I had a couple of questions that weren’t asked directly to me on the blog but instead came by way of search that I really want to answer.
To the person who said they blasphemed the Holy Spirit and there is no point in living. There can be no way to blaspheme the Holy Spirit and feel remorse, so while you may have been mad at the Holy Spirit it’s a different thing to blaspheme. I know that you read my blogs on this topic but please hear me when I tell you, your life is worth living. I am desperately praying for you. This is a massive trick of the enemy to steal your soul and I pray you are able to stand on the word of God through this.
To the person who asked Why does he put stipulations on getting married? He puts stipulations because he doesn’t want to get married and this is probably a good thing. You want someone with whom you are compatible and who loves you and wants to spend his life with you. To tie yourself to someone who “loves you but…” is no way to live.
You guys rock! Keep reading and I hope I can help!
What an awesome 3 year-old. She prayed solidly for seven minutes. Beautiful!! She ministered to me today. I pray that she touches your heart as well. She certainly was given the proper name wasn’t she? Hannah, who poured her heart out before the Lord as Eli walked by thinking she was drunk only to find out that she was praying in her heart’s desire. Oh, Hallelujah Jesus! We praise you for parents who teach their children to pray! May you bless them Lord! And Lord while I’m here with you in this moment, you know my grandchildren that have yet to be born to time, may they be mighty prayer warriors and worship you with all their hearts, souls and minds! In the mighty name of the one and only Jesus! Amen.
Have you ever been around a person whose attitude just stinks? They are negative all the time and no matter how positive you stay, they have something that can dampen your fire? Their life’s perspective isn’t one of joy but one of impending doom.
What causes them to be negative all the time? I think for some it comes from a feeling that if they think negatively about situations and don’t get their hopes up then they are not disappointed when they don’t get what it is they thought they might. My husband is usually a positive guy but get him ready for vacation or trip of any kind and a couple of days before he begins to get quiet and moody. Why? Because he convinces himself that this vacation is doomed, that it won’t be fun like the others we’ve been on or that something will happen at church to keep us from going. This negative talk keeps him from getting his hopes up in case he is disappointed. Crazy? You bet! However, some people don’t just live moments of their lives this way, they live their whole lives this way.
Have you ever watched the Debbie Downer skits on SNL? Everyone is happy and she has a negative word that eventually brings everyone down. We all know people like this, they are never happy about anything. They have the ability to sober a room with a sentence. I don’t think they intentionally want people to feel down like they do I just don’t think they give it much thought. If you are a person who is easily influenced or bent toward negativity then limit your time in the company of others who share this bent.
Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
Matthew 12:34 For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
So it seems that the reason negativity in speech exists is that is flowing out of the negative heart of that person. Whether that person was hurt profoundly and now sees the world as harsh, horrible, and out to get them or whether they were born with a negative bent towards life, they are speaking out of what is going on within their own mind.
This helps us to deal with them as you see that their negative talk is not because they want to bring us down, rather it’s a byproduct of what is going on within them. Can you imagine how utterly sad to live your life always thinking something bad is going to happen? To see life as negative and that there is nothing to look forward to? Life is so great, even in the hard times, that I can’t imagine not having the faith that things will get better as the general thought process of life and that there is something better right around the corner for me. Yet, for the negative person, that something better isn’t coming because even if it’s a blessing there is a failure to recognize it because they are only looking for the negative and they miss the positive.
Then there are those for whom if they conceded that this was good, whatever “this” happened to be in their life would be to miss out on the next greater thing. For them it’s a process of not wanting to settle and instead missing it all. For these people they have never been able to find contentment in their own soul. Can you imagine a life where the good in it was always missed as you waited for the next best thing? That is a tragedy. Does this not break your heart? They live their lives in a way that the great parts of life will be missed because they are looking down the road not to see the positive but to catch the negative.
So the next time you are in the presence of the Debbie Downer in your life, take a moment to point out the positive. Refuse to go down the trail of negativity with them. Refuse to let them get you down. Refuse to accept their negative word over your situation. Begin to speak life into their lives. Instead of walking out with the stench of negativity in your nostrils, speak a positive word into their life. They may counter with a negative but refuse to accept it. Speak life, speak positive and refuse to let the stink get on you!
Small towns. John Cougar Mellencamp sings about it, and I complain about it. Most shopping has to be done 45 minutes away and we are very limited on services. If someone from out of town visits you, people ask who they are. Today the Lord reminded me of the blessings of living in a small town.
If you’ve never been to California and traveled extensively, you imagine California to be Los Angeles and San Francisco. It isn’t though. There is large area of California called the Central Valley and it’s made up of small farming communities. That’s where I was born and have lived a great deal of my life. As a teen I couldn’t wait to leave! Small towns were good places to be from, not to be in, I wanted big city lights.
Educated in a small town
Taught the fear of Jesus in a small town
Used to daydream in that small town
Another boring romantic thats me
I moved back to the valley when I was 29 and have lived here ever since. I finally stopped commuting to the Bay Area 7 years ago and I have lived exclusively in a small town. We are a small town to the core. When something new happens everyone knows about it here. When we get a new store, we all rejoice and think we are big time now!
Well I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Probly die in a small town
Oh, those small communities
So here was my day yesterday. Lulu and I headed to the office via Starbucks.
“Good morning, welcome to Starbucks, would you like to try a blah, blah, blah?”
“No thanks, can I get a Grande Soy Chai Latte please?”
“A grande soy chai latte, we’ll have your total at the window”
I get to the window and big smiles from the staff, “Hi Lulu! Here’s your whipped cream”
Lulu is dancing in the front seat and crying and drooling all at once. No one can ever say my dog doesn’t multi-task just like her mom!
“Awwww! She’s the cutest thing!”
We run to the office and work.
At lunch we run to the bank. The teller waves me over.
“Hey Susan come on over. LOVE the new flowers in your yard. What’s the stuff you put in the beds it looks so full.”
Then we run to the dry cleaners:
“Hello Mrs. Young, your cleaning is ready. Do you want to pay today or is Mr. Young coming in to pay?”
Then we run to the post office:
“Hey, how’s the church building coming along? I saw men working there, is it almost done?”
“Where’s Anthony been? Haven’t seen him around lately. Heard he’s dating a local girl, whose her family?”
(yes, everyone is involved in your business, it can be kind of annoying or it can be kind of comforting depending on your mood that day). At least they care if for nothing else fodder for gossip.
“Is Casey still in Los Angeles? Good for her! Sounds like she is she doing okay for herself. Sometimes I think I should have moved to a big city when I was younger for more opportunity but hell, I raised my kids here, married my high school sweetheart, my parents are here and we’re okay.”
All my friends are so small town
My parents live in the same small town
My job is so small town
Provides little opportunity
On my way back to the office I get a phone call, “Stop talking on your cell phone. It’s against the law. Besides I was waving and you didn’t even see me. When did you change your hair color? Weren’t you blonde last week?”
Yes, the things that used to drive me nuts blessed me today. I am a part of a community. Maybe I’ve realized it for the first time ever in my life. Maybe it’s a really good thing. I’m not part of a neighborhood. I’m actually part of town. A place where my children are often asked about and cared about. It really was the best decision to raise them here.
No I cannot forget where it is that I come from
I cannot forget the people who love me
Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town
And people let me be just what I want to be
For all the fatherless children today this video is powerful! I hope you are listening men. Men, be a keeper. I pray you are listening women who are looking for a man to marry. Women, find a keeper.
Love is more than words and feelings, it’s action. It’s found in the little and big things in life. I know I am engulfed in God’s love for me. I am not so sure about the rest of the world’s love for me but God’s love, I know, is there for me daily. Even when it’s pouring rain in my life and I engulfed with trouble and battle I am loved and I know it. Even when I am not acting my best, I am secure and safe in the knowledge of God’s love.
The bible never commands a woman to love her man because she does so without effort. She is emotional by nature and so she loves and she loves deep. The bible commands a husband to love his wife. Why? Because men are more practical in thinking and so emotion doesn’t run high, they don’t always say they love their woman. I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and my husband is staring at me. It kinda freaks me out because I think, was I snoring or drooling, why is he staring? When I ask him what is wrong he says he was just watching me sleep peacefully and he just loves me and is glad I am there next to him. It’s easy to love me when I’m sleeping because I am silent!
During the day, at some point in the day, or several points in the day, he tells me he loves me. Every great once in awhile though he doesn’t. Maybe he got busy or maybe he was angry or maybe.. my mind goes crazy with thoughts of why not but those days thankfully are very few and far between. He shows me he loves me when he does things he knows I like. When he makes the bed, yes it’s that simple or when he quits his video game playing when I come home late from a long day at work to pay attention to me. That doesn’t usually happen but when it does it’s great. When we go to mid-week church service and he doesn’t have to preach so we sit together and he rubs my neck as I take notes. It’s in those little things I didn’t ask for but I prayed for that I see his commitment to me and his love.
Find someone who thinks of you. Who is not selfish and who you don’t have to remind all the time that you are there and that as a woman you need something more. For you to feel secure in his love it must not come from nagging but from self propelled action. If he is not showing it before marriage, he will not show it after.
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?
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.
Pastor Susan 