What do you do for Fun?

How strange that I have been asked this twice in the last couple weeks, and yet I can't recall ever being asked this in my life before!

I think I don't do much that is "fun" , but I do do things that bring me a lot of joy. 
Here's a list

• homeschooling
• writing
• working as speaker coordinator for the homeschool conference
• working as Special Needs Representative
• teaching Sunday School

Those are what came to me in the first 30 seconds.

Note that all of these are work.
So, here's the thing: Work is joyful.
 Not much of it is fun (amusing, entertaining, lighthearted pleasure), but most of it is joyful.

And as a P.S. the word amusing as in amusement park etc. means without thought. "a" = without and "muse" = to consider something thoughtfully - thus literally without any thinking. 
No fun.

A Bucket or a River

I was praying for a peaceful sleep for my daughter before bed the other day as I usually do, but this time I had a picture in my mind as I prayed. Rather than a bucket of peace being dumped into her for the night, I envisioned a river that was constantly flowing filled with peace.

This image has stayed with me over the past week as I have been praying - God is constant, His love neverending, His provision eternal, His peace given not as the world gives.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.Rev. 22:1

A Moment to Share

Anyone who knows me well, knows I love peaceful, open spaces where I can contemplate God's beauty without disturbance. Today I had that opportunity and I wanted to share it.
So, join me on a bench overlooking large quiet fields with horses romping, birds chirping, and a warm slight breeze.
God's created a very beautiful world which often I don't have time or opportunity to appreciate.

The Unexpected

Not in my wildest dreams did I ever expect my life to include a road trip with my daughter. And yet, here I was on the Via Rail Train on my way, with the Propeller Dance Company, to the Tangled Arts Festival in Toronto!

Via Rail - friendly and helpful

Wheelchair Accessible Access

Other than the train ride, I think there was not one logistical thing that went according to my expectations on this trip! But throughout the unpleasant unexpected situations shone the surprising unexpected results.

Here, in a nutshell are some examples:

• The support worker assigned to us was hospitalized a couple days before the trip.
• The Wheel Trans that was scheduled to pick us up from the train was still not there after we waited over an hour.
• The hotel's "accessible room" was inaccessible - even the manual chair of one of the company members could not fit into the bathroom - certainly my daughter's power chair could not.
• The larger suite we were assigned was equally inaccessible and the penthouse suite we were offered had stairs!

As a result of these unexpected challenges:
 The Propeller Dance Company showed me what Community is really about. 

• Immediately, we had volunteers to swap roles and we were assigned a full time support. 
• Immediately, two people got up from their dinner in the hotel restaurant to come help us walk from the train station to the hotel by taking our luggage and being that friendly face we needed when Wheel Trans didn't show up. 
• Immediately, three Propeller men came and removed furniture from the inaccessible suite to make more room for the power chair.  
• AND the hugest most significant part of all of this was that they did it cheerfully, with a sincere heart so that neither my daughter nor I felt like a burden. We were engulfed in their love as part of their team.

I would not give up one of those unexpected challenges for the unexpected blessing of that unexpected lesson.
 

The Propeller Dance Company

Be all Things...

 1 Cor 9:22-23
I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.

This Scripture about being all things to all  people used to annoy me. How can we physically, emotionally, and mentally be all things to all people? 

Yesterday, I got it. 

All this time, I had been reading it wrong and thus interpreting it incorrectly. The real message here is not "be what everyone wants you to be," but rather simply try and identify with the person you are communicating with!

Yesterday, it came to light that one of my daughters has been recieivng lots of encouragement and optimism regarding something that is very hard for her. Sounds good doesn't it.

But that is not even close to what she needs. She feels misunderstood and not listened to becasue of how people are brushing over how hard it is for her and only trying to get their way by "forcing" her to do something under the guise of "encouragement."

What she wants is understaniding and empathy. Perhaps if someone - anyone - could identify with her struggles, she might actually be encouraged to persevere.

It's a fine line to walk - "sympathetic" to the point of creating a pity party, or "encouraging" to the point of not listening and identifying.

What Paul is saying in this Scripture is that even though he remians strong in Christ, he tries to identify with the people group, the culture, or the individulal he is speaking with.

And indeed, Jesus was the role model for this method - as He came to earth as a lowly human so we could identify with God Almighty and hopefully listen to His message.
Not only that, but while He was here on earth, He spoke and ate with blatantly sinful people.

Today, I will try to enter into my daughter's world, and identify with her disability, her struggles, her emotions - to walk a mile in her AFO braces so to speak - and perhaps ultimately she will be encouraged.

Imagine a world where we truly tried to identify with the elderly, those with disabilities, the poor, those of different religious convictions, our boss, our employee... Imagine the kind of communication we could have.

 1 Cor 9:19-23 The Message
 Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people:  religious, nonreligious,  meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists,  the defeated, the demoralized — whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ — but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life.  I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!

Unpopular

Matt 7:13-14
 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

There are times when I am traveling my narrow road, that I am not really aware of how narrow it is.  Other times when this narrow road intermingles, crosses, and travels alongside other roads  on this planet - roads that are wide and populous - where immediately the comparison is evident.

It is these times I feel the stab the most. The times when it is undeniably evident that I am on the lonely isolated trail. When my choices don't fit with very many others. 
Times when even the narrow path seems virtually empty.

Choosing the narrow gate - this bridge in Kosova 
seemed an appropriate symbol

 

My trip to Kosova came to mind 
as I was thinking of narrow roads!

 Perhaps it's when our decision to homeschool comes to light in a waiting room in the midst of teachers and parents who send their kids to institutional schooling. Perhaps it is when others ask if we have seen a particular T.V. show and our answer is "We don't have T.V."  Recently, it had to do with what I won't allow my eyes to see and ears to hear as it relates to theatre.

The more my narrow road intersects with the broad road - which happens when I am out and about in this world of ours - the more unpopular I realize I am!

As I looked up the definition of popular...
: liked or enjoyed by many people
: accepted, followed, used, or done by many people

: of, relating to, or coming from most of the people in a country, society, or group

...I realized that anyone who has chosen the narrow road should be known as "Unpopular." It's just the way it has to be.

Phil 3:13-14
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Trusting

I was praying for someone the other day who has been through a lot of yuck. Unfortunately, we can be let down by those we think we can trust. The thought came to my mind that there are different levels of trust we put in people and those of course we put our highest trust in cause us the most grief and heart ache when they betray or fail us in some way.

 It's ironic that the One we can trust the most is often in our culture the One who is trusted the least. And even amongst us church folk, we can lose trust in His goodness, His love, and His integrity pretty quickly. And becasue we should be able to trust Him the most, it causes the most damage when we lose that trust in His very character.

But a truth blasted through that we can trust in His love because He always always acts from a character that is never self-centred. He truly never does anything for His own benefit. Everything that He does is others-centered. Just look at the cross.


Now, when I feel let down by God - "surely You could have  intervened here God" - I force myself to remember He is not self-centred. His love is perfect - even though mine is not.

Rom 15:13
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
NIV