Feeling very ordinary

I don’t like being in a season where margin is almost non-existent. I try not to go there, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Thankfully I have daily and weekly routines that help sustain me through them, but it’s not a healthy place to be. 

It feels like that for weeks I’ve been dwelling in the land of the urgent: dealing with what’s most urgent each day. And important things have had to wait until they are urgent before they are dealt with. As I look at the weeks ahead, I hope that that crazy season is coming to an end for now and that I’ll be able to take a few more breaths between the urgent tasks.

Last Friday I was able to combine a household responsibility with being a friend and being heard by a friend. I drove, with a friend, to Costco (about 45 minutes from here). Lots of time to talk in the car and over lunch, punctuated in the middle with the practical task of acquiring items for each of our households. This is something we do every 2–3 months. Noting that we don’t talk while we shop! I need my wits about me at Costco, and shopping is one thing I struggle to multitask on.

On Saturday the most urgent thing seemed to be to rest, but there were a few “household” things to do also. As an adult, and a mum, and a wife, many responsibilities don’t simply fall away when you are tired. But I managed to have a pretty restful day, nonetheless

Ironically, one of the urgent things I’ve been plugging away at these last few weeks is the working on latest issue of Japan Harvest magazine. The theme of the issue is “rest”! I’ve got a pretty cool job, in that to do it involves learning and thinking about life in ways that are often quite personal. This magazine issue has been both helpful and confronting, as I've read about other people’s journeys and thoughts on the theme of rest. When you work on a magazine you work first on the bits, but then gradually the bits come together to form a whole and it can be a surprise to see the final result. I’m looking forward to seeing what it looks like as a whole. 

Now I’ve committed something of a writing crime here—I started this blog post, not knowing where it was going or what I really wanted to say. What’s my purpose in writing this? My goal to writing one blog post a week propels me onwards (and I missed last week), but my overarching goal for this whole blog, what I’ve been doing for nearly 13 years now, is writing about my “ordinary” life. Trying to give you, my readers, a glimpse into what the life of this person, who’s called to be a missionary, is like. Too often people called missionaries are put up on pedestals and believed to be something beyond ordinary. I feel pretty ordinary at the moment. I’m tired. I’ve got some very ordinary responsibilities weighing on my shoulders, as well as a few more unusual ones. True, my life as a missionary means I face some less-than-ordinary things, but I face them as an ordinary human.

My ordinary life last week included being a single mum. David was away in Kyoto helping with the accreditation assessment of a school there. We were not able to talk while he was away as his schedule was so full. …. So my lot has been all my own jobs, plus his, plus a busy week of work, plus looking after my boys (who are older and easier in many ways than when they were younger, although emotionally I think harder). Thankfully David got back on Thursday evening, and we both fell into bed exhausted.

This week has been a lot slower paced. School had its long-weekend, so called "winter break", which meant a five-day weekend for students and less for teachers (David got about three days off). Because I was still tired, I also worked minimally on Monday and Tuesday morning and I'm glad I did.

This morning I took one of my sons to a doctor's appointment at a hospital. It wasn't local, so took up most of the morning. It was also stressful for a few different reasons, so I took my time over lunch. It's really strange, after so many weeks of only having time for the urgent, that this week I'm finally out in front and able to take a few deep breaths. I'm thankful.

I won't lie to you, I've not been a bundle of cheerfulness this week. But I recognise that with the burden of frantic busyness lifted for the time being, I've got time to process some of the emotions of the last couple of months that have been pushed aside along with the other important and not-so-urgent things that I haven't had time for.

I was brought to tears by a post from Proverbs 31 ministries yesterday morning: 

Oh friend, we see you. We know you’re tired. We know you’re worn out and weary. We know your circumstances are weighing you down, with a heaviness on your chest that never seems to ease up.

It may feel impossible to keep going when the circumstances we face each day don’t seem to let up. But there is good news for us today: God is strong enough to carry us through these hard times.

Psalm 24:8 describes God this way, “Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle.”

Our God remains strong and mighty through every battle we face.

When our hearts are heavy, our eyes are tired and our souls are worn down, we can have confidence that God will hold us up and keep us going.

His strength will never fail us, friend.

This morning as I faced that hospital trip, I was trying to cling to the promise that God gives us strength. No idea how that works, but it's clearly there in his Word. I tell you, I'm leaning into this promise, and not just for this morning:

He gives power to the faint,
    and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
    and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29–31 NIV)