Here is my nothing of sexual harassment

Here is my nothing of sexual harassment.

The incidents that are invisible, intangible and don't exist in any record apart from my mind and heart.

Every woman reading this will have a list like this too.

It starts early. 12-year-old boys rooting through our bags in breaktime classrooms, gleefully finding our stash of Always and pulling it out with a jeer. What were they laughing at? Our wombs? The very organs that gave them the breath in their lungs that they now use to embarrass us for having female bodies.

I was an awkward, gangly, bespectacled, train-track wearing girl, painfully aware of my utterly unbeautiful self. Male hands poking you. "What's that on your chest? Oh, nothing!" accompanied by guttural laughter and kudos.

Fast forward a while. I've learnt how to be pretty now and work as a waitress. It's a nice pub. A middle class pub. Still full of men who hate women.

I bring the pudding menus over, written in chalk on mini-blackboards (it's part of the mass-produced quirky charm). "Are you on it love?" The bellows of drunken laughter echo round the table. No man would ever say this on his own. They work in packs; it's all about the power play. I never tell them I've heard their hilarious joke several times before. I don't say anything. Ever. Especially not when they ask how big I like my steaks. I scuttle, embarrassed, around the table, not meeting their eyes as I clear their plates, trying to lean in beside them as little as possible, feeling eyes combing over me. 

I walk into the glass-wash and there's my boss, pressing himself up against another waitress again while his wife works in the kitchen, thinking he's funny, thinking it's a game. He hates racism because he's from a traveller background. Misogyny's working out well for him so far though.

None of us say anything. We congregate in angry whispers around the dumb waiter instead, by turns ranting quietly, by turns each making fun of the men who've abused us to cheer each other up (ask him if he wears his steak on his head). 

I like going out clubbing most weeks. I love dancing with my friends. The entry price of the inevitable groping hands on your bum and unwanted crotch grinding up against you is silently accepted by all of us.

After shoving once such hand away on a night out a few years later I angrily point to my engagement ring. (Now I'd call this capitulation; is the absence of a ring acquiescence to sexual assault?) I quickly find out I'm a FRIGID BITCH - should I let my husband-to-be know?

I walk around my university city crossing the road to avoid any scaffolding and the hi-vis jackets that are filled with cat-calling men. 

You can't avoid the vans though... you're fair game to them. Horns honk, words are shouted, sometimes inaudible but enough to let you know you're not worth anything. Walking down the street becomes a game of roulette. My heart pounds whenever I'm anywhere on my own.

Apparently I don't smile enough.

I edit the university newspaper and leave the office at almost midnight every Wednesday after sending it to press. Walking alone through the pitch black campus I speak to my boyfriend the whole way home, giving him minute by minute updates so he can call the police with my exact location if I'm assaulted. We were all given rape alarms on arrival at university. I wonder if the boys were given instructions not to rape anyone?

Second year brings an online, anonymous, ongoing campaign of harassment on my public blog. One of the most memorable messages I received read, "We want to see you raped by a gang of syphilitic sailors who cut your legs off so you hobble around on the bloody stumps." 

Everyone tells me to go to the police so I do. They take it seriously but there are no resources to police anything online then so it peters out.

I take the pile of printed out evidence to the University harassment office. The woman who's Head of the department has stepped out but her colleague flicks through the sheaf. "This is just what you have to expect if you're editor of the paper", he says. My stomach drops. 

The Head of the Department walks in and asks to see what's going on. She takes one look at the papers and tells me it's harassment pure and simple. I feel relieved and broken.

Nothing comes of it. They can't formally identify the students even though I'm pretty sure I know who it is. I'm told one option is for me to tackle it myself in a team meeting.

For a while I'm dazed, paranoid and highly anxious, not knowing when the next comment is going to drop, not knowing who's writing the stuff but knowing they're close to me, totally unable to relax in any situation. 

Since I've been married and had kids the incidents have been far fewer and farther between. Save for a drunken man shoving himself up against me on a seat on a train and stroking my leg while singing to me, and a few cat calls, life is calmer now. 

But every time I get in the car I check the back seat.

Every time my car's idling and a man's walking past I flick the lock switch.

Every time I have to walk past a group of men my heart still pounds.

I don't walk anywhere at night on my own, save around my immediate neighbourhood where I know someone on every street.

If I hear footsteps behind me on brief walks when I have to walk in the dark, I pretty much have an anxiety attack.

A few weeks ago a man stared at me in town and said, "so pretty, Jesus Christ". I felt weak, violated, and panicked, and my first thought was "it's my fault for putting some nice makeup on today". 

That epitomises what it is to be female. To feel used and devalued and to blame ourselves, because of how society has been set up.

Throughout my teenage years and twenties, my peers and I just accepted that was how things were. You went out, you got groped. You walked down the street, you got yelled at. We never liked it but we never ever questioned it. It wasn't until the #metoo movement that I think a lot of us woke up to the fact that this was never ok, and for myself I not only felt anger at the men who had conducted this gross wrongdoing but anger and upset at myself for accepting it. 

The point is that none of this stuff is a statistic. None of it is a rape or a murder and I'm not coming close to suggesting it's anywhere on the same plane and carries anywhere near the level of trauma that has been inflicted on survivors of these things by male perpetrators.

The point is that it may be invisible but it's absolutely life-changing. 

Assault and abuse doesn't need to get to the stage of rape and murder before it traumatises someone because it IS violence and it traumatises and traps and makes women slaves to fear even at this level. If a man is happy to swear at you in broad daylight, how far would he go in a dark alleyway at night? We're enlightened enough now to understand, to the extent that the law recognises it, that abuse can occur with no physical scars. But when it comes to misogyny and sexual harassment, we as a society have for too long completely ignored and failed to recognise the impact that sustained, life-long abuse has on women's quality of life, even when it doesn't make it onto a police report. It leaves scars.

I believe that Jesus Christ, when he was on earth, was a radical when it came to women and is a radical now who invites women to come to him and be unconditionally loved. The gospels show him time and time again valuing women where society vilified them, welcoming women where powerful men spurned them, comforting women where others ignored them, and honouring women where others disparaged them.

It's no coincidence that women were the ones that God chose to first have the privilege and blessing of seeing the resurrected Jesus. A woman was the way God chose to bring his Son into the world. 

I wholeheartedly believe in fighting for societal change because I believe that God's pattern for humankind was not the mess of misogyny and inequality we have currently. 

But realistically we're going to be left with some degree of this mess until Jesus comes back. So ultimately it's God that my comfort comes from. I know that the most powerful Man in the universe sees me as a precious, loved and valued woman. He created me with this body and this mind and this soul and he never, ever makes me feel hurt or devalued or worthless. In fact, he gave his life for me and for anyone who trusts in Him. 

I woke up this morning feeling utterly exhausted. The news of Sarah Everard's senseless killing, allegedly by a male police officer, the subsequent outpouring of women's trauma, the sense of people refusing to listen and the sense of despair was last night capped off by the Met police violence in response to the peaceful vigil. It's left me and many others feeling again the weight of the problems we face and the brokenness of the world. 

God cares. He sees. He will have his way and he will right every wrong one day. In the meantime, we wait, we comfort one another and we do what we can to fight for what's right. While we work and grow weary, I found this song really helpful tonight. While I am a woman and I am tired and I am sad and I am tempted to despair I will lean hard in his everlasting arms. 

He lavishes grace as our burdens grow greater
He sends us more strength as our labours increase
To added afflictions He offers more mercy
To multiplied trials He multiplies peace

When we have exhausted our store of endurance
When our strength has failed and the day is half done
When we've reached the end of our earthly resources
Our Father's full giving is only begun
Our Father's full giving is only begun

So lean hard
Lean hard
Lean on the everlasting arms
Lean hard
Lean hard
Lean on the everlasting arms
Lean on the everlasting arms

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure
His power has no boundary that's known unto men
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth and giveth and giveth again
He giveth and giveth and giveth again

So lean hard
Lean hard
Lean on the everlasting arms
Lean hard
Lean hard
Lean on the everlasting arms
Lean on the everlasting arms

You lead me beside still waters
Your goodness restores my soul
I know that you'll never leave me
I know that you won't let go
You lead me beside still waters
Your goodness restores my soul
I know that you'll never leave me
I know that you won't let go

So lean hard
Lean hard
Lean on the everlasting arms
Lean hard
Lean hard
Lean on the everlasting arms
Lean on the everlasting arms
Lean on the everlasting arms

Covid:19 - How do we actually "take each day at a time"?

Schools are shutting, again. With this announcement comes the all too familiar mix of dread, anger, sadness and worry for parents and children up and down the country. This time we know it's for a minimum of seven weeks, bringing us to February half term. Seven weeks in Covid-homeschool-land feels like millenia. Having homeschooled my three in Lockdown 1.0 (the original and the best), and gone through a fair few bubbles bursting and isolations, I totally get it. What started off as a novelty quickly became an anxiety-riddled, loud, messy mess for most UK households.

It's easy to call to mind the old adage, "take each day at a time". It's never been more important, both for our spiritual and mental health, to put this into practice. Seeing the next seven weeks, or the next few months of pre-vaccine territory, as one giant depressing block, is unhealthy for us all.

So how do we actually just take each day at a time, when it seems impossible not to let our minds wander to the future and consume us with dread?

First, we can take hold of Biblical truths, familiarise ourselves with them, meditate on them and keep reminding ourselves of them. Second, there are some more practical tips that I have found helpful I will share.


Biblical Truth #1 - Do not worry about tomorrow... seek first the Kingdom of God

The Bible has its own version of the phrase "take each day a time".  It says, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own". (Parents everywhere can agree on that one!) Now I want to be the first to say that when Jesus says this in Matthew 6 it is not in a condemnatory way to shake a stick at those who worry. It's a reassuring and loving verse in which he's talking about his Heavenly Father's provision for us. God is a conscientious, generous and loving provider for his people. "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature... But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

So, we need not worry because God is a loving Father. And our focus needs to shift from obsessing over our own needs to seeking first the kingdom of God. I can't tell you what that looks like for you, but for me it means striving to point my children towards Christ during this tumultuous time, growing my trust and faith in Him even when it's hard for me, and keeping anchored in the word and in prayer each day. It means being outward-looking to others in our church and neighbourhood in how we can care for them.


Biblical Truth #2 - Cast your anxieties on Him

Here's how we really know Jesus wasn't telling his followers off for worrying... Elsewhere, in 1 Peter 5:7, we are told "Cast all your anxieties on [God], because he cares for you". God knows that we will have anxieties! Worrying happens. But we can take it to God and entrust him with our cares. When our minds start to wander to those big dark blocks of time, we must take it to Him. This can be hard, repetitive work, especially on bad days. But he's right there waiting to listen, ready to care and take our burdens on himself. God is sovereign over everything and he's bigger than Coronavirus and bigger than homeschool so He's the perfect person to talk to about it. Just as our children trust in our care and provision for them and prove so adaptable as a result, we can trust completely in our Heavenly Father's care for us. We can cry to him, we can tell him how terrible we feel, we can ask him for help, we can praise him for the good things no matter how small - all is welcomed by Him.


Biblical Truth #3 - the Israelites were only allowed to pick up enough Manna for each day

Exodus 16:4 - "Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

This may be #3 but this is the truth my mind has turned to more than any other over the years. When the Israelites were wandering in the desert, God sent manna - white, bread-like wafers - down from Heaven to feed them, along with quail. They could collect what they needed for that day, and then the manna would fall again tomorrow. On the day before the Sabbath they could collect two days' worth to tide them over so they didn't have to work on the Sabbath day. But if they tried to pick up extra and store it at any other time, it would be full of maggots the next morning.

Why? God wanted them to trust him daily. Not to have a backup plan or an insurance policy in case his mercy and goodness didn't come through. Every night they went to bed, having to trust that tomorrow the manna would come again. And it always did. Because "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases... his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:22-23).

God's mercies truly are new every morning. And we must not try and make the grace for each day cover all of our tomorrows. His grace is new each day and we get up each morning and trust him for that day. I'm not saying we don't plan for the future, but those plans rest in His sovereignty and grace for each day.



I hope these Biblical truths are encouraging to you. They have been a huge comfort to me for years and especially during this pandemic when everything is so uncertain.

Now here are some practical tips that I find helpful and may help you too.

Tip #1 - Start the Day Well

I know this isn't for everyone, but I try and get up before the kids. I have a cup of tea while it's quiet and read my Bible and pray. I know others like to simply watch the sun rise or meditate. The Biblical truths I wrote about above easily slip away from our thought patterns, and sometimes it takes effort to keep recalling them and anchoring our days in them. If I'm rudely awoken by the children and go straight into full throttle family life, my brain never gets into the right gear, meaning not only do I forget everything I know about taking each day at a time, but I'm more likely to be impatient and frustrated with the children too. Everyone is different but this works for me. If it's better to get the kids breakfasted and dressed and plonk them in front of the TV for half an hour while you focus, do that.


Tip #2 - Plan for a week, break down to a day

There are generally things we know we have to get done each week, and it would be foolhardy not to have some kind of big picture plan going on. For example, this week I know I have to make a two-tier birthday cake with matching cupcakes and macarons, schedule a service visit for the house alarm, meal plan, pay money into the bank, shop for ingredients, complete the church accounts, and so on. So I write this list out and then I allocate tasks to each day.

Breaking it down into days means it's less overwhelming and I can stop worrying about when I get stuff done because I've planned it. If things need to be flexible, of course it's fine to swap tasks if appropriate on the day. It's better than just writing a big list out without any focused idea of when you'll get stuff done, and it's better than not writing a list at all and just winging it, because if you're anything like me both of those options mean massive stress. I literally plan out hour blocks when I'm going to do specific bits of my work and plan activities for the kids then (e.g. kids watch a movie - I ganache and cover a cake in fondant). Try and plan your tasks according to your energy levels. We all do way better in the mornings so I plan for more standing up tasks then and then after lunch more low energy jobs like computer admin. Some days it will all go pear-shaped. That's ok too - try and have some contingency in so there's some leeway.

Tip #3 - Accept that some days it will all be terrible for a while

Let's cut ourselves some slack. We're living through something no one else has ever faced before and our poor kids have borne the brunt of a lot of it. When I find my perfectionist standards rearing their ugly heads I just have to tell myself, come on, give us all a break. I'm not saying don't have any boundaries as that will only backfire on you, but definitely pick your battles and sometimes just accept that everyone's going to have a difficult day. I find it's best on those terrible days to offer everyone chocolate and lots of TLC and do whatever feels kind to ourselves. At the end of the day we are all just trying to survive and get through this and knowing that some days won't go at all to plan is essential for our mental health. Having a terrible day does not mean all the days to come will now be terrible. If there's anything Coronavirus has taught us, it's that life is a rollercoaster and we just gotta ride it.

Tip #4 - You're going to lose the plot sometimes and that's ok

I have yelled, so much, at my kids during the last year. Well let's face it, during the last 10 years. Despite having just written Tip #3, I still have plenty of days where I just lose it and scream at my whole family when it all gets too much. In these times I come to the Bible and read with hope the words "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us". I can't take it back but I do ask my children for forgiveness, with no strings attached. I know that actually it's important for them to see us mess up and ask for forgiveness, because they're also going to mess up and they need a model of how to deal with that mess. They do not need perfect parents. They need parents who are sorry and humble when they make mistakes. So yes, be sorry, but do not beat yourself up with a standard that's impossible. It's important not to have it in our heads to strive for a great streak of perfection. Part of taking each day at a time is that no matter what went before, each day is a new day. Thankfully.


...And forgiveness seems like a good note to end on. The next seven weeks of homeschool are doubtless going to contain a lot of yelling, a lot of messy behaviour, and sin, and resentment, and despair, and arguing. (Hopefully they will also contain a lot of precious and fun moments too.) But God knows we aren't perfect and He's right there waiting with forgiveness, and a clean slate each morning. He loves us so much, in our imperfection, that he sent us His Son to take the punishment for all our sin and give us his own righteousness. And nothing can separate us from that if we believe in Him. I'm praying that truth will be the rock we all build on in the next few stormy weeks and months.