Category: Love

The Lost Sheep

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Every year I take the boxes of Christmas decorations out of the garage and begin to take the decorations out of their packaging and arrange the house. I bought this shepherd, star and sheep at a craft fair several years ago in honor of my husband being a Pastor.

Every year at the beginning of the Christmas season I pull the star and the shepherd out of one box and then can’t find the sheep. Each year I vow to pack them together so that they don’t get lost and each year at the end of the season for some strange reason they don’t get put back together. I have a lot of ornaments and it takes time to find the sheep. One year, I found it on top of the guest room closet after going back out to the garage sure that I had missed a box. Go figure that one out. I’m still trying to figure out how that happened as well.

Everything stops as I go looking for this lost sheep. I don’t move forward with the decorating because it bugs me that I’ve lost it again this year. It reminded me of a story in the bible as I was looking all over this sheep.

Luke 15:3. Then Jesus told them this parable:
4. “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
5. And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders
6. and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’
7. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

I have 100’s of ornaments but I look for this one each year. I stop everything I am doing to find it. What is it about sheep that get lost? The feeling of finally finding it gives me great joy as I call out “Found it!”

This Christmas when I found the sheep I put it in its place next to the Shepherd and I thanked the Lord. The not-so-simple little feat of leaving the other sheep behind to go off and find me when I was lost is not wasted on me. The fact that the angels rejoice when one is found takes my breath away. Think about it, what is one in 6 billion people? Yet, everything stops as the God of the Universe sends his only begotten son to earth to search and to find that one that was lost? Then he carefully restored that sheep to stand next to the shepherd where he was called to be all along.

He Won’t Disown Me Because I Am A Part Of Him

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God chose me before the foundation of the world. There is no going back on that. When I recognized him for who he was, I gave myself fully to him and I haven’t looked back. Divorcing God is not an option for me. I’m in it for life.

This how your relationship should be. It shouldn’t be one where you are just there until something better comes along. It should be solidly cemented where neither of you has a desire to go anywhere else. This is what it truly means to be a part of one another.

Find someone who at 2 a.m., when he’s opening a bag of chips and waking you up with the crunching and you give him the death look, you love him anyway, knowing you’ll have bags under your eyes. Find someone who loves you when you do your own manic things as well. Don’t hook up with a man who doesn’t understand that there are times in a marriage when you both don’t want to deal with anymore of your stuff but you do anyway. Don’t hook up with a man who thinks it’s okay to throw the relationship out the window when times are tough. Find someone who recognizes that you are a part of him and he is a part of you and without the other there would be a part missing. Find someone who is in it for life. Most importantly do the work right now to be that person with whom a man wants to claim you and be a part of your life forever.

Perspective

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So in my line of work these questions come up all the time. The judgments we are called to make or not make are sometimes very tough on these hearts of ours. Sometimes they speak more about us then they do about the people we serve. I’ll let you read what I am talking about for yourself on Stuff Christians Like. Click here.

Submission Continued

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I love military life. I love the protocol and I love the well-executed plan. It fits my personality to have order. In the military and in boardrooms across the world there is a meeting where everyone is given a task and expected to fulfill it. There is a meeting of the mind where everyone and everything is clear. A general never goes to battle with soldiers who don’t know what they are going to do because he expects to win. To do so would be foolish. It makes it easy when the couple is on the same page. Often though we hear a couple say, “He/She should know what we are working towards.” Without a meeting of the minds in which both people come together to set the mission, there is no mission, only chaos. We can’t assume anything. A mission must be clearly defined.

Just tell a woman that you want to go to Fiji next summer and that it’s going to take $10k to go. I guarantee you she will clip coupons and wear ‘that ‘ol thing’ in the closet to get the money to go. Tell her you want to save an extra couple of grand for her new wardrobe and she’ll make it happen. Most women are not evil or scattered. They are willing and able to help a mission to get on its way. If she didn’t love the man or didn’t care about their family, she’d go shopping but most often she want to please him and he clearly set the mission and she is going to follow it.

What if I don’t agree with the mission? I mean, this one is an easy one to submit to because I get something right? That happens sometimes when we don’t agree we don’t want to submit to the plan. The time to speak is in the initial meeting. I would voice my opinion and why I don’t think it’s going to work. You can’t whine, you don’t get emotional, you just practically stated your views and back them up with fact. Sometimes your appeal works and sometimes it doesn’t but let’s face it, this is when the rubber meets the road. Submission isn’t submission until you disagree.

So you have to ask yourself two important questions. Does my agreeing to submit to this plan violate my relationship with God? Does my agreeing to submit violate my belief system? If the answer is yes, then you can’t submit period. You can’t override your convictions without losing a part of yourself. BUT HERE IS THE GREAT PART! Your man, the one who vowed to love you forever, would never ask you violate these areas of your heart because the bible is very clear that we submit one to another. God really had the idea that we’d work together for the good of the whole and not for the good of the one. That means that I don’t pull the conviction card out for just anything. I really have to be honest and search my heart. Let me just say here that if you are really honest most things don’t fall into this category. Just because you don’t want to do it, does not excuse you.

There is nothing sadder, and I mean this nothing sadder, than a woman without a mission. She will use her energy for what she thinks needs to be done and we don’t need to ask Eve the outcome of that story. There is nothing more dangerous than a marriage without a mission. It may limp along but it will never be what God designed it to be. A marriage without a mission doesn’t have unity, peace and ultimately the blessing of God. If you find yourself in a marriage without a mission it’s time for a meeting. It’s time for a God-seeking moment. Simply ask the question, what are we working for and how are we going to get there? God will bring the answer. Then work the plan.

Submission

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Submission seems to be an ugly word for women. The bible says if we are married we are supposed to be in submission to our husbands. I think the word gets a bad wrap because we don’t know or understand what it means and because sometimes men throw it up to us in an ugly way. Today I want to break down the word and make sense of it and show you that it doesn’t have to be bad when all the pieces of the puzzle are in place when it comes to this word.

First off, we have to break the word apart.

Sub- is being used as a prefix for under, below or beneath. Let me just say here that is does NOT mean less than. We need to open up our hearts to read this carefully without shutting down.

Mission- is a task that clearly spells out what we are doing; how we are doing it and the reason we are doing it.

The bible says that a woman was designed as a help-meet. This is not a bad thing and it’s in our nature to be helpful and we are great at making things happen. I think of it, as we are the supports to a bridge. The supports are what hold everything up. It in no way lessens the importance in fact, in increases it. Without the support the whole thing falls flat. A bridge without a support is useless. Again, not saying men are useless just that when we are joined as one in marriage the pieces have to fit together in order to function.

Ever see a woman missing from the scene? I remember when I married Pastor Doug, he lived on skittles and slim-fast and his kids would stay up till 2 or 3 am bleary-eyed watching TV then have stomach aches and were missing tons of school. They were missing a support system. Ever see a man taking care of the kids after his wife has been at a conference? The kids are asking every half hour, “When’s mom coming home?” and dad is wishing mom would hurry up. It’s not a bad thing to be a support. It’s necessary.

The problem is that most men do not have clearly defined missions. So the problem lies not in the fact that women don’t know how to submit. We submit very well thank you very much. We submit when we know the mission. We submit when we know our role. Submission is not an ugly word. It’s a beneficial word. What is the mission of your home? Men, if you don’t know then you can expect for your woman to do something that may not be the plan. A support, supports something even if it’s the wrong thing. There is the problem in a nutshell. Just as Adam assumed Eve knew the mission most men today also assume women know the mission. But Adam was so wrong.

Sadness Is Part Of Life

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I heard Dr. Laura say on her radio program that sadness was not a disease. I answered back, out loud in my car, with a big AMEN! I so agree with this statement. Why is it that we mask uncomfortable emotion and don’t want to feel it?

I remember when my husband died and the very first thing my doctor wanted to do, and I am mean within a few days of his death, was put me on anti-depressants and give me sleeping pills. Do you know that 25 sleeping pills have lasted me 6 years? I only took them when I absolutely could not sleep a bit. The anti-depressants I didn’t agree to and so I have never been prescribed them. I don’t believe it’s bad to take them, and I think some people have serious issues with depression and need them, but I don’t believe that everyone needs them. The death of a loved one is hard time in your life. I don’t think anyone has a question about it but whether you drug yourself to numb the pain, or work like a madwoman (as I did) to numb the pain or drink or sleep or over-eat, whatever it is that you do in times of deep sadness, you will eventually have to work through that sadness if you are going to move forward.

I guess don’t understand the avoidance of sadness. Actually, I know we’d all like to never feel sad but sadness is a part of life. It means we are human, it means we care, it means we are really living out our lives. It tells a story that not everything is happily ever after. There are great moments of joy in our lives and deep moments of sadness and to not have those is to not have lived well. It all ends well though, that’s a God promise! Ask yourself a question though, how would I know great joy if I never experienced deep sadness?

Sadness seems to be one emotion we want to avoid. I know that, and I understand that, but it’s not reality. See, everything I know about anti-depressants is that unless you on them forever, eventually you have to still go through the pain. You still have to work through your feelings and you still will need to come out on the other side. You have the right and the obligation to live a life fulfilled. A fulfilled life doesn’t mean it’s all happy, it means it’s all ended well.

Oh, I guess you could wallow in your misery forever. Some people do, they become a victim to their circumstances and they allow it to consume their lives. For some life is never going to be right again. They wear their injury as a badge and you can’t get through a 20 minute conversation with them before their tragedy spills out. You are left trying to run from the conversation because it’s so depressing and you realize this person can’t quit living in the past. But you have to understand that it does not have to be your reality ever. Yes, events happen and are going to happen. Yes, there are going to be sad times and we need to acknowledge them but don’t build your home on events. Build your home on the solid ground of life well-lived, knowing that He who gave life will sustain it through it all. Let each room in your home tell a story that is as diverse and interesting as God designed you to be.

He Is My Ultimate Intimate Partner

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Intimacy is not sex. We often confuse the two but sex the way the world handles it is not intimacy. My intimacy with God is that I can tell him anything and he hears me with an open heart. He may not agree with what I am saying but he hears me. On the flip side, I can trust him to tell me anything and he can trust me to listen. See, it’s watching out for each other in a deeper more profound way then just your normal friendship. God and I are more than friends.

The man who you seek should never be one with whom you can’t tell your deepest secrets to. He shouldn’t be the one who you withhold from. I know often that is the case we don’t want to be seen in a bad light so we project a false image but eventually one of you takes a good hard look around and sees that it’s not what it seems. We need to be able to do better than that.

I love Pastor Doug with all of my heart. I would do a lot of things for him but I don’t want to be in love with an image. I have to say that when we married each other we made the grave mistake of not taking the time to get to know each other better and so we each had our image of the other. Neither one of us has lived up to the other’s image in some areas and exceeded our image in others. It has been a process of unlearning what we thought we knew about each other and learning to love what we know about each other. Some things were great disappointments to each other and some brought great relief and joy. It’s the price we paid for the compromise. This is why I caution you so strongly not to compromise on waiting to get married until you know for sure who the person is and that takes time, a couple of years. It’s too hard to go back and undo what you’ve done and so often I hear the horror stories. Most times at these moments of realizations they become deal breakers and divorce and break ups are the logical next step. When there is a problem in our marriage we dig deep to resolve it. We look to each other and we look to our faith. We are committed to seeing it through and we trust each other. See, that’s when the intimacy comes in. The things we’ve built so far and the things we honestly know about each other have to kick in at this point. Love is not enough to see you through these times. Love is an emotion, intimacy is a tangible thing that you can hang on to because you know it. This is when commitment either locks in or fails.

Sex doesn’t undo all of this rather it’s a quick fix that doesn’t stick. The reality is, you talk and hang out together a whole lot more hours than you are in bed together in any relationship. Erwin McMannus said something profound. He said that you have sex while dating when you run out of things to talk about. In other words, sex actually retards the growth pattern of your relationship when it happens before true intimacy develops. The thing you wanted most is the thing you just pushed away. Don’t confuse sex and intimacy they are not the same at all. I can’t stress that enough.

Make sure that the man whom you call your very own is your intimate partner. One who is trustworthy, who cares for your heart as best he can and who is honestly seeking out the real you while showing you who he really his. Don’t get caught in the trap of, ‘I’ll be who you want me to be’. So often I see women who wrap their whole personality around who he needs her to be or vice versa. This is so fake and so short term. You are who you are. Deal with it. Then seek out the one who loves the true you. You’ll be content then.

The Democracy Of A Family Part 3

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For Part 2 of this topic click here

The democratic style of parenting, and I’m not talking about the political party, is not sound parenting. Some things are not up for a vote or discussion. In no way am I advocating abuse or unreasonable behavior we all know everything can become extreme. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Tonight I am fixing lasagna for dinner. I didn’t consult anyone, I am in charge of that area of our household and so I made a decision. Now, let’s say one of my kids gets upset and decides that tonight they don’t want to eat lasagna. That is totally fine with me. You don’t have to eat lasagna if you don’t want to but I am not making something else to eat. They can make a sandwich, eat leftovers whatever. There is no vote here. Many of you would say that is harsh but honestly, that is life. What do I teach when I coddle a whim and fix a different meal for each person? Yes, sometimes I will ask what everyone would like to eat but not often. I’ve been given a task and I do it well. I know what my family likes and what they don’t and I would never purposefully make something they didn’t like to eat. See it starts with these small, seemingly insignificant processes.

When a boss says that she needs something done and I don’t feel like doing it then if I’ve been trained in a democracy I will simply decide not to do it and let her know I don’t feel this is a task for me and require her to give me something else to do. If I do that often enough, I will get fired. If I get fired I will be the victim but only in my mind, because I was taught that people move for me, I don’t move for people. See no boundary was established and no sense of team playing was established because in a democracy when I don’t like something I not only vocally say so I also vote it out. Only that’s not real life is it?

We are doing a big disservice to our children by not teaching them that they have responsibilities that lie squarely on their shoulders and that one day they will have to rule their own life. My daughter Casey was recently invited to her boyfriend’s summer home with his family. She said that his mother complimented her on her upbringing. We might ask why this was a shock to his mother but I think we all know that manners are a much sought after commodity. She told Casey that she was a woman who was well-mannered and helpful and she didn’t see that very often these days. Casey had been nervous about going but her training served her well.

Casey laughed when I reminded her of all the times she was angry with me because I corrected her manners and made her clean up whether she “felt” like it or not. Casey used to say to me as a little girl, “I’m like Cinderella around here.” She was always a bit dramatic. She gave me a really hard time always questioning why she had to do things that her friends did not. Every single Saturday morning we got up early and did family chores. She hated it and voiced her complaints each time. We’d get all the chores done by noon and then spend the afternoon doing family things like swimming in the pool or going to the movies or shopping or whatever but we got our work out of the way first. It wasn’t up for a vote though. It was clearly established. Now years later she told me it was the best thing for her. She said it’s her best memory of family time and taught her about getting priorities out of the way, working together to get things done and then having your fun with nothing over your head.

Parents, don’t be afraid to set order. I am convinced without a shadow of a doubt that those who order their lives are happier than those who live their lives in chaos. Those who see a monarchy for what it is, a set order of relationship and responsibility do better than those who are continually striving to overthrow the government of a house by a vote.

The Democracy Of A Family Part 2

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Yesterday we began talking about the biblical model of a family.

In a nutshell, the mandate on parenting is pretty simple. You, who are parents, were given a mission by God. That mission was to raise up a child from birth to 18 or so. When I say or so I don’t mean 30. In those 18 years you are to teach them to one day inherit their own throne, in other words, their own home, job and material possessions and family. They are to rule in the image of God and take dominion and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:27-28). In Jewish tradition the age is lowered to 13. At 13 a boy becomes a man and by then he is expected to know and have acquired the education of what is expected of him in honoring his faith and the commandments of the Lord as a man. The last five years are spent discovering his character as a man. With two children up and out I can tell you that time flies and that you must start early.

The problem is that we are waiting much too long to teach or we are not teaching at all the virtue that is going to be required of a king or a queen of their own domain. So our kids go off to college and they don’t know what to do. Many can’t do laundry, balance a checkbook, budget, cook, keep a job or study on their own. They don’t know basic things about modesty, things like their bodies being precious gifts and that a reputation is to be guarded. In listening recently to a former college dean he says that parents would send their children off to college with a set amount of money for the semester. That child would spend the money within weeks and then come to see him when book fees or lab fees were overdue looking for a bail out. Instead of taking their children back home for more training the parents would send more money. The only thing is, money doesn’t fix a lack of preparation and pretty soon the reckless behavior shows up in other places like drugs and alcohol and other bad behavior. The child was not prepared and the fault lies squarely, in most cases, but not all, on the parents lack of training in these areas. Let’s face it, you know your child and you know if they can handle adult life on their own or not. It doesn’t really seem fair to throw a kid, regardless of age, into a situation they have not been prepared to handle.

So instead of teaching your children to rule their own life, parents instead are teaching their children to be a prince or princess for the rest of their life. In other words, the parents will always be responsible for the children. Some parents have 30 year old children at home without steady jobs just living off of their parents. Some parents have children who are married with children and have never left home.

Parents were never given the task to control their children’s lives forever. Eventually they are to set up their own homes independent of you and live their own lives. I have friends whose children are grown with children of their own. These friends have bought every car their children have driven, their homes, pay their cable and cell phone bills and insurance, babysit on a regular basis and well you get the picture. They have raised their children to be a prince with no idea how to be a king. I don’t even know if they realize the fact that their need to control their children is so great that they have made them servants or slaves instead of royalty.

The reason why this is a disservice is that these parents will more than likely not out-live their children. At one point in that child’s life the responsibility will shift and they won’t know what to do with it. They are setting up their children for failure and are completely unaware. At some point we have to launch the arrow into its target destiny.

The Democracy Of A Family

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When I look at the biblical model of a family I see a type of monarchy. The word monarchy means that there is a king who sovereignly rules over a territory. The word sovereign means final authority or the right to rule. So those of us who follow Christ have a different view of what a family ought to look like because our model is not that of a democracy. A democracy is a territory ruled by the people where the ruler is voted in or out.

The problem with a democratic family is that there is no set leader because that leader is only a leader while the people are happy. The moment that the people aren’t happy the leader is voted out and a different direction is taken. This becomes confusing at best and the direction and vision for this type of family is never clearly defined as the boundaries change with the will of the people. God never designed a family to be a democracy. It’s a dangerous and often destructive concept.

I blog about this today because I see very weary parents who don’t want to be parents and I see many children with no direction other than to head opposite of where their parents are going or directing. Mostly parents are just lost on what to do and the world is telling them that they don’t have to do anything. Parents throw their hands up in desperation because they don’t know what to do and everyone in the family loses out on what can and should be a beautiful life. This all happens when we don’t follow a biblical model of what it means to parent.

It’s a pretty easy system, the biblical example of parenting, and it’s practical and wise. God is pretty clear on how we are supposed to raise our children and he even gives us good parenting examples and bad parenting examples to learn from. It is pretty clear though that God isn’t about democratic parenting. See in a monarchy there is a king. The children of the king will never be kings or queens in their father’s house until one of two things happen. Either the king dies or he retires. The children of the king are prince and princesses in their father’s home. I can see a model of this in the royal family of England where Queen Elizabeth is the head of the family and her son Charles is first in line to the throne. He is not king but rather prince. Prince William is also in line to the throne and as such we’ve watched him as he is groomed in every protocol to do with inheriting the throne some day. The only way for Prince Charles to become king is to conquer a territory and put him in place. Prince Charles however is never going to be king in his mother’s home. A monarchy is not designed that way. He can never vote her out and she has the final say so. He can have an opinion but it’s ultimately her decision on what is done.

This is how we need to train our children. We need to train them up to one day inherit their own kingdom. A prince who is not taught the principles of being a king will never be effective or self sufficient (sovereign). If a king is given a throne but can’t sustain it he will be overthrown. He will have two options at that point. He will have to return to his father’s kingdom and stay a prince or his father will have to overthrow a kingdom and support his son’s false sense of sovereignty.