Solitude II

I have transposed the post below from my other blog, where I published it on the 10th of August (a mere 6 weeks ago, but in some aspects almost a lifetime ago. The period of solitude I alluded to in this post triggered (amongst other things) a cascade of positional shifts that led to the beginning of this blog. As I write today I face another two weeks of solitude as Adi flies to Brazil for a week, and then Cape Town. At the same time I stand on the edge of more life-changes. Once again I wonder whether the timing is merely co-incidental or if God is needing me alone for a little while to do some more of his work on me.

Published on 10 August 2011:

Solitude

(Alternative Title: Sometimes You Don't Recognise It Until It Jumps Up And Bites You On The Backside)

We have a close friend who every now and then takes a Sunday off and vanishes to a lonely quiet place to seek solitude, regroup, think about things that are on his mind.

I have had such a problem with that. My problem's called envy!
Although I am an extrovert, and am energised by interactions with people for the most part, there are definitely times when I find myself absolutely CRAVING time out from others and time to be alone. I find this often happens when God is pushing something up from deep down in the murky depths inside me - when things are stirring but I haven't actually been able to put enough of a finger on the activity to be able to label or define what's going on. I feel a restlessness building up, and with it this urgency to make some time for myself so I can get with God, or with my heart, or whatever I need to do, and process everything in peace. (Adrian knows it's happening because I start to get tetchy and irritable and give him a bit of the cold shoulder - poor long-suffering man.)
This has been happening over the last three weeks again. God pulled up and rekindled and old (but VERY significant) dream of mine - pulled it up further than it's ever been before (to the point that I actually voiced it for the first time to a few people other than my husband). The problem was once it was up and out there and all nicely exposed I didn't know what to do with it. I went through a horrendous couple of weeks (the closest I've been to slipping into depression for a long while) wrestling with this whole issue: Was it time to pursue the dream? Should I push it? Why was God raising it all up again in me? Should I do something? Why was I getting no direction from God on the matter at all? I began discussing my dilemmas with a few people including Adi and some of the peeps from church. Separately, without any mutual discussion, Adi and another person both came to me and said that they felt that God wanted me to lay the dream down. Well, that was the last straw - here God had bubbled it all up, and now I just had to squish it all down again. It was all very Abraham and Isaac and I was somewhat devastated, pretty confused, and completely surrounded by kids, business and stuff to do - the domestic zoo in all it's glory. I could feel myself spiralling down andwith all the stressing came that intense craving for solitude - some time to get alone with God, to do the Jesus-thing and go spend time on the mountain in prayer.
Ha, ha, ha - couldn't see it happening in my world!
ANY homeschooling/unschooling Mom of 4 will tell you that alone-time just ain't an option. There are so many wonderful aspects of the path I've chosen - closeness with my kids, strength of relationships within the family - but they come at the price of privacy. I am almost never alone. There are always kids here: mine, other people's, and where I go they go too (when they're under four that even includes the bathroom). There are times when they'll all be occupied doing various things, and I'll get some time to myself - but they tend to be unpredictable, and generally just as I'm getting into some or the other lovely groove there'll be a sibling spat I'm required to umpire or a "mortal" wound needing kissing, or a show or demonstration or exhibition which I must attend immediately. Sometimes I feel quite overwhelmingly desperate!
I was having a moan to God about it a few days ago. Not only was all this happening, to top it all, I could see no chance for me to even leave the kids with Adi for a day so I could go off somewhere because he was going to be away...
And plop, suddenly into my spirit dropped the answer. Adi is going to be away. There's the space I need.
My problem is: I love my husband. He's gorgeous and fascinating and does such interesting things every day that we LOVE to talk about. So while I've been thinking that the kids are my great barrier to solitude, if I'm honest, (because I'm a night owl, it's in the evenings that my best processing is done) it's Adi who fills that time. And so God graciously arranges these trips so that he's away for a week or so at just the time I need my processing space. If I look back over the last year or so, where there were major trips he took those times were times of significant  break-through for me.
How could I not have seen what was staring me right in the face?
It just didn't look like what I was looking for, even though it was exactly what I was looking for.
I wonder how many other things I miss because I think I know what they look like?

Linking Obedience and Rest

On Tuesday mornings a small group of us meet over coffee to discuss (ostensibly) biblical doctrine. We comprise the main pastoral couple from our church (Clemens and Chrissie), our church administrator (Lynn-lee), another one of the young leaders from church (Kulani) and me. An interesting little group we are, but such life and wisdom springs from our discussions. We have not yet managed to stay on planned topic (we are currently SUPPOSED to be working again through Sam Soleyn's series onessential doctrines), instead somehow we end up zooming off along the most delightful and meaningful tangents. And every time I am challenged and pushed just a little closer to God.

This week instead of discussing what we were supposed to be discussing (and to be honest we are now so far off track, I'm not exactly sure what that should have been - laying on of hands, possibly?) we ended up talking about a connection I had not made before: the link between rest and obedience.

Rest has once again been a key theme coming through strongly since God started to move in our hearts late in 2008. And it keeps coming back as if the Lord is unveiling more and more of what it is, what it means and where it is to be found - something like the layers coming off a package in a game of pass-the-parcel.

-We who believe can enter in a place called "His rest" (Hebrews 4)

-The balance has shifted towards rest from striving

-Rest stems from sonship. Orphans need to work for their provision and protection; sons are always with the Father and everything He has is theirs (Luke 15:31)

-Rest and trust are inextricably linked - we rest because we trust that God is good

-Rest is not lack of activity, but rather it is directed activity, free from stress, worry and anxiety.

What Clemens brought into the equation this time was something that had jumped out at him while he was preaching on Hebrews 4 at the City Centre meeting on Sunday. As he read Chapter 4 from verse 1 to us it hit me too. Rest is lost through disobedience. This is not in the context, though of some slavish relationship where if we disobey God punishes with unrest. Rather it is His word to us that leads us into rest. He leads us beside still waters and restores our soul (Psalm 23). He makes known to us the path of life (Psalm 16:11 - Psalm 16 interestingly is what Kulani had had on his heart all week as well). And so it is out of who He is, His goodness, that He speaks, knowing that if we choose to do what he says we will find rest. And so obedience leads to rest - very simple actually.

And yet over the last three weeks I have struggled like I haven't for a very long time to find any kind of rest. Physically I have been spent - needing ten hours of sleep per day, naps in the afternoons and still feeling too tired to do much more than the bare minimum required to maintain the house and care for the kiddies. Emotionally I have slipped closer to depression than I have been in a long while, and spiritually there has been a tiredness and lack of energy - a loss of some of the usual spark.

As we sat around the table, three small, but specific things that I felt God has suggested I do daily popped into my head: things I had acknowledged as coming from Him, but things that I have for various reasons (apathy, lack of taking them seriously, finding "better" things to do) neglected to do. They are: 1) Read scripture to my children daily; 2) Read aloud (literature) to the children daily - as part of their learning, and  3)Blog daily.

And so I'm going to do this little rest experiment. I'm going to take God at his word and fight for those 3 three things to become part of my daily "furniture". And I'm going to document the process and any perceived results.