Getting A New Perspective

The wind is blowing a gale outside. I can tell from the howling noise and the washing dancing on the clothesline. Hopefully it does not rain soon so I can bring it in in time. I really don’t like my hard work of hanging it up going to waste.

Hard work you say? Surely its just pegging up clothes on a clothesline? No for me it is like doing a 30-minute aerobics session. I have only the use of one arm in putting up the clothes, so I often throw the clothes on the line first so that the line “catches” them and then I spread the items out and then peg. Doing sheets, towels, all the large items can puff me out.

We who live in Australia and are blessed with generally warm weather, hang our clothes out on a clothesline. The original “clothes Hoist” was invented and made in Australia. I had forgotten that many countries don’t use these to dry their clothes. I had been staying at some Ministry Friends house in Texas, United States. My friends had offered for me to use their washing machine for Bruce and my dirty clothes. After the cycle on the machine had finished, I went and found Patricia, asking her did she have a clothesline? She looked at me strange, till I described to her what a clothesline was.

“Oh, I might have something in the garage that you could use.” Pulling out some boxes in the back of the garage, low and behold, behind them was a portable wooden clothes rack. “Yes, perfect I said.”

So picture this – I’m out the back of their yard, hanging out Bruce’s and my clothes on a clothes rack in 40 degree Celsius heat (104 degree Fahrenheit) and Patricia’s 25 year old daughter arrives to visit her. I had met her before. As she walks past me, she nods and calls out, “That’s a novel idea!” I ask her, “What is?” in a puzzling voice.

She answered, “Hanging out your clothes to dry on that wooden thing.”

“Oh, how do you do it? “I replied.

“Oh, we throw them into the dryer.” She stated.  I laughed.

By the time I had hung the last lot of clothes up the first lot were already dry. In this heat, in the middle of a Texan summer I had never thought to use a dryer.

Now of course often we do things out of convenience, time saving so I’m not being disparaging to Patricia’s daughter.  It was more I was surprised that she had never seen a clothes rack. But how could she have?

Before she left home at 17, 18 to go to college she may not have washed many of her clothes. This all changed in college where she used a washing machine and a dryer to keep her clothes clean. A dryer was her logical first point of call in drying her clothes. There was no other way presented to her.

In such a simple example I felt the Holy Spirit say to me “How can you judge her other choices? You don’t know her life, her circumstances, why she does the things she does? Maybe she only sees one way because that is her experience? Are you going to walk with her, love her, show her that there are other ways to live?”

No, this was not about “how to dry clothes”. This was about the bigger questions of life that Patricia’s daughter was experiencing. The questions that came out at the dinner table when we were talking and getting to know her. She was curious about why we lived the way we did. Why we thought the way we did. She had many questions and I needed to gently share with her as the Spirit led us. Praying that the Spirit opened her heart to hear what the Spirit wanted her to hear.

And so, as I contemplate going out and collecting my washing off the line, I pray for Patricia and for Patricia’s daughter that God has continued His good work within them.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Phil 1:6 NLT

I pray that God continues His good work within me! Within you! May we be always open to what He has for us and for who we are to become.

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Have you had moments in your life where God has given you a new perspective? What were those moments?

How did you change because of the new perspective that God gave you?

Did it change the way you approach others?