For those of you who have just started reading, I also write for the Christian Women Online Team Blog bi-monthly. Today is one of those days! Click the link to meet me at the Cafe' today for "God's Best China". Hope to see you there!

The ordinary human beings, that would be where I belong. Not keeping to the standard which we all agree to either consciensely or not. I fail all of the time in 'practicing the kind of behavior I expect from other people.' Oh, I have my excuses. Just like Lewis points out, if we do not believe in decent behavior, why make an excuse for not behaving decently?" What I find most fascinating is the next point:

"It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves."

Isn't that the truth? Let me act like an idiot and I'll give you a thousand reasons why and beg you to excuse me. Let me behave in a right way and I'll pridefully and privately think of the reasons why I really did such a grand thing. Oh, I hope I'm not the only one.

Completing the chapter:

"These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature, the break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the Universe we live in."

This is the key in understanding human nature and the basis for any argument of morality you will ever encounter. These simple yet profound truths have shaped the way I share Jesus especially in the instance where people will argue against the existence of God or Right and Wrong. I hope this book discussion will help you also to open your eyes to the people in your midst who have subscribed to the Post Modern culture and idealism. Girls, the world is smart, and they will bring you lofty arguments. Let's be ready!

I've added a Mr. Linky if you would like to place your comments on your site. If you are just joining us, click the 'CS Lewis Rocks' label to see the previous posts. Hope you'll join me!

I vividly remember as a child my mother drawing an outline around my foot when she wanted to go shoe shopping but not with her three little daughters. This way she could match the foot impression up with the shoe since they can vary so much in size.

This is the most awesome idea ever! Simply trace around your child's foot, cut it out, fold it, place it in your wallet, and you'll never wonder if that pair of shoes on sale will fit your little one again!

I want to thank you who prayed for our women's retreat this past weekend. How is it you can be crying buckets of tears one minute and laughing yourself into a stupor the next? I'm not certain, but I am willing to wager our men do not behave this way when they are together. What we have determined is that laughter is the best ab workout of all. You should see how buff we girls are..:))

I'm praising our God for being in our midst this weekend. The conference was entitled, 'I AM - So You Don't Have To Be'. We studied God in four contexts: I AM - Your Beauty, I AM - Your Sufficiency, I AM - Your Prestige, and I AM - Your Portion. I remain overwhelmed at the goodness of God who spoke to me so tenderly during the preparation for these lessons. He has truly shown me I can trade in my 'am nots' for His I AM - I'll never be able to fully comprehend how He can transform so much personal dysfunction into a tool for wonders. I pray we will all be women who make our God famous!

I plan on sharing these messages with you here over the next few days. I hope they will continue to speak as they did this weekend. God's Word can be trusted to do its perfect work. It will be in the days and weeks to come that we can see the fruit bearing that will take place because of His seed sown into our lives.

To the 26 girls who attended..What a blessing and encouragement you are to me! I am completely overwhelmed the Lord would place me in such a circle of friends, both old and new, from both within and outside our congregation, from teenagers to seniors. Seeing such diversity and love for one another, I am sure I witnessed a glimpse of heaven. Thank you for loving me and doing it quite well. Please know the affection is multiplied back to you ten-fold.

Here are a few photos from the weekend. Of course, I didn't get near as many as I wanted. If you attended and have some to add, please email them to me!

Mere Christianity - Preface

One can not get past the preface of this wonderful book without finding enough wisdom to fill pages. That is the gift of Lewis - few but profound words. He actually blistered me in the very first paragraph when he explained the editing process of turning these radio broadcasts in to printed matter. He explains that originally he used italics to emphasize the written words that he had also emphasized with his voice but later realized it was a mistake. He says, "A talker ought to use variations of voice for emphasis because his medium naturally lends itself to that method; but a writer ought not to use italics for the same purpose. He has his own, different, means of bringing out the key words and ought to use them." So my friend C.S. would not like the way I emphasize my words, at all. *sigh*

Today's Selected Quotes:

On his attempt at explaining 'Mere Christianity' and not simply putting forth as common something which would be peculiar to the Church of England:

"It is at her centre, where her truest children dwell, that each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine. And this suggests that at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice."

I have learned from experience that when I was least "centered" is when I was the most argumentative. There are basic tenets of faith that all evangelicals hold to. Don't you think it would make God smile if we could find unity in our commonality instead of being on the 'lunatic fringe'?

To summarize the true purpose of the book, Lewis explains he does not intend to present an alternative to creeds of existing communions, but rather:

"It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in."

So it is the hallway my girlfriends where we should strive to bring others. Not to say I don't prefer they go through the same door as me, but I will have succeeded if I have inspired someone to try the doors.

Finally, in encouraging unity, Lewis urges us to obey the 'rules of the house':

"When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house."

The common rules of the house...I love that concept. May we be gracious to those whose chore charts differ from our own.

** Please join in with your own insights about these quotes....I am so interested in knowing what you take away from this...Have a great weekend!

I made a 100, I made a 100! On my New Testament Exam that is...wahooo!!!

Okay, I'm done now...

To the Sistahood,

The women's ministry retreat I have been harping about since forever ago will begin tomorrow. I will be taking some time off from here to focus on prayer and the teaching over the weekend. Not like I haven't been doing that already, but I feel impressed by the Spirit to trade my computer time for face-on-the-ground time.

Will you pray with me?

1st - For a pentecost...That the Spirit will translate the words spoken into something very personal for each woman there.

2nd - For changed lives - That each one there will leave with the courage to posess their lands of promise.

3rd - For unity - That the many attending will leave as one determined to go to battle for each other.

Thank you for how you bless me...

p.s. Don't forget to stop in on Saturday to begin discussion on C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity...I'll have it scheduled to post before I leave...:))

Looking for me? I'm over here today...Please come by for a visit!

ALSO....
I'm also using my cafe' post to play along with 'In Other Words' hosted today by my friend, Laurel Wreath.





Her Quote is:

"It is insufficient to proclaim that the Church of God has a mission in the world. Rather, the God of mission has a Church in the world."
~ Tim Dearborn ~

I am 'amen-ing' Laurel's assertion that we are engaged in missions every time we step out our front door. As a Christian, we are always 'on'. Every word and deed has eternal consequences for those around us whether it be words unto salvation or a believing sister's broken heart. For my take on the practical implications of this, click here.

Be sure to visit Laurel Wreath for her thoughts as well as the other girls who are playing along...

Have a Wonderful Tuesday!

For those of you who don't know, I am a C.S. Lewis-ite. That would be the term used for one who would be a C.S. Lewis stalker were he alive. I guess God knew it was time to take this positively brilliant man to heaven before I came on the scene and found out his home and email addresses. It would really not look good on the Preacher's resume to have a wife with a restraining order against her. I have at least one friend aware of this obsession. While poolside during a recent mini-vacation - she lovingly endured my reading 'Mere Christianity' aloud to her like only a true sista would. I can think of nothing better than relaxing in the sun with my best girlfriend and C.S. However, based on the glazed over look on her face, I'm thinking she wasn't as thrilled as me:) Go figure??!

I have been off track on my spiritual posts as of late because frankly, every single insight I'm having is going straight to the women's ministry retreat next week and I don't want to start dropping spoilers here! Trust me, after it is all over, you will be so sick of hearing about Moses you'll wish for forty days on a mountain just to get away. God has been showing me nothing but Wonders for my own life and I'm praying every single day that the women who are attending will see the same. He is still in the Delivering business!

Back to my favorite smart guy (next to the Preacher of course). I've determined in order to always direct whatever crazy path I have taken through the week back towards home before Worship Sunday, it would be great to take Saturday to reflect on the writings of the man who has done more to help me understand the nature of God than any other. A lot of his concepts are heady stuff, but we are smart girls! The Word tells us to meditate on His goodness. It is necessary to bring the profound into our thoughts. It's like a eating a good steak that takes a bit longer to chew. Will ya'll join me for dinner? Trust me - it will purely be the literary kind cause ball season is full on and there ain't much going on in mama's kitchen.

I plan to begin by taking excerpts from each chapter of 'Mere Christianity'. Oh my. This book, ya'll. I have to read it only a few pages at a time because it is so rich! I pour over it with a highlighter so practically every sentence is yellow. Then I go back and read what isn't yellow and determine I really should have highlighted that also. So, my whole copy is flourescent. Flourescent and dearly loved. This book truly is a necessity for anyone living in this post-modern culture who wants to be able to understand the thought processes of unbelievers and also have the tools to answer their arguments.

Now that the groundwork is laid, next week we'll dive straight in. I will leave you today with one of the yellow paragraphs from the man himself out of 'Mere Christianity':

"If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about."

Indeed.


I hope you'll join in on our discussions!!

In honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day, I give you a lovely blessing compliments of sistachristi.


May those who love us, love us.
And for those who don't love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if he can not turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we may know them by their limping.

So if you hobble up to me the next time I see ya, just know you are busted! :))

Darlene Schacht is host of 'In Other Words' this week. Go to her site to see a list of women who are expounding on this awesome quote!

"One of the secrets to a happy marriage is remembering the source of our joy, which is not one another. The source of our joy is the Lord. Yes, we share tons of joyous moments, but we don't expect, let alone demand, endless joy-filled moments from each other. "
~ Liz Curtis Higgs ~
from the devotional: Rise and Shine

The young girls in my life are sick of hearing me say to them, "Desperation is so unattractive." However, I don't imagine I'll quit harping on that point any time soon because in this generation more than any other, we have young women who are obsessed with toxic relationships.

It is a given in today's culture where fathers are often not a part of the family unit that girls will search for this kind of affection and accept it wherever they can find it. Frighteningly, there are those who will prey on these vulnerable ones. So begins the cycle of sexual sin and shame that will become a tool of Satan to haunt a girl the rest of her life. God intended for intimacy to last forever and when it doesn't, you have a baby girl who is lost and left searching for yet another source. Only God can put His foot in this revolving door of relationship, but moms, hear me well. We have the opportunity to stop it before it begins.

More than any burden I have for my own daughter is that I do this thing of healthy relationship well. I can be emotionally and spiritually whole in Jesus Christ in such a way as to model completeness in my relationship with Him. When we are filled with Christ, we do not have to be needy in relationships with others. Do I need my husband and family? Of course. Friends? You betcha. But am I going to fall apart if they do not meet my every expectation? No, ma'am. They can not meet mine. I can't meet theirs and I've learned, it's okay. There was only One who came to meet my needs, and it isn't Y-O-U!

Jesus said in John 4:13, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." He is speaking of salvation but I believe we can also draw the conclusion that the life He gives fills every needy place to capacity. There is no thirst where the water flows freely.

Healthy moms + Healthy daughters = Healthy marriages. It's that simple yet the most daunting of challenges. Let's get this one right, girls. Thankfully, we are not alone in the task. "Our soul waits for the Lord, He is our help and our shield. For our heart rejoices in Him, because we trust in His holy name. Let Your lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us, according as we have hoped in You." Psalm 33:20-22

Psalm 73:25-28

"Whom have I in heaven but You? And beside You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For, behold, those who are far from You will perish; You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You. But as for me, the nearness of God is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all Your works."

Dear Father,

I praise You for being my portion. As the Levites in the Old Testament who had no land of their own, may Your sustenance, Your providence always be enough for me. May I always be satisfied with Your presence and filling. Who am I that you should want to stand near me in dark days and rejoice with me in the light? That you would draw me in lovingkindness to a very specific place in Your Word just so I will know that You KNOW. I invite you to indwell every needy place....let there be no room for iniquity. May I be found forever faithful in my 'yes' and my 'no' and I pray your name be famed anywhere mine is mentioned. Indeed, the nearness of God is my good.

I will not EVEN bore you with the details of our crazy weekend which included my oldest son's birthday, ball practices, Build A Bear,a basketball award ceremony, three sleepovers, church, and Bible Study. I've been busy, okay?..:)

BUT, the exciting thing right now is the announcement of my door prize winner of the 'Checklist for Life' book from the Ultimate Blog Party. The kids drew NEVA at Dancing In The Light was chosen as the winner of this great little book. Congratulations, Neva! Thanks for playing!!




LOSER MOM AWARD

If you haven't seen the "Loser Mom" entries from my Blog Party Post on Wordpress then you have missed some fabulous stories. I have to say that the ones that included bodily injury certainly rose to the top in determining the biggest 'Loser Mom'. After much consideration and the final votes from my kids, I am happy to announce the Winner is....drumroll please....Tracey at "Show-Me-State of Mind"!
Tracey, you totally won because of having been to Disney World all week though my kids think that ranks you as pretty cool for letting your son go on and not miss the trip over something as trivial as a broken bone. Though I have no prize for this category, I hereby induct you in to the Official Loser Mom's Club!

Thanks for all the fun tales...I hope that if you ever begin to fret over your mothering skills, you will instead find sistahood in this special little group!

I am so excited to 'unveil' my new little blog created by Lindsay at Splat Designs. Ya'll this girl is just awesome. If you are considering a makeover, you simply have to contact her! She's friendly, creative, inexpensive, and just downright smart. She didn't know what she was getting in to dealing with my dumb ole self, but she was gracious enough not to let me know I had her ready to run screaming in to the night. :) Thank you again, Lindsay!

Obviously things are still under construction here. I have quite a bit of material to add. For those of you who followed over from Wordpress, my previous posts will not transfer so I will add a link here for a while to toggle back and forth if needed.

I just want to say thanks again for hanging out with me! I love being with my old friends and making so many new ones...I hope this little space will encourage you as much as it has me.

Blessings on You!