I have had the unfortunate opportunity to endure not one, but two, exceptionally difficult ministry experiences. The first one involved me directly while I was working on a small ministry team at a large church. The details aren’t important, but it devastated me at the time. It didn’t change my view of who God was, but it was disheartening to see a ministry leader behave in very ungodly ways that were destructive to me and many others. Eventually I healed, but I didn’t realize that first event was preparing me for things to come. The next ministry falling out also …
The Weather of Relationships
Just like the weather in Arkansas, things change. Sometimes they change quickly. Just this evening the weather was hot and dry with dust blowing in from Africa of all places. The weatherman had warned us, but really? Africa? Sure enough. Then the thunder and lightning began just at dusk. When we went out to wave the last of our children good bye for the evening my hubby noticed the rain gutter bucket was full of muddy water! A relationship that seems clear and perfect can run aground without anyone really doing anything. Personalities, differences of opinions and just plain humanity …
Taking Time to Connect
I always say when God wants to minister to someone, He orchestrates a relationship! People are often more receptive when they are in a non-judgment zone. God sends people into our lives to prepare us, minister to us and sharpen us as we travel on our journeys. Proverbs 27: 17 (NIV), “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” As I reflect on my own personal relationships, I just begin to thank God. I have had the awesome opportunity to encounter some wonderful people on my path. I have been the one encouraging and have been the recipient of …
5 Relationship Myths
My kids and I take a summer sabbatical every June to Florida, where I grew up. My husband usually goes on a mission trip and travels to a conference in June, so he kindly allows us to go to my hometown in Florida. Our last week in Florida, he flies down to join us. He loves to enjoy the beautiful west coast Florida beaches I grew up on. We also work in a mini Disney vacation with our little family and spend a couple days away, just him and me, on the beach. I cannot tell you how much I …
The Key is Love
If you’ve lived in this world longer than a few years you have inevitably learned that relationships are not easy. Whether it’s marriage, family relationships, or friendships, the truth is most of the hurt and damage in society today is a result of relationships gone wrong. Relationships were given to humanity as a gift from God. In Genesis 2: 18, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” In giving Adam a wife, God allowed him to have someone who could relate to him, talk with him, and have …
Don’t Play Whack-a-Mole with Your Passion
I’m not sure I can quite convey the emotions I experienced in the garden last November. I had been dreading and putting off the garden cleanup for weeks. In previous years I would have had that soil ready for rest, but this year my plot still held a long-dried-up bean vine, matted black-eyed pea vines, and shriveled cucumber vines with rotting cucumbers on the ground. But even in the midst of the cleanup I found myself rejuvenated. What had taken me so long to get out here again? Although most of the garden’s lush growth had browned, I found joy in …
The Lessons Were Hard
Deep under the covers, I rang in 2015 with my head fast asleep on my pillow by 8:30 p.m. Not exactly the life of the party. Six months after being diagnosed with a debilitating neuromuscular disease I was struggling with something nearly as incurable… unforgiveness. With my diagnosis of myasthenia gravis came an unprovoked betrayal from my own profession, my doctor. In twenty years of practicing medicine I never had a sick day. I returned to work the day after having surgery, not once but twice. Once I even performed surgery at 8 in the morning, changed into a gown and …
His Way is Better
My life is not at all what I thought it would be, and nowhere close to what I “hoped” it would be when I was growing up. I don’t say that regretfully. The Lord has shown me so many times that my thoughts are not His thoughts and His ways are not my ways. Praise the Lord for that! Sometimes in life, we end up being most grateful for the things in life that at that time we hated the most. I look back over my life and see fingerprints of God all over it. Places I lived, people I …
You Were…. But Now You’re NEW
Renewed – to begin again, to make effective for an additional period. Wow, when we look at the dictionary definition of “Renewed” we probably all wish we could be that or do that. I am sure our minds go immediately to moments in life that we wish we could “do over”. Of course that’s where the enemy wants to take us…to the moments in life that we were at our worst. But the truth is apart from Jesus we are the worst. Thank you Jesus because of the cross, because of the blood shed on Calvary, because of his pain …
How God Changed My Life
When I think of the word transformation, so many times in my life and circumstances start running through my head. I really have to slow myself down because I feel like I am really having an attention deficit moment. I have been changed and shaped by many things and people at different twists and turns, some good and some bad but I can honestly say that Christ has done a major work in my life at two pivotal times. I pray that as you reflect on these with me that you too will remember a time of transformation in your …
My Dad: Salvation to Service
I was born into the home of new believers. My mother found Christ first and spent a full year praying for my father. He had once said he would go to church but he would never want a Christian in his home. He never did find God. God found him. He found him in his room searching the scriptures for the UFO’s his older brother swore were in there. He found my father wrestling through the Old Testament exclaiming he could believe in Him, it was this crazy Jesus he couldn’t swallow. He found him considering conversion to Judaism. Then …
Love Lifted Me
“I was right on the cliff-edge, ready to fall, When God grabbed and held me. God’s my strength, he’s also my song, And now he’s my salvation. Hear the shouts, hear the triumph songs in the camp of the saved? “The hand of God has turned the tide! The hand of God is raised in victory! The hand of God has turned the tide! I didn’t die. I lived! And now I’m telling the world what God did. God tested me, he pushed me hard But he didn’t hand me over to Death. Swing wide the city gates-the righteous gates! …