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A New Decade

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 11:16:42 -0600

The black eyed peas are simmering and the Rose Bowl parade is gliding by in HD. I’m a southern girl at heart and I don’t put a lot of stock in the culinary traditions and superstitions of my heritage, but you gotta have black eyed peas on New Year’s Day. There’s a lot of buzz about what a tough decade it was. Indeed. Both my parents died. I was shot in the chest in a carjacking. That’s enough right there. But hope is always around the corner. A new year, new decade, new start and reasons to look on the sunny side of the calendar. My trust though, isn’t in a legume, it’s in the Lord. What will the year bring? I have no clue, but God’s in control, not me.

Romance or Marriage?

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:42:27 -0500

Ok, I think the above picture is almost more embarrassing than appearing without makeup in front of hundreds of women. Check out that 80s hair, willya?
So Wayne, above on the left, teaches for me at Gracepath women’s bible study two weeks ago. He’s a Licensed Professional Counselor and primarily works with couples. www.austincouplestherapy.com Wayne spoke about marriage as one of God’s primary people development tools. If you’re married, you get this. Sometimes it is really, really hard. Other times, it is blissful. Most of the time, it’s just, well, normal life.
We teed up the whole talk with some great movie clips including Snow White singing, “Someday my prince will come....” And therein lies our biggest problem about love and relationships: we believe Disney.
See, romance is about wanting someone you don’t have. Seriously, think about the plots of most of the chick flicks and Disney princess movies: lovely damsel longing for adorable guy that she cannot have for one reason or another. And of course, in these days of equal opportunity, sometimes it’s the cute guy who can’t get the lovely lady.
Marriage, on the other hand, is much more often about having someone we don’t want. When Wayne made this comment at women’s bible study, I think it flipped a few people out. But seriously, who amongst us married folk has not awakened once or twice in the course of marital mundaneness, looked at our sleeping spouse and pondered, “What was I thinking?” Be honest.
It’s in moments like these that marriage becomes God’s primary people development tool. When we allow ourselves to embrace the feelings of disappointment we all come to at some point, and beseech God to love our spouse through us, that’s the path to growth.
If God is at the center of our marital journey, if our goal is growth and maturity, not a happily-ever-after-hollywood-plot then “grow old with me, the best is yet to be” takes on a richness of meaning that even the best filmmaker can’t capture.

hearts transformed

Sat, 3 Oct 2009 17:30:10 -0500

I keep getting these amazing emails from women in the Shift_Cntrl study. Here’s what another woman shared this week. I’d love to hear your story as well. Our words give hope to each other. Read on....

I want to control how people see me. But in the end my worth should come from my Beloved Father, not my reflective worth. My mirror should be hung on God's Word, not around my neck.

This truth has been and continues to be difficult to accept. I've been reading Breaking Free by Beth Moore. It's wonderful how God stresses a point! In Chapter 24, page 144, Beth creates an alternative ending to the story of Tamar. She was the daughter of David who is raped by her brother. The Bible tells us she lives the rest of her life as a desolate woman. Well it seems as though God is really trying to get me to understand this concept of my identity in Him, because I happened to be working on our homework while reading Chapters 23 & 24 this week.

This is what Beth writes:

"Imagine Tamar: grief-stricken, sobbing, ashes on her head. Her body in a heap on the cold floor. Soot covers her beautiful face and smears the rich colors of her torn robe. Her outward appearance echoes the cavernous darkness in her soul. Hopelessness and death well up in her. She is nothing but a tomb.

The door of her room slowly creaks open. A stream of cloudy sunlight pours through the door. A figure of a man takes form within it. Not Absalom. No, she would recognize Absalom anywhere. Her heart jumps with sickening terror, the figure steps through the door and His visage becomes clear. Tamar has never seen Him before, yet He looks so familiar. Not frightening. And she should be frightened. No man should be entering her chamber. Should run, but she can not seem to move.

She glances down at the hands that seem paralyzed on her lap, suddenly shamefully aware of her ash-covered appearance. Wretchedness sears her heart. She is certain her violated estate is obvious. She despises herself.

"Tamar," the man speaks gently and with warm familiarity.

Her heart sobs, "She is dead!" A slave of shame has taken her place.
He approaches and takes her face in His hands. No one has ever done that before. The overwhelming intimacy turns her face crimson, not with shame but with vulnerability. His thumbs sweep over her cheeks and wipe the tears from her face. As He takes His hands from her face and places them on her head, her throat aches with fresh cries as she sees the filth in His hands. Her filth. He draws back His hands, and she senses something on her head. Perhaps in His mercy He has hooded her disgrace.

The man offers her His hands, still covered with soot, and she takes them. Suddenly she is standing. Trembling. He leads her to the brass mirror hung on the wall. She turns her face away. He lifts her chin. She gives the mirror only a glance. Her heart is startled. She begins to stare. Her face is creamy white. Her cheeks are blushed with beauty. Her eyes are clear and bright. A crown sits on her head, and a veil flows from it's jewels to her shoulders. Her torn coat is gone. A garment of fine white linen graces her neck and adorns her frame. The King's daughter, pure and undefiled. Beauty for ashes."

I was on an airplane when I read the words above. The tears were welling up and I just wanted to shout, "Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus!" However, it was an early flight: I decided against it. Though I stayed quiet, my heart sang tender thanks to my Saviour and Prince.

This study is confirming what God is trying to get through to me. It is making a difference in my walk with Jesus.

Beautiful You

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:36:36 -0500

So, I was gutsy enough last week to stand in front of a couple of hundred, women with no makeup on and with my hair up in a baseball cap. Last night, I even taught in sweats and had not had a shower since I ran! I told the crowd they should feel special....I don’t think they bought it!

It’s all about shifting control of our image. God defines us - our identity and our image and our roles....take a look below at an email I received from one of the ladies in our study. How will you let God reach through to your heart of hearts this week?

I have gained a lot of weight since having my second child. There are lots of reasons - broke my foot and was immobile for a few months, working mom syndrome: too busy and too guilty to take time out for myself to exercise, etc. Well, a few months ago, I got really determined to finally do something about it...and I failed miserably. I gained 15 more pounds. I was so frustrated because I lost about 60 pounds when I was 19 and did it in about 5 months, so I started to beat myself up for not meeting that same standard. I would start out and think, "If you can't stick to this diet and exercise plan, then you're a failure. You're worthless and you might as well give up." I've been on this roller coaster until a few weeks ago.

God has been working overtime on me in several areas, one of those being my codependency. As a result of healing from that, I've learned to value and love myself as God loves me, so I no longer beat myself up - I understand that it's really an offense to God when I do. So, as a result of this change, I've been taking better care of my body without effort...I've been wanting to eat the best food I can and to move my body and get my body working the way that God designed it to.

I've been doing this while still harboring this need to appear a certain way to people...I've still had this disgust with the way I look, and it's been so confusing because I do value myself and I am now taking care of myself. So why should I still hate what I see in the mirror? I realized after the lesson on Shift Control of Image that what I'm hating is the image that others are seeing.

I'm concerned others are thinking, "Oh she must have no self control to have let herself go like that." And I have this raging need to explain myself to people so they know the reasons I’m overweight. I’m trying desperately to control what people think of me when they look at me and see a fat woman. And then, of course, I can't control what people think, so when I look in the mirror, I am subconsciously blaming myself for not being able to control what they think of me...after all, if I weren't so fat, I wouldn't have to control what they think...they would think good things about me if I were thin and fit. (Hmmm....maybe that codependency thing isn't conquered after all.)

As a result of this lesson, I am now much more aware of what's motivating me and what's holding me back. I am pressing forward with even more energy and God’s grace.

Passings

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:58:00 -0500

“Come with me, where chains will never bind you. All your grief, at last, at last behind you....”
From the soundtrack of Les Miserables, upon Eponine’s death.
I stood and watched Sunday night as my mother-in-law took her final breaths, released from the pain in her body and soul into the loving arms of a Gracious Redeemer. Attending a death is like standing on holy ground. The peacefulness of those final hours was a stark contrast to the anguish of many of her days.
I don’t think it is an accident that just last week, I taught about shifting control of our past. My mother-in-law and I had our issues. She had a rocky relationship with her son too. But my husband told me that at the end, none of it mattered. They’d made peace.
I have experienced that miracle of redemption in my own relationships with my parents. Although I would have preferred it to occur much earlier in my life, the healing came when we were all finally ready. And once again, I experienced that my timing is not God’s timing, that shifting control to Him means shifting my expectations time and time again.
There is a story of redemption in each of our lives when our heart is owned by Christ. His power to heal even our greatest hurts and deepest wounds is incomprehensible. All I have to do is say, “yes,” and let the chains fall.