Today's prayers

This morning all I can think of is a good friend who is in hospital. She's in such very poor shape. Needed transfusions both of the last two days and, last I heard, she was having trouble breathing. I'm so worried about her, but all I can do is pray - for her and her husband.

Things have been a bit weird for me lately, my moods up and down, but not really badly.

And there are other things on my mind:

I've decided that the open house/craft sale I will have at my home in November will be for the benefit of the Living Room ministry. We're needing funds to ensure that we will be able to do our work - our work of spreading the Living Room movement - promoting groups everywhere.

I'm encouraged. This month a new group is starting up in Winnipeg and another in Langley. Please pray for Lorna and Jeffrey, the facilitators of these groups.

But we need many more. We need groups available to all people living with mood disorders and wanting faith-based support. Everyone should have the opportunity to talk freely about their mental health issues and their faith - in one place - knowing they will be accepted, not stigmatized as too often happens.

We are already at work, preparing for our presence at Missions Fest in January. This will be an opportunity to engage many of the thousands of Christians who come in discussion about mental health problems and what they can do to offer support. We'll have to work hard to make the most of this opportunity. It will take prayer and some creative planning. Just glad I'm not doing this on my own. Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries will be helping out. They are also planning on doing a seminar at the conference.

But it's costly being at Missions Fest. The booth is expensive. And it costs money to do the display. It will cost money to have materials printed to have available at the booth. I will work hard to create notecards, bookmarks and framed prints to sell at my sale in November. It's a good healthy thing for me to do. It's work I love to do.

But if you're not near Vancouver - not able to be at my sale - and would like to support the Living Room movement, don't forget, you can always donate via the Living Room website. Your donations would be hugely appreciated.

Yes. Lots to pray about today. My friend, my creative work for the open house, and Missions Fest. So good though to have a Big and Loving God to go to.

This is the day...

Just killing some time before it's time to go to church. Just trying to relax a bit. I spent the morning doing as much as I could to get ready for the open house. I'll do the very very last minute stuff when I get home from church. My friend will be coming to help with the final set-up: slicing the cheese and sausage, making the punch, putting the coffee on, etc.

"This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it."

This is the day I've been preparing for during the last couple of months and now it's here. I'm very excited, even a bit nervous, though I shouldn't be. I'm getting lots of support. One friend greeting, two friends making sure the table stays supplied with food, and my husband his friend looking after the cash. I'll be free to float around, talking to people, introducing people.

I pray everyone who comes will sense God's presence. I pray that they will feel welcome and want to stay for awhile to visit. And I pray that I will sell lots of stuff, that we will have lots to donate to our church's Connections Coffee House. It will be such fun to see how people respond to the pictures I've been working on.

One thing I thought about: Here is something I'm doing that is in no way connected to mental health work. So many people at church think of me only in that way. They think of what I do with Living Room. Now they will see another side of me.

The eleventh hour

Well, the open house is almost upon me. Today I will do all the last minute things. The last minute shopping. Setting up all the stuff I'm selling. I'd like to do as much as possible so I'll be able to go to church tomorrow. No reason I can't, I figure.

This has been a busy week, with lots of mental health work to do: a heavy Living Room session yesterday (though a good one too). A friend ending up in hospital. Lots of time spent in support of people.

So good to have this happy occasion on Sunday to balance things out. Even though it too is stressful and a very lot of work, it's all good stuff.

I'm coming to see that we can deal with quite a bit of stress, as long as there's a balance between good stress and bad stress. They tend to cancel each other out. Don't you think?

Preparing

Very early in the morning for me to write a post. But when you're moved to do it, you must move, mustn't you? Don't hesitate. Just do.

My house smells like Christmas, the wonderful aroma of cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, all mixed together. I made my speculaas last night, a Dutch Christmas cookie that I always make at Christmas time. I'm getting in the mood early. My open house is definitely going to be the pre-Christmassy party I wanted it to be. A few days ago I made shortbread cookies, another one of my Christmas traditions.

This morning my thoughts have been turning, as they have quite often lately, to what I'm going to do after this open house. Yes, I've got Living Room work to do. But what am I going to do that's creative? What am I going to do to balance my life so I'm not just doing mental health work?

I've also been thinking of how I will make Christmas the happy experience it should be. How am I going to avoid depression this year? And the answer I've come up with is that I need to think creatively about what I can give. What can I do to give to others to make their life better? If I can stop thinking about what Christmas will do to me and think of it as an opportunity to creatively give in some way, I think it will be more than bearable. In fact, I will love it.

My prayers have been full this morning of requests to God to lead me into a creatively lived Christmas season - a wanting to do good things, not feeling I have to live up to certain standards. A looking forward to...not a dreading. I'm grateful for the good mood I have now and pray that it will continue. And prayer does help, doesn't it?

Call me nuts

Today I'm listening to Christmas music while I'm baking. Call me nuts, but I think that's a perfectly okay thing to do.

At Christmas time everyone always talks about how we should celebrate Christmas every day. Why keep such a good thing reserved for only a few weeks of the year? Besides, maybe Christmas won't be so difficult to deal with if you celebrate it more often.

I've talked loads on this blog about how badly Christmas affects me. I think it's the stress of wanting to have everything perfect, yet being fearful of not reaching perfection. It's having expectations of yourself that are hard to achieve.

But if I started now, when it doesn't really matter a heck of a lot if things aren't perfect...Before all the craziness in the malls sets in...before the thick bundles of ads get dropped at our door...before the pressure of doing it all...right now is dumped on me?

So...I'm starting to celebrate Christmas now, even before you, my American friends, have had your Thanksgiving. Even before Haloween.

I'm calling the party I'm having on the 25th of this month a "Pre-Christmas Open House." And I don't feel pressure. I feel a great desire to make this a wonderful happy affair with people from various facets of my life coming together to mingle with each other and to look at all the photographic items I've been working so hard on. I so look forward to it.

And as I prepare I will play my Christmas music and celebrate. And I will keep celebrating for the next two months. Merry Christmas everyone!

Think I'm nuts?

Creating with a purpose

I've almost finished all my photography projects for the open house coming up on October 25th. My next project is going to be baking for it. I'll start as soon as I have a spare hour or two (not in the next couple of days).

All this made me think...about something I've known for a long time: doing creative work is so much more fun when there's a reason for doing it, when there's a purpose for the work, a good purpose. And being a fundraiser for a church ministry gives it a very good purpose.

I don't normally bake much. Don't really enjoy it. It makes such a mess of the kitchen. But now, knowing what I'm doing it for, I'm eager to begin. Have started planning what recipes to use. I want to make lots of tarts, cookies and squares and freeze them. I've invited at least 100 people to the party and we'll need lots. I don't expect all the people I invited will come. Have no idea how many will, so I'll have to be prepared. There will be an exciting end purpose for all my preparations and that makes it fun. It energizes me.

And when I think of it, I would never have wanted to make all the cards and bookmarks if there were no reason for doing it. I would not have done all this work just because. So much more fun to have it all culminate in a big party with neighbours and friends from all the different facets of my life.

My 95 year old mother feels the same way. She has been crocheting baby afghans, one after another and only now that she has decided to donate them to the sale is she finding real joy in it. She now has a purpose for what she does. Everyone needs a reason for doing the things they do.

The party is less than two weeks away now. It's drawing closer every day. How I look forward to it!

This bookmark is one of the twenty or so designs I'll be selling.