Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays......

Have you ever had one of those moments that turned your perspective on life around? 


A few years back I was sat on a random Tuesday playing with my girls who at the time were aged two.  I was knackered, exhausted and feeling pretty blah about life in general. Steve and I had just stepped back from being in YWAM full time after God laid a new direction on our hearts. During our time in YWAM I had been to amazon Jungle and had the privilege of sharing Jesus with tribal communities who literally never heard the name of Jesus, lead mission teams to Europe, discipled many students on DTS, got married and been part of the team to pioneer YWAM York. It had been action packed, challenging, exciting - and I'd loved every minute! It had all been stuff that meet my desire to take risks and face challenges head on.


And now here I was a full time mum of twins - given they were incredible and there were many parts of being a mum I loved if I'm honest I felt a bit disillusioned. Suddenly my life seemed as though all it involved was changing nappies, washing, cleaning, cooking, singing nursery rhymes, more washing, nappies - seven days a week. Boom. 


What had happened? I guess in this moment I realized I had resigned myself to the fact that life was different and I needed to get over it.


But on this Tuesday it was like God caught my attention to remind me.......

' Clare remember how I called you to be like an Esther? That I called you to be someone who takes risks, to be someone who sees how important it is to invest and prepare, to speak up in truth when the world around you tells you not to, to know when to speak and when to be silent. Have I not called you for such a position as this for such a time as this? Do you not trust me that I know what makes you tick and what you need to set you on fire? Look at whats in your hands. Why do you sit here thinking others lives are more exciting and that you are being less fruitful today than in the past? Whats changed??!'

It was like an obnoxious alarm clock going off in the room and I couldn't stop it. WAKE UP CLARE, WAKE UP HAVE I NOT CALLED YOU FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS?

God challenged me to the core. I sat there in tears knowing I had a choice.

I could live for a new season and be disillusioned with the one I was in or I could be faithful to Him who had made me and believe the truth that He knew everything about who I was, my personality and make up, my frustrations, my hurts and yet today had brought me to be where I now sat....... How could I ignore God in this moment? How could I ignore our God who is the same every day, in every single moment wherever we are in the world? Our incredible unchangeable God?

I couldn't.

And everyday since the challenge remains the same....

To live in the reality of God's perspective and 

purposes for my life for the very season I am in each day.

So what does this look like for me on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays......??

Well it means that I now choose to embrace and aim for excellence in being the way God made me. Right now that involves being the best mum I can be to my four beautiful kids. It means that I have started to take captive more often of the excuses I make for not being disciplined in prioritizing Jesus daily.

It still means I do alot of washing, a lot of nappies, cleaning, running my kids around, school runs and more. It still involves alot of the seemingly monotonous. But now I do these with an underlying intentionality that stops everything being just being repetitive.

It means that now I stand in the shower in the morning and ask God to fill me up daily with His spirit so that I can.... cry out to Him when I've all out of ideas about how to parent, or I've lost my patience and I've shouted at my kids and found myself in the wrong - that in those moments I can show them I'm not perfect, neither are they but Jesus is and that altogether we can love, forgive and move on.

It means I refuse to accept what the culture around me tells me about being a stay at home mum and instead press in to walking out the truth about who God says I am and the opportunity He has given me right in the four walls of my home to disciple four little people, who with Jesus can I believe change the world.

It means I run passionately with my call to be a leader and women of God, knowing that in every single season of my life, from when I was 18 to now till old age that this will look different but that the call and caller have not changed.

It means when I walk on to my kids school playground I no longer naively walk into the latest gossip but I know that sometimes God requires me to to be bold to speak up to say the hard thing, or controversial thing and that at other times He calls me to remain silent. To be aware of what He's doing - His agenda, His timing - knowing they aren't always the same as mine and that sometimes he's calling me to just be me and to live my life with integrity and that by the way I live people would capture something of Jesus. To keep sowing. Keep investing. Knowing it's God who saves and my job is to be faithful and true in communicating my love and passion to Him. To show people that Jesus is normal and down to earth and yet goes beyond the most incredible and beyond anything we can imagine and is essential to our everyday walk.

It means we need to be bold. We need to be silent. But more than anything we need to listen. We need to be ready and listening constantly. We need to be constantly cultivating such an incredible trust in Him that I'll listen and be obedient to do what He asks even when it doesn't make sense -in the little things - in the life changing moments. Its about being faithful to use what God has given us in our hands today and not let another day pass without it counting.

For each of us the challenge is the same. You might work at MacDonald's or be the MD of a huge multinational company, you might be a student or professor, a full time stay at home parent or a professional working 80 hours a week. You might be on cloud nine with the season you are in or wishing for a season that has been or you hope is yet to come?

But you know what God says to you right here right now?

Stop making excuses. Stop running away from your reality. Stop looking ahead and behind. Stop wishing for someone elses life.

Because God says just as Esther was challenged in a moment when her silence would have meant the Jews would have been killed, or to speak up looked to ensure certain death...

Have I not called you for such a time as this? Have I not placed you where you are on Mondays, Tuesdays Wednesdays, Thursday's, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays..... because I know you, I know the gifts I have uniquely given you and I have a specific purpose in putting where you are right now. 

Will you rise up? Will you accept the challenge to live the most exciting adventure that has been designed just for you?

I dare you! I dare you to rise up and start listening..... start listening to the whispers, the nudges and the loud reminders of God and your everyday 'ordinary' will become so extraordinarily incredible that you will fall madly in love with your creator and see Him at work in ways you could never have imagined. 

I dare you.

permanent artwork

Ever had a moment when something that you've seen a thousand times or you've taken for granted for a long time suddenly catches your attention and its like boom, boom, crash, bang......wow! So simple, yet so powerful....... I had one of these this week.

Trae my youngest is seven months. He's been going through what's known as the 'separation anxiety' phase of babyhood..... this basically means that as part of his development he goes through a season when he needs to know exactly where I am all the time, and wants to be held and be close to me at ALL times! If not he cries and lets the whole world know about it (: Now as a Mum I'm caught in a catch twenty two..... on the one hand there's something in my heart that absolutely leaps knowing I am wanted, sometimes its just tiring. Sometimes I couldn't get enough of the feeling of his little arms snuggled round my neck holding on with a determination that says 'he's never going to let go so don't you dare put me down again mum'..... sometimes I find myself trying to sneak out of a room without him seeing in a hope to escape. But the thing that caught my attention and gave me the 'boom, boom, crash, bang' moment was when my oldest Neve noticed and pointed out that whenever he's sat on the floor he spends ages looking in every direction until his eyes find me again...... at which point his whole face lights up and he starts to smile, giggle and then attempts to try and maneuver himself towards me and doesn't take his focus off me..... in her words 'he can't get enough of you mum'.

Now although I know this and have seen this many times not just with Trae but with the other three when they were this age, it was like God caught my attention....

He was like....

"Clare this is just like how I'd like you to be..... I want you to want me like this, I want you to light up every time you hear my voice, I want you to search and search till your eyes find me and you won't be able to take you gaze away, I want you to walk towards me, I want your determination to be for me.......... but you know what Clare don't worry.... I hear you.... I hear your doubts of me despite knowing the truth in your head..... I know you wonder if I can always be excited by you even with all the ways you feel you let me down, I know you wonder sometimes if I can truly never get tired and will never try to escape, I know these, I know where these come from and I long to allow my love for you to erase the rubbish that has rubbed off on you which now your subconscious assumes about me..... because I am so much more, I'm more than you can ever comprehend, I know its hard to get our head round, I know some days its easy to feel it, to know and to live in the freedom of this truth that my love is unconditional, pursuing, forgiving, never ending, holds no grudges, and that I, God, could be completely and utterly captivated by you, by everything that makes you you, some days this easy, some days it not..... I get all this....... but hear it now.... look at the gorgeous boy...... you helped him grow, you nourished him, you've paced the floor when he's been beside himself, you'd do anything for him, you always think he's amazing, you rejoice over ever smile and love him, you've cried for him, you'd die for him, and this is even in all your human-ness, even though you get tired...... I'm so much more than this..... clock this moment, clock it, it needs to be permanent art work in your mind. I'm the artist. This piece will never change"

Its clocked. Its a permanent piece of artwork. Even on days when I don't see it its there. I know this in my heart and in moments when its hard to understand or feel it I know its true and I will pull this moment to the front of my mind.

We all need these moments? If you don't have one, ask God for one. Ask him to put a piece of artwork up for the long haul that reminds you of the truth. His word is truth. He is love. He's your author, creator and pursuer and longs for you to truly know him and walk the way he made you to walk. He wants you to walk with him right beside you whispering in your ear when you need reminding, when he's excited by you. I couldn't live everyday with Him. I couldn't make it through being a mum and being responsible for four little people without Him. And He knows I'm weak, that sometimes I doubt, that I don't have it all together even if I can be good at looking like this on the outside. He knew I needed this picture - his artwork moment.