The Best Home Cooking

Ok, so this post is contrary to what comes to mind when you read the title. It has absolutely nothing to do with food or home cooking. I honestly wish I was here to talk about that but unfortunately, it has to do with something less palatable and frankly, nauseating.

"You said what?!!!"

Just to clarify my position before I dig into this: I am neither Team Amber nor am I Team Johnny.
I am Team Survivors and yes I have enough understanding of domestic abuse to enable me talk about it as I have done in a previous post. I will add the link to it below:

https://www.diaryofige.com/2022/04/in-spirit-and-in-truth.html

So my ten-year-old child came home from school asking about the court case with Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. It was what friends at school were talking about, I was told. My heart skipped a beat, several beats in fact. "You said what?!!!" I asked with a horrified look!

I have been following the court case from the beginning, out of interest and for other reasons I may share some other time. Domestic abuse is a topic that hits me and it hits hard. It goes against everything I stand for, why be cruel to one another?

I have pretty much tried to catch up on the court case when it is livestreamed or I catch the gist of it on social media which is quite sad as I just have to sift through the messy battle field to get any information of value.

Emotions are obviously running pretty high on this case, and I believe it has been made worse by the fact that the two individuals involved are in the public eye and everyone i.e. fans, survivors of domestic abuse, witnesses to domestic abuse and even perpetrators,  all seem invested for one reason or the other. That can't be invalidated, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Even if they had been two obscure individuals, it is not unheard of that family members of perpetrators struggle to believe their loved ones were capable of the evils they committed? Even when faced with evidence, you'd still find someone trying to excuse it by saying it could have been provocation or self defence. They'd blame it on anything and anyone especially the victim if possible.

Most days, I'm thankful for the parenting style I've adopted with my kids, it involves a lot of conversations. We talk about a lot of things and I try to tailor it to fit in with their emotional maturity so I'm not overloading them. This however, was not something I thought I'd want to break down to them at this time. Every child is different regardless of their age and it is important as a parent to recognise this and use this knowledge to aid your child's development. There is so much that needs to be said to kids in this day and age we are in, if we don't, we run the risk of having it explained to them by an outsider and that may be the one that stays on in their heart.

The world is now at that stage where you have got to do all you can to raise emotionally strong and compassionate kids. When I look at the sheer volume of vitriol and just vile language on social media, I'm convinced everyone is going mad!

It seems we all are just slipping into a bottomless pit we created for ourselves, we know it but we just can not seem to help ourselves. Take for instance the maddening conversations going on on social media platforms such as Twitter, about these two people, everyone is attacking each other, just for supporting either of the two. What has happened to civility and kindness to one another?

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned.

Titus 3:9-11 NIV

Back to my littleling; I wondered what aspects of the case they had talked about as all the frightening and alarming evidence both Amber and Johnny had shared about whodunit or not flashed across my mind. Which part of the court case did she and her friends talk about, did they have access to their phones and had seen all the distasteful memes? 

Knowing that there could be more they had said at school other than the bit that she had mentioned (never put anything past a ten-year-old!), we both sat down and I reminded her who both actors were. She knew who Johnny Depp was of course but didn't know Amber Heard because weirdly she's seen Pirates of the Caribbean (childminder's fault and story for another post) and not Aquaman. I told her they both were adults who had done terrible and shameful things. I said they are both in court to report themselves to the world (that's how I see it) and it was a lesson to be learnt by anyone who would not wish to end up making the mistakes they now wish they hadn't made.
That was the only way I could sum up all the mess of this court case for this child. No matter the angle you use to look at this case, it is a mess.

Every adult throwing caution to the wind in their blind support for either of the two should remember their kids, especially those with TikTok accounts that they can use to see all those insensitive memes. There is no downplaying the harm it can do to them now and in the long term.
No one should be making fun at the expense of someone else's misery. Theirs's is such a story that proves again that life is nothing but vanity, it is like striving after the wind when we don't live right. If we could all turn away from lusting after things that do not count and be more accountable for all that we do, we would be better off and our kids would too.

Please stop polluting the social media space for young kids, hardly would you find a child without a smart phone nowadays, so it is up to us adults to sanitize it by controlling what we put out there.

As always, the Word of God does not fail to provide the best instructions for a wholesome existence. I find the verse below rich, nourishing and made with an extra dash of wisdom:

….I watch my step, avoiding the ditches and ruts of evil so I can spend all my time keeping your Word. I never make detours from the route you laid out; you gave me such good directions. Your words are so choice, so tasty; I prefer them to the best home cooking. With your instruction, I understand life; that’s why I hate false propaganda. By your words I can see where I’m going; they throw a beam of light on my dark path. I’ve committed myself and I’ll never turn back from living by your righteous order. Everything’s falling apart on me, God; put me together again with your Word.* * *

Psalm 119:97-107 MSG