You can still get it for free by signing up on my website and reading it on PDF or emailed to your Kindle. But – if you love the physicality of books, and you would rather turn pages with your whole hand rather than a finger, my short book on the biblical book of Ruth is now available to purchase, from Amazon, for a mere £3.99 or $5.50.
Covenant friends are friends you commit to for life, a bit like a marriage relationship, but without necessarily the geographical proximity. (And without the sex, obviously).
I feel a little embarrassed even comparing platonic friendships with marriage, and I think that sense of shame is worth noting – we have to explain or apologise for close friendships. Our society unconsciously sends the message that intimacy and commitment is reserved only for romantic relationships, so we treat very close friendships with suspicion.
living in such close proximity to death had marked me. I woke up at night, sensing its heavy breathing on the back of my neck. I saw it everywhere I went: its inevitability, its steady, onward march. It will eventually take everyone I love. It will eventually take me. I paced the house. I felt anxious and afraid.
Life is hard, and life is good. Writing a book is hard, and writing a book is also very, very good. Though this is a short, read-it-in-half-an-hour book, it gives me confidence for the longer projects. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. (But perhaps when my eyes are not so bloodshot…)
It’s easy to think that God was punishing me. That’s certainly the sort of theology that permeated my childhood. My depression, and the scattering of people from my life were one big judgement. I found a home in the wailing language of the Psalms.
Can we just all agree, unanimously, to put a pause on January? Wouldn’t that be nice – just to have a couple of weeks of zero time, an empty space with neither Christmas nor New Year Resolutions – so we can all catch up with ourselves before the year begins?
It was so beautiful, and such a surprise. There was the sort of atmosphere in the room that, had we not already been married for over a decade, I would have been expecting Jon to get down on one knee and propose. I kept staring in silence, and then said what anyone else would say in my situation:
“You monkey. I can’t believe you got me this.”
What about the mother who is struggling with an invisible physical infirmity (eg back problems or injury post-birth) who can lift their baby but not at the same time as dealing with a buggy, AND they have depression, and so asking for help with a buggy would push them over the edge into sobbing, and they would just have to leave the bus rather than be able to move? What makes one disability trump another?
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Tanya Marlow blogs on the Bible, suffering and the messy edges of life [read more]