{Originally posted at Flowerdust.net}
Her name is Anne.
She has fallen victim to some bad curry.
Or maybe it was the pizza.
Either way.
She wears no makeup today.
She doesn’t fix her hair.
Her eyes are red because she’s been crying.
And her bed has been one of her two closest friends.
(I’ll let you guess what her other friend has been).
{Originally published on Genesis Moments: A Writer’s Journey}The speaker asked a piercing question that zeroed in on its intended target: my heart.
“Do I let the fragments and particles of the world collect on my soul?”
Starting with an analogy, he shared, “My wife wondered why her plant wasn’t growing right. She went to get advice from a gardener who told her that if she dusted the plant it would be able to get the light it needed and grow better.” Sure enough the trick worked.
He compared this dusty plant to our lives. Thought provoking questions followed.
By leaving unconfessed sin alone to accumulate, do I keep from receiving the light God has to share?
Do I dismiss the little things, thinking that they alone can not hurt my walk with God — only to turn around and find that a whole impermeable layer has formed?
Do we let the little hurts and ugly words add to that layer, adding them to our baggage rather than brushing them off and forgiving the source?
John 8:12 “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ ”
Shortly after this talk, I attended a garden party at a friend’s house. This friend has over 200 species from around the world planted and labeled with both botanical and common names…
{Originally posted on Vintage Faith}
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The First Stage: We begin going to a church, exciting, thrilling, love Jesus, the church is exciting, all things new.
Second Stage: We begin getting involved, learn behind the scenes things, feel privileged to know the church staff and leaders more personally, we are totally excited.
Third Stage: We see things you start to question, the thrill of the big church meetings wanes, as it seems more and more predictable, the leaders seem more human now and not as special as first.
Fourth Stage: We start to get tired of serving in ministry. It seems routine now and we only see it as fueling the big meeting that we don’t really like anymore. The leaders we once were in awe of now seem not only normal, but there is a suspicion of self-serving vs. serving the church in their motives. We lose excitement and wonder if church is even something we should be part of. We grow more disillusioned by the day.
Fifth Stage: Total disillusionment, begin feeling bitter towards church leaders, and wonder why people don’t question things more…
{Originally posted on P E N S I E V E}
In its 15th and final season, hospital drama ER resurrected the dead: Anthony Edwards reprised his role as Dr. Mark Green last week in a series of flashbacks by Angela Bassett’s character, Cate Banfield.
When ER debuted in the Fall of ’94, I had an infant and a two-year-old, and I’m sure escaping into TV melodrama was a welcome respite from the “storms” my little ones ravaged. I remember lying on our sofa nursing my son–right side, left side, right side, left–through ER, the news and then late nights with Leno and Letterman.
During the episodes leading up to his death, Dr. Green takes his daughter to Hawaii, to teach her “important” life lessons–how to drive, how to surf…I really don’t recall much else.
Except a last admonishment to her, one that has haunted me in the ensuing years.
It struck me as odd, then, that a parent’s dying words would speak to generosity. It was unsettling for some reason; I judged those words as somehow falling short. In my mind, as a believer, I felt like he should have offered some great spiritual insight, something with eternal value, something … more. Of course, I realized it was television after all, and the series had never before offered anything substantively spiritually enlightening; but still, I saw it as missed opportunity.
{Originally posted at One Thing}
When I used to daydream about becoming a mother, I wasn’t completely naive. I knew there was more to it than the highly-romantic Similac commercials made it out to be. After all, I had a mother myself, and although she made the job look like just about the Best Thing Going, I knew it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I knew it could be trying. I knew it could even be, at times, A Challenge.
When I got pregnant with my first child, I read articles that made motherhood sound like the ultimate self-help experience. Once you had children, the experts promised, you would hold yourself to a higher standard. You would want to model for your children the very best example, and therefore you would draw upon untapped levels of motherly goodness that you didn’t even know you had.
I have since learned the truth.
Motherhood is a Formal Enquiry, not “a challenge”. It is an Interrogation. Motherhood grabs you by the neck, slings you into a hard metal chair, angles a white hot light in your face and demands an accounting. It cross-examines you until you are no longer sure of who you are and can give no reasonable explanation for just what, exactly, you thought you were doing.
Did you think you were patient? What about the time you had to explain the concept of fractions to your fifth-grader for the eight-hundred and twenty-third time in three days? Thought you were pretty smart? Wait until you try to BS your way out of a moral dilemma and your teen calls your bluff. Think you’re Determined? Pit yourself against a 3 year old who decides overnight that elastic is Very, Very Bad In Every Way, But Most Especially On Pants. Were you strong? Resourceful? Brave? Think again.
It is the single most humbling experience possible to be confronted every day in every way with one’s inadequacies, but that, in a nutshell, has been my experience with parenthood.
{Originally published on Kingdom Grace}
In reading and conversations about the gospel, church, and culture, I have run across many terms that were unfamiliar to me. I produced these posters in an attempt to portray simply some of the terms that I have encountered while blogging about religion. They are a reflection of my perception and understanding of these terms.
The post is titled “A More Generous View” because the posters are intended to portray the generous grace of God rather than a strict and rigid view of religion. I hope that you will find them to be an encouragement to your faith journey.
{Originally published on “Et tu?“}
For whatever reason, I keep stumbling across blogs by mothers who are battling cancer lately.
One of the things that’s most striking about every one of them is how much looking through their posts highlights how fragile life is, and how little control we really have over our destinies. The post at the bottom of the page, from last Wednesday, might be titled something like “Feeling great!” and recount high hopes and improving health. And then the latest post, from today, might be titled “Bad news” and tell of dire test results and the choking realization that the author will probably not live to see her children grow up.
Just now I was doing my usual blog reading during the
kids’ naptime, and I came across yet another blogger who just received
a grave cancer diagnosis. She’s a mother, she’s not even 30 yet, and
there’s a good chance that she doesn’t have a lot more time.
Oddly, I was able to keep a stiff upper lip through most of the post, until she got to the part about all the plans she had: how she had her life neatly in place, her plans for the next few years all settled, and this diagnosis completely derailed everything. Nothing seems within her control any longer, and that’s one of the things she’s struggling with the most.
Originally posted on Ponderings.
I attended a funeral for the father of new friend of mine recently. In
our understanding he died too soon. He was only in his early 60′s.
Although I never had the opportunity to meet this man, his funeral
impacted my life. The tributes and memories shared by family and
friends were beautiful. We viewed a slide presentation set to music,
tracing the journey of his life. The one thing that really spoke to my
heart was that this man had truly lived.
He
was an adventurer. Fear didn’t hold him captive. He lived out loud. He
wasn’t afraid to follow the dreams God had placed in his heart, and yet
he didn’t take foolish risks. He enjoyed life to the full. In many ways
he has gone from living to living.
My life in comparison would
be such a shadow. Many of us would be likened to “dead men walking” in
contrast. Oh, maybe outwardly we’re going through the motions. Jumping
through all the right hoops. We know how to play the “Game of Life”.
For generations it’s been the same. We’ve read the rules. We know the
expectations. Years go by, but our passion is getting buried deeper and
deeper. We are allowing ourselves and others to dig our own
grave…only we’re still breathing. We’re being buried alive.
(click title for more)
Originally published on Once Dead, Now Alive.
Thought-provoking books challenge me to think outside the box, sometimes out of my comfort zone. After reading “Red Moon Rising: How 24-7 Prayer is Awakening a Generation” by Pete Greig, I had the chance to participate in a week long event of 24-7 prayer at the church I attend (link).
There, rooms were available for people to pray/connect with/worship
God. One room had available clay and other art materials; the intent
was to encourage creativity, using the supplies as an expression of
worship or as response to God’s presence.
I am not an “art
person”–even to step into that room WAS a step outside the box. I took
some wet clay and pressed it onto a piece of paper, the result a brown
splotch. Almost immediately I thought about Genesis 2:7 and myself being made of the dust of the earth. Then I began to write:
(click title for more)
Originally posted on PENSIEVE.
You would think becoming intimately acquainted with Jesus–getting to know Him, learning to love Him–is as simple as reading the Bible’s four gospels.
Until you read them back to back, and on the surface, see four portraits of the same man. Four very different portraits of the same man.
Because I never before read all four gospels in succession, a while back it occurred to me that immersing myself in these “biographies” would give me a clearer picture of Jesus. Rather than read them in the order they appear in Scripture (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), I read them John, Mark, Luke, Matthew; random, yes, but going from John to Mark paints a p.r.e.t.t.y. interesting picture.
(click title for more)
