Relection

As I reflect on what I’ve just posted, it becomes very clear that there was no mention of any worship or devotions throughout the week. Guess the enemy was successful this week. Now I’m starting to understand why my spirit’s being encouraged to maintain this blog. Maybe if I’d written earlier, I’d have noticed the lack of God in my week. Oh well, I obviously need to adjust my focus, no wonder I’m feeling frazzled this week …

Week's journey

Well, I haven’t written for about a week, but it’s been a very busy week – with incredible ups and downs.

Friday and Saturday I attended a Willow Creek small groups seminat. Our church is so committed to this cause that they offered to sponsor anyone presently involved in small groups to attend. Since I am involved with Alpha, I qualified. Overall it was a great conference, and most of the information was useful. I looked at it as training for the “big assignment”. There was a lot of good information around interacting with your neighborhood, workplace and neighbours.

But it was a bit ironic that here I am attending workshops about how great small groups can be and how committed the members are to each other, and there I am attending alone. Sure, I am getting to know people at our church and I talked to those I knew periodically, but overall it was an incredibly lonely experience. Go figure, eh?

And then when I came home, I was unbearably depressed. Guess I took it out on D, so we weren’t talking for a couple of days. Great ending to what really was a good conference. I had to force myself to attend church on Sunday. D was mad at me, and expressed it by not going to church. Thank goodness I had R with me, or it would have been another lonely experience.

It could be that God is telling me something. I need to explore this more. I have a great husband and great kids, but good friends are in short supply. That’s not to say I don’t have friends, because I have a couple of long-term friends who know me very well, but we really don’t get together very often. I don’t have many people outside the home to share day-to-day events and struggles with. And then I have co-workers, but they aren’t Christians and I do have to interact with them at work, so they come with their own limitations.

So, that was the conference ….

The rest of the week has just been busy. It’s month end at work, so the days have been packed. I have to admit that by around 3:30 I’m exhausted these days. And then the nights are busy too. Here’s an overview of my week so far:

Monday –     Bought supplies for the cooking night at lunch, and then bought the groceries after work. Came home, made dinner
Tuesday –     Business lunch with bosses & a colleague, pick R up from his tutoring class, rush home to change, head out to church for 1st cooking night, home around 9:00 pm
Wed. -     Regular lunch with K, home to change then out to Forex seminar with D, then out for a dinner date afterwards, home around 10:30
Thurs. -      Staff Lunch meeting, the more meetings in afternoon, pick up R from tutoring class, then was supposed to meet I. for dinner, but she cancelled. Had already arranged for D to take R to typing, so had the rest of the night off at home
Fri -      ????

And now we’re into a busy weekend, but really now – I need to rush off to work, so more updates later.

Financial Rumblings

Today's kind of a limbo day. Nothing much happening so far. R has his after school program, then we're both helping out with the kids tonight. It's a family fun night this week. I start the cooking lessons next week. Praying for guidance on what to have the kids make. I start off with the older kids next week and I have a 40 minute session.

 

Payday today. I've already taken out my tithe, and we're pretty much on track for the budget. I have to get off post-dates for the last 2 installments to the Trustee this week, and then the proposal will be over. Hard to believe we've actually made it to the end. I remember back to when things were in such turmoil and I heard God urging me to admit the problem and get help. That seemed like such a huge step. It seemed wrong to admit we just couldn't do it, without being forced by some creditor. Seems funny now, but at the time it was terrifying. And I also had to convince D that we should admit our problem and seek help. It's been a rocky road, but God's faithfulness has shone through. With his help, we're actually tithing now, and slowly getting into better shape.

 

I remember when we first met with the Trustee and he went over how a proposal works. One of the things he warned us about was that once signed and accepted we would be responsible and could not change or alter the agreement or amount to be paid. He warned that if either of us lost our jobs or took a decrease in pay, it would be very difficult and we would still be bound by the agreement. Well, sure enough, D's salary has been all over the map. Only God's faithfulness has seen us through that! And now that we've come through it, D now has steady, secure employment.

 

It's a corner I'm more than happy to turn, but it's certainly a milestone we need to remember. How God guided us and brought us through it all. And not without us making mistakes and bad decisions, but he remained faithful. Now I've got money saved in our work stock fund, and we're starting to build up a bit of savings. The house has increased in value and our mortgage has slowly gone down. Once the trustee discharges our proposal, we're talking to the bank about clearing up the 2nd mortgage we had to do earlier this year. Get that done and hopefully start setting the financing for the new house in motion. That will be the next step in determining God's will. If I'm right and he's pointing us to the new neighborhood, it will certainly take his intervention to get us there. And the doors have already started opening. When D talked to the bank last week, they said that our credit is actually not that bad, despite the fact that they're the ones who we had the most difficulty with over the past year. They seemed quite willing to discuss options once we have the discharge papers. Obviously God's hand again.

Prayer for the week

Jesus, all for Jesus
All I am, and have, and ever hope to be …

My prayer for the week

… All of my ambitions, hopes and plans,
I surrender these, unto your hands …

Oh, so very hard to do

… For it’s only in your will, that I am free …

The wonderful reward for obedience

Special thanks to Robin Mark for providing lyrics to my innermost heart’s soundtrack. Check him out here - http://www.robinmark.com/

Schedule/Groups

Wow, all of a sudden my week just filled up!! My police check came through, rather quickly actually. So Tuesday nights I will start teaching cooking at the Kids Club – young kids youth club.

Thursday nights, R’s typing class has started and that runs for 10 weeks, so I have to take him there, and then if I hurry I can make it home just in time for the new CSI.

Saturday morning’s I’ve started back with Alpha, now at PCC, so that takes up the whole morning, from about 8:00 to noon. It feels good to be back at Alpha, although it’s a little strange to feel like an outsider coming in. But everyone has been very welcoming and I feel that this IS where God wants me to be. More about that later …

Sunday’s of course it’s church in the mornings, but J is now attending a neighboring Anglican church, and our church has started offering a bible study during the early service for R. So we’re off to the early service, quite a feat in itself! We leave at 9, drop J off at her church, and then off to our service/program. Pick up J, go home for some brunch. Then it’s off across the city for R’s basketball club.

All in all, it’s much busier that I’ve been for some time. The only person who’s busier is R, who also has his after school tutoring program on Tuesday & Thursday. And he also helps out at Kids Club as a student helper.

Now about Alpha …

As you may know, I’ve had a tough time lately discerning where Alpha fit into God’s plan for me over the past little while. When I took on the Property role, which I do feel God led me to do, it really didn’t leave time for me to devote to Alpha. And then the program just fell apart. Realistically Glen E. wasn’t equipped to offer Alpha during that period. I had felt for some time that it was wrong to encourage new believers if we didn’t have the church structure for them to continue growing. Sure the church was still active, but offered no supplemental programs and was going through such transition that it really wasn’t a healthy environment for brand new Christians.

But the funny thing about being back at Alpha is that I started last Saturday, and don’t I get a personal letter that week for B.D. The timing was quite ironic, or should I say “divine”???

Also, just as I’m getting back into Alpha, Pastor D. last Sunday said the church would cover the cost for any church member who’s involved in leading a small group to attend the Willow Creek conference and the church would cover the cost. I thought about it, since I was interested but certainly don’t have the money now for the conference. On Saturday I talked to my Alpha Coordinator to see what his reaction was. Both his and D’s were quite positive, so I’ve registered for the conf. this weekend. It will mean changing my day off from November but I don’t anticipate that being a problem. T is quite amenable with stuff like that.
Given the fact that I am certain God is calling me to use this time to prepare for the mission field he is preparing, and the fact that he’s gifting me with the ability to attend, it is quite exciting. I am looking forward to the conference. The hardest part was deciding which supplemental groups God wanted me to take. I would have liked more time to pray about it, but I know that God chose for me. If I’ve picked the wrong one, he’ll work it out.

Glen E. …

Sadly, Glen E. formally closed its doors last week. Although I knew it was coming, it has been very sad. I’ve been contemplating on it all week. Glen E., while having its faults, was very good to me and I grew a lot there. I have lots of happy memories and God used it greatly to help me grow. I wouldn’t be where I am now had Glen E. not been there.

Call to action

It’s Monday morning and we had a great message yesterday. All about milestones and the importance of documenting them. I took it as God’s urging me to continue with my blog record. Pastor Doug spoke about how important it is to document what God is doing so that we can look back, and also so that future generations can look back and learn how great God is through our personal experience, unhindered by our fickle memory.

Pastor Doug is doing a series on the first few chapters of Joshua and Israel’s entrance into the Promised Land. Interesting that this was my area of focus with my personal devotions for most of the early part of this year. Last week’s message was all about how as faith walkers we need to be ready to go when called. That God calls us to be prepared, and then asks us to step out in faith when it seems the most unlikely time. Example was that Joshua was called to lead the Israelites across the Jordan when it was at its highest and mightiest, even though that river was pretty much passable during the dry seasons.