Goodbye 2015

DISCLAIMER: This post contains stupidly long sentences, grammatical imperfections and weird use of tenses. I'm sorry, but also not very sorry.

At first glance, I didn't feel particularly like 2015 had been an especially significant year of my life. My Instagram #2015bestnine didn't feel exciting enough to share, and I always feel more like my years end with August and restart in September, so resolutions and reflections just didn't seem like a big deal this December. However (there's always a however), just a few minutes after I started tapping out some thoughts about 2015, I've realised that the last 12 months have seen big changes in my life, even if a lot of them have gone on in my heart alone.

The beginning of the year was weird. Settled into my new life in London and into my role as a trainee youth worker, I was starting to uncover the hard-to-swallow truth that the mental health issues I suffered from in previous years were catching up with me, especially now I was in a vulnerable situation - away from my old friends, my family, my boring little hometown. My self-esteem plummeted as low as when I was a very unwell 14-year-old.

I spoke to one of the wisest people I know. Her words about God taking away our safety nets to take us to the next level of trusting him really resonated with me. We started working on what God says about my identity in him, and about my self-worth resting on that, as opposed to what other people may or may not think about me, what I looked like or how I felt. It was a beautiful thought, and I took it seriously but I didn't honestly believe this notion that I might ever have that kind of self-confidence.

Fast forward a few months. If the beginning of 2015 was the season of being out of my comfort zone in a big way (and frankly watching any sense of emotional security crumble before me), then September was the month of finding my footsteps, a sense of purpose and identity all over again. I moved back to London with a fresh sense of who I was and what I was doing, and miraculously a new confidence in my image in God.

 Autumn was a time of doing what I love, being almost perpetually tired, and valuing integrity. I feel so lucky to be a part of my workplace and also of my community, both of which are amazing. By Winter there was no doubt I felt at home. I've been firmly grounded enough to deal with a (thankfully very brief and mild) 'episode' of seasonal affective disorder as the days got shorter.

This blog post is more for me than it is for anyone else. I set out to chat about my resolution to wear orange shoes in 2016 (more on that another time) and accidentally recognised how amazing God has been in 2015 even in the places I admit I didn't notice him working at all. New resolution - to pay a bit more attention in 2016.

Signing Out

I am Lizzie, and I am completely addicted to my phone.

I don't like to use the word 'addiction' lightly, because addiction can be such a serious thing, but I feel I can accurately diagnose my total dependence on my phone - the device that is under my pillow as I sleep, wakes me up in the morning (when I will undoubtedly scroll through social media websites and play games before I get up) and then almost never leaves my person again for the rest of the day. I've noticed recently that I very rarely have a moment in my life that I'm 'not doing anything', because as soon as I'm between moments of activity, my phone is in my hand, and I will text or tweet or scroll until I need to be doing something else.

That would be worrying enough on its own but sadly my laptop plays a similar role. I don't have it on me at all times, so I'm not pulling it out while I'm in the queue at Asda, but when I'm alone in my room, there will almost always be music, a video or TV programme playing from my laptop. I fall asleep to the sounds of Rachel, Ross, Monica and co. I feel lost when my WiFi cuts out.

You're getting the idea.

What I've noticed lately is that my tolerance for 'silence' has reduced to almost nothing. I struggle to have more than a few seconds alone in my own thoughts and I didn't realise how damaging that was until earlier this evening when my laptop malfunctioned. I realised I'd have to use my alarm in the morning so I'd better charge my phone from the plug socket (instead of through the laptop, where it's  always in reaching distance). For a half hour or so, my back was (literally) turned to technology. In that half an hour, maybe less, I read a chapter or two of Rachel Gardner's "Beloved" (which I have been meaning to finish since August), before I realised that my head was so full of thoughts that demanded attention and prayer. I got out my A4 notebook, like I did just a couple of years back before I had a laptop and smart phone, and I sketched out a spider diagram of things that were on my heart. Worries, short term and long term ambitions, frustrations, people I want to show love to. It all came out so quickly and frankly I'm surprised I was holding so much in without even realising it.

As an extrovert and external processor, I can perhaps deal better with this lack of time spent in silence, thinking things through. Though I use technology so much in my free time, I spend a lot of time talking to others, and almost all of my processing is done through chatting about these things, which I manage to do regularly (potentially a little too much).

But the one who I don't manage to communicate with so well in my Internet-saturated mind is the most important One of all. A few minutes of exploring what was going on in my heart and immediately I became more aware of God's presence, and moreover the fact that God is doing all sorts in my heart that I haven't been paying attention to.

Christmas is coming, and soon I'll be returning to my gorgeous hometown to spend time with my wonderful family, friends and boyfriend, and I'm going to be challenging myself to leave my laptop downstairs, turn my 4G off and try and use my iPhone like it's my tiny old Samsung brick. I'm tuning back into my family, into Christmas Spirit and into God.

P.S. I'm totally aware of the irony that after tonight's epiphany, I've spent the last 20 minutes typing this blog post on my laptop.

Sunshine

I love the sunshine. I like wearing flip flops, sitting on the cathedral green in my hometown, going to the zoo and not having to take a jumper when I go out. I spend my entire Autumn and Winter counting down the weeks until the end of February, when evenings begin to stay lighter for longer, and I can start waking up to a little bit of sunshine peeking round the edge of my curtains.

However, sometimes I feel like what I love most about Summer is that it's not Winter.

It's no longer a secret that in my earlier teenage years, I suffered with seasonal affective disorder. My condition was diagnosed only a couple of years ago - just before my first Winter in years that I would suffer from much milder "winter blues" around November, as opposed to a full-blown depression which would lead right through until early Spring.

For me, September and October are scary months. I watch the weather start to get a bit drearier, and the night starting a little bit earlier, and I don't quite know yet how I'm going to cope for the next several months. I see everyone getting excited about woolly jumpers and candles and pumpkin spice lattes on social media and for me, those things are associated with something a lot less sweet*.

*(Okay, maybe not the #PSL. I love that cup of sweet spicy goodness and I get excited about that too)

SAD and Winter blues are different things, but, just like any mental health illness, they both can be pretty hard to explain to others, even though a pretty large proportion of the population do feel a little bit less energetic during the Winter months. Perhaps that's what makes it harder: worrying that people will say "Oh, yeah, we all feel a bit like that when it's cold, you've just got to snap out of it." But with SAD, and more severe Winter blues, the cold/dark can drag you down for several months at a time. "But you know you'll feel better when it gets lighter again, so it's not as bad as normal depression". Yes, we probably will, and I've always felt super grateful that I tend to only suffer during the colder months. During the Summer months, that makes it sound much more bearable. However, depression has a habit of making you feel like you're never going to be better than you are now. In January, the prospect of feeling better in May just seems too far away to get much hope from.

I don't have any dramatic point to make about seasonal affective disorder, or Winter, nor do I have a desire to rant about the way people talk about mental health issues (I'll leave that for another post). Instead, I want to share these famous verses from Romans 8 in the hope it can encourage someone suffering with depression today.

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 

39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

During dark periods of our lives, often Christians will encourage us to "cast all our anxieties upon him", and to "be not afraid, because the Lord your God is with you". This is wonderful advice, and I believe in a God who hates to see us depressed or anxious or in pain, and who is indeed with us always. However, sometimes those things can seem just too hard to believe and live out. In the times that we're not strong enough to process that, my prayer is that we will be constantly reminded that there is nothing can separate us from His love.

In Praise of Social Media

I've seen loads of videos and articles lately, particularly from Christian sources, talking about the damage social media is causing to our society, and the "loneliness epidemic" that lies behind the "social" element of modern technology. Before I start getting into this, I want to say I pretty much wholeheartedly agree with what these kind of articles are saying. I recognise the problems behind social media and various forms of technology, and I've experienced the negative effects of them myself. I'm not here to defend social media of its bad press.

Checking my Timehop this afternoon, I found this tweet from two years ago:

Clearly this was a late-night musing (I've always said my best musings come to me between 11pm and 1am). I can't remember if there was a specific incident or interaction that inspired this thought, but two years later, it's really made me think about the impact social media has had on my life. As a young person, social media has been around for pretty much as long as I've been old enough to be using it, which makes it hard to see how it's shaped me over the years. I'll probably never know, but I can tell that it's definitely had a big impact. Twitter and YouTube in particular have been a huge source of encouragement and self-discovery for me. So much of my ministry as a teenage new Christian in a non-Christian household came from online podcasts (shout out once again to the Say That team), Christian lifestyle/advice videos (such as the ones Jeff & Alyssa make), online devotionals (e.g. Word4U2Day), and Christian radio stations.

I've made friends through social media - obviously it's always so important to do this in a safe way, but I was grateful to make a friend through Twitter after we connected through the #ssbioy (Soul Survivor Bible In One Year) hashtag who I encouraged and was encouraged by.

Through Facebook in particular, I've been able to sustain relationships with people who have really blessed me over the years. I've received and given support to a friend who I got to know mostly through Facebook a year or two ago when we were simultaneously experiencing a similar tough situation. Moving to London, I could easily have lost contact with almost all of my college friends back home in Hampshire, but through Facebook I know a little bit about what they're up to, they know what I'm doing, and so we all stay a part of one another's lives. Additionally, my potential worries about moving to London and meeting a whole load of new people were much reduced from the friendly contact I had already had with many of them through a Facebook group.

I've been able to take part in debates, interacted with important people, and learn so much about the world I live in and my place in it. Social media, and Twitter in particular, has truly given me a voice. Through blogging and tweeting, I have a platform from which to speak and that is a valuable thing. In a democratic country where freedom of speech is our right, it's good and important that we are able to be heard. Again, I completely recognise that this privilege can be abused.

The social activist and feminist in me has pretty much been borne of social media, because I've become aware of the issues facing my society and this world, and helped me understand what I could do about it.

Regarding my recent desire to live a new, healthier, more ethical and eco-friendly life, social media communities have been the ones to teach me how I can go about it, and answered any questions I have.

I could go on.

People need people, and social media isn't always the way to access what we need from them, but just sometimes, it can be edifying, fun, educational and inspiring.

Retreat

I've recently been very fortunate to be able to take the weekend off and relax for two whole days, thoughts of work and studies and job applications and emails put aside. I had the opportunity to disappear out of Newham, out of London, and into the arms of the people I love to just be with them and God and myself. How delightful.

The reason I'm writing about it is because I'm realising just how valuable "retreat" can be. I'm so lucky to work in an organisation that places a high value on stepping back from the working world. One of the ways they encourage it is during our retreat days, where all of us - the office staff, youth workers, students, apprentices, the guys at the top, EVERYONE - gathers together in a church somewhere, where we worship and we chat and we eat together and we have fun and in the evening we spend at least two hours reflecting and spending time in God's presence (sounds like a long time, I know, but it's actually pretty great). We also have amazingly supportive line management and teams, and regular pastoral support love. If you want to be looked after well, Christian charities do it beautifully.

Let's not pretend, though, that it's an added extra that we don't really need. As a gap year student doing youth work in London, I know the stress that it causes and I have a much lower level of responsibility than those more senior than me. I wish I could say that it was just on a whim that my bosses let me take Sunday morning off and encouraged me not to think about work for a few days, but it wasn't. Actually, it was the result of my stress levels getting super high, resulting in shaking, crying and hyperventilating in a university library in Lewisham.

I love what I do. I love my course, I love my organisation, I love the work we do and the young people we work with. I love East London more than words can describe. I used to think that if I felt like "I need to get out", then that would be a sign I didn't love it as much as I thought, and I'm really realising how untrue that is. Because as well as all of that, I love my family and my boyfriend and sometimes I even love Winchester and the countryside. They are my calming and homely influences in life, and even though I feel so at home in beautiful Canning Town. I need to have those other things back sometimes.

I've always found that I see God at work and feel his blessings the most strongly during times of crisis of some kind, or in the aftermath of it. I learn the most about myself and about where God wants me to be or what he's doing within me while I'm having the hardest time. There's no way, though, that I could take any of that on board if I didn't stop for a few moments (preferably quite a lot of moments) and reflect upon it, and actually have time to take it in. Our culture very much dictates that we should just keep going when we're stressed and somehow we'll get through, but maybe we should challenge that.

One of my favourite memory verses is Exodus 14:14, which says this: "The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still." What an amazing promise. My challenge for you this week is to take five when you need it. Or take ten, or dedicate an evening to yourself. You're worth it, and God's okay with it. I promise!

Undoing stereotypes and bringing up Esthers: Girls' ministry from a girl's point of view

I am a girl who has had some brilliant ministry during a three year walk with God. I have received answers to hundreds of questions, learnt to embrace the unceasing change and development to my beliefs and character, discovered how to find my own answers and have an independent faith, experienced fellowship with other believers, developed new skills and begun to understood how to use them for God, been drenched in spiritual encouragement over week long residential holidays and belonged to a church and youth group that truly serve the living God.

It's through having the kind of wonderful and accurate ministry that I've had that I'm very aware of the amount of stereotyped, patronising and limiting youth ministry (in the form of books, youth programmes, Bible studies, seminars and holidays) there is out there for young girls.

Everything I have to say in this post is not from a place of great experience in Christian youth ministry, nor from quoting a load of research statistics, but simply of being a teenage girl, a believer in Christ, and an advocate for the potential of girls to become game-changers, history makers, leaders and spokespeople of God.

The Self-Image Problem

To deny that there is a self-image crisis among teenage would be to deceive ourselves, and it's encouraging that it seems to be one of the most popular topics in girls' ministry. It's true, I think, that low self esteem is a result of a much wider influence within society - or how could it be that girls as young as 5 or 6 are considering themselves "too fat" or "too ugly" and eating disorders and body dysmorphia are commonplace in every classroom? 

To go against such a deeply ingrained self-belief as so many young girls have is obviously no simple task, but I think there are some key teachings that are often being missed out. Primarily, girls need to know that it really is okay to NOT dislike themselves, their bodies, their minds. In an age where to love oneself is to go against the grain, young teenage girls - the age at which we are all trying so desperately to fit in and be liked - saying "I like myself", "I did well today" and even "I am happy" takes a lot of courage. Activities in which girls are told what is great about them or pledge to look themselves in the mirror every morning and say "I am beautiful" may be wonderful and affirming activities but they are not enough if we don't let girls know that they are permitted - no, really - to believe it.
Equally, we of course need to support the large numbers of girls who are seriously struggling with cripplingly low self esteem. I believe first and foremost that real love for oneself can come only from an understanding and belief of being founded in and loved by God, which I'll talk more about later.

The Christian Life - It's Not For The Faint-Hearted

When I'm looking for new materials to develop my walk with God - devotionals, Christian lifestyle books and magazines etc - I'm likely to be looking for something specific to my gender, age or personality. It's more relevant, easier to comprehend and more likely to contain the kind of content I need. For the same reason, I think occasional gender split teaching sessions are beneficial. But why is it that when delving into female-specific materials can the Christian life suddenly seem so much more twee, dainty, delicate?

I do completely believe that boys- and girls-groups can be beneficial in ministry, in the same way that I am likely to look for Christian lifestyle books/magazines/devotionals that are specific to my age or gender or personality - it's more relevant, easier to comprehend and more likely to be the kind of teaching I need. But why is it that when delving into female-specific materials can the Christian life suddenly seem so much more twee? Delicate?

God made men and women different. He gave us different strengths and weaknesses, and perhaps he calls us to different things. I believe and cherish this thought, but I reject the notion that women are made to lead lives that are twee, dainty or delicate.

Was Esther timid, polite, a shrinking violet? Or did she walk courageously and with purpose to do God's will?
Did Mary aim to please people, or to serve God?
Women in the Bible led full and exciting lives because they walked the walk of faith - which is not for the faint-hearted! The incredible life of adventure we've chosen by choosing to walk with God is not limited only to men, so girls too need to be equipped for adventure.

Sex, Relationships and Celibacy

A vow to remain sexually abstinent until marriage is a beautiful promise and an amazing commitment to God. It's also a very personal thing and maybe not an easy topic to talk about, but nonetheless it's perhaps the topic that young people want to know about the most, because we're young and we're confused and the Christian viewpoint when it comes to sex is so very counter-cultural.

The first and biggest thing I need to get off my chest on this topic is we have to stop referring to celibacy as purity. Words and labels like this are packed with meaning, and what we are essentially saying is that to have had sex is to be impure. This is alienating and hurtful for the girls who have stumbled in their promises - or indeed made their own decision not to save sex for marriage. More than that, it simply isn't a true label. We are ALL impure, and we can ALL only be saved through Christ. Sexual sin is no worse than any other sin, yet it has so much weight laid on it!

The right way to instill a healthy view of sex and relationships in girls is not to scare them! I once read a Christian lifestyle book for teenage girls of which just about every chapter was a new reason to be terrified of sex and relationships. One chapter even made a connection between sex and subsequent death. I kid you not! Teenage girls need to be taught the REAL reasons and biblical truths as to why they should choose abstinence. This provides a firm standing and a truth we can hold onto which lies and anxieties cannot.

As a side note, I feel that books like the one I mentioned above are the reason that teaching discernment is so so important for young people. It's something I took a while to learn in my walk, having been going through the motions and pretty much believing any Christian literature I read or teaching I received, until an episode of Say That podcast (from The Bridge Chicago) which pointed out the idea that adult Christians - even pastors and trusted mentors - could at times be wrong. This sounds like an obvious statement, but as a new Christian, I was extremely impressionable and it's a lesson I'm very glad I learnt when I did. That's not to say that mentors and youth leaders and pastors and parents and god parents and whoever else can't also be a huge blessing!

Obedience and Grace - an identity in God

Everything I've written so far for me links back to the one key thing that is so vital in ministry of all people, but is perhaps particularly relevant for the all-change confusing soul-searching time that is early adolescence: having an identity rooted in God, and in God alone.

I'm not going to preach about what the best way to do teach this is, because I don't know. I just know that diving into a life led by God results in integrity, courage and joy. I don't think that having a true understanding of God can really be taught through great sermons and a few touching devotionals (although they're awesome), it's something that I suppose is learnt over time. I know, despite having had a huge learning curve over the past year or so, that I'm still discovering my identity in God and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. 

Starting this learning process early is wonderful. And it's possible! Us young people are, in fact, capable of deep reflection on God. Just as God wants teenagers to be part of his Kingdom and serve him, he allows us to have some understanding of him. 1 Timothy 4:12 says this: "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity." What an empowering and wonderful verse for young people!

Rachel Gardner (founder of the Romance Academy, author of the fabulous Cherished) tweeted this yesterday, and I think it just sums up everything I wanted to say in this post more eloquently than I ever could, and in less than 140 characters!

As I said before, I'm not an expert in theology or youth work (or even blogging!), but I do know what it's like to be a teenage girl. I'd love to hear your thoughts on girls ministry - what do you think is good about it? What do you think girls need more of? Which amazing materials have you come across? Leave a comment, tweet me or go click on the Contact Me page.