Uncover the raw and transformative power of faith in the face of adversity in this week's compelling episode of 'What's The Story?' Join us as Claudine Roberts shares a journey from pain to purpose, revealing how even the darkest chapters can be rewritten by a God who sees, heals, and redeems. Tune in to discover how your deepest struggles can lead to your greatest victories, and how the lessons etched through trials are shaping lives and echoing hope in places you'd least expect. This isn't just about finding light in the darkness; it's about becoming a beacon of it.

🔸 In Today's Episode, You Will Hear About:

• Navigating Difficult Bible Stories: The episode discusses confronting challenging biblical tales, focusing on God's perspective on violence against women and His role as 'the God who sees'.
• Trauma and Divine Purpose: Claudine Roberts shares her story of healing from abuse, emphasizing that God uses our painful experiences for growth and to further His kingdom.
• Understanding God's Goodness: A key point of discussion is the consistent goodness of God, even when evil occurs, and His power to redeem and repurpose our suffering for His glory.
• Healing Resources and Outreach: Claudine introduces her book designed for both personal reflection and group study, aimed at fostering church discussions on complex biblical subjects.

MEET CLAUDINE

Claudine Roberts is a former human rights solicitor and a member of the preaching team at Freedom Church Liverpool, part of the New Ground family of churches. She is married to Paul and they have three children. In her legal career, Claudine specialised in mental health law and detention under the Mental Health Act. She represented both victims and perpetrators of violence, including some of the most dangerous violent offenders in the country, detained in maximum security. Claudine was seriously sexually assaulted herself twice in her teens and then raped in her twenties in the context of an emotionally abusive relationship. She now writes and speaks on what the Bible says about violence against women and her book on the subject was published earlier this year as part of the Cover to Cover Bible Study series.

Hey there and welcome to What s the Story.

We re an inquisitive bunch of hosts from the What s the Story team on a

mission to uncover stories about faith and courage from everyday people.

In doing that, we get the privilege of chatting with amazing guests and

have the opportunity to delve into their faith journey, the hurdles they

ve overcome, and the life lessons they have learned along the way.

If you enjoy our podcast, don t forget to subscribe and sign up

for our weekly newsletter at our website whatsthestorypodcast.

com.

It's your direct line to the latest episodes and detailed show notes,

delivered straight into your inbox.

And the best part, it's totally free.

What's the Story is brought to you by Crowd Church, who fully understand

that stepping into a traditional church might not be everyone's cup of joe.

Crowd Church provides a digital sanctuary, a safe space to explore

the Christian faith where you can engage in meaningful conversations,

rather than just simply spectating.

So whether you're new to the Christian faith or in search of

a new church family, visit crowd.

church.

And if you have any questions at all, just drop them an email, hello at crowd.

church.

They would love to connect with you.

And now let's meet your host and our special guest for today.

Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode

of What's the Story podcast.

I'm Anna Kettle, your host for today, and I'm joined by Claudine

Roberts for our conversation.

So Claudine is a former human rights solicitor and a member of the preaching

team at Freedom Church in Liverpool.

That's part the UK.

She's married to Paul and they have three children.

In her legal career, Claudine specialised in mental health law and

detention under the Mental Health Act.

She represents both victims and perpetrators of violence, including some

of the most dangerous violent offenders in the country, detained in maximum security.

She was seriously assaulted herself twice in her teens and then raped

in her 20s in the context of an emotionally abusive relationship.

She now writes and speaks on the subject of what the Bible has to

say about violence against women.

And her book on the subject was published earlier this year as part of

the Cover to Cover Bible study series.

So Claudine, what an amazing introduction there, so much in

that, so much that you've done.

Welcome to What's the Story?

Oh, thanks Anna.

Hi, it's lovely to chat to you today.

It's great to have you here.

Now, let's start at the beginning and just tell us a little bit more about yourself.

You're a mum of three from Liverpool.

Like, how long have you been here?

What's your

background?

Where are you from?

Yeah, so I'm not a Scouser in case you can't tell from my accent I was born

in Surrey moved around a little bit for uni and early career, but then lived

in Surrey for about nine or 10 years more recently closer to my family, and

then My husband and I and our children moved to Liverpool about two years ago.

We felt like God was calling us to move here.

And we were in a sister church to Freedom Church down in Surrey, and so

we started getting to know the people from Freedom Church in Liverpool

and moved up here to join them.

Really?

Brilliant.

Yeah, res Law says our gain in Liverpool, isn't it?

How are you finding Liverpool so far?

Do you like the.

Yeah, we love it.

We're having a great time.

We've made really good friends already.

And there's so much fun to be had in the city, isn't there?

Yeah, there's a

lot going on.

It's a really creative, cool city for anyone who's not a

local person who's listening.

We have listeners from all across the UK and around the world sometimes.

So yeah, highly recommend you check it out if you haven't been before.

I personally, and obviously I'm not a Scouser either and neither is my husband.

He's also from Surrey, interestingly.

I moved here as a student when I was 18, and I've just never

left, for exactly that reason.

Lots of people stay, don't they?

Yeah, they really do.

Let's dig into your story a little bit then.

How did you become a Christian?

Have you always grown up in a Christian household?

Or what's your background in both?

Yeah my family is not Christian actually my

parents are lapsed Catholics.

My mum took us to church to get us into the good schools but I'm not sure she

really has a faith of her own I'm not really sure about that and I started going

to a church Born Again Christian Church.

In my teens, about 16, a group of friends took me and I already

considered myself a Christian.

I thought I was having been in the Catholic Church and Catholic schools and

then I guess I encountered The real Jesus, at about 16 my friends took me to Soul

Survivor one of the kind of Christian youth camps down in the south and yeah,

had a great time and encountered Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit and really

made a commitment to him at that time.

That's fab.

Obviously you've been a Christian since then, but...

as With all of us, life hasn't gone totally smoothly at all times.

I think we alluded to some of this in your bio that I read there at the beginning.

And sexual violence has actually been a big part of your story and like a

major challenge you've had to overcome.

So can you just tell us a little bit about that?

Can you unpackage that?

Yeah shortly after I became a Christian, I was

sexually assaulted for the first time.

I didn't really identify it as a sexual assault at that time.

I think I was too young to understand what had happened.

Maybe I didn't have the vocabulary or the kind of education.

On what happened and how to deal with it.

And so I just pushed it down.

And then I was assorted again at 18 at university.

That time I did know what had happened.

And I was a bit off the rails at that point, actually I wasn't going

to church in my university town.

I was only going in the holidays when I was back at my home church

where I became a Christian.

And I didn't really have anyone to disciple me.

And I was just running away from God and not dealing with things.

And actually in that period, I was in some pretty unhealthy relationships

going out with non Christians.

And

in my early twenties, I was then in a really emotionally abusive relationship.

And then that guy raped me.

And.

After that, I started to deal with those experiences, but I would say fairly

superficially more in terms of my own sin in those situations, actually,

rather than what had been done to me and the sin of others because I still...

wasn't really equipped to deal with it.

And I wasn't walking closely with God and I didn't know what he had to

say about what had happened to me.

And so actually it was really only a few years ago in about 2019 that God started

to really speak to me about what happened and start to deal with those things on

a much deeper level and deal with my trauma and it was only then really that

I identified that first assault at age 16 as a sexual assault and I realized

what had happened and then of course it felt really raw and like it had only just

happened because the trauma was brought up and it was so close to the surface.

Yeah, gosh, that is such a lot to go through.

Any kind of sexual violence or assault or rape is a lot, to go through once,

but to go through it three times, and also from quite a young age that first

time, As you say, that's a lot to process and I suppose it's not that surprising

that at the time you perhaps didn't fully deal with it or comprehend it.

'cause that's really hard to deal with it at that age, isn't it?

It's a lot to process and I guess it even has been quite a journey you just

alluded to, even as an adult to Yeah.

Recover from that and heal from it.

And obviously you said your relationship with God.

Over those years, you were a Christian, but quite a new Christian

when it first happened and then it drifted away a little bit, but God

was there in the background still.

Is it part, is your story partly that coming back to God

started that healing process?

What how did the two interlink, your faith and that experience?

Yeah, I think, I started drawing closer to God again,

maybe in my early to mid twenties, so after all the assaults had happened but

it just wasn't on my radar to deal with it then like I said, I felt like I was

dealing things in terms of my own sin and how I had been running away from God and.

I, I had much to repent for in that period and I did, and my, yeah, I,

my relationship with God, got back on track and I've been walking closely

with him for many years now, but it's funny actually how it just felt like

in about 2019, the beginning of 2020, it just felt like God was saying now

is the time I want to deal with this.

I think often we can feel like.

We've got no more baggage or no more deep traumas to deal with.

And then God says, ah, now is the time.

How about this one?

Cause I really, I was, I was, I consider myself quite a mature Christian.

I was already on the preaching team of my church by that point.

And.

I felt like I was quite together, actually, it didn't feel like there

was this dark deep pit just lurking, just waiting to be dealt with, it was

quite a surprise to me when God said, how about this, let's talk about this

now cause I just hadn't really thought about it for so many years, especially

that first assault that happened when I was 16, I just hadn't recognised

it as sexual violence and so I didn't know there was anything to deal with.

Yeah,

it's so interesting, isn't it?

I think sometimes God, his healing process, it's I've heard it described as

like layers of the onion slowly gets to the centre, but he's gentle, isn't he?

He only gets us to deal with things as quickly and as deeply

as we can cope with at the time.

So maybe that's why quite often it feels like a process, or you think, ah, I

thought I'd dealt with that, and actually.

There's more deep healing to be done still.

And it doesn't always feel gentle though, Anna, sometimes

it feels quite brutal, , but when you look back you can see, oh no, God's

God was actually really kind in that.

Yeah.

And the timing was quite interesting, wasn't it?

Because didn't I think you'd said that it was during Covid that it all

sort came up again, like during that period when the world was sling down.

Can you tell us a bit more about what happened and how God

did bring it back on your radar.

Yeah, of course.

So like I said, end of 2019, that's when it first came up

and it was really strange.

It was the result of a conversation with someone from church.

One of my friends said something to me.

And it was a really split second, like a really short conversation.

But it made me really cross Anna, so it felt like she had shut

me down but not intentionally.

She wasn't being mean, it just was quite an innocent comment and

I just felt really angered by it.

So I took it to God and I said, why am I so angry about this Lord?

And he said, Oh, it's because you believe this lie from the enemy

that your voice doesn't matter.

And you felt shut down and it's because of this lie.

And I was like, Oh, that's a surprise.

so I started to speak to God more about that.

Why have I been believing this lie from the enemy that my voice doesn't matter?

And quite quickly, I realized that God was linking it to those

experiences of sexual violence.

Each time I had said no, and that hadn't mattered to the

perpetrator, they had ignored it.

That told me that my voice didn't matter.

I think the enemy got in and told me this lie, your voice doesn't

matter, your no doesn't matter.

And effectively you don't matter.

And so over those three occasions that just got that lie got

strengthened and reinforced.

And I began to really believe it.

And so it was all linked to my voice and the lies of the enemy.

God started speaking to me about what had happened.

And then.

I remember it was the very last church meeting that we had before lockdown when

we were no longer able to meet in 2020.

So God had been speaking to me about this kind of for a couple of months

very gently and then it was the last church meeting and I said God

when did I first believe this lie?

And God showed me the very first incident when I was 16 that I hadn't

previously considered as a sexual assault.

And God showed me that this was an incident of sexual

violence and an attack on me.

And I hadn't dealt with it because I'd only considered my own sin

in that situation, and so then it the tears started to come and.

That's why I say sometimes it feels brutal, because that was quite shocking

to me that God had brought that to mind after, over 20 years of it being dormant.

And so the tears started to come and over that time...

I had just started a new job, I was working for Newground Churches, my family

of churches doing communications and things having not worked for about nine

years, I was a stay at home mum with my three kids so then I was in the office

and I was just crying every day and my colleagues were like the guys in my

church were like saying, are you okay?

And I was like, yeah, I'm fine.

But it was very clear that I wasn't, but I couldn't.

I couldn't process what was going on externally, it was quite an

internal thing at that point.

But my mental health really started to take a dive and...

I became really quite low, but the whole time I was just clinging on to

God and saying, God, I need to know what you say about what happened to me.

So yeah, I just started digging into the scriptures really and My

mental health went down and down.

That's not what you expect to hear, is it?

You'd expect to hear, I was praying, I was reading the Bible,

I started to feel much better.

But that's not actually the case.

My mental health over a period of months through the lockdown just

got worse and worse until I reached the point where I was like, oh, I

need some professional help here.

And that's really good.

And I really appreciate you being honest with that because so often it can be

tempting as Christians to think, oh I'll just go to God's word and then.

The answers will be there, we'll pray and we'll feel better and that's not

always the case real trauma requires some real work, doesn't it, and processing,

and actually there's a real place for counselling and therapy alongside.

All of that spiritual input as well.

And and you did do a period of that, didn't you?

Your mental health declined.

Yeah, I had some EMDR, which is a specialist trauma therapy.

It stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.

That was really interesting to me.

I'd been working as a mental health solicitor years before that in my 20s, and

some of my clients had it in the past, so I knew that it worked because I'd seen it

in some of my clients and yeah, so I went for that, and I found that really helpful

actually, and I'd really recommend it.

Yeah, just for people who don't know what it is, just very

briefly explain a little bit more about how it works, like how it's to

do with your eyes.

tHere are different ways of doing it.

So there's a way that where you can follow the therapist's finger from side

to side, so that is to do with your eyes, but that's not how my therapist did it.

It's not a traditional talking therapy.

You do talk about your experiences in part, but it's not just talking.

So my therapist had something that was a bit like a TENS machine.

So if you've had a baby, you'll know.

You'll know what it's like, but if you haven't, it's sticky pad that you stick

on your when you're pregnant, you stick it on your back and it buzzes with

an electrical pulse, but this that my therapist had was two paddles that

you could hold in your hands or you could just stick them in the waistband

of your trousers, one on each side.

So the idea is that it would buzz on one side and then the other,

and then the other, and then the other just alternate buzzing, um,

like a little electrical pulse.

And the idea is to make your brain fire on one side and then the other

side and the other side in a rhythm.

As you think about your experiences and the way that my therapist explained it.

Was that each traumatic incident that you have or experience that you have

is a bit like a box, cardboard box, or like an in tray in your mind with all

the thoughts and feelings, emotions surrounding that incident of all just

like little bits of paper just shoved into the box and they haven't been sorted.

It's like lots of little post its just shoved in the box.

And so I had three of these boxes in my mind, one for, one for each experience.

And as you think about the incident in like a guided way as the buzzers

buzz one side, then the other, it's a bit like your brain sorts through

all the bits of paper and all the post its and puts them in the right place.

And I found that a really helpful kind of illustration of what was going on.

And it was, yeah, it was really amazing for me.

Yeah,

it's interesting.

I have to admit before talking to you, I hadn't come across that before.

And I think it's so interesting, isn't it?

How the brain works and how God's made us so fearfully and wonderfully.

And it's very complex, isn't it?

But actually.

Yeah, the sort of physiological side and how the brain works

mentally and how it all comes together and the spiritual as well,

yeah, I definitely found that it was also partly a

spiritual experience for me because it's not a traditional talking therapy.

There's a lot of kind of listening or.

Or sorting through things in your own mind and just thinking about them.

So as I did that, I felt like God was with me in the room and it was like

I was having a conversation with God.

And sometimes that would make me laugh or get upset.

And then my therapist would say, Oh, what, why are you laughing?

And I would say she wasn't a Christian, so it was quite funny.

I would say, Oh God just said this.

So it was quite an interesting experience for me and for her, I think.

Yeah sounds amazing and so obviously you went through that

process and did get some real freedom and release and you also said that at

the time you were, that whole period of life gave you a bit of headspace to

work through some of it and wrestle with

Yeah.

I know you've gone on to write a book on this more recently, but tell

us a bit more about that process.

Like, how did that all come about and, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

At first I thought, God, this timing is crazy.

We're in the middle of a global pandemic or at the start of a global

pandemic, really, and everywhere's going into lockdown, why are you

bringing this up with me now?

This is not good timing, but obviously we know God's timing is perfect.

Yeah.

So it was great actually, because the expectations on me

for work just really lowered.

And then my husband who had previously been commuting into London every

day was suddenly at home all the time and just able to be present

a lot more with the children.

And so actually it.

It felt like really good timing.

I started really digging into the Bible and praying a lot.

God, what do you say about what's happened to me?

And I I journal as I pray, so I just write down what I'm praying and if I hear God

say anything, and I also just write notes in there on the bits of the Bible that

I'm reading that day whatever it might be, so sometimes I'm quite disciplined and I

go through a certain book of the Bible, but in this period And I was like, God, I

need to know what these stories of sexual violence in the Bible and other types of

violence against women, I need to know what they mean, why they're in there.

And I looked for a book that would explain each story.

I wanted a a dummy's guide, like this story means this is what we're

supposed to take from it, and this story, and just going through them.

And I just couldn't find it.

And so I started ordering loads of books, because I'm a real reader, so I

was on the internet, I was just ordering everything I could find on the subject.

And there wasn't that, I'm a reader too.

But some of what I could find was really like these heavy

academic tomes, big thick volumes.

And my husband was like, there's another parcel what are you doing?

And I was like, I'm researching, and I was just ordering all these books and

just reading, there was a little bit on Hagar in one book, a little bit about

Tamar in another, and just writing all these notes in my prayer journals okay,

this is what I think God's saying about this story, and what he wants to say to

me personally through it as a survivor of sexual violence and I couldn't find

the book that I wanted, but I found a little bit here and a little bit there

and ended up piecing it all together.

And then God started to speak to me about what I had in my hand, through

my, like in my prayer journals.

I had the book that I had been looking for because I had compiled it.

I pulled it all together.

And God started speaking to me about how that was linked to then using my voice.

I thought that my voice didn't matter, but actually it really did, because there

are other women who need to know what God says about what's happened to them and so

I started to just think about how I might.

Get that into the hands of other women and to preachers in our churches, because

we don't really talk about these biblical stories of violence against women.

And that was part of my problem was that I'd had no teaching on,

on what the Bible says about this.

And I know that there are churches that do want to help people deal

with their trauma and things.

Yeah, so I started thinking about that and how I could get it out there.

Yeah, that's amazing, and I think you're so right.

We don't tend to talk about these issues very much in the church, do we?

I'm not saying we never do, but I don't think women's issues, women's

health lots of these subjects don't get talked much about in church.

Certainly I've never heard of.

A preach or a talk before on sexual violence in that kind of

context, and so yeah, I think those resources for the church are so

needed at the moment, aren't they?

Why do you think that is?

Do you have any ideas on why those kind of subjects, that really affect a lot of

women, don't they, and there'll be women in, lots of churches that are affected by

the issue of sexual violence or assault.

Yeah.

I don't think it is that we don't talk about these issues much.

Yeah, I think part of it is to do with the fact that traditionally

there have been more men teaching than women and that's obviously still the case

in some denominations or church families.

And so I think men may not, I'm generalizing, but they may not.

Think about addressing those issues.

But also, it's there in the Bible.

So they obviously will have come across it in there, but I think also there's

a lot of fear around perhaps doing more harm than good and bringing things up

for people and then not knowing how to.

Equip them to deal with it healthily and safely.

So I think silence has always felt like maybe the safer option, especially since

there haven't been resources to show people how to speak on these subjects.

And also I think there's the issue that in the past, some of these biblical stories

of violence have been really poorly interpreted, and they've laid blame on

the victims and they haven't given us a true picture of What God says, and of

his character, and how much he deeply cares about women, and so I think if

you did decide to preach on one of these stories, some of the interpretations

you come across might be incredibly unhelpful, and not give an accurate

picture, and so I think people steer

clear.

Yeah, that absolutely makes sense.

But I also think that's why it's so exciting that you've written

this and that, you're speaking and sharing about your own story,

which I think is really brave.

But also so important because, it's a subject that you do

need to talk about more.

And obviously, tell us a bit more about the book itself then what's it called and

what conclusions did you actually draw?

Or what kind of?

Did you decide that the Bible does have to say on this subject?

Yeah, so it's part of the cover to cover Bible study series

which is great because that's quite an established series of Bible study

guides that small groups and churches have been using for generations now.

So I'm really pleased that hopefully that means it'll get into more people's hands.

So it's called cover to cover.

Violence Against Women Discovering El Roy, The God Who Sees.

And that first story of biblical, the violence against women and

that first story of Hagar, it's the first one we come across in Genesis.

That really spoke to me about how.

God sees what happens to her and he pursues her.

He goes looking for her in the desert.

And it says the angel of the Lord appeared to her, but I like to picture

Jesus meeting Hagar in the desert.

Because that gives us a picture of like the character of God and sets

our expectations of God's character in that moment meeting with Hagar.

And yeah, she just, she felt really seen as a result.

And throughout the stories, I started to notice a pattern that the male characters

that we often call Bible heroes, so like Abraham, like Jacob and David, they

were often present in these stories.

And we're not the hero of the story they let the women in their lives

down and in some cases like in, in Hagar's story, they commit grave sexual

sin or some other kind of grave sin.

They were, they had turned away from God's plan for them.

And so we set them up as heroes and then we come to these stories

and maybe we expect them to be the hero in that story too.

When in fact they, they are a real letdown, they turn out to be in sin.

And let me give you another example, like in the story of Tamar.

David is her father.

He's the king.

And we know, it says elsewhere in scripture that he has like

the heart of God, doesn't he?

So we expect him to be the hero in that story and to be a good,

just king and a loving father.

And Tamar is raped and he lets her down.

He doesn't go to her.

He doesn't offer her justice.

Yeah, he is a real disappointment in that story.

It's like David's come on.

But I think what I started to see was that every single story pointed to Jesus as the

saviour, the true king, the just judge, the loving husband, the loving father,

they all point us to Jesus to say You're not going to find salvation in a king

or, in, in any earthly man or any earthly person, like you've got to go to Jesus.

And then the final story that I look at in, in the Bible study is the story of

Jesus and the woman caught in adultery.

And that's the point where we go this is why we turn to Jesus.

This is his response to violence against women and Jesus interrupts violence.

And have you ever seen, there's a children's Bible called

the Jesus Storybook Bible.

Yeah, I've seen it.

And the subheading of that Bible is every story whispers his name.

And that's what I really found as I looked at the biblical stories of

violence against women, that every story whispers his name and that it's

Jesus that's who can Who can interrupt violence and who can bring healing.

I love that.

Yeah, that's such an interesting perspective.

I think it's, like you said before, so often we avoid these stories

because they're a bit difficult or certainly at first glance it's

oh, I don't know what that means.

Like all these terrible men in the Old Testament, who were just, and

it still happens today, doesn't it?

Who are just allowing violence against women and.

What does God have to say about it?

And I just love that.

I love that, and even the title of your book, it's got that name for God, the

God who sees, and I love that because so often, and it's your story, you

didn't feel heard, you didn't feel seen in your experience, and that's

so often the experience of women who've We've been, victims, isn't it?

And yet it's right there, the God who sees and doesn't overlook and

has something to say and speak into their pain, whisper into their pain.

So yeah, it just sounds like fantastic and such a needed resource

and I for one will definitely be getting a copy to have a read.

Thank you.

So yeah just amazing really.

Now, I reckon we could probably carry on talking about this for ages, because it's

fascinating, but I'm aware that time's ticking on I'd love to hear, what your

takeaway in this season, or what one big life lesson that you've discovered about

God or about faith is up to this point if you, I know it's a really hard question,

isn't it, but if you could distill it down to one thing, what's that one thing

that God's imprinted on your heart?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For me I think it's really that.

God uses everything for our good, even the really awful,

traumatic experiences of our lives.

And I think other guests on your podcast have said this to you

before, Anna, but it's just a lesson.

It's a lesson worth learning, isn't it?

Like God, God uses everything for our God, our good.

And actually that doesn't mean that he.

Condones the awful things that happen to us, or that they happen by his design.

Because, let me make it clear that I really don't believe that.

I don't believe that God intended for me to be abused and assaulted.

His plan for me does not include traumatic experiences and violence.

He only has good plans for me.

But actually...

The sin of others affects us, doesn't it?

And God can use those traumatic experiences to, to advance his kingdom.

So he uses it.

For my good, to grow me and show me how much he loves me and to bring me healing,

but he can also use it for the advance of his kingdom, for us to tell others

like this awful thing happened but my God was there and he loves me and he

brings me into healing and to freedom.

And yeah, I think that's a really important lesson for us to learn.

Yeah, that's so true, and I think you can see that so clearly in your

own life, and the story you've just shared first, God did that healing process in

you, just for you, because he loved you and he wanted you to be free, but then

also, out of that freedom, has grown this whole story, this book, the resources,

the speaking opportunities, a chance to share your story more widely so that other

people also hopefully find that freedom.

And so I love that about God.

I love that,

aS you say, God, not everything bad in the world is from God, is it?

Nothing bad in the world, in fact, is from God.

Yes, absolutely.

Like bad things that happen in our lives aren't, people say, oh, it's all part

of, God works, all things are good, doesn't mean God plans everything.

Yeah, absolutely.

In that way, but at the same time, he's so redemptive, isn't

he's so good, he's so gracious.

He's if we work with him, he's just, he's so willing to work even the bad,

even the dark, awful things, that's good, and I love that, whole redemptive

plan he has throughout creation, it's like, he's always redeeming, isn't

he's always redeeming the bad things.

Yeah, it just reminds me of as you were speaking, that story, I think it's the

story of Joseph it's in, in Genesis 50 where he says, you meant this for

harm, but God meant it for my good.

Yeah.

Just as you were speaking, I was like thinking of that, it's, so often what the

enemy means for harm and or destruction and or, or pain, God can work for his

glory because he's such a good God and yes, I love that, that God is good.

You say it, and it's yeah, often people come on and say that, but

it's such a fundamental principle that we have to stand on, isn't it?

When life is difficult and throws huge curveballs at us, it's something that

I don't know about you, but I feel like I'll continue to be learning this

truth my whole life, that God is good because he's good because he's good,

Yeah.

And we say that sometimes so easily, or we sing it in our worship songs.

God is good.

But when we actually stop and think about it, and especially when we think about

our life story and what God has done then it's Oh yeah, but he's actually really

good and he's only good, he's good.

Yeah, and I was chatting to Jenny Calcraft, who I know is a friend

of yours as well, a few weeks ago on this podcast, and she's, she had a great

analogy about this sort of similar theme, that she was saying, sometimes it's in

the breaking of our hearts and it's when our hearts are broken open, that the

truth that's written on our hearts, like we know God's good and we sing about it,

and we can say it and read the scriptures and all of that, the breaking that it

actually gets right inside, deep down.

And I just thought, wow, isn't that an amazing way of thinking about.

Not, that's not what God, that's not the reason for a brokenness, but in

our brokenness, that's what God can do.

And , yeah.

He

uses it to get in deep, doesn't he?

Yeah, I absolutely agree.

And also, it's like the picture of of being in darkness and

then the light comes, yeah.

You can only really see the light when you are in the darkness or

the light that comes brighter,

. Anna Kettle: Yeah.

I love that.

Finally then I guess, just tell us, where people can find out more, how can they

reach you, where can they find your book, because it's such a good resource and,

I'm sure people listening will want to have a look at it, want to find out more.

Where do people

go?

Yeah, thanks Anna.

So the book, if you just search the cover to cover Bible study series you'll

be able to find it but the website for that is called equippingthechurch.

com which is great, isn't it?

But also you can find me on Twitter or Instagram if you want to hear more

about my story, or if you want to come and invite me to speak at your

church or yeah ask me anything yeah.

Yeah, I'd love to, to connect with people and yeah, just help

them really use that resource.

And, I want to equip people to be talking about this subject in their churches.

The book's designed for personal or small group study.

And I know lots of churches have midweek life groups smaller groups to do the

Bible study, but also I really want.

Church leaders and teachers and preachers to be talking on these subjects.

Do use it for that.

You don't have to get me to come and tell my story.

You can use it and tell your own story and teach on those

stories that are in the Bible.

'cause they're in there and we need to be teaching on the whole of scripture.

Yeah, I think that's such a good point.

We can't just pick and choose the easy bits or we often do, but we shouldn't.

So yeah, big challenge there and it's a good one.

So yes, important resource that, so do check it out.

And we will, just to add, we will add

all of those

links that we've just discussed onto the show

notes afterwards as well.

Claudine, thank you so much for joining us today.

I've really enjoyed our conversation and found it really challenging

and inspiring and actually I've learnt quite a lot as well.

It's been a pleasure, Anna.

Thanks so much for having me.

No problem.

Thanks for having us.

Guys, thanks for joining us this week on What's The Story?

We'll catch you again very soon.

And

just like that, we've reached the end of another

fascinating conversation.

Remember to check out Crowd Online Church at www.

crowd.

church.

Don't forget to subscribe to What's the Story on your favourite podcast app.

We've got a treasure trove of inspiring stories coming your way and we'd

hate for you to miss any of them.

What's the Story is a production of Crowd Online Church, our fantastic

team including Anna Kettle, Matt Edmundson, Tanya Hutsuliak, and

myself, Sadaf Beynon, work behind the scenes to bring these stories to life.

Our theme song is a creative work of Josh Edmundson.

If you're interested in the transcript or show notes, head over to our

website, whatsthistorypodcast.

com.

And while you're there, sign up for our free newsletter to get all the goodness

delivered straight to your inbox.

That's all from us this week.

Thank you so much for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.

Bye for now.