Selfless Friendship

Friendship is a beautiful God given gift. Can you imagine life without friendship? Without people to laugh with, cry with, journey with? When God said it isn’t good for man to be alone, I don’t think he was just talking about marriage. True, your spouse might be the best friend you will ever have, but we aren’t all married, and there is something about sharing with sisters and brothers in Christ that challenges and encourages and shapes you in a way that a marriage relationship alone cannot. 
But friendship is also tricky. We are all imperfect humans, with our own fears, struggles and personality types that make us hard to be around and prone to mistakes. Oh yeah, and that one thing we all are. Selfish.  



There is nothing lovely about selfishness. The very word is dark and ugly. A million lives have been shattered by the selfish act of another. Can you imagine life without selfishness? Our prisons would be empty, there wouldn’t be one homeless person on the streets. No broken tears of children who’s innocence has been stolen, no families ripped apart by lies and broken promises. 

Yet we are all selfish each day of our lives. I am the most selfish person I know, because I know my own thoughts, and they aren’t pretty. The majority of the decisions I make each day are to please myself. Being married has certainly shown me how selfish I am, but God has also bought it to my attention recently how selfishness affects my friendships.



‘Let each one of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interest of others’. Phil 2v4



‘Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others’. Phil 2v34



There is not a hint of selfishness in God. He is the one who gave up a part of himself, his one and only Son, to save a reckless and broken people. He did not put His own needs first, His love and companionship with His Son. He poured out the deepest love and grace over us, so that we could have life, eternal life with Him.


Yet I so often find myself feeling lonely in big groups. I can be really shy, even around people I know. I really value the close friends I have because I trust them and feel able to share with them in a way I can’t with anyone else. But sometimes I see them with other people and think, ‘they like that friend better than me’, or ‘they are more fun than I am’. I can spend a little more time than I should evaluating and analysing whether my friends love me as much as I love them.

The problem here? Well, aside from me listening to lies and isolating myself from people who actually do love me and don’t think I’m a loser (I hope!), I am also being incredibly selfish. I am saying my friends are only there to meet my needs; they must give me all their attention and make me feel special and loved.


Don’t get me wrong, I have time for what’s going on with them too. I love my friends for far more than the way they make me feel, but I’ve been asking myself recently, is my sole intention when meeting my friends to bless them, or to be blessed? If I seek to pray and support my friends whilst around them or away from them, if my intention towards them is to build them up and point them to Jesus, then whether or not I feel blessed or loved, I am blessed, because I am lining up my heart with my Fathers.



Friends will also hurt us. Often it’s unintentional. I feel things deeply, and I love deeply. If I see someone I love hurt themselves because of their choices, I will become angry, because I want to protect them and I can’t. I have to realise that I can’t control people’s behaviour, but I must love them through it. I must come to Jesus with how those behaviours hurt me, knowing that He gets it entirely. I must hand that burden to Him so that I can support and love my precious friends through whatever they might choose to do.



We cannot protect ourselves or our friends from everything. But we do know a healer that longs to restore what we have lost on life’s journey. He is the perfect example of how to love selflessly, and He longs to help us do the same.


So it’s simple really, a little challenge. Next time you meet with a friend or pray for them, let your sole intention be to bless and encourage them. Really listen to them. Wait before you rush in with your own burdens. Know that God is always available to carry your burdens, so that you can help support your friends in theirs. And don’t try and do it out of your own strength, because it won’t work. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, and encourage them to do the same.



I so haven’t got this yet. I’m figuring it out as I write it. I’m praying that I will be able to do it and you will too. I’m praying you won’t beat yourself up when you mess up, because you probably will. But the closer you are to Jesus, the more time you spend with Him, the easier it will get. You probably find yourself doing it without even knowing.



This verse has been floating around my head as I thought about this. ‘But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light’.


Hey, you! You’re God’s very own possession! He loves you so much. Let’s be selfless as a response to the One who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light!


PS, hey I got Instagram back! You might have read my blog post a little while ago about why I decided to delete it. It was a really good choice, but since I moved up North I have found myself feeling like I'm missing out on what's going on in some of my favourite people's lives. So I prayed about it, and got it back. But I'm thankful for my time off. I don't feel like I have to filter my face anymore. You shouldn't either! :)

Submerged in grace.

Remember almost three months ago when we stood in front of God and all the precious people he has surrounded us with and vowed to give ourselves to each other, for better or worse, as long blood flows in our veins and oxygen fills our lungs?

Almost three months in and it feels like forever.

 Two and a half months in we've had a dozen arguments over my driving, walked hand in hand through moving, renovating a house, changing church, job and, well, being Mr and Mrs. We've shared the load of expectation and pressure, and although my phone is broken, my car wouldn't start and I poured boiling water down our not yet plumbed in sink, we still like each other. Well who'd of thought it! :)

All the above is true. The last 6 months of my life have been some of the sweetest and strangest I've ever know. Going through so much change has shaken me inside and out, and broht me face to face with who Rachel Margaret is, and you know what, so often I don't like what I see. I've had weeks where everything goes wrong. Seriously, day by day something new would come up. About two months in exhaustion hit us both, mine mostly emotional, Roy's from spending every waking moment leading up to our wedding making the bedroom of our house livable, and every moment since working on our kitchen. Add on to this a nice big package of lies freshly sent from the darkest place, and I disliked everything about myself. Confidence crumbling, I wondered who exactly I was.

I feel like I'm coming out of this season now, starting to feel at home in Cotehill, settling into a church filled with new friends and the promise of serving to come. I am finding my feet in my new jobs, both outside of the home and those inside. Our kitchen is almost complete, a total turn around from the newly plastered shell we returned to from our honeymoon. It's from this new vantage point that I see the lies and social norms I have built my identity around over the years.

A month or so ago Roy was trying to teach me to reverse into our drive. You have to be on a really specific angle, and turns out I wasn't getting it. It was late, we were both tired, and as I sat in the car leaving it half sticking out of the drive, I felt like a total failure. I said as much to Roy when we came in.

"I ca't do anything. I hate myself"

Just writing those words down makes me feel sick. I'm just not that kind of person. Sure, sometimes I don't feel good about myself, but I don't let myself dwell on it. Besides, they are just utterly false. I don't hate myself. I've always liked myself, right?

Wrong. Yes, I was a confident teenager, mainly because I was proud, and compared myself to others, coming off better in my imagination. I was mainly in high sets, I was naturally good at sport and I was strong willed and honest enough to speak up about what I thought was right, whatever that might cost. Of course, the knocks will come, and with each word of rejection, chips of your self worth fall away. Some people easily fall into the 'I hate myself' mantra, moping and finding their worth in people and things, I on the other hand bounced off each knock with a simple, I don't care, I know who I am, God made me good, I'm His, it doesn't matter what they say.

Truth, sure. But my attitude was to protect myself, and with each word I put on more and more of my confidence armor. Whether we tend towards self pity and complaining, or hiding our hurts under layers of confidence, we are all the same. Hurting, broken, relying on ourselves instead of what God says about us.

All the change I have experienced has stripped me of this comfortable identity and I have come face to face with the vulnerable shell I encase myself in on a daily basis. I see the cool, difficult to impress demeanor I put on all the time, and have to pray minute by minute for God to help me be gentle and soft, to let people see me and not the fake me I put on whenever I feel under scrutiny. I have prided myself on not caring what people think, but all the same, I am a people pleaser like everyone else, and although I'm strong enough to follow my convictions, I will walk all that road carrying a heavy load of other people's expectations and guilt.

So what am I trying to say?

I think I'm trying to say that this life of walking with Jesus has a cost. My brothers and sisters in other parts of the world feel it's physical weight trapping them at every corner. Perhaps it is not so easy to see here, but I firmly believe it does. As soon as we surrender our lives to God we are marked by the enemy. he knows there is nothing more dangerous to his cause then a ordinary sinner overtaken by Jesus Christ. We will face lies, persecution and every kind of trial, both physical and emotional. We come out the other side, but often with scars because we didn't trust our Father fully and we instead relied on our own tactics to survive.

 Maybe like me you are coming face to face with your sin and broken identity. Maybe you, like me, have spoken the truth of the Bible to feed your self worth, instead of truly wielding it's power in the battles you face. So what do we do? How do we break down our barriers and truly surrender to who God wants us to be?

We go to the cross. We kneel at it's foot and remind ourselves of the price he paid to buy us, cleanse us and call us His. We are broken again and we offer it as a sacrifice, knowing that the ever compassionate Father will pick us up, hold us close and pour out grace. Grace upon grace upon grace.

And then we go out into this world again. We go back to that beautiful book and really understand that we ARE created by God, that He DID know us in our mothers wombs, that we are, inside and out, FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE. We don't say it because it makes us feel better, we say it because it's TRUTH. We look at others differently because those words apply to them too if only they could see it. We sing with joy because no matter what fight the enemy stirs up next, We are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through Christ Jesus, and actually, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE for HIM.

You know what Rachel, you will fail. So what, we all do! But you know what also? You are right now, totally submerged in grace. While I was still a sinner, he transferred all my disgusting mess onto His own precious son, and when I realised that, He adopted me into his family, and wiped my slate clean, so that when I breathe my last, I will be with Him, forever.

So I urge you, my brothers and sisters, to come back to the cross. And when you go back into the world and start the work of digging out all those lies and replacing them with truth, and you get tired
as you face each day's battle, remember.

Because of Him, you have already won.

In pursuit of Holiness

'So you must live as God's obedient children. Don't slip back into your own ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn't know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy’.

1 Peter v14-16

Repentant I prayed ‘Father, forgive me’.

Soon after I got up, went to my phone and deleted Instagram.

Holiness.

For my big brother, Instagram is a way of expressing his creativity. He uses it to post beautiful photos, often of our little Bella Ellershaw (most beautiful spaniel alive) or the hard work he has completed on his house. His photos inspire me and allow him to use the artistic gifting he has been given.

My friend OJ posts amazing sunsets that show Cumbria in all its glory. His photo’s open my eyes to God’s incredible creation and make me watch out for some of the artwork God paints in the skies every day for our pleasure.

I know countless pastors and worship leaders use Instagram to build up and encourage their followers, and to let them know of exciting ventures and events.

How do I use Instagram? Selfies.

There aint a thing wrong with selfies. I love all the photos I have hung up in my room with my best friends. They remind me of fun we have had. But there is a lot wrong with my attitude towards posting these selfies on Instagram.

For a long time I had a Blackberry whose pin number I had no idea of, so I couldn’t download Instagram, or anything else for that matter. Still, I would see these photos been uploaded to Facebook, and be so jealous for it. I would look at the images of my beautiful friends with their boyfriends, and be pretty desperate to have my own collection. Unfortunately though, as I scrolled through the photos I got more and more dissatisfied with myself, the way I looked, and even the potential coolness of #RoyandRach.

Once I got a new phone and downloaded Instagram the same day, I could upload to my heart’s content. Cute filter on this, a little light change on that, and viola, perfect couples selfie. Or perfect mother daughter selfie. Or whatever else I could make perfect and pretty.

As I got some likes I felt good. I felt like finally I was at Cool Couple status. How happy I was to look at these flawless photos on my phone.

And somewhere some girl looked at those photos, and wondered why she and her boyfriend weren’t that cool, or reasoned that if she looked a little more like me she might actually have a boyfriend instead of spending her Saturday nights watching a film in her pjs.

See where I’m going with this? To make myself feel better I impose on others my own hash tagged happiness, but unfortunately, that only leads to others feeling less than good enough. It’s a bitter cycle.

I have a Heavenly dad who has made me and delights in me. I have an earthly dad who has raised me to know my worth and has told me every day how much he loves me. I have a future husband who has chosen me and committed himself to me, who knows me and STILL wants to marry me! He thinks I’m cute but he thinks I’m much, much more than that.

Still, I will look for that affirmation from a guy walking past me on a street to 50+ likes on Instagram. And that is not Holiness. That is slipping back into my old way of living to satisfy my own desires. It is saying my worth is found in my physical attraction and if I don’t get that I am worthless. It is pride and arrogance and it puts me on the throne as Lord and ruler of my own life.

We as children of God are called to live in freedom. Galatians 5v1 says ‘For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery’. If I continue to base my worth in the way I appear, then I am submitting to slavery. There is no freedom in constantly measuring all I am and own against others. It is exhausting and sinful, and it consumes my heart and soul with self. I find myself falling to my knees again and again thirsting for God’s grace when it has been available at all times; I have just been too caught up in myself to recognise it.

As women we would all love to come out from under the yoke of self-image and self-worth. But what if practical steps can be taken to help us with this and we are not taking them?

Please don’t think I’m being self-righteous here. The Holy Spirit has been prompting me to get rid of Instagram for a long time, and I have ignored it, because I like looking pretty in selfies, and those filters sure help. I have a feeling I will need to delete Pinterest soon too. Right now it is helping me with ideas for our new house, but I know when I’m a young wife with a burnt apple  pie and un ironed laundry coming out of my ears it will probably make me feel pretty down about myself!

Another bonus to getting rid of the ‘Gram has been the extra time it has given me. Before I would look on my News Feed as soon as I woke up, and then at lunch time if the conversation dried up and when I got home. I believe time is a gift, and God hasn’t blessed me with it so I can stare at a phone. I have found that time I have gained can now be spent reading his Word, serving my family or getting round to writing this blog post. Often I fill that space with TV and Pinterest. But He is continuing to challenge me to spend the precious gift of spare time in ways that sharpen me, bless others, and most importantly, make me more like Him. In essence, being Holy.

I love the idea of being Holy. I know for some it might bring to mind some ‘holier-than-thou’ individual whose utter perfection completely crushes those around them. But I long to be a Holy woman of God, someone that shines with inner beauty and purpose, whose gentle and quiet spirit builds up those around her and encourages others to shine brightly also. Who invites people into her home not so she can show off her expensive furnishings and perfect marriage, but so that she can bless and comfort others. A woman whose wisdom comes from fear of the Lord and who knows her God is jealous for her, so she gives Him everything she is.

I hope this post encourages you. I pray you feel challenged to clear out the rubbish (sin) in your life to make room for good, and to think of practical steps you can take so that you can experience the freedom you were created for. I pray you are inspired to be real and imperfect, so that the power of God can shine all the more brightly through you.

 ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us’.