Blog
From and about women who love Jesus and want to share His message through Scripture, everyday inspirations, and relatable stories.
Once upon a time, I shared my life with Charlotte (not her real name). Although we didn’t live in the same town, she and I prayed for each other regularly, cheering one another on.
Soon my family will move from north London to the suburbs in southwest London, a geographical change of only twenty-five miles that for me feels much bigger in scope. I’m sad to leave our beloved home of over two decades, and I’m struggling to drum up excitement for the new.
Can you imagine not noticing when you’re hungry? My friend’s teenage daughter has this condition, part of what’s called poor interoception. This technical term refers to the ability to notice and identify signals within the body, in this case hunger.
Lately I’ve been captured by the story of the woman at the well from John’s gospel (John 4:1–30, 39–42). You may know her as a shameful, fallen woman—the woman of many husbands now living in adultery who visits the well in the heat of the day to avoid the villagers’ looks of judgement and stifled whispers.
A line from one of my favorite hymns, “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” has been running through my mind lately: “Morning by morning new mercies I see/All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. . .” I affirm to myself that God provides all that I need, with new mercies every morning.
“Can you really not throw this away?” I say to my husband with irritation, holding up a crumpled piece of paper that I know, before I pick it up, is a list of groceries that he bought at the store.
When in 1995 my friend Amy Young moved to Chengdu, China, to teach English as a “Great Commission” cross-cultural worker, she wasn’t prepared for the proliferation in her new home of what she calls a “free-range animal.” On her first night in this new city, the head of her English department said, “Please mind the doors because there are many mice.” How true those words proved to be: mice nibbling the flowers next to her bed; mice running over her face as she slept; mice that she finally, with a frying pan, had to put out of their misery when they got caught in the sticky-paper trap.
“Your flight has been canceled.” The notification popped up on my phone during team-building sessions. I tried to stay focused on the intense conversations about our personality styles while wondering what new travel plans I would need to embrace. Knowing that my driving nature can get things done but can also alienate others, I wanted to be present in the meeting. I breathed a prayer, asking Jesus to help me.