Sunday Sessions with Philippa

What did I learn from this past week that will make this coming week better? 

• I have been following Emily P Freeman on Instagram for a long time.  A while back she started a podcast called The Next Right Thing.  I like social media, I like Instagram and (depend on) Facebook, I receive a bunch of newsletters and have a blog, sort of, but I did not get podcasts.  In a world I already find deafeningly noisy, the idea of having enough alone time or sacrificing enough of my children are occupied or in bed time, seemed impossible.  On Wednesday night while drowning in tears, I, for some strange reason I can't explain, downloaded Emily's podcast and listened to her most recent episode called Looking for Arrows (Not Answers).  As I listened to her soothing voice share her insights, I felt my soul be lovingly nourished.  On Thursday when I escaped work for a moment to the safety of the local coffee shop, aptly called Haven, I told my friend Zan-mari about the podcast.  Thursday was my birthday, and I was a little miserable, so I listened to another episode later that day, this time the first one, and felt myself begin to breathe again properly.  I personally find life, being a working mother with 3 children, a wife married to a pastor, daughter and sister, who has recently enough moved into a new house, in which we have a already experienced a break-in, in a new location and adopted not one but two dogs, a little overwhelming.  I have been finding it hard to breath.  When I say that listening to The Next Right Thing has helped me to breathe, I mean it. I am so looking forward to listening to more in this new week, and to breathing.  
• My children are always going to be dissatisfied about something I make them for breakfast, school lunch, lunch or dinner.  I took it a little too personally this week, I am not going to in the week to come.  My feeling is they will eventually eat the food if they are hungry enough. 
  
   
• Living intentionally requires a little more effort than I have been prepared to give.  I have this enormous fear of failing which obviously keeps me back from really living.  Of late I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the way our life is going, it's a much longer, more in depth post I might never write. but Emily's podcasts, my misery, and my daughter surfing forced to me grapple with this one thought, "What is stopping me from living the life I believe I was created for?" I was standing on the beach watching Beatrice be thrown from a surfboard and go under.  She battles anxiety and has some sensory processing issues, and I had fully expected her to want to get out of the water, but she didn't.  After successfully, with some assistance, catching a few more waves, she came out of the water to give her brother a turn with the surfboard.  The thing that struck me was her face, it was radiant.  What is stopping me from displaying that same radiance, that same joy?  The answer is nothing.  
  
• God is good.  I find often forget God's goodness, or that he loves me, when I choose to look at the circumstances.  After church we went to to the store to buy a few things.  Alexander wanted chocolate, Beatrice wanted pizza and Oliver wanted ice cream.  We reminded the children that we couldn't buy any of these things and went on our way.  We visited with some people shortly after and the children were given chocolate.  Later on in the day we were invited out for dinner where they were given pizza and ice cream.  I know this seems trivial in the whole big world with so much going on, but for my children they felt entirely loved by God. 
• I have been listening to Beautiful Jesus  by Jonathon and Melissa Helser on repeat this week.  It is so very beautiful. 

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28 (ESV)

Guys, life is never going to be easy, but it doesn't need to be boring, or suffocating.  I believe we should fight to see beauty all around us.  

That is all, I really hope that you have a very good week full of beauty and intentionality and breathing.

Philippa