recharging – Aspirational Adventures

Are You Ready?

Oh my! I’ve just managed to do a huge mistake and have lost a whole post. I will try to 2722781233_31c8f5e721 rewrite but am not sure if the words will come again 😦

It is based around these song lyrics.

I see the King of Glory coming on the clouds with fire
Are you ready
are your lamps filled with oil
have you some in reserve?

clay-grafted-lamp-jar-oil__71949_1 and the feeling that at times I feel like I am ready but am not sure I have anything in reserve, but as I wrote the piece that I have lost I have realised that I have more in reserve now I don’t have boundless energy than I did when I could keep going for days.

I am learning that the only way I will be truly ready is to have things in reserve but I need to know where those reserves come from. Since my last post things have been ridiculously busy. As well as back to back Airbnb guests we’ve also had friends and family staying and in the gap in between we went car and furniture shopping. By Friday I felt like I had nothing left but I had to look at what held me.

There are a number of things: one is that I do have to remember to move into the Presence of God because that is where I do get refreshed and when things are busy it is hard. I need gods-presence to remember that I am an introvert and so being with people will exhaust me and I need to take time to be alone. It is one reason why I love the Anglican service because it does just do the same old same old and it can wash over me and revive me. I also need to realised that I have friends I can check in with.

I have been invited in by a couple of people to get into what I love – spiritual mapping and intercession. Yes I am well ready for that but I felt something wasn’t fitting. And the above song lyrics kept buzzing in my head. So I again remembered that I have friends in reserve so I emailed a couple. They are wise people and they know me. Their response was not to say that I wasn’t ready but that to deal with the issues we were thinking of looking at we needed a larger company. In reality to fight a battle you need the whole army involved, or as this is more a spying out the land you still need the

142088680-tm8ugsfl-ph2 — 26th battalion Middlesex regiment – photo from 19th century called “spying out the land”

whole company of scouts otherwise things will get missed and the enemy could come up from behind. It wasn’t that I wasn’t ready or that I didn’t have things in reserve but that it would be foolish to go without the whole company.

See this is what I came to. That I do have loads in reserve but those reserves make me move slower than I use to. Before I would go crashing about, feel that I was being held back, not appreciated, but now I am content within myself to wait. Like I said at the beginning I feel like actually there is more in reserve because I have the maturity (?)/humility(?) to be wise and know that I am ready with more in reserve to stand the course. 120104_1timothy6_12

So We Start

Today the vision starts to happen. We have our first Airbnb guests staying, a lovely Catholic Polish couple and baby. We also have a long time friend staying too. How will it work with friends and guests staying? Who can tell? But this is what we’re here for.

So far we’ve had both our kids come to stay and have had 2 friends come for lunch; one a friend I went to university with who has moved home to Chester, and another a friend who lives in Bristol but who’s parents live in Liverpool. But this is the start of the real thing, of combining our lives and friends and family.

Over these past few days there has been a lot of preparation going on for our guests.

sodialr-white-home-security-system-photoelectric-wireless-smoke-detector-fire-alarm-0 — ours don’t look quite like this but you get the idea 🙂

Practical stuff like fire alarms, fire blankets, new locks, etc so the house is all fire safe. We also prayed together. I had been praying round the house as I had been cleaning but we prayed together this morning. Now it is up to God. We cannot make anything happen. In fact it is going to be odd because the way the house is we may not see our guests after we have welcomed them in. In fact with this couple we only knew they had gone out because their baby’s car seat was gone. It really is going to be up to God how much contact we have with these people.

We do have a woman coming for the whole of the month of April. Hopefully we will get to meet with her. During that time we already on the calendar have friends come for meals over that time. Who knows what else?

For me it will be tough because I am still needing introvert time after an amazing Interweave time in Dublin. I love getting together with those people but do find that I am needing lots of down time after; to assimilate what has gone on, to read the emails that always follow, to listen to the things I believe God has been prompting me, and also just because I need that time alone to recover. Also this week we have my husband’s sister and her partner coming so again that will take away my recovery space, and we have to do important things like get living room furniture, because we will need that private space at the front of the house, and also get another car. So it will not be a calm week. I do need to be careful I do not spend my time wishing away what is going on here. I know this is the vision, to have friends and family to stay. There is no way God has given us this magnificent house

heart_on_recharging_by_ezhika — if only it were so simple!

to keep to ourselves. But also I need to find a way of finding space to recharge and to write even with everything going on around me.

It is going to be a time of wisdom, of ceasing what is there, and enjoying what God is up to with us and through us. And trusting that He does know best.