International Women’s Day 2022

She sat at the back and they said she was shy,
She led from the front and they hated her pride,
They asked her advice and then questioned her guidance,
They branded her loud, then were shocked by her silence.

When she shared no ambition they said it was sad,
So she told them her dreams and they said she was mad.
They told her they’d listen, then covered their ears,
And gave her a hug while they laughed at her fears.

And she listened to all of it thinking she should
Be the girl they older to be, best as she could.
But one day she asked what was best for herself,
Instead of trying to please everyone else…

So she walked through the forest and stood with the trees,
She heard the wind whisper and dance with the leaves.
She spoke to the willow, the elm and the pine,
And she told them what she’d been told time after time.

She told them she felt she was never enough,
She was either too little or far far too much,
Too loud or too quiet, too fierce or too weak,
Too wise or too foolish, too bold or too meek.

Then she found a small clearing surrounded by firs,
And she stopped…
And she heard what the trees said to her,
And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave,
For the forest said nothing.

It just let her breathe.

Unknown Author.

About Her: Hilary Hopwood

This week we hear from Hilary Hopwood, a retired French teacher in the North of England. Her school was one of the first nationally to gain the International Schools Award, and she was invited by the British Council to help pioneer this award in India, and to serve on their adjudication panels for both the international School Award and the Global Curriculum Award. Locally, Hilary has served as chair and now co-chair of East Meets West – Women of Faith Together. Formed in 2006, East meets West aims to bring together women living in the Lancaster area who have different faiths and cultural backgrounds, mostly Christian and Moslem, but welcome participation from all faiths. Their current programme includes Healthy Living Project, swimming sessions and many other activities to enjoy together. 

Q1. How do you pray?
Silently, or out loud, mostly as part of my devotional rhythm which involves liturgy, Bible reading, reading reflections and meditations, and intercessions. If I have a particular person or issue on my mind I will shoot up ‘arrow prayers’ at regular intervals throughout the day. I like both set prayers and to pray spontaneously.

Q2. How do you read the Bible?
It depends on what I have chosen as a structure. For a few years I followed the lectionary which included daily readings from Old and New Testaments and the psalms around a theme. If it was the OT I often carried on reading beyond the prescribed passage because I wanted to follow the story! Also I have often found that the set readings leave out the gory bits or sections that appear to conflict with modern mores and I like to read them too. I don’t want a sanitized version of the Bible. I rarely use a commentary but wish I knew Greek and Hebrew so that I could have a better understanding of the original text. My current structure, a new one that I like very much, only gives one or two verses from OT and NT and psalms which don’t provide the context so I frequently read the verses before and after to get a better idea.

Q3. What’s your favourite Bible verse for this season?
 I don’t have one, and the notion of favourite verses doesn’t mean much to me either. Of course many verses are well known and were learned in my childhood, and I do feel a certain affection for them but I am aware that there is plenty in the Bible I have not yet read. But knowing some verses by heart is useful as they offer inspiration and guidance.

Q4. What songs are you singing at the moment?
The songs I sing with my choir, especially as we have a zoom rehearsal every week. I have also played and sung songs I wrote years ago. Sometimes old choruses from my youth and hymns come to mind and I sing them in my head. We exercise to music and the range is everything from classical to rock, folk, pop and jazz.

Q5. What is bringing you joy in lockdown?
Simple pleasures! Everything from gardening to cooking, cycling, Netflix, Whatsapp calls and texts, Zoom conferences with my family, community group (East Meets West), and choir, and reconnecting with our former church in London online. I am more in touch with old friends from childhood than ever before. In fact thinking about these questions is making me realise how much the past is feeding me during lockdown!

I also enjoy my daily video chats with the asylum seeker I support. The relationships within our community group have further developed through the lockdown and that is a real source of mutual joy and blessing. I would say the same about my weekly calls to my aged aunt, and occasional calls to a cousin who lives alone and whom I rarely had contact with prior to the lockdown. Generally it is the peace and quiet, the regular rhythm of life, the increased contact with nature and the wonderful weather that I am enjoying.

How about you? I love that idea of the past feeding us in the present. I’m not sure I’d been aware of it. Who could you reconnect with at this time? I’m going to make sure I ring my grandma more regularly.

About Her: Brenda Kanyasi

Today About Her goes overseas to Mombasa, Kenya to hear from Brenda Kanyasi. Brenda is the admin office manager at Tumaini School (set up by Education for Life) , and lives in the community nearby. Brenda is involved in school and her church activities. She loves kids and has tremendous compassion for families in need. Brenda is hugely knowledgeable and wise, she is also very humble and loves to see people succeed.

Q1. How do you pray?
I do find a silent place where I can’t get interrupted, that is either lock myself in the room, sit or sometimes kneel down,sometimes a too lazy and when lying down I do pray too. I always do a thanks giving prayer or  a request prayer. Sometimes, I do it silently in my heart either when at work or just busy with work.

Q2. How do you read the Bible?
Honestly I have someone from church that sends me every days reading on my WhatsApp so that helps me easily each day to get the reading or either like now sometimes I get also from different friends sharing the reading of every Sunday on WhatsApp and this helps me easily to read the Bible.

Sometimes I read books or motivational stories where people share testimonies and bible verses, I use different types of methods to read the Bible.

Q3. What’s your favourite Bible verse for this season?
Psalm 23.

Q4. What songs are you singing at the moment?
Praise and worship songs eg a song called I have no other God than you. You have done what no man has done, you will do what no man can by Nathaniel Bassey.

Q5. What is bringing you joy in lockdown?
I can still get my salary which helps me put food on my table and support the family and I am still safe and believe I will be safe from the virus. 

Being able to support at least one poor family during this season despite the little I provide but seeing the smile on their face makes me feel happy and blessed.

I am trying to keep in touch with friends, trying to spend most of my time with children at the orphanage: working together, chatting, praying together and watching games that they do during free time and join in where I can.

I also do some work (job duties) to help me feel normal.

Massive thanks to Brenda for sharing her everyday faith in this time. A wonderful reminder that the church of God is not bound by country borders. Perhaps today you can spend some time reading Psalm 23 – by yourself, or with a friend – and asking God to remind you of how he shepherds you. Or widen your playlist and listen to more from Nathaniel Bassey here.

About Her: B Dyer

Here we are… our next instalment! I hope you’re all feeling encouraged and inspired by these stories of everyday faith. I’ll let B introduce herself…

Hi! I’m B. My real name is Bethany but I only ever get called that at work, which I still hate. I’m a social worker and mum to two absolute babes Annabelle 5 and Florence 3. Whenever I get asked where I’m from I never know what to say. I moved around roughly every three years of my childhood (vicars daughter problems). When I was 18 I moved out and started a ‘Christian gap year’ which I swiftly gave up on. I then moved to York where I worked as a youth worker and after that ended up going to uni. At some point in the York years, I got married to Ben and we moved to the tiny land of Burscough where we still live 7 years later, the longest I’ve lived anywhere! After 6 years of planting and leading a church called Red Ben started training to be a vicar, so I guess that makes me an almost vicars wife, although I feel like I’ve been one forever. Outside of social work, being a mum and vicar wife-ing you will find me working on some sort of creative project, normally party based (any excuse) taking long lush baths or doing something with people – my extrovertedness just craves the company of others which I’m finding particularly difficult under our current lockdown life. 

I am going to be completely honest with you, I feel a little like I’m the wrong person to be answering these questions Olivia has asked me. Although I have been a Christian for as long as I can remember and to be fair I’m pretty into God, I don’t feel like I’ve got a lot of these things ‘sorted’. But, if I have learnt anything in my almost 32 years of life it is that actually none of us feels like we have things ‘sorted’ and reading other people’s truth is actually really helpful so here we go…

Q1. How do you pray?
Sporadically. There have been different times in my life where I have had routine and rhythm to my prayer life but since having children I have never got back into one. I mostly connect with God through music and being in nature. I can’t help but have an internal, and often external, “WOW isn’t God flipping amazing” moment when surrounded by God’s beautiful creation, which leads to a moment of thanks in his presence. My absolute favourite thing to do, and where I hear God most clearly, is by blaring out a Christian playlist, getting lost in the music and taking time to tune into the lyrics. I also enjoy a guided meditation. I really struggle to be still, make my mind stop and tune in to God. I find that through guided meditation I have something to focus on while stilling my mind. I’m hoping longer term it will help me hear God more clearly.   

Q2. How do you read the Bible?
Again, full disclosure here, I do not do this regularly. This is something I have struggled with forever. I have never found reading the bible easy and will often use my hate of reading (like, I really hate it!) as an excuse. In an attempt to change this, I have recently bought myself a colouring in journaling Bible. I have found that by having space and freedom to draw all over it, write notes, questions and use colour has been really helpful. I also like re-writing bits of the Bible, I find this helps my brain take it in.

Q3. What’s your favourite Bible verse for this season?
I’m not sure what my favourite Bible verse for this season is, but my favourite Bible verse of all time has to be Acts 2:44-47.

This speaks so powerfully to me about the church and how the church should be. I guess in our current situation, living under coronavirus, this still has a lot to teach us. If us doing church is knowing our community, its joys, its pain and its needs then we can be intentionally and actively trying to meet these needs. This could be through prayer, giving to each other financially, through sharing what we have – our lives and our hearts. All those things can still exist even while we can’t be with each other. I think in some ways the world has been doing a good job of being community under lockdown. Thousands of people signing up to volunteer, neighbourhood WhatsApp groups starting, street bingo from your front garden (this genuinely happened on my street today), people delivering food to shielding relatives/friends/neighbours, people being far more intentional in their relationships. This, for me anyway, is what the church should look like all the time!

Q4. What songs are you singing at the moment?
So many! About 3 weeks ago I had a real God moment while driving back from work. I was listening to Lauren Daigle “Love like this” (told you most of my God moments happen via music). The lyrics go “what have I done to deserve love like this.” Now I know that for a lot of us we have heard about God’s love a lot – like a lot a lot. It’s kind of a big deal, the pinnacle of the Christian faith, but I felt it afresh. I really have done nothing to deserve it, yet here it is overwhelmingly outpoured on me. After coming out of that I remembered life right now, lockdown life. But rather than feel sad about it, I almost gained a new perspective. Even with how life is right now, with all it’s restrictions, frustrations, worry and loneliness, that does not change the overwhelming love of God. We can often let our situation or circumstance dictate how we feel or think and that can then affect our relationship with God. But the way God thinks about us does not change. The truth of his sacrifice does not change. His goodness does not change. I honestly felt, there in that moment, that if the worst were to happen and one of my babies were to die, I would still be thankful for God’s love, his sacrifice, that has saved me.

Q5. What is bringing you joy in lockdown?
My girls. However much they drive me bonkers they have equally saved me. As mentioned above I am an extrovert, full-on 100% extrovert who happens to be married to an introvert. The girls have given me company, routine, a mission to make lockdown life fun and of course an excuse for a creative project – school. That alongside working means there is no time to let myself dwell on the parts of life that are  really tough (I desperately want to see my family, squeeze my sisters and go to soft play with my mummy friends). I know I am biased but those little babes are joy bringers and I am blumming thankful for them!

I hope and pray that wherever you are and however you are experiencing lockdown that you wholeheartedly know the love of God. That you can separate your external circumstances from your eternal worth and that you can cling to the truth that God is good! 

Thanks B! Why not follow the above link to listen to Love Like This and let God’s love wash over you? See you all again next week for more encouragement and everyday faith from awesome women.

About Her: Abi Andrews

Abi is a student worker based in Lancashire, who loves to drink tea and gin (though not at the same time). She’s a brilliant writer, loves to read and has a love for all things Disney. Over it all, Abi is passionate about Jesus and sharing his love with whoever she meets.

Q. How do you pray?
During lockdown, I’ve been on furlough which has given me time to try a few new things – a couple of books which have really helped me here have been Paul Miller ‘A Praying Life’ and currently reading through Pete Greig ‘How to Pray’. Some things I love are keeping an encouragement prayer journal where I can record prayers, words, quotes and answers to prayer to look back on, particularly in harder times, and remember how faithful God has been. Another thing (from ‘A Praying Life’) is making prayer cards – this started mostly out of my love of pretty stationery! I have a few nice cards for people I am praying for regularly (one for each person) with lines of scripture that I think really relate to them or a situation they are in and pray these things for them. I often find it hard to sit in silence in prayer but this is something I’m trying to do more in order to listen as well as just speak! My church has also been doing daily prayer meetings in lockdown, going through the Lectio 365 app, which I have found a really great start to the day and also just praying where I can throughout the day as situations arise or on long walks in the countryside! 

I must say though that not all of these are by any means regular or frequent but also like I said I have been blessed with time in this season to at least try them! 

Q2. How do you read the Bible?
Normally just in the mornings when I wake up sat in bed. I usually go through a book at a time (have just been enjoying the psalms) but again, there are lots of different ways that I’d like to try to shake things up a bit. I did a Bible in a Year plan last year for the first time which I really enjoyed and really appreciated the structure of not having to decide what to read next but this year some other things I’d like to try in my quiet times: 

Reading through books of the Bible with commentaries. 

Reading through larger chunks of narrative and just enjoying the stories (I studied literature!) 

In an internship I studied a very small amount of New Testament Greek (with incredibly limited knowledge) but a Greek Bible and a dictionary, reading very small amounts, maybe a verse a day spending longer over each word, meditating on the words in their original language. 

Reading through smaller sections, maybe a couple of times and perhaps even out loud, probably psalms or a couple of verses from a letter, praying them through or just reflecting and thinking about them (and hopefully those bits might come back later in the day!) 

Q3. What’s your favourite Bible verse for this season?
For the last few years one of my favourite books in the bible has actually been Lamentations – it sounds like a curveball but the literature student in me just loves the structure and language and my favourite thing would have to be the centre point of Hope punching through all the dark right in the middle: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘the LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him’”. (Lamentations 3:22-24). For the full affect, I would highly recommend just sitting and reading through Lamentations or even just chapter 3 to really feel the power of such hope in difficult times. 

Q4. What songs are you singing at the moment?
There are lots of really great worship songs I’m enjoying at the moment and am blessed to be part of groups who have put together various worship playlists for this time but a couple of the potentially slightly more quirky things I like: I’ve been loving listening to kids worship songs recently because I’ve found they are just the best for dancing round the kitchen to (and also just contain some really profound but simple truth). A favourite in that regard at the moment would be ‘Ask, Seek, Knock’ by Hillsong Kids, recently introduced to me, a real banger. 

I’ve also been enjoying listening to some Spanish worship songs. I have very limited Spanish knowledge but I find the language beautiful and I also think there is something beautiful about worship that goes beyond words and language. Some of these are songs I actually know (in English) and so can follow along but both of these remind me that the gospel goes so far beyond my own life context, is for everyone and is bigger than I can imagine. I sometimes feel like these can give me just the tiniest glimpse into what the party in Heaven will look like. 

Q5. What is bringing you joy in lockdown?
So many things! I’ve enjoyed get stuck into our new ‘online’ way of doing church including helping to run a kids holiday club, enjoying quizzes and fun times with our life group and starting an alpha course this week. But mostly I’ve enjoyed relaxing and really learning the meaning of rest so we’ve got Disney+ which is a real win, I’ve been reading a lot more, tackling a jigsaw puzzle, very much enjoying the sun when I can and mostly have really loved discovering new places on longer walks with beautiful views and finding lots of fun wildlife on my way. I’ve also been able to get involved helping a little bit behind the scenes for a city support line which has been good. I think this time has taught me an awful lot about how really blessed I actually am, I have been seeing how lucky I am to have so many good gifts in my life and the chance to really enjoy them. 

Thank you, Abi! I absolutely LOVE the idea of worshipping with songs in another language: a true taste of that no language barrier worship of heaven. Stay tuned for more encouraging stories of everyday faith next week with About Her.

About Her: Olivia Haines

About Her is my new regular blog feature, where I’ve asked many different women from all sorts of different backgrounds about their faith. I hope it’ll give you food for thought, encourage you in your own faith journey and maybe even inspire you to try something new.

It’s me, Olivia! I’m the creator of this blog, so it felt right that I’d be the first to undergo the questions. I’m a wife, mum of 1 pre-schooler and training to be a priest in the Church of England. I live in Lancashire, and I love to run. I’m not particularly fast, but it’s great for the mind so I keep plodding on. I am passionate about the sharing of stories – I think we understand so much more when we’ve heard some of the story behind a person. Stories give us insight and encouragement; they can move us to laughter or tears; they can create community and a shared identity. Stories are brilliant!

Q1. How do you pray?
In all sorts of different ways, mainly sporadically throughout the day. I’ll be walking somewhere and spot something and it prompts a prayer in me. If I hear an ambulance siren (which I do quite a lot, because of our proximity to a hospital) I pray for protection over that life and for strength and peace for those treating the patient. I love to pray in bed, before I go to sleep. For me there is no better way to end the day than to run through it all again and let God know where I struggled and where my heart soared. Sometimes I even let God get a word in edgeways and he shows me where he was at work.

Pre-lockdown, I had my routine of dropping the 4yo at pre-school each morning and praying over her before she went in. Then, as I was driving home I would turn on my Bible audio to listen before getting home for some silence. However, that routine has disappeared, with pre-school closed. Instead, I’ve been praying with the 4yo. Sometimes she joins in, sometimes she doesn’t. We always say the Lord’s Prayer together – because she knows its rhythm – and then I’ll just start praying out loud and sometimes she will just start praying her own prayers over mine. Most of the time she just picks her nose and climbs over me, but sometimes we have these magical moments. In fact, this reminds me that I need to ask her more what does she think God’s saying to her / us.

Final bit on prayer with a small person, I promise. About 18 months ago we were walking through town. Well, I was walking, and carrying a rather heavy and lazy 2.5 year old. She closed her eyes and then said amen. I asked her why she’d said amen, and she told me that the man we had just passed was sad so she prayed for him. Children – even tiny ones – can pray. Sometimes we just need to help them.

Q2. How do you read the Bible?
If you’d asked me this question 18 months ago, I’d have said not very well. I think one of the only ways to read the Bible badly is if you just don’t read it consistently. I was a dipper. Dip in, dip out. I followed study plans which jumped around different parts of scripture. And then that all changed.

I was inspired to read the overarching story from beginning to end, which meant going deep into the Old Testament. I’d largely avoided anything tricky or heavy because I just didn’t have the stomach for it. But one lecture on Deuteronomy changed all of that, and so in June last year I began following a Bible in One Year plan and I’m not just a month away from completing it. Sometimes it has been heavy, but the overwhelming feeling I have from it is that the more I read God’s word, the more I hear God speaking to me about my life and the lives of others around me. And the more I read God’s word, the more I can see my life and character changing (for the better). And the more I see that… the more I want to read the Bible.

So, I read it. I read a portion of the Old Testament and then a portion of the New Testament, and sometimes a Psalm or Proverb too. I have missed my old plans which were more devotional in content and included questions and reflections, but I have enjoyed reading through the entire Bible in one year with 2 other people. It’s kept us accountable, and it’s been good to share questions and thoughts.

The best advice I’ve ever had on reading the Bible is: read your Bible, read it all, read it slowly, read it again.

Q3. What’s your favourite Bible verse for this season?
I’ve had a few that I’m clinging to in this time. One in particular is from Habbakuk 3, where the writer is saying even though there are no grapes on the vines, the fields produce no food, calamity is at our door, “yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.” Lockdown has been hard for many reasons – even though all in our family are well and safe. There have been days where I’ve wept and this verse has helped me to lift my eyes up to my saviour Jesus, to remember that, even in these calamitous times, I can rejoice in Him.

Q4. What songs are you singing at the moment?
I’ve been listening to Elevation Worship’s The Blessing since they premiered it on March 6th this year. You may have seen it’s been turned into various covers by churches across the world, and when I heard it for the first time I just knew that this was an anointed song which would minister in this time. I cannot stop listening to it and singing it out over the streets I run down.

I’m also listening to a lot of Disney because we subscribed to Disney+ at the beginning of lockdown. I love how much Christian truth we can find in what the world would call secular.

Q5. How are you seeking joy in lockdown?
I’ve been seeking joy by giving myself permission to “fail”. By that I mean what society expects of us, or what we expect of ourselves. It just isn’t possible for me at this time to do life at the sort of pace I would normally. I’ve had to slow down and God has hard wrestled much of the busy-ness and distraction out of my head, hands and heart.

As such I’ve been spending much more concentrated time with the 4yo. She starts school in September (hopefully!) so it has been a real joy and privilege to get this extra time to enjoy with her. As soon as I’d relinquished control and stopped beating myself up about all the things I couldn’t do now with her on top of me 24/7, I breathed easier and the joy became easier to find.

So, we bake, we go for bike rides, we sing and read stories, we watch films and have lazy mornings and breakfast in bed. We fall out with each other, we have strops and we even cry together. But above it all I look at her and in her eyes of wonder I find the joy of the everyday, the joy of stripped back living, the joy of an unhurried life.

Tune in next week for the next instalment of About Her. Do get in touch if you’d like to answer the 5 questions. You don’t need to be a mum, but you do have to be a woman.

About Her: Mei Yee Leong

This month I have the pleasure of introducing you to a dear friend, and Christian sister, Mei.
Mei owns her own arts business, specialising in prophetic art, but she also does cool things like bespoke wedding invitations. You can find out more at: https://wonderfullymei.com

So Mei, where did you get the inspiration for Wonderfully Mei and Prophetic Arts?

It actually came from a place of brokenness and the end of myself. It brought true healing and deeper intimacy with my Father. I had bombed out on my PGCE teaching training course, ending up feeling incredibly deflated, worn out, confused and battered and bruised (ego, that is!). I felt I had given so much, only to not have that much to walk away with. That year was the worst year in my entire life. I had never felt so under appreciated, undervalued and not seen.

I sort of “fell into” it … and it started just from painting. And somehow, other people had seen those and wanted to buy them. From there on out … it has been a slow and arduous journey of branching out into design, and branding, and even providing Virtual Assistant Services too.

In a way, Wonderfully Mei Designs has become my redemptive blessing. She has taught me how to see my own worth, my own value, and my own skills. That I am worth something, that I have much to give to the world, that I am seen from this tiny corner of the world.

Obviously, prophetic art requires a lot of prayer and keeping that line with God open. How do you pray?

I tend to do it throughout the day, through conversational dialogue. So, I will talk to Him about things, and He will respond. Sometimes, with silence … sometimes with words. It gets quite amusing at times but He is incredibly loving and understanding. I think the dynamics change, the more revelation we receive about who God is.

Sometimes a simple “ask” prayer is good too; e.g. asking for peace or for insight about something.

Sometimes I will pray the Lord’s Prayer; I think this is a good, solid prayer to pray if you are every feeling stuck for what to pray exactly. If we pray God’s will into our life, we can never go wrong.

I also pray God’s sovereignty over my life and alignment too, if I ever feel like I am going off track.

How do you read the Bible?

Usually, as directed by the Holy Spirit. God will often direct certain passages or specific pieces of scripture. These will often confirm or highlight me to what may come in my life, in that season.

What’s your favourite bible verse for this season you’re in?

For the past few years, the verse:

So you’re definitely a Spirit girl. What’s your favourite worship song (of all time, or now)?

There are so many but the one that remains and speak to me strongly and consistently in every season, is probably ‘Your Love Never Fails’ by Jesus Culture.

I am also a huge fan of any and all of Israel Houghton music, just because he writes scripture into his music so well. It’s so good to be able to sing scripture over ourselves. It is very life-giving.

Tell me about a favourite piece of art.

This, ‘Tidal Wave’, is a favourite. I painted it entirely with my fingers, and it was very spontaneous. I think it is a favourite because of the rawness and spontaneity of it.

If there was someone reading my blog wondering how to step out and ask for spiritual gifting, how would you advise them?

I would pray about it. And ask someone with discernment for recognising spiritual giftings to pray for you too! For me, my giftings have come incredibly naturally and organically, as I have grown deeper in intimacy with God.

“As your love, in wave after wave, crashes over me, crashes over me. For you are for us, you are not against us. Champion of heaven you made a way for all to enter in.”

Thanks, Mei! What is your hope for your prophetic art?

My hope is for people to receive from God in some way, to be blessed by the messages they read from it and to elicit some sort of emotional response. I don’t want my paintings just to be pretty. I hope that my paintings glorify God.

To also bless those who wish to commission them too.

In the long run, it would be awesome if I managed to get at least one piece in a famous, national art gallery or at least on the front of a book cover (yes, dream big!). Whatever comes first! But, that is up to God really.

(NB: This sunflower was a prophetic piece done for me. The first time I looked at it, I just thought, ‘huh! Great painting!’ Then, midway through my NQT year when I was feeling battered and had lost my zest for life I found it again. This time, I looked at the words on the back. Written on it was a message of encouragement, reminding me that I am like the sunflower: an encourager, a giver of energy and light to others. It picked me up, just at the right time, but also is a daily reminder as to who I am in Christ.)

About Her: Gemma Tuson

Introducing my new monthly feature: About Her. Through this feature I want to showcase brilliant Christian women, their passions and their callings. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Gemma Tuson, creator of the new Be Loved course.

Gemma, what is Be Loved?

Be Loved is a course specifically devised for 14-17 year olds, and runs as six weekly sessions, lasting two hours, in groups of 8-10 with two facilitators. The heart of Be Loved is to see young women thrive within themselves, their relationships and with God. We are passionate about inspiring healthy self-respect and encourage the ability to make valuable life choices. Through the ‘Be Loved’ course we are equipping the group members to deal with life’s challenges head-on, using practical exercises and biblical truth. We love to see young women enjoying the life they have been given, and being excited for their future. 

Where did you get the inspiration for Be Loved?

I’d been working with groups of girls for a while doing various creative workshops, and I was very aware that the majority of teenage girls I met had moderate to low self-esteem. I knew of some fab self-esteem courses but I hadn’t heard of one that included some good, solid biblical truths that they could stand firm on. I felt a strong calling from God to write Be Loved, and through dreams, prayer and various words He definitely directed it.

You speak so wisely of the need to be sure God’s love for us, in order that we live full lives. Has there been a time when you felt unsure of God’s love for you?

Yes. My dad died 6 weeks before my wedding day. I really struggled to get my head round why my Heavenly Father would take away my earthly father so close to the most important day of my life. I was really angry, but didn’t know how to express it, as there was so much going on in my life around that time. I was getting married, leaving my family home and moving into my new house with my new husband. It all felt so surreal. People were telling me how brave I was so I put on a brave persona. Really though, inside, I was in a sad, angry state, but didn’t know how to show it.

That must have been an incredibly difficult time in your life, and faith. How did you come out of it?
It took me 6 years to come to a place where I finally recognised I wasn’t doing ok. I was going to church but I wasn’t praying and had lost my relationship with God. I went for some Christian counseling, which helped me talk about all the hurt I’d been holding onto, and I was able to process my feelings towards God. I knew I either had to work through it, and pursue God, or walk away from my faith. Just after that I read a book called ‘Crazy Love’ by Francis Chan, and it really helped me to realise how much God loves me, and I finally started to come to terms with what had happened.

Obviously faith is an integral part of our lives, but we are busy as mums. How do you pray and read the Bible?

My prayers are usually arrow prayers throughout the day. I have two children, and my husband works at home, so I never really have any alone time! 

I try to get up before the rest of the house and have some time reading the Bible. I like to use bible studies, as I find them really helpful. I love the ‘She Reads Truth’ app and I have found that their commentary gives me fresh insight.

I’m a massive fan of singing, and find such joy when singing to God. What’s your favourite worship song?
I often wake singing ‘Good, good Father‘. It’s like my soul is singing it. Which is amazing since I had a period in my life where I didn’t think He was a very good Father!

Do you have a favourite verse from the Bible?
I have a few favourites!

For being brave:

1John 4;4 “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

For work and relationships:

1 John 3;19 “We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.”

For my soul:

Matthew 11;28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

You have a clear calling to serve teenage girls. One problem that seems to come up a lot is the pressure to conform to societal expectations when it comes to sex and relationships. If there was a young girl struggling with pressures of a modern day relationship, wanting advice, what would you say to her?
Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. God wants the BEST for you and your relationships, if it’s not the best then it may not be right. 

Finally, what is your hope for Be Loved and the girls who use it?

My hope is that churches will provide the girls in their churches with the opportunity to do Be Loved. That the young women who complete the course, will leave knowing deep down in their hearts that they are so greatly loved, who they are and who they were created to be, and be completely comfortable with that.

Thank you, Gemma, for sharing some of your story and faith with me. 

If you would like to know more, please visit the Be Loved website where you can find out more information and even buy the course. When I was a teenager, I know I really struggled with self-esteem and finding my identity in God’s love for me. Despite the fact I went to a Christian school, the days and events put on to help build our confidence and self-esteem were very general and not built on the solid foundations of truth found in God’s word. Perhaps you’re a church leader, a parent of a teenage girl, or maybe you are a teenage girl who wants to access this course. Get in touch with Gemma, and allow God to build you up in the knowledge of his love.

Be Loved.