Proverbs 31: 30-31

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Honour her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.”

I have been thinking a lot lately about family, and what it means to belong. In February this year my husband, children and I have returned home to South Africa from Scotland to spend time with my extended family. I am always struck by how being in amongst my people brings me a sense of belonging, of unconditional love, of being filled.

At the head of this family is a godly matriarch we call gran. On this family holiday I was reflecting on the way seasons change, and generations shift. I remember many beach holidays where my gran would feed as many as 16 of us who were staying in her house. Carefully laid out smoked glass bowls, filled military style with fruit salad and then custard, my gran’s uniform: her apron. She was assisted by the next generation: my mom and her sisters, but she was the driving force behind it all. Day after day, meal after meal, she would stand behind the kitchen counter and dispense food to hungry family members waiting at the table. As a child, I didn’t give much thought to how the food got prepared and made it to my plate. Today as a mother myself, I am very aware of all the work that goes into planning, shopping, preparing and serving food to little people. There is something powerful in the repetition of these rituals, and in the way they shift and change. We come into this world being cared for, and then we become the one who cares, and then we need to allow ourselves to be cared for by those we have poured our love into.
These days, the roles have changed, and we have changed places. These days she is sitting at the dining room table and I am in the kitchen with my aunts peppering her with questions as I attempt to prepare family recipes that she has mastered over decades, and I am still learning. I know she feels the loss of all that she was able to do, and now has to let the rest of us do for her. Given half a chance she will take a knife in her hands, now gnarled with painful arthritis, and start preparing fruit at the dining table, or scoop crumbs in her vicinity into a tidy pile. Throughout her life, her driving force has been serving her family, and today that continues, it just looks a little different.

These times together are precious to me, and I do not take them for granted. They are also bitter sweet. There is an ache in the space between my gran and I, a missing link. We share a deep loss: her daughter, and my mother. Somehow, when we are together, that loss is both more keenly felt and lessened. This year it will be 15 years.

My gran is 96 years old, and though physically frail, her mind is still fierce. The year before last, she read through the bible from cover to cover, and she has a voracious appetite for learning. You will not find her without a book nearby- this time it’s CS Lewis. As I sat next to her the other day I noticed a piece of paper, carefully stored in a plastic envelope in the basket of her walker. I asked her what it was and she told me it was her prayer list. There, in her neat and careful writing were lists and lists of her family members, friends, people who have worked for her over the years, even close friends of mine who she has got to know. Most days she prays through this list. She said to me, “There is not a lot I can do these days, but as I sit here what I can do is pray.”

Maybe God designed it this way on purpose, as age forces us to slow, it brings a stillness where spiritual battles are fought. It brings me a lot of comfort and peace knowing that the battles I fight out in the world, are not fought alone. My gran is praying an army around me.

Jess Hill

Jess Hill is a South African who now lives in Scotland with her husband and two wild boys. She loves to write to see make sense of her story and to see God’s hand at work in her life. She is a therapist by day.

www.jessicahill.org

The post A Woman of Noble Character appeared first on Cup of Faith.

At the beginning of each year I ask God to guide me towards a verse for the year. Sometimes it just drops into my spirit and then is confirmed when it comes up in several different places- an instagram post, a reading in a devotional, a sermon. At other times it might come up around a theme I’ve been thinking on. In more recent years I have tied the verse to a word or phrase. Last years verse was John 15:4-5  “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (NIV) The word I chose for 2023, as you may have already guessed, was abide.

Is this a practice you have engaged in before? Do you see value in it? Is there any relevance to the turn of the calendar page to a new year? I believe there is. Though God is out of time, He sets us in it. I think He knows that we benefit from the comfort of repetition: rhythms and rituals, seasons that turn and then come back around. I love the feeling of expectancy that comes from a new year – a fresh chance to see what God has in store, and a moment where we can set down a monument honouring what God has done in our lives the year before.

An Anchor

I have practised this habit of choosing a verse for almost a decade now, and what it has given me is an anchor to come back to through the year. It gives me a theme around which to build my year. It helps to guide my decisions. When I am unsure of a particular course of action, I can go back to that scripture and see what wisdom may be hidden in the words, precious pearls tucked in the folds of the page.

A Comfort

It acts as a comfort when I feel lost, tossed about on the waves of life. There have been times where I have chosen a verse believing God has something particular to teach me but then it turns out it was something entirely different. In 2016 my verse was 2 Timothy 1:7 “I haven’t given you a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a self discipline.” I was delighted, perhaps this was the year God was finally going to cultivate self discipline in me, something that does not come naturally! 2016 saw the birth of my second child, while my first fought for his life in ICU, ventilated and sedated for 49 days. In the hush of that hospital ward I whispered those words over and over again as the warmth of God’s love and power flowed into the icy fear that pawed at my heart.

Meditation

Choosing a verse has helped me to commit some of the bible to memory and also to deepen my understanding of scripture as I mull over that one particular passage. We live in a time of swiping and scrolling. It is easy to move onto the next moment without allowing ourselves to rest and dig deep into this one. Instead we skip over the surface and then move on. I believe we are rewarded with buried treasure when we take tie time to mine it.

Reflection

Finally this practice has given me a way to see how God has worked in my life, and writing about that gives me something to come back to over and over again.

This year the phrase came first: “stand firm.” For the last few days it has been swirling through my mind. When I started looking into verses containing this phrase I realised there were many but the one that stood out was this:

“Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place.” Ephesians 6: 13-14 (NIV)

I don’t know what 2024 holds for you or me, but this year, when in doubt, I will come back here to these words and ask God what he wants to teach me. I encourage you to ask God for a word and a verse this year. Don’t overthink it, just give yourself some quiet moments and an open heart and see where God leads you. Learn the verse by heart, read around it, journal on it, look out for where it pops up through the year, and come back to it when you need to ground yourself.

Let us know in the comments: do you have an anchor verse for 2024?

Jess Hill

Jess Hill is a South African who now lives in Scotland with her husband and two wild boys. She loves to write to see make sense of her story and to see God’s hand at work in her life. She is a therapist by day.

www.jessicahill.org

The post What’s in a word? appeared first on Cup of Faith.