By Ben McEachenThursday 2 Sep 2021Hope AfternoonsLifeReading Time: 3 minutes
This Father’s Day, I’m looking forward to some time at home.
So many of us want the opposite. I get that. But my family moved house a few weeks ago. All the boxes have been unpacked now and we’ve hit that nice stage of getting to enjoy our new place.
I feel for people in Greater Sydney – and beyond – who are sick of their immediate surroundings. I’m usually a contented sort of guy but even I have my limits about being stuck in the “same old same old”. Some times, it would be nice to venture 5.1 kilometres from home. To a different park.
Moving house has been a top change of scenery, actually. You might want to try it, to spice up your lockdown.
My desire to have a nice, quiet family day this Sunday also is because I recently changed jobs.
My shift to Hope Afternoons has been terrific but it’s added strain to my home life in lockdown. I moved from part-time to full-time hours, and from working at home to working in the studio.
I’m out of the house a lot now. I can’t help as much with the home educating. I’m missing the extra hours each day I had of interaction with my daughters, Elodie, 6, and Ingrid, 4. I used to look after them for one or two days each week when Amy was working.
Oh, and it would be nice to see my wife Amy as I go to make a coffee in the kitchen, too. That’s a perk of working from home.
We didn’t plan to start a new job and move house at the same time. In lockdown. That combination made an already challenging time much busier and more stressful.
We didn’t plan to start a new job and move house at the same time. In lockdown. That combination made an already challenging time much busier and more stressful.
Don’t get me wrong, though. Amy and I are grateful we have jobs and a home. We also do not underestimate how valuable it is that we like the company of each other and our girls. We know people – and I guess you do as well – that do not have such things.
That actually might be you, during this never-ending “Stay at Home” saga.
If it is, I hope you have some of the supportive things in your life which we have had in ours. Friends and family have been an excellent wealth of care, concern and practical assistance. We owe them a debt of gratitude and we’re still gobsmacked at what some did, said or offered to us. Real above-and-beyond stuff.
We’ve also been struck by God’s answers to our prayers, and the praying power of others. It’s one thing to know the joy and support of people praying for you. It is another to witness answers to those prayers, in the small and big of everyday life.
God didn’t have to answer any of those prayers. But he did and we don’t really know what to say except “Thank you so very, very much.”
Father’s Day 2021 is set to be a fairly relaxed affair around our way, compared with what has been happening.
And that’s just fine with me, thanks.