Winter is gasping its last, dying breath and I find myself holding onto its pleasant chill, knowing the the searing, invasive days of summer are looming close. The sun is out today, but there have been several days of grey clouds, gusts of wind and rain about which have invited me to curl up deliciously inside, not feeling guilty about snuggly up with a movie in the afternoon, or sipping hot drinks while the storm rages outside. I love walking in the cold, too, with the wind nipping my cheeks, and invigorating my mind. I am holding onto these days.
I wonder, though, if that is necessarily a good thing? Should we hold onto that which is slipping through our fingers, looking back nostalgically to the sweet days of the past? Do I loathe the coming season, or do I embrace it, living it fully and with gusto, rather than wishing for the seemingly more pleasant past? Life seems to move so quickly, with sweet blossom one day and branches covered in leaves the next. I know these days of rich, verdant scents and bright floral colours spread exultantly everywhere will soon give way to long days of shimmering heat where everything, including me, seems to wilt. Should I look ahead beyond this delightful spring, past summer, to the pleasant days of autumn, and miss living fully in the current season? Am I seizing the day, pausing to stop and imbibe the pleasant moments each day brings?
A change of season always brings a kind of longing in me, a wistfulness for I know not what. I stop to examine the days and spend too much time longing for what I don’t yet have, and not enough time being thankful for the current joys. In five days, I’ll be back at school and I won’t have time to loll about, pleasing myself, but that is ok. I intend to grasp hold of this next season with both hands, giving myself fully while I can to the students. I will embrace them and enjoy those moments for what they are, not longing to be elsewhere. I’ll trust Him to make all things beautiful in His time, not mine. I’ll embrace His time, knowing that it is best.
Filed under: Cambodia, God thoughts, Reaching out, at home, garden, loving others, marriage
Life is rapidly falling into a routine in this new world of no-longer-working of mine. Are you suprised that I am actually rather busy? 
The days are melding together, passing by like the drip-drip-drip of the constant rain, and overshadowed by the leaden, glutinous sky that reminds me of winters in England. I love winter. It is relatively short, here, and I relish each day of crisp cold, still warm enough to sit in the sun with my coffee, but cool enough to need a couple of layers of clothing. I love the grey sky and the rain, making it easy to stay inside and cook comforting meals and read, leisurely, on the sofa.
Somehow, too, I am learning a new skill, and have been doing a lot of work on our church’s website. I’m not sure if I will ever grasp the intricacies of the technical side, but I am enjoying designing the pages and writing updates on our blog and providing much creative input. I am finding this very satisfying.
I enjoy having time to exercise each day, dashing out in the morning then coming home and spending an hour or so making our house a home. I am delighting in making sure that my busy husband has very little to do around here once he gets home from work apart from that which he wants to do. We shared chores for so long; now, it is nice to do this for him, because I can. 
I have been gardening and cleaning long-neglected corners. I have had plenty of time to pause and dwell on my Father, in the midst of ordinary things. I have seen friends, too, and had plenty of time for fun.
Yesterday, a dear friend of mine and I went to the opening of Tiffany’s in Perth. We weren’t part of the glamourous champagne set, but watched the festivities from the warmth of the coffee shop across the street, over big bowls of porridge and roasted fruit. We went in afterwards, with an abundance of women from Perth – such fun! It’s our anniversary, soon, and my husband sent me in to peruse the display. I have my eye on this: what do you think? (I notice the link didn’t work. It is on the first page, bottom row, second from the right. )I’d like to have a ring that I can wear on its own, particularly for travel, when I don’t want to take my other rings.
On the subject of travel, we are preparing for a trip to Cambodia next month, just my husband and me. We will be doing some financial teaching, relating to the ministry our church has set up (micro finance loans, giving, managing money – that kind of thing) and then spending a few days building into all the church leaders. I haven’t been to Cambodia for about four years. It will be a joy to reconnect with dear faces old and new.
So, you see, life can take on a new structure and purpose very quickly! You were all right about that!
Today is the first day that I am officially ‘home’. School is back, but I am not. I feel strangely adrift, unsettled, uneasy. I feel like tiptoeing around my house, as though I am disturbing its workday slumber. I should be happy, but it all just seems too quiet, a day without meaning or purpose. I’m not sure if I like it. Is it ok to listen to music? Is it ok to enjoy myself if my husband is busy at work? Should I have a list of accomplishments to present him (and others) at the end of the day?
There is a lot to do – cleaning, gardening (put off for weeks), freezers to clean out, cupboards to sort – but I can’t seem to get started. I can’t seem to shake off this sense of guilt. I know that I need to transition from work to home, from being defined as a teacher, respected for my knowlege and skills, to just being me, defined by my status as a child of God. It is suprisingly hard. I know that I need this time in many ways. I know that I have much to learn from the great Teacher, but I think it will take me a while to become used to this new phase. I have lots of plans and dreams, but I’m not really sure where to start. I have a list of things to do, but I’m not sure if my priorities are right and good. It is all very strange.
If you had all this free time, what would you do?
What to write when you haven’t written in quite some time?
I’m still trying to process the fact that I will be taking off the whole of next term. My darling and I have been doing a lot of talking, and we both think I am due for a nice long break from teaching. Fourteen years is a long time, and I do need some breathing space in my life. I am looking forward to deconstructing my life a little bit, and allowing God to re-align me through that most precious of gifts, time. Sometimes in order to step into the new you need to break away from the old, even if it feels like you are stepping into a chasm.
What will I be doing? I hear you ask.
I have no idea. All I know is that this is right and good, even though it feels like all that is normal and secure has been shaken up vigourously.
Before I started blogging I never realised how much talk there was on what women should be doing and what men should be doing. In the church I attended quite a few years ago, the women pretty much just cooked for the prayer breakfasts, did the flowers, cleaning, Sunday School and were a pretty amazing support and encouragment over all. As a young women, I remember wondering why women couldn’t organise communion and so on – I just thought it was a bit strange. I was happy, though, and it wasn’t until a few years later that I began to discover all that the Lord had placed in me, and I yearned for a place to utilise these gifts.
In the church we attend now, men and women do whatever. Leadership is based upon gifting, calling and character. Each of us is encouraged and spurred on to be the best that we can be in Christ, and none of it relates to gender. We wives are taught to honour and submit to our husbands, though, and we also show great esteem and honour to our leaders. It just all seems good and right, to me. In our marriage, we have a strong mutual fan club happening. He listens to me, respects what I say, and I do the same. There are times when we reach an impasse, and that is when I give him right of way. It’s all good. I see a clear line of authority happening in the Word, but I also see great love and respect and esteem on all sides. Authority is ruled and wielded by a rule of love.
Both my husband and I desire to see the other reach all they can be in God. We spur one another on to good deeds in Him. He steps into my areas of weakness and prods me into change, and I do the same for him. We work together as a team. At the end of the day, he is still the leader, but we are one, a team in this game of life.
We both ‘know’ that one day we will be running a ministry together. It is just something we feel called to do. I know that it won’t be a traditional ‘church’, more a place of training like the wonderful church we attend now. I’m not sure when it will be; we both have so much more growing to do, but I know it will happen as we allow Him to mould us and change us.
We’ve discussed how it will look, in the light of marriage and family. Both of us feel that ministry is not a masculine role; indeed, the best and strongest ministries operate with husband and wife hand in hand. We believe that we both will be called to work full-time in this, and it will take both of us to run our family full-time in this also. There will be times when he will have to take on the domestic responsibilities, and there will be times when it is best for me to do so.
We saw a little of this operating this weekend. We launched our outreach programme this weekend at church, the one I have been working on with a team of others. I spent a lot of time in meetings and at the computer. Usually on a Sunday morning my husband spends a lot of time getting ready for his worhsip ministry, while I take care of getting dinner ready ahead of time, running loads of washing ready for the working week, and organising stuff for kids church if I am on this day.
Yesterday, I spent the better part of the day working here. I had a speech to refine, teams to organise, powerpoints to put together. It took all my time and attention. My lovely man did the laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, hung out the washing and organised a number of things that needed doing. We did what needed to get done, and no job was more or less important. It was all about supporting each other as needed. I was working in the area where my gift and calling was needed, and he was supporting that. I do the same for him when it is his time to shine.
It works well.
In these parts we get a blanket four days off for Easter – Good Friday and Easter Monday being public holidays. It makes for a nice four day weekend, something we have desperately needed. Hubs and I intended to go away, but somehow it just didn’t happen, and when we finally looked for somewhere to stay last week, it was just the dregs left over. I would rather stay at home than be somewhere daggy and boring, so, here we are. I love just being with my husband; this morning we washed the cars, so romantic.
We tend not to do anything special for Easter in terms of its religious significance. Back when I attended a more traditional Baptist-type church (which I loved, for that time) we always had a service on Good Friday, and an extra-special one on Easter Sunday. Our church now doesn’t do anything special. We don’t observe Lent or any of the feasts. The reasoning behind this is that quite often we’ll use those things to ‘be spiritual’ at that time, or to feel that we are closer to God for the doing of those things. I guess we see that it is more important to live a daily life of remembrance and honouring God for His supreme sacrifice, than to focus on it for a period of special days. We try to build into our lives a daily feast and passion for holiness. We still, however, teach the children at church about Easter and we are having a picnic tomorrow as a church rather than a meeting. We will ‘do’ church by enjoying each outdoors, and I’m sure an Easter egg or two may make an appearance.
I like to have little traditions, though, and I am building a few for our family. We tend to have hot cross buns for breakfast on Good Friday, and on Easter Sunday I’ll follow my family’s tradition by serving hard-boiled eggs. I may even colour them the way my mother used to. I’ll never forget the vivid memories of waking early on Easter Sunday morning, and heading out into the garden with my siblings to hunt for eggs. My mother always hard-boiled some eggs in different colours, and I remember sitting on the lawn, dividing up the spoils, and eating those eggs which had their own special Easter flavour.
Easters as a teen tended to revolve around youth camps. Quite a few of these would involve a silent Sunday morning march up the hill, and a sunrise service, followed by a breakfast full of talk and laughter back at the camp. Good times.
I’ve lived in a lot of places in my life. I was born in South Africa, and we lived for the first five or six years of my life in a semi-rural area, with about ten acres and a lot of trees and animals. We then moved, I think, to a rental, then another home and finally a big house in the suburbs. (Life was luxurious in those days for many South Africans.). When I was eight, my parents (one English, one South African) decided to give their four children a childhood of freedom, not the menacing, cloistered, violent childhood they saw looming in years to come in our beautiful land. They moved us to Australia, a move that had profound effects on all of us, particularly my older sister and I. Moving is stressful for children, let alone emigrating to a new land. You lose all that you hold dear, all that is familiar. For us, we moved to a place where we had no extended family for thousands of kilometres.
I remember always feeling a little ‘different’ – the way I talked, behaved, the life experiences I had had. We had always travelled a lot overseas as a family in my growing up years, and I think I had quite a broad worldview even then. Once here in Australia, we moved a couple of times again, involving new schools each time. When I look back, I think I can count about eight different schools that I attended.
Once I finished university, I took off for London, where I lived for two and half years. Those were some of the best years of my life – meeting new people, relying on God like never before, travelling to new and beautiful lands. The world seemed so big and so small, both at the same time. I discovered that beneath the cultural and geographic exteriors, we are all the same, really. We all eat and drink and wash and play and talk and laugh and love and dream. We all have plans for a family and a future, and we all work for similar goals. Around the world, people are just people. We are not that different from each other.
Coming home, I found that no-one really wanted to hear about my experiences. Life goes on for people, and our own lives and experiences are what we are most involved with. I remember feeling a sense of restlessness, a sense of not belonging. Was I South African? Australian? English? My heart was in all those lands. I fell in love with many places around the globe in the following years. Now, when I land in Singapore or Cambodia there is a distinct sense of ‘coming home’. Many places have a small piece of my heart.
I’ve often thought about patriotism. Having led the life I have, and living in three different countries, no one place feels like my home country. I believe this is not a bad thing. The bible tells us that He has put eternity in our hearts, that our existence here is but a blink of an eye. If we feel passionate about our earthly home, and love it at the cost of loving other nations, we are forgetting that the Lord has told us He has given us all nations. He tells us to go out into the whole world, sharing the Truth of His Son. I’m not saying we should not defend our nations against agressors. I’m just wondering if a national pride prevents us from loving the nations as they should be loved. If our fierce pride in the land of our birth prevents us from living as though this is only our temporary home. If it leads to us thinking that our nationality and culture is the best one, not just one of many that God loves equally. Having that sense of not really belonging completely anywhere means that I live with the knowlege of eternity, that my life is in heaven, not just in this one nation here on earth. It means that if the Lord tells us to go – it is a little easier to leave ‘home’ because our identity is not in a place but in a Person.
The thing about elephants is that they don’t often do what you want them to. This pesky elephant persists in hanging around, and I’m tired of waiting for it to go. Thus, I will keep blogging even though that darned mammal steps on my toes every now and then. I know I’m vague; it’s just that this is something that I don’t want to blog about. It has to do with waiting, and heartache and deferred hopes and dreams, and knowing that God is still good despite the suffering that seems to go on forever. Sometimes the Lord takes you down a path to teach you beautiful and holy truths that are learnt through pain and grief. He allows to experience pain that we may one day alleviate and understand others’ pain. We are told to bear one anothers burdens and we have certainly experienced that through the love of friends and family. I marvel at His goodness even though the path is rocky.
In the meantime: it is spring and the air is like champagne and the flowers are blooming riotously. I am on school holidays and am knowing the delights of hours in the sun-lounge with a book and a nice drink. The vegetables are growing and the herbs are beginning to flower and there is so much of life that is sweet and good.
We celebrated our two week anniversary last weekend. We had planned the weekend a few months ago – drive down to the beach house, lots of nice snacks, wine, walks on the beach. We talked about where we would eat our special lunch, and what we would do for breakfast and our other meals. We packed our hiking shoes, eager to do a really long walk in some of the stunning Margaret River scenery. My husband did extra-long hours all week, just so we could leave soon after lunch on Friday, and so we could have a nice long afternoon and evening on Friday at the beach house, rather than on the road. We packed books and games and a movie. We just knew we were going to have the best time.
All through the night on Thursday I felt this funny tickle that would not go away. On Friday, I woke with a scratchy throst. I dosed myself liberally with fresh lemon juice in water, garlic, and any other remedy I could think of. By the time we got in the car, my nose started to run.
Let me just say that by Friday evening, I had a raging case of the flu. I was cold and hot and sneezy and achy. I went through two hundred tissues during the weekend. I couldn’t believe it. Romantic it was not.
After very little sleep, we both woke on Saturday, me bemoaning in my subtle way the crashing of our weekend’s plans. My husband was his stoical, positive self. (Which is so great when you just want to scream and whine and complain about the unfairness of it all gently wish aloud you were well.) “Let’s just enjoy what we can. We’re here now, let’s make the most of it according to how you feel.” In between coughing and spluttering and shivering and blowing, we went on a brief walk, looked Canal Rocks (one of our favourite places) ate out and relaxed in the sun. Despite my misery, I had as good a time as I could. We were together, it was our anniversary, we were rejoicing in two very happy years. There have certainly been better times, but, we did what we could with what we had. We made the most of a frustrating situation.
Sometimes, we make plans which come crashing down. To paraphrase the Word, man makes plans, but God orders his steps. I don’t believe that God sends bad things our way, but He is in every circumstance. He is with us in the time of trial. He uses every situation to mould us into His image and in order to bring glory to Himself. Sometimes life is just plain hard. It doesn’t match up with our hopes and dreams. The bible promises us we will have times of trial, but it makes a greater promise: that we have a Redeemer who will part the waters, walk through the fire with us, go with us through the valley of the shadow of death. I’m talking, of course, of far greater trials than a bad cold on a weekend away.
It is not for us to question why, or doubt the goodness of God, but for us to set our hearts towards him, learn what in means to have His strength in our weakness, for Him to be the author and perfecter of our faith. It takes courage to honour God in every situation, even those that involve the annihilation of our hopes and dreams and plans. It takes courage and perserverance to praise Him anyway; to give Him glory despite our circumstances. He is good, and His love endures forever.
Filed under: God thoughts
Here is a very quick expose of how we view giving. This may raise more questions than answers!
Three vital principles of giving
- Always give in vision (where there is no vision, the people perish)
- Always give in faith (Galations 6:9; Ecclesiastes 7:1; Luke 6:31)
- Give cheerfully!
First fruits:
These we give to the leadership. They are not the same as tithes. First fruits honour our pastors or leaders. The Father gave Jesus the first fruits, and He in turn became first fruits.
On that day men were appointed over the chambers for the stores, the contributions, the firstfruits, and the tithes, to gather into them the portions required by law for the priests and the Levites according to the fields of the towns, for Judah rejoiced over the priests and Levites who served [faithfully]. Nehemiah 12:44 And [we obligate ourselves] to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the first of all the fruit of all trees year by year to the house of the Lord, Neh 10: 35
Honour the Lord with your capital and sufficiency [from righteous labors] and with the firstfruits of all your income; [Deut. 26:2; Mal. 3:10; Luke 14:13, 14.] So shall your storage places be filled with plenty, and your vats shall be overflowing with new wine. [Deut. 28:8.] Prov 3: 9-10
Interestingly enough, the first fruits offering is known as the ‘more than enough’ offering. I like that. First fruits are like a ‘thank you’ offering to God. The bible speaks of it as giving out of the increase. What they did in the Word was they gave first fruits of the crop to the Lord, and when the rest came up, they tithed to the church out of that. The bible says that if we give the first fruits to Him, the rest of the crop will be blessed. Tithing is different – we’ve heard a million tithing messages, but first fruits are always treated separately in the Word.
Giving to the poor is also spoken about. The bible speaks abundantly on this sort of giving. It tells us that when we lend to the poor we are lending to God. It tells us to store up treasures in heaven. Jesus said that if we feed and clothe a needy person it is as though we feed and clothe Him. There are many, many verses relating to this. In the Word it speaks of giving ten percent of our income every third year to the poor, the widows, the lame and so on, which works out to 3.3% per year.
One thing we do not do is fear giving. We give in faith and the confidence that God is our provider and we do not need to fear lack when we are obedient to Him. I can speak in all security and truth that we have seen this to be so. We should live not in a state of ‘crisis management’, but in a state of leadership and confidence in the truth of our Father and the Word.
