Our Opisto student completed his year Jämsä Opisto last spring. He was our first child to attend Opisto. With this minimal parental experience, I am happy to recommend Opisto to every young person.
This fall I started my fifth year in university. My studies have reached a point where there is only an uncompleted Master’s thesis between me and graduation.
I have been marveling at the number of people with computer skills during this pandemic. We have online services and live-streamed presentations as a routine. In our home zion, for instance, we had a congregation evening online. Everything was done really professionally. I could not have imagined this a couple of years ago.
May 9 was a Sunday and Mothers’ Day this year. Nine years ago it was a Tuesday. On that day we had a baby boy with lovely eyes and long eyelashes. Throughout the pregnancy I had gone for regular appointments at the antenatal clinic, as all expecting mothers do in Finland.
I suddenly remembered a small, seemingly unimportant incident from my youth. I was about twenty and already aware of my innate impatient restlessness, which I continue to feel occasionally. “Where should we go?” I often asked then and still do today.
It was evening. The little ones were sitting and playing with their lego bricks. My husband was preparing to go to work. He went round to each child and blessed them with the gospel. Then he came to me, and we hugged and blessed each other. Suddenly, when he was already leaving, our youngest child looked up and said: “Daddy! You did not bless me!” My husband said he had already done that. But the child had apparently been so seriously concentrating on her play that she had not noticed it. She insisted: “You did not bless!”
The packages had white stickers with a picture of a red crystal glass. They had stickers on all sides. In addition to those stickers, there were others that said: ”Fragile. Handle with care.” From fifty years ago, I still remember the instructions for handling such packages: “Do not throw. Do not leave under other packages. Handle with care”.
One morning I was so sad that I just cried. All things seemed difficult and frightening, l was disappointed, and I felt my vacation had been far too short. Everything seemed utterly oppressive. I hugged my dog for consolation. I lay down by its side, feeling my heart weighed down by all my sorrows. I just stroked the soft fur for a while, letting tears stream down my face, and the dog then licked them off my face.
I asked my children what I should write in my next blog post. One of them suggested I should write about myself and tell the readers what I am like.
The room was quiet. The young boy was sitting alone in the twilight, staring at his phone. My wife and I in the living-room were wondering why our son’s life was so lonely. We were worried that his lack of friends might leave deep scars in his mind. It was as if he were quietly slipping away from life.
"For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." (Ps. 91:11–12).
A year ago, I was invited to start blogging for Päivämies. Optimistically, I expected that, given a full year, I would find 12 fairly good ideas for blog posts. Well, I didn’t. Deadlines came and went, and I often did not even touch the pen in the meantime.
Blogit
Toimitus suosittelee
Viikon kysymys
Toimitus suosittelee
Viikon kysymys