How to have a baby, and only spend £37!

Recently I have read several articles about how much people spend on a new baby. The statistics range from an average of £1,200 to about £4,000 before the baby is even born! This isn't a surprise to me because when I worked in a baby shop people would regularly spend that amount. But honestly, has the world gone mad?

Being part of the church changes everything. I know that sounds strange, but it really does. The Bible says about the early church: "All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need." (Acts 2:44-5) Our churches don't work exactly like that, but our experience has been that the church has met our needs (along with gifts from our families). So far Isabelle has cost us about £35 in nappies and formula milk, and we bought two changing mats at a car boot sale for £1 each! Other than that our baby has cost us nothing. This is because of a long list of kind church people - my dear friends Lisa & Chantel threw me a baby shower and showered me with gifts (in true American fashion!), several couples we love clubbed together and bought us a baby gym, my friend Bethan gave me a bag of baby socks and tights, Leslie gave us a bag of toys, Phil & Jayne gave us nappies and money, several wonderful friends gave us £100 cash out of the blue, lots of ladies from church dropped off outfits for Isabelle, and the list could go on. The most recent example has been that a lady called Jo in our church in Aberdeen had one conversation with me, and two days later was on our doorstep with a whole car full of baby things including a highchair, pushchair, and safety gates.

Aren't you blown away by that? I'm absolutely amazed at God's provision and the generosity of our church family. But let me also say that this is not about taking advantage of people or using the church to get things. The church is a family so you throw yourself in, serve diligently, and give all that you can. Out of that our needs have been joyfully met, and gifts gratefully received. What a testimony to the world about how different Christian community is! Most people save up to have a baby, but we have trusted God and His church to provide.

This beautiful sharing of resources can be prevented from happening if we are too proud to receive help. Sometimes I found it hard to accept yet another handout from someone at church, I felt like I was always saying thank you! It was wonderful, but it certainly humbled me to graciously receive from others. We have a big problem with feeling like a charity case, we want to do things for ourselves, but that is why people spend £2,000 before their baby is even born and probably get into debt in the process. When you are part of a church family you can humble yourself, get over the obsession with buying everything new, and enjoy the experience of being provided for. After all, a bit later in life we will be able to do the same for other young couples.

So, some practical tips...

• Don't turn anything down! When people bring you bags of things there will often be useful things that you hadn't thought of before, and anything you don't need can just be taken to a charity shop or passed on to another mum.


• Don't be weird about second-hand items (apart from on certain items that are best new, like a pram and car seat if you can afford it). Carboot sales are where everyone gets rid of their baby stuff, and you can get most things very cheaply.


• Check out nearly new sales, which happen around the UK for baby items.


• Try being creative and making a few things (like nursery curtains and cot sheets).


• Lots of people will ask if you need things so be honest about what you need, rather than saying that you are fine.


• Take advantage of all the vouchers given out by Bounty in pregnancy, and join baby clubs like Boots Parenting Club.


• Do your research online, look at reviews, so that you don't waste money on things that are not great and necessary.

Having a baby is about the joy of raising a little person and teaching them to love God and other people, not about what you buy. We have an almost obsesive anxiety about our babies having everything, as if that makes us good parents. My encouragement to young married couples is to seek godly wisdom and then just go for it! We shouldn't be waiting around because we need to save up to have a baby! I hope our example is an encouragement, and gives you confidence that having a baby when you are part of God's family doesn't have to be on hold for financial reasons.

Love always,x

Isabelle and I visiting Costa in Aberdeen!

God on the Labour Ward

I have never known God's peace so deeply as when I was in labour with Isabelle! How strange that sounds! One of our midwives said to me that normally the labour room is a place of stress and chaos, but she loved coming into our room because it felt extraordinarily calm and peaceful! The only way I can explain this is that God's presence was there.

God had prepared me for giving birth with Psalm 23. I had studied it word by word, over and over, letting the old familiar image of God as my Shepherd sink into the depths of my soul. By the time we got to the big day I knew it off by heart...

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores me soul.

Throughout my experience of labour I only had to close my eyes and I was walking beside my heavenly Father in a beautiful meadow. I had read a quote from H.W Beecher about this psalm which said: "It has charmed more griefs to rest than all the philosphy of the world. It has remanded to their dungeon more felon thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sorrows, than there are sands on the sea shore." I can only add my testimony to this. The power of God's word to bring peace to a situation is beyond anything I have ever known. Between contractions if I felt at breaking point because of the pain Aaron would rub my back and say 'Go to your meadow'! It sounds silly, but I was really meeting with God in those moments, and it is what kept me going.

I wish I could say that since giving birth I have been able to meet with God as closely. But the chaos and constant demands of having a new baby have made it difficult for me to just stop and be with God. It isn't impossible, but I do have to learn to put aside some of my jobs and give up my highly organised routine. Never before has it felt more vital to just sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary did (story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10). My heart desperately needs to return to walking in my meadow with my Father. Do you know how it feels to walk with God? Is your heart longing to be with Him again? Shall we set aside some time to do that? Love,x

Isabelle in Aberdeen with daddy!

Let us have a baby and move to Aberdeen!

In the last few weeks and months God has spoken very clearly to my husband about moving to Aberdeen. With much wisdom and sensitivity he has been considering it (reluctantly at first!) and weighing up the options.This has been accompanied by the opening up of almost unbelievable opportunities for us in Aberdeen in terms of financial provision, academic opportunities for Aaron, housing, church connections, and just about everything else! Although there is lots to be finalised, it has become obvious that God wants us to be there, and we will be leaving in less than 2 months ready for the start of the academic year. By then our baby will be born, and I will be leaving Chester as a full-time mum. In all of this, from my perspective, God has been noticably quiet. I have heard no voice from heaven announcing that we should move to Aberdeen, only an overwhelming sense of peace, yet I am very thankful for this opportunity to follow Aaron's leadership. Although it is challenging not to be in control of my location, it gives me great joy to trust Aaron because I know he is trusting God and being obedient to God's calling for us as a family.

It seems like God's provision for me that at the Newfrontiers Leadership International Conference this year, Wendy Virgo led an excellent series of seminars on the home called Home Truths, particularly in regards to those who are relocating to plant churches (I would highly recommend checking these out,download for free at www.newfrontierstogether.org). The range of practical wisdom and insight given by women who have been repeatedly uprooted to be involved in churches all around the world provided me with such inspiration, and got me thinking about the concept of home.

There is something profound and vital about establishing a home. As human beings we need a place where we belong, and we often have a natural urge to create this (pregnant women in particular are famous for their 'nesting instinct'!). As you will know by now I often go to the book of Proverbs on practical matters, and there we find in Chapter 31 a wife who is putting a lot of time and energy into her home, to the joy and satisfaction of her husband and children. It also says in Proverbs 14:1: "The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down". This saying could be applied to many different situations, but in a literal sense it is saying that it is good to devote ourselves to building a home (including all the different aspects of a home, such as decor and comfort, prayer and worship, kindness and hospitality).

We know that homes have a very useful place in church life and in sharing our faith. In the book of Acts a wealthy woman called Lydia becomes a Christian and the author writes: "And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay" (Acts 16:15). So Paul and the group he was travelling with are welcomed into her home. There are many other mentions in the New Testament of homes being used for God's purposes, for example, in Colossians 4:15 Paul sends greetings to a woman called Nympha and the church that was meeting in her house. It is a wonderful thing to establish a home that can be used to welcome others, and where people can meet together. But our physical home is not the end of the story, and we must not live and work for the purpose of getting our house looking like something from an interior design magazine. I long for that kind of house sometimes, but to make that our goal is to seriously miss the point!

Jesus says lots about our home and our priorities, some of which might sound a bit harsh. He wants people to be willing to give up everything to follow him, and sometimes this means being physically uprooted from our place of comfort. Luke records Jesus having a conversation with someone who says "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home" (Luke 9:61), and Jesus replies "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). Jesus didn't have a physical home when he lived in the world, he travelled around, and we must always be willing to pack up and go when He says 'Go'. Just after I became a Christian someone had a prophecy for my life from John 3:8: "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit". This came with a sense of needing to be ready to be moved around as God directed, even if it didn't make any sense to other people or even much sense to me! The Aberdeen situation is just one example of this.

Finally, I must mention 2 Corinthians 5 in relation to our long-term perspective. Paul writes: "For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling" (2 Cor 5:1-2). Here he is talking about the body as a temporary home, and heaven as our eternal home. This reality shapes everything about the way we think about homes in the world. We are never going to be finally at home here, no matter how nice we make our house, because we are travelling towards a far better home. We can be available to live anywhere because it is all part of the journey, and I am excited to be on this journey with God, there is no better place to be :) Love,x

A sword through the heart: How we undermine the men in our lives

"There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." (Proverbs 12:18 ESV)

The Bible has lots to say about words. It even has lots to say about women and their words. Proverbs 31 says of a godly woman: "She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue" (v 26 ESV). In the context this is being applied to a wife and mother, but it is just as relevant for those of us who are single or wanting to prepare ourselves for marriage. Words are very powerful. Either we leave stab wounds or we are a gracious antiseptic bandage!That's the choice. So the way we talk to and about men is a big deal even though it might seem like a small thing, or you might think I'm blowing it out of proportion. We believe the Bible is true on all matters of human nature, so it is a big deal.

So, why am I going on about words? Well, we use a lot of words for a lot of different purposes, but I particularly want to think about how we use our words to undermine men. I believe this is a major problem in our culture, in the church, and sadly in many Christian marriages. I see it all the time, and I recognise the tendency in myself. We have been freed to be disrespectful about men and to speak belittlingly of those close to us because this is so normal in our culture. Not that guys are perfect, there are equally big issues with the way men behave towards women, but here we are talking about women and their words.

What are we talking about practically? The book of Proverbs is full of advice about how to use words (read through it if you get a chance, and highlight everything you find about words). The author talks about "a soft answer" (15:1), "a gentle tongue" (15:4), and "gracious words" (16:24) all having a deep, healthy, life-giving impact on those we communicate with. Yet so often when we talk to men or about men (our husband, boyfriend, dad, church leader, uni friends) we find it is acceptable, and even encouraged by other women, to speak negatively. At times I have caught myself snapping at my husband, or moaning about him to friends, or making a disrespectful joke when we are at a social event. Since becoming aware of this I have noticed other dear friends speaking in a patronising way to their dad, or being constantly critical of their church leaders, or putting down their husbands in front of others. There are endless ways in which we as women can undermine men with our words. Because it is an issue of the heart, not just a matter of what comes out of our mouths, it will look different for different people. Jesus taught about this: "The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). So if we stop and think about it, there must be a sinful attitude in our heart that is leading us to speak in an undermining way. For example, if there is an attitude of rebellion against my husband in my heart then I may react disrespectfully and fiercely to his guidance or correction.

Often I don't think we realise what we are doing, or what the full implications are. But the effect, whether intentional or not, is to discourage them, paralyse them in their initiative-taking, and sap their confidence in their leadership ability (in professional situations at work, and in personal situations such as marriage and parenting). Not only that but it causes a lot of pain, as we saw in the sword thrusts of Proverbs 12:18. We are also sneaky sometimes, and we know that we are undermining the men in our lives but because it is often done through lots of small subtle things we can pretend to ourselves and others that we didn't mean it. Sometimes we will cover up the critical or disrespectful nature of what we are saying by turning it into a joke. This is something to be aware of. Even if we think we are getting ourselves off the hook for our use of words, God sees straight through us anyway. Proverbs 15:11 says "Even death and destruction hold no secrets from the Lord. How much more does he know the human heart!" (NLT). He is concerned with the things in our hearts, not just what we say.

So, some questions worth considering...

• Do I use my words to wound or to heal?


• Have I asked God to reveal the attitude of my heart towards men so that I can work through any sin there?


• Why do I speak the way I do about/towards my husband/boyfriend/church leader/friend? Am I negatively influenced by culture or women around me?


• Am I being an example to others in respecting and honouring the men in my life with my words (as well as the women, of course!)?


• Do I also use body language or looks in an undermining way (eg. rolling my eyes, turning away with folded arms)?


• Is there anything I need to ask forgiveness for or anything I need to turn from and change (repent of)?

Love, until next time.x

The spirit of feminism

After spending several months on a journalism training course I had some thoughts about the personal influence of feminism in our culture which I want to share with you. Here is not the place to go into the definition of feminism because it has become so wide-ranging and I would be sure to say something inaccurate, but I do want to raise a couple of points from my own experience.

I worked along side some highly competitive young women who lived and worked out of the general beliefs that you don't need a man in your life (and certainly shouldn't let a man influence your life), that gender is a social construction, and that being single and career-orientated is the path of liberation. This belief system has infiltrated all aspects of the media and entertainment and education in our culture, now being accepted by most girls as their worldview without any connection to the roots of feminism. It's just there, convenient, and culturally acceptable. Therefore, I'm not talking about academic feminism, because very few women know where their views are coming from, I'm just talking about the spirit of feminism that has filtered down into popular culture.

I have observed in many of the young women that I have spent time with that they have a hatred for authority over them in any form. They are particularly defiant of being led by any man in any sphere of life, resulting in a disdainful attitude towards men and often a dislike for chivalry. I have observed an arrogance about their liberated lifestyle, and a disdain for marriage and motherhood. Many girls I worked with never managed to sustain a long-term relationship because they were self-absorbed to the extent of being unwilling to give anything of themselves to the relationship or make any compromise. I can remember being like this myself, but I'm realising that it is both dangerous for our society and for the individuals themselves to buy into this. So, from my experience of the way I used to think and feel, as well as what I've observed around me, here are some thoughts:

The spirit of feminism...

• It stops you needing people, or at least admitting your need for people. This defeats real community/sharing/giving, which are all incredibly important for relationships.




• It makes you proud of your independence, which means that you might tend to bottle up or block out feelings so that you can survive, leading to unhealthy long-term consequences.




• It might make you feel good to say that you don't need a man, but it's not an honourable thing, men and women do need each other deeply.




• If you have accepted the popular feminism you will find the demands of a relationship very difficult - selfless love, compromise, submission, will be impossible.




• The feminist mindset makes you read everything with a defensiveness and indignation which makes it impossible to accept constructive criticism, and makes you paranoid that people are trying to belittle you. Neither are helpful because sometimes you do need to be told to change, and you do need to be humble.




• No matter how much you try to convince yourself that female solidarity makes a relationship with a guy unnecessary, it just doesn't.




• Feminism isn't the answer to all the abuse of women that has occured throughout history.




• Sometimes our views are used as a front or as an excuse because we are scared, lazy, or selfish.




• If it is true that there is no fundamental difference between men and women then this should be accepted entirely, yet there are some situations where it just doesn't make sense (sending women to fight in Iraq?).




• The spirit of feminism makes chivalry unnecessary (even despised), which is tragic because it's a really healthy and good thing for men and women.




• Our beliefs often rise out of bad or painful experiences with men. This is no basis for an ideology.




• If you end up acting like a man, that doesn't prove that women are self-sufficient. You can't copy someone and then say you don't need them.




• We have lost much of our softness. The spirit of feminism makes us disdainful of feminine things, instead of seeing femininity as beautiful and powerful in a different way to masculinity.
  

Whether we see it now or not, there are far-reaching consequences for lives lived out of these values. We need to consider how our culture is shaping us, maybe even without us being aware of it. What values affect your personal life? Who put them there? Why do you believe what you believe? Love,x