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