Motzei Shabbat

 

As another beautiful Shabbat comes to a close and I prepare to retire for the night, I feel so grateful to God for the way He loves me, and forgives me, and welcomes my prayers, and meets my every need.

    As I sit here, examining my heart and asking Him to remove any wrong or wicked thing from within me and restore a right spirit in its place, I realise - again - that I don't deserve His love.

    I've had quite a colourful week. Last Sunday started with Shacharit. I also spent some time in the garden, after preparing some language lessons for my 3 remaining students. Thank You for them, Lord.

    Monday saw me taking care of some household chores and more gardening before Shacharit. After giving an earlier-than-usual Hebrew lesson, I started preparing for Tisha B'Av. The Fast started at 5.45pm for me and we had an online gathering later that evening.

    It was a beautiful day for a fast. Some friends and I started with Shacharit at 10am - on Zoom, always on Zoom. We took breaks between prayers and teachings, but left the Zoom going all day. It was such an easy and meaningful fast for me this year, because all my focus was on God - praying, learning, reading. In the company of like-minded souls - it was outstanding. I even made a note to that effect in my diary. May each Tisha B'Av be so meaningful until Messiah returns.

    Waking up on Wednesday was wonderful. I'm at that stage now where I start saying Modah Ani even before my eyes are open. I'm so thankful that HaShem has included me in the House of Israel.

    After saying a few morning prayers, I went outside and planted some more Pansies and Thumbelina Carrots. All Heirloom seeds, of course, as I want my food to be real.

    When I came to the computer to do some admin, there was no internet. Upon checking the community group on WhatsApp, I saw that criminals had stolen electric cable near our house and half a dozen streets or so were without electricity. A ticket was logged with the municipality, who came shortly after lunch to begin repairs. They cut down a big tree that the poles and cables were entangled in, only to find that it - the tree - had been holding up the pole that held all the wires and cables. Oops! We put our heads in our hands and thought we'd be down for 2 or 3 days. But Baruch HaShem, my friends prayed and by the close of business, they had restored the service!

    For obvious reasons, I spent the day pottering around the house and garden. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to apply better time management to my life so that I could look after my home as part of my daily routine, instead of just whenever I got the chance.

    I was unable to do the weekly Wednesday visit to my mom last week, so we had a short video call. It had to be short because my data was almost depleted. Since I have wifi at home, you might wonder why I need data on my phone. Well, my 20-year-old phone is showing signs of aging. Among other things, it now refuses to connect to wifi. Thus the data.

    That night at sunset was my paternal grandmother's 40th Yartzheit. As I do for all my family members, since Rosh HaShannah, I light a candle and do a short little video for the deceased and send it to all my living family members. None of my family are walking in the Torah, but they seem to accept my walk without question, for which I am very grateful.

Thursday, the day of the Yartzheit, I did some more planting. I made a list of all the stuff I have now got growing. 21 different varieties of edibles. Shacharit at ten, Torah study at one, Mincha at 3. We added a prayer for our children onto the end of Mincha, but I asked my prayer partner to please make it quick because I hadn't had breakfast yet!

    I had a planned Zoom call at 5.30, which I was unable to attend, due to the fact that I had received some distressing news just after Mincha. It was upsetting to the point that I had to phone a friend and ask her to pray for shalom for me. These things do happen in life, I guess.

    Friday morning has now become set aside for a fellow talmidah from the yeshiva and me to spend time together. I only recently discovered that she lives in the same town as I do. What a blessing!

    We shared a meal and then planned out some things for writing Love Letters to Israel, a WIZO initiative. We will begin making the cards this coming Friday and then courier them down to my friend in Cape Town who is spearheading this project for her branch of WIZO. The letters of love and encouragement have been very warmly received by the Jewish people living in Israel. I am so blessed to have this opportunity. And even more blessed that I have a friend to do it with me!

    After she left, back out to the garden I went, because the gardener works on a Friday, so it has to be now, or wait another whole week for him to help me. So I dove right in. 

    When I came back inside it was after 2, and when the alarm went off to tell me Erev Shabbat Mincha prayers were 10 minutes away, I said to myself:

    "Oh no, I haven't got time to pray today!"

    But then I thought:

"If you haven't got time to pray, Penny, what have you got time for?"

    So I logged on and we prayed. It was such a release. I stopped feeling pressurised immediately and the shalom returned. When we were finished praying, I calmly set about doing all the things I still had to do before 5.45. And would you believe it, I didn't rush at all and was still finished all that I had to do with 15 minutes to spare! If you give God time, He gives you time!

    I didn't have a lot for my Shabbat table this week, but fortunately for me, Mimette decided to leave the unfinished goodies from our morning visit, and my Shabbat table was in good shape.

    I had a talk with my sister in New Zealand, did Kiddush, attended an online Shabbat Shacharit service with some friends, and then watched a live broadcast of another service. I read the daily aliyah together with Rashi's commentary, and when the sun set I watched my first teaching for Ekev. Which caused me to come to the Creator with tearful prayers for my children.

    A real mixed bag of a week, don't you think?

I want to leave you with a verse from Va'etchanan:

    "In thy distress, when all these things are come upon thee, in the end of days, thou wilt return to the LORD thy God, and hearken unto His voice; for the LORD thy God is a merciful God; He will not fail thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He swore unto them."     -    Deuteronomy 4:30-31

BE ENCOURAGED!! BE STRONG IN THE LORD!!