I can’t believe it’s so long since I’ve made a post! I’ve been back to Canada twice, got my Visa extended so that I can stay in the U.K for another three years and we’ve finished two out of the three school terms. Life is crazy and life moves fast.

I had the best intentions of posting after my Toronto trip for my visa where I saw Niagara Falls and explored a new city both on my own and with my Dad, again at Christmas and a few other posts along the way. Posts were always put off for another day, or set aside until the next weekend, until it didn’t make sense to write them anymore. This particular post however has been rattling around in my head for a while now and this blog seems to have turned into a weird cross section of being about new places I explore and an online therapy session so I’m going to roll with it. The photo’s are of a day trip I took during the last half term break to a small town called Rye with my friend Caryn. It’s quaint, cute, has lots of antique shops and the photo’s have absolutely nothing to do with the post other than to give you something to look at aside from my rambling thoughts. So grab yourself a warm beverage, pretend you’re in this lovely little coffee shop in Rye and stay awhile.

This post has been written and re-written many times this last week, I’m sure five minutes after posting this version I’ll have wanted to change something else but sometimes you have to put something down, walk away and simply say ‘Enough’

I’ve been thinking about assumptions quite a lot recently, about how the paths of our lives twist and turn as we grow and adapt to the situations we are faced with. How we often have these assumptions about how our lives are meant to unfold and how we should respond when that may not be the case. Expectations that took hold when you weren’t looking and somehow rooted themselves deep inside. Unconscious assumptions that you may not have even been aware of but that lay there patiently waiting to pop up and smack you across the face, startling you with their sting across your cheek and leaving you wondering where the hell they came from. Two big events started this whole thing off for me, my sisters engagement and the realization that I turn 29 this year.

Before we go any further with this whole thing I want to say something very, very clearly. My sister and her fiancé are absolutely fantastic together and them getting married is an amazing, good and incredible thing. Me talking about what that has triggered for me is in no way meant to take away from any happiness that I have for them or how pumped I am to be going back to Canada this summer for their wedding. I love you both so much, I’m proud of you. I love that you managed to find one another while backpacking Europe and that you’re now committing to spending the rest of your lives together. Ok? Ok

Before you can understand a reaction you often need to understand what came before it. Emotional reactions don’t happen in isolation, they are birthed from years of quiet whispers and thoughts turning through the subconscious while the mind is engaged elsewhere. This then is my backstory:

Marriage, babies and the church often go hand in hand. Small comments from the front such as ‘Maybe you’ll meet your future spouse’ before a break in the service may seem innocent enough but over time these comments become weighted in meaning and multiplied through repetition. Now I’ve always been fairly vocally opposed to these messages and nothing can prompt an eye roll like seeing yet another single male being pimped from the pulpit. Intellectually I am very aware of the fact that I am not ‘less than’ simply because I am single and my ability to contribute doesn’t change with my relationship status. However, experience has shown me that ‘the church’ sometimes doesn’t act like it sees things the same. I’ve experienced how the way I was treated by certain men within the church changed when I was in a relationship, and you can’t help but notice that women suddenly appear to have a place on the platform once they have ‘married into ministry’.

I’ve sat in congregations and wanted to cry with frustration at what I’ve seen, angry that sentiments expressed in meetings and away from the public stage around the importance of women in the church didn’t seem to translate in a tangible way. Women’s events that always seem to take place during a weekday morning because why would a woman be at work during the week. How are you meant to relate to the body of Christ when you don’t see yourself and your reality represented there in a meaningful way. I’ve had countless conversations over wine, beer, coffee and tea with other women who share my story. Amazing women with amazing hearts, with passion that can move mountains and ideas that could change the world frustrated by a system that seems intent on discounting them because no one has of yet ‘put a ring on it’ to quote the fabulous Beyoncé. It’s hard to raise up a generation of the next Esthers, Jaels or Rahabs when they have been conditioned to believe that they need to wait for a husband before they can fulfill God’s call on their life and fighting within a rigged system can get bone numbingly wearying.

My sister getting engaged last year wasn’t a big surprise. Having watched the two of them successfully navigate a cross-Atlantic relationship from the beginning I had definitely felt it was more a question of when, not if, they would become engaged for a while before it happened. This made my reaction to the news of their engagement when it did come all the more surprising.

I cried.

This isn’t to say I wasn’t happy for them because I was, but this saw the first of those subconscious assumptions raise it’s head. I realized in the moment I saw the news that I had somehow, without being aware of it, let certain ideas around the importance of getting married wind themselves deep into my core and my body had an instant physical reaction to the news that my younger sister was going to ‘get there’ first. This was swiftly followed a deep feeling of shame. Shame that my first thought in regards to news that actually has nothing to do with me had been about myself, that I wasn’t able to be fully present and joyful in that moment. And then a second, deeper wave of shame, an irrational fear that the previous reaction showed a lack of faith and trust in Gods plan for my life. Sometimes self doubt can be a bitch.

It is in situations like this that I am often reminded of how lucky I am to have the parents that I do. Parents that will listen with sympathetic ear, gently (and not so gently) helping me to tease apart what is going on and then reminding me to get on with things and not just sit around feeling sorry for myself. They also remind me to stop buying into the lie that there is something wrong with me and to remember that God has it all sorted and he doesn’t play favourites.

The fact that I’m turning 29 isn’t a massive surprise either, the beauty with age is that it tends to be sequential. It did however take me a while to figure out why after the New Year had passed I had started to feel uneasy about it. I think that we often subconsciously expect our lives to mirror our parents, it’s easier to see your life following the path and patterns that have been modeled for you. University, Marriage/Career, Kids. Growing up in a small town my mom was actually older than a lot of my friends parents and so again that unconscious assumption that I would most likely have a child around the same time if not before her rooted itself inside.

It’s not that I necessarily want a child right now, my job takes up a good 80% of my time and the idea of adding another small human being in the mix makes me want to cry from exhaustion on the spot, plus you know there is that small matter of being single as well. But between those charming messages over the years from the church where every other sermon illustration centers around the speakers children or spouse you begin to hear that you are less than for not having a child. YouTube seems to be in on the agenda and every other advertisement in front of my videos are either about fertility or pregnancy detection (small side rant, on what planet is telling people you’re pregnant after two weeks a good idea, have they seen the stats on miscarriage in the first trimester?!?).  My body may be in the peak baby producing time-frame but nobody has bothered to tell the rest of my life that and that’s ok.

Really that shame I felt after my sisters engagement was the first sign that I had something deeper to deal with and though it took several months before I wanted to look too closely at it I have begun to slowly work at unwinding those sticky tendrils. Peeling them back piece by piece and looking at what lays within their grasp and exposing it to the light. The realization slowly dawns that somehow you have to begin to reconcile these two conflicting ideals within. My Independent Woman side needs to sit down for a drink with Suzy Homemaker and figure shit out.

At the end of the day it all comes back around to trust, and trust my friend is a choice. It isn’t easy, it can be costly but it is also capable of bringing deep and profound peace. So while those moments of peace may be starting out as fragments of broken time I have already begun to reap their benefit. It’s recognizing a particular thought pattern and calling it out for what it is and speaking truth over myself in its place. It’s praying through a tear soaked pillowcase and refusing to feel ashamed for what I’m feeling, acknowledging the moment and walking through it. It’s deep breaths and quick prayers fired up to the heavens when others words trigger reactions in unexpected places. And it’s forgiving myself when I forget to do all of these things and choose to indulge in unhealthy patterns for a while. It’s trusting that I don’t need to know the plan and it’s actually – despite what I may feel – better that way.

It isn’t wrong to have a desire for children or to want to find a life partner but they can’t be the driving forces of your life. You see those women both in the church and outside of it, they have become paralyzed with the fear of never finding ‘the one’ and remaining incomplete and my heart breaks. Their fear rises out of their skin like a fragrance, radiating outwards and wrapping itself around those that come near. A culture of fear compounded by the imbalance of genders found within many churches create an unhealthy environment where all interactions are dissected and evaluated for hidden subtext.

The church desperately needs to address this issue, it needs to tell it’s single women that we do have value and that we are complete just as we are. We need to be provided a space where our voices can be heard and to feel seen. How amazing to see ourselves reflected in the Body of Christ and to know that our place within it is just as valuable to those in power as our male counterparts. We need to allow our names to be put forward for positions of power on boards and oh my the impact that would have. We need to stop being so damn afraid and start living our lives as though we actually believe that we are who we’ve been called to be. Stepping out of the shadows and striding towards the future with purpose regardless of what our profile says our relationship status is.

For me this starts with refusing to let fear get in the way of joy. And looking for a good pair of heels to wear so that I can dance the night away under the stars at my amazing, smart and beautiful little sisters wedding.