Lynda's Blog

  We have just spent a lovely weekend with our family. Our daughter, our son and his wife and children. What a privilege to have this time together. I feel immensely sad for those families who hate each other, or simply do not get on together so try not to see each other often. I wonder what leads to those situations. Is it poor parenting that leads children to disconnect from their home life as soon as possible? There were times I simply was not a good parent as I suffered depression from some years—however I did my best and was honest with my children when I let them down. I can remember telling them how sorry I was for something, even when they were quite young and how amazingly accepting they were, giving me a hug and telling me it was alright. Being prepared to say sorry is really important as is the capacity to forgive. Is there a misunderstanding and we let pride get in our way and refuse to back down? How sad that we would let pride get in the way of a relationship with mem...

  This week we started a study on the Beatitudes. At the end of the hour, we were all challenged to pick one of the character qualities and focus on it for the week. I thought carefully about them all and eventually decided to focus on ‘meek’ (quiet, humble, well-mannered, patient and so on). When I don’t agree with something, or feel that I don’t deserve certain comments I will speak up. Now I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. However, I can get a bit loud and frustrated and don’t always like to let things go in the interests of peace. So I definitely need a meek spirit at times. A few hours later I was shopping at the supermarket and God certainly gave me plenty of opportunities for being meek. Then later on, my husband expressed an opinion I didn’t agree with—again, a chance to practice being meek. I find I sometimes have to be intentional about practising these things as it is so easy to let something slip out of your mouth or to continue in habitual behaviours and a...

  I have been overwhelmed lately with just so much to do and feeling like life is out of control. I have been sitting with God, trying to find out what I need to stop and what I need to keep doing; asking him what his purpose is for me in this season. Currently we have no Children’s Ministry leader and as a past leader I am one of two people who volunteered to take Kid’s Church in the meantime, just to keep it going. That was about a year ago. It’s possible that I might be asked to formally take responsibility for Children’s Ministry again, and I know I just do not have the energy (or the time) to do this. I spent time in prayer, knowing that if it was God’s purpose for me, then he would give me the energy and I would find the time.   My answer was confirmed from two different sources; God wants me to help with the children on a roster but not to take on the full responsibility and he wants me to continue with my writing, which is difficult when I am spending my time prepari...

  I had the privilege this week of attending a retreat with five other women. The retreat was over three days but unfortunately some of the nine women who intended to go, were unable to as other urgent commitments came up and needed to be kept. So it became a bit different than expected. Six of us attended the first day, but two of us could only go for the day. Another two were going out the following day for the rest of the retreat. Unfortunately one of our ladies became quite sick and to her disappointment missed it all. However, the day I attended was blessed.   The retreat was held at a beach house belonging to one of the group, at an isolated beach about an hours drive away. It was a beautiful sunny day. We deposited our bags and the first thing we did after admiring the view, was to have a cup of tea. This lead to a lovely lazy discussion about all sorts of things, a great introduction to spending time together. Following this we spent about an hour studying and discus...