Dear Friend, It’s been just over a week now since I left my ‘poverty challenge’ behind, and I must say it’s been a strange week. Remember, as you read, it was only one single week. In reality I’ll not be leaving bits of this behind.
I’ve gathered up the thoughts of a week, because let’s face it, now that I’m just the same as anyone else, there’s not a lot to tell. I’ve enjoyed, no ‘luxuriated’ in washing and putting gel on my hair and changing my clothes and not felt guilty. I can’t bear the smell of the highly scented body lotions I have and my perfume is becoming overbearing. My first walk around the supermarket was surreal and when I first sat in a cafe again I felt guilty, I felt guilty sitting in a cafe drinking a single cup of coffee. Guilty, guilty. Can’t read the glossy mags, guilty . Slimming mags? Guilty. Highlights? Having a significant purpose to life, oh and the extra 3 slices of bread for tea one night. Lowlights? Being hungry and thirsty as I walked past a food shop. As my granny used to say I had ‘plenty to fall back on’ so no physical harm done. But as to my psyche? In reality I know, there’s really no guilt in a cup of coffee. What if everyone stopped their wee indulgences? As we’ve seen recently it doesn’t take long for belt tightening to become a recession and small businesses soon miss the trade. I can’t really settle to read anything which frustrates me as I bought my self a book for Christmas and was saving it for Lent. It’ s book of portraits of Jesus. I wanted to spend 40 days and 40 nights getting to know Him.
I feel guilty and incredibly drained over having entered Lent without being able to contemplate ‘giving something up’. That’s unsettling and peculiar but I feel another little phase coming on. You see, the team was due to fly to Sudan this weekend and oh how lost I feel. I want to be there. My voice hasn’t spoken yet. God speaks, I listen. Shhhh! I can’t hear it and it’s almost the weekend. What am I going to do? I haven’t broken that particular piece of news to my beloveds yet, and I wonder if I should, but the whisper is God wants more of something, not less.
At the weekend I was sent some pictures of the distribution of clothes and blankets in Sudan. Sad faces stared out at me, faces of mothers who have watched as their families were murdered. And a sad tearful face stared back.
Please pray for the uplift of spirits of the whole team who were due to fly to Sudan and please continue to pray for the safety of the people in Sudan,
Lynn