I could not really get the whole thing into the title of this entry succinctly, but I hope that by the end you will see.
I am truly blessed and thankful to have a job that I love. Working with my home church, managing our events with a team of people I call friends, and with an army of volunteers who help make everything that I plan become a reality.
It allows me to be creative and administrative and is people oriented, no day is the same, this week amongst other things I have organised translation for an Arabic client in FoodBank, ordered surprises to bless ladies at our REAL2012 Women's Conference next week and doubled checked with a Farmer that his cow will fit through our narrow gate on Sunday for Fathers Day.
This coming week I will hit warp speed as the final days before our the conference approach. There are decorations going up, rehearsals to have, European guests arriving midweek and our overseas speaker Shauna Niequist and family arriving too. There are meals and treats to arrange, there is shopping to do and deliveries to receive, parcels to wrap, meetings to have, documents to print, phone calls to make, last minute hitches to resolve, goody bags to be packed, set ups to be defined, it will be frantic and exciting all at the same time, and in the midst of all this Jack (14) asks will I be coming to his presentation on Tuesday 1pm till 3pm ish, he and some of his classmates have made it to the final of a competition, and it's the final presentations to determine the winning team. Am I free?
I confess my initial thought was, I just don't have time. I have every minute planned, even the contingency time is planned! I filled out the form for Him to attend and left the parent slot blank and left the form on the coffee table and for the next few days kept picking it up and putting it down. I looked at what I could move around in my plans, but my head just kept saying you don't have time, this isn't in the schedule, I felt pressured and anxious, working through different scenarios, what if I move this or that.
On Friday the form was due in...and in the morning getting ready for school chaos of finding pe kit, defrosting bread for lunches, walking the dog, Jack called up the stairs, ' I'm handing my form in today..are you coming?'
In that split second I said "of course I am, I want to see how great you are. Put my name down", he asked if I was sure, it's a busy week he told me, but I was sure, in that moment it was settled in my heart and I was totally sure. I am thankful that my growing up boy wants me to be a part of his life, many mothers don't have that relationship with their child. Here he was inviting me into his crazy teenage school world, of course I would be there, to congratulate if he wins and to buy chocolate babyccinos at Costa. (there will be extra cake if he does not win!) and I am making a choice that while I am with him I will be totally with him, not texting, or checking emails, not half there and half at work, not rushing away at the end. And I will do this without anxiety because I truly believe that God is in all that is happening for the conference and that he is also in everything my family and I do, and I know that there will be enough time for me to do both because He wants me to do both and because He can help me to do both.
I realised that like most of my weeks and days, it will be a loaves and fishes time, the amount of time and resources I need will be greater than what I seem to have, and yet when God is in it, everything works out. I will work more efficiently, prioritise my time well, include my family, include rest time and prayer time, because when I do this with God it never seems such a burden, and the verse "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:30, soothed my soul and I resolved in my heart that I would be sharing sharing my burdens with Him, and so He best be ready.
Strangely and by no coincidence, and probably because it's all in Gods plan... it's The Message version of this verse that is the theme of next weeks REAL Conference. My role means I rarely hear the teaching at one of our events, I am arranging and organising and checking and double checking, and so I catch up with recordings and podcasts after the events. I knew that this was our theme and I have been praying for over 6 months that women attending would hear from God and have their lives transformed as they learned to share their burdens and to live with the unforced rhythm of grace but this week God decided i needed to learn it myself and a bit earlier than the conference and used my 14 year old to teach me....
I am thankful, for my job, for my family, for my teams, for my God.
