A Squash and a Squeeze by Georgie Tennant

Isn’t it a challenge to find the right perspective when life’s inevitable troubles come our way?  I like to think I have got better at doing this over the years – and I had just the opportunity to practise, when our car decided enough was enough, at five o’clock on a foggy, August morning, whilst towing our caravan to Devon.

I have to admit that breaking down whilst towing a caravan was fairly high on my list of ‘things I would prefer never to happen.’  Over the years, though, I have got better at panicking and catastrophising less and trying to find contentment a little more.  So, as we sat on the roadside (for five hours!) I challenged myself to really try to make the best of it, and not let a grumbling spirit muscle its way back in to ruin things. I found myself chuckling at the antics of my boys, who were finding it all a great adventure.  My youngest son broke into the song “I love my life,” by Robbie Williams, as he sat on his camping chair, wrapped in his duvet.  I had packed buttered rolls for breakfast, so we had food.  I even had my own, portable toilet aboard the caravan.  I chose to smile and believe that things could have been a lot worse.

My family, camped out on the A14!

The best book ever written on finding the right perspective, in my opinion, is Julia Donaldson’s ‘A Squash and a Squeeze.’  If you have never had the delight of reading this gem to a small person in your life, let me explain.  The story centres around a woman who is sick and tired of her tiny dwelling and ‘grumbles and grouses’ about it.  A wise sage enters and tells her to bring various animals into her home, one by one – a hen, a goat, a pig and a cow.  Of course, they cause chaos and her house begins to feel smaller still. 

Then, as systematically as he encouraged her to bring them in, he instructs her to evict them. She concludes, delightedly, upon evicting them all, that her house is really quite a good size after all.  By the end of the story she is ‘full of frolics and fiddle-de-dees,’ rejoicing in her same-sized house but bigger perspective. The whole story appears as a PDF here if you want to read more.

I live in a small house and, when my in-laws from Zimbabwe come for a lengthy stay every couple of years, I chuckle to myself, reciting the story in my head, empathising with the woman and admiring her fresh perspective (we love them coming over but the challenges of two extra people in a small house are not hard to imagine!). 

What does any of this have to do with our writing? Well, I think we all have times where we lose perspective; our lives and writing experiences feel cramped and unsatisfying and we need others, and God, to breathe fresh perspective into our limited vision.  We can be narrow-minded, blinkered and easily discouraged.  I freely admit that my own thoughts about my writing head off down some very dark and gloomy rabbit holes, if I let them.  But when I get around others, hear their stories, write together, enjoy their feedback and get some prayer, I feel freshly empowered to dream, to hope, to try.

So be freshly encouraged today.  Remember that there are others of us, in this group, praying and rooting for you.  Recognise, afresh, that we writers have a tendency to self-criticism and that the flaws you see in your writing may be just the imperfect tools God delights in using.  And reflect again on God’s glorious truth – that He has a plan, He sees the end from the beginning and He placed you here, to write, “for such a time as this,” (Esther 4v14).

Georgie Tennant is a secondary school English teacher in a Norfolk Comprehensive.  She is married, with two sons, aged 11 and 8 who keep her exceptionally busy. She writes for the ACW ‘Christian Writer’ magazine occasionally, and is a contributor to the ACW-Published ‘New Life: Reflections for Lent,’ and ‘Merry Christmas, Everyone: A festive feast of stories, poems and reflections.’ She writes the ‘Thought for the Week’ for the local newspaper from time to time and also muses about life and loss on her blog: www.somepoemsbygeorgie.blogspot.co.uk