International Women’s Day 2023

Happy International Women’s Day 2023! It actually seems sad to me that, in this day and age, we still need a day specifically focused on women to raise the issues so many continue to face. However I know that it is so important that we celebrate all the incredible achievements of women, but also highlight discrimination around the world. This year’s theme is #EmbraceEquity. Here is the explanation as to why (from the official website):

Equity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have.

A focus on gender equity needs to be part of every society’s DNA.

And it’s critical to understand the difference between equity and equality.

The aim of the IWD 2023 #EmbraceEquity campaign theme is to get the world talking about why equal opportunities aren’t enough. People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action.

It’s not an equal playing field

Just this week I was shocked to read new stats that reveal the gender gap on pensions. ‘The gender pensions gap is estimated to be more than twice the size of the gender pay gap, while women’s retirement wealth averages only one-third of men’s in the UK’ (Now: Pensions).

And there is so much more sobering news, both in this country and further afield. Gender-based violence, slavery, girls forced to marry young and give up their education, those trapped in poverty. The world can feel like a dangerous, horrible place for women – and it can seem utterly overwhelming and paralysing. If International Women’s Day puts these issues at the forefront of people’s minds afresh then I am all for it!

Do what you can

It is when I wonder what on earth I can do to make a difference that I turn to prayer. I cry out for those God puts on my heart. But we need to take action too. Some of us are being called to get involved in changing unjust systems; all of us can give support to those who are (giving, signing petitions etc). But I also want to bring this back round to what I often consider on International Women’s Day: who are the women I can encourage, champion and support? I am raising a hugely courageous daughter, and am so proud of her. I know it is my job to be there for her in whatever way she needs. But I can also offer my kindness, practical advice and listening ear to many other women in my life.

Championing others

We can all get so blinkered in the midst of busy and challenging lives. For International Women’s Day 2023 think about who you can come alongside and cheer on. I LOVE the cover of the current issue of Woman Alive. It shows a striking woman, but making up the background are images of the women who have had a huge impact on the contributors’ lives. My mum appears, which is wonderful as she would have been so excited to be a ‘cover girl’!

That image makes me think of all the women that are behind each individual woman, supporting and encouraging her to be all she can be.

Let’s be those who are quick to champion others, rather than competing or being jealous. There are so many ‘one another’ing verses in scripture: why not look at a few and think about how you can show love to the women in your life today?

I am going to practice what I preach now and champion a wonderful woman: Claudine Roberts. She has written an important work on Violence Against Women, which I was thrilled to edit. And she has a blog over on the Woman Alive website I’d love you to take a look at.

Made in the image of God

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Reflections based on Psalm 139:1–16.

‘I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made’ (v14)

So many of us can have trouble accepting ourselves for who we are. Our bodies in particular come under such scrutiny, often because of the huge amount of unhelpful messages we are bombarded with by society (in the form of ads, magazines, Facebook etc). We need to stop and remind ourselves regularly that we were created by God – and Genesis tells us that we are actually made in His image! 

I find this psalm so comforting – but also challenging. God is ever there; surrounding us at all times. But how often do we forget, when we are moaning that we’ve put on too much weight, or aren’t as attractive as one of the other women in church/work/at the school gate, that God formed us in our mothers’ wombs, and knew exactly what we would be like.

As we saw, God is most concerned with inner rather than outer appearance – and yet He still took the time to lovingly put our bodies together.

If you have ever spent any time looking in detail at the biology behind the human body, it is nothing short of miraculous. When I was pregnant with our children I used to read The Rough Guide to Pregnancy out to my husband. We would be amazed at the entries, which said things like, ‘this week your baby is growing fingernails’. God’s design for humans is mind-blowing! 

We are going to spend some time over the next few weeks looking at who God says we are, and how those truths should be feeding our sense of self. I wanted to start with the amazing truth that God, the creator of the universe, also decided, before the creation of the world, to create you and me. Isn’t that incredible?!

Prayer: Lord I’m sorry that I can spend time fixating on the parts of my body that I don’t like rather than thanking You for creating me. I am ‘wonderfully made’! Amen.

Going natural

 

Last Sunday, our church hosted six baptisms. It was a beautiful service, in which we joined with another church that had asked if they could share our baptismal time as they have no facilities to baptise people. We were delighted to do so. As one of the young people about to be baptised shared their story, I knew I had to ask her afterwards if she would be happy for me to post it as part of the Unmasked: stories of authenticity blog series. I’m so pleased she said yes, as she has a real way with words, and an important message to share…

I started my relationship with God when I was 17. I remember my exact prayer.

“Dear God…what am I doing here? How is this my life? How is this my journey? What do I have to do to change it? Who do I need to become to make sure I am never in this place again? Never this scared again? Never this alone?”

I got my answer from him in one simple word.

Mine.

I promised him on that day that I would try everything in my power to be who he wanted me to be. Who my family wanted me to be. Who I wanted me to be.

And I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into.

Six years later, I thought I’d finally figured it out. That I was finally on my way to knowing exactly who I was and putting that 17-year-old lost girl behind me.

But then it happened. A whisper of a comment about something so trivial no one would ever predict or understand the impact.

“You should let your hair go natural.”

I know. So simple. So un-exciting. But it kept coming up and after a couple months of uncertainty I suddenly got filled with the confidence to do it. So, I cut half my hair off and let my ‘fro-fly-free’ knowing full well it would not look beautiful or curly for probably years.

What I didn’t know was that I was in fact entering a whole new stage of that promise I had made at 17. That what I thought was a simple cosmetic choice was actually a deep dive into who I saw I was versus who God has always seen.

It took a week before it hit me.

A week of looking in the mirror not liking what I saw but constantly trying to reassure myself that “it’s ok, it’s just the beginning of the journey” … “it’s ok, you’ll be beautiful again one day” … A week of trying to get my fringe to stay down instead of sticking out of my forehead like a unicorn horn.

It was a tireless, relentless week of everyday routines I had to do to make sure that my ‘big decision’ didn’t result in my hair breaking apart and falling down around me. Needless to say, by day seven it had all caught up to me in waves. I was crying. Insistently. I thought, “Dear God. What have I done? Why am I suddenly so insecure? Why do I feel so exposed? Didn’t we put that 17-year-old girl to bed and move on?”

And that’s when the truth caught up to me.

It was never really about my hair. This story I’m telling you is not about my hair. It was about recognising the identity I have in Christ and appreciating the beauty in it, not the shame.

God took something he knew was precious to me (my hair), something I didn’t realise defined who I was – made me feel confident, beautiful etc – and gave me the inspiration and encouragement to make it authentic. To stop hiding it, covering it or forcing it into a submissive unhealthy state and to just let it be. To not look at all the damage, all the things that I hate, all the negatives and to focus on what it can be. What it will be if I continue to do all the things I know I need to do to it every day.

God showed me that’s how he sees us. How he sees me. When he looks at me, he doesn’t focus on all the things that are wrong with me. On all my mistakes, on all the things imperfect about me, on all the ways I know I annoy him. He sees who I can be. Who I will be if I continue to keep my focus on him and do all the things I know I need to do, every day.

I am not perfect. I am messy and tangled and frizzy and stubborn and difficult and it’s going to take a lifetime of constant battles, deep treatments, late-night routines and daily regimes before I start to look like the person God sees. But we’ve started the journey now. I made the promise at 17 and now I’m ready to honour that commitment and enter that new stage side-by-side with the person who has never left me. Who has now and always has looked at me, and seen something beautiful. Something worth the trouble.

So, to whoever is reading this, I want you to know. You are beautiful. You have always been beautiful. And you will be beautiful all the days of your life. Because you were fearfully and wonderfully made.

Nicole is a 23-year-old working in a start-up in Croydon with other young 20-year-olds. She says: “Either I have a passion for seeing things grow from the ground up or I am a sucker for pain. Either way, I know my desire to push through high-pressure situations comes from a family background of basketball, performing arts and athletes. I love to write, love to sing, but most importantly, I love being a child of God!”

 

Finding worth in Jesus

Anne le Tissier is a writer and speaker who has authored several books and has a passion to disciple Christians. Her latest book, The Mirror That Speaks Back, is centred around us finding our worth in Jesus, but is also deeply personal.

Firstly, I have known you as a regular contributor to magazines, often unpacking biblical texts, as well as a book writer. Has this always been your career, or did you have a different job? If the latter, what led you to pursue writing?

I pursued a career in investment banking after leaving school, but it was while taking a year out in my early twenties to travel the world and train with YWAM, that I first sensed God gently steering me into a new direction.

Travelling solo, my only company was a journal. I filled its pages, two lines of miniature writing to a space, sharing in intricate detail my experiences, what I felt God was teaching me, how I was feeling, etc. And that was how God ignited a desire to write. Mind you, it took another 14 years for my first book to be published.

You are extremely honest in this book: sharing personal experience of an eating disorder, abusive relationship and other difficulties. What led you to do that?

I’ve read a good number of teaching or self-help books, all of which have a part to play in helping people find healing from self-image issues. But when I was commissioned to write The Mirror That Speaks Back, I knew there was no point trying to duplicate what was already out there, not least, because I’m not qualified to.

I knew from the moment I prayed, God’s prompting to share my story. I’ll admit that wasn’t easy – I am by nature an extremely private person. So you can imagine my ‘wobbles’ while writing some of that story – I even suggested to my editor, close to publication, that a certain scene might be deleted (they quite rightly disagreed!). That said, I still left out great chunks of my story that were just too painful or inappropriate to put on the page.

The book is aimed particularly at women younger than you – why is that? Your publisher likens it to a letter written to such women – is that how you viewed the writing of it? And how differently did you approach writing this book to others you have written in the past?

I was specifically commissioned to write a book for younger women, which I admit, I didn’t find easy. It’s been a while since I was their age and it’s not my usual genre.

I developed a questionnaire to help me connect with the issues young women struggle with, and to hear their take on faith and life, from their cultural perspective. I sent it to a number of contacts who came my way, some of whom forwarded it on, and some who kindly arranged for me to visit their groups in person, where the girls/young women answered the questions face-to-face on the basis I kept them anonymous. I always went armed with a ‘thank you’ tin of homemade cake and they were all great fun as well as extremely honest with me, which I have to say, was a privilege. In fact, they even had to explain a few terms to me, like, ‘contouring’!  Other young women returned the questionnaire to me by email; again, on the basis I gave them a pseudonym. And there were a few who posted it back anonymously.

Interestingly, however, although the pressure comes through different formats (social media, for example), self-image issues today are much like those when I was young.

Consequently, my approach to writing the book was different to others I’ve written in that I tried to keep the sub-themes of each chapter as short and succinct as possible, plus, of course, I wove in young women’s responses into the text (anonymously).

But even as I was writing, I sensed the book had potential to speak into lives of older women too – and that has proved true, both from reviews and from readers who have contacted me; the eldest, age 86!

Why does body image have such a huge effect on our identity as women?

I’d like to say it’s part of today’s culture, but I looked into the history while researching Mirror, and it’s been around for centuries; longer even than when beauty was defined by a flawless white complexion, and women painted their faces with deadly poison (powdered lead). Just bring to mind images of ancient Egyptian women with their lithe figures, painted faces, stylised hair and banded gold jewellery, and you can see what a history we’ve inherited.

So here’s a short answer to a massive question. We all have an innate longing to be valued and loved, and if we can’t achieve that through some definition of success, intellectual capacity, level of income or the ability to conceive and birth children, some of us might look to our body to help us attain it. Too often, however, no matter how much we squeeze, starve, cut, nip, enlarge, reduce, paint or pierce our body, it is simply never enough: that source of worth we’ve relied on to feel good about ourselves or attractive to a man, washes off in the bath, grows septic with infection, gains weight with a holiday or long-term medication, disfigures with illness, or simply fades and wrinkles with age. And time after time we’re left feeling inadequate, unattractive, unwanted, incapable, ashamed and unworthy, all because we’re sourcing our identity from the wrong place.

You cover illness – both physical and mental – and what effect it can have on our sense of self. What did you own journey with illness teach you about your sense of self-worth, and what did you learn from the other women whose stories you include?

Some of what I learned from other women is included in the book, but as for my own sense of self with my health issues, the key thing I was reminded of was: Who is in control of my life; Who knows my first and last breath, Who determines my days, and Whose love and care for me through painful symptoms and anxious appointments, is of far greater value to me than what I can do or how I appear.

Why do you think we seem to measure success in how we compare to others? How can we combat that?

We’ve been comparing ourselves against others since the beginning of time; it must be a part of our fallen nature, instead of just comparing ourselves with God and pursuing His goals for us (remember Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob… in fact, Satan tempted Eve to compare her wisdom with God’s, and look what that made her do!).

But making comparisons is a lose-lose conundrum. Compare and then feel better than others spawns ungodly pride and potentially feeds a brash ego; compare and then feel lesser than others and you start believing you’re worthless, a failure, unattractive… and/or you grow bitter and resentful and nurse a critical spirit.  But compare yourself only to the person God created you to be and the best of the potential He has called you to pursue, and you’ve got reason to get out of bed each day, reassurance when you fail that God is for you and will help you try again, and nothing short of immense gratitude when you hit your God-given goal.

The image used throughout the book is that of a mirror – that Jesus is the only one who offers us a mirror that reflects our true image – who we are meant to be, unlike the cultural mirrors that reflect back to us that we are not worthy. How did you come to understand the truth of Jesus’ mirror in your own life?

That happened over time as my personal relationship with God developed; as I rooted my heart and not just my head belief in His love. A fundamental key, however, was engaging with the Bible – not just reading it, but getting it right inside me where it’s living power could do its work; and then, responding to it.

Do you truly believe we can learn to be content in God in the midst of anything life throws at us? How do we do that if so?

It’s a tough one. I’m constantly challenged by the messages I put out there about God’s truth, and how a westernised view can be so different to someone who has lost home, family and work, say, in Syria. All I know is that Paul found contentment in all circumstances – and it doesn’t take much reading of the New Testament to learn just how awful and tough his life often was (shipwreck, stoning almost to death, 40 lashes, starving, homeless a lot of the time… I could go on!)

So contentment in God is a truth that needs to be taught, but also in today’s context, and I know from reading books and articles by individuals who have suffered immensely in countries where the Christian faith is persecuted, that they too learned that same spiritual contentment as Paul did, in the dire confines of prison.

I’ve certainly never suffered to those extremes, but this promise is for me too, and I’ve had to ‘learn’ it during seasons of life that I found disheartening, in times when God prompted me to make one choice when I’d have much preferred making another, when my physical health took an unexpected dive and the future was uncertain, and in periods of grief for loved ones.

As for the how, I can only pass on what I have learned from Paul:

‘I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ….I want to know Christ…’ Philippians 3:8,10

It’s that ‘knowing’ Jesus, and living out the belief that He truly is our everything, that we ‘learn to be content whatever the circumstances.’ Philippians 4:11

What are some of the real nuggets of wisdom you’ve discovered for truly reflecting Jesus rather than giving in to our vulnerabilities and inadequacies?

Self-assurance, inner poise, a quiet confidence, security, peace with oneself and with others. It’s awesome to be released from a withered way of living life, especially when you’ve endured it for many years; to be freed from a mental and emotional prison which has locked you up from Christ’s promise of ‘life to the full’ (John 10:10) in the darkness of fear and debilitation.

Dotted about the book are wonderful quotes from women celebrating the role models in their own life that have inspired them and helped them see past the shallowness of looks. How important do you think it is for us all to have those women who champion and encourage us?  

I think role models are a gift and inspiration provided we don’t idolise them ie provided we don’t set ourselves up to try to be their clone. Be inspired by characteristics you admire, but ask yourself how that might helpfully shape your own life within parameters of your own skills, experiences, opportunities, background etc.

What other writing projects do you have planned?

Aside of a set of Bible notes coming out next February (alongside yours) and a novel still looking for an agent, I am currently working on my next book, which is due out sometime next year…watch this space; too early to unveil the plot!

Anne is the author of a number of Christian books and has written a wide variety of Bible-study notes and magazine articles. She also speaks at conferences and in churches around the country, with a passion to disciple Christians in their ongoing walk with God.

Married to Neil, Anne is also Granny to her daughter’s three young boys. To relax she loves to read, grow her own vegetables, hike the hills, and, when time allows, cook special meals for close friends. But she still dreams of becoming a bee-keeper!

You can follow Anne’s musings on Twitter @AnneLeTiss, Instagram @anneletissier, or take a look at her website: www.anneletissier.com

 

What I learned about distance in Christian marriage

I am delighted to welcome Tiffany Montgomery as a guest blogger today – she shares insights from when she discovered her part in creating distance in her marriage, and what God prompted her to do about it. That forms the basis of a new online course she is launching, Finding Hope and Joy in My Marriage – and there is one free place up for grabs below!

Do you remember when you were courting your husband?  (or he was courting you 😉 ).  Our romance began with long nights playing cards, drinking coffee and talking about our hopes and dreams, fears and failures of the past.  We were so close, the best of friends. What happened?  

We don’t talk like that anymore.  Distance. It came with time and hurt and life.

I don’t always tell him things and he forgets to tell me things. Now we have to have a time on the calendar to talk deeper than schedule things and kid things.  When did that happen? There was a time – in the past – when wild bulls could not have kept me from calling him to talk about the joys and sorrows of life.

As a woman I feel the pain of that distance deeply, but it never crossed my mind that he feels it too.  He put distance between us at some point – just like I put distance between him.

The man I love – who once worked day and night to make me happy – his need for respect is as real as his need for air.

When he feels disrespected, when his pride is hurt again and again, he starts putting up a wall to protect himself – from me.  I think of it as a dam – with walls that are high and wide – behind which he can hide the well springs of his heart.

My man is human – a natural mixture of good, neutral, and bad character traits – just like me.  And, just like me, he puts distance between himself and hurt.

Proverbs 21:19 says: “It is better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and vexing woman.”

This scripture describes a wife with a mouth that can maim her husband.   Can you relate to the conviction in those words?  

When I am not a safe place for my husband, he puts up a wall between us.

When I challenge him for the leadership role in our home, he builds that wall higher.

This wall grows and grows over the years until he has a built a huge dam.  Our husbands are protecting themselves from the pain of not being good enough for the most important person in their world… his wife.

When I think of it this way, my very soul is laid bare.

I created this unsafe place for him?  My words, my nagging, my putting my preferences first, my business and forgetfulness, my fear and taking the wrong side…  Have you created a similar place?

Did I really crush him so much that he can’t trust me with his heart?  I see the distance and know it is true. Can you see your husband’s lack of trust in you?  His uncertainty of how you will react to his flaws?

I just want to add a note here that the way he is responding is not all on us.  You must not take responsibility for his every mood swing. Often there is more going on in his world.  Hurts from his past create some of his behavior; wrestling with God can create some of it as well. He may struggle with insecurity or any number of other things.  I want to be sure you understand here that we are only to deal with what our attitude and actions are affecting.

Over the course of the past decade God has shown me how my words affect my husband –deeper than he lets on.  I have to look to how he responds to see the real results of years of nagging and disrespect. It took so much to heal this hurt and get my husband to let down the wall to the dam over his heart.

How did I create a Safe Place to remove the Distance in our Christian Marriage?

These I the things that I did, which I humbly suggest could help you too:

  1. Accept him – flaws and all.
    • This required a lot of forgiveness. Forgiving the past hurts.
    • It also required a lot of prayer – because some of those flaws are hard to live with.  I am now trusting God to change my husband in His time – instead of trying to change him in my time.
  2. Showing respect with my words and taking complaints and concerns to God instead of my husband.
    • Did I mention prayer?  Taking my words to God first –- letting Him be my filter – has changed the entire dynamic in our home!
    • God deals with the emotional side of what I want to say, then hubby and I can clearly communicate when there are problems.  And we can have more fun when there are not problems – because I am trusting God to handle the bigger things for me!

My Husband put distance between us because I was not a safe place for him to be real – flaws and all.  

Bit by slow bit I am trying to be a safe place for him.  To love him the way I want to be loved.

Does that fix all of our problems?   Nope.  He still hurts me sometimes and I still hurt him sometimes.  But we are accepting the humanness of ourselves and we can work through things now because neither of us expects the other to be perfect!

Are you longing for Hope and Joy in your Marriage?

God took me through a journey of re-learning how to live as a wife with a biblical worldview.  It is a joy for me to teach and mentor locally and I am thrilled to launch this new Online Course.

In this 9 week course we will dig into the Bible and find out how to restore our marriages – rebuilding them to last a lifetime!

This Marriage Course will include:

  • 10 self paced video lessons on:
    • Love
    • Forgiveness
    • Desires Vs. Preferences
    • My Mouth
    • Appreciation & Admiration
    • The Leader
    • Understanding Men
    • Respect
    • My Priorities
  • 9 weeks of personal study
    • 5 days each week that should take 10-15 minutes
  • 45 days of prayer prompts

I am excited to give away one spot on the course!

To Enter Click this Link.

 

 

Tiffany is a Kentucky Jesus Gal with a passion to encourage and equip wives and moms through practical biblical discipleship on her site HopeJoyInChrist.com. She loves to connect with other women to help grow their Christian marriages inside her growing Facebook Community. She shares: “My heart’s desire is to encourage the women – if we walk this life together we can do it better”!

Women being bold

IWDlogo

Today is that day when we specifically take time to celebrate all that women have achieved socially, economically, culturally and politically. Even in my lifetime so much has changed and I enjoy being able to celebrate that fact. I have been thrilled to see women who have, over many decades, helped to forge forward new discoveries and initiatives being celebrated too within the media (I think, for example, of recent films such as Hidden Figures).

However, there is so much still to be done. And so much inequality in so many areas too. I shudder when I think of the amount of gender violence that still occurs around the world. I feel sick when I think of young girls still being subjected to genital mutilation and women simply accepting daily violence from their husbands as they don’t see any way out. This year’s hashtag for IWD is #BeBoldForChange. Each one of us, in our own spheres of influence, can be courageous and bold. But can we punch above the line and stand up for what we know is right? Can we add our voices to all those saying enough is enough, it’s time for change? I try to write about such issues of inequality whenever I can, and am so grateful that I get to work for charities that are doing something practically, on the ground, to help women trapped in vicious cycles. But a day like today causes me to stop and ponder: am I doing enough? What else could I do?

As a Christian I firmly believe that God is for women. He champions us, loves us, cherishes us;  He shows us how we should be treated – and how we should treat others. May we always look to Him for guidance and openly receive His unending love, grace and mercy. May we listen when He prompts us to reach out, perhaps beyond our comfort zones, to help those who are unable to help themselves.

Forgiveness Friday

I just wanted to let you know that I am guest blogging on the wonderful Amy Boucher Pye’s website today, as part of her Forgiveness Fridays series. I am talking about my past, and what triggered my journey looking into authenticity (which the book I am currently writing is about). Here is what Amy says to introduce my post:

When I think of Claire Musters, whom I’ve known for several years professionally and personally, I think of her smile. Never could I have imagined her story from nearly two decades ago. (You’ll see what I mean when you read on below.) That I don’t count her as “damaged goods” reveals to me the nature of God’s forgiveness. When he forgives, our slates are wiped clean. Alleluia!

Please click here to read my guest blog. I’d really appreciate it if you would like to comment, either on Amy’s website or here. Thank you.

Celebrating girls around the world

pic-of-kids

My daughter having fun and running free with her brother 🙂 

Today is International Day of the Girl Child, and the theme for this year is “Girls’ Progress = Goals’ Progress: A Global Girl Data Movement”. As UN Women explains, this is ‘a call for action for increased investment in collecting and analysing girl-focused, girl-relevant and sex-disaggregated data.’

One of the reasons that stands in the way of girls making progress is a lack of education. When I realised that today is the Day of the Girl, I immediately thought of my daughter: how much I love her and how proud I am of her. She is so fortunate because she is given free access to education. She is at the point this year of choosing secondary schools and our area is one in which competition is fierce and the grammar schools, in particular, attract applicants from miles away. Some of the comprehensives, as well as the grammars, have entrance exams and so my daughter has been juggling various tests and auditions alongside her usual school work. She has had week after week of study and exams – and has done amazingly well under the pressure. I have felt so keenly how unfair the system is, especially when other counties across England have no such approach. But I have also been proud of how my daughter has risen to the challenge and met every new obstacle with a gritty determination.

I want my daughter to know that she is loved for who she is – not for how she performs in tests. But I also want her to know what a privilege it is to be educated freely. I want her eyes to be open to the plight of other girls her age around the world. In developing countries (excluding China), one in every three girls is married before reaching the age of 18. This stunts their progress, not just because child marriage is often followed by pregnancy – even if a girl is not yet physically or mentally ready. Every day, over 20,000 girls under age 18 give birth in developing countries – over 7 million a year.

The statistics are still horrifying and I long for the day when they won’t be, remembering soberly that each number stands for a girl’s life. Today I simply want to stand alongside UN Women’s statement: ‘On the International Day of the Girl Child, we stand with the global community to support girls’ progress everywhere. Let girls be girls.’ They are the women of the future – let us celebrate them not just today, but by doing all we can to support organisations that are seeking to educate and empower girls right around the world.

* Stats taken from UN Women.

The poison of comparison

I met up with a friend for breakfast the morning, so that we could catch up on what God has been doing in each of our lives. I was really struck by a question she asked: do you find it easier to talk to women who aren’t Christians? It sparked a conversation about whether, as Christian women, we can have a tendency to wear masks around each other because we feel we should have everything ‘together’ as it were. I also pondered whether we can enter a conversation unsure of how much to divulge because we are comparing ourselves to the other woman all the time – and feel we fall short.

I came away still thinking about that particular part of our conversation, so I wanted to share the start of an article I wrote on this very subject, which is featured in October’s Woman Alive (the full title is: Why can’t I be more like her?). To read the rest, which focuses on practical ways we can avoid comparing ourselves to other women, do buy a copy of the magazine or consider subscribing to it.

I am continuing to explore this theme in the book I am currently writing: Taking off the mask: learning to live authentically. You will probably hear a lot more about that over the coming months! 🙂

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The fog is lifting

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I awoke this morning to a London skyline that looked more like Victorian London than present-day. The fog was ‘as thick as pea soup’ – a very apt description used by many a Victorian writer! The children were excited, but I was loathe to get in the car and drive through the fog to get them to school.

But it wasn’t until I got home and was sat with my Bible that I looked up and saw the sun beginning to shine through the fog. The fog was lifting and, as it did so, I felt God speak into my spirit too.

You see, we have recently been facing a change in our 10-year-old daughter’s behaviour. She is becoming exceedingly hormonal and has had some very irrational responses to situations and everyday life in general. Last night, both children were emotional – my son because he was over tired, but I could only assume that it was my daughter’s hormones kicking in as there was seemingly no other explanation.

After an hour and a half of tears and tantrums my daughter finally went to bed more peaceful – she was chirpy as she said goodnight and couldn’t understand why I was still reeling from what had happened. I then carried the sadness of the evening downstairs with me and struggled to concentrate on what I was meant to be doing.

Today I awoke and prayed for a better morning. It started off well, with smiles all round, but the pressure of ‘mufti day’ (wearing her own clothes to school) overtook my daughter and the rants and tears started again as she felt nothing fitted or looked good on her (sigh, why does that pressure seem to appear out of nowhere at such a young age?). I again felt the tears rising up in myself, and had to take myself out of the situation. I was so frustrated and yes, did lose my cool, and then hated how my husband could walk in calmly and help her choose an outfit that I had suggested much earlier and she simply put it on…

Once my daughter was finally dressed, she came downstairs as if nothing had happened, but, yet again, I knew in my heart that I had been emotionally affected by the episode. As I drove home from the school run I pondered this: I know we are only starting the journey towards adolescence and that my daughter is finding it hard to control her emotions. She needs love and stability from both her parents – but I know that her emotional outbursts trigger something in me as I can relate to them so much.

I started questioning whether I found it difficult to help her navigate these times because I know at times I can’t navigate my own emotional ups and downs. If I’m honest, I started to feel down, allowing my mind to tell me that I’m failing as a parent as I just spiral when I hear her outbursts rather than being a steadying influence for her.

But, as that fog lifted outside, I felt God nudge me to say ‘It’s okay, just relax and let the fog lift off your spirit too.’ The fog has already lifted from my daughter – she’s at school enjoying learning and being with her friends – and it’s time for me to let go and face my day free of fog too.

Yes, I know that the last 24 hours have highlighted things in both myself and my daughter that need God’s gentle touch, but, for now, I feel a real sense of His sunshine piercing through the fog. It’s warm and refreshing – so needed after a long, draining week. Whatever you are facing today, may you feel the fog lift in your own life and know His sunshine too.

As a total aside, I just wanted to let you know that I have the privilege of being a guest blogger on Amy Boucher Pye’s website today. I’ve written about Home: refuge and resource, and honestly share what it is like having our home used for so many church activities – so do please take a look and leave a comment :0)