I Choose To Believe

September 12, 2014September 9, 2014 tlc4women2 Comments

“I choose to believe that people can handle the truth.” ~ Dr. Laura

Today Dr. Laura Schlessinger told a story that stuck with me. Here is how it goes.

A woman took her car to a mechanic because of a noise it was making. The mechanic popped the hood, adjusted something and closed the hood and said, “That will be $100.”

The woman was outraged and said, “$100?! All you did was adjust some little part.”

The mechanic looked at her and said, “I didn’t charge you anything for the adjustment. I’m charging you $100 for the knowledge.”

I loved that story. We’re always so busy tip-toeing around the truth because we’re afraid of hurting someone’s feelings, but if they don’t know any better? What is that worth to them?

I loved the day when a beautiful friend, MaryLou Lerma, came up behind me at church and untucked some hair in the back of my head that was crunched under the headset microphone I was wearing and then adjusted my look. She’s a lioness. Lionesses will groom each other. She was making sure I didn’t embarrass the tribe. I love her for that. She didn’t worry about whether I’d be offended that I didn’t check myself before I got ready to go on the platform in front of a live audience and Internet. She did it for me, and for our team. This is her using her truth, her information, of a situation.

It’s quite a bit different from the woman who uses her truth to be mean. “That dress is hideous.” While it may be truth, it doesn’t need to be spoken. She is not a lioness as she is on the attack due to her jealousy and low self esteem. She uses her truth to wield a sword. Women such as these can dish it out but they can’t take it.

Now, could it be that there would be a time to give wardrobe advice? Of course! When you’ve developed a relationship and you don’t feel superior but know you can be at service and have the trust of the person you are speaking to. Quite a different scenario.

I choose to believe that people can handle the truth.

I choose to believe that not all truth needs to be spoken.

I choose to believe that one day as strong mature women, we’ll all figure out which is which and which is witch.

Freedom Has A Price

September 5, 2014September 5, 2014 tlc4womenLeave a comment

I was raised by parents who came of age in the 60’s. It was the tune in and turn on era, this generation expected us to think for ourselves.

By the time I was 15, I was putting together budgets on how to get my own place and be free of the tyranny of the parents. I had the teenage angst early on. I understood that if I were going to be really free, I would need a job of some sort, money filtering in, and a place to put my pillow at night. I was even looking in the local newspaper, yes before Craigslist or Internet, at the used furniture ads to see what it was going to cost me for a bed and a dresser. Oh, there were no expectations of taking my bedroom furniture with me. I don’t know why I didn’t think I could take the furniture. I don’t know how that was instilled, no one ever said it, I never felt like I was borrowing it, but I had this idea that one day I would leave for college and my room would remain as my parent’s shrine to me. I knew that they’d pay for college, but I also knew that I’d have to get a job for the extras.

There was nothing in my DNA that prepared me to live a life of slavery to a system not of my own choosing. I was free to be whatever I wanted to be as long as I could pay the price my style of freedom would offer. That was all before I realized about the cost of freedom.

We cry out for freedom but do we really understand the cost? The cost to true freedom isn’t free, it isn’t even cheap. The cost for freedom is high. Freedom requires self control. It is easier to be a slave than a free man. A free man is required to make decisions daily that each produce a consequence, some of them good and some of them bad. A free man must walk those decisions out daily whether he feels like it or not. A slave only needs to be told what he must do.

To be truly free we can’t blame anyone for where we are. The responsibility falls squarely on our shoulder. We can’t hold anyone accountable for funding our freedom, and although we will need help to get to where we are going, that help will be reciprocal and not one sided. To be truly free, we must yoke up carefully with like-minded people who aren’t heading in a direction that takes us off course. In fact, we must be careful about this because we may hear what we want to hear and fail to see what we need to see. We must do our homework to know what we believe and what we don’t. We can’t afford to be swayed by what is false. Freedom requires that some things are done not because we like to do them but because we need to do them to get to the finish line.

Freedom isn’t getting to do what we want whenever we want at any cost. That’s lawlessness. Freedom is doing the work first that then affords us the ability to walk out our path and it never ensures smooth sailing but it ensures that we have what it takes to make it one way or another.

Genuine Kindness

August 26, 2014August 26, 2014 tlc4women1 Comment

Proverbs 17:17 – A friend loves at all times.

Something happened at TLC last week that just made me smile!

I preached a message on purses. I talked about the stuff we carry in our purses, what is necessary and what isn’t. I grabbed the purses in my closet and went to church and set them up. There were 8 of them. Four of them are going to be cleaned up to donate to the RMA thrift store and four of them I keep for sentimental value. A purse that my husband bought me on our first Christmas, one which was handmade in Africa, one that is from the 40’s that I use for decorative purposes, and one which was a splurge.

One of the women of TLC asked, “Susan are those all your purses?”

I said yes and then held my breath……..

I love clothes and shoes and purses and as a woman in ministry it is often a place of criticism. I had a Pastor’s wife come up to me once and say, “Just how many pairs of boots does one woman need? Don’t you know there are people who have no shoes?” I do in fact know that, and I do in fact, give to many missions projects but this type of judgment happens all of the time, not just to me, I’m not special. I once heard a person say, Bill Gates wasn’t being generous when he gave a gift of $100,000.00 to a project. They said, “$100,000 is like me giving $10. Bill Gates could afford to give more. Only, to me, $100,000 is not like $10, it’s like $100,000. Bill Gates could have given nothing at all.

So why did I hold my breath?

The comments. The people who are ready to pounce with condemnation. I held my breath because even though I work through the comment, it still makes me sad that I live in a space where it even matters. I realize that the comments are not my problem.

The response surprised me.

“Susan, we need to trade purses sometime. You have some I like.”

YAY! There was no negative comment or judgment. I loved it. It made me happy.

I went home and told my husband.

I told a few close friends this past week, each time with a smile on my face.

So I asked her which of the purses she liked the most? She liked an animal print one I had. You know something? I was going to give her whichever one she chose, sentimental one or not. Someone who was genuinely happy. I shared it at TLC last night and there were lots of smiles! It felt good not to be on the hot seat. It felt really, really good!

God is working on me. I pray he is working on you as well this week. May you experience little moments of happiness as you cross hurdles into your most excellent future.

At War With Women

July 10, 2014 tlc4women1 Comment

I was raised by a first generation feminist. My mother broke into a male dominated field full force. Her generation was the one who shouted, “I am woman hear me roar!” Her generation demanded to be treated as equal in the workplace and not just a piece of meat, “a honey”, or “a sweetie”. She brought to the table the intelligence to do her job and the strength to push through boundaries of race, culture, and gender. My mother used terms such as Male Chauvinist Pig to describe men who tried to objectify her and tried to take her back to where she had to use her body instead of her mind as a way to move forward in life.

In the beginning of feminism it was about equality. Knowing you were a woman, but not limited to roles in job or pay. Today feminism, like every other movement, has gone to places I can’t follow. They have created a chaos in women’s identity but the one thing they still revere and I still appreciate is that they believe intelligence doesn’t favor a male, in fact, it is equal to those who choose to apply knowledge.

So what is the deal with women today? We have decided cleavage is power. Once again we don’t feel smart enough to compete in the workplace so we use our body. There is a term that when I first heard it, made me cringe and not believe it, but I have to be honest, I am agreeing with it these days. It’s called Female Chauvinist Pig and she is empowering men once again to objectify women by issuing her own war on women by allowing herself to be defined by her body. What causes her to breakdown the work of the women who forged a path for her? Clearly, it’s a self-esteem issue. She doesn’t think she has the smarts to win the battle in the workplace. Women admittedly say they showed cleavage because mistakes on the job were overlooked. Really? So when we don’t have a brain we show our body because being objectified allows us to keep a job we aren’t qualified for? I don’t think so. Women fought hard so that a woman was viewed as a whole person and not just the sum total of her breasts.

In Kathy Shiffer’s article Cleavage=Control? I Don’t Think So, she refers to an article written by Marge Fenelon entitled Cleaveage Does Not Rule where Marge Fenelon makes the statement:

Let’s go back to the title, which suggests that a woman can and should use her cleavage as a means of control over her life. In actuality, it’s not the woman’s life she’d be controlling with her cleavage – it would be the people around her and the way they perceive her. To take it a step further, she wouldn’t really be controlling her life; she’d be controlling the way people respond to her generously-revealed breasts.

Sorry but cleavage isn’t sexy when it’s free to everyone and no one ever looked down a woman’s blouse thinking she was wise.

Men Don’t Matter

July 3, 2014 tlc4women2 Comments

What a lie we have been given.

If you haven’t read Part 2 click here.

As women, born of this generation in America, we have this ideal of a single mother that while true for some is not true for most. We can buy a house without a man, we earn our own income and for some we earn more than the man in our life. For some women who are not interested in equality in a marriage, often because of their own daddy issues, this becomes the seat of power in which we devalue a man and emasculate him to show our power. This has nothing to do with love and everything to do with pride.

We can buy a car, we have great credit and we can afford to do so. We can pay for private school, camp, medical care, and trips to amusement parks. This is the picture of a single mom. Only that usually isn’t the case. Many single moms struggle to make ends meet. Often have more month than money left at the end of their payday, and life isn’t this happy place they thought it would be. They get up early to get their children ready for school, lunches packed, themselves ready. They work hard to get the laundry and dinner and homework finished while they are dogged tired. They make grocery lists and hope there is enough money for the food they need to buy. They make pancakes for dinner at the end of the month because sometimes that’s all there is. They don’t get to go and have spa days or go with friends to have a nice dinner because it isn’t in the budget.

And no matter how much we try and no matter how much advances in technology and medicine we make:

A woman can’t be a father.

No matter how much we try to fill the void of a male influence we can’t do it. We’re failing miserably statistically. Our children are missing out whether we want to admit it or not. Sure, there are statistics of moms who raised incredible people on their own but they don’t outweigh the statistics of those who can’t. I have a saying,

“A woman can do it all. She just can’t do it all at once.”

So while we’re busy earning a buck and climbing a corporate ladder, our children are missing out on a critical component of a family. In their mind, they are learning that they may have to go it alone that one day, they too may be called to raise children on their own because families may or may not be sustained.

So let’s throw the lie out. Let’s begin a discussion with young women about how valuable they are and how we need to make better choices in the men we choose to father our children. Let’s talk about working on our marriage before they are broken and let’s talk about marriage before babies. I know it sounds counter-culture and I know it it will sound sexist and it will be met with push back and name calling but I’m okay with that. And here is why: Watch this video and tell me daddies aren’t important. Watch this video and tell me that she has someone else who fills this void in her life regardless of who her daddy is. Tell me that these daddies are not necessary. Tell me that she isn’t affected.

“When he does time, she does time.”

I’m okay with the being an unpopular voice if a child gets an active, involved, worthwhile, father. I’m okay with the term baby daddy being thrown out of our vocabulary. Because it was never meant to be there in the first place.

A Dad Is Important to His Daughter

June 20, 2014June 20, 2014 tlc4women1 Comment

So here is Part 2 to the post I wrote about why father’s are important. If you didn’t catch it, click here so you have a basis of where I’m going with this.

Let me tell you a little known story about my life. Its basis is formed on a lot of self evaluation and counseling and reading and life.

As a little girl I was a daddy’s girl. I liked the things he liked, I admired him, I thought the goofiest things he did were absolutely wonderful. He was the light of my life. He was my safety and my love. That all changed around age 13ish. Suddenly the goofy man who could never remember lyrics to songs so he’d make them up, was irritating. The man who broke out in a falsetto out of tune rendition of a Queen song was embarrassing. I no longer wanted to hang out with him and I no longer really wanted to sit on his lap and all of this is a normal progression of life and puberty. Your parents are supposed become nerds or we’d never the leave home. There’s a post for another day.

Only my dad didn’t know how to take this. He retreated as well. We no longer had the conversations about boys and how they were supposed to treat women. We no longer had secret dates to the mall where he’d buy me something my mother forbade. We became awkward with each other. Not on purpose, neither of us had the tools we needed.

One night, when I was about 14 my dad called me on the phone. It was late about 2 am and I was breaking curfew by talking on the phone and I thought I was busted. Instead he began to talk about how he loved me, missed me and felt disconnected. He said, “I wish I could reach you but you’re so caught up with boys and friends and I don’t know how to make this better.” I assured him I loved him and told him I would be fine because honestly I didn’t know what I needed any more than he did.

A year later I had my first boyfriend. I was doing stupid things, going against my convictions and knowing that I was doing the wrong thing only I didn’t know where to stop. My father was becoming even more distant, sending my mother in to talk to me about his concerns. He was concerned that I was on the brink of having sex with my boyfriend but didn’t know how to approach me. We were creating a chasm in our relationship that honestly still exists today. How I wish we both knew better in these moments but you know, parents do the best they can with what they have. Neither of us had been here before and we didn’t have Dr. Laura and the experts telling us how to do this father/daughter thing right.

My father completely shut down when I became pregnant. When I decided to get married he sat me down and had one of the most profound conversations of my life. He said I had made serious mistakes but they didn’t have to continue. He urged me not to get married. He said it would be a disaster and he also told me that if I insisted he would not attend.

As I walked out of the door to the chapel to get married, my father looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t go.” I smiled at him and said, “Oh daddy, I love you and it will be fine.” Of course it wasn’t.

Do you get why I think dads are important? Because when mine stepped away is when I floundered. When a dad is absent is when a child gets in trouble. And I’m out of time and not finished talking so wait for Part 3.

Daddy Is Home

June 19, 2014June 19, 2014 tlc4women2 Comments

My mother created a culture in our home in which our family wasn’t complete until my dad came home. There was always a celebration, a feeling of security and warmth and love when my dad entered the scene. She taught us that he was important to our well-being.

She tells the story of when she was a little girl and her father had to work three jobs to make ends meet. When she would get up in the morning, her dad was already gone off to work and when she went to bed at night he was still working but she says that she always knew he had come home and that they were loved because he’d leave a treat behind. A pie, or pastry. Something to let them know that he was providing for his family.

It was these memories that have kept me thinking about Father’s Day and all of the appreciation of it. Father’s are critical to the well being of the home. A father, in his proper order, guides and leads a home with strength and character.

The latest statistic is that 43% of children are being raised in fatherless homes. Our statistics in America get dismal from there, click here to read statistics

Despite what anyone tells us as women and how we are capable of raising children alone, we simply lack something that dads bring to the table. Yes, we can clothe and feed a child, teach them manners, help them with their homework, love them beyond belief but children still know something is missing.

TD Jakes said in his message Crash Course in Fatherhood, “Anything a man loves he will take care of it, protect it, provide for it.”

Here’s the truth women. You don’t wait until a man loves you and marries you to have his baby. In fact, you’ll have two or three in the hopes he will marry you. Beloved, if he didn’t do it before babies, what makes you think he’ll do it after? Do you think love is sustained by a forced marriage? We all scream about arranged marriages, yet we have no problem backing up our sisters with the cry of ‘do the right thing’ to a man. How about looking her in the eye and speaking the truth in love? Although she may not need a man to help her financially raise a child, like it or not, she needs a man to help her raise a whole child.

I know I know!! This isn’t a popular message. I become a hater to society who says we must do things our own way but could it be that we, woman, are not embracing the biblical principles set before us, and setting up a house where life is complete when daddy is home? Where a man leaves security for his children on his way to making ends meet?

TD Jakes also said, “When a man has no authority, he has no potency. So when you shout, ‘I am woman hear me roar’, you may be roaring alone.”

We weren’t meant to do this alone. Wait for Part 2, ’cause I’m not done yet.

Up and Down Emotionally

June 13, 2014June 13, 2014 tlc4womenLeave a comment

Luke 6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

People who know me say I don’t like emotions. That’s incorrect. I think emotions can lie and we need perspective. Think about it, I can be having a good day, have one bad thing happen and emotionally crumble into agreements of “I never have a good day” and “Something always ruins my fun”, then receive good news and change again. I become a shaky person who doesn’t have control of situations when my emotions are guided by circumstances that are temporary. Of course we cry and grieve when we have a deep loss, but if not getting our way causes a good cry we have a problem. Of course we rejoice at weddings, the birth of a baby, and celebrations of many kinds but if that is our only high point in life we have a problem.

I read this today and thought it was so right on so I wanted to share:

Out-of-control emotions are the product of a heart which is not saturated with Scripture. The way to control our emotions is to control our minds, renewing them by the daily input of scriptural principles, the knowledge of God, and meditation on His attributes. Then the Holy Spirit, along with the Word of God, will bring about appropriate emotions based on truth. When we immerse ourselves in the only means of our sanctification—the Bible—we arm ourselves with the only effective weapon against out-of-control emotions. Then we can control our emotions instead of them controlling us. In themselves, emotions are not unbiblical, but they are indications of what is in our hearts. ~Matthew Houdmanm

Often the overreaction we have to people emotionally is not in what they have said to us but rather it’s filtered through a mindset of the unresolved issues we have about how we feel about ourselves. Sadly, this is not something God caused or created in us. This is something we are refusing to let go of in spite of the Holy Spirit’s work in us.

Unfortunately, as our society becomes more self-absorbed, we will continue to be extremely emotional. When we are taught that we get a trophy every time we go up to bat we are in for a big wakeup call when we go to our first job and they tell us not to do something the way we’re used to doing it. We will take it as a criticism and crumble and quit. When we don’t get to leave our toys on the floor and not have someone calls us on it, we develop a ideal where everyone needs to accept our behavior and any type of correction to the contrary, regardless of how it is conveyed, is processed through an overly sensitive mindset as evil. We need to teach how put things in perspective. It isn’t always that serious of a deal. Unless we are ruled by our emotions.

The Life Of Party

May 28, 2014June 1, 2014 tlc4womenLeave a comment

You know the type, they walk into a room full of strangers with a smile. For them, this is a chance to make 100 new besties.

Yeah that’s not me.

I am friendly but I am not the life of the party. Even as a kid I would select a friend or two to play with. I wasn’t aloof, I joined clubs, participated in school plays but you’d never see me as the actor. I’d be narrator or the director off to the side.

Some filter this behavior as anti-social and therefore label it as stuck up. It isn’t stuck up at all though. I am just not the life of the party. I am an observer. I am the one who if I am having a dinner party, I cheat and stack the deck. I invite those who will carry the conversation along. In other words, I invite the host or hostess to my party and make sure they have everything they need.

These days it’s my friend Vikki. Vikki will talk to anyone. She and her husband Alec will mingle and make sure everyone has a touch. Vikki will also entertain me by coming around and making comments to me like she’s talking about someone else. For example, Vikki will say: “Whew! Vikki is sweating over here.” or “Vikki thinks you should have served more fruit.” She says it in a sing/song voice which always makes me laugh so in essence she even hosts me at my own party. It works.

I will, on the other hand, find that one person sitting alone and go make a conversation. I’m good at the one on one.

The stretch for me is walking into a crowd and going and shaking hands and introducing myself and making small talk. So now picture my life. I’m on staff as a pastor at a church with about 250 people each Sunday on average. This is where I found myself in a lesson last week.

My devotional that week was this scripture:

Matthew 14:13 When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. 14 And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick. 15 When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.” 16 But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” 17 And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.”

So the question becomes what do you do when you’re called out of your comfort zone and don’t have the tools? You trust Jesus and stretch and go to work. I can teach a class, I can lead a meeting but it’s not natural. It’s the 10,000 hours that you put in to a skill to have mastery. It’s not that you’re that good, it’s that you’ve practiced enough to make it.

The Bull In The China Shop

May 1, 2014May 1, 2014 tlc4women2 Comments

I posted on this blog about not thinking bossy was a bad word here. One of the questions I was asked about was when I used the phrase, Bull In A China Shop, to describe a person who isn’t a boss but tries to act like one. This isn’t some medical term or anything, it’s just what I see in my mind’s eye when I see this character arrive on the scene. Here are their characteristics:

1. They are emotional. Easily angered, which masks their insecurities, they are fueled and run by their emotions. They are the leaders who humiliate to get what they want. One moment you are the star of their team and the next moment you’ve done nothing right. This isn’t leadership from a Christian perspective this is leadership from a fear tactic. From this pool is where you get your tyrants from. Unfortunately, it’s their way or the highway and they do not take input well.

2. They drive people. In ministry you quickly learn that a Shepherd leads their flock they don’t drive it. Human beings are made in the image of God and therefore do not do well when they are controlled as we are not supposed to control others. The God given dominion we were given was over the earth not over each other. When you assume that each person under your care is there to be controlled you create a hostile work environment, one in which the people are tired, afraid of the next blow, and always looking over their shoulder. They will not create anything because in this sphere of authority they never know what the outcome will be. It may be received well or it may be looked on as an attempt to a coup, so they quit trying because the end result is so risky.

And if those two main points aren’t enough, people aren’t happy to be in their presence. They front for the higher ups, but they are one way in the presence of one group and another way in the presence of the next group. Nothing is ever level or real.

It’s not always from a place of evil, although the world has certainly seen their share of evil leaders, most often it’s from a place of ignorance, a place where leadership skills have not been defined and where training has not taken place. It’s foolish but it isn’t always evil. I liken it to the kid who realized that if he throws a fit in the store, his parents quickly give him what he wants so that he’ll behave. The Bull in the China Shop has done the same thing. They have figured out that fits make people move and they stopped there. They realized that it worked and frankly they were too lazy and self involved to get some training in front of some leaders who had cohesive working teams and actual skills of leading. They didn’t read or apply what they learned about leadership.