Nearly my last Pause in Advent 2010!

There are two posts I want to write this week, so this is the first of two Advent Pauses! It's the personal one - tomorrow I will post my final one, thanking all you lovely bloggers who've taken part in our little bit of peace in the midst of the preparations. What I want to write about is gratitude for the past year, and trust for the year to come. When I looked in my prayer journal to see what was on my mind this time last year, I recalled that we had been terribly worried, as a family, about poor little Son 2, who had started College, the French secondary school, at the age of only 10. This is perfectly possible, given the way that the French school ages are organised, but by Christmas last year it was clear that he wasn't coping. His classmates were a particularly big, grouchy and underachieving bunch, and he was a terrified little learner, with a big fear of failure, amongst them. He was frequently in floods of tears over unfinished homework, and had difficulty sleeping.
j
We've known how our prayers were answered - the College reluctantly agreed this summer that Son 2 could redoubler, or take the year again, and we can see (and constantly remark on) how much happier he is this year, amongst children nearer his age and with aspirations more similar to his own. But to see our fears recorded in writing, and to think back over how things came together to this happy resolution, really makes me feel confident in the grace of God to see us through this next year, too.
j
This year poor old Son 1 is having the problems! (It's good of them to spread it out for us like this, I have to say...) He has coordination difficulties, a kind of dyspraxia, and because he's bright he always seems to get on OK, just with rubbish handwriting. But handwriting is such a key thing in the rigid French education system - all lessons are copied down from the board and re-learnt from your own writing - that as he gets higher up the system the tension of trying to finish lessons under physical stress (and then being told to try harder...) has really taken its toll. He has experts coming out of his ears - psychomotriciens, psychologists etc, all pointing out the physical difficulties he faces and asking the school to give him a break by providing photocopies of the lessons. So far, no go, but we think that his form teacher is now on-side and should get this organised for next term. But the stress of Raja's illness, his grandmother's death, and all this, have led to physical manifestations of the anxiety he's been suffering - recently he's developed trichotillomania, which is pulling out your hair. It's well under control now and he can add a psychiatrist to his list of experts (boy, did she write a chilly letter to his school...). But you can see why it has been very valuable to look back to our worries last year, and their resolution.
j
This is not a Christmassy song, but I can't think of a better way to end my post:


j

THIS, this is the God we adore,
Our faithful, unchangeable Friend;
Whose love is as great as his power,
And neither knows measure nor end.
'Tis Jesus, the First and the Last,
Whose Spirit shall guide us safe home;
We'll praise him for all that is past,
And trust him for all that's to come.