Catch Up...
The beginning of this week has been SO busy. Yes for all of you parents it's not been as busy as your week, but for me it's been quite a full on week. It started with our neighbours all night party; we moved into the living room to 'sleep' on the couch, we got to for church at 8am the next day. We had an awesome class and tried not to waste the afternoon in a coma (but I was so tired from not sleeping).
I don't even remember much of Monday...My husband started his new job and the internet went out for 2 hours (just as he was getting started)? Weird huh! I was on tech support and cleaning duty all day. Tuesday was scraping a meal together from the empty fridge...Yeah...we ate potato salad 3 days in a row - actually I ate it, my husband refused to eat it and I'm not sure what he ate?! A jar of olives and left over pickles?
Tuesday night we went to this Arts Community night we had been invited to. Seriously it was awesome, like stepping into a parallel universe. We walked through a hidden door into a different face of the city...painters, actors, musicians, culinary artists, home decorators, poets...it was phenomenal. My favourite part was the 2 MCs, they were funny presenting the evening with style and humour. Our friend who invited us is a painter (we discovered) and his style is one we really like. It was so neat to see all these huge canvases full of paint and form. One of the biggest surprises was another friend of ours was there with a partial manuscript to a set of books she is writing. She sat with her incredible painting behind her. Seriously this painting was a story; we are so excited for her journey. It was like Wind in the Willows meets Narnia!
After some very talented performances we got to participate in some workshops. These weren't quite what we were expecting, having a far more prophetic than practical edge to them. My husband joined the culinary team whilst I, of course, joined the musicians.
What did we learn? We I think my husband discovered God speaks his language, the language of buffets and smorgasbords. I discovered the impact of singing a prophetic word over someone/a group/ a nation/ a situation, instead of speaking it.
As we were spoken and sung over it was like God was continuing to do some deep work in us that started during our Sunday class. This week has felt heavy in His presence. Last night I attended my first HT training session which continued with the concept of 'Sonship' and our identity as God's child. Moving from a mindset of slave/orphan to a mindset of being a son or daughter of the King of Kings.
My brain might be tired from processing what is happening internally right now.
I've started reading 'Redeeming Love' by Francine Rivers. A lot of people had told me what a great book it was, an allegory of God's love based on the theme of Hosea and Gomer from the bible book. IT fits well with the themes of my HT training and is for me an easier way to access some of the details, horror, pain and redemption of HT because the characters are fictional. I would recommend it to anyone curious about HT but not ready for documentaries, real life stories etc...
Right now carrying stories and people in this arena in prayer as well as learning more about who I am in Gods eyes has been quite a head numbing experience. I'm so glad we have the next 2 days to rest, Sabbath and reconfigure in time for next week's barrage of people, emotions, learning and newness.
Being in a multi-national community is interesting; I forgot how annoying people from other cultures can be! Ha ha.... It's a real choice to love people and their differences (as people love me and mine). Funnily enough I'm feeling really comfortable with my California peeps and our Mediterranean friends...maybe I'm a warm climate person after all! I have a harder time with cold climate cultures right now (where I'm from), as I'm trying so hard to learn and fit into the hot climate culture..I've heard this happens from coffeebeings (so glad she's done all this before me)!
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might want to read 'Foreign to Familiar'; it's a book about cultural differences summed up as hot or cold climate cultures. It was our marriage prep recommended reading!! I would suggest it or something similar to anyone embarking on a cross cultural or cross racial marriage as we have done. In the US I'd suggest it for people who marry across state boundaries, seriously, we don't know how different we are until our preferences, traditions and worldview are not so carefully traipsed over by another. We all do it to one another not knowingly of course! Not intentionally. It's called life in our modern globalized generation.
So one of the things I'm loving about our week is that my husband now works from home -yep 24/7. Many people would find this difficult and I'm sure we may have times when we bug each other, but right now it's SO great having my best friend around all the time!!! We have coffee breaks together...have little chats and generally get to enjoy a relaxed working environment. He is still working though, so we are mostly in separate rooms doing our own thing. It's such a blessing to have this flexible schedule. I feel like a well-watered garden! Now to get back to my to do list!!!!
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I don't even remember much of Monday...My husband started his new job and the internet went out for 2 hours (just as he was getting started)? Weird huh! I was on tech support and cleaning duty all day. Tuesday was scraping a meal together from the empty fridge...Yeah...we ate potato salad 3 days in a row - actually I ate it, my husband refused to eat it and I'm not sure what he ate?! A jar of olives and left over pickles?
Tuesday night we went to this Arts Community night we had been invited to. Seriously it was awesome, like stepping into a parallel universe. We walked through a hidden door into a different face of the city...painters, actors, musicians, culinary artists, home decorators, poets...it was phenomenal. My favourite part was the 2 MCs, they were funny presenting the evening with style and humour. Our friend who invited us is a painter (we discovered) and his style is one we really like. It was so neat to see all these huge canvases full of paint and form. One of the biggest surprises was another friend of ours was there with a partial manuscript to a set of books she is writing. She sat with her incredible painting behind her. Seriously this painting was a story; we are so excited for her journey. It was like Wind in the Willows meets Narnia!
After some very talented performances we got to participate in some workshops. These weren't quite what we were expecting, having a far more prophetic than practical edge to them. My husband joined the culinary team whilst I, of course, joined the musicians.
What did we learn? We I think my husband discovered God speaks his language, the language of buffets and smorgasbords. I discovered the impact of singing a prophetic word over someone/a group/ a nation/ a situation, instead of speaking it.
As we were spoken and sung over it was like God was continuing to do some deep work in us that started during our Sunday class. This week has felt heavy in His presence. Last night I attended my first HT training session which continued with the concept of 'Sonship' and our identity as God's child. Moving from a mindset of slave/orphan to a mindset of being a son or daughter of the King of Kings.
My brain might be tired from processing what is happening internally right now.
I've started reading 'Redeeming Love' by Francine Rivers. A lot of people had told me what a great book it was, an allegory of God's love based on the theme of Hosea and Gomer from the bible book. IT fits well with the themes of my HT training and is for me an easier way to access some of the details, horror, pain and redemption of HT because the characters are fictional. I would recommend it to anyone curious about HT but not ready for documentaries, real life stories etc...
Right now carrying stories and people in this arena in prayer as well as learning more about who I am in Gods eyes has been quite a head numbing experience. I'm so glad we have the next 2 days to rest, Sabbath and reconfigure in time for next week's barrage of people, emotions, learning and newness.
Being in a multi-national community is interesting; I forgot how annoying people from other cultures can be! Ha ha.... It's a real choice to love people and their differences (as people love me and mine). Funnily enough I'm feeling really comfortable with my California peeps and our Mediterranean friends...maybe I'm a warm climate person after all! I have a harder time with cold climate cultures right now (where I'm from), as I'm trying so hard to learn and fit into the hot climate culture..I've heard this happens from coffeebeings (so glad she's done all this before me)!
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might want to read 'Foreign to Familiar'; it's a book about cultural differences summed up as hot or cold climate cultures. It was our marriage prep recommended reading!! I would suggest it or something similar to anyone embarking on a cross cultural or cross racial marriage as we have done. In the US I'd suggest it for people who marry across state boundaries, seriously, we don't know how different we are until our preferences, traditions and worldview are not so carefully traipsed over by another. We all do it to one another not knowingly of course! Not intentionally. It's called life in our modern globalized generation.
So one of the things I'm loving about our week is that my husband now works from home -yep 24/7. Many people would find this difficult and I'm sure we may have times when we bug each other, but right now it's SO great having my best friend around all the time!!! We have coffee breaks together...have little chats and generally get to enjoy a relaxed working environment. He is still working though, so we are mostly in separate rooms doing our own thing. It's such a blessing to have this flexible schedule. I feel like a well-watered garden! Now to get back to my to do list!!!!
I had an "I miss you guys" moment reading this... Sounds as if life is falling into place for you right now and I'm so excited about everything you're both doing. RL is a brilliant book... appropriate and healing even for those who have suffered similar circumstances. Rivers skilfully weaves such a depth of spiritual growth and healing into a portrayal of the realism of suffering and abuse.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm glad you've read it..I thought you would know of it.
ReplyDelete