Spring is here in the Southern Hemisphere. At the end of each season, I aim to pause and reflect back over the past few months. It seems cliche but this season simultaneously feels like it has lasted forever and gone in a blink all at once. My brain is struggling to process it all.
Here is the attempt to pull together what I’ve learned and observed.
I have reached my goal of equipping and releasing the leaders I have served in MOPS with here in Western Australia
Last weekend marked my the end of my time as State Leader for MOPS as I passed the baton on to be able to focus fully on my management position. I was able to delegate so much of the conference preparation and an incident on the Friday made it all so evident. Shortly into our conference set up, I received a call from my daughter’s school that she had injured her arm and there was a potential fracture. I need to leave the set up and spend the rest of the afternoon travelling and going through urgent care with my daughter (she was bruised but otherwise fine, thankfully). Not a beat was skipped as my team worked seamlessly without me. The ultimate goal of leadership is to do yourself out of a job in the end as you train up your successor and allow your team to do what they do so well. A bittersweet time.
Injury can become your new normal and motivation for rehab drops when you allow that to happen.
At almost a year into this injury recovery, I have almost given up looking towards more improvement. It has been the toughest season of motivating myself to do rehab or hold on to hope of recovery.
My brain generates a ridiculous amount of ideas.
I need to find a way to release these ideas from my mind and record them. If only they occurred at times that were easy to grab a pen! Emily P. Freeman wrote about how she is coping with this in here edition of this seasonal reflection here. I think I may adopt a version of her ideas brainstorming each day. The trick is then to work out which ideas warrant taking further steps and figuring out how to do this in the midst of a full life!
Op shop finds are awesome!
I have long loved finding second-hand bargains at op shops. I don’t take the time to do so too often though! I have made two great finds recently- a nearly new Kathmandu jacket for my daughter when we were out and about in the city in cold weather and the perfect red shirt I was hoping to wear found the day before the conference I wanted it for. My desire to reduce my contribution to the global slavery epidemic has increased my desire to buy from op shops rather than new.
I love this age of my daughter
I am loving the conversations we have, the spontaneous expressions of love, the imagination and joy she brings. In a week, she turns seven years old. It is the ever-present reality of parenthood of having our hearts wrenched by the passing of time while still loving seeing how they grow and develop. My daughter is currently my personal trainer. She has the ability to make me move like no self-motivation has done of late. Despite the cold winter weather, she has been asking to go for a walk after dinner most nights. I have chosen to say yes, to leave the dishes and to invest in my health and our relationship. We rug up and head out. I am cherishing these moments together. I see the day fast approaching where her first thought is not to spend time with her mother. This winter has had a stunning amount of rainbows in it.
This may not be a scientifically accurate statement but it is something that I have observed. Maybe I am simply noticing them more. Maybe it has something to do with this being the wettest winter in decades in our little corner of Australia (while most of the rest suffers through drought.) No matter the reality or cause, I am choosing to savour those moments of colour and brilliance in the midst of grey days. There are other things that I have learned in this season, lessons that I process in the quiet recesses of my heart, that I am still sitting with and may never have public words for. Each season has those lessons if we stop long enough to pay attention. How has your winter (or summer for my northern hemisphere people) been? What have you learned or observed? As always, this reflection has been prompted by Emily P. Freeman. You can read her thoughts and the thoughts of others here. Looking for a way to create space for your soul, to pursue a deeper intimacy with God or find a way to combine your love for essential oils with Scripture? Even if you don’t have oils, this course is for you:
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