How grateful I am that God has given me an understanding husband…one who says he understands even when I don’t. One who passes me a cinnamon bun and a Kleenex without too many questions….and rubs my hand…it all helps.

© Glenys Robyn Hicks  

"To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:Ecclesiastes 3:10