So over this weekend, while staying with a friend’s family in Cheltenham (we went to whole Foods, how ridiculously exciting?!), I have begun the wonderfully exciting task of getting myself set up for the brave new world of being a published author. I know it’s many months away yet, but time has a habit of marching on and I want to be ready and I’d love it if you were all ready too. So, my favourite reader, take my hand and skip with me into the future…

You can now keep up with the latest news book-wise on Facebook or Twitter by following the links on the right hand side of this page. And as well as news I will be posting about articles, trying to facilitate discussions and generally speaking about all things bereavement; so head on over there if that floats your boat and takes your fancy.

The other ridiculously exciting thing that has happened this week is that I have officially become a .com! Yes Siree, it is now much easier to locate this blog, woo and indeed hoo! All the same blogging gold, with a new simpler address: lexbradley.com

I hope you’re as excited about my techno advances as I am and if you’re not, remember what your mum always said and don’t say anything at all if it’s not nice!

Lex xx

P.s. Much love and thanks go to my friend Kate Pellereau who has been my PR/techno advisor this weekend, she herself is a blogger, if using technology in a variety of educational contexts is your bag then take a look.

I’m good at carrying things. (Well, that may be the most mundane start to a blog ever… “I’m good at carrying things, k thanks bye!”) I’m good at carrying things and over the last couple of weeks I’ve been increasingly aware of how often and how much I carry. I traipse from office to classroom all the live long day, carrying my laptop, planner, resources, exercise books, keys… will to live… All precariously balanced in my arms. When I pick up my nephew from nursery I’ve become practiced at carrying Noah, his bag, his coat, his nursery folder, a banana, my bag, my keys. Even at Bootcamp I’ve become quite enthused about carrying various things (tyres… people) while running around. Quite a lot of my life is spent carrying, holding things together, making sure they don’t drop.

At the end of this week I turn 25 (Good grief, that’s like an actual age) and with one year drawing to a close and a bright, shiny, silvery quarter century year on the horizon, it has led me to reflect on the many fabulous things I’ve picked up and begun carrying in my 24th year, but also the few things I’ve dropped and lost.

I’ve picked up: A nephew (Noah brings SO much joy to my life, I love the bones of this wee boy!). A job I never asked for or expected (regardless of how tough I may be finding it, I’m employed, I’m paid and I’m doing something). A triathlon medal (a slightly unexpected but very welcome acquisition). New friends (with each passing year the addition of fabulous new people makes the tapestry of my life so much better). A publishing deal (everyday I have to remind myself that in less than a year there will be an actual book, that people will actually buy, actually written by me!).

I’ve lost: My mum’s wedding ring (that one still hurts). A job that was never actually mine to lose (again, that still hurts). Quite a bit of confidence (the afore mentioned job to blame). Friends (just as new people come in, there are those also who have become all too absent). 5 stone (to be fair, I don’t mind this one too much!).

While I list those things that I’ve lost, those painful things I’ve had to put down or had taken out of my hands, I think about the fact that I’m actually still trying, desperately hard, to hold on to them. Clutching on to the ghosts of them, if you will. And I realise, as the song goes (you know THAT song), I’ve got to let them go. Those things I’ve lost in year 24 must stay in year 24 and not be dragged, unwillingly, into my 25th year. If I don’t let them go, then I really won’t have enough hands to hold all the beautiful things ready to be picked up as I step into this brand new year, as good as I may well be at carrying things!

So this evening, I wonder what you’re carrying? Have you got lots in your hands, precariously balanced, spilling out of your arms? I wonder if there is something that maybe you’ve tucked right in your hand that you’re holding on to tight that needs to be put down now. Perhaps a memory of something or someone that doesn’t need to be carried and held on to anymore. It’s not forgotten, it’s not like it didn’t happen, it’s just that for you to be able to pick up something beautifully new, sometimes the old has to be put down.

This evening at the end of my year 24, I thank God who’s hand is big enough to cover, tender enough to hold, strong enough to protect and familiar enough to run to. Thank you Father that you’re holding things, so I can put a few down.

Lex xx

There are lots of things I don’t understand. I don’t understand much about the economy, I don’t understand really how a car works and I don’t understand why I can’t do a forward roll. Some things I’m happy to have no understanding of. I quite like my simplistic, sometimes childish world view- on many matters in this wonderful, horrible, complex beast we call life, for me ignorance really is bliss.

 But there are some things for which my lack of understanding causes me great pain. Some things I long to see the light on but seem to remain stuck in the dark.

 One of the things that falls firmly into the latter group is why prayers go unanswered and God seems to remain silent on the things that feel most important and painful.

 A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog on prayer- I spoke about how I struggled to find the words to pray and my hope that the fact my heart was broken for what I believed broke God’s was enough for the spirit to intercede on my behalf. Now I seem to find myself writing what feels like a follow up blog on what happens when there seems to be nobody home; God’s on mute and heaven is silent and your prayers, whether whispered or screamed, spoken or felt are left unanswered.

 What is our come back? How do we carry on?

 I have actually, audibly heard God’s voice once and I can honestly say it was the most incredible experience. I was interviewing for a place in a religious community in the middle of nowhere and had had misgivings the whole journey there. I’d been at the house for 10 minutes and as I stood, trying to put my finger on what this feeling meant, looking out over the grounds I heard God say “No. Not here.” Just three words, three words that changed my life. Three words that gave me the courage to leave a four day interview, 15 hours in, courage to explore what God’s call actually was on my life and the courage to believe with confidence that God was really quite interested in the mundaneness of my 18 year old life. Awesome!

 I haven’t heard God’s voice since then, sure I’ve felt God communicating, speaking things to my heart but I haven’t had prayers so tangibly answered in the seven years since. And to be honest I think I could do with it.

 I’m not a fan of silence, it unnerves me, I don’t even go to sleep in silence. And I’m even less of a fan of the silent treatment- having been on the receiving end of the most cold of shoulders on far too many occasions in my formative teenage years in what could be quite a bitchy group of girls. So you can imagine how much I dislike what feels like the silent treatment from the big man. It feels lonely and just a little bit cruel.

 Having experienced a significant bereavement, the sting of unanswered prayer is something I’ve wrestled with and known before- but just because it’s not the first time that doesn’t make it any easier, in fact I wonder if it makes it harder now. It’s led me to wonder if it’s kinda become what I expect…

God, I’m getting a bit desperate, say something, I’m giving up on you…

 Life kinda hurts at the moment, I find myself in a situation that seemed to be a real, well timed, tangible answer to prayer (a little like that audible voice of seven years ago) but in reality is not what I expected. It’s difficult, painful, and feels a bit dangerous and scary and having been led to this place I now feel as though I’ve been abandoned in it- left to try and manage the mess, on my own in the pain. To pick up on the idea from my last blog on prayer, I’m trying to call God (on the prayer telephone) but it seems he is screening his calls and not returning his voicemail.

 Say something, I’m giving up on you…

 One of my favourite books on faith, I’ve read it about five or six times, is ‘God on Mute’ by Pete Greig. A book written by the guy who started the 24/7 prayer movement, a guy who is a prayer warrior exploring unanswered prayer from the heart breaking position of praying for healing for his wife while watching her suffer terribly. It’s not just me, it seems, who struggles with the times when heaven is silent. Unanswered prayer is something we will all come up against at some point during our walk with God. We may all feel like we’re not being listened to, we may all feel the sting of apparent abandonment.

 But while unanswered prayers hurt and can lead to wonderful, faith filled people turning their backs on God completely, I wonder if actually a time of silence from God can provide us with a challenge that, if we can withstand it, could lead to a deeper, more mature, more refined faith.

 I was speaking to a friend the other day about the joy of having a friend with whom you can pick up where you left off regardless of how much time has lapsed. We surmised that it was the mark of true, mature friendship- no matter how often you touched base, knowing the relationship could survive the busyness of life, the times of silence and the ebbing and flowing of love and it led me to reflect on what that could mean for my relationship with God.

 I’m not married, but I know enough about the world to know that marriages ebb and flow, a life long, enduring relationship will not always be in the first flush of love. Often marriage takes the discipline to know that you will carry on loving that person because you promised your life to them and you know that while, at the moment everything they do is annoying you and they know how to hurt you most and right now you may not even be speaking properly, there will come a time when you are, once again, head over heals in love again. Maturity and discipline is sticking with it in times when the love ebbs away.

 Unanswered prayer can lead us to a time where the love in our relationship with God can ebb away. We feel hurt, neglected, forgotten about; the one who knows our hearts most intimately is staying silent on what feels most important and painful. Ouch!

 But perhaps in that time of pain we are being set the challenge to remember maturity and discipline, to remember that our love for god can endure this time just as his love endures for us. It may be the last thing we want to do during a period of silence and unanswered prayer but there is only really the choice to give up and walk away, as so many do, or to engage the silence- press in to it, remembering God’s faithfulness in the past and holding on to his potential faithfulness in the future.

 Father, say something I’m giving up on you… But I’m not walking out. I’m hurt and feel abandoned by you, I can’t believe you’ve bought me to this place and are now to choosing to stay silent, but my love for you can withstand this… I hope…

 Today I pray for those of you also facing what seems like a wall of silence, I’m so sorry, hold on and believe that there can be recovery from this- there IS a future for your relationship with god.

I leave you with my favourite reflection from that book, God on Mute…

Engaging the Silence

First there is prayer

And where there is prayer there may be miracles

But where miracles may not be there are questions

And where there are questions there may be silence

But silence may be more than absence

Silence may be presence muted

Silence may not be nothing but something

To explore defy accuse engage

And this is prayer

And where there is prayer there may yet be miracles…

Lex xx

On Sunday 8^th September I  accomplished something that I never thought in all of my wildest dreams (And I have some pretty wild dreams!) I ever could or would. If you’ve missed the fact that I have whaffed on about it for the last month, a couple of weeks ago I did my first Triathlon. All in all the day was a bit incredible and is something that I’ve felt compelled to write about…

In August when I agreed to give the triathlon a go, I knew that the training and actual event would be really hard, but I also knew that if I succeeded it would be an awesome feeling. So holding those two things in tension, I decided to give it a tri.

I hate cycling and actually don’t even own a bike, while I wasn’t exactly a stranger to open water swimming, it was something I hadn’t really done in years and I am still a very new runner (only graduating from couch to 5k in May). The odds were very much stacked against me but I knew I needed to tri.  

One of my character traits that I love and find really annoying in almost equal measure is my stubbornness. Tell me I can’t or shouldn’t do something and I will show you that I can or will find something even better  to do in the process of trying. I wouldn’t say that I will try anything, but you can almost guarantee that if I do decide to try something I will become completely consumed with it and try until I can’t give anything else. Which is the reason that I don’t really “do” failure, because I’m just so flipping stubborn and will carry on trying until I win or die (whichever comes first!).

It’s scary to try. There’s a risk in trying. If you try your hardest it will become all you think about. There is a cost to trying, it will hurt. There is the chance that if you try you will fail. But there is also the chance that if you try, you will succeed and exceed your own expectations!

The very great Pink’s song “Try” puts what I’m trying to say better than I’m managing, “Where there is desire there’s going to be a flame, where there is a flame someone’s bound to get burned, but just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die, you gotta get up and try.”

And so with my stubbornness stoked to the max I decided to tri and began training and just as I’d expected it was all consuming. For four weeks training for the triathlon was all I could think about, all I could talk about and all I could do! I know I got on some people’s nerves, believe me I got on my own nerves! But I had to give it my best try so when the big day came I would know I had given everything and completely earned the feeling of complete and utter elation when I crossed that finish line.

I am so glad I tried a tri.

There are few people who I couldn’t not mention in writing about my Triathlon experience and so I want to finish up with another open letter…

To the one(s) who helped me tri…

Poops, I hate that you had to be injured  for me to get the opportunity to do this but thank you for having faith that I could do it, thank you for helping me train, thank you for coming and cheering. Thanks for helping me tri.

Team Badass and Mr Buggy Bootcamp thank you for training alongside me, thank you for helping to make training so much fun and something that actually I looked forward to, thank you for all the burpies. Thanks for helping me tri.

Team Lex,  every single one of you who came along and screamed at me, thank you  for cheering the whole way round, thank you for running parts of the course with me and thank you for making me cry for that whole last kilometer. Thanks for helping me tri.

The girl who was next to me in transition, Jess? Thank you for chatting to me while we set up and putting my newbie mind at ease, thank you for being my pacemaker during the bike. Thanks for helping me tri.

The incredible guy on the finish line, thank you for cheering every single person home, thank you for making every single one of us feel like we wee winning gold at the Olympics. Thanks for helping me tri.

To the one who swam, cycled and ran every single kilometer with me and listened to my countless, exhausted, wheezed prayers of “Get me round, help me finish”, thank you for giving me the tenacity to try, thank you for providing me the ability to finish and thank you for being with me every single step. Thanks for helping me tri.

Lex (198^th of 255) xx

I’ve got a bit of a confession…I’m not very good at praying.

As a practicing Christian, involved in ministry and a blogger who finishes a blog detailing who I pray for as I scribble down each word, this particular confession leaves me somewhat red faced and filled with shame. As much as I’d like it to be different, the fact of the matter and the truth remains that I’m not very good when it comes to praying.

Just because I struggle doesn’t mean I don’t try, I tell people all the time that I will pray for them. But If I’ve said that I would pray for you, for a situation, for anything while the intention was definitely there, you can pretty much guarantee that I will have possibly forgotten, maybe got distracted and definitely got tongue tied and lost for words. When it comes to praying strangely, for someone so in love with words, I struggle to form sentences to convey what I need to to the Big man.

In short, while my purpose is pure in practice my prayers are pretty pants.

When I was little we used to sing a song at Sunday school that went, “Prayer is like a telephone, for us to talk to Jesus, prayer is like a telephone for us to talk to God. Pick it up and use it everyday.” Now I know what you’re thinking, what a tune! At the age of 8 that was my jam and I happily sang those words (and did the actions) for years and years. Then at some point during my teenage years I had the epiphany that when it comes to praying I don’t rank amongst the world’s best.  Prayer may be like a telephone but I don’t have good reception and, as those of you read one of my last blogs will know, I have a fear of the phone!

In Matthew’s gospel  Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray, he gives them the words of the Lord’s Prayer and tells them that is how they should pray. As he does this he tells them not to be like the hypocrites who pray loudly and proudly, making sure everyone can hear them- boasting through prayer. And in Luke’s gospel Jesus tells a story of a Pharisee and a tax collector coming to the temple to pray. The Pharisee prays aloud, making sure everyone can hear what he says while the tax collector comes to pray humbly and almost silent, barely daring to lift his face to heaven. Jesus points out that this man is the one who is right with God and praying for the right reasons.

These stories give me a bit of hope. They give me hope that those of us who don’t really know what to say to God or how to intercede for people aren’t doing everything wrong. They give me hope that an honest heart wanting to communicate with God is more important than a beautifully crafted prayer with perfect syntax. If you can and want to pray those prayers then I will happily shout amen with you (at appropriate times), but please don’t take my silent, whispered prayers as unbelief or not wanting to pray… Our hearts are in the same place, I promise.

To me, I think that’s what prayer is properly about… our hearts. It’s our hearts longing to connect, convey and communicate with God’s heart; sometimes with words but more often than not, silently with emotions. In Romans 8, Paul tells us that the spirit helps us in our inability to pray. He says that when we are lost for words the sprit intercedes for us, with feelings too deep for words.

Sometimes the prayers that really matter don’t need words.

If we ever needed evidence that we are living in a broken world then all we need to do is switch on the telly or open a paper; news on the whole generally isn’t good, but at the moment things are pretty awful aren’t they? The world is hurting, countries are hurting, people are hurting and I don’t know about you, but when I’m confronted by so much pain I find myself completely lost for words. Over the last few weeks the lyrics of Lou Fellingham’s ‘God of Mercy’ have kept coming back to me, “Sometimes I don’t what to ask for, sometimes I don’t know what to say”. There are no words that seem enough, no phrases that seem appropriate to try and heal a broken world and stop the hurting and so, as ever, my prayers falter into one word utterances or simply complete silence.

But my heart, my heart is longing to convey the pain I see in the world to the heart of the Father and intercede for those searching for love, peace and healing.

As I write this friends are facing illness, loneliness, grief, brokenness and I’m at a loss to know what to say or how to say it. As I write this my Twitter feed is full of chunks of news to which I have no response, but while I may not be able to “pray” per se, my heart is breaking as I believe God’s is. And in my silence, in my inability to pray I know that the spirit is interceding on behalf of my broken heart.

Tonight, in my way, I pray for this broken, hurting world and broken, hurting friends. But tonight I also pray for those who struggle to pray, for those lost for words or worried that God doesn’t want to hear what you have to say. I pray that your heart would say everything you can’t put into words, that your heart would break for what breaks God’s and that your heart would connect with God, reassuring you of his care and understanding.

Tonight I wonder if you need to join me in praying a broken hearted utterance: Heal. Why? When? Please. Stop. Mercy. Help. Sorry. Amen.

Lex xx

My real name is Alexandra (that would have been more of a revelation if I’d said my real name was Pamela or even Richard, wouldn’t it?!) but I’m only really Alexandra when I’m at the doctors or dentist or if I’m in trouble! As soon as I was born I was Alex. All through my childhood I was Alex until I hit 13 and then I wanted to become Ali (or @li if I was being super cool). I pogoed between Alex and Ali throughout my teenage years until I turned 17 and decided to drop that pesky A and have been Lex or Lexie ever since.

Why do I share this brief history of Lex Bradley with you? Well simply as an illustration that I am used to a bit of change. Used to it, accustomed to it, relish it even!

Change is one of those things that some people love. They live for the excitement of the new and unknown, thrive on the interest of doing something in a different way and love to mix life up a little. Others are filled with fear at the very idea of altering the slightest thing. They like to keep things safe, known and within the limits of their control. I dance along the line between these two extremes. I love to keep things fresh and can have a very spontaneous nature. My name, wardrobe, furniture and most importantly my handbag are all things that I am happy, and in fact look forward to, changing. My relationships, location and life situation however are all things that I’d rather keep the same, thank you very much.

Over the last year a big thing in my life has changed, a lot… Me! If you have missed the ridiculous amount of Facebook statuses and Tweets (in which case you either don’t follow me or you may actually have been living under a rock!), I’ve lost some weight over the last year. Quite a bit of weight, well 5 stone. To answer the questions that people often ask when they know that, yes it was on purpose (who can lose 5 stone by accident, that’s just clumsy!) and yes it has been done in a VERY healthy way (no need to worry!). Last summer I took the decision that enough was enough, I was finished with not really being entirely happy with my body and being horrifically unfit and, starting with the (wo)man in the mirror, I made a change.

I’m not going to pretend it was easy, I’m not going to lie and say that I enjoyed every minute of it (the people who have worked out along side me will vouch for that!) and I’m most certainly not going to say that there weren’t points when I wanted to change back and eat a cake. But I’m ecstatic with the outcome of this particular change, know that it is a change for the better and hope that it is a change for good.

But while my weight, size, fitness and strength have all  coped with the somewhat speedy change, parts of my brain seem to be a bit stuck. Physically I am the new Lex, mentally I’m old Lex… fat Lex. Yes that’s right I still have, what I call (ooh Miranda’s mum), fat girl mentality.

Fat girl mentality is exactly what it says on the tin, in my head I’m still the slightly podgy, cuddly and rounded girl who got out of breath at the mere thought of running. Fat girl mentality means that even though I am very capable of running 5km (and do so 3 or 4 times a week) my brain still thinks I can’t do it. Fat girl mentality means that while I know that I am nearly 4 dress sizes smaller than I was a year ago, there isn’t a chance that I could actually fit into those clothes and I still buy a bigger size to hide my “bulky” frame. Fat girl mentality means that I have to look at photo evidence to remind myself how much weight I’ve actually lost.

Now don’t worry that isn’t as unhealthy as it sounds. While I do have a pretty wonky mental  picture of what I actually look like, that has more to do with the speed with which the change has happened and less to do with my mental health-  I won’t carry on going until there is nothing left of me! But right now my body is more capable than my brain believes me to be, to really achieve all that I can as this new, leaner, stronger, fitter and changed Lex, I’ve got to get out of my own way; the fat girl mentality has got to go!

The reluctance of my brain to adapt to the changes my body has gone through has got me thinking about changes in general and how we cope with them.  I wonder if you have your own fat girl mentality.

Are you one of those people that is comfortable with the changes life throws your way? Do you adapt easily, finding the new challenges exciting and fresh? Or are you nervous of what change can mean? Scared to give something a go and worried about a seeming loss of control? Perhaps something big has changed or is going to change, but your brain is struggling to keep up with the changes afoot. Maybe you, like me, need to get out of your own way and get rid of the fat girl inside of your head!

Change keeps us learning, change keeps us challenged and change means that life is never dull. But change also means that we have to continue to adapt, and whether mentally or physically, we sometimes struggle to keep up.

So I guess the challenge that comes with this blog, a challenge as much for me as anyone else, is where do you need to get out of own way? What changes have happened or are due to happen that you are struggling to keep up with? Is there a fat girl puffing away inside your head, keeping you from believing all the spectacular possibilities you are capable of?

Today I pray to the God, who is constant and faithful, for those of us facing massive changes. I pray that we would have the guts to face those challenges head on. And I pray for the fat girls still stuck in people’s heads, getting in the way and stunting self belief, that they would catch up and realise the changes that have happened.

Lex (Alexandra, Alex, Ali, Fat Lex) xx

Love the one you’re with, is a philosophy on friendship that a friend of mine shared with me a couple (well actually almost 5…5?!) years ago. Her theory was that as life went on, as the world turned, as seasons came and went, the friendships that we had with people closest geographically to us would be the closest friendships we had at that particular time in our life. I respectfully disagreed and reasoned that while I do believe the intensity of friendships do ebb and flow with the passing of life’s seasons, I didn’t think it necessarily revolved around geography.

I’d like to think that I can love the ones I’m not with just as much as the ones I am. With that in mind, I feel like I’ve got a confession to make to the ones I’ve not been with so much recently…

For the last two years I know that I’ve been a pretty rubbishy friend. I’ve actually confessed this to a couple of friends face to face and their responses have ranged from: “Huh?” to “No you haven’t”, but didn’t include the response I expected “Yeah, you kinda have.”

Let me explain why I won’t be winning a friend of the year award any time soon. I haven’t turned into a big meany, but rather for the last two years I have been far too much of an absent friend for my liking. Taking up a job at and moving into a convent doesn’t exactly leave a massive about of spare time for socialising and spending time with people who might need you to be around. Why didn’t anybody tell me that moving to a nunnery with very little internet and zero phone signal would damage my social life?! (What, you did? Well why didn’t I listen?!) Because of the nature of my job at Thornton I just haven’t been able to be around much over the last couple of years and I have been very, painfully, aware of what that has meant for some of my friendships. I’ve missed: birthdays, hen parties, weddings, nights out, dinner parties. But more importantly, I’ve not been around for: the “I’ve had a rubbish day” glasses of wine, the “I just kind of need to talk to you” phone calls and missed the “this is what’s going on in my life” Facebook statuses. In short, nothing massive happened, I’ve just been very absent from the stuff that helps keep friendships stuck together… life!

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t actually become a nun two years ago (though to be fair, that would explain a lot and there have been rumours!) and I have been allowed out at weekends, so I haven’t been a total social recluse and have seen the important people in my life, just far too little for my liking! One of the things I am so looking forward to over this summer and on into my new, post Thornton, life is catching up with so many people, spending time with all of my favourites and kinda learning how to be a good friend to certain people again.

You may think I am being somewhat over dramatic (to which I would reply, with hand clutched to my brow, “Moi? How very dare you!”) but I have had friendships not last a time of separation before. There are people no longer in my life because we just couldn’t work out this whole “we were close, then we weren’t and now we are again” thing, and I simply won’t let that happen with any of the precious people currently in my life. I am very blessed with unbelievable, grace filled, forgiving and ultimately very chilled friends who seem to be ok with the fact that I have basically dropped out of circulation for the last 18 months. And to these wonderful people, I say thank you for putting up with me and sorry for my absence and silence.

But even as I say sorry, in the very next breath comes a caveat that I’m actually not 100% sorry (I giveth and I taketh away). Let me unpack why…

A few years ago, as I left uni and took up that crazy offer to go and live in a convent, my then tutor/now friend gave me a beautiful Willow Tree figurine. It is a figure holding her heart out for everybody to see, and my friend said that it reminded her a bit of me, wearing my heart on my sleeve, showing everybody how I feel in the hope that it might help someone. That figurine is my reminder of a pledge I made that, when asking where to go in my ministry and job, I would find a dark place and shine in it; giving my heart to the young people I find there.

My last vicar used to say that he wouldn’t have done what ministry called him to do for anybody other than Jesus. (I may have actually only heard him say it once, but it stuck with me ya know!) There is hardship, there is risk, there is a cost, there are sacrifices and things you give up, but you do it because its for him. It’s like Rend Collective say in their song ‘The Cost’, “I’ll leave myself behind… I’ll chase you through the pain, I’ll carry my cross…I’ve counted up the cost and you are worth it.”

So as I regret my distance and absence from so many friends over the last couple of years and am sorry for the what I’ve missed, I’m not sorry for upholding my pledge to go and invest my heart in the dark place I feel called to shine in, because I’m doing it for him, and he’s worth the cost. My friends make my life what it is and I’ve hated being so separate from them for two years, but I’d hope that I’d be able do it all again in a heartbeat if God asked.

I guess this sorry is actually more of a thank you… thank you, you incredible people, who keep me stuck on a bungee rope, letting me stretch to the places I need to and then allowing me to spring back and pick up where we left off; that’s proper, grown up, heart thumpy, friendship and I am a bit in awe of you. Know that I will do my utmost to allow you to fly in the same way.

And I guess to finish this blog I want to turn it back to you, I wonder if there is something you are being called to do. I wonder if there is something you feel like you need to put down in order to pick some other wonderful thing up. I wonder if you are feeling the absence of a friend or are having to be the absent friend, for an awesome yet painful reason. When it comes to life, and especially the Christian life, like I said there are hardships, risks, costs and sacrifices but I pray that you would be blessed with a reason to make that cost worth it and friends who would understand your sacrifice and be willing to stand by you.

So finally, to sum it all up, all that’s left to say is: Hi, I’m Lex, remember me? I haven’t been around for a while but I’ve missed you so much. Can we go and grab a coffee/dinner/film/walk and catch up?

Lex xx

Moths. Butterflies. Broken glass. The phone. Eye contact. Spiders. Walking barefoot in the sea. Forward rolls. Opening my eyes under water. Escalators (a little bit).

A (seemingly) random list of things that have nothing to do with each other. But in fact a list (in no particular order) of things that I am scared of. Now you may scoff, as many do, when you know that this list of apparently harmless things can reduce me to a jabbering, crying wreck. But there is a good reason for each item on the list…

Moths: They flap AT you, they’re hairy, they’re ugly and their main aim in life seems to be disrupt a good night’s sleep and punish you for leaving a window open with a light on.

Butterflies: See above, they are the same thing (And for people who say “How can you be scared of butterflies, they’re so pretty!”… if I was scared of witches and then a witch came along with a full face of makeup, I’d still be scared. Your argument is invalid.)

Broken Glass: It just seems to make sense to me… there is always that little bit left somewhere in the carpet that you find when you’re bare foot

The Phone: I’m a ball of social awkward that doesn’t really get when it ‘s my turn to talk… if I speak to you on the phone,  know that I love you very much.

Eye contact: I refer you again to the ball of social awkward comment and point out that I have a very lazy eye.

Spiders: Natural, God fearing things shouldn’t have that many legs.

Walking bare foot in the sea: I had a bad experience as a child involving the sea, my bare feet and a weaver fish.

Forward rolls: I can’t do them and when other people do them I think they’re going to snap their heads off!

Opening my eyes under water: I’m not a mermaid and am therefore not equipped for such sorcery… it’s also stingy!

Escalators: I’ve never 100% trusted them… I use wisdom from Arthur Weasley to back me up, “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.”

I’m scared of a lot of things, more things than the relatively light hearted list above. I live my life in a near constant state of fear, worry and anxiety. There is something I witness, think about or have to face everyday that will honestly terrify me. I’m scared.

I’m scared of the future. I worry about money. I’m anxious about relationships. I’m terrified about my job and what comes next. I panic about my health.

Why do I tell you all this? Why do I make myself so vulnerable? Why do I own up to the fact that, if I’m honest, I live my life in a way that is unhealthy and not massively filled with the faith I profess to have? 

The simple answer to all of those questions is that I want to share some thoughts on fear that I think that some other people might identify with and possibly share. There’s got to be other scaredy cats out there right?! 

The instruction to not be afraid is one of the most repeated  in the whole bible, it is said 365 times (That’s enough for every day of the year, comes the trite little poster slogan). We are reminded time and time again in God’s word that we need not be afraid for he is with us. We read in 2 Timothy that God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear but rather of power, love and sound mind, in the first of John’s letters he writes that we can be assured of no fear because God’s perfect love drives out fear and one of my personal favourite verses in Isaiah informs us to not be afraid because God will strengthen and uphold us. So how come I’m still so scared of life, how dare I read these verses and still live in so much fear, right?

Well that’s what I used to think, my fear was just one of the many big sticks that I regularly beat myself up with, believing myself to be a sorry excuse for a Christian. A person of faith quaking with fear, how rude!

But recently I’ve been reflecting on the things that I am scared of, the way that anxiety affects my life and fear in general, and while I might wish not to be quite so afraid of so many things and do believe that it is God’s desire to see me live life in a little bit more freedom, I don’t believe that just because I am afraid I am a generally rubbish person.

What started this particular train of thought is a relatively new and troubling fear I’ve developed. I’m scared of talking. Let me unpack that slightly because it isn’t quite that simple.

 In April I delivered an important assembly, an assembly for an interview, an interview that didn’t go well, which, for a plethora of reasons, led to a complete loss of confidence in who I am and what I can do. Something I didn’t actually realise until the end of May and I stood up to give my next assembly, I stood before a room of people terrified of speaking in front of them. (Now I realise that for many people the fear of public speaking is a fairly common and understandable thing, but as someone who used to deliver assemblies for a living, speaking in front of people was one thing that I was definitely never scared of… until now apparently)

Suddenly I find myself second guessing every single thing I have to say, worrying about the way that I am presenting and panicking about how people will take what I’ve got to say and most of all, terrified of what will happen at the end, what people will say… whether it will be good enough.

Lex… trained in drama for 12 years,  been on stage countless times, will happily do an assembly in front of hundreds on her own, presents to people for a living, can’t get her to shut up…yeah that Lex is now scared of speaking in front of people. Let’s add assemblies, lessons and sermons to that list at the beginning of the blog shall we?

So how did this new phobia change the way that I view fear? Well to be honest, because it is so big, has come out of nowhere, leaving me utterly shaken and isn’t something I can easily avoid (like running away from moths, wearing shoes in the sea and choosing to email rather than phone people) I’ve had no choice but to face it head on and try to make some sense of it.

So I’m scared, more scared than I think I can actually convey, but because of the nature of my job and other commitments I (fortunately?) haven’t been able to just stop speaking to people, and have needed to “face the fear and do it any way” so many times over the last few weeks (and envision many more weeks of the same) and it is this that has made me think about this strange beast we call fear.

One of my favourite films is (absolutely unashamedly) The Princess Diaries, a story of a socially awkward, unconventionally beautiful teenager being told she is a princess by her long lost grandmother, who just so happens to be Julie Andrews (how could that not be a favourite?!?). In the film Mia, when faced with the task of actually being a princess and having to run a country, is understandably somewhat apprehensive and plans to run away. That is until she reads a letter from her dad, written before his death. In the letter Mia’s dad uses the quote, “Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear” and with that advice in mind Mia changes her mind about running away.

Fear is a human emotion, an emotion designed to keep us safe and let us know when things aren’t ok. We cannot beat ourselves up for having phobias, for worrying about the future or being scared because of a horrible experience. Yes, the Bible tells us that God stands with us in our fear and that his love can drive that fear out, but surely something that needed to be repeated 365 times was just as much of an issue for people 2000 years ago as it is today. Being afraid isn’t a sin, God longs to stand alongside us when, not if, we are scared.

I would love to be braver, I would love to have less entirely irrational phobias and I pray one day to understand more of the love that drives out fear, but in the meantime I know that I am brave in my own way. At the moment , every time I stand up to speak in front of a group of people, quaking inside, reliving what happened in April and second guessing myself (barely making it through to the end before crying), but speaking anyway,  I know that I am brave. Because I am showing to myself, and my fears, that courage is knowing that something else is more important than fear. I know that teaching groups of people, in church or school, is where my future calling leads and that is more important than the fear trying to silence me.

So today I pray for those of us who are afraid. I pray for the worriers of this life, for those with a little bit of anxiety and those with a chronic phobia. I pray that we wouldn’t beat ourselves up about the fears we have. I pray that we would tangibly know God’s presence as he stands with us in the fear. And I pray that we would each know, deeply understand, how brave we are every time we “feel the fear and do it anyway”, proving to people that courage is being afraid but knowing that something else is more important than our fear.

Lex xx

Single girl, 24; geeky, funny, creative, spontaneous WLTM a nice, normal christian man to laugh through life with, who is into music and films, likes children and being active, for cinema trips, walks along the beach, couples gym trips and general husbandy type activities….

When I first started blogging there were always a few topics I swore to myself I would steer well clear of. Not because I didn’t have lots to say about them, but because I didn’t really feel my two cents would add much to the myriad of other voices discussing them and I wanted to leave it to other much wiser thinkers. Feminism was one of the topics i swore myself against and the feminism blog I wrote last January was my most viewed post ever. Lo and behold what have I found myself challenged on, thinking over and inspired to write about?! Yet another one of the banned topics. This one however, so much more than the feminism blog or a lot of the other stuff I’ve written about, feels a little bit more personal, a little bit more scary and if I’m honest a little bit too close for comfort. But I can’t get the nagging feeling to write out of my mind and I know that often when I am writing outside of my comfort zone, that is when other people identify with my words.

So (and with a good deal of fear and trepidation) I begin by telling you that I’m writing about being single. I wonder if any of you gasped or shuddered as you read that word. Yes THAT word, the other S word. The word that people in relationships look back on, thanking God, the universe and most importantly their partner that they’re no longer identified by that word. A word that thousands, either begrudgingly or proudly, identify themselves as. A word that, if we are not too careful, becomes a label to describe people, a label synonymous with: unlovable, unchoosable, lonely, unattractive and “there’s something wrong with them”.

I am single and I have been for 6 years. Six years since my last relationship, six years since I last went on a date, six years of life on the shelf. Now, and this is where I get a bit uncomfortable and want to put a caveat in this blog, I know I am only 24, I know I am young, I know there is plenty of time yet, plenty more fish in the sea and plenty more things to do in life than get married; I know all of that and have had it said to me many a time, I refer you to the six years of singleness! And I know, personally, that there are so many more people out there who are just as single as me and have been for way longer, people for whom the label “single” is a badge of shame and source of pain; in writing this blog I am not trying to trump anyone or make light of a situation that shouldn’t be, I’m just thinking out loud and exploring how I feel about my label.

Growing up in the evangelical church, being single and unmarried in your 20s (or 30s or 40s) is not one of the things you aspire to. The church seems to be geared towards families, couples and matchmaking. Each year as more and more friends find love and tie the knot, the congratulations and acceptance cards are tinged with just that little bit more sadness each time. Please don’t get me wrong, I am ridiculously happy for my friends who are no longer single and my congratulations are genuine, but the sadness for my situation is also just as genuine and demands to be felt and addressed.

But there isn’t an easy answer, and definitely not one that is going to be found from a few glib words scribbled down out of my fluffy little head, singleness is a thing that exists and for some it’s ok and for some it is a horrible, painful thing. Singleness is not a “problem” to be “solved” though, but rather the attitudes towards being single could maybe do with a shake up. This is what I’ve been thinking about and what I really want to write about, rather than “Lex’s top 10 fail safe ways to not be single any more and plan a nice spring wedding”, cos hey let’s face it if I had that I wouldn’t be at home theorising about singleness, I’d be out choosing china patterns!

As a child (and to be honest, even more so now) I was a big fan of Disney. There is nothing better in my opinion than a beautiful love story, set to some rousing musical numbers, where a woman with perfect hair, with the help of some woodland critters, falls in love with a man she’s known for all of five minutes in the middle of a picturesque forest. But aside from a bit of escapism, the stories Disney tell can also give people, especially girls, unrealistic aspirations when it comes to love. I spent my time in the forest, making friends with squirrels, brushing my hair and I’m still not married! What’s the deal Disney?!

But in the last six months Disney have released a couple of films that seek to alter the “Disney norm” and question what people believe about “true love”. In December, Disney released Frozen which tells the story of two sisters, a good bit of magic, a snowman, two male love interests (one who is a massive tool), some troll/rocks and a reindeer (oh and the “Hoo Hoo” guy!). Not to give any spoilers (but seriously, have you been living under a rock?), in Frozen Anna gets frozen solid and only an “act of true love” will melt her heart. Her sister Elsa, not the man who she thought loved her or the man who actually did love her, produces the act of true love which in the end saves Anna’s life. And just this week the film Malificent was released, an incredible retelling of the old favourite Sleeping Beauty. (SPOILERS) Again, in this film we see a young man meet and “fall in love” with the beautiful Aurora but when it comes to waking her from her sleep his kiss is not enough. What wakes her is the true love’s kiss from Malificent her, for all intents and purposes, Godmother.

Disney is starting to change and challenge their own norm. Yeah, fair enough love at first sight might happen and true love between a man and woman (or man and man/ woman and woman) does exist, but it is not the be all and end all and more often than not the people we experience true love with will be a sister, a child, a mother, a friend; and who’s to say that that love is not strong enough to melt a frozen heart or wake a sleeping beauty?

In an episode of Bones I was watching the other day someone was defending the fact that they fell in and out of love quickly, she explained that each of the four or five men she’d been involved with had been the “love of her life”. I liked the idea and decided to expand it a little, and with this thought let me sum up this mammoth blog.

I am single, sometimes I delight in the freedom, often I despise the loneliness, but just because I am single that doesn’t mean there are no current “loves of my life” or that “true love” is completely absent. This week as I sat and watched Malificent with a good friend, I knew there was love in my life. As I cooked for and shared a meal with friends and family, I knew there was love in my life. As I held my sleeping nephew, I knew there was love in my life.

I’m not saying that friends and family make the singleness all better, the wonderful people I share my life with don’t, unfortunately, negate the fact that I’m not married. But what I’m saying is that while the label “single” can and does mean all sorts of things, it most certainly doesn’t mean “lonely” and “loveless”. Single people are capable of having “loves of their life” and acts of “true love”, even if they stay single for ever. So please (please!) don’t assume that everyone hates being single and that it means someone’s life is without love, but please (please, please, please!) be sympathetic, understanding and tactful and don’t just tell us there are other fish in the sea… We don’t want flipping fish!

And for those people who find themselves single, I pray to the love of my life that we would be comforted in the loneliness, we would know love in all of its varied and beautiful forms and that he would finish writing our love stories soon and we can finally take the label off and come down from the shelf… (That’s the deal right, big man?!)

Lex xx