Author Archives: Jean Williams

About Jean Williams

Jean is married to Steve, senior staffworker at RMIT Christian Union in Melbourne. They have four children. Jean has a PhD on the Puritan experience of enjoyment of God. She loves encouraging women to glorify and enjoy God, in seminars and on her blog, ‘in all honesty’.

A cry of hopelessness

Life, Sola Panel, Sola Panel

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What I’ve written here is not all that can be said about suffering: far from it. But I’ve published it, somewhat hesitantly, because I think suffering will drive all of us to this point sooner or later.

flickr: Pink Sherbet Photography

I sit there stony-faced, staring out the windscreen, driving in automatic, lips pressed together. I’ve had enough. I don’t want it any more: this struggle and these doubts and these unanswered prayers. I’ve had enough. It’s been a long week – a long year! – and there’s nothing left. I’ve had enough.

My 12-year-old son sits next to me. (more…)

Reading Leviticus

Life, Thought, Sola Panel

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I’m reading the Bible through, chronologically this time. I’ve just got to Leviticus: the shoal that’s wrecked a million Bible reading plans (at least, it did mine when I was a teenager). Once again, as I read this hard part of God’s word, it seeps into my skin and reshapes my insides. 

flickr: natematias

There’s something beautiful about Leviticus. Sometimes, like those 3D pictures, you have to blur your eyes to see it. As you persevere through the bewildering details (split hooves? a sore with white hairs in it? two materials woven into one?) you begin to sense the outlines. Laws that protect life and relationships. Laws that forbid detestable practices and depraved worship. Laws that uphold justice and provide for the poor.1

There’s also something terrifying about Leviticus. (more…)

A son for sacrifice

Thought, Sola Panel

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It’s nearly Christmas. My children read stories about lambs and donkeys visiting a baby, but the story I’m up to my Bible reading plan shows the season in a different light…

Rembrandt: The sacrifice of Isaac (detail)

How strange Genesis 22 has always seemed to me. Why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? What kind of Father asks another father to kill his child? Did Sarah know what was going to happen as her husband and son left that day? What psychological scars did Isaac carry into adulthood? (A very modern question, I know.)

What did it cost Abraham to take each step on that three-day journey? (more…)

Why I read my children stories

Life, Sola Panel

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illustration by Pauline Baynes

I stood under my favourite oak trees today and stared upwards, heavy dark branches and deep green leaves reaching into the blue of the sky. For a moment I was far from here, in the Enchanted Wood or Narnia or Middle Earth.1 (more…)

The joy of service (2)

Everyday Ministry, Life, Sola Panel

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In my last post, The joy of service, I wrote about the need to serve practically when all you want to do is teach. Karen asked a great question: “Does it work the other way, Jean–when you’re good at (and often prefer) to stuff envelopes, stack chairs and wash dishes, but the thought of leading Bible study fills you with extreme terror?” Here’s The joy of service re-written (with apologies) for such a person. Because, yes, I have friends who lead Bible studies even though it terrifies them. And, yes, it works both ways. (more…)

The joy of service

Everyday Ministry, Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel

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flickr: UggBoy

I’m no behind-the-scenes servant. My love is given to wordy ministries: the nervous plunge when I teach a group of women, the energy that sparkles in a small group, the light in a friend’s eyes when God’s truth sinks in. If I’m honest, I also love the recognition that comes with this kind of ministry. There: I’ve said it.

The humble roles, the practical roles, the self-effacing roles: they don’t come naturally to me. Setting up for a meeting, cooking for an event, serving food, running crèche, stuffing envelopes: these mundane tasks aren’t on my bucket list. I have to fight my inner whinger as I do them. I don’t like this about myself, but it’s true.

I know this isn’t good enough. (more…)

Fire

Life, Sola Panel

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We made a fire today:
piled branches
in a top-heavy heap
and watched
as flames licked and spat and hissed,
roared high above our heads,
flicked their tails in a column of
dense
green
smoke.
(more…)

Thanksgiving: it’s not trivial.

Life, Sola Panel

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flickr: Liz Grace

“Count your blessings.” “Put a smile on your dial.” “Raindrops and roses and whiskers on kittens.” Thanksgiving has always seemed a bit trivial to me, a Hallmark greeting card sentiment next to the lyric poetry of praise.1

Here’s how my (faulty) reasoning goes: (more…)

Of God’s gifts and chocolate torte

Everyday Ministry, Life, Sola Panel

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Jess’s chocolate torte

I burst into tears.1 It was one of those comments made occasionally by even the most sensitive of husbands as he dares to go where female friends fear to tread: “Jess made some yummy gluten-free sandwiches for the staff meeting today. You should get the recipe!” (more…)

Learning to see God’s glories in a Melbourne spring

Life, Sola Panel

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flickr: Pink Sherbert Photography

A week ago it came, kicking its heels like a witless lamb. Spring. Didn’t it know it wasn’t due yet?

We’ve been locked down in cold for months. We swap war-stories of coughs and runny noses, risk suffocation under layers of bedding, and shiver in the school yard as we wait for the kids to emerge from over-heated classrooms. I listen to winter complaints but secretly love it: (more…)

Giving thanks for suffering

Life, Sola Panel

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Edvard Munch: The sick child (detail)

I’m striving to be more thankful. Self-pity is one of my habitual sins, and I’ve found thankfulness to be a wonderful antidote.

There is one place where thankfulness is particularly difficult for me. For many months I’ve watched my son struggle with ongoing sickness. (more…)

In the footsteps of Ezekiel

Life, Sola Panel

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Ezekiel: Michelangelo

When a man was called by God to be a prophet in Israel, he could be pretty sure he wasn’t in for an easy life. Jeremiah, marked out as a traitor by his own people, thrown into a cistern and waiting for his nose to slip beneath the mud (Jer 38:1-28). Ezekiel, his life a bizarre acted parable of Jerusalem’s fate, lying on one side for months on end and cooking his food over excrement (Ezek 4:1-17). Hosea, commanded by God to marry and be reconciled to an adulterous wife, to picture God’s relationship with his unfaithful people (Hos 1:2-11, 3:1-5).

All those words of judgement, all that rejection, all that sacrifice! I sometimes think how glad I am that God didn’t make me an Old Testament prophet.1  (more…)

The delightful results of memorizing the Bible

Life, Sola Panel

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This is the final post in my series on Bible memorization. Today I’ll talk about the “why” of memorizing Bible passages and the impact this has had on me. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.

flickr: chefranden

God’s word written on three-by-five inch index cards: it doesn’t sound like much of a weapon. But there I was, sitting on the floor, staring out the window, repeating words scribbled on the index card in my hand: “…do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own…” (Matt 6:34 NIV).

(more…)

A smorgasbord of Bible memorization methods (and one way to learn whole books)

Life, Sola Panel

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This is the third post in my series on memorizing Bible passages. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. Next time I’ll conclude with the “why” of Bible memorization, and the impact it’s had on me; but today I want to talk about the “how”.

flickr: chefranden

They say that memory is dead. Socrates sounded its death knell back in the days when books began to replace oral culture – for who needs to remember what’s been written down? Now we’ve gone one better with the outsourcing of memory to electronic devices.1 It’s said that human beings have forgotten how to remember.

I’m sure there’s some truth in that, but I won’t accept it. (more…)

To dye or not to dye?

Life, Sola Panel

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To dye or not to dye? This question came up on Jenny’s blog, and I just couldn’t resist jumping in with a typically over-long comment! Here’s an edited version of what I wrote, for women considering the pressing question of whether or not to dye greying hair. It’s not a bad test-case for issues of beauty and personal adornment.

flickr: foxtongue

Like all things the Bible doesn’t legislate on, whether or not to dye your hair comes down to the freedom to serve one another in love (Gal 5:13). It’s the teaching of demons to declare a created thing “bad”: it’s good if received with thanksgiving (1 Tim 4:1-5). We’re not to submit to rules like “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch!” (Col 2:16-23).

So yes, hair dye, waxing, and, dare I say, even botox and surgery to improve appearance are not evil in themselves: (more…)