Beloved Read online

  An honest, inspiring and powerful read. We wholeheartedly recommend this to every young woman on an adventure following Jesus. Buy it, read it, live it!

  Gavin Calver, Director of Mission at the Evangelical Alliance, and Anne Calver, Associate Minister at King’s Community Church, Oldbury

  I can’t shout loudly enough about Beloved! Pick it up and digest the words of hope, encouragement and challenge. This is one of those books that you’ll want to highlight big chunks of and go back to over and over again!

  Meg Cannon, founder of koko (thekokostory.com), a website aiming to encourage and inspire teenage girls

  Beloved will change the way you view yourself, your future and your relationship with God. It’s easy to read and so full of honest, thought-provoking wisdom. I could not put it down out of hunger to learn more about what it means to be a woman of God, and how to live it out in a practical way. Rachel uncovers a new side to topics I thought I knew. An inspirational and totally transforming read.

  Martha Collison, quarter-finalist and youngest ever contestant on The Great British Bake Off, and Tearfund ambassador against child trafficking

  Love: quite probably the most misunderstood and misused emotion in our culture today. We need to learn that the only way to truly love ourselves is first to know and embrace the love God has for us. It’s not radical, but for some it feels impossible. Beloved opens up those possibilities.

  Fiona McDonald, Director of National Ministries, Scottish Bible Society

  Reading Beloved is like grabbing a coffee with a wise and trusted mentor. The kind of mentor who sees more to you, more to your life and more to your future than you might believe possible. Not the kind of mentor who will pull their punches, but the kind of mentor who tells you the truth, even when it hurts, challenges the parts of you that aren’t what they should be, the kind of mentor who will spark life-altering change in you. So grab a coffee, find a quiet space, and see where this mentor will take you.

  Sarah Percival, Project Development Worker, Romance Academy

  Soaked in Scripture and calling us forward in courage, Beloved is a must-read if, like me, you’re a girl navigating life with Jesus at your side, but with all the questions, challenges and adventures that come with that. I finished the book with my head held high, my gaze lifted to Jesus, but with a glint in my eye as I was reminded of the fierce, wild, surprising nature of knowing I am beloved and can be love too. Beloved will remind you of who God says you are and send you on to live out that fierce and free identity with him.

  Miriam Swaffield, student mission leader, Fusion

  Rachel – on behalf of the many young women that this book will undoubtedly impact – thank you, thank you for writing it. You pour your own heartfelt learning and wisdom onto its pages. In particular, your Christian teaching on beauty is some of the most helpful and grounded that I have read in a long time.

  Lucinda van der Hart, associate editor of Premier Christianity magazine, a presenter on Premier Christian Radio and a mum of two

  © Rachel Gardner 2015

  Rachel Gardner has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as Author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  The lyrics on page 10 are from ‘True Intimacy’, copyright © 2011 Thankyou Music/Adm. by Capitol CMG Publishing excl. UK & Europe, adm. by Integrity Music, part of the Davic C Cook family, [email protected].

  Some names have been changed in order to protect the privacy of the women whose stories I’ve shared.

  Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

  Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  The Scripture quotation marked NCV is taken from the New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  The Scripture quotation marked KJV is from the King James Version of the Bible.

  First published 2015

  ISBN: 9781783593590

  Cover design: Kev Jones

  INTER-VARSITY PRESS

  Norton Street, Nottingham NG7 3HR, England

  Email: [email protected]

  Website: www.ivpbooks.com

  Inter-Varsity Press publishes Christian books that are true to the Bible and that communicate the gospel, develop discipleship and strengthen the church for its mission in the world.

  Inter-Varsity Press is closely linked with the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, a student movement connecting Christian Unions in universities and colleges throughout Great Britain, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Website: www.uccf.org.uk

  Be loved

  How to read this book

  1. Be whole

  2. Be free

  3. Be brave

  4. Be beautiful

  5. Be real

  6. Be pure

  7. Be faithful

  8. Be love

  Notes

  My beloved girl.

  Love will always find you.

  x

  We, though, are going to love – love and be loved.

  First we were loved, now we love.

  He loved us first.

  (1 John 4:19 MSG)

  True intimacy

  Is my desire

  To catch Your whispers

  To carry Your fire...

  More than living

  More than breathing

  You’re the reason

  My heart’s beating...

  So I’m giving

  Freely yielding

  You’re the reason

  My heart’s beating1

  I spill a drink all down the front of my friend’s new dress.

  She jumps up, flings her arms out, eyes wide, laughing, and a little furious! You’ve seen it countless times: that funny lurch we make, too late, to try to avoid the inevitable.

  Leaving my teens behind felt like that. I didn’t want to stay sweet sixteen forever – I was desperate to grow up and start living – but I imagined that once I hit my twenties, I would somehow be different, a whole new me. With unshakeable certainty instead of crippling self-doubt, and an air of cool mystery instead of my awful self-consciousness.

  I wish someone had told me.

  Not how to dodge the future, but how to embrace it. All of it: the adventure, the loneliness, the confusion, the recklessness, the yearnings, because it became this creative drive in me to seek, to find, to know.

  ‘God, are you there? Who are you? Who am I? What am I here for? Am I loved?’

  If you’re familiar with these questions, then this book is for you.

  If you know how it feels to be small in a big world, and still want to change it, then this book is for you.

  If you’ve made mistakes or faced things that have at times made you rethink your faith but still cry out to God to use you powerfully and recklessly, then this book is for you.

  If you’re finding your feet as a woman, still act like a girl (sometimes), and know you need a little encouragement to live out your phenomenal femaleness
, then this book is for you.

  In some ways it’s a sequel.

  I wrote Cherished because I was keen that the truth of our identity as God’s children would speak louder than the critical, cruel voices telling girls they’re unlovely and unlovable.

  I’ve written Beloved because the girls who read Cherished are older now... and wiser!

  And with age come those experiences that can be at the same time exciting and daunting: leaving school, starting work, going to university, moving out of home, falling in love, going travelling, getting heartbroken, getting married, following a career, raising a family, building a life, pursuing a dream. In the midst of all of this, you might catch yourself asking age-old questions like: ‘who am I?’, ‘where am I going?’ or ‘what am I here for?’

  Here’s Lizzie (twenty):

  I feel I am always going through a massive change – it’s not always obvious to other people. I used to think, ‘When am I going to be settled?’ I find that I get drawn to people who also love being on a journey where they are changing and growing all the time. I love seeing my friends getting deeper into their lives. Not being static or becoming stagnant is really important to me.

  I have the privilege of travelling and chatting with young women about all sorts of things. Geography, fashion and musical tastes might differ from place to place, but one question nags them all: what next? Sometimes they are anxious about growing up and leaving their teen years behind them. Like Erika: ‘Next week I’m going to be nineteen, and then I’m only a year away from being twenty. That’s so old!’ she wailed.

  For some, like twenty-year-old Dani, the labels they picked up in painful years need to be left behind. ‘I haven’t cut myself for three years,’ she said. ‘You sound sad about that,’ I comment. ‘I’m not sad I’ve stopped cutting myself. But,’ she admits, ‘sometimes I’d still like to be in hospital where people are watching me, making sure I’m OK. I wore the hospital band on my wrist for months after I was discharged, as confirmation of my fragility. Like, “I’m in pain; you can’t judge me.” I don’t need to cut myself now. I don’t have that label any more, but I’m still fragile.’

  Others, like nineteen-year-old Hannah, just can’t wait to face whatever their future holds. ‘I’m about to leave home and get stuck into my new life. It’s all ready for me, and I love a good challenge!’

  However it’s expressed, the desire to become more than they already are burns really brightly for all of these young women, yet it’s not without anxiety or self-doubt. Will I match up? Succeed? Find work? Find love? Feel confident? Be OK?

  Although asked in lots of different ways, in the end our questions all boil down to this: ‘Am I loved?’ Somehow, consciously and unconsciously, we know that whatever the answer, it will have the power to change everything.

  I’m going to try, time and again, in many varied ways, to root deep in your heart the fact that you’re loved by God. For you to be able to pick up a flower, pull off each petal, and every time you do that, to say, ‘He loves me, he loves me, he loves me...’

  Simply loved

  This book has been written in stolen moments.

  My daughter Daisy arrived one snowy January and turned everything upside down. She clung to me in those first few weeks, needing to know if I could be trusted to care for her. Needing to be fed by a love that would nourish her, strengthen her, stabilize her. That’s the thing about love: it’s powerful. When you reach out to love someone, or when you reach out to be loved, your whole life changes. In a nutshell, that’s everything this book is about. Simply the fact that you are loved.

  Were you hoping for something more complicated?

  It’s funny how the simplest things can often become the most difficult to grasp. That’s because we’ve turned love into a feeling, an opinion, an emotion, that excuses or encourages all sorts of selfish behaviour. We don’t always believe it when people say they love us, because love seems to come and go like traffic. When we’re loved, we find ourselves inhabiting this space where everything seems possible, but when we’re ‘un-loved’, we find ourselves retreating from the world to nurse our love-inflicted bruises.

  But that’s not the love we’re made to know.

  The love you crave is here.

  And it keeps on giving and believing and hoping and holding because love, as it is meant to be, is defined by God: ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:16 NLT).

  And God is here.

  Loving my daughter has changed me forever. Her life and my life have joined forces. When she’s buzzing about something, I’m buzzing too. When I hear a song that I love, and dance round the room, she wiggles along. Do you ever picture your Father God being with you like this? Loving you like this? Imagine it: God’s great Spirit, tuned into the moods of your heart, joining your life to his, throwing his head back and laughing when something lights you up, or being deeply moved when you’re in pain.

  I hope that reading this book will help you to wake up to God’s love in fresh, even unexpected, ways. This is your one wild life. The only way to live it well is to live well in love. The only way to live well in love is to let God love you, and others through you.

  It will change everything.

  So be free in love, be full of love and be fierce in giving love.2

  We’re going to get to grips with lots of hot topics: beauty, identity, sexuality, relationships, disappointment, regrets, injustice, ambitions, guidance, career, family, future. I’ll also be introducing you to women who’ve been through it all: some of them are doers; others are dreamers. They succeed and fail, lose everything and give it all they’ve got, stand in defiance and kneel in surrender. They make friends, and sometimes even enemies, but they always love, always hope, always persevere. But when they fail, they always come back to the love that is greater than their own. The secret to their influence and beauty is that they are learning on a daily basis what it means to be loved and be love. I know you will see yourself in them in all sorts of ways.

  The Bible and our own Christian heritage is packed full of women who changed the hearts of kings and the outcomes of wars, freed prisoners and fed the poor, built hope and founded companies, raised children and practised faithfulness, loved recklessly and lived generously. They were both companions to men and leaders of men in bringing God’s love to this broken world.

  So, in each chapter we’re going to be immersing ourselves in a famous or little-known woman’s story from the Bible. I want us to let these ancient sisters speak for themselves, and resist the temptation to gloss over the tough bits of their story or glorify them to be who they weren’t and aren’t. After all, they were flesh and blood like us, self-serving and surrendered revolutionaries in equal measure. But when they choose to pursue Love, they take our breath away!

  Eve, Esther, Jephthah’s daughter, Ruth, Rahab, Mary the mother of Jesus, the nameless women – at the well, with a jar of oil, caught in adultery, and grabbing hold of Jesus’ cloak – all build up a powerful picture, showing us something profound about finding love and living it out with grace and courage even in the most unjust of situations. In their day, men ruled, animals were valued above them, and being a woman meant you were almost powerless to change the world.

  Almost...

  Because against such odds, these women have gone down in history for the part they played in God’s unfolding love story. Jesus even cites some of them among his ancestors.

  Wonderland

  God’s love for you is beyond your understanding.

  It can be so hard to get our heads and hearts around the logic-defying, freely given love of God. Even Elihu, one of Job’s so-called friends, asks us to

  Take a long, hard look. See how great [God] is – infinite,

  greater than anything you could ever imagine or figure out!

  (Job 36:26 MSG)

  These long looks can begin with a glimpse where you see things differently, maybe for the first time. I find that the more I glimpse of God, the more I want to see how he s
ees, and love how he loves. If God is asking us to love other people as we love ourselves, then it stands to reason that we need to learn to love ourselves. One of the best ways to begin loving yourself is to get to know and appreciate yourself.

  Wonderland is a collection of questions at the end of each chapter that are designed to help you see God and yourself more clearly as you mull over the ideas and challenges you’ve just read. You may want to chat them through with a group of friends you can truly be yourself with. Some people find it really helpful to keep a journal.

  My sanctuary

  For you to be all that you can be, you need to be with God.

  He is always loving you, always with you and always wanting to speak to you. My sanctuary is a chance for you to find a safe, still place where you can stop and listen to God, free from distraction. If you’re not used to silence, this can feel uncomfortable to start with. But persevere. Switch your gadgets off! Silence is a creative way to move thinking forward. You have so much thought traffic rushing round your head, and some thoughts are so big they can almost knock you over. So make time to stop, quieten yourself and think. This will become a precious space where you can be you, just you, with God. Every time you open up your heart to God, he hears you and knows exactly where you’re at.

  So don’t dip out of this bit: good things begin in God’s presence.

  Your safe place

  Your sanctuary could be anywhere: your bedroom, a corner of a room at college, or the local coffee shop. It might also work better for you at a certain time in the day: are you more of a dawn girl or a twilight kind? The most important thing is that you find somewhere you can grab undisturbed alone time. When you find your sanctuary, start each time of reflection with the words: ‘Lord, I’m just going to sit here and be the object of your love.’ 3 You’ll be amazed at what happens as you rest in the loving gaze of God.