Control, plans, rest

We were so privileged to spend 10 days of our Winter holiday on the Garden Route.  The first week was spent at a resort just outside of Sedgefield and the last 3 nights at one of my childhood homes, in Plettenberg Bay.

I know that I am privileged.

Buffalo Bay to Brenton on Sea

The holiday in Sedgefield, in a resort where your bed is made each day and your cottage is cleaned, was a gift.  It is the second time that we have received this gift and as with the last time it was tonic for our weary souls. 

It was our second real holiday as a family, before that we were away for a weekend which was also a gift. 

The children experiencing the lagoon for the first time.  It was a love affair.

This is not so much a post about holidays.  It is a post about plans and control and rest. 

Rest

My husband and I have started making use of YouVersion’s great tool to do devotions together.  I think this helps me stay on track.  We have just finished one called Soul Rest: 7 days to Renewal which is taken from the book Soul Rest: Reclaim Your Life. Return to Sabbath by Curtis Zachary.  I haven’t read the book, but can highly recommend the devotion. (I honestly didn’t know the book had existed until the devotional, but I would be so grateful if someone wants to buy it for me.  I know what you are thinking, who asks for stuff on a blog, hear me out, this is a post that has to do with rest and control and plans.)  As we did the devotion I was so aware about how our time in Sedgefield was a time of complete rest.  There was an enforced fasting of the escapism that is found in my cellphone.  For the first time in a good long while we weren’t thinking about our debt, or how we can’t afford books, or school, or lack, or loneliness, or church, or work, it was so peaceful.  And for the first time in a good long while I could think clearly.  Ideas were forming and growing without the fear of failure coming near them.  Rest seemed to brim over with possibility. 

Control

Before leaving for our holiday we had one goal, to clean our home and rid it of all clutter and dust bunnies.  We had people, friends, coming to stay in our home, to love our dogs, while we were away.  The thought had been making me sick, as I am disorganized and untidy.  We had spent a week trying to declutter and clean, but on the day we were leaving we shoved the last of the junk into our bedroom and left.  It was ridiculous, my inability to manage to keep my house tidy is ridiculous.  Please tell me someone else find it’s so frikken hard to keep their home neat and clean?  Walking into our home when we returned from our peaceful, restful holiday, was terrible.  All the work we had done had barely touched the surface and I soon found myself grappling for a reason to hope again.

Plans

My husband was on leave until today, so today was my day to get all my ducks in a row in terms of work starting again on Monday, and other things that needed to be done around the house.  I have lived for school holidays, I function best in school holidays, and I jealousy guard my school holidays.  Again, I am privileged to have them, even though I always have work that could and should be done.  We had planned the day out and discussed it with the family.  I was emotionally preparing myself for what lay ahead.  Our first priority of the day was to spend some time with a family needing some council. This was supposed to happen at 11:00.  From 10:00 I started sweeping the dust and dog hair (vomit) from our living room and dining room area.  I was feeling so productive and lost track of the time.  Around 10:40, when we were all still in our pajamas, except for my husband who had taken our dogs for an early walk, our daughter slipped off her bed, which she was walking on, and hit her cheek just below her lip.  She wasn’t hysterical, she barely cried, it was her brother coming to call us that alerted us to her injury.  My immediate response was to swear, f*%#, when I saw the 1cm wide, Mariana Trench deep hole in her gorgeous face.  Emiel, walked into the room and I swore again as blood started to flow from this wound down her chin.  In one moment our plans for the day were thrown out of the window into a trench so deep it was impossible to catch hold of them. 

The bravest little girl received two stitches.  She has anxiety and is terrified by just about everything unfamiliar, but she was calm, calmer than I have ever seen her in a stressful situation. 

When we returned home we put a DVD on for the children, made and ate lunch and then continued cleaning, sweeping and dusting.  When we tried to continue with our plans our daughter told us she needed to stay home.  Our plans fell deeper into the trench.  We took the time to remove the grass growing onto our sidewalk.  While digging and scraping soil and loam and cigarette butts and wrappers from some or other non-nutritious calorie source an old lady walked over to us to praise us for our effort.  I kept thinking, as she spoke, that she hasn’t seen how bad the rest of our garden looks and then I heard her crying.  By the time I had stopped thinking and started listening, I realised she was telling Emiel about her daughter who had died 10 years ago.  Emiel asked her if she would like prayer and she said yes, so I prayed for her and she cried in my arms until I was done.  We finished what we were doing, came back into the house and continued cleaning.  The children watched DVD after DVD and we continued cleaning. When they got hungry, it was close to supper time so we moved to the kitchen and I started preparing supper.  Somewhere in the chopping of vegetables I realised just how beautiful today was.  After putting the butternut into the steamer and setting the timer, I peeled 3 oranges to feed the starving children who could not wait for supper.  When the pleading for sustenance continued I asked the 3 of them to join me at the dining room table.  I handed each of them a tray with old egg tray on it and a teaspoon.  I opened a bag of good, rich soil right on our dining room table and told them to fill the trays.  I then gave the boys seeds and asked them to plant them and Beatrice succulents to plant.  It was a good time.   Over dinner we discussed sustainability and business.  The older two were full of questions and ideas. 

Planting seeds and succulents at the dining room table.  It was the warmest room in the house and all 3 of them were on the same level... it worked.

As I end this post, let me leave you with this:

• Swearing happens to the best of us.
• Control is detrimental to real rest.
• We can plan every detail into our lives, but life does not ever go according to plan, not ours anyway.  And for some reason, no matter how emotionally intelligent or just plain intelligent we are, we fail to plan times of real rest into our lives.
• Rest will happen when we hand over the steering wheel of our lives to Father.  True, life renewing, soul refreshing rest will happen when we come into alignment with the purposes and plans of Father.  In these times of rest that happen in the midst of real life, we get to witness unexpected bravery, comfort old ladies we have never met before, plant seeds and engage in dreaming.  It is in rest that we are most alive. 

Father, I pray for each person that read this post, that you would open your floodgates of perfect love over them.  I pray for such a peace and for real rest. 

If you feel this has spoken to you I would be grateful to hear from you, but I would be most grateful if you would share it.  I truly believe that we all need rest.

I hope this finds you well, 

Philippa