This week school started. It's a marker in our lives, even though I am not employed there and have no kids there, and David's already been back at work for nearly two weeks. I've enjoyed seeing CAJ-related friends over the last week. On Friday we had the staff-and-families dinner at school. On Monday I had lunch with a US friend who lived in Brisbane for a number of years. And then I went to school two days for an hour or so to help with shelving books in the library. They are understaffed at present (no librarian-teacher), so some help was appreciated. I always love spending time in a library and this one has been a special place for 20 years now! The social interaction was also fun. I love working at home, but sometimes it gets a little lonely.
Raspberry lamington that
one of the library assistants
gave me for helping them this week.
The school has an Aussie chef
in their cafeteria and he regularly
makes his own lamingtons for the students.
Yum!
For those who don't know: these
are Australian, in fact from
Queensland (though origin stories
differ as is common with food). They are
sponge cake chunks covered
on all sides with icing and coconut.
At my desk I've been working with text and authors to get the next Japan Harvest magazine into the "Design phase". Sometimes this is easier than others. This time there have been some tough challenges that I'm still trying to find my way through.
As usual, I'm juggling the magazine work with the social media team work and in the background have other projects that are waiting on my finding some spare time and brain space.
My office is a great space, except in the midst of the worst of summer—it has no air conditioning or ceiling fan. When the days have been over 35 C for the last week or so, I've been able to funnel the air con from the main area down the hall to my office using a couple of standing fans. Yesterday I didn't start doing that until I got back from school at lunchtime and my office stubbornly remained over 30C until we had a fierce storm that cooled things off. I'm a Queenslander and don't mind low-30s too much if I'm just relaxing, but trying to get my brain to work on complex editing and writing matters when the room is stifling is hard. It's amazing how much clearer my head is at 28/29 C!
One of the exciting things this week has been to get some big details sorted for another social media team retreat. Venue and dates have been up for debate for a few months, but we've finally nailed that down and I can get to work on the finer details prior to our end-of-October retreat.
It's no surprise to you that I spend a lot of time reading. I read for pleasure and I read for work, if I'm on my own I read while I'm eating and while I'm relaxing. My work is in the space of mission and Japan, and my reading reflects those spaces. I also read to grow in my spiritual life. This week I saw a blog post called "More than enough" published by Thrive, a largely online ministry to Christian women working cross culturally. You can see it here: https://thriveministry.org/connection/devotional/more-than-enough2
One of the things I've struggled with in Japan is comparison. Actually I think it's a universal problem that women experience, but somehow doing what we do and where we do it, cross cultural workers end up with very high expectations of ourselves which we inevitably fail at.
It's something that maybe I've gotten better at—I'm more comfortable in my skin now than I was 25 years ago...but still every now and then those cursed comparison thoughts shoot through my head and I feel useless and unlovely. So this little article was a good reminder. The author writes:
I stumbled upon John 15:9, that says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” The lightbulb clicked on. Jesus loves me the way the Father loved Him. I am loved completely, without surprise, without reservation, and without disappointment. I had no business comparing myself to anyone but Jesus. I would never measure up to the fake standards I could put on myself. But since God loves me, I could throw those standards away and rest in His love.
"I have no business comparing myself to anyone but Jesus" and those standards I have set up are fake. I don't know who needs to be reminded of this today, but I did. And I need to go forward into the rest of the day resting in God's love!
No comments:
Post a Comment