This past week has been more of a challenge for me. There have been a couple of days of waking up and feeling very unenthusiastic for all the things standing between me and the evening. And then yesterday morning I was in suchhh a grump. I’m not usually a very grumpy person, but yesterday…. A very poor showing on my part.
Thankfully I had church in the afternoon to help me snap out of things a little (Rupert spoke on Psalm 34), and then I got to go to a lovely diwali dinner with Lucy and Umang in the evening (and eat aaaall the gulab jamun). 🙂
I’m hoping I’m a little more back on track today. It’s 9am and I’ve got up as usual, done my washing, been to a Union meeting, bought milk and bananas from Sainsbury’s (stopping on the way home to take the photo above of the Christmas lights), and now have an hour before my day of four lectures starts. It’s a busy day.
But, more importantly, this morning I got some good time to myself and so I have done all these things with a glad heart.
I realised that part of my problem in this last week was not following something I wrote in my own post Hopes for the Year Ahead – that I should remember to be gentle with myself if things get hard. In the past week things did get hard and instead of persevering in the different situations I found myself in and trusting God in that, I did the equivalent of have a tantrum. I ignored the fact that I couldn’t do everything I wanted to on my own strength, and got frustrated with where things were at, and then where I was at with the things.
Earlier in the week, Tabitha and I were both feeling a little adrift, and I showed her the Kid President pep talk. She liked it a whole lot more than I had anticipated and now quotes from it, “not cool, Robert Frost”. It’s a great video. But the best pep talk I’ve had this week was the one I found this morning in whilst reading 2 Corinthians. In chapter 1, one of the subheadings is ‘Praise to the God of all comfort’. It’s about comfort in troubles, and God’s faithfulness and deliverance. Timely.
So here’s to being gentle with myself and not having grown-up tantrums. To trusting and resting in the grace I have. Rejoicing because He will deliver.
thejoyofrachel 