Category: Help I’m now a pastor’s wife!

Taking stock on International Women’s Day

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I am currently editing a fantastic book that seeks to empower women by freeing them from the chains of needing to seek affirmation constantly and looking for the answer to the question Am I Beautiful? It reminds us that as women made in the image of Beauty itself, we are all indeed beautiful, so we need to learn to rise above all the pressures – self- and society- and culture-applied – to accept that. And it also urges us to remember that there are far too many bigger issues, far too many pressing needs, for us to simply be preoccupied with ourselves. We need to be able to move on and make a difference, to be the world changers that women significantly seem to be. The brilliant author, Chine Mbubaegbu, cites some UN statistics:

‘There are 900 million women and girls facing extreme poverty. Women own just one per cent of the world’s wealth, we earn just 10 per cent of the world’s income and half a billion of us can’t read or write.’ And yet, it is being recognised around the world by governments and development agencies that women certainly make a huge difference when given the chance. That, while we earn less than men generally, when we do work we reinvest 90 per cent of it into the health, nutrition and educational needs of our families – as opposed to the 30–40 per cent of men that do so.

Chine’s citation of such facts and figures whetted my appetite so I went in search of more on the UN website. And found some other interesting ones:

  • Over the years women have begun to enter various traditionally male-dominated occupations, but are still rarely employed in jobs with status, power and authority or in traditionally male blue-collar occupations.
  • Women are still under-represented among legislators, senior officials and managers, craft and related trade workers and plant and machine operators and assemblers.
  • Specifically, women are still under-represented in national parliaments, where on average only 17 per cent of seats are occupied by women.
  • There is a persistent gender pay gap everywhere – while it has begun to close slowly in some countries it is still unchanged in others.
  • Despite all these changes, women still continue to bear most of the responsibilities around the home: caring for children and other dependents, preparing meals and doing other housework. Around the world, women spend twice as much time – at least – as men on unpaid domestic work.

While all of these facts start to get me riled, it is the information about violence against women that angers me the most. This is a UNIVERSAL phenomenon – not just occurring in so-called under-developed nations but right under our noses here in the West too. Our ‘developed’ nations can hide some horrific secrets under the surface. Charities such as A21 have done a great job in raising our awareness of such issues as human trafficking but there is so much more that can – and should – be done.

I was horrified to read the following in the UN stats report The World’s Women 2010: ‘In many regions of the world, longstanding customs put considerable pressure on women to accept being beaten by their husbands, even for trivial reasons. Whether for burning the food, venturing outside without their husband, neglecting children or arguing with their husband, in quite a few countries a very high percentage of women consider such behaviour sufficient grounds for being physically hit.’

Wake up women – and men – around the world! We are worth so much more. No one – absolutely no one – deserves to be treated with less respect than another. I hope on today, of all days, we can celebrate all that is good about womanhood and determine afresh to fight against the injustices that so many of our sisters in countries all around the world are facing right now.

Can’t settle down to work…

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Ever have one of those days when you simply can’t seem to settle down to anything? I am today – I can’t believe I only have half an hour left before I pick up my son from nursery and I’ve achieved nothing so far (apart from bagging a free book for my hubbie – yay- and having email conversations with publishers). I have managed to do my bible reading for the day. I’ve been finding reaching back into the Old Testament really interesting and thought-provoking, but today, when I read about a man sacrificing his daughter, all I could think was ‘really?’. My brain couldn’t go further than that!

Both my husband and I look and feel shattered. It has been an exceedingly long couple of weeks, partly because our church is in the process of trying to buy a building and there have been endless plans and letters to formulate. But today is submission day – so we’ve done all we can. Now, as well as praying earnestly, we need to turn to what else needs our attention – him to his preach and me to my writing. But I think we are both simply too wrung out. I am usually incredibly focused. I’ve been doing this work-from-home freelancing thing for a long time now, and I am always determined to utilise the first few hours of the day really well as that is my only child-free time. But today I’ve been meandering through the windows on my computer – looking at the drafted book I have almost finished and the half-written ideas file for a magazine editor. I can’t quite seem to actually get down to doing anything. But I think that may be because my body needs a little rest – it’s done so much already this week. The fact that I can’t focus on anything is my body revealing I need to slow down a little and take it easy today. This is really unlike me, but I’m finding I’m telling myself that it’s okay if I don’t actually achieve that much today. There is always tomorrow… 🙂

Feeling the squeeze

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Today is the start of National Marriage Week. I chuckled wryly to myself when I found that out, as this week has been incredibly testing. We’ve definitely felt the squeeze, due to many reasons – mainly outside of our relationship. We are still exhausted from the fantastic weekend of celebrations honouring our pastor and his wife as he retired, and now my husband is feeling the pressure of taking over the church and being the only member of staff for the next two months. I’m really busy juggling a lot of deadlines, including writing a book, and looking after our kids. I’ve also found it very difficult to be surrounded by a houseful of mess as my husband transports the church office temporarily to the studio at the bottom of our garden. That sort of thing really grates on me – and I have to be honest, I bit my tongue for three days but didn’t manage to keep quiet completely!

Each night has been busy since last weekend, with meetings already booked in. And each night we’ve been supporting others with difficulties – some with intensely bad news they are struggling with. While it is an honour and a privilege to serve them it is still hard when you are just plain tired yourself – and some of the issues have been so big it is hard not to be affected by them. I think the fact that we are not sleeping well even though exhausted is a sign that the stress is taking its toll. And this afternoon my daughter had a complete meltdown doing homework that I thought she would actually really enjoy. I found myself almost at explosion point and shouted inwardly to God ‘Not now – don’t throw anything else at me now’.

I left her to it and escaped into my office. And there were another series of tweets about National Marriage Week, which stopped me in my tracks. We absolutely HAVE to make time amongst all the manic-ness, responsibilities and people problems to just chill out, do things together we really enjoy and affirm and encourage one another. Because when tiredness and stress set in, it is always the person closest to you that bears the brunt of it. I know you know this, but I urge those of you that are married to use this week’s timely reminder wisely and let your husband/wife really know why it is that you love them. Use the commercialised, cheesy, annoying day that is Valentine’s Day to do something special – whether you choose to do it on that day or another just make sure you do something in the next week! I’m going to make sure we do…

Children really are sponges!

I was explaining to my daughter just before bedtime last night why grandma, grandpa and granny are coming to stay this weekend. To put things simply I said, ‘Daddy is taking over the church on Sunday so there is going to be a big party.’ To which she immediately quipped back, ‘Well mummy God is actually in charge of the church – daddy will be the human who helps him.’ I asked her who had told her that and she replied, ‘You did mummy’ and then, amongst the bleary cloud of tiredness in my head, I did have a vague recollection of trying to explain to her a few weeks ago why daddy wouldn’t be the boss of the church, which is what she had been telling people! But I have to admit I was blown away that she had remembered it so clearly, and stated it back to me so matter-of-factly. It was something I had explained to her, therefore it was right. And that made me take a step back to think of the larger implications. Now I know we are told that children are sponges, but in the everyday busy-ness of life I can often forget that. Here was a real, bonafide example of that in practise.

I am often conscious of the way my children view my behaviour and sometimes copy it (yes it is the negative stuff I’m thinking of here!), and I know they come out with certain little phrases that they have picked up from either my husband or myself – that’s the way that family traditions/catchphrases are born. But I haven’t really dwelt that much recently on exactly how the words we say, and the way we explain things, get absorbed by our children. Tucking into bed time is usually a joint affair – I put our littlest into his bed after family prayers and my husband does the same with our daughter. One of the reasons it’s worked out that way is that she has an incredibly inquisitive mind, and usually picks that moment of the day to ask a deep, theological question. It is daddy who has a quick yet thorough answer easily on his lips! After last night’s exchange, though, I might take more opportunities to converse with my daughter just before sleep time!

The countdown begins

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Monday morning. A chance to re-focus after another hectic, but fulfilling weekend of fun and church activities. But this Monday morning is slightly different. Because, as I arrived home from dropping both kids to school and my husband off to the (temporary) church office, I realised that that could have been the last time I ever do the latter. The church office will soon be at our house because there is now less than a week until our pastor retires and my husband takes on the role. We’ve been planning and preparing for months now, and are really caught up in the celebrations we are planning for next weekend to honour our pastor and his wife’s tireless commitment and care to the church. But as I sat down with my Bible and cup of tea it suddenly hit me. That this time next week I won’t just be the associate pastor’s wife – I’ll be the pastor’s wife!

I had a sudden flash of the weight of responsibility, but fortunately the weight didn’t hang around for too long. Over the last couple of weekends we’ve had a chance to meet up with others of a similar age in a similar position, some that my husband did his training with, and it’s nice to know that we are not alone. It’s not that we are forging out by ourselves, blazing a trail that’s never been done before. We’re just doing it in our church, in the way we’ve been called to. Of course there are things on my mind that I’m slightly concerned about, and added stresses that have been creeping up on us both – but mainly on my husband. Life is going to go up another gear – again – and we will have to be really careful and conscious of our family at all times. Because we’ve already discovered in the preparation to this time that leadership can be a lonely place at times – even when you’ve got some good, close friends.

I am really glad we are in the position of having our pastor and his wife continue to attend the church, and indeed, continue to help. After a couple of months off they will be back! 😉 She does so much, including the church’s accounts, and he will be working part time in the office. It will be strange to begin with – there will be a new dynamic as he will no longer have any leadership responsibilities and both he and my husband will have to get used to that. But I know that we will really appreciate having them around. Because, for the moment at least, my husband will be the only full-time member of staff. So there will be lots to do… And they will still be there for those times when we realise that we’ve forgotten to ask about how to do something!

But how do I really feel in this countdown week? Proud – of my husband;of both of us for coming through some really tough years to get to this point; scared – I don’t feel qualified (but if my experiences as a worship leader are anything to go by that’s a good thing!); protective  – of our family time, of our kids (wow the spiritual battle that goes on at times is intense!), of my husband; humbled – that He’s called us for such a time as this for such a church as ours and … tired – well it is Monday morning after all! 🙂

Taking time out

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Yet again there’s been a good few weeks between my posts. Before Christmas I was frantically trying to finish work off so that I could take a complete break, and since the kids went back to school I’ve been busy again catching up with work. But I look back to the Christmas period with really fond memories. It was a time of relaxation in which I purposefully stayed away from my computer. The way that was kickstarted is funny really – a friend’s daughter slept in a travel cot in my office just before Christmas and she asked whether the cot could stay up until the New Year’s Eve party we were hosting. So the cot became a welcome barrier between me and my computer, forcing me not to turn it on! I’ve always made sure I don’t have emails coming through to my phone, as when I’m away from my desk I’m with my kids so I don’t want the lure of work emails distracting me from them. The result: I was free of social media for the entire Christmas holiday period!

I think I’d worked so hard last year that I was quite burned out, and having time away from everything – emails, Facebook, twitter, blogs – was really welcome. It also made me realise anew the wisdom behind God’s ordering and the taking of a day of rest each week. We were explaining to the kids at the weekend that mummy and daddy aren’t quite like other mummies and daddies they know from school – our weekends aren’t just full of fun and relaxation as part of our jobs are to lead the church – me with worship and my husband as an elder and preacher. So Sundays can be quite stressful. While my husband should have a day off in the week that often doesn’t materialise, and it is hard to keep it family focused anyway as the kids are at school Monday to Friday. So we find we end up with less time to ourselves. That’s the nature of things – but that doesn’t mean it’s always right.

Since coming back to work, and being in meetings where we’ve focused on our goals for the year and how we’d like to develop, I was really struck by how one woman prayed for me. She said, ‘God you’ve heard all the ways Claire wants to develop her worship ministry, but she has just said how her highlights of last year were when she had time with her family away from it all. Help her to remember to take those rest times, and to realise that you only expect her to do what she has time to do. Stop her from worrying about those things she can’t do.’ That prayer made its way into my journal, as I realised my tendency is to forget rest in the busy-ness of life. I love being busy, and I find it difficult to relax until everything on my ‘to do’ list is ticked off but what I’m holding on to in these first few weeks of January is that it is so important to take time out.

So my exaltation to you is also to take some time off regularly – and don’t worry about whether stepping back to rest will mean you are no longer ‘in the loop’. This is something that I can get anxious about – particularly regarding social media networking for work purposes. I think if I take any time off it will be detrimental to the career I’m building. I’m now reminding myself that my spiritual health is the most important priority and time off is vital. God has told me many times that I can’t help others and give out to the best of my ability if I’m burned out myself – I guess I need to start listening! I’ll let you know in a few months whether I’ve managed to take regular time off – bearing in mind that it’s only a few weeks before my husband becomes lead elder/pastor of our church so I know that will have a huge impact on our lives! 🙂

In pursuit of honesty

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I had a real treat last night. I entered a competition to win free tickets to see Amy Grant – I didn’t expect to win, nor had I, in all honesty, listened to her music in recent years. But I grew up with it being blasted from my sister’s room and thought it would be great to hear where she is at now. So, accompanied by a good friend from church, off I travelled to Union Chapel in Islington. The venue was cosy and really atmospheric – a beautiful old church. I didn’t know anything about the gig really, so didn’t realise it was a stripped back acoustic set. Some musicians casually appeared and I thought perhaps they were the support act – but then Amy gracefully walked on stage. I was blown away by how little she’s changed – after 5 kids and at the age of 51 she looks absolutely amazing – and beautiful. And her new songs were really chilled and a mixture of bluesy/country/folky.

What I really loved, though, was her honesty and openness. After a while she asked people to shout out songs they wanted her to play. Some she hadn’t sung for over 20 years and she struggled a little with some chord arrangements/remembering a few lyrics but it was okay – she was honest about that and it just made it even more like we were party to an intimate gathering of friends jamming at that point.

The main thing that struck me was how raw, and how honest the whole evening was. Her songwriting has always told stories but hearing the true stories behind a lot of the songs was amazing – and gut wrenching at times. And even though she looks great, it is obvious that, like all of us, she’s lived through the good and bad – but refreshingly isn’t scared of letting that show. And of saying how much she needs the good friends and family who will be honest with her around her at all times.

After a particularly difficult time in my own life God really pushed me to be honest about where I was at, to help pull down the masks that we all seem to wear in Christian circles. I fought it for a while, as it was draining to be the only one doing it, but now my husband might say I’m sometimes too honest with the amount I share! 😉 The point is, I can always sense when I am in the presence of someone else who isn’t scared to let their mask down and be who they really are, and comment on life as it really is. Aside from the trips down memory lane, as I realised I knew a lot of the lyrics to her songs off by heart,  I felt privileged to share an evening with an honest soul who bares so much in her songs. She may have started out as a teenager, but she still has a deep joy about singing from her heart and she definitely had a profound affect on me last night. And it gave me fresh hope as I dwelt on the fact that most of the Christian musicians I’ve interviewed recently have also been really honest and had great depth to them. That is what it should be like – Christians pursuing honesty and integrity and supporting one another in love. That’s what the early Church was like – do you have those kinds of relationships in which you can bare all and expect total honesty, laced with grace, in return?

Let it rain!

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Those of us who live in the UK have experienced a deluge of rain this week. It seems bizarre that in our country we have suddenly taken by surprise by the rain but, after such a long time without significant rainfall, it has been a bit of a shock. I’ve found it particularly difficult because my son’s bedroom has a flat roof, which makes the rain seem really noisy and he gets scared and doesn’t sleep well at night. So this week I’ve been getting more and more tired.

This all culminated in me feeling rather miserable yesterday – it seemed that every time I had to go out the rain intensified. Where my son attends pre-school is literally at the end of our road, simply a minute’s walk away, but on our way back the heavens literally opened and we were saturated. Thursday is the afternoon that we are in and out constantly – to playgroup, school pick up, his sister’s ballet lessons etc so I gave up and thought there was no point in changing us after each soaking as we were just going to get drenched again.

Then, as I stomped around in a bad mood, I felt a small tug in my spirit. I knew what it was about as I’d felt it in the biggest downfall I’d been caught in – but now I paid attention. And my heart leapt in agreement with what it was hearing – and I realised I didn’t need the rain to stop – I wanted to shout ‘Let it rain more! Let my soul be saturated!’ It was a sudden realisation that, like our land desperately needs the rain, my spirit needs more of His Spirit. I’m tired, not sleeping well, busy catching up on work after the holiday, preparing to lead worship this Sunday and now also preparing to speak alongside my husband when he preaches. I can’t do any of this in my own strength – God I need a soaking! I need to remain wet day in day out!

I am so grateful for days like yesterday – yes it was hard work but when God breaks in and reminds me (in a highly practical demonstration!) of my need for Him it makes me realise how over-busy and un-reliant on Him I can be. The challenge is not to lose that sense of dependency and to tackle the tasks with Him alongside me, guiding me by His Spirit.

Socially networking, but how is your connection with God?

As usual, I have had many ideas for blogs running through my head but little time to write them. And my time today has been cut down even more – for lovely reasons though. It was the last day of my children’s holiday before school starts back. We had a friend drop by in the morning and then this afternoon we took a spur of the minute decision and went to the cinema. It’s been a really precious time – but that’s not the point of this blog!

What I want to think about today is whether our technogically based lives these days leave any space to properly connect with God. With phones that gives us instant access to the internet it means that not only can people reach us at any time, anywhere, we can also be constantly connected to twitter, facebook and other networking sites. And, be honest, how hard it is to ignore those status updates that show a new posting has come through?!

I obviously don’t know what your own personal devotional times with God look like, but I’ve been thinking about mine ever since someone I’ve been mentoring emailed to ask how much time she should be spending with God one on one, and how much time do I spend. At first I was rather disgruntled by the questions – after all it isn’t about quantity but about quality right? And each individual needs to work out how they best connect to God and when. But then I was ashamed. Ashamed and not wanting to answer her question. Because recently I’ve got busier and busier with work and I had to acknowledge the fact that making time for God has got harder. It has been significantly harder since having kids but the last quarter of this year I can look back and see I didn’t do much quiet dwelling in God’s presence. There was always a bit of work to do, the kids to sort, someone who needed my help at church – oh and a few hundred tweets to wade through. And I would say I’m worse off now.

Don’t get me wrong – I think the things we can achieve via the internet, and the connections we can make with other individuals (and for me the work contacts I’ve made) are fantastic. But keeping up with the very small amount of social networking I do has made it even harder for me to connect to God – because it is just one more thing that gets in the way – that I find vies for my attention and often wins over quality time with my maker.

I watched the last episode of Living with the Amish over the holiday period and, again, was challenged on the same point. One family had left the most strict Amish community and was going it alone. This meant they had embraced some technological advances – including the internet. The eldest daughter of the family was interviewed and she said that her brothers now have facebook and twitter. She said she didn’t know what they were (and didn’t want to know) but she was sad for her brothers, because they now wasted so much time that they could be reading God’s word – and she then patted her Bible as if it was her most precious possession. That really resonated with me. Not because I want to give up on the internet, but I do want to make sure my priorities are straight as I start this new year – with all the joys and challenges it will most certainly bring. How about you? Are you connecting with God as well as you are with others on the internet?

Is He getting through to you?

I have become uncomfortably aware that God is obviously trying to get through to me, and using any means possible because I haven’t been listening too well recently. Everywhere I’ve looked, through conversations I’ve had – and even in my kids’ toddler bible notes – I’ve been hit with the story of Martha and Mary again, in particular of being too busy to hear God. Throw in some comments on keeping a lid on those careless words that can come out of our mouths so easily and that about sums up the simple, but exceedingly important, message He’s been trying to get me to listen to. A horrific morning with my kids (while my husband enjoyed a church men’s breakfast of course!) really brought things to a head – I found myself screaming at my daughter and then breaking down and I realised the way I handle my kids when they push all my buttons is not healthy in the slightest. After we’d worked through it, I’d said my sorry and they’d apologised for the things they’d done wrong we sat down for a late breakfast and yes, that’s when the Martha/Mary story appeared again. I can find it quite ironic now my writing work has picked up, that I’m writing pieces about spiritual disciplines/prioritising so God isn’t pushed out and yet I’m getting less and less time to spend with Him myself. Surely He’s the source of everything – where all my ideas and creativity should be coming from. And yet… trying to keep up with all the news, online debates and deadlines means He often gets pushed to the back, becoming a spectator in my life rather than the driving force behind it. I am fascinated by some of the really huge debates that people have been grappling with recently – and they have certainly made me think (particularly when I don’t think I have a coherent enough answer in my head for why I don’t agree with some of the postings). But I have this little voice nudging at me every so often, making me realise that to be able to say anything of worth both in these debates and in my writing I need to take a step back and mull things over with God Himself. It is crazy that sometimes I feel like I just don’t have the time to do that – but that’s honestly what has gone through my head at times. This week I read Jill Briscoe’s comments about how hard it was when her kids were young and Stuart was travelling so much – and about how bitter she got. And that resonated with me. Not because my husband is away from home – the positive difference it has made to our family life with him becoming a pastor rather than sticking with his record producing career has been incredible. But I can get fed up and, yes, bitter at times when I see others being able to go to conferences at the drop of a hat, being able to network more than I can yet and also when my husband can just focus on one thing and shut everything else out when my office door always has to be open to our kids whatever deadline I am up against. And yet this is my life, my path – the things I believe God has called me to. So why can’t I learn to stop fretting and trying to do it all in my own strength and spend a little time drawing aside with God so that He can give me the grace – and everything else I need – to do it to the best of my ability?