Category: relationships

Something Beautiful

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My good friends and mentors in ministry, Bishop Gregory and Dr. Gayla Holley, recently had a horrible loss in their family. They put their precious little dog Missy, a yorkie terrier, outside in their yard and a turkey vulture took her. They were shocked and devastated at what had happened. When Gayla told me about it, I immediately had tears in my eyes and my hand went to my throat, as I could imagine the pain my friends are going through. Being a dog lover and knowing that dogs aren’t pets for long, they become a part of your family, I understood the grief they must be feeling.

They both felt badly about Missy. They shed some tears, they tried to figure out why this would happen. It was really a sad time. You see, Missy first belonged to a family who just didn’t have time for her. Her family knew they needed to find a good home for her and along came the Holleys. With them, Missy traveled the country in their RV, she slept in pajamas and got special treats. She watched the news on their laps. She got table scraps when her mom wasn’t looking. She even liked cuddling up in bed with them. She lived the life of luxury for a dog.

What happened next didn’t surprise me at all. They rescued another dog within a week. A Maltese who was in desperate need of a groomer. He is now living the life! Too soon you might say? Not when your life is about love.

See, there is an important lesson here about love and loss. In our grief we can decide to put up a wall and say to ourselves that we will never love again. We can decide that the loss is just too great and our hearts are much too broken to ever take another chance. We can live in the good ‘ol days when they were with us. In fact, the natural response to death is to nurse grief. To speak statements that shut love out.

It is a very powerful statement to remain open to love and shut out grief. Yes, grief is necessary and needed but love is even more so. In this case they determined that there were a lot of dogs that needed love more than they needed grief. Missy isn’t an afterthought. She is missed, she is loved still, and she isn’t replaced. This new life with a new dog will be a process just as anything in life is. No two dogs are the same. In fact, her memory is such a good one that they opened their lives up to even more love. That is a testimony to Missy’s life if ever there was one.

Sometimes in ministry you learn deep lessons not in what people say to you but in how their life is lived out before you.

Another Man’s Wife

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I read a quote from a great man of God, Pastor BJ Robison, a great friend of my husband’s, who recently went home to be with the Lord. He said:

Watch the way a man treats another man’s wife and that will define his character.

I thought in terms of people at first.

  • The man who eyes another man’s wife as a piece of meat.
  • The man who lusts after another man’s wife.
  • The man who scorns another man’s wife.
  • The man who is in direct competition of another man’s wife.
  • The man disregards another man’s wife, either by dismissing her thoughts or taking for granted her kindness towards him.
  • The man who judges another man’s wife because of her appearance, education, or opinion.
  • The man who speaks against her in public to puff himself up.
  • The man who measures his own wife by another man’s wife.
  • The man who feels he in a place to correct another man’s wife.

Then I began to think the church as she the bride of Christ.

  • The man who is obsessed with taking her down for his own agenda.
  • The man who judges the church based on her taste in music or attire.
  • The man who is critical of her parts.
  • The man who has taken it upon himself to change her.
  • The man who tries to rule over her.
  • The man who stifles her growth and creativity.
  • The man who wants her doused in religion instead of salt.
  • The man who crushes her with his unwillingness to change.
  • The man who tries to take advantage of her.
  • The man who doesn’t fear her groom.
  • The man who tries to take advantage of her kindness, education, or opinion.
  • The man who demands of her but doesn’t fund her.
  • The man who tries to lure her children away with false teaching.
  • The man who tries to kill her.
  • The man who ridicules her.
  • The man who finds her an unnecessary burden.
  • The man who doesn’t respect her place.

We Are Women

Greeting my uncle who is in his 80’s, we began talking and somewhere in our conversation I referred to myself as a girl. He scolded me saying, “I hate when women refer to themselves as girls. You go through so much to become a woman and then you refer to yourself as girl.” I laughed […]

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Gilbert Caraveo

Greeting my uncle who is in his 80’s, we began talking and somewhere in our conversation I referred to myself as a girl. He scolded me saying, “I hate when women refer to themselves as girls. You go through so much to become a woman and then you refer to yourself as girl.” I laughed and brushed it off in the moment but later I realized that he had a valid point. I’d been mulling it over off and on when I gathered with a group of women for tea yesterday.

I looked around the room. This tea brought 30 women together. We began to speak about the topic at hand that day which was the privilege of being adopted into the family of Christ and what responsibility that carried with it. The women began their stories slowly and softly as is always the case. They began to tell of where the Lord had brought them from and where they thought they were going. These were women who had earned the privilege of being called a WOMAN. Two hours later and a few cups of tea, there were women who were laughing, crying, comforting, counseling and you began to feel the camaraderie of women who had made their way through some STUFF! I realized I was in the company of some strong women, some women who had, as my uncle said, “gone through so much”.

The things that were discussed in that room, stay in that room. Suffice it say that there was breakthrough and prayer and that when women get together and pray SOMETHING HAPPENS. The next day at church, I saw a sparkle in the eyes of those who attended. I saw a look of acceptance and love and knowing, we had opened up our hearts to each other and the payoff was love. One thing I know about women is we can be each other’s biggest enemy but also each other’s biggest ally.

Although we may not have walked in the footsteps of the other, we had walked through things which had hurt us deeply and we had come through. We understood the pain, the trial of overcoming and the triumph. We also understand the gift our God has given us of redemption and restoration and future and a hope.

My uncle is right. We aren’t girls, we’ve come through a lot to be women. Now we need to own it.

The Real Gift

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sam's club.com

Helping in the RMA store this week an eldery woman came in. She was grumpy. Have you ever noticed that people either grow old gracefully or grouchy? She talked about how the government was to blame for her financial situation. She complained about how they were trying take her social security and how she lived on so little as it was. She complained about not having gifts to give her grandchildren for Christmas. I stayed quiet for as long as I could.

“You know, I was very close to my grandmother. As a child she was everything to me. She passed away in 1999 and I miss her so terribly much most days. Can I tell you that I don’t remember a single Christmas or birthday gift she gave me? Oh, don’t misunderstand, I was grateful and everything she gave me she gave with love, like you, she had modest means and did the best she could.”

“Can I tell you what I do remember? I remember her stopping her housework to sweep me up in her arms and dance with me in her living room. I remember standing on a chair in her kitchen helping make dinner. I remember baking cookies with her. I remember learning to crochet and sew with her. I remember snuggling up in bed with her when I spent the night and how we would talk and giggle long into the night. I remember running errands with her or advice she gave me. I remember working in the garden with her and learning about herbs and their remedies. I remember sitting at her dining room table playing game after game of Crazy Eights. I remember her massaging my back when I couldn’t sleep. I remember her singing to me and her hugs and her love and the fact that she thought everything I did was special.”

The real meaning of Christmas is relationship with one another. I don’t need a day on the calendar to give a gift or to get one. What I treasure, what stays with me in my heart is the time she spent developing her relationship with me. The memories remain long after any gift did. The gift she gave was more precious than any Christmas memory because it was heartfelt. It was born in love and nurture.

Just as Jesus was born to restore us back to our heavenly Father, no earthly gift is more memorable. What better gift could be given than the gift of our love towards one another? This Christmas I pray you get the real gift of Christmas. The gift of some time with loved ones and the gift of serving one another in love. The same gift the Son of the Most High God came to give us!

Merry Christmas!

When Is It Adultery?

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unbreakup.com

A woman emailed me, who is shacking up with her boyfriend. She just found out he was dating someone else. She was telling me what a jerk he was and asking what should she do?

It’s complicated isn’t it? Even though she lives with him she isn’t his wife, so he isn’t officially breaking any sacred vows, although his word should be one. He hasn’t promised forever, he has just said for now. His word is his bond but these are their days of trying things out this is dating with benefits. There are no legal or spiritual vows here. In fact, there are explicit non-vows. We promise to be together while it feels good. Apparently this doesn’t feel good to him anymore.

The answer didn’t sit well with me or my email friend. I don’t like it, but dating is a time to see if you are compatible with that person or not. I hate that humans are used in this way. This idea that relationships work this way is wrong thinking. She is dating a man, while trying to play house, and it isn’t working. In fact, she will have more of a chance of divorce because she lived with him first by sheer statistics. Marriage and living together although they look the same, aren’t.

Case in point. When I married Doug we lived hell on earth for the first years of our marriage. We loved each other but we were so opposite, losing my identity in the marketplace was excruciating, his illness played a part, step-parenting was awful, the demands going on in our lives at the time was tearing me up, and him as well. Trust and believe me when I tell you, that had it not been for my vows, I would have left and I believe that he would have too. Thank God for wisdom, counseling, fasting and prayer, and the ability to be two sane people who had a lot of talking out to do, and we did it, and we still do it. We honored our vows to each other and meant it when we said for better or worse. I am thankful every single day that our character was one of sticking it out for it truly is a blessed marriage with a lot of love these days. Not perfect, but wonderful if that makes sense.

Love is never careless with another human being, nor is it enough to sustain a relationship on its own. Character, strong communication skills, the ability to commit fully, and the common ground on which one stands plays a part in a marriage making it. It is hard enough to tough it out when problems come into a marriage, and they always do, without those critical things in place. Without true commitment, it is precarious and leaves wounded souls who will never be the same again. God doesn’t make rules and set up boundaries because he’s judgmental and mean. He sets up boundaries because he wants to guard our heart.

The Battle For Peace

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bigstockphoto

This is an ongoing series on stepparenting. To read the previous entry click here.

Lady Tremaine suddenly finds herself misunderstood and the magnifying glass is on her. Why is there no peace in her home? Why is she always disapproving? Why can’t we all just get along? Why does she take the blame for everything?

The children on both sides of the coin are vying for control. One child told his stepmother, “Every time I hum a song using da, like ‘da da da dadum dum’ it really means I’m praying for my dad to ‘da-vorce’ you.” So each time they got in the car to go somewhere as a family, the child would sit behind her in the car and as the music would play on the car stereo, the child would kick her seat and hum along using the “da”. By the time they reached their destination she would be furious and the child would be in control and loving it. Her husband simply didn’t believe her because the child was only 8 years old, at the time, and it seemed too manipulative a move for a child this age.

Stepmothers need to take an honest assessment of the situation they are in. If the home is becoming hostile and she is getting resentful and feeling like an outsider, she must back off and take a hands off approach to the children. She can’t step into a stepmother role, rather she must be seen as a mentor. This is not easy because our idea of a family is a mother and father. Only we have to remember that these children have a mother and father, for the most part, and they haven’t asked for another.

If a battle is ensuing in your home you must step back. The house will become unbalanced. There is no way around this. It means the things you need to have done will more than likely not get done. If your rule is to bring your own dirty clothes down to the laundry room on Wednesday for wash day, you can bet that the children will forget or ignore. It’s not personal. It doesn’t add to your chores either. You will simply have less clothes to wash that day. On Friday when everyone is looking to you to provide the clean School Spirit Shirt, you’ll simply say, “I washed all the clothes that were brought to me on Wednesday”. If dishes weren’t done the night before, well then tonight you won’t be able to cook dinner. Don’t worry, cereal for dinner has never killed a family. The key here is to give the person with the responsibility the ultimate authority while saving your sanity.

One stepmother would get up each morning to get her stepchildren off to school. Because they had ignored bedtimes the night before, there was always a battle. She’d think to herself how she was ignored the night before and now she was paying for something she hadn’t done. By the time she dropped them off at the bus stop, she was angry, kids were angry, and everyone was miserable. One harried morning she was rushing kids to get up and get moving while getting herself ready for work. Then, one of the kids threw up. Not having the time to figure it out and get the other one to the bus stop, she told the sick child to go back and lie down and she would be right back. She loaded up the other child and ran them to the bus stop. When she came home the sick child wasn’t home. She was frantic and called her husband. They both went looking for the child and when they found him wandering the streets, he began to cry to his father saying that he had thrown up and his evil stepmother had grounded him for life and told him to go to his room and never come out. The father was enraged and asked how she could be so heartless? It had never happened but it didn’t matter, she must have had a tone or a look or something. She had a choice, fight, flight, or take a step back. Guess what? This stepmother took a step back. She removed herself from the responsibility of getting children ready for school. Do you want to know the result? The children’s father was frustrated in no time, yelling, rushing out the door and the bedtime rules which seemed harsh before, became law. When her husband would come to complain about how hard it was, she would pat him on the arm and say, “I’m sorry you are going through this. Parenting is hard work.”

Good and Great

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thefuntimesguide.com

I was reminded of a time several years back. Casey, my daughter was in youth group and the leader was talking to them about their parents. Casey said, enthusiastically, it was told to me, “I don’t just have a good mom, I have a great mom.” She was 16, at the time and I had worked hard with my kids to have a good relationship with them. I was never Casey’s or Ant’s friend but I was a parent who worked really hard at establishing a good communication with them. When the leader told me what she had said, I was thrilled that she thought so.

What had elevated me from good to great in those days? I think it was just that I loved her and we had a close relationship. She was my partner to shop and to go to plays with. I held her to a standard and she respected me for it and I respected her for trying her best. I miss her desperately some days, because she’s all grown up and off on her own. She doesn’t need her mom anymore as she once did. Now, I get calls about how to make certain food or what do I think about something. Now when we are together, it’s all I can do when I am with her not to just squeeze her and love her up. I know better than to do that because I’d embarrass her more than I already do.

So it is with our Lord. When we first learn about him and begin our relationship with him, he’s so good. Jesus even gives us the criteria for being the good shepherd:

John 10:11. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

When we first discover that Jesus loves so completely, it makes something stir in us. It makes us feel whole again. It makes us feel understood and a part of something so much bigger than ourselves.

As we progress along with our relationship with him and we discover all that He is in our life he is so much more than good. He overwhelms us with his love. We can’t quite comprehend how he is able to see our flaws and our hang-ups and yet still love us so deeply. When we find that he never ceases to teach us and guide us, we discover that he is great!

Hebrews 13:20 May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

TLC’s Conference

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We were honored to have such powerful conference this weekend. Almost 150 women gathered to discuss why God asks us not to arouse or awaken love before it so desires. Women from the ages of 10-100 came and learned what God’s plan was and why he said wait. I was so impressed by our teens who were honestly saying that they had never really considered why God said wait.

Some of the comments that touched my heart were:

“Now I understand why my dad acts like he hates boys to talk to me you know? He is trying to protect me. I mean, he’s still not doing it right but I see his heart now you know?”

“I would never do the things I do in front of my dad but I had never considered that my father in heaven is always watching. It makes you think.”


“I can’t talk to my mom because she always runs and tells her sisters and her friends.”

“I can’t talk to my mom because she always starts yelling and judging.”

“I feel helpless when my daughter comes to me because I see my baby asking 13 year-old questions and it scares me.”

“I sometimes don’t know what to say to my daughter so I revert to rules.”

“I still wear scars by the things boys said to me in high school”

“I didn’t live what I am teaching and I want more for my daughter but I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m scared of what I see happening to the young girls today.”

“My mom just lectures and I have no one to talk to but my friends.”

Thank you Jesus for a ministry that allows us to come forth with the questions of our heart. Thank you that you see every question and that it is meaningful to you!

Naked and Unashamed

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datingblossom.com

In a recent survey, dating couples were interviewed about the first time they slept together. 33% of couples say they slept together on the first or second date. Yet, these couples after dating an average of 8 months still did not know things about each other in terms of past experiences, life-long goals or childhood memories.

Genesis 2:21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

In the garden, we find Adam and Eve the first naked man and woman. I know that we focus on their physical nakedness but there is a deeper thought process to all of this. They were not only naked physically, they were naked emotionally. That is to say that they were open and honest with each other. Their relationship transcended the shallow and dared to swim in the deep richness of a true communion of acceptance and love. They could truly be themselves with each other and not have to worry about the judgment of the other person. At this point in time in history it was all good.

Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

In a moment of weakness they opted to gain worldly knowledge and thus sacrificed true self for self-image. Instantly, they covered themselves from each other.

So today we find that getting physically naked with one another is acceptable but getting emotionally naked with each other is taboo. This is why pornography and illicit affairs are prevalent. We hide our emotions and our true self hoping that when you when you see us, you only see what we tell you is pleasing to you and not what is real.

A woman who shouts to her mate in the middle of an argument, “You don’t really know me!”, may be correct. She may have been showing her self image for the length of time of their relationship rather than her true self. A man consumed by pornography to the detriment of his marriage, may be burying himself in self-image rather than dealing with the work it takes to build a lasting relationship.

Those who are called according to his purpose have an obligation to live beyond the cross of calvary. Jesus died so that we may have true relationship back. We need to stop being superficial and thinking the self-image will suffice. Maybe then our divorce rate will drop, our self-worth will return, our friendships will be fulfilling, and we’ll return back to the place where we can be naked and unashamed. It’s called authenticity and we should be desperate for it.

Luke 9:25. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self ?

Or in terms of this blog, what good does it do to share our physical body if our soul and heart get lost in the process?

Date Abuse In Teens

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http://www.loveisrespect.org

I was reading a statistic that said that 1 in 3 teenagers report abuse in dating. I googled to see if that seemed normal and one site said 38% and another said 1 in 4 teens are abused. Reporting can be spotty since most girls keep it a secret. On the surface it’s hard to understand why a girl would go through this when she has her life ahead of her and her choices are endless. The problem with this type of thinking is that we forget to think like a teenage girl whose completely infatuated with love and having that cute boy or bad boy at any cost.

As with adult women in abusive situations these men are often quite apologetic after their abuse. They cry, they send flowers or gifts, the promise that it will never happen again. They swear that if she hadn’t have angered him so much he wouldn’t have done it. If a grown woman falls for these lines time after time then what can we expect from our teenagers? As with adult women, teenage girls tend to make excuses and feel responsible for the abuse. Then there are the girls who abuse the boys as well.

One question needs to be asked: What does using our strength look like? If we, as the women God, have been placed to lead our girls and don’t know the answer to this questions then how do we think they respond? A question I asked a group of youth girls recently was, “What does showing your strength as a woman look like?”, it was met with blank stares and a question, “What do you mean?”. I then asked the women, “Why can’t the girls that we mentor answer this question confidently?”, and it was boldly answered by one women, “Because we don’t know either”.

We must empower our girls to know that they are the Crown of Creation. There is a way to treat a woman and that must be taught. I know you are reading this and thinking that we have to teach our sons but you, as a woman, need to understand how you should be treated and not accept anything less than that. I have to admit I saw that we aren’t doing our job with our daughters when I heard a young woman of 17 say, “A woman shows her strength by being tough, showing a man she can do it by herself, you know? They can’t hurt her.”

A woman doesn’t show her strength by being tough. We weren’t designed to be physically tough. We were designed after everything on the earth was created. God didn’t create anything else after he created us. We show our strength in our nurturing, we show our strength in our ability to be relational, we show our strength in our love. Teen girls are being abused because they don’t know their strength, they don’t know their worth, they don’t know their possibilities. So they think being abused is as good as it gets and that saying sorry fixes it. We need to elevate our worth to a higher standard.

Just because a male is good-looking, charming, popular, smart or a jock doesn’t mean he has character and integrity. A person can be smart but that doesn’t mean they are decent humans. Just because he says he is sorry doesn’t mean we take him back. We are worthy of so much more than this! How will our young women know these things if we aren’t teaching it? How can we change these statistics unless we speak out and have dialogue? Stop for a moment as you read this and think about it. Have you talked to the young women in your life about abuse in dating? Are you watching for the signs?

We must learn that our strength is in our ability to think for ourselves. Our strength is holding ourselves to a high standard of morality and worth. Our strength is in not following the crowd. Our strength is in the ability to discern right from wrong. These things only happen when we are able to truly know who we were created to be.