This morning I am looking forward to going to the meeting of my Ladies Fellowship.
My Ladies Fellowship is wonderful: the kind of meeting that is a highlight of the week, and sets you up for all the days ahead.
One thing I love about it, is that I don’t have to run it, and it doesn’t meet in my home. So I get to go out to the home of another Plain sister. Her home is simply furnished: quiet colours, no ornaments, very few pictures on the walls, everything homely and peaceful and comfortable and ordinary. On the windowsill a few late flowers and colourful leaves from her garden stand in a jam jar of clear water that catches the sun. There is an open fire for this chill autumn morming, and we have home-baked cookies with a hot drink at the beginning. The sister whose home we meet in has understood about the ethical implications of our food choices. That means our cookies are made with organic and fair-traded ingredients, and where she uses animal products she has been careful to source them from places where the animals are treated kindly and with respect.
It’s lovely sitting by the fire, and hearing each greeting at the door as the other sisters arrive – one is laughing over a story about her grandchild who is at the endearing toddler stage, one walked across the park and is full of joy at the reds and golds of the autumn leaves, one has come carrying a pair of trousers she took home to mend for the man of this house – she did it as a kindness because she’s handy with her needle.
As each one comes in, the cheerful greetings continue. We catch up on family news, sharing our joys and concerns and sorrows. In this fellowship you can tell it like it is – we know quite a lot about each other’s heartaches, the ‘problem people’ in each other’s families. It’s okay to share it here, because our secrets stay secret and there is no gossip and no blame – everyone is understanding but everyone looks for the good. So when one of the sisters shares about how disappointed she feels that her daughter does not walk the Plain way but dresses in the tightest leggings and shortest skirts, her heavily made-up eyes peering sulkily from behind her dyed and tousled hair, the circle listens with sympathy. We know this girl. Then one of the sisters comments how she saw her at church last Sunday, playing so delightfully with some of the little ones, and fetching a cup of tea for someone in a wheelchair. No-one pretends the problems are not there, but they don’t want to lock her in the stocks and throw rotten fruit – they are on her side, they love her, they believe in her. No-one puts her down, but they don’t belittle her mother’s anxieties and misgivings either. It is heard, it is wrapped in healing love, it is received with kindness.
Someone has brought her guitar, and we spend a while singing worship songs together. People sing joyously in harmony, and my heart lifts with the song. We sing the quiet, close intimate songs of adoration, of penitence, choruses that take us into the heart of Jesus and find His touch. Without needing to say anything, the songs lead us into prayer, and we bring our praises, our thanksgiving, our words of love to God most high who shields and strengthens and saves us. We pour out the confessions of our shortcomings, and we receive the ministry of His grace right there first-hand from God Himself. He is with us, we know He is, we can feel that He is. We bring to Him the situations of friends who are in trouble, of family circumstances causing us concern, of approaching weddings and baptisms and hospital appointments and school exams. We hold all these things in the Light, and God who hears us takes them into His hands for safeguarding.
Then together we open the precious Book, and discover God’s word to us in our reading from the Bible. We are looking at John chapter 9, about the man who was born blind. They threw him out, but Jesus went to look for him. There is so much in the story, we are in danger of running on into lunch-time! But after much sharing of questions and wisdom and wondering, it’s time to go home. The men of this house come home at midday for their dinner, and we disperse quickly and quietly so that our sister can have everything out ready to welcome them when they come in.
I walk home across the park with one of the sisters, and she tells me as we go about a really interesting book she’s been reading on home education.
When our ways part, I make a note of the book. I want to read it too!
This Fellowship I go to – at the moment it exists only in the longing of my imagination: but, that’s a good start isn’t it? Everything begins with a dream.
My Ladies Fellowship is wonderful: the kind of meeting that is a highlight of the week, and sets you up for all the days ahead.
One thing I love about it, is that I don’t have to run it, and it doesn’t meet in my home. So I get to go out to the home of another Plain sister. Her home is simply furnished: quiet colours, no ornaments, very few pictures on the walls, everything homely and peaceful and comfortable and ordinary. On the windowsill a few late flowers and colourful leaves from her garden stand in a jam jar of clear water that catches the sun. There is an open fire for this chill autumn morming, and we have home-baked cookies with a hot drink at the beginning. The sister whose home we meet in has understood about the ethical implications of our food choices. That means our cookies are made with organic and fair-traded ingredients, and where she uses animal products she has been careful to source them from places where the animals are treated kindly and with respect.
It’s lovely sitting by the fire, and hearing each greeting at the door as the other sisters arrive – one is laughing over a story about her grandchild who is at the endearing toddler stage, one walked across the park and is full of joy at the reds and golds of the autumn leaves, one has come carrying a pair of trousers she took home to mend for the man of this house – she did it as a kindness because she’s handy with her needle.
As each one comes in, the cheerful greetings continue. We catch up on family news, sharing our joys and concerns and sorrows. In this fellowship you can tell it like it is – we know quite a lot about each other’s heartaches, the ‘problem people’ in each other’s families. It’s okay to share it here, because our secrets stay secret and there is no gossip and no blame – everyone is understanding but everyone looks for the good. So when one of the sisters shares about how disappointed she feels that her daughter does not walk the Plain way but dresses in the tightest leggings and shortest skirts, her heavily made-up eyes peering sulkily from behind her dyed and tousled hair, the circle listens with sympathy. We know this girl. Then one of the sisters comments how she saw her at church last Sunday, playing so delightfully with some of the little ones, and fetching a cup of tea for someone in a wheelchair. No-one pretends the problems are not there, but they don’t want to lock her in the stocks and throw rotten fruit – they are on her side, they love her, they believe in her. No-one puts her down, but they don’t belittle her mother’s anxieties and misgivings either. It is heard, it is wrapped in healing love, it is received with kindness.
Someone has brought her guitar, and we spend a while singing worship songs together. People sing joyously in harmony, and my heart lifts with the song. We sing the quiet, close intimate songs of adoration, of penitence, choruses that take us into the heart of Jesus and find His touch. Without needing to say anything, the songs lead us into prayer, and we bring our praises, our thanksgiving, our words of love to God most high who shields and strengthens and saves us. We pour out the confessions of our shortcomings, and we receive the ministry of His grace right there first-hand from God Himself. He is with us, we know He is, we can feel that He is. We bring to Him the situations of friends who are in trouble, of family circumstances causing us concern, of approaching weddings and baptisms and hospital appointments and school exams. We hold all these things in the Light, and God who hears us takes them into His hands for safeguarding.
Then together we open the precious Book, and discover God’s word to us in our reading from the Bible. We are looking at John chapter 9, about the man who was born blind. They threw him out, but Jesus went to look for him. There is so much in the story, we are in danger of running on into lunch-time! But after much sharing of questions and wisdom and wondering, it’s time to go home. The men of this house come home at midday for their dinner, and we disperse quickly and quietly so that our sister can have everything out ready to welcome them when they come in.
I walk home across the park with one of the sisters, and she tells me as we go about a really interesting book she’s been reading on home education.
When our ways part, I make a note of the book. I want to read it too!
This Fellowship I go to – at the moment it exists only in the longing of my imagination: but, that’s a good start isn’t it? Everything begins with a dream.