King's Daughters

I remember a time when I was heavily pregnant with Daniel who is now 10 year old! During that season our church was about an hour's drive away and we were very involved. Eric didn't have his driver's licence at the time and he played in the church band, so every Thursday I would drive him to church, sit through band practice and then drive him home. To make this journey work I would prepare Eric's dinner and give it to him to eat in the car as I picked him up from work on the way to church. On Sundays we would get to church very early to help set up and then rest in the car in-between the morning and evening services so that we could attend both. It was too far to drive home and come back again so we decided to stay in town and wait. Thursday's was our home group night which we attended each week and occasionally we would have to head over to church for a team meeting. This was our life. I may have mentioned this season previously but wanted to refresh your memory t...

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...

It seemed that church was just not working! Everything became really hard work and the church grew emptier and emptier. Our very good friends from another church invited us to merge churches with them and we thought it may be a good idea. After some negotiations on titles, roles for our team and pay scales we decided to go ahead. At first it felt strange and we didn't feel that we fit in at all but we all tried our best to serve well. Perhaps it was wrong to merge and get stuck straight into ministry without taking time to grieve and to council our team through their grief. I certainly wasn't excited about Sundays at all and hated the season. It's not that there was anything wrong with the church at all. I loved the people! The service was lively, spirit filled and the teaching was spot on Bible based teaching. It was a beautiful church with beautiful people whom we loved and admired. But for some strange reason we were miserable and Sunday's became really difficult. On...

Storms raged all around me, not in the natural of course but the storms of life. The next season is a bit blurry as it was almost too painful to bear. First it was my second eldest daughter who left home. For the sake of her privacy and to protect all involved I can't tell you too much about it but let's just say that family life got really nasty for us all and it resulted in Jordan leaving home at only seventeen years old. Oh how I wish I could tell you the details so you could understand how much my heart was ripped out, how my marriage was hanging together by a thread and how losing Jordan not only hurt but confirmed my complete failure as a parent to her. Just believe me that it was nasty, unnecessary and very painful and left me broken in a way that I have never experienced before. I was even faced with a choice on one occasion where I was made to choose between my daughter and my husband! What would you do in that situation - it was not nice and I refused to choose either...

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...

If I could go back I would do just about everything differently! I am ashamed to admit how many mistakes I made in those early years of our church. Shame sometimes consumes me when I realise how me people I hurt simply because I was an immature and insecure leader. It breaks my hurt that I am the cause of some people's church hurts story. If I could go back I would take better care of your hearts, I am so sorry. Why did God even allow me to minister when I was clearly not grown up enough? With all my heart I only meant good, I only wanted to build a beautiful church and help many find and know Jesus. How did I go from such good intentions to such a mess? My only hope is Romans 8:28 " And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. "  I pray that prayer for those who I have hurt and for myself too. Here is another extract from The Tale of a Church Planter to recount the first bit of mess in o...

King's Church was official born on 7th September 2008 under the watchful eye of our senior pastors. Leading a church was interesting. Mostly good at first, in fact I very clearly remember waking up each morning feeling on top of the world, wondering how life had become so good. Yes there were challenges but the joys of leading and building a church far outweighed the difficult spots. Eric and I were blissfully happy and so were our children. Everyone was flourishing and thriving. Our church was growing steadily, young people were growing in their faith and our lovely street people were getting to know Jesus too. Church didn't hurt - it was just as church should be, or so I thought. Looking back on those days now as I recount our story to you leaves me with a smile on my face. There really were a few years where things were truly great. You can read our full story in detail in my book, The Tale of a Church Planter . Here is a little extract with one of our many rewarding stories...

Church was awesome! Our children were happy and loved it. Lorah got baptised. Daniel was born. We started leading a home group, which was awesome and meant less travelling too. One day, out of the blue, Lorah asked I we could lead a youth group like I did in South Africa. When she was little a did a lot of children and youth work and even though she was young it obviously had an impact on her. I immediately responded yes. It made sense to me and if it helped her make friends at school then why not. The Flood was born! It was a structured youth group that we help on Friday night's at our home. It started with just four girls and then they requested that the boys come along.  Gulp! I was a bit nervous to add boys to the mix but agreed and the following Friday we had twelve children (one of them named Samuel Beard.... who is now our son-in-law, but that's a whole other story). From there it grew and grew until we were averaging 25 children a week in our apartment. We enjoyed cooki...

You never know who you really are until you get married! With all my heart, when I accepted Eric's proposal, I wanted to be a great wife! I didn't know that I wouldn't be and that I still had so much 'stuff' inside of me that needed working out. After all that God had done in my life, I was sure I was okay as a person and had a lot to offer my husband. Well I did offer him a lot! But not the good stuff I had hoped for. He had to put up with a lot of my crap! Sorry there is no nice way of saying it. But that is a whole other story and I am pleased to report that 12 years on I am a much better wife :) After about 7 months of marriage Eric managed to find a good job out in Cheltenham. We had never heard of this place before and it seemed a whole other world compared to London. After a visit and finding a lovely home we moved. Many of our church friends came over to our London home for a leaving party and since we were already packed up and ready to move the next day th...

  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...