women bible life

Today I want to share with you, not a blog-post, but a blog (for the second time!): Cathy's blog, with the new name women bible life. If you haven't already put it in your reader, or on your email list, or however it is that you read blogs, I encourage you to.

Cathy's blog is thoughtful, humble, biblical, interesting, godly, readable, and always, always encouraging.

Here are a few recent posts I've enjoyed:

• when help is more than just helping
  (being helped is helpful too)
• mythical she-monster of the blogosphere
  (I know her only too well)
• productive and messy
  (how I needed to read this!)
• the goal of fixing depression
  (not, ultimately, feeling better, but...)
• gospel community and depression
  (I see my own personality reflected in this one)
• nothing to prove
  (the gospel strikes again)
• raising children to be christian adults HT Meredith
  (so encouraging to this parent)
• talking with a distracted mum
  (because I am one, and people have to put up with me).

You'll also find some interesting discussions about:

• education here and here
• gospel community here and here and here and here and...
• health and eating and serving Jesus here
• conflict in this ongoing series.

Happy browsing!

PS. I'm not trying to make you proud, Cathy, or to pressure you to write more good stuff (I know how that works!), I'm just grateful to God for his work through you, however much you feel able to write.

Cathy on boys and chores

You might remember my question about chores a couple of weeks ago. Today I'd like to share one of the responses I received from Cathy, of The Best Book Co-op, about how she and her husband train their son. Here's what she says:

With our four year old boy, Winton, my husband spent a bit of time memorising various Proverbs with him about diligence vs. laziness. This has given us a "language" in our household for getting work done. Winton is really excited to have any opportunity to "do diligent hands". Even his pretend play has become about doing hard work.

Steve has also been really conscious of training him in masculinity. A big part of which is that hard work is a good thing that he was created for as one of God's image bearers.

Everyday there is positive talk about taking responsibility, working hard, protecting girls and people who are not as strong as he is, serving others etc. He is enjoying learning to be a man.

We have been trying to focus on a demeanour that welcomes hard work in lots of environments (including pack up at church - which is a favourite!), rather than a list of jobs.

We are going to start an allowance (after listening to a John Piper talk on money), not as a reward for doing jobs, but as training in stewardship.

As our family grows, I am sure it will become more structured.

I am looking forward to hearing what people say about training girls!!

I was particularly challenged by Cathy's encouragement to teach kids the why as well as the what of chores, and by her suggestions about training boys to care for women.

And I agree - I'd love to hear your ideas about training girls - or boys!

image is from stock.xchng

online meanderings: The Best Book Co-op

Today I want to point you in the direction of another blog, called The Best Book Co-op. In this blog, Cathy McKay generously gives us the fruit of her thorough, thoughtful, personal study of God's word. On occasion, she's said things which have dug so deeply into me that I've printed them out so I can reflect on them further.

Really, this blog is not about Cathy at all, although she humbly shares her struggles in it - it's about God and his word. It's written by a woman who clearly loves God's word and loves sharing its riches with others. It's one of the most self-effacing blogs I've ever read. It's just Cathy opening up the Bible with us, so that God's Spirit can speak his word more powerfully into our hearts.

This blog would be a wonderful aid for your daily Bible reading! If you're struggling to keep your Bible reading fresh, why not print out Cathy's reflections on James or the Psalms, or read them on line, and open up God's word with her.

Cathy McKay speaks about honesty

I said I'd spoken my last words on honesty - well, actually, I cheated and used Tracey's words instead - and so I have, until next time. But I just had to link to this wise and challenging post on women encouraging each other one-on-one by Cathy McKay at the ever excellent The Best Book Co-op.

Cathy talks about how to confess sin to one another in the context of a relationship of mutual encouragement, how to respond when your Christian sister confesses sin to you, and how to pray about your sin together. I found her suggestions about how to be careful in our honesty, and how to respond to honesty, particularly helpful.