Jesus made a feminist out of me

When I first began to venture into the world of the internet for more than just checking email, I started with Twitter - figuring that I could follow pastors, Christian people I'd heard of and see if they had anything interesting to say. Some people don't really have anything interesting to say, (and some should really refrain from tweeting during presidential elections - pet peeve), but others generously and strategically use their online presence to connect people to amazing, wonderful things. 
I followed Helen Burns, as a pastor from a big overseas church that I didn't know too much about - and she linked to this: the SheLoves Magazine manifesto, written by Idelette McVicker. The words stirred something in my heart and began a chapter in my faith walk which has changed me for the better. 
Through reading SheLoves Magazine, I stumbled across Sarah Bessey. She wrote monthly on parenting. Cut to my current crazy fan-girl mad state.  I LOVE Sarah's writing, her cute instagram pictures, her book recommendations - plus she's a Whovian (we got into it at the same time), she is a beautifully gentle parent, her daughter loves to make art to raise money for a good cause, she likes to eat and talk and love and laugh and she doesn't apologize for being different.
Kindred Spirit. (She also loves Anne of Green Gables and would totally get that reference).
Sarah Bessey has written a book called "Jesus Feminist" which my husband IS going to order from overseas for me for Christmas. I must tell him this. She's been doing a synchroblog and this is my small puzzle piece to add.

I'm not a scholar or a theologian. I didn't study women's issues at university. I may not be "qualified" to add to this conversation. But when I think about this quote "Jesus made a feminist out of me" I remember that I don't have to begin everything with an apology for what I am not.

Over the last ten years I have left home, got married and had children, moved town and left friends and been forced to make new ones, and my journey with Jesus has been one that has taken me through the wilderness and the desert and then out into lush open fields and stormy seas. I have had times where I thought of myself of being capable of nothing, nothing at all. Where I looked in the mirror and didn't recognise myself. Where I felt totally empty when I thought about God.

I remember in one of those moments, maybe 8 years ago, being on holiday with my husband and having a God-encounter at dinner with an old friend and one of her friends - two true Jesus feminists. Pizza and conversation turned into prayer and tears as one of them, Emily, prayed over me and spoke the words "Arise, Arise!"

Jesus calls the feminist in me out of hiding. Jesus tells me to no longer stand behind my husband, quiet in his shadow, where it may feel safe and I am not noticed. Jesus has gently and compellingly beckoned my true nature out from behind the walls I built up, and he tells me that I have a part to play. I have a story to tell. I have a song to sing. I have paint to put to canvas, I have ideas and opinions and thoughts that need to be spoken.

To be a feminist is to consider that "women are people, too", by Sarah Bessey's definition.
Sometimes without even realising it, we rank ourselves lower or less important than our husbands or other significant men in our life, for whatever reason - whether it's money, or position, or a vague sense of who "should" make the decisions. I would urge you to re-think those beliefs, if you have them, and to listen to the voice of the Spirit inside of you. God is not just man, but woman - we are both created in his image, male and female. When we deny women the right to speak, or we decide not to speak and bring our thoughts to the conversation, people will only see half of who God is. We need to see the whole. We need to hear the whole heart of God, male and female. We need to read books by men and women, have men and women speaking at our conferences, have men and women leading in our churches and our workplaces. We are best when we are together, each giving the other equal opportunity to share, and valuing each other's input even when we don't understand it. This is the kingdom of God. Beautiful, diverse, messy, passionate and glorious, and full of voices calling out the life God has placed inside them.

I had a word over me earlier this year that God had placed living things inside of me, precious living things, and that I would have to birth them like I birth a child - painful and without much control over the timing. But that God was my midwife and he aid, guide, protect and assist me as a midwife would while I labour.

I'm thankful God is all things. Male and female, midwife, mother, teacher, queen and king. And I'm thankful that Jesus made a feminist out of me and calls me, still, to Arise.

xx Sarah

Holiness, Worship, and the Refiners Fire

I was in my car yesterday listening to a CD that my husband was given for his birthday, "Passion 2013". Our kids have this irritating/cute habit of only wanting the "really REALLY FAST songs" so we don't often get to listen to all the tracks on albums these days.
In any case, I think I just had the baby in the car, and a track came on called "My Delight is in You". I wasn't listening too hard, but then towards the end the song morphed into an old song from my passionate youth. I sung this as a teen worship leader in the Baptist church during the heights of a movement of the Spirit in the late 90's, and hearing it I just felt... I don't know. Confused. Overwhelmed. Nostalgic. Yearning?


The song is called "Refiners Fire" and she sings the chorus which says:

Refiners Fire, My hearts one desire,

Is to be Holy, Set apart for You Lord

I choose to be Holy, Set apart for You my Master

Ready to do Your will

 As I listen to the rest of the Passion song, the lyrics say "Holiness is my desire / Purify, burn in me / Come and make me clean / You refine me in your Fire"

I remember singing those lyrics, so earnest, so naive. Believing that somehow in myself, I could be holy. I could by my devotion and dedication, somehow be set apart for God, for marvellous works for Him. That I was loved, treasured, and wanted because of my desire to be Holy. That God looked down on us singing those words and we were close to him because of this sort of doctrine, for lack of a better word, of Do Christianity Well, and God Will Make Stuff Amazing For You. It was so real to me. And I write this with tears running down my cheeks, because still as I listen to those words, even though the narrative of my life hasn't turned out as I believed 20 years ago, there is something inside me that still wants this. To be Holy. Set apart for You, Lord.

I don't consider myself a bible scholar, by any stretch of the imagination, so when I read those lyrics I feel sometimes lost because I don't know where they come from, what the context is, is it scriptural - what does it even mean to be holy?

I looked it up and found this verse from Zechariah 13, verse 9 onwards:

"In the whole land", declares the Lord, "two-thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one third will be left in it.  This third I will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name, and I will answer them, I will say, "They are my people", and they will say, "The Lord is our God".

 When I look at my life, from the years of 13 to 32 - (Am I 32? Or 33? I forget and need to ask my mother) - I think those first 10 years of 13 to 23 were just a blur of heady, emotional, earnest and yet completely blind church and christian culture obsession but also God obsession. I have been through periods of thinking I was a fool, and feeling deeply embarrassed by the heights and depths of my emotions in my relationship with God - especially as I was a worship leader during these years, almost every Sunday from when I was 15 onwards - yet I have come to accept that actually, while perhaps I was young and naive, everything I said and did was heartfelt. The way things appeared genuinely was the way that things were. So while I think sometimes my earnest and black-and-white approach to my faith sometimes rode roughshod over people and their unique circumstances, I didn't intend harm. And in fact I probably did do some good.

But when I think of from 22 to now... and I think of that verse in Zechariah... and I hear those lyrics. I'm really just processing it as I write... (as when else do you have a chance? As a mum of 3 littlies). I think I was dumped into the fire. Along with many of my closest friends. And I had plenty of moments where I felt like I called on God's name and he didn't answer.

But He did. I am still here. And this year I feel like He has spoken to me more than in any of the years previous. As I enter a new decade in this journey of faith, I am profoundly grateful for the presence of God in my life, for what he has taught me, for where he continues to lead me. For who he has made me to be by putting me through the fire. By testing me. For I know He is with me. I have never been both more in love with Jesus, and more useless in terms of the "Good Christian Stuff I Should Be Doing". In doing nothing, in failing at every attempt I could make to be "holy", to be a "Good Christian" on my own, I have found my Jesus. I have found my relationship with God again, 20 years on. In the empty space, in my own lack, in my own weakness, God has revealed himself to me.

I still don't think I really know what it means to be holy. I could pontificate on this a while longer but I'm just listening to that song over and over and thinking... it's enough really. It's never us that does the work, it is never our responsibility, we can never be holy of our own accord... all we can do is love.

Here I am, open arms

Draw me close to Your heart

You're my life, You're my refuge

My delight is in You

My One Word for 2013

Around the internet in Christian Blogging particularly, there is a movement (for lack of a better word) that encourages people to choose one word for their year. More than a new years resolution, it's something to focus on for the year, something to let shape you and your decisions.

The One Word 365 website says it well: "Forget New Years resolutions. Scrap that long list of goals you won't remember three weeks from now anyway. Choose just one word. One word that sums up who you want to be or how you want to live. One word that you can focus on every day, all year long."

I've wanted to do this for 2013 but have been praying and pondering for two weeks now, and the only word that I have in my mind seems... well... "wussy". For anyone who doesn't know that word (and didn't go to primary school in New Zealand), that means that I think my word is a cop-out. Chicken. A bit sort of unimpressive and lazy. But I think that it is right for me, for where myself and my family find ourselves, and it is something I need to learn.

Rest. Yep. Spectacular huh?

I'm resigned to it now, and here's what I think it means for me.

I need to learn to rest, physically. To stop, spend time being quiet, reading the bible, looking around me, and not worrying about what I need to do next.

I need to rest from my obsessive need to be involved in thing, to be "in the know". I wrote last year about resting from my own expectations. I'm still learning that.

To rest with my children. Instead of being so busy that I hardly have time to look at them, I want to look into their eyes, play with them, and talk to them.

As a family I want us to schedule life around rest, instead of scheduling our rest around our life (and therefore never resting). I want to take weekends away with friends. Have people over to share food with and chat. To see my husband getting active rest - he rests by being physical. To make time for him to be able to do things he loves and that are restful for him. And when he does the same for me, to choose wisely and to actually rest, not rush around "doing" stuff.

How this fits with all my high and lofty intentions to read lots of books, write more, and re-do my house, I have no idea. But I'll keep you posted.

Has anyone else chosen their one word?

If you'd like to know more, check out these websites and blogs:

The One Word 365 website.

Sarah Bessey shares her One Word.

SheLoves Magazine writes about the One Word movement.

Nish at Nish Happens shares hers.

xx Sarah.

Looking for God in all the wrong places...

I just wrote a comment on Twitter that went like this: "Revelation of the night: God is not on Twitter. If it's God you need, and it always is, you won't find him on social media. Switch off".
When we are lonely and searching it seems that we take those emotions and searchings out to our 21st century version of the journal, to all of our 279 "friends" on facebook, and our Twitter followers, and all of their friends and followers. It's an insane way to live but it is so tempting. It's the equivalent of dangling the fishing line in the water, just to see what's there. I think we're always hoping that we'll get some amazing comment or connection, some incredibly deep and compassionate person will respond to us and we'll all of a sudden realise that No, I am not Alone In The World.
It's a big lie and a big trap because 99 times out of 100 no one responds, and our inner insecurities that say "No one cares" are confirmed, and for all of our social-media-fishing-line-cast-outs we end up feeling a whole heap more terrible than when we started out.
When we are in that place it is Jesus Christ that we need. He alone can fill the gaping hole in our hearts. If you think that being married does it, or having a "bestie" does it, or a great church, or parents living around the corner... well you're wrong. Loneliness is a snake that bites in any situation and the only cure for it is found in the arms of God.
I think of the Psalms and remind myself of how many times the writers cried out to God, "Why have you abandoned me?" Our emotions matter and they are real and sometimes it does feel like you have no one. But we do have God. He never leaves, he never fails, he is real and constant and he can be trusted more than our fickle feelings can.
If you're in that place of alone tonight, just know that you're not alone, and that it will pass. I write it for myself, in a season of blessing and of growing another life inside me, and yet it is in these seasons that I always feel the most isolated and the most lonely. This time I choose to fight my feelings and attempt to take it to God, and I will trust him with the next five and a half months and pray that it goes by quickly.
So perhaps it's naive of me to write a post like this, having begun by saying not to take your pain to social media, and yet here I am voicing it... but it's real for where I'm at and it may be my story for the rest of the year. God is here with me and I'll testify to it even when it hurts. At times like this there is nothing that a person could do for me, it is all up to God. Remember to pray for your friends, lift each other up and cover each other, because it is the Lord that we need and it is he that will bring healing and change our hearts.
Cyber hugs and love and prayers to all of you.
Sarah xx

The other side of the street

After my last post I began to feel a bit paranoid. I am pondering whether I have unwittingly turned into a sort of abundant-life-faith-filled-nothing-gets-me-down cheerleader, waving her christian pom poms in the air.
So time for some real-ness. Yes, I get inspired and excited in my spirit by things I read or heard, or by God stirring feelings and dreams in my heart. Yes, everything I have written in this blog so far is true. But I wouldn't be honest if I didn't also say that still, fairly regularly, I have those moments, the moments where it all feels a little... shall we say "farty" (To use Megan at Sorta Crunchy's term!).
Tonight I hark back to the days where I felt very much an observer of the "excited Christians". In those times I was not one of the excited. I was one of the ponderers, the morose, the down-and-out, the questioning, the doubters. And that is and was okay. Because that was me, it was where I was at, it was a crucial point on my journey. And the fact that I felt that way was proof that I cared. If I didn't care I would have lived however I wanted, done whatever I wanted, and forgotten about my faith. Instead I trudged. Slowly, heavily onwards through what felt like an eternity of emptiness in my soul.
It is bizarre to feel empty. To search inside and just find a blank space. To pray and talk to God yet lack any certainty at all about whether you are heard. That was me, for years. Thankfully within those years I had defining, miraculous moments, moments that I treasured. But there were also many, many more moments of heartache, disappointment, and the most common for me - the sensation of being overlooked. In second place, chosen last, in everyone's shadow, never noticed. And oh, how I grieved.
So, for those of you who identify.

For the times of unanswered prayer, the times where not only was it not answered but the opposite happened, and the opposite was an unimaginable tragedy.

For the ones who look in the mirror and can't recognise themselves.

For those who stand in line at the altar call, the prayer line, the prophesy line - and get passed over, time and time and time again.

For the mothers who haven't slept for over three, four, five months and resent the sight of every person who walks the planet who dares to say that they are tired when they have NO IDEA what tired means, no idea at all.

For the wives who watch their husbands live lives full of opportunity and purpose and long to do something, anything, "just for me", but lost themselves so long ago that they can't even think of what they would like to do.

For anyone who just got the phone call, that phone call, the one with the news you were dreading - the health update, the marriage breakdown, the death of a family member.

For the woman who sits at home alone, longing to talk to someone, longing to share her heart, desperate to be heard, who plucks up the courage to make a phone call only to be met with an uninterested tone of voice, a dial tone, a busy signal, a gruff response.

For those of us who lie in bed at night, jerked awake by the tiniest noise, terrified out of our minds about the terrors that surround us and the evil lurking in the hearts of bad men.

For anyone who thinks of their childhood and longs for things they never were able to have, and grieves for the child that just wanted to be told they were lovely, just as they were.

I see you.

And from my heart to yours, I hand you these:

"Those who believe they believe in God

but without passion in the heart, 

without anguish of mind,

without uncertainty,

without doubt,

and even at times without despair,

believe only in the idea of God, 

and not in God himself.

- Madeleine L'engle

If faith never encounters doubt, if truth never struggles with error, if good never battles with evil, how can faith know it's own power? In my own pilgrimage, if I have to choose between a faith that has stared doubt in the eye and made it blink, or a naive faith that has never known the firing line of doubt, 

I will choose the former every time   

 (Gary Parke, taken from "A Case for Faith" by Lee Strobel)

xx Sarah

P.S: If all has gone technologically to plan, you should be able to hit the play button below and listen to a song. I hope.

Hold On

In the beginning...

So this is it. I've thought about blogging for a while now, but have been quite busy getting over myself and my tendency to people please so have put it off longer than I thought I would.
I love blogs. In the last 6 months I have discovered so much amazing writing online, and have been getting so inspired and so filled by these wonderful women (I mostly tend to read women!). I also have recently got involved with a magazine called Bella, for teen girls, and we are wanting to get a web/blog thing happening one day, so I'm sort of preparing myself for that too. I tend to preach and write to myself and others inside my head rather often, so it's about time that I did the bold thing and started to put some things down on paper (or screen?) instead.
A friend I greatly admire, Marion, writes a wonderful blog NZgirl and she recently made a series of statements about herself from what she's been learning on her journey. I thought I'd do a similar sort of thing, then you can decide whether you want to keep checking in here or if I'm just going to irritate you...
I'm Sarah. I'm married, I have 2 beautiful tiny tots and I live in a smallish town in New Zealand.

• I'm a bit floaty, or flighty - airy fairy? I'm creative and I like to ask questions and sometimes I don't answer them. Or I answer them with more questions. I like to question, I like to debate, I like to ponder.
• I'm a Christian. I love God, I love my church, I'm committed. I believe absolutely in the redemptive power of God and in his grace.
• I'm messy and disorganised. Administration rates pretty low in my list of priorities.
• I'm an arty creative type, I love music, interior design, gardens, fashion, illustration and books. I'll share my favourites here.
• I'm pretty passionate about parenting and about supporting mums in particular. I can talk for hours if someone is foolish enough to let me.
• I don't really know yet what I'm meant to "DO" with my life. I'm on a journey and still learning each day at a time who I am and what matters most to me.
• I'm people oriented and tend to do things because I care for the people involved, not because I care that much about the task or the job.

I think that's enough for now. Thanks for reading and I hope this will be an encouraging and inspiring thing for me and  you both.
xx Sarah