Thoughts on women...

Read this here too on Life Church Seaford blog. When I read the bible, my eyes and heart are always drawn to the women in the text. There is so much to be learnt from them, and at Christmas, Mary's story is no different. Her story of how she came to be the mother of Jesus is told in Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-56 and Luke 2:1-40 but this is not the last we hear of her. As you would expect, as his mother, Mary was one of Jesus greatest human advocates here on earth, tending to him his whole life, confident in who she knew him to be. In this reflection I'd like to take a closer look at the character of Mary and see what we can learn from her. Early on in our journey with Mary we get an insight to who she really was. She was probably young, perhaps around 14 years old and betrothed to Joseph, a descendent of David. She was a young woman who feared God and knew the stories of her peoples ancestry. This is evidenced by her response to the angel Gabriel who appeared in her home and t...

Well. I had every intention of continuing to blog throughout the 16 days however life overtook me. Drama with my roof, steadily escalating family busyness as we barrel towards Christmas too. I wrote a blog post for my church's blog which captured many of my feelings about the challenge of the work. You can read it in situ here , and it's captured below too. **************** 25th November marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women. It triggered 16 days of worldwide activism to raise awareness of the many atrocities and oppressions suffered by women and girls globally. Organisations around the world have raised their voices to shine a light not only on the darkness shrouding violence against women and girls, but also on the good work happening to ease suffering and make real and sustainable changes. If you read the recent post about the Jubilee+ social action conference, 'Standing in the Gap' ( read again here ) you will have see some of th...