A Girl's Guide to Christmas

So, Christmas is approaching very quickly! Why not grab a festive drink (Aaron and I love the Christmas tea blend, and gingerbread lattes!), and enjoy some thoughts on the Christmas season.

1. Advent is a very important time for staying focused on Jesus rather than getting sucked in to the frenzy of consumerism. The weeks before Christmas are supposed to be about waiting and expecting the Messiah, so get in to the Old Testament for the prophecies about Jesus. It is very grounding to remember the hundreds of years of waiting before Jesus was born.

2. If you have a poor self-image then you may find it difficult and stressful to choose Christmas presents and to receive presents. Spend time with God, and read the Bible so that you get your image shaped by how God sees you. Ask friends to pray with you. Don't even think about attempting any Christmas shopping without including God in your day, you can even talk to Him as you go round the shops.

3. Keep your mind active when watching Christmas films and advertising. Don't let any messages wash over you otherwise you will find that your Christmas expectations are coming from these sources rather than from the true meaning of Christmas. Don't allow yourself to be pressured or seduced into thinking that certain gifts, food, or relationship/family situations will make Christmas perfect. They won't.

4. Painful memories or situations seem more vivid at Christmas time. You might just be hit with the pain when you least expect it. Be ready to take these things to God and ask for His healing, be ready to forgive again in your heart if you experience resentment or bitterness, and rely on the support of godly friends or family. Don't compare your life to the fake 'perfect family' which is sold to us at Christmas. Jesus didn't come to make fake 'perfect families'. Just be ready to trust Him, knowing that He will comfort you this Christmas.

To be continued in Part 2...x

Open Home Part 2: An Open Home in Suffering

We never expected that I would suffer a miscarriage while our friends Lee and Charlie were staying with us, but that is exactly what happened. I have learned lots from having to continue welcoming them in our home, while going through the turbulence of grieving. As it turns out this was the most profound experience of community that I've ever had.

I stayed in bed in my pyjamas for days. Then I sat watching Cranford and quietly worked on some sewing projects for days. I didn't really interact with anyone except Aaron. But when I emerged from bed in the evenings Lee and Charlie would have made dinner for Aaron and I, it would be on the table and all I had to do was sit and eat. They put flowers on the table for me. A wonderful friend from our community group brought round food and transported me in the car wherever I needed to go. Another friend brought round a full cooked roast dinner for us one saturday night. Aaron gave up his free time to look after me. Mostly I just wanted to go to Starbucks (testing his loyalty to his own workplace, Costa!) in the early evenings to see the Christmas lights and spend a bit of time in the real world, surrounded by 'normal life'. Aaron is my closest community.

Normally I would have retreated into isolation at this time, I'm a guarded person by choice, but because of being married and surrounded by people this wasn't an option! But I learned that people can be very comforting in desperate situations. I found temporary relief from grieving in our dinner times with Lee and Charlie. We talked about light-hearted things, and they made me laugh. Our home continued to run itself, depsite my inability to do anything at all. I noticed real advantages because we had opened our lives and home to others. Even when I was lying in bed clouded with despair, I could hear people coming and going. Aaron'sdiscipleship group, or a friend dropping off food, or Aaron's friend Sam coming round to pray with him. This gave me great comfort.

As a result of my experience I feel strongly how wrong it is that we have been encouraged to guard our privacy, to protect our own space, to get our 'me time', and to be self-sufficient (obviously these things need to be handled with wisdom, and there are times for privacy and being alone). This means that we suffer more when we are in need because people won't be there, they might not even know that we are struggling. In addition, when people most need us, we probably won't know how to be there for them. It's awkward to see someone in a state of suffering when you have always had this nice, civilised, distant relationship.

I know that the early church is always used as an idyllic model of community, but I really have glimpsed the possibilities of it in my recent experience. Togetherness is possible, even in our times.

Acts 4:32 "Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and
soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his
own, but they had everything in common." (ESV)

I think we need to consider what this looks like for us as women today. The only way of getting a real community is when we walk together in all seasons of life, cry together, praise together. There seems to be this idea that when life is difficult you should retreat from others, protect yourself, and keep up appearances. Then all we have is fake smiles on a Sunday.

Something to think about...

How can you make your life more community focused?

Are you prepared to open up your life and home? Ask God to help you to be more open if you struggle with guardedness.

The Open Home saga continues...x

Open Home Part 1

A couple of months in to married life I read an extraordinary book called Open Heart, Open Home by Karen Mains (maybe it was only extraordinary to me because it was a new idea for me!). For two months our home had become a sanctuary for Aaron and I. We had it completely to ourselves for conversation, and romantic dinners with candles and bottles of wine, and going to bed at the end of the day. Everything had a place, and the routines of washing, cooking, and shopping were running smoothly. It was lovely.

Then I read this book and it transformed my perspective on our home. I realised that a home is not just a private place for our enjoyment, but it is a ministry opportunity, and people are to be welcomed in. What a difference it makes to see your home as a resource for God! It becomes so much more than the house and furniture! (I don't think this is at all exclusive to married couples either!) I began to think about how to use this gift for God's glory, trusting that God's presence in our home could make it a significant place for prayer and open conversation, and even people coming to know God for the first time.

It was no surprise to me that within days my new resolve to use my home for God would be put to the test. At about 7.30am one morning Aaron received a text from a friend in his football team saying that he and his girlfriend had no where to live as the house they were going to buy had fallen through, and asking if they could stay with us. Normally I would have said 'no' (but nicely!), especially as we had been told that we needed our own space in the first six months of marriage. Normally I am a very sensible person, but because of what God had shown me about our home, my heart leapt at the opportunity.

Three days later (after frantically emptying the spare room i.e our junk room) we were sharing our house with the couple and their belongings. We prepared ourselves for the challenge, praying that God would be glorified in our home, and that Christian marriage (and Christian faith in general) would look glorious and different because of the way Aaron and I lived and interacted.

To be continued...xx

Today I made toffee apples with my friend Chantel (except she says caramel apples because she's from America)

Theology and Feelings Part 2

I wanted to write a theory for you about how to live a life where truth and feelings matter, but it was too difficult! So instead I'm going to write about my experience over the last couple of weeks, which is really all I have to offer on this subject.

I won't go into details but I experienced grief recently that hit me like nothing I've ever felt before. I experienced grief that hurts so much that it physically hurts. These are the circumstances in which I've been thinking about theology and feelings, and I've come back to my favourite psalm (119) time after time, to read

"My soul melts away for sorrow,
strengthen me according to your word!" (v 28)

Never has the Bible been so vital to me. I'm just getting a cup of tea (there is something so comforting about having your hand round a hot mug of tea), then let me explain...

I have always been the kind of person who is led by their feelings. My view of the world and myself have usually been shaped by how I feel on a particular day. I used to stay in bed for days at a time if I felt ugly or insecure, and sometimes I missed church if I felt stressed or inadequate. I socialised only when I felt happy, and turned down all invitations when I didn't. But I recently got to this crossroads where I felt overwhelmed with sorrow, and I could either stay there or turn to God's Word. I could either become entirely self-focused and unable to function, or I could seek strength from God in order to carry on with my relationships and responsibilities.

I learnt that there is a time to cry every few hours, and then following that a time to apply God's truth to your soul for strength, and often alternating between the two (see Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). Because the thing about truth is that it never changes. If I claim to be a Christian (which I do!) then I have to accept that the Bible is true all the time. The Bible says that God is good, all the time. This is challenging to me.

So I found myself in a position where I either have to deny that the Bible is true because I don't feel like God is good, or I have to believe the Bible is stronger than my feelings. Either truth or feelings have to win the battle. This time, for the first time really, truth won me over. I just happened to listen to a song by a worship band called Elysium which sums up what happened:

"When nothing else could help, love lifted me." (from Love Lifted Me, Elysium)

I chose to feed my soul with the love of God, and I found strength beyond anything I could have conjured up myself. I want my feelings to lead me to God and truth, whether in pain or joy.

A Theology of Feelings (from Psalm 119)

If you have a Bible nearby, why not make yourself a coffee and settle down to contemplate Psalm 119. It's a rainy day here, so it's perfect for staying in and reading the Bible! I know it seems like a lot of words (it is the longest psalm in the Bible), but I promise it's worth reading all of it in one go.

"Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors." (v.24)

"My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word." (v.28)

"Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain." (v.36)

"You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word." (v.114)


The psalmist's relationship with God's word has changed my life. My understanding of God and my relationship with Him has always been based quite strongly on how I feel. I know lots of us are like that. If we feel negative or far from God then that becomes our truth. If we have an amazing worship time and experience God's closeness, then our faith is strong. I think this is maybe how we are naturally inclined to be as women (can I get away with saying that, because I'm a girl?!).

But I found that this kind of faith doesn't really work when life is difficult. Because people in the Bible suffer extremely and still hold on to God (like the person writing this psalm), and I wasn't doing that. I was essentially chucking my Bible across the room when my life was hard and I didn't understand, or I felt I was suffering unjustly. So I got to the point of thinking, if the Bible is true, is it true for me all the time, or only when things go how I want? If I only want the truth of the Bible when it suites me, then am I really following Jesus?

Feelings, and how we think about things are sometimes very difficult to seperate, I understand this. Feelings are very powerful and they can be all-consuming, and they seem much more real to you than a line of text on a page sometimes. But they are also a rather unstable judge of truth and faith, they are changeable and they often have no foundation ("I just feel like that, ok?").

The Bible does not deny the existence of emotions, and their validity. If you just flick through the book of Psalms you will notice the overflow of feelings, from ecstatic joy, to deep sorrow. But, as the foundation of our theology, they are going to make our houses collapse. They will lead us all over the place, tie us in knots, and prevent us from hoping in God, if they are our 'truth' rather than the Bible. I know this from personal experience.

• Have you ever thought of the Bible as your counsellor? (see v.24 -far better than any of the "shrinks" people always seem to have in American TV dramas) Do you take counsel from the Bible? Like you would from your closest and wisest friend? Or are you suspicious of it?
• When you feel overwhelmed with sadness, do you turn to the Bible for strength? Or do you wallow in self-pity, letting yourself think self-pitying thoughts? (v.28)

We need God to help us to put His word above our feelings (see v.36). Our hearts need to be re-directed to God's word as our foundation. The Bible has become my most treasured possession and resource. I want it to be the foundation of my life (along with prayer, and other aspects of my relationship with Jesus).

I have found depth in God's word, and a rock-like strength, and a pair of arms open wide, and truth which can be clung to in all circumstances.

As always, I would love to hear from you, with lots of love.x

Go, Company magazine!

I picked up Company magazine in Tesco this week to catch up on girl world, and was amazed to find a feature about women in their twenties who are choosing to take a break from their careers to stay at home and raise their children. The feature, called Generation Happy@ Home, is really positive. Are the tides of feminism turning? Check it out, and well done Company magazine.x




http://www.company.co.uk/magazine-hq/latest-issue/company-magazine-october-2010

Part 2: Yes, I cook for my husband and no, I'm not oppressed!

Hello again, I'm doing a follow up post on my thoughts about being a wife and home life to answer some questions that came up this week. As always please bear in mind that this is all new to me and I am only expressing my developing thoughts about living out marriage. Another important point is that of course the details of how the whole home works are different for everyone, and I can only speak from my experience of how it is working for me.

The three questions we will be looking at are

• What about the difficult times?
• What if you hate housework?
• Isn't the ideal of the excellent wife depressing?

It would be nice before we start thinking about all this to read through Romans 8, so if you have a bit of free time why not grab a cup of tea and take your time to read the whole chapter!

So, all these thoughts about being a wife are like bricks in the walls of a house. But the foundation of that house is the grace of God. We can discuss this without feeling anxious or condemned about our failings because God's grace covers my failings (yes, people who write blogs have failings too!), and yours. Paul says in Romans 8:23...

"There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus [...] For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do."

This is not about being good enough, or trying to be a perfect wife. I will say it again, we are talking about loving and serving our husbands at home in the context of God's grace towards us. This means that when I struggle or suffer or disobey God, I am not condemned. We do not have to do all the washing up or love ironing in order to earn the status of 'good wife', that is living by law, not by grace. We are all flawed, we all find some things easier than others, and we all fail to do things that we should do. Paul expresses our constant struggle as human beings;

"For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." (Romans 7:19)

Thank God (and I really mean that!) that we do not have to earn anything. But because of Jesus we are now liberated from judgement, and freed to live by His Spirit who is working in us. The grace of God is what I want to shape me when my heart is overflowing and eager to do the food shopping, and when I am weary and low, and I tell Aaron that I just can't make dinner. The love of God will not let us go.

Our second question is for those of us who don't feel naturally inclined towards working in our homes, who may not feel gifted at it or fulfilled by it (which is probably how we all feel sometimes actually). Maybe our husbands are better cooks than us, or more organised than us. Maybe our careers are taking all our energy and seem more important than our homes. What if we just hate housework?

God is gracious to us, and He is patient with us as we learn to be god-centred wives. This is really only between us and God. We need to ask God to help us, and make sure that we have a clear conscience before Him about what we are doing at home. The results will look slightly different in every marriage, because of all the unique combinations of individuals. There is a spirit of team work between the husband and wife which means that we share difficult tasks and help each other. Sometimes there will be circumstances where we cannot look after our homes (during sickness, or after having a baby for example), but these circumstances will not be the norm. I am writing for the normal, every day times, not for exceptional circumstances (in which exceptional roles will have to be taken on).

I would humbly suggest that if we hate all work around the home, then something isn't quite right with our view of God, our view of marriage, and our view of ourselves. My experience is that when I do jobs at home with a bad heart attitude, I stop seeing marriage as a glorious reflection of Christ and the church (this is a concept we will come back to), and I stop seeing the privilege of being able to love and serve Aaron.

Here are some questions that I have found useful to think about:

My view of God

• Am I acting like a Christian in this task?
• Have I lost sight of Jesus, or am I looking to demonstrate the love He has showed me to my husband?

My view of marriage

• Do I believe and honour the Biblical view of a wife's role (as equal but different to her husband)?
• Am I viewing our marriage as the Bible views it?
• Am I fulfilling the vows I made on my wedding day?
• Where did my opinions about marriage come from? Who told me that homemaking wasn't beautiful?

My view of myself

• Am I humbly helping my husband and putting him first?
• Am I imitating Jesus, or behaving like my mum (or another influential female relative/friend)?
• Am I feeling too good for menial tasks?
• Am I afraid of making mistakes and therefore not doing what I should?

These factors, and many more may contribute to having a bad attitude to home-related jobs (which we probably all experience on a weekly basis). I think it is worth considering why we feel that way, there is normally an underlying cause.

Generally I have also found it incredibly helpful to lift my eyes to see the calling of homemaking the way God does. There is a fantastic description of what homemaking is and isn't in one of my recommended reads, Recovering Bublical Manhood & Womanhood (ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem). Dorothy Patterson writes;

"Homemaking is not a destructive drought of usefulness but an overflowing oasis of opportunity; it is not a dreary cell to contain one's talents and skills but a brilliant catalyst to channel creativity and energies into meaningful work; it is not a rope for binding one's productivity in the marketplace, but reins for giuding one's posterity in the home; it is not oppressive restraint of intellectual powers, but a release of wise instruction to your own household; it is not a bitter assignment of inferiority to your person, but the bright assurance of the ingenuity of God's plan for complementarity of the sexes, especially as worked out in God's plan for marriage."

Be encouraged, this is a wonderful thing and a worthy calling!

Our third and final concern for today is that of the ideal, excellent wife who we observed in Proberbs 31 in my last5 post. So, is this ideal depressing?
I can remember studying Proverbs 31 for the first time and feeling like a total failure. I think many women have read it and felt that way. When I was single it was depressing enough that she had a husband and children, and now that I'm married it's potentially depressing that she seems superhuman in her abilities and attitudes. But I have realised that depression only kicks in when we hold our lives up for inspection next to hers, and we see how far we fall short. As we have already discussed, Proverbs 31 was not written for that purpose. No wife can achieve perfection. But we can be inspired by her godly character and strength, and there will be aspects of her homemaking skills which we will be able to incorporate into our lives. The ideal is beautiful, and it should be challenging because it is the word of God.

But we are still holding on to the grace of God here, otherwise we could see Proverbs 31 as a list of rules that we must fulfill in order to be a good wife. Ephesians 2:8-10 says;

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

This passage explains the gift of salvation. Paul has to explain to the church at Ephesus that they haven't earned their salvation by praying lots or giving lots of money to the church. Maybe they were boasting about why they were good enough. But this also works for when we have a list of things which we think prevent us from being close to God, for example,' I haven't read the Bible this week',' I shouted at my husband for nearly two hours', 'I spent a third of my student loan on clothes' etc. Salvation is not your own doing. "It is the gift of God." This is also true in our marriages. Marriage is not your own doing. It is the gift of God (This parallel works here because marriage is a reflection of the relationship between Jesus and the church).

However, grace does not exempt us from doing things. The second part of the Ephesians passage says that God has purposes for us and good works for us to do, which we are able to do because we are a new creation in Jesus, a new person who is led and enabled by the Holy Spirit. The ideal of the excellent wife is not depressing because we do not have to earn our place as a wife (in fact, we couldn't do it). But, filled with the Holy Spirit, and created in Christ, we are able to do good works in our homes, even things which we couldn't have done before.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this, and I really do welcome and appreciate your comments (positive or negative!). With love, until next time.x

p.s Please do whatever you have to do to read The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer, it is very beautiful and inspiring in regard to homemaking!

Yes, I cook for my husband, and no, I'm not oppressed!

I'm going to be honest, I love planning out dinners in my head. I love choosing wine to compliment the food. I love finding offers at Tesco. I get excited when I light candles and put on an apron to start preparing food. It feels like an act of love for Aaron, and I love to surprise him with nice meals. I have wondered if the novelty will wear off, but really this isn't about novelty for me, it's about loving and serving my husband for the rest of my life.

I'm only a month in to married life (and therefore my experience is very limited!) and I have been surprised by the reactions of shock and somtimes disapproval about the way our home works. When Aaron tells people that I have done the cooking and it's been amazing people's eyes widen and they laugh awkwardly, looking at me sideways with an expression of confusion and fear of the unknown, probably wondering what kind of woman I am.

OK, so it's not like that every time, but it does happen. I'm sure that I will be labelled as backward and conservative, and weird for trying to be like a 1950s housewife in contemporary society. But I know that these judgements aren't true of me, and I strongly believe that I am living in line with the Bible. The funny thing is that most wives will cook meals for their husbands and clean their homes, to some degree. It happens naturally as part of making marriage work. We just have this aversion to being told what to do or being told to fulfill a certain role, so that when someone says that wives should take a significant role in running their homes, we are instantly up in arms. Our defensive hearts prevent us from seeing the good in things because we hate to be told anything that we don't like or that makes us feel judged. Please don't jump at what I'm saying without allowing yourself time to consider it.

I started out reading an instruction in Paul's letter to Titus about how older women should be instructed to teach the young women in their roles as wives and parents. He says...

"train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled."(Titus 2:4)

This list is incredibly useful to us as young wives, and to those who want to prepare for marriage because it summarises the key issues that Paul wants the older women to teach about. In thinking about cooking and running our home, I picked out the phrase "working at home" that Paul uses here.

In the book of Proverbs there is a wonderful poem which is all about an excellent wife, and I think it is useful as a practical expression of the role of "working at home" mentioned in Titus. If I am feeling negative towards my husband because of all I do at home, I read about this wife's skill and strength. She is an ideal (in the style of Proverbs) and therefore all her characteristics and skills are unlikely to be contained in one normal wife! However this does not invalidate her as an example. How wonderful that God gave us this detailed picture of being a godly wife in the Bible!

The poem says

(Proverbs 31:27)

"She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness."

She works hard, and oversees the provision of meals, clothes, and money. Read the whole poem in Proverbs 31:10-31 and you will see that this wife is a bit of a genius. She makes money for her home and she is also great at craft projects. I have a favourite image from the poem, which just makes me love my home and love caring for my husband. Verse 21 says

"She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet."

What a cosy image! I imagine a wife looking out of the window as snow starts to fall, and feeling the satisfaction of her children and her husband having warm clothes to wear. The poem says that her husband praises her for her diligence and care. I want to be that kind of wife. This is not about being confined to the kitchen, and of course there are situations where husbands clean and cook for their wives, and it isn't wrong. But the wife in Proverbs generally oversees her home, and the result is

"The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain" (v. 11)

Wives can be such a gift to their husbands in their homes, and I would suggest that this can give us great joy and satisfaction. There is no need to see this as a kind of oppression, because in my experience my care for Aaron and my home wells up from a heart of gratitude to God, and also a desire to serve Him by doing what is right. I'm glad to be back to blogging, hope you're all well, and let me know your thoughts. Love,xx

Marriage Lessons

In light of getting married in a couple of weeks, I found a very helpful article from Mark and Grace Driscoll on their 18th wedding anniversary. They simply listed the lessons they have learned during their marriage so far, but it's always great to see advice from people you admire and who are further along the road of married life than you.

Check it out at:

http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2010/08/15/18-lessons-from-18-years-of-marriage/

A Great Book

Today I went to a little pub for lunch with my mum and dad in a village by the sea, and I started reading a book called Practical Theology for Women: How knowing God Makes a Difference in Our Daily Lives by Wendy Horger Alsup. It is such an excellent book! I have never read anything for women that is so packed with foundational theology, and it isn't intimidating, but it's real theology not the kind of light theology that books for women sometimes use.

I just love this author, Wendy Horger Alsup, she tells her powerful testimony about how theology impacted her life during unemployment, a miscarriage, and her husband having to go for emergency heart surgery. Nothing speaks more clearly than someone who has been through incredibly difficult circumstances and found that studying the Bible and the truth of God's character changes everything. She writes;

"How can you explain to someone that you would not trade your year of unemployment and financial concerns for anything in the world because the beauty of God's provision so richly outweighed the struggle? Who would believe that your young husband's heart surgery was worth it - truly worth every ounce of pain - because God opened your eyes to something so incredibly beautiful about himself that it defies explanation?" (p. 35)

I was inspired by her faith, and challenged to let theology shape my life, particularly when the circumstances seem worrying, hopeless, or out of my control. I don't want to throw out my faith in God every time I find life difficult. Get the book if you can!x

Why a night out can let you down!

I was listening to the build up for Friday night on Radio 1 and remembered the anticipation I used to feel. The lyrics and the beat of the music suggest that tonight is going to change your life. Going out is hyped up to be this transcendent experience, where you can throw off all constraints, where true freedom is found, where fun happens. People go through a whole week waiting for the weekend so that they can go out. The ritual of getting ready, having a couple of drinks first, going to a club with your girl friends, seems to hold some kind of magic.

This is not me saying that going out is bad, I love to have a good dance with the girls, but I am saying that a night out can sometimes offer you a lie. The lie is that the experience will be transcendent. It might even feel spiritual when you are in a club, ancient religious cults used the combination of music and alcohol to gain an ecstatic state, so this is nothing new. But it is a deception, and when all is quiet in the taxi home at 4am, you might just wonder why your night out was worth all that expectation.

Being a Christian is about a shift from darkness to light. A bright torch beam (the good news of Jesus) is shone in to the darkness of your life, and then you become a light in the world. Paul says in his letter to the church in Ephesus:

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)." Ephesians 5:8-9

The cocktail of drunkenness, dancing, and sexual encounters created by clubbing happens in the dark and is an expression of moral darkness. Paul says:

"Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." Ephesians 5:11

Somehow we have been conned into thinking that jumping up and down in a dark room and rubbing up against each other is what it takes to have fun, and is worthy of devoting our time and money to. As Paul says, this is fruitless, totally foolish.

In his letter Paul goes on to explain that living in the light requires discernment about these things:

"Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery (*debauchery -a strange word basically referring to wild partying with lots of alchohol and sex). Instead, be filled with the Spirit." Ephesians 5:15-18

There is nothing transcendent about the shameful things that go on in the dark at clubs and house parties. If we are wise we will see this. Following Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit (*Filled with the Holy Spirit - the experience of Christians that the Holy Spirit has come into their heart, enabling transformation. Also refers to a regular filling with peace, strength, and power from the Holy Spirit to help us in our lives.) is the only good and true spiritual and transcendent experience. That's why if you expect this from your night out, it will inevitably fail you.

I know this is a strange thing for me to be reflecting on when I'm about to get married, but I really feel that I don't want us to see going out in the wrong way because it's a massive part of student life. I think developing a theology for going out is very important. Hope this helps, x

Thoughts on Becoming a Wife 1: Submission

So, I said I would be coming back to the whole subject of 'submission' at some point, and now I'm getting married in less than a month it seems as good a time as any! 'Sumission' means very little in our generation. In fact, it is entirely misunderstood. Whenever I talk to women about it, you can see their eyes narrowing with suspicion, thinking that I'm trying to do some twisted imitation of a 1950s housewife. This is not what submission looks like.

I wanted to get a dictionary definition for you, to make it really clear. But my dictionary only said that to submit means yielding to a superior force or stronger person. This just shows how little the world knows about Biblical submission I guess. So we are going to go straight to the Bible, and to the main passage quoted/debated over on this subject, which is in Paul's letter to the church in a city called Ephesus.

"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything." (Ephesians 5:22-24)

If possible, as we try to make sense of this, lets put down our natural tendency to react in anger against anything that might suggest that a woman isn't self-sufficient and fully independent and in control. Because this concept is in the Bible it means that God wants us to learn it, and it will be for our good. Remember that God doesn't want to condemn us to misery, he knows us inside out, and if He tells us to do something, it will be best for us. This is foundational to how we read any command in the Bible.

So, in context, Paul is talking about how he wants the Christians to treat each other. Chapter 4 ends with: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ". This is a principle that applies to everyone, but Paul then goes on to apply it in more detail to specific relationships, starting with husband and wife.

There is this profound parallel between the husband/wife relationship and the Jesus/ the Church relationship. Wives are compared to the church, and husbands compared to Jesus as the head of the church. Jesus provides the vision for the church, and He also oversees it, directs it, guides it. He has divine authority over the church, which means that the church honours Him, adores Him, and needs Him. In some small way a husband takes this kind of role with his wife. His role as head of the marriage is God-given so should be treated with reverence by his wife.

Obviously there are circumstances in which a wife cannot and should not obey her husband. But more commonly this is brought up as an excuse because we don't like being under any kind of authority or leadership. Submission is God's calling for married women, and it is such a beautiful thing. Even from my limited experience (as I'm not married yet!) I notice how freeing it is for my fiance when I honour him and respect his decisions for us. It is wonderful for me because I am protected from the things I wasn't designed to handle, and the burden of final responsibility and leadership is lifted from my shoulders.

Submission is not to be taken as an opportunity to be lazy, or seen as a command to be a passive woman. I am totally involved with the direction of our lives, but if my fiance says that we are going to do something and I don't want to, then I have to trust him and submit to his decision. This is so good for both of us. I can respectfully disagree, I can gently explain if he is doing something I believe to be wrong, there is room for debate. But we often treat our husbands (in my case, fiance for a couple more weeks!) in a disrespectful way which paralyses their ability to lead us.

It must be noted that this is not about him being more valuable to God (men and women are equally precious to God), or even necessarily more capable in every situation. It is good and right for us to submit because God says so, and there isn't a get-out clause such as...
"I don't need him to lead me"
"I'm actually more capable"
"I don't trust him to make decisions"

Submission is not conditional. In the same way that the command for husbands to love their wives is not conditional. There is a role for both the husband and wife. Submission is designed to work best when the husband loves his wife, not when he feels love towards her, but when he lays his life down for her in love (v 25 "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her").

This is a difficult thing that we are called to. Submission goes against every natural inclination we have to control our lives, protect ourselves, and take authority from no one. But how glorious marriages are when both partners are laying down their lives in the way God has commanded. My constant prayer is that submission to my fiance will characterise our marriage. I've had a glimpse of it, and I want more!

And just because I haven't given you anything light-hearted yet today, here is a beautiful rose! I took this picture in the rose garden at Bodnant Gardens in Wales one lovely morning in June. There was still dew on the ground and the scent of the roses was heavenly, so, enjoy! Until next time, x

How I'm using the Bible in this Blog

The Bible seems to be my theme of the day today (I guess it should be every day!), so I thought I would just explain how I will be using the Bible in this blog while I'm on a roll!

Because this blog is about how to be a woman who follows God today, much of my use of the Bible is likely to be taking principles and applying them to life.

When I pick out a verse and quote it on my blog, I will normally have gone through this process...

1. I listen to God, and something I read in the Bible stands out to me, it kind of seems to jump off the page at me.

2. My life fuses with the passage as God applies it to my life. It specifically meets me in a certain struggle, God's Word meets my need.

3. That passage continues to be useful as it has become part of my life. I then offer it to other people and use it in other situations because most human experiences are not unique to one person, but common to lots of people.

So, my intention is to mostly use straightforward passages, which have a direct application for Chistian women in our culture. My heart's desire is to see a generation of women who's lives are shaped by the Truth (See John 8:32 - Through Jesus, that we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free).

However, this way of reading the Bible is not what I recommend for individual Bible study, and it isn't how I read the Bible every day myself. So, from the outset I want to acknowledge that:

1. The Bible is not a self-help manual or a magic book which is always immediately relevant to our personal situations and ready with an easy solution.

2. Because the Bible is about God, not about me, much of it is not designed to apply to my life. The point is to draw us into the bigger picture of what God is doing and who He is.

3. As we study the Bible over our lifetime we will learn how it all applies to us, including the less-direct passages. This is because the God described throughout the Bible is our God, the history of salvation is our history, the people we read about are our brothers and sisters in God's family, and the Gospel is our Good News.

Notes on Reading the Bible

Before we think about how we read the Bible, there are three important things to remember:

1. The Bible is canonical. This means that it is the standard for the church on Christian faith and how we put it into practice. As well as this, it also means that the Bible we have today is the correct and final collection of inspired books (i.e nothing should ever be added or taken away).

2. The Bible is inspired by God (as we have seen in 2 Timothy 3:16, which appears on my blog home page).

3. The Bible is a united whole. It should not be read as two seperate parts (one of which is no longer relevant - as some people think of the Old Testament), or many seperate parts. The whole Bible is an extraordinary tapestry which weaves together the story of how God saved humanity.

There are lots of different aspects to reading the Bible, here are a few of them:

• Studying the literary style (eg. poetry, story) and how this informs the content.
• Praying the Bible back to God, and using it to bring us closer to Him (because God reveals Himself in the Bible).
• Applying the Bible to our personal situations.
• Hearing the Bible being preached and used in worship at church.

But the most important thing about the Bible, the piece that holds the whole gigantic jigsaw together, is Jesus. He is to be seen throughout the Bible as

The long-expected Messiah.

The once-and-for-all Replacement for all human attempts to atone for our sin.

The Servant King longed for by the prophets, to bring healing, wholeness, and restoration.

The crucified, resurrected, and glorified Saviour.

The mighty Warrior seated with God, who will return to judge the world.


May we search for Him as we open the Bible, and may we find Him.

How to: Organise a Wedding in 5 Weeks without Losing Your Sanity!

Because we have been so busy up to this point, we now have exactly five weeks until our wedding and many of the details still need to be sorted. But God is so good to us, and I'm having an amazing time organising the wedding (because I am one of those admin-loving people!).

There is only one reason why I'm not stressed out, overwhelmed, and paralysed by panic! And that is a little known remedy called Psalm 16:

"The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me;
because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure...

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore". Psalm 16: 5-11 (ESV)

I have been reading this psalm every morning, with a cup of coffee in my hand (!), and letting it sink into my heart, before making my to-do-list. The result has been that I have started each day rejoicing at God's provision for us. Knowing that God 'holds my lot' gives me such peace, because I know that God has control of my day and I don't have to strive and stress to get things done. As I have applied what the psalm says ("I have set the Lord always before me"), I have found myself totally unshaken by anxiety. This is not normal for me!

I know it's simple, but I'm sure that this strategy will apply to other areas of life, and I will definately be using it in the build up to my wedding day!x

The Femininity Tree

I took this photo of the cherry tree at my parents' house in Norfolk. The day the cherry tree blossoms is an annual event for me

(because I'm a bit obsessed with blossom!)

and I always try to be at home to see it.I imagine femininity like a beautiful tree covered with blossom. It is strong, and has roots that go down deep, but it also produces these lovely flowers.

There are so many different types of tree, and in a similar way femininity will look different for different women. What a relief that God doesn't want us to all dress the same, talk the same, or think the same! He doesn't want uniformity, femininity is diverse.

This is because femininity operates at a deep level, like the roots of the tree. Despite what our culture says, femininity has very little to do with the way we look. It has a lot to do with character though. In some ways this is a very freeing realisation, to grasp that femininity won't come from wearing fashionable clothes or having perfect hair. But it also gives us responsibility for our character. Character is much more difficult to change than your hair colour. It is time-consuming, painful, humbling, but God is with us. God is working on us, to see us transformed into the likeness of Jesus. So we are not alone.

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect
the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing
glory, which comes from God, who is the Spirit". 2 Corinthians 3:18
(NIV)

The Bible says that we shouldn't waste our time on looking great, while not even bothering with the condition of our hearts (not biological hearts, I mean 'heart' in the sense of 'soul, emotions, conscience'). There is a great secret for femininity to be found in one of the

New Testament letters called 1 Peter:

"Do not let your adorning be external - the
braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewellry, or the clothing you wear -
but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable
beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very
precious". 1 Peter 3: 3-4 (ESV)

How exciting that in the Bible there is this passage just for women about how to be beautiful to God! What God finds beautiful is a gentle spirit. Have you ever thought about what that looks like, or how to cultivate it in your own heart? This is very important for the meaning of femininity.

So, our first point was that the roots of femininity are in the heart, and in the transformation that God is doing in us. Next are the flowers of femininity, which are the evidences that God is working in us at a deep level.

When I was a teenager, before I decided to follow Jesus, I used to look at a bit of the Bible quite often:

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;"
Galatians 5: 22-3 (ESV)

I imagined a girl who was like that and it seemed like the most beautiful thing in the world to me. Even though I was obsessed with my appearance at the time, I knew that in this sentence in the Bible I had found true beauty. But I had no idea how I could ever be like that. This is the blossom on the tree of femininity. When our roots are in relationship with God, things like joy and gentleness will start to blossom in our lives without us trying to make it happen or bringing about change in our own strength.

There are a couple of other things I wanted to quickly mention about femininity.

1. Godly femininity is truly freeing for us as women. But it isn't freedom as the world sees freedom. Freedom according to our culture is the liberty to do whatever you want, whenever you want. That's easy freedom, there's nothing clever about it. People think they are free when they have no one telling them what to do, no commitments, no responsibilities. That isn't what I'm talking about. Femininity brings freedom because through perseverence, and giving up our selfish habits, and obeying God, we find that our lives are fruitful.

2. Femininity values men and women equally, affirming that we all have dignity and worth in God's eyes. This does not mean that men and women are always equally good at doing the same things, God designed us as equal but different in some ways. Part of godly femininity, and the development of character that is precious to God, is being an advocate of godly masculinity. By this I mean that in different relationships and different stages of life femininity involves encouraging and submitting (we will come back to this word in more detail at another time)to the men who are in positions of leadership in our lives. For example, this could be your husband, or your church leader. Femininity delights in the guidance of godly men, and delights in the expression of mature masculinity.

Thanks for reading this. Until next time,x

Why feminine, not feminist?

I was part of the 'girl power' generation. We were raised on the Spice Girls. At the age of eleven I was practicing the dance routine to 'Wannabe', feeling empowered. They were good times, we felt like we had the world at our fingertips, with all the same opportunities as boys. But over the last couple of decades 'girl power' has gone too far, resulting in a disdainful attitude towards men and the widespread belief that we don't need men for anything. So, even though most women have never studied the feminist academics, the feminist perspective has filtered into popular culture.

This negative view of men was there for me when guys let me down or hurt me. From the age of about sixteen I had decided that men were not trustworthy and that I could look after myself. This view is often a response to pain, and unfortunately there are lots of men who cause women great pain. But we cannot rule out all men because there are bad men, just as we wouldn't rule out all women because there are bad women.

I became a feminist without even realising, and ended up lonely, stressed, bitter, and totally unable to be myself because I had so many defences up. Based on my personal experience of a shift in my thinking from feminism to femininity, I would humbly like to express some reasons why I believe that feminism (by this I do not mean all the good that has come of female empowerment, nor do I wish to confine women to a position of subservience. What I wish to counteract is the belief in female superiority and autonomy, and the dismissal of the Biblical view of male and female complementarianism) is dangerous and defeating for Christian womanhood today.

1. You stop needing people (or in most cases stop admitting your need for people, even to yourself). This destroys important aspects of relationship building, such as sharing your feelings and giving honest opinions.

2. You become proud of your independence, which means that you are likely to end up bottling up your feelings or blocking them out so that you can survive alone.

3. It might make you feel good that you don't need a man, but it's not an honourable thing, it isn't something to be proud of, because in reality (and based on the Biblical understanding of gender relations) men and women do need each other deeply.

4. If you have taught yourself to be a femininist you will find the demands of a relationship very difficult, for example, selfless love, and compromise. Submission will be impossible.

5. The feminist mind set makes you understand everything with a defensive attitude. This makes it very difficult to listen to any criticism, and also makes you paranoid that people are trying to put you down. Neither of these attitudes are helpful, because sometimes you do need to be told to change, and to be humble.

6. No matter how empowering female solidarity can feel, it cannot replace male and female relationships, and was never supposed to.

7. Feminism is not the answer or the solution to all the abuse of women that has occured throughout history.

8. Sometimes feminism is used as an excuse or a front because we are scared, lazy, or selfish.

9. If feminism is true it should be followed entirely. But even though we believe in equality in career opportunities, we wouldn't say that should then lead to women going to fight in wars.

10. Feminism makes chivalry unnecessary, which is tragic for both men and women. We metaphorically trample over men, invalidating their desire to open a door for us, in order to assert that we don't need them.

11. Feminism often rises out of bad experiences, which is never a good starting point for an ideology.

12. If feminism means that you need to act like a man, then it doesn't prove the self-sufficiency of women. You cannot copy someone and then say you don't need them.

13. Feminism can make you become a hard-hearted person who is distainful of femininity. This is wrong because femininity is beautiful and powerful in a different way to masculinity.

I hope you find it interesting to consider these things. My next post will be about femininity - what it looks like, what the Bible says, and how it is different to feminism. Until then, x