Part of The Love Chapters series

A very exhausting, cold and wet autumn day led me to a half drunk man and his friend on the Metropolitan line on my way home. I had gone for a church meeting after work, on a day that I don’t usually work. It was now around 9 in the evening and I felt drained and somewhat fed up of the state of my life and Christian service.

The doors opened to an over-packed train full of football fans on their way home from Wembley Stadium. I was determined to get home, so I squeezed in anyway rather than waiting for the next one.

This was when I met Half Drunk Man from Birmingham and friend. My face was positioned next to his armpit, a normal occurrence for me, a Londoner, but a desperately awkward position for someone visiting from out of town. He began to apologise for the smell of his armpit, and that’s when I looked up and noticed him.

He was looking at me as if I were the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

He began to make small talk and asked me what I did for a living. I told him I worked for a church, half trying to deter him from going any further. But he wanted to know what I did for the church and why I was going home so late. Call it the booze or something else, he looked genuinely interested.

Honestly, I didn’t want them to get off but they did at the stop before mine, and said their goodbyes cheerfully and politely.

Tired, fed up me was beautiful in someone’s eyes, and this almost made me cry. Why? I guess for the first time in a long while I remembered I am a woman. I am Chaplain, Administrator or Volunteer. But still, I am Woman.

There’s something about Christian service that seems to render one sex-less. Your roles and titles become your identity and personality. Then a random stranger looks at you and you suddenly realise that there is one more title and role that you and those that you serve have forgotten: Woman, purposefully shaped and carved by the Creator.

Woman with wants and desires. Woman that loves romance. Woman that would appreciate an embrace. Woman that wants to know she is beautiful.

It almost feels wrong and shameful for this woman to have these thoughts of wanting to be loved and appreciated. Perhaps there is a tendency for Christians to vilify these thoughts.

However, God created this woman and he knew what he was doing when he formed me as I am. So surely my thoughts of romance can be holy…..no?

The Man said,
“Finally! Bone of my bone,
    flesh of my flesh!
Name her Woman
    for she was made from Man.”
Genesis 2:23-25 (MSG)