Today on the Evangelists Podcast, Emma Scrivener. The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_06Welcome back to the Evangelists Podcast. This is the show where we encourage you in your Christian witness bringing you interviews and useful info for evangelism.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Here's Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_05This is me. Hello, everybody. Hope you're doing alright. And how are you, Andy? I should have asked. How rude of me. I'm fine, thank you. Yeah, the the one guy in the room just worried about our millions of fans.
SPEAKER_06But you're you've got a bit of a cold. A bit of a cold, yes. So uh I'm fine, apart from it. My voice is a little bit deeper and rumblier.
SPEAKER_05Oh, very good. Have you b have you been um given any remedies by people? Have people told you, you know, gargle with garlic juice.
SPEAKER_06Not too bad, not too bad. No.
SPEAKER_05The blood of a badger and I don't know.
SPEAKER_04And a twist of lemon, and you'll be fine. Was it garlic?
SPEAKER_06Our uh trusty Prayer Warrior Linda. Linda.
SPEAKER_05It's always about the garlic.
SPEAKER_06Natural uh natural antiviral qualities. And it keeps away the the Draculas as well. Mind you, I haven't had any garlic, I don't think, for about 18 months, and I've I've not been ill for the Don't tell Linda. She'll say that's why. That'll be the reason.
SPEAKER_05And did she tell you that's what you needed? Uh yes. So you have been given remedies? Yeah. It's hard to assume. But uh We live by the law, don't we? We live by the law. Everyone's just wanting to fix people by, you know, giving good advice. That's right, yeah. Yes. We need the gospel. What would gospel advice? Gospel would just be, you know, Christ has risen.
SPEAKER_06Kee keep going, brother. That's right, yeah. So what are we doing this week? We've got your dear wife speaking to you about her new book.
SPEAKER_05Her new book Day, which is a fantastic book, even if I do say so myself. Um but yeah, it's her second book with Ivy P, her third book in total. But yeah, it's a follow-up to her first book, which is a uh testimony, and uh her first book is kind of the the book I give away to people as an evangelist, if you you know, forget my book. No, no, no. Hers is actually readable. No Hers is a cracking read because it's her story, you know, and people love a story. And yet she's able to be so human and vulnerable about her own struggles, but also how Jesus meets her in that. Jesus just Jesus looks very good in her books because he is very good and she's a great writer, and she also knows she needs a saviour. And so, in the honesty and the vulnerability of her own situation, um, that's the the the backdrop against which Christ comes, and I think it's a beautiful thing. So so you might wonder, you know, why are we talking to Emma, who so often talks in terms of pastoral care and mental health issues? Why are we talking to her um for the evangelist podcast? And one reason is she's my wife, so shut up. Um but literally I I do think it's um a her story of how Jesus met her in weakness is amazingly evangelistically fruitful. But also in her latest book, A New Day, it's it's really all about how Jesus meets all of us. You know, you don't have to, you know, have uh an extreme story of of extreme struggle to be in the same boat as everybody else in terms of struggling. And Emma's book, A New Day, helps us to get in touch with the fact that we are all strugglers and we all need Jesus. And he meets us in the depths of our humanity, and I think that humanizes us as evangelists, and it really helps us in our conversation with with non-Christians to be able to pastor them, even though they're not yet a Christian. But if I know how Jesus has met me in my humanity, well I've got a common humanity with my friend here and Jesus has met me in my humanity, he will meet my friend in their humanity, and I'm able to think and speak thoughtfully uh about how the gospel meets us in our struggles, and that's just hugely important evangelistically.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I mean um people do come and say, How can I get saved? But most of the time they come with the you know, the secondary problem. Yeah. Which is, you know, maybe some kind of pastoral issue. Yeah, my teenage is going off the rails. So they come that with that first, yeah, and uh that's the answer they're looking for. Yeah. But uh that can be a w a way in to explain sort of a deeper need.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and it means that when you're talking to a non-Christian, it's not about trying to find a tenuous link between what they just said and the gospel. You know, they're talking about football and you know, Jamie Vardy was brought on as a substitute. Substitute! Let me tell you about the ultimate substitute, Jesus of Nazareth, and you know. Um it's not then this crunky shift of gears. It's when when I know people and when I know myself and I know how Jesus has met me in my humanity, all I need to do with my friend is to have a human conversation, you know, a real conversation about stuff that actually matters, because Jesus I've learnt how Jesus pastors me um in the ordinariness of life. And that's what's going to translate into evangelism. If we don't have that understanding, then we'll just, you know, shoot the breeze and talk about trivialities, and then there'll be this massive clunk of gears into ah, let me tell you about substitutionary atonement.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_05Um yeah, so listen up to Emma and and get a new day. I think it'll help you to pastor your own soul and pastor the souls of those who don't yet know Jesus.
SPEAKER_06Excellent. Well, we'll bring her on in a minute. But uh I do want to just um talk about your new book.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_06Love Story.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_06And uh you've got a video coming out, so tell us a little bit about uh the there's the video called Love Story?
SPEAKER_05The video's called the best story in the world ever. Okay, which is what I do with um school assemblies. If I go into a school assembly, um I kind of tell them the best story in the world ever, and they help me with it. So we crowdsource a fairy tale, it's a choose your own adventure, I kick it off, and then the kids kind of feed in the direction we go in. And, you know, there's a king and a princess and a dragon and a knight and a fight to the death and a happily ever after. Um and the whole point of it is just that, you know, the reason why all our stories sound like that is because we're living in a story, and there is a true and ultimate story in which we have been estranged from a great kingdom, and we are under a curse of death, and there is a great dragon, but there's also a great hero who has come and and so that ties together with the book love story, which is called The Myth That Really Happened. And and my point is is kind of not that Christianity is less than mythological, it kind of is mythological, in that there's a hero of heroes, and he defeats the dragon and he gets the girl and he brings the happily ever after. Yeah, it's a myth, but it's more than a myth, it's a myth that actually happened. And the reason why we tell all our other stories is because they're refractions and reflections of the ultimate story, the ultimate myth, the myth that really happened. Um and so I I've been finding that that's a a very uh fruitful way of engaging engaging people evangelistically to say um the reason our hearts respond to story, the reason why there are cues around the block to go and see the latest Star Wars film is because we we kind of sense that we're in this grander narrative. There is a dark side, you know, and there is a fight to the death, and we want to believe in heroes and all that sort of stuff. And we can come along and say, yeah, there is a true hero. And he really has entered into our time and space, and we can really know him in our lives. His name is Jesus Christ. Let me introduce him. And that's what the book seeks to do by saying there's this grand love story, and Easter is about the love that stoops, the love that sacrifices, the love that suffers, and the love that stands again in resurrection.
SPEAKER_06So it's it's the true myth. The true myth. The myth that happened.
SPEAKER_05The myth that happened, and you can go to myth that happened.com. And uh that's where you'll find the video and you'll find links to the book and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_06Excellent. Good. So that's coming out. Uh what else is uh on your calendar?
SPEAKER_05In the diary, there's a bit of travel coming up, so next week I am where am I? I'm in uh Bangor in Northern Ireland. Banger. Banger, more Northern Ireland. Um I'll stop there. Although I I find it hard to resist going to the har, ha, hoi, har, ha, hi. But yeah, so I'm going I'm going to Northern Ireland. She's had lots of practice, big maritime. I know. In Irish. I know. She really hasn't lost her accent. I mean, she's been she's been in England. Not like me. I'm yeah, I'm completely pommified. But she is uh she's lived half her life in England, and um she sounds just like her Northern Irish family who've lived there their whole life. So uh I'm going to banger to Hamilton Road Baptist Church and uh going to be doing some evangelism training with youth during the day and then some evangelistic events during the evening. Uh so please pray for me with that. And then the following week, uh Maidenhead, St. Mary's Maidenhead, uh, the constituency of our grand exalted leader, Theresa May, um, and the church is St. Mary's, and I am uh yeah, doing a week long of story mission type stuff, so interviewing people and preaching off the back of it. And then the following week I'm uh at Union. So good old Union in Wales, where I'm uh teaching a course on evangelism now.
SPEAKER_06So you're not doing very much then? Not doing very much, yeah. Well it's good fun though. Good. Well it's that time. Let's uh bring on Emma.
SPEAKER_05Okay. So here I am with best-selling author Emma Scrivener, and uh snort.
SPEAKER_04That was a snort. That was a snort of indignation, of suspicion. What was the snort of? You're the wordsmith.
SPEAKER_07Resentment. Years of resentment.
SPEAKER_04Just packed into one Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Um so I hope I don't come across as too much of a fanboy in this interview, but I have long been an admirer of your work, Emma. Um don't know if people know this, but uh I first spotted you half a lifetime ago. Do you remember the first time we saw each other?
SPEAKER_07No, I don't. I actually don't.
SPEAKER_05You you were in your room at college at university, and uh I remember you playing their Muppet song. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07I was thinking you were really weird.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that was your overwhelming impression of me, wasn't it? Weird. Yes. And uh I had a different overwhelming impression. I I pretty much I within not too long I was thinking to myself, I'd like to marry that girl. But it it's taken you quite a long time to warm up to me.
SPEAKER_07It's been a bit of a slow burn, yes. I think we're almost there. Yeah, well, yeah. It's a second conversion, that's true.
SPEAKER_05What your conversion to me? Yes. Okay. First to Jesus, then to me.
SPEAKER_07Yes. Yes. I do remember telling your girlfriend she could do better.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um and that wasn't even a ployer, was it?
SPEAKER_07No, it really wasn't. And I never took against people, but I did take against you. Sorry, honey.
SPEAKER_05I feel it. I'm sorry. I feel it, but uh we've put that behind us, haven't we? And um now we're very, very much happy. In love in love. Uh and um the reason we're we're talking like this is uh you have just written, I guess, your third book, A New Day, um, which very much is a follow-up to your first book, A New Name. Um uh for those who haven't um read A New Name, can you tell tell people what a new name was all about?
SPEAKER_07Sure. So a new name was really my testimony in a book, my life story in a book, and talked about my experiences, particularly with anorexia as a teenager and then again as an adult. I wanted to get an insight into what it looks like, how it feels to have an eating disorder. A case study, a worked example, if you like, of someone's life, my life. How does it start? What happens, where how does it take hold, the impact? But then much broader than that. What does it mean to be human? What are the doubts that we all have? What are the fears? What are the things that g give us hope, give us meaning, and how the ways that we see the Lord really transform the way we see ourselves, the way we see the world as well. And that it's the difference between a gospel of works, of religion, of um a religion of moralism and a gospel of grace that is about the Lord Jesus from start to finish and just transforms every life, w whatever that person brings to the table.
SPEAKER_05Um not a churchgoing family, but you were sent to Sunday school and that sort of thing. Um what was it that kind of turned you on to Christianity and and yeah, what what what was your journal faith like?
SPEAKER_07Um well I I I mean uh apologies to those of you who have who have heard my testimony before, but I guess I'd say that growing up I was always um a good girl. So in our family we have a saying, my brother got the looks, my sister got the brains, and I got the morals. And there's a lot in that. I always your brother is very good looking. He is a very good looking man. And my sister is a very bright young woman, and I am a very moral person. So yeah, that's thought on. Um but I guess for me my my identity has always been knowing where I fit is about rules and regulations, it's about being a certain kind of a person. So at infant school I remember going into the playground and there was a sand pit, and I went over to the sand pit and chased the other children out, and there was sand on the outside edges, and I remember being disgusted by this and picking it up, picking up my handfuls, tidying it all up, smoothing the sand down, and then walking around it for the rest of the day, making sure no one else messed up my lines. And that is a little picture of me as a person. I like things clean and tidy, I like things to be within the lines, I like to know the rules, I like to know where I fit. If you give me something to do, I'm happy to tick that box and do it, and that's what gives me worth, that's what makes me me. And that worked for me for a long time as a child, but as I became an adult, um well as I as I hit my teenage years, I found that being good really just wasn't good enough anymore.
SPEAKER_05Not good enough to get the the affirmation that you were looking for, or not good enough uh in what sense?
SPEAKER_07It was yes, it w it it wasn't enough to counter the the questions that I had that were being raised by uh things that were happening to me and in me at that time that made me think, who am I, what am I? It it wasn't enough to satisfy those those questions. So things like, uh we my grandfather died, and it was the first time I'd lost anyone who was close to me. It was the first time my parents didn't have any answers, and death was this great severance and it it happened to people all the time. They just disappeared, they just went were. I asked my dad and he said they went to the ground where the you know the worms the worms eat them and it's all okay, it's part of the circle of life, etc. And that really did not seem okay to me, and still doesn't, you know, it was yeah, just something horrific, and yet we we just acted like everything was fine. And there were other things as well. We um we moved house, we moved in with my granny, and I loved my granny. I wish I wish everyone here could could have met her. She's an amazing woman. I was um best friends with her, and I really loved her, but not so much that I wanted to share her bed, which I did have to for a while, and she smelled of talk and it made me sneeze. And this was a time when I was hitting puberty and my body was changing, but not like the women I saw on TV. The bits of me um that went out were the bits that meant were meant to go in, and the bits of me that uh went in were the bits that were meant to stick out. We always said I had my I've inherited my dad's chest, for example. Um so uh yeah, I I didn't look like the woman I saw on TV or in magazines. Um I was meant to be a woman, but uh I I didn't know what that was, and I I couldn't identify with any of the images of femininity that I saw around me.
SPEAKER_05So at what point did you start to think actually stopping eating was a strategy? Like wha how does that occur to because you you like you hadn't been reading up about anorexia, you it wasn't in the magazines, obviously there was no kind of internet in those days. Um when did it occur to you that did it just sort of creep up on you?
SPEAKER_07Um it was like stumbling upon a really powerful secret. And it wasn't something that I I chose like you'd pick out a scarf or i it was very unconscious. I think I had a million and one different questions inside me about who am I, what does it mean to be a woman, what happens when we die, w what is my purpose, why am I being billied at school, why are why is life difficult and and why don't I fit inside the lines anymore the way I used to? And it seemed to me that I was spilling out of of myself um physically, but also emotionally. Um I I there was too much in me, I was too intense, and I wanted to be like that sandpit, I wanted to tidy myself back up again. And so it just occurred to me one day that part of the problem was that I was fat, but fat wasn't about wanting to be a smaller dress size. I knew I wasn't I knew when I looked in the mirror that I wasn't too big in some senses. Fat for me was just a word for my mess. It was all the ways that I was wrong, all the ways that I didn't fit in, all the questions that I had, all the fears that I had, everything that about me that felt like it was wrong. And I felt that if I could clean up my body, if I could make my body smaller, if I could get rid of this external fat, if you like, this mess, then I could also clean up the the mess that was inside. I could deal with these questions. And suddenly from having a million and one things that I was worried about that I couldn't answer, life became very simple. Um instead of thinking, what does it mean to be a woman? You know, what happens when you die, what is life all about? I I just had one thing that I was concerned about and it was this could I lose weight? And I could lose weight, I was something I was good at. And the more I did, the more powerful I felt. And you know, when you're 13, 14, there's not a lot not a lot of lot you can control. But your body is one thing that you can. You you don't have to say over where you go or how much money you spend or where you live or anything like that, but you can make an impact on your own body, and it it felt very addictive doing that, and it felt like I was very much in control, but the more I went down that path, the less in control I was.
SPEAKER_05It was controlling you.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, very much.
SPEAKER_05And uh curiously, kind of Christianity is making an appearance in your life at this point as well, in terms of coming to I guess friends inviting you to to a camp. Is that is that sort of the beginning of your your Christian story and inviting you to Christian things?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, um I I suppose there's a number of things. I had a f uh my best friend at school was a Christian, and there'd always seem to me to be something different about her and her family, a hope or um something about them, and I couldn't quite work out what it was, but there was a peace about her and a love and a joy there that I hadn't seen elsewhere. And you know, uh my family are wonderful. They're they're not believers, but they're wonderful, the most loving, warm family I could have come from. But yet there was there was something in this Christian family that I hadn't I hadn't experienced. But it it was also this was Northern Ireland in the 1990s, and you know, it's a very religious culture, and I use that word advisedly when I say religion, I don't mean Christianity. I'm not talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_05There's plenty of that going on as well, but there is, there is very much, but there's also a kind of a moralism.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, uh there's there's there's also uh yeah, at that time anyway, there was a a real a sense of God being like a headmaster and you followed his rules and you you didn't sin too badly and he would kind of stay out of your life and you know, and he wouldn't shut shoot you down with any uh lightning bolts or anything like that. Not this week anyway. Yeah, hopefully until you murdered or yeah, forgot to give blood or whatever it was. But yeah.
SPEAKER_05And so very much keeping in with the girl who doesn't make the lines in the sandpit, the girl who wants to keep everything neat. You you found a kind of a a brand of of religion that uh went along with that.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I think so. I think um I I missed out in some ways on the Jesus of the Bible. I I believed in a God who was a bit like a a sort of a bigger version of me, again all about the rules, um, interested in my in my soul but not in the rest of me, you know, certainly not my mind or my body. And yeah, I'm just a bigger version of the rule keeper than I already was. And so rather than setting me free, which I think the gospel does, it it It actually made things this was it was something that made me uh things worse for me because it was another set of rules that I didn't quite live up to. It was another person that I felt I needed to perform in front of.
SPEAKER_05And things were getting pretty bad kind of health wise as well, eating wise in your teenage years. What was that what was that like for you? What was that like for your family?
SPEAKER_07Um it was uh well, as anyone who's been around anyone with an eating disorder would know it's it was horrible. It was really a very difficult time. Um I lost a lot of weight over uh uh gradually and covered it all up. Um we went to try and get help, but at the time the doctor had said, Look, I think you're just growing, you just need to do a bit more exercise. So I took that on board and then when we next went back to get help a few months later, I was very, very seriously unwell. Um they said, you know, another week and you'd be dead. So it was pretty grim, but we and eating sores were something that happened to other people. They they didn't happen to normal families like ours. We we didn't have any point of reference for it. It felt like it was a dirty secret and we couldn't make head or tail of what was going on. We got some treatment and and that was really helpful in that it focused on my weights, which is vital. If you lose a lot of weight, you have to uh regain that because your your brain uh breaks down just as as your body does, and you can't process things properly, so there's no point giving someone who's at a very, very low weight a lot of counselling because they won't be able to think properly or process it. However, the limits of the treatment were that it was just about me regaining weight, it wasn't about dealing with those issues on the inside as well, which meant that by age 18 I looked like I was recovered and certainly physically was was recovered, but really felt that none of my questions had been answered. In fact, I was worse than before because all the fears that I had going into the eating disorder had become true. I had messed up my family life, I had developed this um this obsession, this compulsion that was shameful and that yeah, that had really caused a lot of destruction to me and and the people that I loved. And it felt like if I if I was myself, that would really harm other people. So the same things as before, except with a lot of guilt.
SPEAKER_05So weight-wise, you you're looking better, doing better, age 17, 18. Where do those drives then go? You know, having having been having poured those perfectionistic drives into into the eating sphere of things, what what happens to those drives once your eating is more uh normalized?
SPEAKER_07Well, for me, I guess the good girl resurfaced, which which is to say that I I thought, look, I uh starving myself isn't isn't working, I'll find another avenue. And I went back to the the kind of the headmaster god and back to the idea of rules and proving myself uh sort of through academia, but also by getting involved in in church stuff, by becoming very religious. So I went to Bible college, I got engaged to your to you, in fact, uh, even though you told me you were going to be a rock star, and then later still time. No, honey, I think that boat has sailed and was working at a church at the time as children's worker, and uh I suppose had had some understanding of the gospel, especially for other people, but just did not understand it for myself. Um so it was I was talking about grace, but it was a grace that it I felt didn't really apply to me. And I spoke about Jesus, but I I felt that I'd never really knew him from myself. So it was a more sort of performance, and and as you know, we we looked pretty good from the outside, you know, we looked like a pretty together couple, all singing, all dancing, Christian, you know, uh ones to watch, maybe. But actually I on the inside I was just as messed up as I'd always been and frightened as well, because your um time at college was coming to an end, and as I joined up the dots, I realised that if you were going to be a vicar, that would make me a vicar's wife. And for someone who doesn't know what a woman looks like, let alone a godly woman, that was absolutely terrifying. Um so without thinking about it, my old coping patents kicked back in and I started losing weight again, except this time my parents weren't there to force feed me, and as you know better than anybody, um trying to force someone who is determined upon a particular course of action and for whom uh their behaviour feels like a solution feels like really the very crux of who they are, the very key to life itself, to try and tackle that is a very, very big ask. And I I uh I'm not sure that you I think you can help someone with an eating disorder, but I I don't think anybody can rescue another person.
SPEAKER_05Um I remember reading at that time uh I forget who it who who is it who says that eating disorders are not a problem, they're a solution. What they mean is for the sufferer, they are yeah, like you say, the this is this is the thing that's gonna bail me out. This is the thing who's gonna tell me who I am, this is the thing that's gonna stave off all the fears. Um and therefore, yeah, if it's if it's identified and if your problem is your solution, then you're gonna keep returning to your problem and and yeah, so th so things got things got pretty bad, but uh and for for those who want to read more, Emma's blog, Emma Scrivener.net, um uh all sorts of wonderful resources about this. Um but this is kind of in the book a new name. Kind of the centerpiece of the book is the centrepiece of your story, is the centerpiece of your life, is kind of encountering Christ in a way that that turned things around. So can you just give us a give us a snapshot of what it was that helped you out of that hole?
SPEAKER_07I think it was a time in my life when I'd reached rock bottom. I physically was in a very bad way. Uh my hair was falling out, my internal organs were shutting down, I could barely walk. And we had cast around to get help from different places, and for one reason or another it wasn't really available, and I was dying, but before I died somebody else did, my my grandmother, the one I mentioned earlier, the talcum powder granny. And I loved her so much, um but I was too ill to be there at the funeral. It would have killed my my mum seeing me there, and I wouldn't have made it across on the flight. So the night of the funeral, I was sitting looking into the fire, and I guess there are times in your life where you see things very clearly, as if from a distance you see yourself. And that was the case for me on that evening. And I looked at myself and I looked at my life and I thought, what have I done? What have I become? I've tried to get better, I've tried to move forward, I've tried to make life work the only way I know how, and I'm dying, and everything around me is a mess. And so I I guess in that moment I cried out to the Lord, uh not the Lord, the headmaster God that I thought I knew, but the God who already knew me, Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Bible, and I said, uh Lord Jesus, there's not an awful lot of me left, but if you want what's there, then you can have it. And I I waited and there was no thunderclap or or lightning or but I felt a deep sense of peace, and I looked at the Bible in front of me, and it was open in the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, where I'd been picking readings for my granny's funeral and I opened the book of Revelation and I read there uh in Revelation 1 a description of Jesus and talks about him as having eyes like blazing fire mouth like uh the roaring waters of a waterfall and um, yeah, son and all of its brilliance, and he's just blazing and he's beautiful and he is magnificent and unstoppable and um and radiant and I was captured by that picture of him because I'd always felt like I was too much, and there was just too much of me, both physically and emotionally and in every sense. But for the first time I met someone, uh Jesus, who was more intense than me, someone whose intensity blew mine out of the water, someone who said, You're not too much, Emma. I can take all that you have and more. And I read on and there was another description of Jesus, and it describes him in Revelation 5 as being like a lion roaring and a conqueror who holds the whole world in his hands. And I had felt that everything in my world was out of control, that I had to seize it back, and that by managing my own body I could make the world that was so dangerous somehow safe. But here was a God who already held the world and me in his hands, a Lord who already made the world safe, a God who could be trusted and who was so much more beautiful than an eating disorder. And so that that struck me as well, the sense of his sovereignty and his majesty and his power. But then as I turned the page there's another description of Jesus that's very different to the lion. He's described as a a slain lamb and again this I caught my breath as I read it, because not only was he a a lion astride the whole world, he was a lamb, broken and bow legged, who understood what it was to be nothing to be weaker than the weak, to be frail, to be yeah, despised and rejected and and all of the things that I've referring to the cross, I guess.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yes, the sacrificial lamb dying on the cross.
SPEAKER_07And and that's very striking because in many senses unconsciously I think I felt that I was wrong, I knew that I was wrong, that there were things about me that were unacceptable, that felt uh too much or or whatever. And in some ways I guess I was trying to take the wrongness of that, of myself, on myself, pay for it on my own body. But here was someone, a lamb who was slain for me, um a Lord who said, No, you don't take your sin, you don't take your shame, you don't take your hatred on yourself. I d I have already taken it. I have paid for these things. Um and uh yet I've never done anything wrong, but I've lived a perfect life and I die willingly for you because I love you. And it's not because I want you to be different, it's not because I want you to pull up your socks or wear masks or perform or anything like that. I am the Lord who sees you as you really are, and who loves you as you really are, and yet even though I accept you and I love you, I will not leave you that way. And I'm the lion, I can be trusted, I have control, I am powerful, I am beautiful. You can give me all of your cares, all of your worries, and I will take them. And I will carry you. But but I love you. I'm also the lamb who understands how you feel, who will carry you and who will not break you, who suffers in your place, and with all of those who feel that they are wrong, with all of those who know that that that there are things about them that they want to change and they cannot change themselves, he says, I do it all from start to finish. I am the Lord, and I am uh for the first time someone more beautiful than an eating disorder. Because you know I remember in treatment for for anorexia being asked to make a list, you know, make a list of the things that you would uh give up about your eating disorder, the the things that you regret about it that it costs you. Make up a list of the reasons that you have for wanting to give it up. Make up a list of the reasons that you have for wanting to keep it. And in the list for wanting to give it up, I had things like I'd like to go for a curry with my friends, I'd like to look better in clothes, I'd like for people not to be worried about me in the same way, I'd like to not feel cold all the time, you know, things like that. On the other list, why I want to keep an eating disorder, I had reasons like this. It gives me my identity, it takes away all of my fears, it shows me who I am, it gives me an enormous sense of control, it makes my life safe. It's my very best friend, it's my meaning, it's my world, it's my everything. Weigh that up against going out for a nice curry and you haven't got an awful lot. But when I met Jesus, I met a person who said, Look, I'm not just a list of rules, I'm not just a list of reasons to get better, and I'm not just asking you to do this in your own strength because in many ways you can't. I am a person who loves you and I'm offering you a relationship. And unlike anorexia, which is you know a a friend that promises so much and then takes everything from you, I am the person who has already led down my life for you, and I give and I give and I give and and I just I just want you.
SPEAKER_05It's beautiful, and and like I say, um yeah, people get get a new name for this beautiful you know, I I think what people have responded to about your book, Emma, is not just it's not just your testimony, it's a testimony to Jesus. Um it's a yeah, it's a declaration of what he's like as he met you um in that place. And it's it's just wonderfully heartwarming uh to hear you speak like this about Jesus. Um and I think what people also appreciate about a new name is is that sense of reality as well, that there there was that sense of meeting Jesus, um, but then it wasn't just the sense that the next day you're entirely fixed and you know you have three square meals square meals and it's just in you know exactly um it's i it's not a movement back to perfection.
SPEAKER_07No, no. And that I think that's an interesting yeah, it's an interesting point, you know, and in some ways we often think of recovery as going back to the person that you were. But I I wonder if uh the Christian life is always about in some ways moving forward, you know, and the Book of Joel talks about the way that the Lord redeems the years that the locust has eaten. I and the Lord often talks about as well with with his people, um I'm making a new thing, I'm doing something fresh here. And so I guess when you go through any kind of trial, you come out at the end of it different from where you went before. And the aim is not really to restore you necessarily to the person you were before, because the person I was before was physically healthy, sure, and that's something to return to that's good, but had all sorts of um questions and and issues, and I didn't want to just go back to that in a sense you come through something like this and there there is something new at the end, and of course, you know, you want physical restoration, you want healing in that sense, but the person that you end up the person you become is more than just what you were before, and and that's vital because the Lord sweeps you up into his story, um, is making you into what he wants you to be, and you know, with the best will in the world, I don't know what's best for me. I I spent most of my life trying to make myself into the the version of me that I thought would work, trying to get the life that I thought would be the happiest, the most fruitful, and it it has nearly killed me. The life that the Lord offers is very different, you know. The Bible says there's a a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death, and that for me is is the shape of anorexia and the shape of life outside of Christ. Jesus talks about um following him and losing your life in order to find it. Um and it doesn't look the way that you expect, it doesn't feel the way you expect. So I for me, I I had expected that recovery would look like the next day I'd wake up and I'd be fixed, everything would be sorted, and you know, I I'd feel completely different and I'd uh behave completely differently. And there was there was a real heart change that happened in that moment that I met the Lord, a real change in the way I saw myself and in the way I saw the world, and in a sense a miracle, but it's a miracle it was also and is also for me a process, something that takes many, many years. And you know, not just one that is about physical recovery, although that that's that's a big part, you know, that's important, but one that's about and not just about uh battles around food, but battles around identity, battles around what does it mean to uh to have control? Who am I? Who is the Lord really? What does it mean to be in community? Um, can I be myself? Can I be real? Can I be known and loved? And what does the gospel say to people who are broken and who are struggling and who are in progress, not just people who are fixed.
SPEAKER_05Um which brings us to your latest book, A New Day, um, which very much seems to pick up where a new name left off and kind of broaden it out to okay, I went through this journey, this valley of the shadow that led somewhere good because I met Jesus in the midst of it. Um how can others meet with Jesus in their own struggles, which might not be to do with an eating disorder at all, but how can the church as a whole care for and be cared for by Jesus um when they're walking through hard times? Is is that kind of the motivation? What's what's going on with a new day that's different to a new name?
SPEAKER_07A new day came uh partly out of uh in my blog where I talk to other people who I suppose are like me, you know, the sinners saved by Grace who share their stories as well and different struggles that they have, uh some of which are with eating disorders, but m but a whole range of different things. Although I think the blog does deal a lot with mental health struggles because those those are part of my experience and I I guess that's where my passion really lies in thinking about how the gospel speaks into this area of mental health where sometimes we expect a we expect a different standard somehow than than we do uh with our physical health. So for example, if I break my leg, you know, people will come and pray for me and they'll say, How are you? and you know the last cut happened, and I might say, Well, I tripped over a paving stone and and everyone will say that's terrible. Gosh, poor you, oh I'm sorry, can we help you? Can we, you know, look after your kids or uh bring you some food or or whatever it is? And that's lovely, and I there's no problem with me talking about them. With mental health, it's very different, you know. With my physical health, if I break my leg, no one will say, Oh, well, you should look where you were going, you know, you shouldn't have fallen over that paving stone. And they don't say things like, um, maybe if you just prayed harder, you know, get rid of that cast, chuck it away, and just have faith and your leg will be fine, you know, or what are the ways in which you're you know you've thought your way into this? People just assume it's a physical problem and there's a physical solution and and there's no there are no yeah, there's no judgments involved. But mental health it's very different. Uh understandably in many ways, it's something you can't see, you can't quantify it. Um people can be struggling with mental health and you know present um uh as as doing fine when when they're not, or as for me at the height of anorexia, it can be written all over them. You know, it's it's very, very obvious. There's no set point where it starts and there's no set point where it ends. And often, you know, these are struggles that are very hard to understand for those going through them, um, let alone to articulate or for other people to understand. So one of one of the areas I I talk about is uh self-harm, for example. You know, that's something that people find often quite shocking. Why would you harm yourself?
SPEAKER_05Why would you, you know, why why Yeah, I I hear lots of people say, I could never understand actually cutting yourself.
SPEAKER_07And I suppose talking about that and talking about other other areas of struggle like eating disorders or obsessive compulsive disorder, a as I hear other people's stories, as I think about my own experiences, what I want to say is look, there aren't two categories a category of them and a category of us, us being the people who are fixed and sorted and Don't have these sorts of weird issues. Them being people who have mental health disorders and you know they're they're too complicated or too messy or they just require professional care and the church can wash their hands off. It's not like that. Um and I had to be very nonced when I say this, you know. If I'm if I'm struggling with an eating disorder, that is not the same as someone who you know would like to lose a bit of weight. It's not, it's categorically different, it's a mental health disorder and it's a very, very different thing. However, at the same time, there are elements of it that everyone can understand. I mean, who hasn't at some point in their life eaten for a reason other than hunger? Who hasn't had a time where they've you know, think of Christmas dinner where you've you've eaten too much and it and food has a comforting effect on you, or you feel better about yourself because of your size or the way that you look. Or let's uh let's take self-harm as another example. Um I may not actually make marks on my own skin, but let's say that I lose my keys or I um you know I misplace something in the house. What goes on in my head? Emma, you stupid idiots. Where did you leave your keys? I can't believe you did that. You always do that. Other people know how to look after their keys, but you don't. You think you'd have learned by now, but no, every single time, and on and on and on.
SPEAKER_05It's just kind of verbal self-harm.
SPEAKER_07Very much, very much, exactly. I'm harming myself in in many ways that aren't necessarily physical. So while saying on the one hand, yes, you know, there are extreme versions of of these these struggles that we face that um that do need professional care, and I think professional care is very important. At the same time, it's not that there's a break-off point where someone suddenly becomes, you know, where they're beyond the pale and where I cannot understand them. I can empathise with all sorts of mental health issues without necessarily suffering with them, and that is vital for us, whether we we are like myself, someone who struggles and needs to hear, look, you're not alone, you're not weird, or someone who who doesn't face these same struggles but doesn't know how to respond. Um and and also I think just because when you're trying to help someone, nobody wants to be helped as a as a charity case. I don't want your charity, I don't want you looking down on me from a height and saying, Poor Emma, I feel so sorry for her, I shouldn't be I should take her out for a coffee. What I want, what my heart's desire is is for a friend, is for someone who meets me on the same level I'm at, and you know they may not have the struggles that I have, and I I hope that they don't, but they'll have struggles of their own. And they'll you know they they don't pretend to be the finished article, but they can say, Look, I I messed up in different ways from you, but we have the same saviour, let's look to him together and let's share our our our struggles together, let's walk together.
SPEAKER_05Um Yeah, because very much it's not them and us, it's only us. We're all in the same boat. And I think like one of the helpful things you do in the book is kind of go back to our common humanity in Adam and you know, let's go back to the garden. What you know what are the problems with humanity that we see there? There's hunger, there's anxiety, there's control, there's shame, there's anger, there's despair. But those kind of express themselves at the sharp end in specific and severe disorders.
SPEAKER_07Yes, they can do. They don't always, but they Yes, they can do. Um yeah, and those those disorders often cross over, but I think that they're at the root are very human emotions and emotions that are not we you know, we when we hear a lot of about a lot of particularly mental health disorders, you know, they seem to be relatively modern, or at least, you know, we m some of them it feels like they when you come around recently. This I I don't think that this is the case for a lot of them. But you know, even if it is, I think the source of these things, as you say, are hunger, our anxiety, our shame, our wanting to be in control, um our despair, those emotions are right there with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They're things that are stamped since we um since we disobeyed God, since we I guess the Christian term for it since the fall, these are a part of who we are. And and these are the ways that our hearts are uh are broken, if you like. These are these are the ways that were most broken, and uh and everyone shares in these particular struggles, which will come out in some people in in particular uh shapes and forms. So, for example, my desire to be in control, for me that found shape in an eating disorder. Or, you know, at times in my life when I've been very anxious, I've struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder as a way of of trying to manage that anxiety. And while you don't uh you know, you want to be careful about drawing these very straight lines, it's it's saying, look, let's go beneath these beneath these struggles that we have, let's look at the heart underneath them and look at the the struggles that unite us all, very biblical categories, and see that if it is our heart that is uh really in trouble, how can we then find hope? How can we move forward? And what does that look like as as we stumble day by day, you know, you know, returning to this idea of well hang on, is it that when I become a Christian I not only move from death in life, but I move from being weird to somehow fixed? Because that was my you know that was my expectation. It didn't happen, it hasn't happened, and you know, I don't think it'll ever will happen. I'd I'd love to say that I'll be fixed, but I I think I'm a work in progress in many, many ways. And I as I spoke to other people on my blog and as I hear from other people and their stories, I really wanted to write about that and to I really wanted to read somewhere that it's okay to still be messy, that the Lord that that grace is there for you, not just at the point when you are, you know, before you become a Christian, or even at the point where you're dying of an eating disorder, but actually every single day of your life. You go back to the cross and that as you work things through, as you um as you yeah, deal with all of these different struggles and deal with many mental health struggles as as many, many Christians do. We don't need to be ashamed, we don't need to hide in the darkness that the gospel is is for us too and you know it.
SPEAKER_05Because Jesus is for us. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_07And he knows more than anyone else, and and and and the book looks at at the you know uh at the cross we see someone we see the we see a Lord who is more human than anybody else and enters into the most human struggles at the most visceral level, more than anyone else that we can imagine. You know, I we we we've spoken a wee bit about me uh talking in terms of anorexia about me feeling too intense, too much, that I had these struggles that couldn't be articulated, that were too they were bright red and multi, yeah, they were staining and and splattering everything and and just gory and awful. And at the cross, uh Jesus takes that to just a whole new level, you know. You think you're hungry, Emma. Look at this Lord hungering and thirsting on a cross. You think you are um anxious, Emma. Look at this Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane, sweating blood. You think that uh you're despairing. Well, here's a Lord who cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And yet I do these things as a sinner. You know, I do these things in in some senses someone who is trapped in their sin, but also in some senses someone who's choosing it. Jesus takes on these things as the perfect son of God because he wants to, because he doesn't want us to bear it. And only he can take the weight of my hunger, my shame, my anxiety, my despair, my longing for control. Only he can take the weight of my questions about life and death and everything. Only he can bear them, and only he can set me free from from these yeah, from these desires that otherwise will tear me apart. And they may not tear me apart in the shape of an eating disorder, but there is a way of doing life where you can find more functional idols where you could be, you know, uh like I was at age 18, a healthier weight and in some ways seeming better, and yet, you know, I just find other avenues for those same desires, and it's it's saying, Okay, well, what do I do with those desires? What do I do with them today? What do I do tomorrow? What do I do when I've been a Christian for many, many years, and yet I still am struggling with my sin and with my shame and with all of these things? How does the Lord speak to me in that? And how does he speak to me as I wrestle with with these feelings? And and particularly because it's it's my passion, because it's my own experience, as they are articulated in in terms of of my mental health. Um and then asking other questions, you know, like, well, what is the role of the church? What is the role of professionals? You know, how much am I a victim? How much can I help myself? How how does and I don't have any uh definitive answers to to any of these questions. The book in a sense is just kind of a chewing them over, it's a working them through, and it's uh bringing bringing all of my questions and and and thinking, what does Jesus say? But fundamentally, is it okay to be me as I am, messy and messed up? Will he still love me? Does he still love me? What does the gospel offer to me and people like me, and how can we offer that hope to others?
SPEAKER_05And and beautifully done as well, and we'll we'll bring this to a close because we've got to go and uh rescue our two year old from the babysitter. But um so last last two questions. What do you hope for from the book?
SPEAKER_07My hope is my hope is that the Lord will use it in some way with even one person.
SPEAKER_05That Who is that one person?
SPEAKER_07That person is someone who is like me, who feels that they are ashamed and they cannot be themselves, and if if that echoes with somebody else and it encourages them, then that's why I write. But my I I suppose the hope is the hope is not my story, the hope is not my advice, that's no hope at all, as I know more than anyone. The hope is the Lord Jesus who says, Whatever your struggles, wherever you come from, um wherever you've been, whatever whatever you're dealing with, I'm enough, I love you, and I'm beautiful. And the same message in some ways is in union, I love you as you are, but I won't leave you that this that way. So the hope is that people will catch a glimpse of the Lord Jesus who saves my life on a daily basis, and that he will become, through my experience, will become real to them as well, through the power of his word and through and through his spirit.
SPEAKER_05And I think it'll be very helpful for for many people in that situation. I think it'll also be very helpful uh for anyone shepherding others through particularly hard times. And I think it would be great for us all to read as Christians to realize that it's not them and us, that we're all in the same boat, we're all messed up and we all need Jesus. So yes, so that's my little plug for it.
SPEAKER_07Well, and you come from a utterly unbiased perspective. Um so thank you for that, Helen.
SPEAKER_05Well, I am a fan. I am a fan, I've got to say. But last question. This is the Evangelist podcast, right? And we It's exciting to be here.
SPEAKER_07It is exciting to be here.
SPEAKER_05It's taken a lot of episodes before we brought you on, but um uh we're now ready.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, you were running you're running out of speakers every time.
SPEAKER_05No, no, no. Everything else has just been preparation for this moment. Keep talking, hell yeah. Hey uh that's why you love me. Um Okay, so last question is like w what's the evangelistic payoff? What's the missionary payoff to a church that is better at understanding mental health issues and the struggles of everyday life? What's what's the evangelistic payoff?
SPEAKER_07I don't think I don't think we I think we distinguish sometimes between evangelism and pastoral care or discipleship or whatever we want to call it, when they're the Bible doesn't make this distinction. I think evangelism is pastoral. Evangelism is, you know, it's simply sharing you know, loving someone so much that you share with them not only the gospel of God but your life as well. Walking with them and loving them and doing life with another person and uh pastoring a non-Christian. Yeah, very much, very much. And if you're gonna love somebody, then you need you need to know them. And if you're gonna introduce someone to the love of your life, the Lord Jesus, then you need to know who they are. You need to know Jesus and you need to know them.
SPEAKER_05And you need to know yourself as well, don't you? Like like if if you struggle with anger issues or if you've got a bullying boss or whatever, you need to have understood how Jesus pastors you through that situation so that when you're talking to your neighbour about a bullying boss or anger issues, actually there's a gospel opportunity just talking to them about this pastoral theology that you've learnt through suffering.
SPEAKER_07Absolutely, absolutely. And I think the you know, as again evangelism it just comes out of it's it's simply sharing who the Lord is to you just as you live out life. It you know, it's not it just a shot in the arm once a week. And the best evangelists that I know um are are people who who do that, who just live their life as they do as a Christian, and they don't try and water it down or or you know, they just they just live and they love and their love overflows and people see something. Like my friend growing up, they see something different in them and they say, I want I want to know what that is. But I think as well, as we are reminded of who the Lord Jesus is, the more we go back to him, the more passionate we become about him, the more our lives are transformed, the more it spills over. And so as we evangelize, if you know, if if you like, as we go back and get topped up on the Lord, we remember why we are so much in love with him. That spills out into every area of our life and spills out naturally to other people. And in any case, what is our great hope? Our hope is never going to be in a programme or a you know a set of principles, it's always going to be that the Lord works um works miracles where where we cannot, and and that he comes for those, you know, he comes for those who are broken and who are weak and for those who are captives in in 101 different ways and he sets them free. So even when we're doing, you know, even if if I'm I don't know, talking to someone trying to counsel them, I'll I'll never want to do it in my own strength because there's no power there. You you want to be pointing them to the Lord and to his strength and just applying the gospel, applying grace into the areas where they are struggling. Um so it's it's all about who do I think Jesus is? How does Jesus see you? Well, that's how I see you, that's the bigger version of you that we're moving towards. That is what is possible. And you know, what are your what are your greatest needs? Your greatest needs are to know the Lord. Um and as that is met, then how does that work out in these other things that you you're feeling and experiencing? And I think too that evangelism, you know, it it goes to the heart of who someone is. Sometimes with past pastoral care, we look at behaviours. Evangelism is very much who is Jesus and who how does he come to you? And that it will always have a massive impact in in every area of our life, whether that is with how I use alcohol or pornography or you know, anger or or whatever it is. I as I get a as I see who Jesus is and as I see who he has made me to be, that is the starting point then for pastoral care and for evangelism and for every single thing in life. You know, it all starts with Jesus.
SPEAKER_05And it's a Jesus who meets us in our humanity, meets us in the yeah, the human problems of hunger, anxiety, control, shame, anger, despair, and all that sort of stuff, which I've just found in my own evangelism just so very, very helpful. It just means that when I'm talking to a non-Christian, I'm actually uh I'm I'm thinking very hard about what is common to me and to this friend of mine because what is common is is huge in terms of our humanity and Adam. And actually if I've thought through how Jesus helps me in my control, for instance, um I can have a much richer conversation with my non-Christian friend about that very human issue and I can bring Jesus to bear in that situation.
SPEAKER_07So Absolutely. And and it it comes back as well to you're reminded, am I you know, am I a helper w going to someone who needs to be fixed, or am I a broken sinner, speaking to another broken sinner and pointing them to the same Lord who loves and carries us both? And if I do that, then that's that's a very different thing to yeah, you know, you need help or I need help and you're helping me. It is um the wounded carrying the wounded. And and I I love that. I love that about the gospel, I love it about gospel community that the church is not a place for people who are fixed. It's where um we carry one another, we bind up one another's wounds, but in our brokenness we find hope and help and healing and life and grace.
SPEAKER_05You know, Jesus who meets us right there. Amen. Well, we better go and rescue our daughter from uh whatever she's doing to the babysitter. The mind boggles. The mind boggles. How many crayons she's eaten now, who knows? We'll go and check that out. But uh Emma Scrivener, thanks very much.
SPEAKER_07Thank you very much, Glenn Scrivener. It's been a joy.
SPEAKER_04So that was uh your dear wife, Emma Scrivener. Yes, Emma Scrivener.
SPEAKER_06So how can people get hold of the f her book?
SPEAKER_05Uh I think maybe the best thing to do is go to her blog, Emma Scrivener.net, and there'll be links there to get the book. But also, I mean subscribe to her blog because it's it's brilliant, it's Christ focused, it's pastorally minded, it's got a theology of the cross, it's great for non-Christians to read as well, so you can share it on your Facebook because Emma just gets real about the stuff that everyone uh faces, and and uh even if you don't, you know, uh struggle with depression or self-harm and things like that, um you know people who do, uh, and actually, yeah, listening in to uh Emma's conversation and maybe sharing on Facebook and Twitter can be good ways of uh making people aware that the gospel of Jesus is uh good news for the world and brings health for the whole person. Um so yeah, go to Emma Scrivener.net.
SPEAKER_06Okay. So if you like to go to uh the Evangelist Podcast uh webpage, you can go to speaklife.org.uk slash TEP. We'll have this episode and uh many others all on that page there. You can subscribe. Um we'd be very grateful if you could leave us a rating and review on iTunes.
SPEAKER_05We've got loads.
SPEAKER_06I I I looked at the other day. We've got like how many do we have?
SPEAKER_05Reviews, like fifteen or something. Yeah, something like that. All five stars, very good.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Yeah. That's not not not bad.
SPEAKER_05Not to be sneezed at.
SPEAKER_06But uh yeah, uh just go to speaklife.org.uk slash iTunes and that should take you to the thing, and you can leave a rating and review from there. Wonderful. I think that's it for this week.
SPEAKER_05Excellent. Next week, very exciting, very exciting next week. Uh uh, I'm being interviewed by Owen Batstone of uh uh Calvary Church Ogmore Vale, and um yeah, we had a great conversation about evangelism. And uh yeah, he picked my brains, I picked his brains, and uh we had a good conversation. Okay, look forward to that. Until next time. See you later.