Sunday Sessions with Philippa

What have I learnt this past week that will make this coming week better?

• ·         Busy is a soul crushing distraction right from the devil. 

Is she so beautiful? 

I recently had an interesting discussion which I have mulled over for much of this week.  The person I was talking to had made an observation about their own life.  They had realized that as an adult, working an intense job that required much of them self, being married, parenting, living, their coping mechanisms from childhood had started to crumble.  Over the last couple of years, I have started to notice a hearing issue, which became a hearing and sight issue (for another post), it has worried me so much that I have been considering seeking help, either for a brain tumor or a psychiatric issue.  I was both grateful and traumatized to discover that the way we live, and I speak of the collective we here, is not benefiting us.  We were never designed to live full speed ahead, with days’ jam packed with to-do lists.  We were designed to see the intricacies of life around.  We were designed to appreciate the privilege of waking up each morning to a new day full of possibility, not to wake up dreading the inevitable.  It is not good enough to live lives that lack joy, that lack awe. 

• ·         Our house, in its current state, is suffocating us. 

We are not tidy people.  I grew up ridiculously privileged and for years did not have to make my own bed or do many other things.  I know full well that other people have grown up in similar households and have not turned out as domestically pathetic as me.  My husband battles rebellion, plain and simple.  That being said he carries a huge weight in our home.  We are so busy, that between the driving and the feeding the children and ourselves and the dogs and the working, we are not getting to the laundry folding and the unpacking and the passing on.  This week he felt it and then I did, our stuff is suffocating us.  I was so grateful to listen this episode from Emily P Freemans’ The Next Right Thing entitled Wear Better Pants

• ·         I am a creative cook. 

February was (I have been paid, thank you Jesus!) a seriously hard month for us financially.  Our food budget allowed for the simplest ingredients, which forced me to be creative with our meals.  I really enjoyed it.  As much as I hope to remember that this week, I really need to remember it for the future. 

Some kind of smoothie,  can't quite remember.

• ·         Hannah

I have a few Bible heroes, and they are mostly women.  For some reason I have overlooked Hannah.  Hannah was barren woman at a time when producing an heir was seen as a duty, she was also the barren second wife when wife number one was fertile.  Hannah deeply grieved her barrenness, to the point of allowing that grief to become a stumbling block.  I can so understand the longing for something that is so important, becoming something of an idol.  Hannah’s actions moved me deeply, when repenting of her sin at Shiloh, she offers up the one thing she wants the most, the son she hopes for.  Her faith floors me.  There is a song we used sing at church a hundred years when I was finding trusting God a little hard. I would be so upset when I had to sing “You give and take away, you give and take away, my heart will choose to say Lord, blessed be Your name.”  Hannah surrenders to the process, in a way that fully glorifies God. 

the younger two

• ·         Real life is not going to make things easier for you to start living intentionally.
• ·         I will do anything for my children, so that they will become the whole, happy people that God has called them to be. (I always feel this way, but this past week had an email from a teacher that has made me push a little harder, I will have breakthrough)
• ·         I am having to relook my love affair with social media (I will write a post on this).
• ·         There is more, but I am tired and I should probably have made notes of things when they happened.

I hope this finds you well.  I hope that you are growing and living and seeing the beauty around you. 

With love

Philippa