LineaLanoie's Weblog

Lots of stuff went on today for me.  Some I didn’t expect at all.  In fact I am still not sure how to process in my mind everything that happened. 

First thing – at church this morning – the women’s group usually has something to honor the graduates from various post-secondary programs and from High School.  Christian is graduating this next weekend so I was expecting that recognition for him. 

But then the women also have these recognition awards for women that have contributed in some special way.  They called me up and presented me with this award.  I was the last person to expect to get one of these.  You see, I don’t participate much in the women’s activities.  It seems they are mostly doing stuff that doesn’t pertain to me.  The last thing I want to do or have time to do is go to a meeting in the evening after a busy day at work.  And usually I am too busy driving my kids around anyway.  So if I am going to use up an evening, I need it to be important.  Serious Bible study I would consider important, taking time to work on friendships I would consider important but not business meetings to run another program or fluffy devotionals or arts and crafty sorts of evenings.  Sorry, but I am fussy about how I spend my time.  And if I use up my one or two evenings that I save for myself during the week doing stuff with the women’s group then I don’t have time to take a friend out for coffee or be on the deaconate or spend time reading and studying good books with the group of us women who have been meeting to do this. 

I guess these are all activities I tend to do with women but they are not part of the church women’s organized program.  I need to do these things to share with other women what is going on in my life and to share what God is doing.  I need to be challenged both in my faith and my intellect.  I need to meet with other women who will do that.  We are friends and we care about and share our needs and our hopes and prayers for each other.  So we meet and we laugh and we are learning to love each other.  And we can depend on each other for things like prayer. 

Our denomination’s women’s ministries are changing, I know.  Maybe someday we will find our way to fit into the structure in some sort of loose knit way.  Right now I don’t know where I or the group I meet with fit in.   

I love the women of the church who seem to thrive on participating in the women’s group.  They do such marvellous things with their fund raising and doing things.  They are always ready to help out when a project needs to be taken care of.   But that kind of busyness just isn’t what I need to bring me closer to the God I want to know more intimately.  I think he’s sending me out further.  I need to keep the connection to them but they also need to let me fly a bit more freely out there where I can go to places far away and sometimes connect to people way far away from God.  But I need to know that there is this home base too – kind of a nest.  Women who do some of the practical things I just can’t do for whatever reason.  We need to keep exploring new ways to interconnect even though we are different.

The next thing that was a bit unexpected was a phone call after getting home from church.  It seems like God just keeps on providing what I need to get for the trip to the Congo.  He is very good.  Reminds me a bit of an old chorus I used to sing as a kid,

 “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mine.  
  He owns the rivers and the rocks and rills, the sun and the stars that shine. 
  Wonderful riches more than tongue can tell, He is my father so they’re mine as well.  
  Oh he owns the cattle on a thousand hills, I know that he will care for me.”