Friendship – Page 17 – Pastor Susan

Flirting With Death

October 11, 2009October 10, 2009 tlc4women1 Comment

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Proverbs 8:1 Do you hear Lady Wisdom calling? Can you hear Madame Insight raising her voice? 2 She’s taken her stand at First and Main, at the busiest intersection. 3 Right in the city square where the traffic is thickest, she shouts, 4 “You – I’m talking to all of you, everyone out here on the streets! 5 Listen, you idiots – learn good sense! You blockheads – shape up! 6 Don’t miss a word of this – I’m telling you how to live well, I’m telling you how to live at your best. 7 My mouth chews and savors and relishes truth – I can’t stand the taste of evil! 8 You’ll only hear true and right words from my mouth; not one syllable will be twisted or skewed. 9 You’ll recognize this as true – you with open minds; truth-ready minds will see it at once. 10 Prefer my life-disciplines over chasing after money, and God-knowledge over a lucrative career. 11 For Wisdom is better than all the trappings of wealth; nothing you could wish for holds a candle to her.
12 “I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next to Sanity; Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street. 13 The Fear-of-God means hating Evil, whose ways I hate with a passion – pride and arrogance and crooked talk. 14 Good counsel and common sense are my characteristics; I am both Insight and the Virtue to live it out. 15 With my help, leaders rule, and lawmakers legislate fairly; 16 With my help, governors govern, along with all in legitimate authority. 17 I love those who love me; those who look for me find me. 18 Wealth and Glory accompany me – also substantial Honor and a Good Name. 19 My benefits are worth more than a big salary, even a very big salary; the returns on me exceed any imaginable bonus. 20 You can find me on Righteous Road – that’s where I walk – at the intersection of Justice Avenue, 21 Handing out life to those who love me, filling their arms with life – armloads of life!
22 “God sovereignly made me – the first, the basic – before he did anything else. 23 I was brought into being a long time ago, well before Earth got its start. 24 I arrived on the scene before Ocean, yes, even before Springs and Rivers and Lakes. 25 Before Mountains were sculpted and Hills took shape, I was already there, newborn; 26 Long before God stretched out Earth’s Horizons, and tended to the minute details of Soil and Weather, 27 And set Sky firmly in place, I was there. When he mapped and gave borders to wild Ocean, 28 built the vast vault of Heaven, and installed the fountains that fed Ocean, 29 When he drew a boundary for Sea, posted a sign that said, no trespassing, And then staked out Earth’s foundations, 30 I was right there with him, making sure everything fit. Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause, always enjoying his company, 31 Delighted with the world of things and creatures, happily celebrating the human family.
32 “So, my dear friends, listen carefully; those who embrace these my ways are most blessed. 33 Mark a life of discipline and live wisely; don’t squander your precious life. 34 Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me, awake and ready for me each morning, alert and responsive as I start my day’s work. 35 When you find me, you find life, real life, to say nothing of God’s good pleasure. 36 But if you wrong me, you damage your very soul; when you reject me, you’re flirting with death.”-“The Message”

Complimenting One Another

October 10, 2009October 10, 2009 tlc4women3 Comments

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In part three we wrap up some thoughts on just being human and letting our attributes and God-given differences be just fine! To read part two click here.

As we talked about yesterday, I grew up in a home where I felt my parents worked together. I never felt as if I couldn’t talk to my dad about anything. My dad took me to buy my first bra. No big deal. Why? Because my parents worked together when it came to us and I only saw a parent, someone who was there to take care of me. Yes, they did things differently. My mom was the parent who saw danger in horseback riding in the washes of Arizona, where we spent our summers, and my dad saw fun. My dad was the one in which if I didn’t want to comb my hair that day, it was summer who cared? My mom saw a tangled unruly mess which must be tamed. They were different, no question about it, but they were both necessary to my well-being. My mom worried, my dad thought we’d be fine.

Men and women are different in character and needs and desires and yet God say we are equal. He doesn’t love one more than the other. God says we are necessary, both of us, male and female, we were created with our unique abilities. He doesn’t say one is better than the other. A man is not more than a woman and a woman is not more than a man. We are different and equal. Each of us was designed with a different purpose. I, for one, am happy and grateful for that. It means I don’t have to go out of my comfort zone to try to be something that I am not. I can just be who I am supposed to be.

Does that mean that I advocate a woman to stay home and cook and clean and a man to go off to work? No. I believe we can do whatever we want but I do like to see a child being taken care of by a parent who loves them and not by daycare. I also understand that for some it is a necessity that they work. I am also honest enough to say that those who have necessity are few and far between. Lifestyle choices, not food on the table, dictate that necessity to me. I don’t believe a woman can work, have children and do a good job at it all. I have yet to see it and I lived it, one always gives way to the other. A sick child sidelines your work and a deadline sidelines your child. Something has to give and most of us don’t have great support systems at either place. Yes, there are exceptions but let’s face it they are very few.

Can I ask a question? Why do we demand organically grown vegetables but we don’t want organically grown children? Why do we scream about vaccinations while attempting to raise artificially designed androgynous children? If we are about all natural then let’s be about all natural. I don’t see many boys today who are allowed to be boys. We don’t seem to want or need men and we are a lacking society for it. What is wrong with a boy who wants to conquer and a girl who wants romance?

The silence of Adam kept us from achieving the goal the first time around in the garden. The silence of Adam still keeps us from acheiving the goal set before us today. Adam where is your voice? Eve, please let him speak. He has something to say and what he says could change the course of where we are going. Will we listen? I hope so because the reality is you’ve been sick and tired for far too long. Adam, if there ever was a time to speak now is it! Adam, where are you?

Different But Equal

October 9, 2009October 9, 2009 tlc4women3 Comments

We started a conversation yesterday about children and how we try to change who they are. I brought up the fact that women are still allowed to be at the core women, but we don’t give men the same grace. Here’s part 2.

We are so busy building an androgynous society that we have clearly messed with the original design and purpose of what God had intended. We have people who are confused about what their heart tells them to do and what the world tells them to do. Women have taken the brunt of the responsibility away from the men as they decide they no longer need them anymore. We have built a society that despises men and neuters them on every level. Then we sit back and complain that they do absolutely nothing for us and are worthless. I know little boys who do not have one single masculine toy. Without any sort of warrior spirit we have removed the essence of who they are.

Why do we disdain men so much as a society? I believe it happened when we began to believe the lie that women could do it all. We decided that as women we didn’t need men for anything but sperm and they can toss that in cup any day of the week for us. We decided they were the enemy that was keeping us from our destiny and desire. They made more money and position in the workplace, they had expectations we no longer wanted to live up to and they were foreign to our way of thinking. So the goal became to get rid of them or at least sideline them. In the silence of men, just as Adam’s silence sealed the deal in the garden we together have created chaos.

Only something has happened since that thought process invaded our society. Women now are more tired and unhappy than ever before. They work full-time in the workplace in every single occupation imaginable, then they come home to cook and clean and take care of children as they attempt to build relationships with others and they juggle constantly between their pull for their children and the demands of their jobs. They live feeling guilty for the most part because the lie is just that, a lie and we can’t have it all. At least we can’t have it all at the same time. We struggle to balance a life that is so off balance that it becomes a losing battle. Now we are so far into this song and dance it feels as if it is too late to quit. Besides, the message is still that we can do it, so pride enters in and also insecurity that maybe it’s just the individual, me, who can’t do it all. In the meantime, we try figure out what is wrong with us that we can’t seem to live up to the expectation. So we fake it and pretend to be tough.

This conversation is nothing new. We had a similar one a few weeks ago, only something has got to give. The fact of the matter is that God created man and woman to compliment each other and to work together side by side to build a better world. He created us too raise a family with children who learn both perspectives of their parents being both male and female. In my home as a child, we had a family unit that worked together.

The Silent Treatment

October 7, 2009October 6, 2009 tlc4women4 Comments

Amos 8:11. “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land– not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
12. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.
13. “In that day “the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst.

I read this today and burst into tears. I began to imagine the Lord telling me that because I wouldn’t submit, because I told his prophets to shut up then I was to be cut off. How this passage hurt my heart. I can’t even imagine, nor do I ever want to imagine a day when I couldn’t hear the voice of Jesus.

Lord, I never want to be apart from you. I never want to feel that isolation, I never want to be where you aren’t. My Lord, I ask that your presence be with me always. There just simply is nothing without you. In the mighty name of Jesus I pray! Amen

No wonder this is my favorite song!

When Romanticism Becomes Idolatry

October 4, 2009 tlc4women1 Comment

We all know her. It’s not us of course but we all know her. You know the one. Your friend, the one who is over all the time for coffee or to hang out as long as there is not a man in the picture. This isn’t so bad, you think to yourself, because we all do it to a certain extent. In those first few weeks of a relationship when lust permeates our thought process and we see are the wonderful attributes this man has. Yes, we all know her.

We all see her. She’s in church on Sunday and at TLC (or your form of it) on Monday evenings while she’s alone but once her man comes around she drops out. She’s beautiful on the outside but so insecure on the inside. Her convictions are solid until they are tested. You see, actions speak louder than words.

Then her new boyfriend asks her to sleep with him. She knows her God and His point of view on fornication but she shoves all the knowledge aside because someone actually loves her. Well, you see, he hasn’t actually said those exact words but we all know they are coming at some point, right? We all know she said she’d never date ‘the mission field’ but her new man has promised he’ll come to church and well, we all know how that will turn out.

She tells us he drinks a little too much. It’s okay, she continues, because she know it’s just the stress of his baby mama drama. You see, he wants to change. He just needs a little sex, a little fix-it and a lot less nagging.

So you ask her about his ex-wife. Only he doesn’t have one. You see, he got hooked up with a slutty girl and she got pregnant on purpose. She was a party girl and your friend, well, she just goes clubbing with her man now because it’s where his friends hang out. They don’t do anything there, they just go to dance and drink and relieve their stress. By the way, you tell her, she hasn’t brought him to church yet. No, she says, because he’s afraid of being judged and last week he wasn’t feeling well.

She tells you that he’s asked her to move in with him. He wants to have a big wedding and give her a big ring, only he can’t afford to right now. She knows it’s not what God would want but she knows if she just hangs out a little while longer he’ll give her the things she wants. She also mentions that he’s been too stressed out to see his child but he just needs her to pull him out of his slump.

She tells you that he quit his job and now she is the sole support of her family. You remind her of the scripture that says if a man doesn’t work he shouldn’t eat but she informs you he is trying to find himself. He’s not spending too much time with his child yet. She wonders if she should pay his portion of the child support payments so he doesn’t fall behind?

So now your friend has abandoned her belief system for her man. The Holy Spirit leaves and she doesn’t even know it. She has traded God for a man. Her heart has chosen its treasure. You mourn for your friend but her romantic notion of what love is supposed to look like has become idolatry. God says He will never be second. She missed that part I guess.

Six months later she comes to you and now she is pregnant. Now your friend is the slutty party girl and her boyfriend has moved on to the next best thing. You won’t say you told her so. You just hold her and try to be there for this next difficult phase of her life. She now has more hard choices to make. Move home to her parents house to raise a child or put the child up for adoption. Her life has been irrevocably changed.

Don’t be like your friends. Smart women stick to their beliefs. It’s the core of who they are. It’s what defines them. Remember that. No man can ever take the place of God in your life and no one can ever tell you who you are. That has to be determined between you and God. You have to be worth more than that.

He Anticipates My Needs

September 24, 2009September 24, 2009 tlc4womenLeave a comment

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God knows me. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows what I need before I know what I need. So this blog is pretty simple.

In order to anticipate your wants and needs a man has to take the time to know you. Not just as a woman but as his woman. He knows what would make you happy and what would please you. He knows when you’ve had a rough week and he runs the tub with your favorite bubble bath and orders a pizza and waits for you to come home to relax. He knows that you’ve always wanted to go Napa for a few days and walk around the wineries and vineyards and he takes you there to explore. See, he knows you.

More than that, it makes him happy to see you happy. As my husband says often, “If the queen is happy the land is happy.” He understands me, even when I am acting crazy or am stressed about things he doesn’t stress about. He may not understand why I act the way I do but he does whatever he can to help me pull it together and get back to living our life. He takes the time to listen to my needs and he takes the time to minister to me. He prays for me everyday and looks for ways to make my life easier. I don’t have to nag him; he does it because he loves me.

God knows me. God understands me. Make sure your man does.

A Godly Education

September 23, 2009September 23, 2009 tlc4women2 Comments

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In our Children’s sunday school classes, the focus has always been kingdom living. We wanted the children to be able to lay hands on one another and pray, even in the playground. We wanted the children to know memory verses that they could call upon in times of trouble. We wanted them to know that how they acted at school reflected on Jesus. We wanted them to know that even though they were little, they could still pray great big prayers. Recently, I filled in in the Pre-K and Kindergarten class as their teacher was going to be out. When I asked the question, “I want to pray for my mommy and daddy and ask Jesus to ____________” One little girl who is 5 years old said, “let the heavy burdens fall off their shoulders and have peace.” Super surprised I said, “What’s heavy burdens?” “Stuff that makes you scared or mad or not want to come to church.” When I asked one little girl who is 4 “I want to pray for myself and ask Jesus to___________” She answered, “Help to remember to put my plate and cup in the sink, clean up my toys and be nice to my baby brother.” You have no idea how much that blessed me. When we ask the children for prayer requests we get hands raised quickly, “There’s this bully at school” “There’s this test coming up” “My mom yells at my dad to come to church” “My dad drinks too much with his friends” “My friend is sick and missed two days of school” “My brother keeps hitting me” They notice! They love! They understand Jesus will hear them and that nothing is too small or too big.

It’s often the grown-ups who get in the way. Recently an issue popped up. Our kids didn’t know the books of bible. The scramble ensued. Oh no! The kids don’t know the books of the bible. I bought the music they would need to sing and memorize but I didn’t see the point. I kept my mouth shut and went with the plan. Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis know that it lasted about two seconds. I asked a question not to sow discord but to make them think. Bibles have tabs and they have a table of contents, do we really need to know the books of the bible? Is it not more important and to our benefit to know scripture and what lies within those books? Is it not more important to know how to pray for someone or how to pray for ourselves? Is not more important to know that we belong to a kingdom in which no weapon formed against us shall prosper? Oh, it will try to knock us down but we have some promises to call upon. What does knowing the books of the bible do for you in the daily activity of your life? To me, knowing where the book of Ephesians falls in the bible is not important. What’s important is we all understand and know in our hearts and can say in our own words the premise of Ephesians 6:10-18. Just a thought.

To read more about how these kinds of things happened even in the days of Jesus read a good friend of this blog’s site, Jonnysoundsketch2. Click here.

Do Stay-At-Home Mom’s Risk Their Careers?

September 19, 2009September 19, 2009 tlc4women1 Comment

http://www.theparentszone.com/ working-parents tips-to-l...rking-mom

This is part four of a discussion we started on Lies Women Believe.

Marina, a young mother had some valid issues to address in her comments and I wanted to bring them forward as we discuss solutions.

Marina: When I was little, I was sucked into feminist deceit thinking that women should be just as successful as men and we need to rise up and prove that women are actually superior in many areas. I now see that I don’t need to prove anything to anyone!! I know who I am and whose I am. My career focus has been dramatically changed. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying women shouldn’t work or be successful, God wants to partner with us in our desires so that He can use us wherever we are. The thing is, I have realized the source of many of my desires has come from this prideful, feminist propoganda. This has so touched my heart that I am actually considering what I can do to spend more time at home raising my child and children to come!

According to Tony Robbins, a 40 year study on 1.3 million women show that women are more unhappy today than ever before. So what is the reason for it? I believe we’ve hit on it over the last few days.

You see, when you look at how we were created and when we were created our unhappiness makes sense. In Genesis, the woman, in physical body form, didn’t come on the scene until everything was in place and ordered by God. Her body was formed out of man after he developed a need for her. She was created to be his helpmeet. She was emotion and love and sacrifice and willful and strong and opinionated. She also carries the seed and multiplies into human form, so she is hated by Satan. When you remove her from all that she was created to be, she is lost to her original design.

She finds herself today out of order. She finds herself today, both mother and father, both working and sustaining. Her apron strings long to have children tied to them but her demands are many. She’s painted herself into a corner and yet pride and obligation keep her from her true destiny. Her number one need is security but she finds herself in a world where the only security she has lies in her own abilities.

The biggest thing corporate America will tell her is that she will risk her career by taking a time-out for her family. That statistic is, that in fact, she will make less money and have less ladder climbing ability over her overall career than a women who stuck it out. Hey, facts are facts.

Ask yourself, should you make your lifelong decisions based on financial gain? Are there some things that are more important than money? It would seem that the 1.3 million women who participated in the study that Tony Robbins talks about, will tell you that there’s got to be more to life than what we’ve been given over the last 40 years.

I tell this story all the time but it bears repeating. When my son Anthony was 5 and my daughter Casey was months old, my neighbor came home with a new car. A working mom, her kids in daycare, they were going to Greece that summer for a 10 day vacation. I was beyond jealous. We shared a car and weren’t going on vacation. I determined that day to get a job because I was missing out on the good life. After I put Casey down for a nap and fed Anthony, I was rocking him to sleep. He would nuzzle my neck and play with my hair while he yawned and talked. That day he said, “Mommy, you always smell so comfortable.” It stabbed my heart. Who would rock him to sleep, who would smell comfortable to him? No one but me.

My mom was a working mom. She got to hear about our first word and first step, she regrets she missed her time with us. I was a stay-at-home mom, I could tell you a million stories. The only thing that I regret is that my kids grew up. It was the most fulfilling, happy time of my life. I have a career now and I’m happy with that. Women: you can have it all. I promise you, I am proof of that. I have to now tell you the bad news. You can’t have it all at once! Make wise choices.

Lies Women Believe

September 16, 2009 tlc4women3 Comments

Something has been on my heart recently. It’s about those missed windows of opportunity that occur in a woman’s life. I grew up in a feminist household so until maybe the last 10 years or so, I believed a lot of the propaganda. Now, I believe some of it and some I dismiss as damaging. Let me explain.

I believe that women should earn as much as a man for equal work, no question about that. I believe that women should get an education and should pursue their passions, buying property and handling money. I am in no way a woman who believes a woman should be at home or a subservient.

That being said, I know so many women who have pursued their dream career only to find themselves in their mid to late thirties and just meeting that man of her dreams. Marrying him, she is approaching 40 when her baby hunger arrives. Frustrated, heart-broken and thousands of dollars later, she is desperate to have a child. Only what has happened is, that she has traded her child bearing days for the corporate ladder and now time has run out. Medicine has tried to keep up but it’s not as successful as we’d like to believe.

There are windows of opportunity in a woman’s life. There is time in a young woman’s life where she is finishing college and heading into her career. She is becoming who is supposed to be and hopefully finding her lifelong spouse. This is a window of opportunity.

There is time in her late-20’s and her 30’s to grab hold of that baby hunger and raise her children. There is nothing wrong or sad about a woman who takes a time-out to do this for herself and her family. I think we demean a woman who chooses to do this and I believe that it is her right to choose for herself what she’d like to do in this season of her life.

Then there is the time in her early 40’s where she once again pursues her passions for herself. This is where the burden comes in for me. I’ve met many women who are in this season of their life and they are only getting started on marriage and family. Unfortunately, for many, their window of opportunity for a child or four has come and gone. We can’t fight nature. I’ve hugged them as they cried because tests have shown that they no longer are in the stage of their life where a baby is possible naturally. I’ve seen their eyes as they explain that they were always told that they could get fertility treatments and have a child. Only fertility treatments are expensive and not always as successful as we’d like to think. There are seasons in a woman’ life and sometimes opportunities are missed.

I think we’ve been told that a woman can do anything a man can do. Sometimes that’s true and sometimes it’s not. A man can have children in old age, a woman can’t. Instead of thinking that her body has betrayed her, we must teach our daughters that we have moments that must be grabbed in life. We must teach that career is not the only enrichment in life and that one day, we’ll look up from our work, to discover that we’ve missed out on some things that we’d like to have. Let’s begin to talk about this.

Moms Against Hunger

September 10, 2009September 9, 2009 tlc4womenLeave a comment

Today I want to direct you to a really good friend of mine and fellow Pastor’s wife blog. Her name is Dr. Gayla Holley and she is the President of Moms Against Hunger. As you will read her prayer list she has some exciting things that we can get involved in. There are people that can use our help and if we all just pitch in a little, it will go along way. To the right of my home page you’ll see a donate button. Please donate to this worthy cause. There are people who are quietly working for the betterment of others and Dr. Gayla is one of them. Click here to view her blog.