What great things!

We live our lives, and every now and then something comes up that requires some thought, pulls us up, and creates in us the need to pause and consider, to open ourselves up and empathise with another and be truly honest with ourselves.

What do we do when we want to reach out to a grieving widow or mother, but don’t know what to say or do? How can we best support those who are grieving the loss of a marriage?

What would be the right thing to do if we find that our gifted daughter has excelled and now has to either compromise ecclesial activities or compromise her commitment to her special talent?

Are we really as alone as we feel, when we find ourselves week after week tasting food and finding no delight in it, and we get up to go about our day, but the burden of life just seems too heavy and tiring?

How can we live our lives awake to God’s Word, making decisions big and small with our eyes fixed on the hand of our Maker, as a handmaid does to the hand of her mistress, free from doing things just out of the fear of what people may think about us (Psalm 123)?

How comforting it is to know that, however alone we feel, and unique we may feel our circumstances to be, there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). There are clouds of witnesses who live, have lived, and have died before us, who have felt the same pains and fears, the same bliss and awe that we feel. There’s much we can learn from the wisdom of our elders, those whom God has enriched with experience and perspective.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” (Deut. 6:4-7 KJV)

It is my privilege to be able to share with you some of the wisdom and experiences of some of our older sisters. Rather than leave their wisdom and experience locked away in the obscurity of their personal lives, in the spirit of Titus 2:4 we wish to empower our older sisters to teach us who are younger. We will do this by interviewing older sisters about various situations and how they have handled them during their lives. So that their words and advice stand on their own merit, and also to enable sisters who are naturally shy, or private, or don’t like putting themselves forward to be able to express themselves, these interviews will be anonymous.

The first of these interviews will be published this coming Wednesday, God willing. It’s entitled “Busy at home with children at public school”.