random reflections after a busy summer

Here I am, sitting down to write, and how strange it feels! The kids are back at school, but the year hasn't yet settled into shape.

We've had a bustling summer. Dusty trips to the zoo and damp trips home from the pool.

School books and shoes and pencils and calculators bought and - mostly - labelled.

Jogging along the beach with my daughter, a 10-year-old discovering he loves boogie boarding, my three sons inventing endless games.

The school holidays have left me feeling like I do at the end of a jog: sweaty and hot and tired, but also, somehow, satisfied and rested.

I did have one chance to draw breath. For two precious days, I went away with close friends and we did what women do: took our lives apart, examined them, and put them back together.

It seemed to me that my life is like a tree with too many branches. Some need to be cut out so others can grow more strongly. Two branches in particular need pruning:

• ministry in church and uni - over the next year or so, I'd like to narrow my focus to one area, not several
• writing - I might need to do less of some kinds, so I have time for others ...

... and that's where you come in. I know you love my online meanderings, because you've told me so. But, for the moment, I think they'll have to go.

Last year my son was very sick. He didn't have great holidays, and I'll be caring for him this year. There are few hours in the day when I'm just me, with time to make a home and see people and do my own stuff.

One of the things I want to do over the next 5 or 10 years - God willing - is write. Blog posts, articles, seminars. Maybe even a book or two. But to do that, you need to make time to get your backside on a chair and write, regularly and often.

I think 2014 might be a year for laying foundations to build on. Here are some of the oddly-shaped stones I'd like to put in place:

• declutter our house
• set up a writing space
• learn New Testament Greek
• keep jogging
• read lots of books
• start a new training day for women at our church
• re-design this blog (with the help of a friend).

We do what we can with the time God gives us. I love caring for our family. I want to keep pouring time and energy into other people too. But I've also discovered that I love to write - and people tell me to keep at it - so here we are.

It's good to be back writing again, even if it's just this post.

guess who's coming to dinner

Another writing prompt from my friend Meredith.

I read it, and think - a process that always takes a few weeks with me - "Hmmm... CS Lewis? JRR Tolkien? Marilynne Robinson? ..."

At this point my brain freezes over, and I realise, "Oh my goodness! I'm sitting at a table with a bunch of Intelligent, Knowledgable, Articulate people, of whom I am Completely And Utterly In Awe, and I have Absolutely Nothing To Say!"

And what on earth would I cook? And where's the beautifully set table? And the open fireplace? And the muted lighting?

And is that my kids arguing over a video game - oh, please children, couldn't it at least be a book? - over in the corner?

Performance anxiety about a purely hypothetical situation: a seven-word summary of me.

My mind shies away from this scenario and turns to a plaque that hung on the wall near the dining table when I was a child. A cut-glass rectangle with gothic lettering, it proclaimed:

Christ is the Head of this house,
the Unseen Guest at every meal,
the Silent Listener to every conversation.

Even that gave me some performance anxiety growing up.

But at least Jesus is used to our plain table with its simple food and ordinary conversation. And he's not talking over my head. He's talking to me.


And yes, I know I'm being very unfair to CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien and Marilynne Robinson. To whom I say, "It's not you. It's me."


This was written in response to Meredith's writing prompt.

CS Lewis on ambition

I just read this in a letter by CS Lewis. If there's anything in you that longs for success or recognition or  admiration - in fact, if there's anything in you that is tempted to value anything more highly than God (and surely that's all of us!) - then this is for you.

From the age of sixteen onwards I had one single ambition (becoming a successful writer), from which I never wavered, in the prosecution of which I spent every ounce I could, on which I really and deliberately staked my whole con­tentment: and I recognise myself as having unmistakably failed in it. I feel that I have some right to talk to you as a man in the same boat.

The side of me which longs, not to write, for no one can stop us doing that, but to be approved as a writer, is not the side of us that is really worth much. And depend upon it, unless God has abandoned us, he will find means to cauterise that side somehow or other. If we can take the pain well and truly now and by it forever the wish to be dis­tinguished beyond our fellows.

And honestly, the being cured, with all the pain, has pleasure too: one creeps home, tired and bruised into a state of mind that is really restful, when all one’s ambitions have been given up. Then one can really say for the first time, “Thy Kingdom come.” For in that Kingdom there will be no pre-eminences and a man must have reached the stage of not caring two straws about his own status before he can enter it.

Think how difficult that would be if one succeeded as a writer: how bitter this necessary purgation at the age of sixty, when literary success had made your whole life and you had then got to begin to go through the stage of seeing it all as dust and ashes. Perhaps God has been specially kind to us in forcing us to get over it at the beginning.

At all events, whether we like it or not, we have got to take the shock. As you know so well, we have got to die. Cry, kick, swear, we may: only to come in the end and die far more painfully and later.

I would have given almost anything—I shudder to think what I would have given if I had been allowed—to be a successful writer. I am writing as I do simply and solely because I think the only thing for you to do is absolutely to kill the part of you that wants success.

CS Lewis They Stand Together: The Letters of CS Lewis to Arthur Greeves 379-340

the best advice ever

No hide, no Christmas box.

Right now, your face is blank. Unless you're among the privileged few who has heard this phrase before. Think about it for a minute... Got it?

Nothing?

Well, think of it this way: No courage, no reward.

There are mothers who raise their kids with oodles of cuddles and lashings of sympathy. There are mothers who raise their kids with a hands-off, you-can-do-it attitude. And there are mothers who raise their kids with pithy sayings.

My mum, like her mum before her, was one of the last kind (the first kind, too). I've had no cause to regret it. Present me with a sticky situation, and you can be pretty sure that one of my mum's sayings is on the tip of my brain, rescuing me from my not-so-carefree personality.

The other day, I asked a sales assistant to take half the price off a half-way-through-the-year Tolkien calendar, and she did. I'm not the type to approach a stranger and ask for something, so I've got my mum to thank for the extra money in my wallet. No hide, no Christmas box.

Here's another. Imagine your son is the saddest-looking clown in school, not having a shiny wig like all the other clowns, just a random collection of drooping clothes from his sister's dress-ups. Not that this would ever happen to me. But if it did, I might happen to say, as my mother said to me, It's not the end of the world. Because it's not.
 
I was once on the tram, scrambling for my ticket, when something embarrassing and *cough* feminine may or may not have fallen out of my handbag, in full view of the passengers. It must run in the family: my Grandma carried out an entire conversation with the milkman at the door ignoring the underpants around her ankles, the elastic having given way thanks to a bad case of pregnancy belly. Oh well, You've got to laugh or you'd cry.

You know those little phrases that get handed down like a family fingerprint? Every time my mum and I set off on a mother-daughter outing, the seat belts would click and she'd say, Well, this is fun! Much to my daughter's annoyance, it pops out of my mouth (I can't help saying it! I have to say it!) when we set off anywhere. I tell her she'll say it to her daughter one day. She tells me she won't. We'll see.

Now let's put them together.

Let's say, theoretically of course, that your boys are behaving, as boys will, with maximum noise and falling-about, right in the middle of Myer, despite all your tellings-off, and they pull over, of all things, a rack of expensive suits, and the women at the counter gives you a dirty look when you apologise, and says, in a fierce hiss, "I'll fix it", when you offer to put them back ...

It's not the end of the world. Now you're feeling a little better.

You've got to laugh or you'd cry. Now you're giggling.

Isn't this fun? Now you're talking like my mum, and all the better for it.



Written, very, very late - with apologies, but holidays are important, people! - in response to Meredith's writing challenge.

the problem with writing

She echoes my thoughts exactly, especially when I'm asked to sum up my childhood. With each repetition, it threatens to become the tale I tell of it, even when I know it was so much more.

There is the writer's Big Problem. Once you write about something, you contain it - making, despite your best efforts, a poor copy, which then threatens to become all there is, to drain the vast pool of memory, which might otherwise at some future time throw up more, new memories. Just as memories of childhood holidays become confine to the Polaroids we have of them.

Anna Funder

in the middle of a story

Love this quote. So true. (And it's one reason I can rarely write about anything until after it's over, or at least until my thoughts about it have settled into some kind of order - and that rarely happens in the middle of it.)

When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.

~Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace HT Ali

yet another interview with moi

Because I blog, I occasionally get asked to do an interview. Here's one I did for a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who is doing an assignment on media and Christianity and something-or-other (can't remember now!). 

Some of this will be familiar to many of you, but others might enjoy finding out a bit more about my background and what I do from day to day. (It's at times like these that the narcissism of blogging comes to the fore.)

I've picked 11 questions.

1. Briefly describe how you became a Christian.

I was brought up in a Christian home and can’t remember a time I wasn’t a Christian – although I can remember “becoming” a Christian lots of times, until a lady on a beach mission explained to me that you only have to do it once!!

I went through a time of doubt in my late teens, and wrestled with questions like, “Is the Bible true? Is Jesus really who he said he was?”. One day, having established that the New Testament is trustworthy, I sat down and read the gospel of Mark cover-to-cover and realised that, yes, Jesus is everything he said he was – God, Lord, Saviour – and that I never want to be apart from him.

2. What does your average week look like?

I spend the majority of my time caring for our kids and running our home. We have a son with a chronic illness, so that takes up much of my time and energy at the moment. I cook, clean, wash clothes, drive the kids around, and so on...

One morning a week is spent doing student ministry at the university campus nearby; one afternoon and one morning, I try to spend time with mums from school; Thursday evenings we host a church Bible study in our home; Sunday afternoons I’m often in town doing women’s ministry at our church; then we have Sunday evening church and the school week starts again.

Writing - for my own blog and for The Briefing - fits into some of the gaps in my timetable, mostly on weekdays, in the mornings after the school run and in the early afternoon.

3. For how long has your life looked like this?

My oldest daughter is 14, so I’ve been a mum for a long time. Before that I did a PhD in church history and was the female staff worker in our university Christian group. During my years as a mum, I did more or less ministry outside the home depending on the ages and stages of my kids – at first I could do a little, but with 3 and then 4 kids I couldn’t do much at all!

I started writing when my youngest son was 1 or 2, when I started to have some extra time and energy on my hands. As the kids have grown, the time I’ve had for ministry outside the home has gradually increased.

4. What motivated you to start writing your blog? Was there a single significant influence?

I think I was just keen to get back into ministry outside the home after many years raising small children. Blogging was something I could do from home, while caring for my youngest son. I’ve always loved reading, reflecting, teaching, and even, to some extent, writing. Once I started, my passion for the last one surprised me!

5. What do you personally gain from blogging / writing / reading?

It brings me great joy. It gets me into the “zone”, that wonderful place where the words flow onto the screen. It gives me relaxation and a release from all the practical, everyday duties of running a home. I’m an introvert, so when I read and write, it’s time away from other people. I love this time when I can focus on one task rather than trying endlessly to multitask and cope with the demands of four very different children.

I love the sense of achievement that comes with blogging. I tend to be a task-oriented perfectionist, and there’s not many chances to finish a task when you run a home - the clothes need washing again, the kids need to be fed again in a few hours - so I love the way you can write something and then polish it until it says exactly what you want it to say.

I also love the process of reading - reflecting - writing, filling my mind with the Bible and with other people’s reflections until I get my head around an issue and have something to say about it, then expressing that as clearly as I can.

So blogging is a perfect fit for me and gives me great satisfaction and rest.

6. In what ways does your Christian faith help you in your life, or to deal with particular issues you are concerned about?

In what ways doesn’t it? Jesus is the answer to every longing, every quest for truth, every despair. Every issue I grapple with, I bring to the Bible, and wrestle with God’s word until I have some understanding of what he wants to say. Every personal struggle, every grief and anxiety, finds its answer in God, so I bring it to him and struggle with him in prayer and read his word and ask for his help until there’s some connect between his truth and the way I feel.

7. Was your family important in developing or stimulating your interest in what you do?

My parents are committed, active Christians who read the Bible with my brother and me regularly and taught us about God. My father was a maths lecturer who taught me to think clearly and logically. My mother was an English teacher who fed us books and more books, taught me to love language, and helped train me to write.

So yes, they had a huge impact in turning me into a blogger – although none of us knew it at the time. When I was a teenager, computers were the size of a photocopier, and we certainly hadn’t heard of the Internet or blogging! And I had no plans to “be a writer”. My love for writing surprised me quite late in life!

8. What were your early religious/spiritual experiences? How significant was this in forming your beliefs these days?

My parents never skirted around difficult issues, the kind that adults struggle to understand. So I never felt like there were “too-hard” issues that you couldn’t discuss and come to understand by reading God’s word. I haven’t strayed too far from what they taught me – they were reformed in their understanding of Christianity, and so am I. They taught me to be rigorous in my thinking, which helps me not to be sloppy when I write.

There was also an intense time as a teenager when I, as you might say, “fell in love with God”. That had a big impact later when I chose the topic for my PhD – “The Puritan experience of enjoyment of God”. Part of my motivation as I write is to help reformed evangelicals like me, who can be a little cerebral, to allow ourselves to “feel” as well as believe the truth; to let God’s amazing truth have its full impact on us, heart and mind.

9. How important do you think your work is in relation to the issue you are working on?

I am a small fish in a very big Internet pond. Not quite so big in Christian circles though! Quite a few people read what I write. But this doesn't make me important. Jesus is important, I’m not. And we tend to blow up our importance in our own minds, don’t we?

I went through a mini mid-life crisis when I wanted my name to be remembered beyond the grave. Now I’m just happy if, in God’s mercy, I’m able to encourage someone to persevere in the faith, build them up in God’s truth, help them grow into Christian maturity, and, most wonderfully, help someone come to Christ.

10. How important is the media (in general) or the type of media you use (e.g. blogger)?

Important in what way? Blogging is certainly wide-reaching – or, at least, it has the potential to be, I’m sure much of what bloggers write disappears into the void, never to be read by anyone outside their own small circle. But it has the power to reach into people’s everyday reading, into homes across the globe, into countries closed to the gospel. So yes, it has the potential to be very powerful.

11. Can the media change people? If so, how? Or how does it not change people?

People are changed – really changed, from the inside out – when God’s truth makes its way into their hearts and wins them away from their false gods and idols to trust in Jesus and live for him. The media can help do this in the way any words can do this: through God’s word (2 Timothy 3:16-17), as we speak the truth in love into each others’ lives (Eph 4:15).

When I write, I think of the reader on the other end of what I write. I try to love them, to not write what is harsh or unloving, to write what will be helpful to them as they read. I try to write as well as I can because God’s truth makes its way more easily into people’s hearts if it’s clothed in well-crafted language. If any of this changes people, it will be because God, in his grace, has used his Word, through my words, to change their hearts.

So no, on its own the media can’t change people. But yes, it can change people, because God can work through it, as one person speaks his truth to another person. It can happen when non-Christians write true words about the world, or people, or beauty, or horror, or sin. It can happen when Christians write true words about the gospel, or life, or sorrow, or creation. It only changes people by God’s grace.

that moment when...

It's my first day at university, and I'm at an orientation event for a Christian group. I sit in a plastic chair listening to a bespectacled guy speaking on the topic "Good people make God vomit", which intrigues me more than a little. One year later, I give up my medical course and start an arts degree. I've found my vocation: I want to work with uni students, to teach young women about Jesus. Twenty-five years later, kids growing up, I walk back into uni to lead a girls' Bible study, and the past ripples through my mind. I love this as much as ever.

That moment when the world spins...

At that very first meeting, up the back of the room, I notice this guy. He's sitting frog-like, cross-legged on a table, brown legs clad in 80's-style brightly patterned shorts. As girls do, I register: yep, he's cute. His hair is short, his eyes blue. He laughs, head thrown back, and his laughter echoes across the room. Four years later, and we're a cliché: the cautious early days, the Christian uni romance, the all-too-long engagement. We're married, setting up home in a tiny flat filled with the noise of passing trains. Twenty-five years on, and our home is bigger, bursting at the scenes, and our marriage so much more than it used to be.

That moment when the world spins on its axis...

A few weeks into uni, I notice this girl at our Christian group. She has long, dark hair, and there's something about her. She has a quiet presence and a listening ear. She's thoughtful and reflective. She's funny. In my usual deliberate way, I decide I'd like to be friends with her. I sit nearby. We chat. The years pass, and another friend joins us to pray. Together, we live through it all: the free-and-easy uni days, marriage and children, suffering. We uncurl dozens of curly topics. We share and discuss hundreds of books. We weep and laugh and pray. Twenty-five years later, it's hard to imagine travelling this journey alone.

That moment when the world spins on its axis, and everything shifts around you...

I've been at uni for a year or so, and I'm chock-full of doubts. Do I believe what my parents told me? Is Christianity real? I delve into books and beg God for help and ask questions of anyone willing to listen. Piece by piece, I build the intellectual scaffolding that will support my adult faith, but it's not enough. One day, I open the gospel of Mark. I try to read like I've never read this before. The guy on the page speaks and dies and rises. He won't let me off the hook and he fills every corner of longing and his love can't be denied. There will still be doubts, but life without him is unimaginable.

That moment when the world spins on its axis, and everything shifts around you, and life...

My long uni days nearly over, I get the news we've been waiting for: I'm pregnant. On my way to tell my husband, walking the straight path by the cemetery, I'm floating, feet treading air. And my daughter is born and three sons come later and it's everything we hoped for and harder than I ever knew. It's sleepless nights and sacrifice. It's dreams laid aside and dreams fulfilled, noise till you can't bear it and chaos over the edge of patience. It's repetitive labour and a thousand sparkling memories. It's a small hand in mine and a child's ardent kisses and a teenager who's become a friend.

That moment when the world spins on its axis, and everything shifts around you, and life will never be the same again.


This was written in response to Meredith's Prompted to write.

a plea to writers

A timely word for writers from Shona Murray:

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the plethora of wonderful Christian books out there? You know you long to learn more about the Lord, but your brain gets frazzled as you check out this book, that book and the next one. Not only that, but you perhaps feel guilty, because some of these long and learned volumes of great godly men just seem out of reach as you try to get the odd nugget here and there for your soul at the end of a weary day.

I do! I would define my problem in two ways:

1. I am a creature of my generation

More and more, I long for simplicity of thought and expression...I long to grasp the point, without having to meander my way through flowery word gardens.

I know there are gems in the old books, rich gems, but by the time I get around the flowery long sentences, I am weary.

You see, my generation and those younger even more so live in the age of sound bites, bullet points and the simplest of English.

2. I cannot see the wood for the trees.

In a world full of stuff and clutter, I long for less clutter and that goes for writing style. Sometimes I...have read a book on a great subject of spiritual importance, but by the end of the chapter, there have been so many “heads” and “subheads” that I wonder if I still have my own head. I can’t remember what I read several pages back. Again, I spotted some great gems, but now they are gone, as if fallen into a bag with a hole at the bottom...

A plea

In a day of much spiritual shallowness, there is a crying need for Christian books which have the spiritual weight of the past and reverence the Word of God, but in contemporary language...

Here is a plea to the many talented Reformed Christian authors out there.

Do you want to reach this generation? Do you want them to not just buy books, but read them?...

Give us the great spiritual gems of the past, but in contemporary English that our generation can understand. Many lives will be changed.

Christ Himself was the greatest example of how to communicate these truths simply.

"And the common people heard Him gladly..." Mark 12:3

Read the rest here.

I just felt like writing this, so I did

This is one of those times I just feel like writing.

This is what I do when the day has left me weary.

This is what I do when my gnarly thoughts need untangling.

This is what I do when I want to make something beautiful.

This is what I do when I need to talk to myself about God's truth.

This is what I do when I'd like to pass on an interesting thought.

This is what I do when I need a space with no one talking in it.

This is what I do to breathe.

This is what I do,

Even when I have nothing to say,

Even when all I have is this.


image is by Jim Blob Blann at flickr

a quote to stick near my computer

Our aim in communication should be to glorify and please the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:9). The startling truth about speech is that our words either serve to glorify and please Him or they exalt and please ourselves.

Elyse Fitzpatrick Helper by Design 167.

coming up for air

Spending time online can leave me feeling disembodied. So can long days spent studying, writing or editing.

I feel hazy, disconnected, like when I've been swimming and there's water in my ears and my eyes are a little unfocussed and the world looks blurry blue.

I'm grateful for the things that ground me. For a child curling into the crook of my arm while I read a picture book. For wind tangling my hair when I walk out the door. For a husband who wants my company that evening. For a floor that needs vigorous vacuuming. For a coffee-shop conversation that lets me into a friend's life and thoughts.

I catch myself breathing in the smell of my son's hair or running my fingers along the bark of a tree or staring into the distance just to remind myself that it's real, and oh, so much bigger than the confines of my mind.

How grateful I am to God for this very solid world.

an interview about blogging and writing

Here's an interview I did with my friend Susie. If you want to know how blogging fits into my life, how I think about the whole writing thing, and how this has changed over the years, here it is!

What does being creative mean to you?

Words flowing as if they have nothing to do with me. Walking or listening to music until I’m in that relaxed state where ideas float into my mind. Working hard when the ideas aren’t coming. Editing until every sentence is like a carefully-placed line in a painting. Going to sleep with a question and waking up with an answer. That joyous moment when I know just what to say and how to say it. Running to the computer and typing it out before I lose it. Learning how to write better (lose the adjectives, cut out the adverbs, say less to say more). Growing in confidence. Uncertainty. Joy.

What things have inspired you, given you pleasure and joy?

Other people’s writing: the kind that makes you slow down and savour every word. The Bible: that “wow!” moment when God’s truth and life intersect. Encouragement: the always unexpected moment when someone comes up and tells me what something I’ve written meant to them. Companionship: when a comment lets me know there are people on the other end of my links and posts, walking with me through the day. Above all, God’s goodness in Jesus: every year, my own efforts mean less to me and his grace and glory mean more.

Where did you grow up and how did family life and your home influence how you see the world and ignite this desire to write?

I grew up in Melbourne. My dad is a mathematician with a logical mind and a soft heart: he taught us to think clearly and to play with words and numbers, and serenaded us with the poems of AA Milne. My mum, an English teacher, nurtured and surrounded us with books and poetry: CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, and all the classics. I read and read and read and read, and when I wrote as a child, I wrote in the language of Elyne Mitchell and Paul Gallico.

I don’t think I was a very good writer as a teenager: plenty of sentimental adjectives and purple prose. I only threw myself into writing five years ago, and to this day I don’t quite know why. Perhaps it was lying dormant, waiting to come out. Writing perfectly suits my love of reading and reflecting and sharing what I’ve learned with others – along with the joy of expressing it as clearly and creatively as I can.

What is in all honesty? When did it begin?

In all honesty is my blog. It began in October 2007. I wasn’t planning to start blogging; I didn’t even know much about blogs, but for some reason, I woke up one morning with the idea “blog!” fully formed in my head. My subconscious invented the name in all honesty overnight: my goal was to write honestly about my struggles and to encourage others that they were not alone.

How has it developed and changed over the years?

I learned very, very quickly not to talk too much about other people’s lives online. I also found being vulnerable about my own experiences harder than I expected: it’s bizarre when you see someone face-to-face and they already know what’s going on in your head. I no longer put everything out there as soon as I think and feel it, which I think is emotionally healthy, although I admire bloggers who can do this wisely and well!

I blog less than I used to. I came close to burnout a couple of years ago and had to put writing on hold for a while. That was good for me, because instead of feeling controlled by the need to post every day, blogging became something I’m free to do or not to do, depending on family circumstances and ministry responsibilities and whether I have anything to say. I own my blog, not the other way around!

My writing has inevitably become more professional as I’ve started writing for others. There’s a bigger gap between writing, editing, and pressing “publish”. I miss some of the immediacy and freedom of my early posts. So my blog is still a work in process! At the moment, I’m trying to find a good balance between the new professionalism and the old vulnerability.

What are some of the ways you have had to juggle your creativity around different seasons in life?

I have four children, and I didn’t start blogging till they were all out of babyhood. I think I was beginning to look to the next season of life, and that’s why the creative juices kicked in. Writing, in some ways, was an obvious choice: you can do it from home and it doesn’t disrupt home life too much. It’s not surprising mums with young kids blog: it’s a great way to stay connected with others when you’re at home all day. Then the kids get older, life becomes more mixed, and blogging slows down!

Now all our kids are at school a new season has opened up, with more undistracted time during the day to give to writing (and, paradoxically, lots of new ministries outside the home to distract me from it). Writing is very important to me, but it’s a lower priority than caring for husband, children, home, and people in our church and community, so I fit it into the spare hours and quieter days.

How do you balance family life with time to blog?

I’ve done such a bad job of this at times! I started blogging when my youngest son was only one year old. Looking back, that was probably too early: I was obsessed with my new pastime and gave him less attention than I wanted to at times. I still feel guilty about that. But it’s also true that I was there for him, at home, interacting with him throughout the day: that’s both the curse and the benefit of blogging, that you do it from home.

These days, I don’t usually write during the afternoons and evenings or on weekends: that time is reserved for my husband and children. I also take regular vacations from writing. Giving time to writing does mean that the house is a little less organised! I stay on top of the regular chores, but lots of the extras don’t get done. You have to give up something, but I’d like to make more time for some of these things.

I think introverts often find the chaos of family life and ministry tiring. Writing helps me relax and gives me time alone to reflect and process things, re-energising me so I can better love the people in my life. In that sense, as long as it’s kept within bounds, it helps, not hinders, family life.

What creative people do you admire - writers, artists, cooks.... How have they influenced your writing and thinking?

Novelists who take exquisite care in shaping every word: Marilynne Robinson, Kazuo Ishiguro, Cynthia Voigt. Authors who write about books and writing: Tony Reinke, Mark Tredinick, Annie Dillard. Bloggers who reflect with such wisdom and beauty on their lives and thoughts that I catch my breath: Ali, Nicole, Catherine, Meredith, Cath, and many others, including you, Susie.1 Christian writers whose work is richly textured: CS Lewis, Tim Keller, Paul Tripp, Ed Welch. Theologians who shape how I think about God and the gospel: JI Packer, Don Carson, Tim Chester. I also love music and the visual arts, but the influences are more subtle. You have to soak yourself in good writing to be able to write well.

What opportunities have opened up from blogging?

The biggest one is writing regularly for the Christian magazine The Briefing. It’s such a joy to see my work in print and online where it can encourage others, and it’s still a wonder to me that it’s valued by those I respect. At times, I’ve been able to earn some extra money by writing and editing: I feel very privileged that I can contribute to the family finances doing something I enjoy. I dream about books I might write in the future, but have no firm plans yet. I’ve also been asked to speak at women’s events and conferences, though mostly I say “no”, as I have to be careful not to take on too much. But I love teaching women in our church and university ministry, so I wonder if God will open this door wider when my kids are older.

What’s your goal in writing?

My goal is to bring glory to Jesus as I serve others and help them know and live for him. I think Christian writing can sometimes be a little dry and removed, which is such a pity, because God’s truth grabs and shapes every part of us: thoughts, feelings and actions. It’s rare to see a Christian author who is both rigorous in their thinking and rich in their writing. I know I often fail, but I try (poorly!) to do both these things.

If I could deliver anyone at all to your desk who would you most like to share a cup of tea with?

To be honest, it would be some of the lovely female bloggers I’ve “met” through my writing! I’d also love to sit across the table and chew the fat with people I write for and with at The Briefing: I feel a bit disconnected being part of a writing team that’s not in my home town.

Complete this sentence: I wish I had known......

…that I was free to blog in a way that served Jesus and my family. I’d say to the “me” that started blogging, “Lighten up! The world’s not going to end if you don’t post every day. Breathe. Enjoy your kids. Enjoy the people around you. It doesn’t all revolve around you. It’s about Jesus, not you.”

And finally, what advice would you give someone starting on their journey of blogging?

Be prepared to have your life turned upside-down and inside-out. And if you’re not prepared for that, maybe choose another creative outlet! Nothing you write online ever really disappears, so make sure you’re always fair and kind, remembering that it could be read by the person you’re writing about even if they’re famous. The only way to get good at writing is by doing it, so write a little every day, be brave, and put it out there. Pray before you press “post”, and pray for those who read. Write for God’s glory, not your own. Enjoy the adventure.


1. If you're a blogger and your name isn't here, please don't feel bad! Chances are I still read and love your blog. It's a certain style of blogging that I was thinking of here.

so you want to write good

Want to know how I write a blog post? Want to write one yourself? Here's how.

1. Know what you’re trying to say.

2. Never assume your audience knows what you’re trying to say.

3. Find a creative way to approach / introduce what you’re trying to say.

4.  Write an initial draft quickly.

5. Be a great revisor.

6. Get rid of unnecessary words.

7. Maintain an active voice.

8. Use simple sentences. “Simple sentences are beautiful.”

9. Let it rest. “Sleep on it.”

10. Let it go. “Let it do its job, for good or bad.”

Those were editor Greg Bailey's ten tips for writing, shamelessly poached quoted by me.

Good to know I'm on the right track. Though I still have worlds to learn! And the longer I write, the more I know just how much.

HT Tim Challies

a new venture for me

I want to let you know about an exciting new venture for me. Have a look at this new website (or new version of an old website) - just click on the image -


- and you'll see my photo, mercifully small, in the middle near the top. Yes, that is me, although you might need a magnifying glass to see me if you're on your iPhone! :)

You probably already know I write for the Australian evangelical magazine The Briefing
and what used to be their blog, Sola Panel. Well, they have a new website (the same address as the old one minus the '.au'), a new blog and a new online magazine (the print version of The Briefing will only come out every 2 months from now on).

They asked me to be one of their 5 blog writers (the others are all guys, 2 in Australia, 1 in the UK, and 1 in the US) and in a moment of flattered optimism (actually, after a few weeks' praying and talking about it) I said 'yes'. It feels very strange being the 'female blogger' on their website, so pray for me and tell me if I go off track! I'd like to know if what I write is encouraging for women (and men) who read.

What all that means for this blog, I'm not sure. It will certainly keep me writing at least one vaguely interesting post a week! I'm planning to keep in all honesty going for now, at least until the end of the year, when I'll do my annual (bi-annual? quadruple-annual?) re-think.

Although I'm realising that less self-absorbed re-thinking of what I'm doing, and more loving and serving others, might be helpful. In one sense, it doesn't matter what particular ministry I do, as long as I make Jesus known.

May God give you and me love and wisdom so that, in whatever ways God gives us, we can encourage one another to grow into the fullness of Christ.

Sarah Wilson on reading, writing and other fine stuff

There's a column in Sunday Life magazine that I find oddly appealing. Oddly because it's on a very different page to me spiritually. But I like reading it anyway.

Every week Sarah Wilson talks about her "experimental journey" to "make life more meaningful, happier, sweeter" - from decluttering to mindful eating to Random Acts Of Kindness. I enjoy it because it isn't solemn and earnest (ugh!), but cheerful, self-deprecating, chatty, and written with a light touch.

It also helps me understand people. My hairdresser does yoga and "cleanses her space" with crystals. My fellow school mum is rediscovering her faith. This column gives me a window into the hodge-podge of "spiritualities" that pass for religion for many Western women, who don't have Jesus but long for meaning.

Which makes my motives sound far more worthy than they are. Actually, I read with Sunday-morning laziness, waiting for something to jump out in a oh-really-you-too! way. Like the time Sarah discovered slow reading and the "Very Fine Art of Sitting on the Couch on a Saturday Afternoon with a Pot of Tea and a Good Book". You go, girl!

I, too, battle "Perfect Holiday Syndrome", which means I have to let go of my holiday ideals and learn to rest. When Sarah rediscovered her whiteness -"going out for breakfast, yoga, Moleskin notebooks" - I realised why I'll never be stylish in a "liberal, upper middle-class" way. I even liked (some of) what she said about the Dalai Lama, because he, too, can't silence the chatter in his head. So there.

This week, I realised Sarah writes like I do:

This column generally emerges from a walk around the block. Paragraph by paragraph, it unfurls as I lap the ‘hood. As Nietzsche wrote: “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking”. Henry Thoreau once said: “Methinks the moment my legs being to move, my thoughts being to flow”. Which is not to imply my column is a work of great thoughts. Just that it probably wouldn’t exist at all if I didn’t walk.

Lots of my blog-posts come together while I'm walking and staring at the clouds. Paragraphs form themselves while I drive and listen to music. The perfect sentence pops into my head when I'm asleep.

The best writing doesn't happen when I'm thinking; it happens when I'm not thinking.

So here it is, my very own life-tip with capital letters: A Relaxed Mind Is A Creative Mind. If you're having trouble getting something right, get off the chair, go for a walk, let your thoughts drift - and it will come to you. Sweet.

happy blog-day, and a break from blogging

It's that time again: my bloggy birthday (well, it's tomorrow, but I don't post on weekends, and I doubt you read then either). Three years into blogging, and I enjoy it as much as ever: putting my thoughts into words, writing about what God has taught me, and being encouraged and challenged by you.

It has its downside. The pressure (self-imposed) to produce something, the times I realise (whoops!) I forgot to write tomorrow's post, the time taken from other things, the vulnerability and uncertainty, the temptation to compare my blog with others: it's a cost worth paying, but only if this is worth doing.

Where am I at, 3 years into blogging? I heard a talk on Romans 12:1-2 recently (I'll tell you about it soon) which laid it on the line for me. I want to respond to God's mercy by giving myself to him as a living sacrifice, to bring him glory and make his Son known.

I'd like to make wise plans for the next 5 or 10 years so that I use my time, energy and gifts to glorify Jesus. Will this include blogging? I don't know. But I do know I need some time away from blogging to pray and find out.

After 12 years of raising young kids and 3 years of new ministries, I'm exhausted. So next year I'll share my husband's long service leave (which has been 12 years coming). I'll settle my oldest child into high school and my youngest into preschool, take a long family holiday, and build strong relationships for the teen years. I'll regroup, reflect and renew (the 3 Rs, as my friend puts it).

I'm planning to blog until the end of this year, God willing, then stop for a while - maybe 3 months, maybe 6 months. I'll pray about whether this is the best use of my time and energy, or if there's something else I should do. I have so many dreams and ideas, but who knows what God has in mind?

Taking time off is scary for a doer like me, and slowing down is already making me feel a little empty - which just shows how deeply I take my worth from what I do! But I'm not a doer, I'm a receiver of God's love and grace.

I'm praying that during my months of not-doing, God will teach me I don't need to achieve, get things right or prove myself, because Jesus has done it all for me. Only then will I be able to serve, not so I can feel worthwhile, but "in view of God's mercy" - his astounding, undeserved, unchanging grace to me in Jesus.

In the meantime, until the end of the year, I'll still be here, blogging. Happy blog-day!

images are from soapylovedeb and hyku from flickr

Sunday afternoon football

Nothing deep and meaningful today, just the story of a Sunday afternoon trip to the footy...

Sunday afternoon, and the shadows lie light and insubstantial on the grass.

The sun is warm and the air cool, luminous with the soft clear light of Autumn, when the sun rides low and lazy across the arc of the sky. The trees stand in solemn rows in the park, each on its elongated oval of shadow.

We're here for a suburban footy match. We pay our twenty dollars and walk through a gap in the old-fashioned red brick curve of the stadium wall. There's grubby concrete underfoot and leaning wooden benches on either side. We thread our way between the few spectators to the plastic bucket seats of the new grandstand, the product of a former club president's forgotten dream of glory.

The ground's name changes with every new sponsor, but the real matches have moved on to the glossy grey stadiums with their enormous crowds and television rights. Here only the suburban teams play. Crumpled crisp wrappers rattle down the empty rows, the grime grows thick and undisturbed on every surface, and pigeon droppings pattern the seats.

We choose a seat, half in and half out of the sun, and sit. My husband watches the game. My littlest boy trots between the chairs and up and down the stairs, sturdily independent. My older children take turns on a hand-held electronic toy, guzzle lemonade, and squabble over who has eaten the most chips. I read, legs comfortably extended, as the hours of the afternoon stretch long and languid before me.

I glance at the game from time to time, ignoring the score but enjoying the play of light and shadow across the manicured grass. There is poetry in the rise and fall of legs, the red and blue of the footy jumpers, the ball soaring first one way and then the other. From the feet of the players trail elongated black versions of themselves, running, swooping and stumbling across the grass, a second team in precise silhouette.

The quiet is barely broken by the distant rumble of Melbourne trams, the umpires' whistle, the occasional hopeful cheer from the tiny crowd, the constant calls of the players and the clap of shoe on ball magnified by this satellite dish of a footy ground. We sit in a bubble of warm air and silence, the sounds echoing as if from a remote distance.

Sunday afternoon, and the shadows lie long and lanky on the grass.

It's half-time. Kids and dads surge onto the ground, kicking their footies, pretending for a brief moment of glory that they are footy stars rising to the cheers of thousands of fans and heralded by the cries of the commentators.

I watch my husband and children run onto the ground. The little one's legs piston frantically as he struggles to keep up, corn-coloured hair gleaming in the sun. The older kids scream, "It's my turn! Kick it to me, Daddy!". Our enormous translucent orange ball bounces erratically among the purposeful professional-looking footballs.

The sun gleams from the shiny silver girders of a half-built fitness centre. White motionless banks of cloud stretch flat over the curving lines of the grandstands, their smooth sweep broken by city buildings and the tops of palm trees. Seagulls fly low over the ground. I can smell dust and cigarettes.

My older two boys go on their own crazy exploration. I watch, heart in mouth, as they clamber from grandstand to grandstand, disappearing into the dark bowels of the stands then re-emerging, heads bobbing as they run between the seats and up and down stairs, smaller and smaller in the distance, until they sit far away on the other side of the ground. We wave, and they wave back. They return like homing pigeons to our side, puffing with exertion and exaltation.

The sun shines into our eyes, dropping lower and lower, pursuing us into the ever-decreasing shaded parts of the grandstand. We move from one patch of shade to another, like frightened rabbits hugging the last stand of corn at harvest time.

The siren sounds. It's time to go home. I hold my tired middle son's hand, and my husband carries the little one, as we trudge through the park back to the car. Golden late afternoon sunlight threads between the trunks of the trees, each on its stripe of shadow stretching far across the park.

Sunday afternoon, and the shadows lie black and heavy on the grass.

images are from Crashy, pominoz, littlenutbrownhare & Barnstorm Creative at flickr.com

I am not scared of flying

I am not scared of flying.

Blithely confident, I know this awkward, over-weighted cylinder can rise on slender tip-tilted wings and the invisible laws of so-and-so and such-and-such and rise, dandelion-puff light, into the unseen air.

I am not scared of flying.

We are pushed back into our seats, and - there! - that breathless moment when all the laws of gravity dissolve and we lift, lift to become that distant, silver form hanging suspended, moving with grave slowness across the sky, like a thought of adventure to the watchers on their tiny squares of suburban lawn below.

I am not scared of flying.

I crane my neck and press my cheek to the glass to inspect the wing and count the engines (One? Only one? What if one should fail?) and watch the orange lights of my city shrink to become the ragged outline of the bay. One of those lights is mine, my home, with my family behind lighted glass, my children, my sick child is there, somewhere in those fading lights is there, and - what if that single engine should fail?

I am not scared of flying.

There is time for boredom, and popping ears, and boredom, and the looping advertisements on the small square of screen, and boredom, and "what to do in the unlikely event of an emergency", and boredom, and fiddling with the light overhead, and boredom, and peeking at my seat-mate's sudoku, and boredom, and -

I am not scared of flying.

We tilt at a precarious angle over an invisible line and begin the slow slide down into the inverted star-field of a new city. Then - once! twice! - the plane leaps and the lights swing - up! down! - like coloured lights seen from a fairground ride, this is fun, this is a fairground ride, look! a ferry, look! a bridge, look! a lighted bouquet of towers, a spinning lighted bouquet of flowers, I can do this.

I am not scared of flying.

But the wind heaves beneath us, and the bucking plane shudders and twitches its metal skin, and we descend and speed past the quietly housed planes in their airport hangars only to rise again, and there is no reassuring message from the pilot, and we loop out over the ocean and circle around and descend again, and I press my face to the cool shaking side of the plane and close my eyes and take brief sickening glimpses of that swinging upside-down star-field and close them more tightly and cling to the seat in front and count slow breathes through the tightening band around my chest and hear loud retching in the seat behind and pray fragments of prayers and feel my bloodless face cold and finally, with a crunching, inevitable finality, we land, thank God we land, somewhere people are clapping and we land, but I can't move, my legs won't move me, my shaking legs won't move me.

I am not scared of flying.

the day I failed writing school

I failed writing school.

Last Saturday I went to The Faithful Writer conference. Mark Treddinick, whose book The Little Red Writing Book is the reason I flew to Sydney, spoke on "Writing: A practice of faith and doubt", and winsomely reminded me to replace every cliche with my own words. My bloggy friend Nicole's dad, Trevor Cairney, led a seminar on "Writing for children", which made me want to write all the children's books waiting in my mental wings.

But in the middle of the day we were given an hour and a half to write a short piece for a workshop, knowing that a few would be chosen for (gentle) public feedback by Mark.

Do you think this blogger, used to writing short posts every day, could perform this simple task?

Unfamiliar surroundings. Unfilled pages. An uncomfortable block of stone for a perch. Writer's block. Words that won't come together. Performance anxiety. One topic started, and re-started, and re-re-started, and re-re-re-started, and abandoned. Other people walking past holding their finished pieces. Another topic started and - finally! - it's all coming together and I walk back to the hall and I'm standing at the table frantically scribbling and ...

"We've finished reading your pieces. Go into lunch now, and we'll discuss some afterwards".

Oh, bummer.

Tomorrow: the piece that didn't quite make it, with (I admit it!) a little judicious editing, and more information about my trip to Sydney than you ever needed or wanted. I should add that I edited my travelling companion, the lovely Sandra, out of this story: in her company, the trip was anything but boring.