It’s funny how contentment can shift as time passes. For years, I was content being single. People around me were getting married, having babies, trialling separation. I felt genuinely happy for them (or sympathetic, in the case of separation), without even a glimmer of jealousy or discontentment. Occasionally I felt lonely, living solo in my […]
Christian
Multiplication Challenges—Or Are They?
‘How do you deal with being childless at church?’ a friend recently asked me. ‘Do people put pressure on you to “Be fruitful and multiply”?’ I nodded emphatically. ‘You betcha. Happens all the time.’ Her eyes widened. ‘How do you deal with that?’ It’s a good question, isn’t it? What is the best way to […]
The Voice of Parliament
As Australia moves on from Easter and into national debates around the Voice of Parliament, we cannot help but contemplate affliction. The affliction of our First Nations people is in our faces, confronting us with the brutal reality of their mistreatment, abuse and abandonment. Stan Grant, Q+A presenter on the ABC and Aboriginal Christian man, has felt […]
To Argue or Not To Argue…On Social Media?
I usually avoid online arguments like the plague. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of arguments on social media are worthy. Things like ‘Is COVID-19 Real?’ and ‘Who is Keeping Our Government Accountable?’ and ‘What is Your Favourite Musical and Why is it Hamilton?’ Then there are religious debates. The place of LGBQTI+ people in […]
Stories of Singledom
It never ceases to amaze me how society pressures single people to ‘just’ get married. I hear it anecdotally in the stories told by single people who get called ‘fussy’ or ‘picky’. I hear it in singles asking aloud why they’re still single. I read it in social media complaints about the lack of eligible […]
Legacies of Faith: The God Who Weeps
It’s Mother’s Day again. My church is holding a Mother’s Day service. Other childless Christians might appreciate the dilemma this presents. On the one hand, I love my church and want to be part of it. On the other hand, Mother’s Day can be one of the toughest days in the calendar year. There are […]
Why I Write About Childlessness
I relate to the boy with the loaves and fish. In John 6, Jesus fed a crowd of five thousand people by taking an anonymous boy’s food, five loaves of bread and two fish, and handing it out. Not only was everyone satisfied, they had twelve baskets full of leftovers. I feel like that as […]
What Would I Want the Next Generation of Christian Women to Know?
I was recently interviewed by Fixing Her Eyes* and they asked me a difficult question: What would I want to tell the next generation of Christian women? What would I want them to know? I believe this worthy question warrants more than the couple of paragraphs I originally wrote. So here goes. To Christian women […]
Easter Eggs
In gaming, the term ‘easter egg’ refers to hidden gems within the game that can only be found by tooling around. Easter eggs cannot be found simply by following what you see on the surface; they are found only by exploring seemingly empty rooms and dead ends. In the same way, Easter is not just […]
Finding Meaning in Childlessness
‘I was put on this earth to be a mother,’ my childless friend lamented. ‘What will I do with my life?’ Such is the lament of many childless women. Men also grieve the lost chance of fatherhood. When you truly believe your purpose in life is to raise children and, if you are Christian, teach […]