Encouraging The Younger Women

I’ve been researching some things for a blog post about using a planner and so have been checking out a lot of my pinterest ‘pins’ to see what I can learn for what I want for myself, but also to help with what I wanted to share.
What I found in every link to a weblog of some sort was that the people seemed to all be female, but most of them were also young enough to be one of my daughters.

It surprised me a bit as I was thinking how come these young ladies know so much at 20 or 22 etc.

I realize that living in today’s world is so much faster and more up-to-the-mark than it was in my younger years. For one we didn’t have computers nor did we know anything about the World Wide Web. Cell phones were bricks if you had one and keeping up with everyone was either by a landline telephone or letter!

Now there are times when I wish we were still like that - a slower pace in life, less demands on our lives and the constant need to be up with the play with everything. Like a lot of us it would be nice if people looked up from their phones or away from their desks to talk face to face but really that’s a whole other issue.

Mind you I wouldn’t have this blog and you wouldn’t have come across it either!

I especially looked at the beautiful photos of all these young ladies and thought to myself ‘would people be put off by seeing an old lady posting on her blog?’ and, ‘how would she know what the younger generation are wanting or looking for?’

God spoke to me from a piece of scripture in Titus 2 about the older women teaching the younger ones

Titus 2:3-5 Tree of Life Version (TLV) 
3 Likewise, older women are to be sanctified in demeanor—not backbiting or enslaved to much wine. Let them be teachers of what is good, 4 so that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, managing their household, kind, submitted to their own husbands, so that God’s word may not be dishonored.

I saw then that it was me He was asking to step into the place of teaching younger women. A lot of them won’t have their mother or grandmother near or even with them anymore so they will look to someone like me knowing that I have been through the tough things and come out the other side so able to base my thoughts on genuine experiences.

A man was praying for me the other day and he said he saw a vision of my hand reaching up to a blind on a window and the sunlight was just slipping though the gap and on to my hand. He said this was God starting to use me in a new way to shine His light on others.

1 Timothy 5:2 The Passion Translation (TPT) 
Honor the older women as mothers, and the younger women, treat as your dear sisters with utmost purity.

As my life situation is changing I am looking forward to this new chapter in my life.
So with this in mind I was spurred on to actually post more here.

In The Life Of Me.

A little while ago one of my daughters set me a challenge on Facebook to:

Day ? in the life of me. 
Seven days, seven photos, all Black and White of everyday life.
No explanations.
Challenge a friend everyday.
Today I challenge....

Now it could possibly be a sort of chain letter like what used to be sent out in years gone by.

A chain letter is a message that attempts to convince the recipient to make a number of copies and pass them on to a certain number of recipients. The "chain" is an exponentially growing pyramid (a tree graph) that cannot be sustained indefinitely.

Common methods used in chain letters include emotionally manipulative stories, get-rich-quick pyramid schemes, and the exploitation of superstition to threaten the recipient. Originally, chain letters were letters sent by mail; today, chain letters are often sent electronically via email, social network sites, and text messages.

But as it really is up to the person challenged, as to whether they take on the challenge and no-one is being threatened or hurt by participation or not, I thought I would give it a try. At least it gave me an excuse to share a bit of my life instead of just other topics of info.

And then I thought I would share it on here with the coloured pic and a bit of info ... just to show I wasn't tied to it and its demand!

so...

 Day 1 in the life of me. 

Seven days, seven photos, all Black and White of everyday life.

No explanations.

Bible reading in the morning.

Day 2 in the life of me. 

Seven days, seven photos, all Black and White of everyday life.

No explanations.

Work (Must have deleted the coloured one of above)

Day 3 in the life of me. 

Seven days, seven photos, all Black and White of everyday life.

No explanations.

 Unfortunately I must have deleted the colour one of these.

It's taken on the road back from a Lay Ministry training day in Otorohanga

Day 4 in the life of me. 

Seven days, seven photos, all Black and White of everyday life.

No explanations.

KFC Greeting table - Kid's Friendly Church, Sunday Mornings.

Day 5 in the life of me. 

Seven days, seven photos, all Black and White of everyday life.

No explanations.

Milly in my exact favourite spot - I always have to move her
and she gives me 'that look'!

Day 6 in the life of me. 

Seven days, seven photos, all Black and White of everyday life.
No explanations.

The view from my favourite spot (above)

Not the exact photo. I seemed to have saved the black and white ones but not the original.

Day 7 in the life of me. 

Seven days, seven photos, all Black and White of everyday life.
No explanations.

Baking, Jam and Walnut Muffins, Chocolate Caramel Square,
Lemon Loaf in the oven, Pumpkin Soup defrosting and
bread crusts to dry as the oven cools down for bread crumbs.

Once again not the exact photo. I seemed to have saved the black and white ones but not the original.

And after posting these I had realized that each day really is the same, but occasionally with something different like a course or visiting family or friends, errands and shopping to make them differ, but it is all good.

My Mum used to ask me each time she rung on a Saturday morning, how my week had been and I'd say "Just the same."

Now I could have given her details of everything I had done that week but sometimes she just didn't need to know.

She used to respond with something like "A bit boring then" and after awhile it got to me and made me ponder what my days and weeks were like.

It occurred to me that I was happy with how they were as I was open to anything happening over the week that would be different no matter how little and so I would respond to her comment, "No, not boring or I would do something about it." 

After a few weeks she wouldn't say that any more.

But I did like the way my weeks were pretty predictable and I could arrange things around that. It meant that there weren't unpleasant surprises and there was a sense of rhythm in my day to day life.

But now at 89, my mother sits in her lounge chair at their home day after day with not much happening apart from her daily care by others, and although that is fine and she doesn't seem to want to do anything else when I ask when I visit, I wonder if she comprehends a sense of boredom. 

I hope that if she does she will take up the offers of others to do something and if not she is content in just sitting and pondering.

Natalie's Cardigan

With the winter months I have finally found time to finish knitting a cardigan for one of my grand-daughters.

I started it way back in April and unfortunately days were busy and so its taken far too long to complete. Hopefully she will get some wear from it before it becomes too hot for winter woollies.

The pattern required a change in stitches in every row so it was not an easy pattern to follow but it makes a nice diamond affect.

Unfortunately when I went shopping for the buttons I just took some wool rather than the garment and I think it may have needed bigger buttons. But she may not actually wear it done all the way up so might be fine. I can always stitch the button holes so they are a bit smaller if needs be.

Now onto the next one in grey but I am changing the pattern to have more plain rows and little mountain shapes.

Interesting the photos are all of the same cardigan just some with a flash and some not!