Today I am off to another course in Teaching and Training Adults in Barrie. Rachel will take the trek with me so she can get a winter coat. You really have to plan well when you live a little further away from bigger shopping centres. But it is a good discipline.
Yesterday brought me interesting connections. As well as planting bulbs in the garden with Sarah and preparing the beds a little more for winter, putting away lawn furniture and continuing getting rid of stuff, I followed a lead to investigate Life Coaching as a possible line of work, before I finish my counselling training. It led me to interesting emails and phone conversations that further educated me about future work. I also had a prearranged reconnecting session with the Spiritual Director I had at Tyndale last year. It was great to share the encouragement the Lord has given me, and the growth I have experienced since we last met six months ago, and this time it was over the phone. We both agreed on the benefits of growth through pruning and pain.
Today's reading from Streams in the Desert echoed all that I have been learning, and deepened my understanding more. You know, I am amazed that there are Christians who find this kind of teaching so offensive, who believe that we are not to go through pain in order to grow. These were the lines that stood out for me:
"Through his griefs Job came to his heritage."
"Are not my troubles intended to deepen my character and to robe me in graces I had little of before?"
"My ripest fruit grows against the roughest wall."
"Apparent adversity will finally turn out to be the advantage of the right if we are only willing to keep on working and to wait patiently."
"How steadfastly the great victor souls have kept at their work, dauntless and unafraid!"
Something I noticed especially when my Spiritual Director read a psalm to me were the words "my loving eye". It was a line about God watching over me, but the particular translation she used said it that way. That is indeed how I experience what God is doing...that all of this is a sign of His love, not of His judgment.
These connections and reconnections, whether with living people, or people in books, bring us greater understanding and help us in our growth.
Now I will go today and learn more from experienced teachers and meet with colleagues also seeking to grow. I know He will bless me in that.
October 04, 2008
October 03, 2008
joy in finding new hope and energy again, as He makes all things beautiful
Yesterday taught me lots. Of course every day of our lives can teach us so much, can't it? But going down, down, again, and seeking the Lord, in the midst of my day, brought me deeper and also allowed me to come up again. I am familiar with that journey, but it is always painful, but when joy comes in the morning, then there is even greater rejoicing from the pain. Not that I am bouncing with joy, but I feel so much better. But I would like to share some of the pieces that made a difference yesterday. Of course, the continuous thread and undergirding is always God's unfailing love for me, and His continuous presence with me, whether or not I FEEL it. As the title of a book I have reminds me, I am "Always Loved, Never Forgotten"(Roy Lessin). I will quote from that later in this post. Whatever He allows me to go through is for my good ultimately, and can produce great fruit.
A friend who read my blog posts lately and is herself an Anglican priest and Spiritual Director sent me an email in the midst of my tears yesterday. Since she has known me for over twenty years, I wrote back very honestly to her right in that moment. I guess she happened to be on the computer, for she wrote right back, suggesting that in this aftermath of my mother's death six months ago, and with her being my last contact with our family history, other than my sister, that likely her death had stirred up a lot of other grief. As I pondered her words, I agreed with her. I realized that my going over remnants from other family members recently has also stirred up that grief. I have been looking lovingly at a particular photo of my Dad, and realizing even more than I have in the past few years that I haven't fully grieved his death twenty years ago. Then there were my grandfather's papers and contacting various archives of dioceses in which he served as bishop and professor. I had been both excited and overwhelmed by the interest in having his papers from each of those places, and had to make a decision about the best place to send them. I was excited actually at the decision I did make, to send them to the college where I did my first degree, Huron College, in London, Ontario. He had been Assistant Bishop in Huron diocese at that time, and professor at the college, and there has always been a Bishop Hallam Theological Society there and an archival collection about him. In my talk with the new dean of theology there I found out that they "keep his name alive". On reflection with a cousin I realized that this was the obvious place to send the papers, not to the General Synod of the ACC, or out west, or to Wycliffe College, all of whom were interested in his papers, and all having a reason for that interest because of his service in relation to them. It was a joy to me to realize that my choice of Huron would have pleased my father, but that brought up a lot more tender feelings of grief. And in the midst of all that my daughter found a letter in my mother's old purse from my uncle who died at Vimy Ridge. We figured it was his last letter, and somehow more precious to her or my aunt, and carried around separately from the packets of letters I have elsewhere, and must plan to eventually send to a museum near Owen Sound. Sarah was delighted to read this dear letter from a relative she never knew, my namesake, Selkirk, and it was so precious to her she took it to her room.
Something clicked in a moment a little while later. It was as I was walking across the back yard in the encroaching cold, having just deposited the last box to store for the spring garage sale. I put together all these experiences with my friend's words. My grief was largely about letting go of all these people in my past. Or about grieving them. That with my mother's death I was having to say goodbye to them more completely, and they had been such a huge part of my life. That realization was freeing.
At the same time I recognized that all of these relatives had so much to show for their lives. Many of them were public figures. Archives about my Dad in the Windsor Public Library, lots of women in Windsor eager to have a memento of my mother, members of many groups she was part of, Uncle Selkirk going out in a blaze of glory and gunfire as he led a battalion over Vimy Ridge in his early twenties, Mum's dad being a well loved sheriff in Owen Sound, the list could go on and on. Yet here I was blubbering in my struggle to deal with a high school class in Muskoka who could get under my skin in such a way that I can feel I never want to go back to that school. ( It comforts me to remember that my mother was a supply teacher in the 1930's and found it miserable too.)
I was pondering again how here I am working on my second master's degree and I am having trouble finding work I like to do. I get passed over for full time teaching jobs for which I am well qualified and the jobs go to people without my education and training. I am stuck in between, my past as a missionary not forgotten by the people we served with, but otherwise an anomaly back in this fast paced and expensive world. It's been hard to add it all up. I am years from the end of my program to train as a counsellor, I don't have the money or the freedom at the moment to study full time to get it sooner, and I am still trying to clean the basement!!
But - a very big but - and a great one - I have a personal hot line to the creator of the universe, my heavenly fate is already sealed. Why should I worry?
He says to me:
I see the things no one else can see.
I see your dreams and all you long to be,
I see your faith - I've seen it from the start.
I see the love you carry in your heart.
(Roy Lessin)
I make all things beautiful.
Put your faith in Me, not in a timetable.
Wait on Me and wait for Me.
When I am ready, you will be ready.
In My perfect way,
I will put everything together,
see to every detail,
arrange every circumstance,
change every heart,
and bring to pass what I have for you.
(Roy Lessin)
So, I choose to trust again, with joy.
Something else that has come out of this, as a sort of footnote, but actually it is very big in a human way, is the choice to savour the past, to continue to grieve in a gentle and beautiful way. After all, God is making all this beautiful, isn't he? I think I feel another blog coming for my devotional team one next week. In my choice to not send Grandad's papers off immediately, I chose to savour them, and give myself time to ENJOY going over them. In Sarah's reading of Uncle Selkirk's letter, and my celebration of that, I chose to read them myself, when I have time, and then we can see about sending them away, if we do...maybe not til all the grandchildren have had the time to read them...In loving the picture of my Dad in front of the school where he served from 1931 to 1973 I chose to keep it, and just send the newspaper version of the picture to the archives. In looking at the old clothes from the 1870's I can choose to keep the paisley shawl instead of just sending it to the museum, where they already have enough of those. I can take the beautiful things out of the past, and treasure them, and also trust that God will make all of it beautiful in my memory and His.
A friend who read my blog posts lately and is herself an Anglican priest and Spiritual Director sent me an email in the midst of my tears yesterday. Since she has known me for over twenty years, I wrote back very honestly to her right in that moment. I guess she happened to be on the computer, for she wrote right back, suggesting that in this aftermath of my mother's death six months ago, and with her being my last contact with our family history, other than my sister, that likely her death had stirred up a lot of other grief. As I pondered her words, I agreed with her. I realized that my going over remnants from other family members recently has also stirred up that grief. I have been looking lovingly at a particular photo of my Dad, and realizing even more than I have in the past few years that I haven't fully grieved his death twenty years ago. Then there were my grandfather's papers and contacting various archives of dioceses in which he served as bishop and professor. I had been both excited and overwhelmed by the interest in having his papers from each of those places, and had to make a decision about the best place to send them. I was excited actually at the decision I did make, to send them to the college where I did my first degree, Huron College, in London, Ontario. He had been Assistant Bishop in Huron diocese at that time, and professor at the college, and there has always been a Bishop Hallam Theological Society there and an archival collection about him. In my talk with the new dean of theology there I found out that they "keep his name alive". On reflection with a cousin I realized that this was the obvious place to send the papers, not to the General Synod of the ACC, or out west, or to Wycliffe College, all of whom were interested in his papers, and all having a reason for that interest because of his service in relation to them. It was a joy to me to realize that my choice of Huron would have pleased my father, but that brought up a lot more tender feelings of grief. And in the midst of all that my daughter found a letter in my mother's old purse from my uncle who died at Vimy Ridge. We figured it was his last letter, and somehow more precious to her or my aunt, and carried around separately from the packets of letters I have elsewhere, and must plan to eventually send to a museum near Owen Sound. Sarah was delighted to read this dear letter from a relative she never knew, my namesake, Selkirk, and it was so precious to her she took it to her room.
Something clicked in a moment a little while later. It was as I was walking across the back yard in the encroaching cold, having just deposited the last box to store for the spring garage sale. I put together all these experiences with my friend's words. My grief was largely about letting go of all these people in my past. Or about grieving them. That with my mother's death I was having to say goodbye to them more completely, and they had been such a huge part of my life. That realization was freeing.
At the same time I recognized that all of these relatives had so much to show for their lives. Many of them were public figures. Archives about my Dad in the Windsor Public Library, lots of women in Windsor eager to have a memento of my mother, members of many groups she was part of, Uncle Selkirk going out in a blaze of glory and gunfire as he led a battalion over Vimy Ridge in his early twenties, Mum's dad being a well loved sheriff in Owen Sound, the list could go on and on. Yet here I was blubbering in my struggle to deal with a high school class in Muskoka who could get under my skin in such a way that I can feel I never want to go back to that school. ( It comforts me to remember that my mother was a supply teacher in the 1930's and found it miserable too.)
I was pondering again how here I am working on my second master's degree and I am having trouble finding work I like to do. I get passed over for full time teaching jobs for which I am well qualified and the jobs go to people without my education and training. I am stuck in between, my past as a missionary not forgotten by the people we served with, but otherwise an anomaly back in this fast paced and expensive world. It's been hard to add it all up. I am years from the end of my program to train as a counsellor, I don't have the money or the freedom at the moment to study full time to get it sooner, and I am still trying to clean the basement!!
But - a very big but - and a great one - I have a personal hot line to the creator of the universe, my heavenly fate is already sealed. Why should I worry?
He says to me:
I see the things no one else can see.
I see your dreams and all you long to be,
I see your faith - I've seen it from the start.
I see the love you carry in your heart.
(Roy Lessin)
I make all things beautiful.
Put your faith in Me, not in a timetable.
Wait on Me and wait for Me.
When I am ready, you will be ready.
In My perfect way,
I will put everything together,
see to every detail,
arrange every circumstance,
change every heart,
and bring to pass what I have for you.
(Roy Lessin)
So, I choose to trust again, with joy.
Something else that has come out of this, as a sort of footnote, but actually it is very big in a human way, is the choice to savour the past, to continue to grieve in a gentle and beautiful way. After all, God is making all this beautiful, isn't he? I think I feel another blog coming for my devotional team one next week. In my choice to not send Grandad's papers off immediately, I chose to savour them, and give myself time to ENJOY going over them. In Sarah's reading of Uncle Selkirk's letter, and my celebration of that, I chose to read them myself, when I have time, and then we can see about sending them away, if we do...maybe not til all the grandchildren have had the time to read them...In loving the picture of my Dad in front of the school where he served from 1931 to 1973 I chose to keep it, and just send the newspaper version of the picture to the archives. In looking at the old clothes from the 1870's I can choose to keep the paisley shawl instead of just sending it to the museum, where they already have enough of those. I can take the beautiful things out of the past, and treasure them, and also trust that God will make all of it beautiful in my memory and His.
October 02, 2008
joy in spending time alone
Today I feel absolutely awful physically and emotionally. My body is stressed from difficulty sleeping and accumulated tension and fatigue. I need to lose weight and exercise more, and get off coffee and sugar. Yesterday I learned that the stress hormone cortisol causes weight gain around the waist. I hope that is an excuse for me. But most of all I feel beat up and bruised inside after a day of supply teaching at the high school level. I had thought I was getting better at exerting my authority and making judgment calls so that kids would not run all over me. And, all things considered, I did manage fairly well yesterday. And it was my first day back at that school in a very long time.
But it is still awful to work with kids who are so out of control and will say and do such mean things to each other and to me too. Was it Art Linkletter who had a program called "Kids can say the darndest things"? Well I could put other epithets in there these days, but for the grace of God. And it is even harder when you realize how much all these kids need to know Jesus, and to put their lives in connection with Him, but even if they might be trying and searching to do that, when connected with their peer group in a situation of temptation to misbehave with a supply teacher, those finer motives go out the window.
I am considering joining the ranks of supply teachers who refuse to teach at secondary level. The very level I am trained for. So today my conversations with God are around those issues, and enjoying a time of retreat into the hard solitary work I have to do of more sorting in the basement. I really do need to spend more time alone. My personality type is one that restores itself through solitude, something I've not had a lot of for years.
So I embrace the verse highlighted in today's reading in Streams in the Desert:
And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place. (Luke 9:10)
"In order to grow in grace, we must be much alone. It is not in society that the soul grows most vigorously. In one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress than in days of company with others. It is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and the air is purest." Andrew Bonar
Come ye and rest, the journey is too great.
And ye will faint beside the way and sink;
The bread of life is here for you to eat.
And here for you the wine of love to drink.
But it is still awful to work with kids who are so out of control and will say and do such mean things to each other and to me too. Was it Art Linkletter who had a program called "Kids can say the darndest things"? Well I could put other epithets in there these days, but for the grace of God. And it is even harder when you realize how much all these kids need to know Jesus, and to put their lives in connection with Him, but even if they might be trying and searching to do that, when connected with their peer group in a situation of temptation to misbehave with a supply teacher, those finer motives go out the window.
I am considering joining the ranks of supply teachers who refuse to teach at secondary level. The very level I am trained for. So today my conversations with God are around those issues, and enjoying a time of retreat into the hard solitary work I have to do of more sorting in the basement. I really do need to spend more time alone. My personality type is one that restores itself through solitude, something I've not had a lot of for years.
So I embrace the verse highlighted in today's reading in Streams in the Desert:
And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place. (Luke 9:10)
"In order to grow in grace, we must be much alone. It is not in society that the soul grows most vigorously. In one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress than in days of company with others. It is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and the air is purest." Andrew Bonar
Come ye and rest, the journey is too great.
And ye will faint beside the way and sink;
The bread of life is here for you to eat.
And here for you the wine of love to drink.
October 01, 2008
joy in knowing God will make a way
Here we are at Wednesday again. I often find now that I don't know what I am going to write for a devotional post for my weekly contribution to the team devotional, www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. And then something happens that plops it into my head and heart and connects with all the reflecting that has been going on there anyway. That's what happened again this week. It was a perfect example of what I wrote about, which is about God making a way. I had the extra joy of learning how to insert a video link, and so I did that with Don Moen's well known song, God will make a way. Check it out at www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com.
September 30, 2008
joy in God knowing the way that we take
On this rainy morning I am contemplating (again, for the umpteenth time) the way that I am taking. For one, I am taking 20 bags of "painting clothes", Mum's stuff, former bedding and cushions that I thought I might fix up, to the thrift store, mostly for them to use for sending to the city missions where they will be washed and mended. I am grateful for my experience working there to know that it is okay to take this sort of thing to them and know that it will be used somehow. Yesterday I was phoning archive departments to arrange to send family records in various directions, when they are organized - there is an archive of my Dad's papers in the Windsor Public Library, because he was a long time teacher there involved in local history. There is an archive for his father in London, Ontario, because he was a bishop and professor there at the time of his death, as he was in other cities too. There is a museum south of Owen Sound where I can send everything from photos of my mother's father who was a sheriff there at the time of his death, to the letters her brother sent home from the front before he died at Vimy Ridge, to the size 8 taffeta wedding dress her mother wore, the paisley shawl her grandmother brought from Scotland, etc. I enjoy knowing that my creation of another level of order in the basement also yields research for others, and responsible stewardship of the resources that I have in my possession.
These pursuits enhance my trust that God also is stewarding my resources as He sorts and sifts me. I do not understand all that is happening in His timing, what His leading means when I have to tell others that I cannot afford yet, maybe never, to finish the studies He led me into a few years ago, on which I have believed my future career depends. That is what happens when I look around me. But when I look within me I see the growth, the difference in my responses to situations in other ways, the capacities that have grown. I do not see how I could have grown this way if I had not gone through the hard things I have.
Therefore today I embrace the verse of the day in Daily Light:
"He knows the way that I take; when he has tested me I will come forth as gold." Job 23:10
I moved on to Streams in the Desert this morning also and of course found something similar in thrust, this time quoted from Spurgeon:
"See you not, then, that God may take away your comforts and your privileges, to make you the better Christians? ...God knows that soldiers are only to be made in battle; they are not to be grown in peaceful times......Well, Christian, may not this account for it all? Is not thy Lord bringing out thy graces and making them grow? Is He not developing in you the qualities of the soldier by throwing you into the heat of battle, and should you not use every appliance to come off conqueror?
I embrace the way that I am taking, and take joy that He knows it, and will use it to lead me into all that He has for me, when He has made me fit for those plans.
These pursuits enhance my trust that God also is stewarding my resources as He sorts and sifts me. I do not understand all that is happening in His timing, what His leading means when I have to tell others that I cannot afford yet, maybe never, to finish the studies He led me into a few years ago, on which I have believed my future career depends. That is what happens when I look around me. But when I look within me I see the growth, the difference in my responses to situations in other ways, the capacities that have grown. I do not see how I could have grown this way if I had not gone through the hard things I have.
Therefore today I embrace the verse of the day in Daily Light:
"He knows the way that I take; when he has tested me I will come forth as gold." Job 23:10
I moved on to Streams in the Desert this morning also and of course found something similar in thrust, this time quoted from Spurgeon:
"See you not, then, that God may take away your comforts and your privileges, to make you the better Christians? ...God knows that soldiers are only to be made in battle; they are not to be grown in peaceful times......Well, Christian, may not this account for it all? Is not thy Lord bringing out thy graces and making them grow? Is He not developing in you the qualities of the soldier by throwing you into the heat of battle, and should you not use every appliance to come off conqueror?
I embrace the way that I am taking, and take joy that He knows it, and will use it to lead me into all that He has for me, when He has made me fit for those plans.
September 29, 2008
joy in hearts both frightened and free
"All that we have, and all that we offer, comes from a heart both frightened and free". These words from the chorus of a song we sang at the Catholic Faith Day last Friday were ringing in my head as I woke up this morning. They had touched me deeply during that service and reminded of me of so many songs out of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal that spoke to me deeply in the seventies when I was part of that movement in Scotland during my growth into a deeper faith in Christ, before I rejoined the Anglican church. (Although I had been a Christian for many years by that time, I had been disillusioned for a time and had a private journey through various denominations.)
But today these words remind me again of my orientation to life these days, and all my life. Yes, I am excited about all that God is doing in me, and my life, and what He enables me to do for others. Yes, I am free in Him, and in so many ways that others have not yet found to be free, and I rejoice deeply in that. But yes, I am frightened by so much of what life dishes out to all of us. And I am helping others who are too. The university fair was a great opportunity for my girls to look at options out there and try to figure out what they want to do for further study. My own experiences have value to help them as well. We drove to and from Toronto, all through that overwhelming city, through many frightening possibly dangerous scenarios, and came home safely again. We spent time with a delightful friend who finds life frightening and overwhelming in many ways, and yet is also free in Christ in her spirit.
This is our human condition as Christians. We are both frightened and free, and yet can offer ourselves fully to God and to others, in that state, and rejoice in accepting ourselves and being accepted that way by Him. We don't have to be perfect in faith, or perfect in composure. We can be real and honest about how we are, as He knows our hearts anyway. How lovely that modern songwriters can express that for us.
But today these words remind me again of my orientation to life these days, and all my life. Yes, I am excited about all that God is doing in me, and my life, and what He enables me to do for others. Yes, I am free in Him, and in so many ways that others have not yet found to be free, and I rejoice deeply in that. But yes, I am frightened by so much of what life dishes out to all of us. And I am helping others who are too. The university fair was a great opportunity for my girls to look at options out there and try to figure out what they want to do for further study. My own experiences have value to help them as well. We drove to and from Toronto, all through that overwhelming city, through many frightening possibly dangerous scenarios, and came home safely again. We spent time with a delightful friend who finds life frightening and overwhelming in many ways, and yet is also free in Christ in her spirit.
This is our human condition as Christians. We are both frightened and free, and yet can offer ourselves fully to God and to others, in that state, and rejoice in accepting ourselves and being accepted that way by Him. We don't have to be perfect in faith, or perfect in composure. We can be real and honest about how we are, as He knows our hearts anyway. How lovely that modern songwriters can express that for us.
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