Serene Sunday

I think this might be a long blog so hope you have a cuppa! We have had a wonderful weekend. If started with a day off for me, I went to a Women's Day at our church. I was privileged to spend the entire day with some of the wonderful women that attend our church and I got to speak to so many of them, ones that I don't speak to normally at all for one reason or another and it was fantastic. The day was on Encouragement. You know how when you get together with your friends, especially those of you who are Christians out there I am sure this will be familiar. You have a coffee, play with the kids and chat. Sometimes it is trivial banter but 9 times out of 10 there is something meaty to talk about, either situations or people and I don't mean bitching just generally mulling over what has happened. How often do we encourage our friends to be more Christ like, we may empathise and sympathise, we try to make them feel better by saying things like, well there was this reason or that for it to happen, but is that really the right thing to say. Sometimes the things we SHOULD be saying are the hardest, for example if your friend has snapped at someone and is saying how awful she now feels then rather than just empathising we should be trying to help her find out why she snapped, this is a hard thing to do but so needed in our True friendships. I was sitting next to such a good christian friend of mine while this particular part of the day was going on and it was so apt for us and where we are right now with each other. To quote: Prv 27:6 Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiples kisses
Anyway that was just the first talk and I can't give you a complete run down on the day but I found this talk so valuable and the speakers second part was about praying, for others, with others together in small groups and how we can do this. We British seem to find expressing ourselves quite hard and being vulnerable seems to be such an issue with many people and just giving us the encouragement to open up and pray together was amazing. I am really looking forward to this week and trying to put into practise some of the things that were brought up.

Today was just as good, hubby and Bubbs took the day together and went on the train up to the big smoke to the Natural History Museum, or the Dinosaur Nuseun as Bubbs so eloquently puts it. I got the most adorable text from Hubby quite early on in the day, saying that this is the best bit of being a daddy as Bubbs was so excited with everything and his train journey into work was opened up to him in a whole new light through Bubbs eyes. They had an amazing day and Bubbs was very excited, soaking wet as it poured down on the way home and absolutely exhausted when they got home but is already talking about his next visit. I got to spend the day with the girlies and after church they had a nap so I even managed to get some card work done, yippee. We then spent the afternoon playing around inside as the weather was miserable but a good time was had.
This evening amidst a massive pile of ironing and shop bought pizza, (still no takeaways, this has to be a record for us) Hubby blurted out that he was so happy with our life and it got me thinking.....we are so privileged. We live in an amazing house (granted we don't own all of it and will be indebted to my parents forever on that front), in an amazing area, our children are a complete blessing however annoying they may be on a day to day basis. Hubby enjoys his job which after a lot of stress over the last couple of years is brilliant. I can survive the day and come out still smiling (even if there is some medicinal intervention there). We have amazing friends, one of whom has just had her second baby after a long wait (congrats), we belong to a great church family whose support is invaluable and we are loved by God. What more can we ask for!!

Thanks anyone who takes the time out to read this post I hope some of it is relevant, it was completely written from the heart.