The Strength You Find in Faith-Led Women

I grew up with two brothers and throughout my childhood I witnessed a lot of joy my mum and her 5 sisters would share in their time together. It then birthed a longing in me for a sister relationship. I am deeply blessed to have found that in my cousins and friends over the years. I remember sharing the news, we were expecting our 2nd daughter to my mum and she said to me "oh thats awesome Ivy, you always wanted a sister and now you can enjoy it raising your daughters"

Throughout my life I have come across so many woman who have had an influence in my life; family, school, work, social clubs, and church. Of all these places church is where I spent a lot of time, whether it would be at mass, choir practice, Sunday school, sport events and so on. With all that time spent together I became more aware of the relationships and influence that came from it - the good, the bad and the inbetween.

Now, in this season of raising our daughters and leading women and girls in our faith family I see great value in being surrounded by women of faith. We live in a world that is very broken, and as a follower of Christ we understand that as a human race we often choose to be led by everything else other than God. And so we then distance ourselves from Him, often unknowingly.

By choosing to be in good company with other faith-led women, we begin to understand that together we can be stronger individually as women and as a collective sisterhood. When it's hard to hear God's voice in our hard times, He speaks through His daughters to reach us through words and actions of love, patience, kindness, understanding and often forgiveness. We live in this messy world but we are not of it. We read in the bible the way Jesus lived on earth among all the mess and He never became part of it.

I love hearing how our daughters are experiencing life in church as young women and more so that the influence, encouragement and support they receive from their 'sisters' in church helps them to be faith-led women in life. This is the test for me, as their mother and also as their leader in church.

It's what we do every day and in every season that matters not just on Sundays.