King's Daughters

I've considered deleting this blog many times but can't seem to let it go for some reason. Perhaps because it contains such an important part of my life and I'm hoping that somehow my 'scribblings' can inspire and help others going through some of the things I've been through. So, I continue to hold onto it for a little longer. Tonight, 31st December 2021, I reflect on not only the year that has passed but the many years before that too. I love to look back and reflect before plotting the way forwards into a new year. So I've pulled out all my journals and as I flip through the pages I am in awe of how far I have come.  Only today I found myself chatting with Jordan about the importance of not comparing ourselves with others but without past self, and as I look back I am amazed and how far I have come. I can't help but go back to that day. The day that I hit rock bottom. I had been a Christian for 10 years at that point and yet still found myself on the ...

I was born again in 1991 and I will never forget the moment that the pastor asked me if I thought I was a good person. My reply was a confident, "Yes". At that time, an unwed, pregnant, seventeen-year-old teenager who had not finished high school and done just about all the naughty stuff that a teen could have done, but I thought I was a good person. I have since learned that this is a common response from most people. "A person may think their own ways are right, but the LORD weighs the heart." - Proverbs 21:2 Now, 28 years later, I feel like more of a sinner than I ever have. The more I get to know Jesus the brighter His light seems to shine on me, and on all my imperfections. The thing about this is that when He shines his light on my character flaws I don't feel bad or guilty, I feel His love and am inspired to work on them and become a better person. The Bible says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." in  Matthew 5...

Right, now that the hardest part is over, and that was getting the first post written, taking the plunge and getting back into this blog, I begin the journey of reading through the last ten years of posts - 650 in total! My next post was a book review. This reminded me of much I used to love reading and how little I read these days. My business, Women's Business Club , has pretty much taken over my life and this is not a good thing. Part of getting back into my blog is to try and find me again, to find what I love outside of business and to take those parts of my life back. Reading is one of those areas that has been sorely neglected. The book I reviewed was God Chicks by Holly Wagner . The highlight of this post is that Holly actually wrote to us and left us a comment which I treasure. I might just really get into reading again so have bought Warrior Chicks too, I never did get around to reading that one so will do so now. As I placed my order on Amazon it occurred to me th...

I'm not sure where to begin but I know that I need to start somewhere. 10 years ago on 13th April 2009 I penned my very first post on this blog. My audience was the women of our brand new baby church, D7 Church and the message was identity, knowing who we are as daughters of the King. My only intention for writing was to encourage our women on their faith journey and in their everyday ordinary life. Little did I know what the years ahead would hold and how much of a rollercoaster ride life was to become. I have written here through most of it, there have been some quiet spots with an attempt at a post in the dark seasons. Today I come back full circle as I explore my own writings, try to make sense of the journey I have been on with the hope that I will find a way forward. Most of all, with all my heart I believe that there is a purpose to the past ten years and it wasn't all for nothing! My audience from today is me.  If you happen to be reading this, then you too and I ...

It's quite ironic that this is my post title today, "Who Am I?" as I started this blog nine years ago with the title Knowing Who You Are because of my passion to help women find their identity. I write to you today from a completely different place. It's not one of not knowing who I am but trying to figure out what to do with who I am and the complexities that come with being a human being. I am not just one 'thing' but I am a combination of so many things. God made us that way for good but it can do quickly turn into a bad thing for so many of us. Have you heard the saying, "If the devil can’t get you to sin, he’ll keep you busy"? It's true, we get too busy and distracted from God's purposes for our life. I am guilty but want to get out of this trap! So my current dilemma is how to be a successful businesswoman and a great wife and mother? I love playing house, cleaning, cooking, gardening, sewing and all those lovely activities. I also...

It is November, a year since my last post on this blog. The sun is shining and the birds chirping outside my bedroom window on this crisp autumn Monday morning. I'm chatting to God and remembering yesterday's church service with warmth and realise that I am looking forward to going to church again next Sunday. It occurs to me that I haven't felt this way in many years. I feel excited about going to church for the first time since we had our own church, D7 Church. I never dreamed the grief process would take so long. I never imagined that it could hurt so much and that my church life would become so complicated! It's a new day today. I feel a little flicker of something I used to feel. There is hope. But I'm taking it slowly and just enjoying going to church each Sunday. I still fear someone speaking to me and may seem very unfriendly when someone does. The thought of being asked to serve on a team still terrifies me. There is a long way to go in this healing p...

We went to church on Sunday. Eric, Daniel, Amy and I. Together as a family for the first time in ages. At first I felt nervous going back. I knew it was right and it was time. The season had changed and there was no reason for me to stay away any longer. My heart felt full, I was no longer tired and all my other reasons and excuses had faded away. To be honest, I actually missed church. My reasons for being nervous are too many to list starting with fear from all that had happened in the past all the way to fear of being hurt all over again and everything in between. Despite all that was going on inside of me emotionally something stronger was drawing me to church. Choosing a church wasn't an option, it had to be a Baptist church so that Eric could do his placement for his studies and it would continue being a Baptist church for the two remaining years of his studies. I was ok with that. I accepted that church would not be as exciting as it had once been both because I was fond o...

Enough was enough I thought! Something had to give. The pressure was too much and I wanted my job and peace back. My prayer was specific and I wanted a clear and final answer before I put the whole thing behind me. Although I tried to go to church with Eric once I was still spending Sundays at home. Everything inside of me did not want to go to church. I knew that if I did go to church it should be to Eric's church. So the children and I stopped visiting other churches and committed to go to Eric's church and support him in his role. It was too difficult though and no matter how hard I tried I could not force myself to go to church. Sundays became a day where I prayed while pottering around in my garden and we became a TV church member of Life Church - they have a fantastic kids program each Sunday. Back to my prayer which went like this: "Dear Father God. I love to hear your voice! There is nothing more that I desire. Father, please tell me if you want me to do anything a...

There is only one way to really and truly get God's attention and that is to either break his heart so badly that he turns away and cries or to fast! So I chose the latter as I have broken his heart far too many times in my life and I needed him nearer to me that every before. So I withheld food and all drinks except water from my flesh and cry out to God.  Day one of my fast consisted mainly of headaches and me pouring out my heart to God. Day two God spoke briefly: " Everything comes from God alone, everything lives by his power and everything is for His glory. " - Romans 11:36 TLB Bottom line: It's all for Him. So with this revelation I forced myself to see things differently. I tried and make it about him and not about me. What did he want? How could I make it about him? One Sunday evening I insisted that Eric and I seek God together. We spend the evening really reaching out to God together and I prayed until I felt like my eyeballs were going to pop out from the ...

Eric was convinced that I was depressed and wanted me to see the doctor again. I stood by my confession that I was healed of depression in October of last year and that what I was going through was NOT depression. It was a deep darkness but not depression - I knew the difference. I was unhappy. I was deeply miserable. I was not liking life. But I was not depressed. And so in my frustration I resorted to writing melancholic poetry. It didn't even rhyme which was an indicator of how deep the darkness was, I couldn't even be bothered to rhyme! Darkness surrounds me I even breath it in It feels heavy I can't find a way out "Sanctify yourself [i] ," you say "For tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you." Hopelessness fills me. How did life get so bad. Hurt consumes me. There seems no escape. God help, please rescue me. I can't do this on my own. _________ [i] Joshua 3:5

It's 5am on a dark, warm, late summer's morning. I have been awake since 2:30am.  Sleeping has become difficult lately with me averaging about four to five hours sleep most nights. Sometimes less. It's horrible! But my sleeping pattern is not what I want to share with you today. Today I want to share something that I never dreamed I would ever struggle with. Submission. A word that many recoil at. A concept that the modern woman finds outdated and irrelevant and many modern Christian woman believe it's a cultural thing for times past. I however have always been a massive advocate for submission and have passionately preached about it, written about it and believed it with all my heart - or so I thought. Well it's easy to think you are submissive when everything is going your way! Eric keeps asking me why I won't follow him. I can see he is hurt by the fact that I am not fully behind him in his new church, in fact I am totally opposing him. I am 100% in disagreem...

The new year had kicked in and I was fully focused on building my business - the right way! It seemed right to be busy with something that was not ministry and we did need to money so it was what I chose to do. King's Daughters Girl's Nights continued on a monthly basis at a coffee shop connected to our church. Eric started a Men's Night as the men saw all that God was doing in the Girl's Nights and wanted their own special night too. Slowly, our hearts warmed to the lovely people at our church as we let the barriers down and allowed ourselves to feel love and compassion again. Brick by brick the walls came down and we starting giving pieces of our heart away as we were able to allow people in once more. It was scary to care again. Being vulnerable hurt a little as the scars were still raw from so much hurt from before. But the people in our church were (and still are) so lovely that we couldn't resist loving them and serving them to the best of our ability. Eric wa...

Eric of course has his own story to tell, and I hope that one day he will also share his side of this journey as I am sure it will be filled with very different details, struggle, opinions and his own convictions and revelation. For now, I can only comment on my view into his part of our story. Eric is a man of prayer! He is always desperate to hear what God wants to say about every are of live and seldom moves until He is sure God has told him to. What I love most about Eric is that he is authentic, what you see if what you get. He does his level best to be a good husband and father but most important to him is that he is a man of God. I don't recall how it came about but during 2015 Eric started exploring going to bible school to do his BA in theology so that he could be ordained and become a 'real' minister. As his desire to study grew he explored several universities and took advice from our pastor. Together they agreed on the course that Eric should do and after severa...

Our pastor was very gracious towards us and never put any pressure on us to serve or get involved in church at all. We were allowed time to grieve and get whole again and so we just sat in church Sunday after Sunday with no desire to do anything or speak to anyone. We came, we sat, we listened, we left. One night in a dream God spoke to Eric and told him that he must connect with people at church and so we started to stay afterwards for coffee and a little chat. King's Daughters Girl's Nights was set up at our new church before D7 Church had closed down. It was one of the things that I was passionate about and was what we did to help churches with their women's ministries. Where they had nothing in place we would offer to set up a King's Daughters for them at their church. So I was involved in ministry already and had connected with many of the ladies through King's Daughters. Somehow, despite all that we had gone through I managed to keep going with King's Daug...

In my previous post I mentioned my many mistakes and regrets! There are too many to write about but I will do my best to highlight a few as accurately as possible. Even though I know God has forgiven me and hopefully the people involved have too, I cannot fully forgive myself even though I know I should. I want to keep the sting real so that I never make the same mistakes again. It's not that I want to punish myself and I have tried my best to forgive myself, it's just that I don't ever want to hurt people again. Although church life had become difficult there was still much joy in the journey. We launched King's Daughters in 2009 and recorded our very first album, King's Square , with our original songs in 2010. We had so much fun both with King's Daughters and making music together as a church. Things seemed to be going well even though they were a little tougher than at first. My first big mistake was based purely on my own insecurity and it shouldn't su...

  On 17 September 2014 we began our happily ever after at a garden wedding in Cannizaro Park, London. It's not as grand as it sounds, we have no money at all and pulled off the most beautiful wedding very creatively. Our church friends really pulled together for us and if I had a million pounds to do it all over again I wouldn't change a thing! We did the legal side of our wedding in the registry office in the morning and then in the afternoon had the 'real' wedding in a public park. Our friends were so amazing at making our day perfect. One friend surprised us by buying and arch and decorated it with lace, she also created an aisle out of ribbing and organised our picnic as well as our pastor's picnic. I am sure she did so much more arranging and organising behind the scenes that I probably don't event know about, but that is just the type of amazing friend that she is. A lady from church who we barely knew offered to make our cake - and it wasn't any old c...

As I looked up to the stage where the musicians were playing I saw this man who seemed to be surrounded my light. Inside I said, "Wow he is so beautiful!". I didn't mean it in a pretty boy way but I sensed purity and loveliness. It was quite new to me and I just knew that there was something special about him. I watched him closely as he played his guitar. Weeks passed by and God did the most amazing things in my life, He spoke so many things to me of the future and what would still happen. I no longer found myself repenting of the past and trying to make up for it but rather being completely and utterly overwhelmed by His love and filled with excitement for the future. It was incredible. At the same time I became increasingly 'aware' of the guitarist on the stage each Sunday at church. After some time I wasn't sure if I was excited to go to church to worship God or to see  him  again. It was a difficult infatuation as I desperately didn't want to be the p...

It was time to move. I can't really explain why I felt this as my church had been a huge part of my healing and recovery, however, I felt that God was moving me to another church in London. Looking back now I know why but you will have to wait for this part of the story - it's really rather exciting! And so I moved on, with my pastor and home group's reluctant blessing, from one church in London to another one. Church became the highlight of my week, I counted the days until Sunday, that's how much I loved church. It was vibrant and lively, full of amazing people who were crazy about Jesus. I loved the worship, the preaching, the coffee, the home groups and got involved in as much as possible. Even though I hadn't fully walked through the consequences of the previous season I was already seeing a harvest from the new seeds I had sown. If you sow financially you will reap financially, if you sow in friendships you will reap in friendship and I had grown to love some ...

Back to my church story and this part is a really happy part of the story :) It comes after the terrible mess I made of my life, after my first marriage failed due to my stupidity and after I moved away from Crawley London to start over with my girls. Just a quick glimpse into the low point so that you can appreciate how high the highs were. This is an extract from my very first book, Hope's Journey . "During a very dark and confusing season, when I was living a shameful lifestyle and going through a divorce, God spoke to me.   I was sitting in the hallway drinking wine and crying my heart out.  Sadness, confusion, helplessness and total aloneness was closing in on me. The razor blade was already bloody as I had attempted to hack into my wrists.  Pain consumed me as life had become completely unliveable!   Whilst I sat there crying in agonising pain, I cried out to God to help me.  I said that I didn’t want to live anymore and couldn’t see any way forward except to keep tryin...

"For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." 1 Corinthians 12 - 12 Before I continue with my church journey I wanted to take a look at how awesome the body of Christ is. No matter where I have been geographically, emotionally or spiritually I have always been a part of the body of Christ. During a dark season as a backslidden Christian when I was about 19 I first discovered the beauty of the body of Christ. I loved Jesus, I always did and always will do, but I went through a patch of unGodliness where I loved other things more. I got caught up in the party scene through a Christian friend and started drinking alcohol through that same friend. Up to that point I was a good Christian girl trying to work out my faith. Being a teenager who grew up too quickly, the pull of parties and fun was too much and I gave in. It wasn't long before I no longer attended church and was out until silly o...