Category: Women

TLC4Women

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As the TLC summer series comes to a close it’s time once again to set the vision for the new year and to remind the women who are a part of TLC about what our goals were from the start.

Transforming Life Center was started with the premise that once we were born again, we had to learn to live a new life in Christ. This meant we had to leave a lot of the things we knew before behind so that we could learn new things that would take us to the purpose and plan of who we are.

Romans 12:2-And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Romans 12:2 is the verse that carries our ministry forward. Our goal in everything we do is to move forward and forget those things that are behind us. In dealing with our pasts once and for all, we then put it behind us as it no longer defines us. Then, applying those things we have learned, we move forward, becoming more aware of who God is and what he is doing in our lives. We aren’t about becoming the Church Ladies, there are enough of those already, we are about becoming disciples of Christ.

So what does TLC have in store for this next year of study?

  • We have four bible studies coming up. We are continual learners and we have a desire to know God more intimately day by day.
  • We have a conference to plan that is just around the corner.  This is a lot of work for us but the end result is that the word goes forth and women’s lives are transformed by the messages that the speakers have for us!
  • We have a scholarship that we are going to give to a deserving senior this next year. We have got to begin to put our words into action. If in fact, we are students for life then we place a high value on education and we will put our efforts where our mouth is.
  • We are mentoring the youth and college-aged women who are coming up behind us. We have a class set up for them that is being put together as we speak. We are taking the charge in Titus of the older women teaching the younger and applying it where it is most needed our youth girls.
  • We are going to work closely with Moms Against Hunger to help feed the world.
  • We have a “detergent ministry” where we go to the laundromats around town and distribute detergent.
  • Finally, this year, we are adopting a child from Compassion Ministries whom we will support with gifts and letters.

Our mandate is big this year but our hearts are strengthened by the word that has already gone forth and been implanted into our ministry. We are pregnant with vision, power, prophesy and courage as we move forward in the new endeavors of this year!

I am proud of these women and look forward to a destiny and purpose that we may think we know but watch God blow our minds!

He Is A Gentleman

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This is the second installment of How Can A Woman Not Love The Lord? Click here to read the first.

matt mcgraw/north carolina
matt mcgraw/north carolina

Merriam Webster says a gentleman is; a man of noble or gentle birth b : a man belonging to the landed gentry c (1) : a man who combines gentle birth or rank with chivalrous qualities (2) : a man whose conduct conforms to a high standard of propriety or correct behavior

God is the King of kings so automatically he’s noble. Is your man a king of the King?

The chivalrous qualities, and the man whose conduct conforms to a high standard of propriety or correct behavior is what I want to focus on. First off, God doesn’t lie. Every word that proceeds from his mouth comes to pass. So your man should do everything possible to make his words come to pass.

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

Notice the bible says he doesn’t say things then not do them and he doesn’t promise and not fulfill. Yes, I know that in our human circumstance sometimes we can’t fulfill a promise because something comes up but we must always get back to it. It has to be a way of life. If your man is always saying he’s going to help you clean out the garage but he never has time, then what characteristic is like the Lord there? If he says he is going to take you on date but hasn’t then you need to notice that. Christ died for you.

1Corinthians15:3b that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

That’s chivalrous. To step out on the scene, see that we are in trouble and lay his life down for us, what more can be said? Your man should, as Dr. Laura says, swim through shark infested waters to get you a glass of lemonade. Yes, you can get your own but for a man to be man he’s got to do it. He needs to have the manners of a gentleman.

I am amazed how often our young men have not been taught to be gentlemen. Does he open the door for you? Does he walk on the outside of the sidewalk, does he treat you as if you were the queen? Does he respect you? God does, so should your earthly man. Some of you are laughing because you’ve never seen this kind of action from a man before. I have. So maybe you’ve been hanging with the wrong man? It’s possible. You’re getting the picture though. God is someone who cares about you. You specifically. He is always looking for ways to make your day brighter. Think about it, he created flowers for your health and well-being but he didn’t have to make them beautiful, he made them beautiful as a bonus for you.

Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”

I like this verse for this verse shows me how to love. To be in the midst means I have to be there for those I love, I have to know what is going on for how could I be in the midst and clueless? I have to take the time to say, “What’s up?”, and HEAR the answer. It means I am protected and should protect. Rejoice means I am glad and have joy and happiness over my loved ones. He will quiet me with His love, which means when I am freaking out as women do, he comes in and makes me feel safe. I need to feel safe, it’s my number one need as a woman. I need to protect those I love too, it’s an innate part of me as well. He takes me in his arms and sings a song to get me back on track and settle me down to be at peace once again. God is gentleman. I love him for not getting involved unless I ask him to. I love him because as soon as I ask him to he begins to move. Single ladies, is your man a gentleman? I pray that he is.

The Military Channel

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As much as I try to understand the male mind I don’t always get the stuff that comes into their mind. My husband watches The Military Channel all the time while he’s working late nights on his sermons. So the other night I was looking great. I am not one of those wives who wears the old t-shirt to bed and thinks it’s a turn-on. I like the cute stuff. That may be too much information but I think women need to put a little more effort into their sex lives and your husband being visual,  needs to see your interest. So here I am, trying to get his attention and my husband looks lovingly over at me and smiles (I’m thinking, Yeah, this worked!) and says,

“Baby, did you see that?!! That right there, is a fine piece of machinery!”

I was reminded of my friend who went away for a romantic weekend with her husband. She said the day had been perfect and as the sun was setting they were walking along the beach. He pulled her close to him and just stared into her eyes. She said she got goosebumps because the moment could not have been more perfect when out of his mouth comes,

“Wow, in this light, your mustache looks especially dark.”

How Can A Woman Not Love The Lord?

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My friend Cynthia (hi Cynthia!) sent this email to me and it was powerful. I’d like to take each point once a week and expand on it. As I do, first think about how much God loves you. Next, for you who are single, pay attention to God’s attributes. After that, each time you date a guy, put God’s attributes up against the attributes of the man you are dating. If he has them, he’s a keeper.

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* He is a gentleman
* He is a confidant
* He is a provider and protector
* He is rich and powerful
* He owns everything, there is nothing He wouldn’t do for me
* He perfects all things concerning me
* He anticipates my wants and needs
* Every day He tells me and shows me how much He loves me
* I don’t have to perform in order to earn His love
* He keeps all of his promises
* No one can influence His opinion of me
* He is the ultimate intimate partner
* He can’t “disown” me because I am a part of Him
* He prepares a table before ME (Selah)
* He covers me and doesn’t expose me
* He wrote his loving words down so that I’ll never forget how He feels about me!

Moms Against Hunger

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Dr. Gayla Holley is a wonderful friend to me. She grew up as in Zimbabwe while her parents were missionaries there. She played along-side the children there, was educated there and has a very special place in her heart for the people there. That is her adopted country. You can see the love she has for the people there when she recounts her stories of her childhood. 

Her life has been spent helping others. She is not your average Pastor’s wife dealing with her local church and funding missions. She has made missions her life purpose. This year she started Moms Against Hunger. Her God ordained task is to send food worldwide. With her ministry Role Models Of America she has not only fed, clothed, moved medicine and building materials worldwide, she has been involved in being a first responder to the catastrophes of Hurricane Katrina, Rita and Ike, just to name a few. So she has the experience to get this done.

Currently, she has 150,000 meals ready to ship from La Porte, Texas to Zimbabwe Africa. Zimbabwe has agreed to waive the tariffs. Because of her connections there she has people on the ground that are ready to get this food starving people. The food is purchased and ready to go. She needs $10,000 for transportation costs to get the food there. $10,000 seems like such a huge amount but if each of us gives up our Starbucks or McDonalds meal for the week, we can make this happen. There is a small window of opportunity where the government is being cooperative.

Oasis and TLC are proud to be a small part of getting this food shipped. Can you help? If so, please click on her link above and give your help. If we all do just a little we’ll be able to make a small dent in hunger in the world.

If you aren’t familiar with what is going on in Zimbabwe click here to learn more.

Thanks for all your help and may the Lord richly bless you!

The Art Of Lying

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http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=402102

to yourself is a talent that many women have.

I’ll start my diet tomorrow
I’ll do something for myself on Monday
I’ll learn to say No
I’ll learn to have boundaries
I won’t allow him to abuse me anymore
I will be a better wife
I will not nag
I will give up my right to be right
I will stop overspending

And on and on, you get the point! These self-talks are all so easy to say and oh, so hard to do. We’ve come to the point in our lives where lying to ourselves has become an art. For some, it’s the only creative talent they put any effort into. We don’t even consider it lying. We consider it procrastination or better yet justificaton. The way to transform your life though is just to be honest. It’s the hardest thing in the world to do but when you finally round that corner it is so freeing!

I recently spent some time with a friend who decided to take charge of her health. After years of health problems she just determined to get healthy this year. It was really cool to see her dedication. She read up on what she needed to change, and she determined that there were some major changes to be made but she was going for it! It motivated me. I love her enthusiasm and how she approached it and it made me want to support her in her change. We women know how to undergird one another’s cause. An undergird is a foundation, like the pillars that hold up the bridge. We were designed for that and so we excel at it. I find that I am glad to undergird causes I believe in. I am not so enthusiastic about those causes which, seem to be futile at best including my own.

In contrast to the friend who rounded the corner to a healthy life, I have another friend who has some really important decisions to make in her life. Her home life is not so great and some decisions need to be made there, her health is not so great and some decisions have to be made there, her world is unstable right now, her kids don’t have respect for her and yet she is scared to move in one direction or another, so she puts off doing anything except complaining, that’s the only constant in her life. So instead she develops the art of lying to herself about her choices and continues moving sideways never making headway. It’s hard to undergird this, but it’s in our nature to nurture. Fill in the blanks on your life and see if there are areas that have been overtaken by the art of lying. How good have you become at the art of lying? Has that become your creative ability? If so, how is working for you?

Authenticity

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lab created
lab created

 

authentic
authentic

 

 

 

What do you think of when you think of “The Church Lady”? Do you think of Dana Carvey doing his SNL skits? Do you think of your grandma? Do you think of your fanatic friend at work? Whenever I think of her, I think of a person who is real but not authentic. A cubic zircona is real but it’s still a fake diamond. I had very little good examples set before me in the church of authentic women. Most of the ones I met were trying to conform to their ideal of what a church lady looked like.  I think that’s where people get off track and leave church because they are looking for authentic and they don’t see it.

We find plenty of authentic women in the bible. Not perfect women, but authentic women. I read about one recently, whose husband had died before they could have children. In that culture, and at that time, for a woman to not have a child was humiliating. Her father-in-law sent his son to “lay” with her in his brother’s place. The brother being wicked spilled his semen rather than risk her getting pregnant because he knew if she bore a child it would be as though it was his brother’s child and he didn’t want to comply. <em>To some it’s more important to appear obedient than to be obedient. </em> That doesn’t sound like it’s very authentic. So there she sat childless. Her father-in-law promises her that when his youngest son grows up, he will send him to her but time passes and it looks as though he isn’t going to do it. Have you ever gotten to the point where it doesn’t look like things are going to happen so you get a little desperate, okay, a lot desperate? She dresses up as a prostitute and sets herself up on the road and has sex with her father-in-law! He doesn’t know its her! She gets proof of this encounter by asking her father-in-law for some personal items and she gets pregnant. When her father-in-law finds his daughter-in-law pregnant, well you can imagine the hell that breaks loose because now she’s humiliated him. Go figure!  She was pretty thought out though and has proof of who she slept with! Okay, it all sounds creepy but we all know desperate women do desperate things. Let’s not judge but understand that in her world she had little choice. Who was she? Her name was Tamar and she was one of the great-great grandmothers of Jesus. She was authentic. She captured the attention of God because he saw her actions through her heart. We don’t see her nagging, yelling, pouting. There is so much to this story, the story of a deal not fulfilled and the consequence of procrastination, disobedience and the fulfillment of an end result, that I urge you to read it. It shows an aspect of the heart of a woman better than any country song could. You can find the story in Genesis 38. Being authentic requires that we be actually what we claim to be. So often I see us trying to conform to our peer group.

Have you ever noticed the new girl at the office? She comes in looking like herself and slowly but surely she begins to dress like everyone else. You aren’t called to conform. You are called to transform. You are called to leave your mark on your little piece of life. I love talking with the youth group at church. They really have a funny sense of “being themselves”. They say things like, “I don’t want to be like everybody else, I want to be myself.” Problem is, the Goths look like all the other Goths, the Preps look like all the other Preps and the Skaters look like all the other Skaters, seen one Emo, you’ve seen them all, no one is really not like everyone else. So take a deep breath and take a look at your life today. Are you authentic? Are you the Ruby or the lab created Ruby? Both are real. One is authentic.

Behind Every Great Man

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is a great woman or so the saying goes. This is a picture of me and my husband Doug goofing off one day. Relationships tend to transform people. We all have that girlfriend who changes her entire world to be the girl her latest boyfriend wants her to be. We also have that girlfriend who sees “potential” in a guy and begins to try to change him into what she wants him to be. Neither produces a long-term transformation. It’s a fake, for the moment, change and eventually who you really are comes out. So why do we do it? What makes some women utter doormats for a man and others bossy and crowding? In a word, it’s fear. Fear that we will never find another person who will love us, fear that someone already put together will see the flaws in us and not want us. Fear that if we speak up we’ll be rejected. We need to learn to be comfortable with ourselves and to recognize that we are enough. Let that thought sink in for a minute. You are enough.

This is where faith helps. My faith has taught me that God designed me for a purpose and a destiny. With 6 billion people on the planet there is not another single person with my exact design. I am worth being treated with love and respect and so is everyone else. So, single women, be careful about who you get behind. You will be transformed to the level of the man you chose. Your life will rise or fall on that level. Choose wisely. Is the man who you have decided to get behind destined for greatness, or will you always be pushing? So many of us think we can change a person but you can’t. So that fantasy has to die. Look at who he is now and where he is going in his life right now. That place is where you will end up with long-term. Don’t miss the destiny you were given. Don’t miss the warning signs either.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat with women in counseling and they’ve said things like:                              

I knew he’d cheated on his last three girlfriends but he said I was different (you’re not)

He’d get angry for no reason but then he’d bring flowers and apologize (run!)

He’d had a run of bad luck with jobs (uh, huh)

His last girlfriend broke his heart and he said he was over it (then she called him)

He has two kids from his last two relationships (get ready for baby mama drama)

He called his mom three or four times a day and I thought it was sweet (mama’s boy)

He had to cancel lots of our dates because of work (he’ll be absent a lot)

The sad part about these comments is that the women knew these facts going in but they went in anyway. Now they are unhappily ever after. Don’t be a divorce statistic. Choose wisely. Be careful who you get behind. Ask lots of questions and LISTEN to the answers and above all, take your time!

Who Ewe B?

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www.wisdomportal.com/
http://www.wisdomportal.com/

 

 

 

Or rather, Who B Eye? As I was originally contemplating writing the profile page of this blog, I kept thinking about what it is I want to say about myself. I was looking for something clever, that would catch the eye of the reader. I began to think of how it is we define ourselves.

Men, more often than not, define themselves by their career. I’m a rocket scientist, I am doctor, I am a doorman. Whatever they DO is who they ARE. Women generally define themselves by their emotional attachments. I am a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend. So I went looking at all of my friend’s blog profile pages.

They described themselves as wives, moms, coffee drinkers, etc… So the internal questions began. Was where I was born significant? Doubt it, as my parents lived hours away and I was born there only so that my mom could have a female doctor. I’ve never lived there and have only visited the town once, well twice, if you consider my entry into the world. What else? I am a wife but is that significant? Sort of, I mean it means I have a husband, a partner, a friend and obligations my single friends don’t have. I also have the benefits my single friends don’t have and the liabilities my single friends don’t have.

I am mom but is that whole of my being? I am madly in love with my kids and I remember when they were born, all scrunchy and wrinkled and red, but in them I saw greatness and beauty and my heart was never the same. I am a follower of Christ. It’s the basis for which everything I do all day long flows. Not to say that everything I do edifies Christ, because sometimes I snap at people, and well, to be honest my driving leaves the Christ following thing at home most days, as speeding is breaking a rule and we are not rule breakers so, I have a long road to go there.

My career! I work at our church. My husband is a Pastor. I am a Pastor as well, but well in the world of Christianity there is lots of debate as to whether or not a woman can be a pastor. I love my work. It’s varied and you never know what you are going to do each day. I can’t honestly say that it the sum of who I am though. 

Back to the core question, who am I? When I begin to write my profile I wrote things like, I am a human being, I am tired, I am authentic, I am a geek, which by the way I need to clarify. At one time, I was cool but your kids let you know that those days, well they are gone forever, I am overwhelmed by laundry. These definitions are all in fact true. So who eye b is all of the above, and then some! In my mind though I am so much more than the sum of all of that. Yet, maybe that is just flattering myself and maybe I am slightly delusional. I am a reader. I am a thinker. I am a leader. I am called in this time and space on earth, to a purpose, to which no one else on the planet was called to fulfill. I have yet to reach my full potential but I know it’s coming!

What do you say defines you? What do you say when people ask you to tell them about yourself? What would your profile look like? And in your heart of hearts what would you want to say? Think about it and post a comment, because honestly, you were called to be part of the flock, but not  one of the crowd.