Hung Up On The Whys?

tlc4women1 Comment
http://www.sheknows.com/

Ever talk to a three year old? They will ask a simple question that then leads to about 50 more questions that start and end with one word – WHY? Gideon was a man in the bible who was called a mighty warrior. An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a time in his life where he and his people had nothing. They were bullied, stolen from and living an impoverished life. Here is the story.

Judges 6:1 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.
7 When the Israelites cried to the Lord because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I snatched you from the power of Egypt and from the hand of all your oppressors. I drove them from before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” 13 “But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”

I’m fascinated by this story because here is a man who has nothing. He’s trying to mill in a winepress in secret. He’s just trying to get some flour for a meal to feed his family and angel of the Lord appears to him. I don’t know about you, but I would be freaked out! My heart would be racing and I would be listening to hear what the angel was saying. Gideon however is fed up and he wants to know why these things are happening. Why has God been absent? Why hasn’t he done any miracles? Why has he abandoned us? Why has he put Israel into the hand of the Midians?

All of us can relate to Gideon. We get hung up on the whys of life instead of seeing the miracle that the time has finally come for God to send an answer to get us out of our situation. We want to know why we were there in the first place. Does it matter in the scheme of things? Does it matter why we were suffering or is it simply the fact that we get to get some relief? The fact of the matter is that the answer of why Gideon found himself in a mess can be found in the very first sentence of this story. Go back and read it. The reason our own messes have happened can be found in the very first sentence in the chapter of our very own story. Does it even matter now? The fact is there is a way out of the problem a solution has been sent!

Don’t get hung up on the whys! Instead look for solutions that will get you out of your troubles. Cry out to God for the answer. Many times when we say things like, “Why does this always happen to me?” The answer is simple, “Because I haven’t learned the lesson in life that I need to about this situation.” We are not victims. Sometimes we cause things to happen, sometimes others in our lives cause things to happen but we always have a free will choice on what to do next. We can dig our heels in and get hung up on the whys or we can actually be that mighty warrior and get through this situation in our life!

A Spiritual Mentor

tlc4women6 Comments
http://www.lightcomputers.com/

Titus2:3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

I am blessed to have an amazing mother-in-law, Doris, that has been my spiritual mentor. She loves the Lord and she is a big time intercessor (that means she prays for me)! I love her and what she has to teach me. Do you have a spiritual mentor? If not, pray and ask the Lord to send her.

How will know when she arrives? Is she already in your life? Here are the signs that follow a mentor. She is the one who encourages your spiritual walk. She walks with the authority of a woman who knows her Lord and she teaches you what she knows as you are ready to learn. She is the one who loves you through the rough times in your life and leads you straight to the feet of Jesus. She is the one whom you see really walk out her faith. Is she perfect? No, not at all but she’s working on herself and it shows. She sees your progress and tells you about it. She never loses patience with you (for very long). She has a divine word for your life and she prays for you. She corrects you with love and guides you with wisdom. She rejoices with you in all of your successes and comforts you in your sorrow. She imparts her wisdom into your life. She is one with whom you can share your secrets with and she will hold them, not casting judgment but giving wisdom. She teaches you to walk in the way of a true woman of Christ.

Here is how you know she is not a spiritual mentor. She will not ever give you advice that goes against the word of the Lord. She will never manipulate you into doing what she thinks you ought to do. She will never try to control your actions. She will always have your best interest at heart. She does not counsel with you over her stuff but she is authentic and may share life lessons learned. She does not intimidate you ever. She knows intimidation never works long-term. She understands you will either follow her advice or not but she loves you anyway.

My prayer for you today is that you find her. That if you don’t have her in your life already that God will send her to you. Your life will be better for it and you will have someone with whom you can rely on to be with you!

It’s Easter!

tlc4womenLeave a comment

Luke 24:1. At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. 2. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, 3. so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus. 4. They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. 5. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? 6. He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee 7. that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?” 8. Then they remembered Jesus’ words. 9. They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest. 10. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, 11. but the apostles didn’t believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up. 12. But Peter jumped to his feet and ran to the tomb. He stooped to look in and saw a few grave clothes, that’s all. He walked away puzzled, shaking his head. -“The Message”

Aren’t you glad we are not puzzled anymore? Praise you lord for the freedom you restored us to. May we never take your sacrifice for granted.

A Dinner Invitation

tlc4womenLeave a comment
http://www.flickr.com/photos/justsew/1748647445/

Psalms 15
1. God, who gets invited to dinner at your place? How do we get on your guest list?
2. “Walk straight, act right, tell the truth.
3. “Don’t hurt your friend, don’t blame your neighbor;
4. despise the despicable. “Keep your word even when it costs you,
5. make an honest living, never take a bribe. “You’ll never get blacklisted if you live like this.”

Specific Adaptation To Imposed Demands (SAID)

tlc4women2 Comments
http://www.flickr.com/ photos/microabi/ 1437846574/

When I first heard this term it was reference to my workouts. SAID works in that let’s say I am beginning a workout and I run a mile each day netting seven miles a week. My body will begin to change as I implement the workout but that change will stop as my body hits a plateau or rather, adapts to the imposed demand of the seven miles. In order to get my body back to changing I will have to do something different like run 1.5 miles a day and therefore increasing my weekly mileage.

How do we apply this to all aspects of our lives and not just our exercise routine? Our life for the most part, is continually adapting to the imposed demands we place on it. If you want a different career, then you must impose demands on your life that are different than those you currently have. You will have to impose the demands of learning new skills, revamping your resumé, networking and you get the picture it’s all about change. To get a different result you have to impose new changes.

Could it be that our lives are stuck in situations that we say are out of our control because our specificity has not been demanding enough for change to actually occur? While we are great at pointing the finger at situations, people and circumstances the choices are ultimately ours to make and the demands we place on our lives whether too many or not enough are of our own doing.

I found myself a month or so ago looking at a sore spot in my life. They happen to everyone but I had asked someone who I consider to have a better perspective on this thing I was going through to hold me accountable for my part in this deal. I wrote down every single feeling, appropriate or not and every action and reaction again appropriate or not and let it all be bare before the person I had chosen to be accountable to. There wasn’t much feedback in the way of words but prayer I know was happening. Something happened in the writing of it all I realized that the problem wasn’t going away; I had to change my mind about things. I had to impose demands on myself rather than adapt. I had to determine that my problem was mine to fix. I could not change the adaptation on the part of others and their imposed demands on their life but I could change mine. That is, after all, the only thing required of me.

Transformation in its truest form is about changing the demands placed on the situation. It seems quite simple but actually it’s a daily commitment to change. Just like my workout had gotten stale so had my perspective on this area of my life. Anything and I do mean anything that requires a different result in your life must be met with new imposed demands. Those demands will need to be changed again and again as muscles in that area of your life are torn down and rebuilt bigger and better.

The average person has 60,000 thoughts per day. This is an incredible number of thoughts yet the facts are that normally we have the same perspective day after day. To change our lives we must change the thoughts. Impose those thoughts that will propel you forward instead of those which cause you to adapt. Making small changes in your thoughts daily will eventually create specificity to the new shape of things in your life.

My Beside Table

tlc4women1 Comment

Besides the bible there is a book that is a constant on my bedside table. It’s called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I was reminded of the book today by a friend who posted the four agreements on Facebook. If you are a reader I recommend this book. It has practical wisdom for living your life at peace in today’s world. The agreements are these:

1. Be impeccable with your word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always do your best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment, it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-doubt, and regret.

Date Abuse In Teens

tlc4women1 Comment

This is a best of TLC4Women from 2007. I thought it was worth reading again!

http://www.hope4uth.com/ Parenting-Resources/

In a 2005 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the statistics show that 1 in 11 high school girls are victims of physical abuse. While other experts say this statistic is low and could be as high as 1 in 4. 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. Only 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 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?

At TLC we are studying Fight Like A Girl by Lisa Bevere. It’s an excellent study and through the discussions we are tackling these very issues. What does it mean to fight like a girl? What does using our strength look like and if we as the women God has placed to lead our girls don’t know then how do we think they respond? A question I asked last week to our youth girls was, “What does showing your strength as a woman look like?”, it was met with blank stares. 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 we have to teach our sons but the fact of the matter is that 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 though 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.

A Hand-Crafted World

tlc4womenLeave a comment
http://www.flickr.com/ photos/mariix/ 234033956/

Psalm 8:1. God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.
2. Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs That drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.
3. I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
4. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?
5. Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden’s dawn light.
6. You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
7. Made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild,
8. Birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps.
9. God, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world.

The Secret To Ending Poverty

tlc4womenLeave a comment
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monroesdragonfly/2616202936/

Nicholas D. Kristof wrote this excellent article in the New York Times that we can’t ignore. We’ve always known it, we speak about it but now what are we going to do about it?

Bottom line, get an education, get a better job. It’s that simple and yet the process seems so complicated. I wish my Latino culture would get this on a bigger scale. I wish they’d learn English and break poverty barriers that have hindered us for far too long. I’m praying, I’m speaking out, the church is starting a story hour for children weekly and handing out vouchers to choose a book in the thrift store, and there is so much more that needs to be done!