Radiant Women

So this post is a little different as it is a collab with my friend Lucy, who has a YouTube channel called DIVEINDEEPERlm. I’m writing my thoughts on the subject and then she’s also doing a video on her thoughts on her channel, so after reading my post definitely go and check out her video to see her thoughts on rising up as the next generation of leaders. This post is specifically aimed at teens but feel free to continue reading even if you don’t consider yourself a young person! As some of you may know, I recently joined the youth team at my church. This is a massive step for me in so many ways, but I know that this is 100% what God is calling me to do. He has really given me a passion for young people and sharing the love of Christ with them, and so joining the youth team has really been a God-given opportunity and a great way to start fulfilling my calling! God has been so gracious to me and I’m definitely not doing this in my own strength – being a leader does not come nat...

I was in Wales the other week with some friends at a Christian homeschool week away and on one of the nights, a group of us climbed a big hill in the dark. Standing at the top of the hill in the freezing cold, we just stood gazing in awe at one of the most beautiful and breathtaking scenes I’ve ever seen. The black sky was dotted with thousands of beautiful stars which were all clustered together in the centre and got more spaced out as they spread from the centre, as if someone had thrown a handful of glitter into the sky. Then across this beautiful scene came not one, but two shooting stars!! In that moment I felt God’s presence so close and real and beautiful and we just stood in awe and sang worship songs together into the night, gazing up at this awesome display of God’s power and beauty. That whole week was absolutely amazing, being surrounded by Christians and just having time away from the busyness of life and God really spoke to me about a lot of things and really made His p...

As a society, we are very anxious and there are a lot of things that make us scared and fearful. But the sad thing is, is that there are so many beautiful opportunities we miss out on because we often wait until we have courage before saying ‘yes’. We wait until we have more confidence or “aren’t scared anymore.” But the best way to overcome that lack of confidence and to face our fears is with courage.  The Google definition of courage is, ‘the ability to do something that frightens one,’ and there’s a quote by someone called Jill Briscoe that also sums courage up perfectly: “Courage isn’t a feeling you wait for. Courage is doing when you don’t have courage. Courage is doing it scared.” Courage pushes us to resist the impulse to shy away from the things that stir up our innermost anxieties. It is required to live life to the full. Without courage, we won’t do anything that makes us scared and we just can’t live our lives like that.  In reality, if we wait for courage, w...

So the other day, whilst I was studying (why do I always get my best thoughts and ideas when I’m meant to be studying…!?!) these thoughts just hit me – are my compliments actually helpful? Am I encouraging godly behaviour in people and complimenting them on what is important, which is their character, or am I always complimenting them on their appearance and their worldly behaviour? I love being complimented and encouraged, as I’m sure does everyone reading this post. It makes me feel good about myself, especially if I’m feeling insecure or down or my self-esteem is low. But as I was thinking about it, I realised that most of the compliments I receive and give are based on appearance – clothing, hairstyles, makeup, body – not character, which is the most important thing. The more I thought about it, the more I realised how complimenting on only appearance and encouraging ungodly behaviour could lead us to become very proud and self-centred attention-seekers. Compliments often...

In part two of my ‘singleness mini-series’, carrying on from my last post, I want to share with you a few more of my thoughts on this important subject: Thought 5: We must   be patient Good things come to those who wait. We must remember that what we think is perfect timing, isn’t always God’s perfect timing. Therefore, we must be patient and trust His timing. We don’t know God’s plan for our future, but we do know that it will be good and will be what’s best for us, so If it is His will for us to marry one day, He will bring the right man into our lives at the right time. Thought 6: We need to pray about it Marriage is such a huge and important decision to make and so we need to make sure that we are asking God whether it is His will for us to marry, and for His guidance on who it is that He wants us to marry. We need to pray that God would prepare us for our future husbands, if that is His will for us and we need to pray for our future husbands, that the Lord woul...