Paul K. Donita's verse Backward

"I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service;"
First Timothy 1:12


I can’t remember how many years ago I discovered this verse. It struck me at the time that I entered the verse backward. Over the years, I have matured enough in my Christian walk that sometimes I manage to enter it from the beginning.
Let me explain.
In my youth, I was a "yes" person. Drive kids to the park? Yes, I’ll do it. Make cookies for the Bible Study? Yes, I’ll do it. Head the committee for the VBS? Yes, I’ll do it.
These things are called "service." If you take note in the verse above, it is the last word. I often said yes and found myself in service before I even knew what the service entailed.
The words before this are "putting me." Once I was in service, I had to determine who put me there. Sometimes it was God; sometimes it was me. When it was me, I had to hit the knee position quickly for help. When it was God, I still hit the knee position but not quite as frantically.
When God maneuvered me into a service position, I gratefully backed up another step in the verse and said, "Wow!"
"He considered me faithful!"
"Wow!" and "Wow!" again. I have to admit, occasionally, I got to that point and said, "Are you sure you were thinking about me, God? I mean the faithful part? You and I both know I can be a pretty pathetic wimp."
Ah! But we can move back one more step.
"Who has strengthened me."
Well, praise God for that. Many times when I was in over my head, He came along with just the right bit of information, just the right helpers, just the right creative doomaflicky to save the day.
I did manage to make it through umpteen projects, growing as God stretched me, achieving some goal that was way beyond my expectations. And the success was indubitably due to God’s enabling.
And now we come to the end, which is the beginning.
"I thank Christ Jesus our Lord."
And why is the thankfulness last? It should be first, shouldn’t it? I told you this was my backward verse.
I’ve matured some. I don’t always say yes now, because I am more sure of what my spiritual gifts are. I think and pray and thank God first before committing to a project of service. It is more comfortable to go into that verse from the beginning instead of from the back side.
From which end do you come into the projects God lays before you?

gritty and bright

That's what one of my writer pals, Mike Snyder, calls his blog. He got the name from Matthew 5, verses 13 and 14. "You are the salt of the earth" and "You are the light of the world."

Mike could have called his blog "salt and light," but I like the way he zeroed in on the two characteristics. Salt is gritty, and light is bright. I've heard a lot of sermons about various ways Christians are like salt, but I don't remember any of them mentioning its grittiness. And yet, the world needs gritty Christians--people who are willing to walk dirty streets and meet the needy where they live.

How gritty is your salt? I think mine could use a little shakin' up!

Readers Wanted, Inquire Within

Okay, here's a writer's confession: I scour the press for reviews, I covet fan mail, I've vanity Googled more times than I'd want anyone to discover. This raw hunger for attention and acclaim makes me feel lousy about myself. I should be humble, I think. To work for God's eyes alone is enough. But is it? Writers are involved in what Karl Marx (he wasn't wrong about everything) described as a "dialectic relationship." Teachers need students, doctors need patients, and writers, to complete our dialectic, need readers.

So cheer up, writers. We don't always crave adulation for pride's sake, although admittedly pride twists its' way into everything we do. In this lonely vocation, we're ravenous for relationship, a chance to connect the dots between us, our work, and the reader — any reader, even one who hated every word we penned (or keyboarded). And readers, here's my plea: send a note of response to the writer of the last book or article you read. It might forestall another round of wasteful self-Googling and inspire her (or him) to obey the Spirit's prompting: GET BACK TO WORK, MY LOVE.

Dialectically yours,

Mitali

Ingrownius Eyeballitus--Do You Have It?

Oh brother, I've got this serious problem again. Ingrownius Eyeballitus. Have you heard of it? If not, these are symptoms you may want to watch out for:

"A major portion of our eye troubles could probably be diagnosed 'Ingrownius Eyeballitus.' Ingrown eyeballs. It strikes us all. In both dramatic and subtle ways, the stubborn enemy of our souls urges us to look ever inward instead of outward and upward. He whispers little nothings in our ears. He reminds us of how unappreciated and ill-treated we are . . . how important yet overlooked . . . how gifted yet ignored . . . how capable yet unrecognized . . . how bright yet eclipsed. Why not try God's remedy . . . a long, well-needed look at your Savior in His Word." ~Charles Swindoll

The symptoms have appeared in my life over these past few weeks as I've struggled to finish my latest novel: Why do I have to do every little thing? I mean, am I the only one who can make a trip to the grocery story? Or check the mail? Doesn't anyone appreciate the fact that I'm trying to WRITE A BOOK. They just assume putting 100,000 words down on paper and making it historically accurate, entertaining, and page-turning is an easy thing!

That doesn't sound too pretty, does it? So I'm attempting to focus on what Swindoll claims is the cure: a long, well-needed look at my Savior. It's then I remind myself that HE is my source and my strength. He knows the story and will tune me into it as I turn to Him.

AS IF I could write it without Him, anyway?! Besides, Jesus actually loves it when we depend on Him for every little thing.

by Tricia Goyer

Lean on the Lord

I’ve been dealing with trust issues lately—leftover baggage from being hurt in the past. Trust can be hard. Sometimes really hard. Do you have trouble trusting other people? Have people mistreated you, or let you down, or bro­ken their promises to you? Maybe they overlooked you when you needed attention. How did that make you feel?

Being mis­treated and ignored can make us overly sensitive later in life. If you feel destroyed emotionally when your friend doesn’t compliment you on your new dress, her opinion is too important. If you’re depressed for weeks when some­one doesn’t invite you to a party, your hope is in the wrong place. You’re using other people’s reactions to you to define who you are. (This is such an easy thing to slip into, no matter what your age!) If you look to others to let you know if you’re “okay” or “acceptable,” you will constantly need to be working for their love and approval.

If you trust in other people for your self-worth, it’s time to shift that trust to God. If we trust in Him, we won’t be let down. Even the most loving parents or devoted friends will fail us sometimes. They’re human, not perfect. But believers can trust God for their self-esteem. We can count on Him to see us through any pain or difficulty we’re in. No matter how much you love other people, keep your total trust in God alone.

“The LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you.” (1 Chronicles 28:20 NASB) Trust in the Lord. Lean on Him for your hope and self-confidence and acceptance. He will never, ever let you down.

No Boys Allowed (Devotions for Girls) Zondervan
Girlz Rock (Devotions for Girls) Zondervan

What Andrew Did

Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?" (John 6:8-9)

The story of Jesus feeding the five thousand has become one of my favorites—not because of the great miracle of Jesus multiplying the food, or even the fact that there was food left over. What I love in this story is what Andrew did.

There, on the side of a mountain, Jesus and the disciples needed food to feed a multitude. And Andrew saw a boy—and brought him to Jesus.

The hidden gem here, I believe, is the fact that Andrew realized it wasn’t just an adult that could make a difference. He saw a small gift in a child and then made an attempt to put that child in a place of having an encounter with Jesus, even though he wasn’t sure what would happen. But it paid off. That boy’s little gift made a big difference that affected thousands.

I love that story because it challenges me. What am I doing to prioritize young people? Am I willing to see their gifts? Will my writing put them in a place of having an encounter with Jesus? I certainly pray so…because only then will the world be blessed.

Christopher Maselli
TruthPop.com

Moving Boxes

Matthew 6 (NASB)
20 "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;
21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.


"You’ve got all these blessings in the wrong box!"
My friend and I were packing up my belongings in preparation for a move. Supposedly we were sorting things that would go to Goodwill, things that would go to my new home, and things that would go to the dump.
I have to admit I’m not very good at sorting. I had been doing too good a job of packing the keep-all-these-things boxes.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"When we go to the thrift store and you find something great, what do you say?"
"What a blessing!"
"Other people feel that way too. You’ve packed all their blessings in the ‘take to new house’ box."
In a sudden shift of focus, God made it easier for me to pack blessings for some unknown shopper. After all, I really don’t need four wooden spoons and two toasters.
It is more blessed to share the wealth than to be a pack rat.

Run, Run, Running

I almost danced last Friday when I deposited the manuscript in the mail. Tucked inside the large envelope was a project that I worked on for the last four months.

Monday I turned my attention to the next project. I't is a series of discipleship books for teens who want to take their faith to the next level. The first is titled, "Just You and God". It's how to find your own unique relationship with God and how to take it to the next level.

It's due in three weeks.

I also have an article due for a magazine. And in the midst of all of this, I'm flying out in a couple of weeks, first to minister with Teen Mania's Battle Cry for Parents, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and then with After Eve in Virginia. I need to prepare my workshops.

Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? That's what I keep hearing in my heart -- keep writing, Suz. Stay on the treadmill and run, run, run, because doors are opening and you want to keep up.

But I quiet that voice in my head each morning. Before I run, run, run anywhere, I want to sit with God.

The things God has called me to do are so much more than projects. The book I deposited on Friday is way more than a project. It's a story of God's healing. It's the story of destiny because my mom's brokenness was fracturing me and somehow I found a God that understood and was bigger than our chaos. Not only did God reach past my angry, hardened heart, but he gave something so much more valuable to share with my own children.

The second project is a very personal part of what God has called me to do. I've worked with teens and now college students for a long time. I keep running into hungry teens and college students that want more than religion, more than church activities. They want God. They want to take their faith to the next level, to a depth where they hear God's voice in spite of the clutter, where they can impact their friends and family and world. They want to know God, not just about him, but to have that face-to-face relationship.

I pray that the Holy Spirit will work inside of me as I write this book. I don't want it to be a fluff book, or just something that has my byline on it. I want to share his heartbeat with words on paper.

Same with the article. Same with the workshops.

One thing that I've learned is that it's easy to get focused on the stuff that we do for God and lose sight of why we do it.

That's why I've stopped run, run, running long enough to hang out with God every day. It's kind of like checking in with the boss before I report to work, but it's more than that. It's also communing with my best friend, hanging out with my Savior, finding that place where I can be real about who I am. Coz way before I'm T. Suzanne Eller, author and speaker, I'm Suz, child of God.

The Bible calls it a secret place (Matthew 6:6), and I get that. It's a place where God knows what you need before you ask. It's a place where you can crowd out the hype and noise.

So, I have a lot to do today. In fact, I have so much to do that it seems impossible, but it will all come together. You see, I'm not in this alone.

Gotta go. I have a morning appointment I just can't miss. : ) Someone I love a lot is waiting to hang out with me.

Suzie Eller

the comfort we've received

Last Wednesday my daughter Grace and I drove to Baylor Institute of Rehabilitation (BIR) in downtown Dallas. I knew exactly where to park, where the elevators were, and how to get around. It was all familiar territory, because our family spent most of the summer of 1996 on BIR's third floor, where my son Jacob received treatment for brain injury after his drowning accident.

But this time we came as visitors. Several weeks ago a friend told me about a young man, Eric, who'd suffered spinal cord injury in a motorcycle accident. Eric's original prognosis was total paralysis, but he'd recently begun to show evidence of sensation and mobility in his fingers and toes. My friend suggested I might be able to encourage Eric and his family in their BIR journey, having walked a similar path. After several e-mail and phone exchanges, we arranged for the Wednesday afternoon visit.

Grace and I approached Eric's room just as a transport tech was in the process of transfering a slender, 6'7" young man from a wheelchair to the bed. I was amazed to see him raising his arms in what was obviously voluntary movement. He turned his head toward us and smiled.

"Are you Eric?" I asked.

"Yes. I just returned from swimming."

As we waited for the tech to position him in bed, a blonde woman walked up beside us and smiled warmly. I extended my hand. "I'm Jeanne. Are you Eric's mom?"

"Yes, I'm Sam. Jim told me you'd be coming by."

Grace, Sam, and I entered the room together. The tech raised the head of Eric's bed so he could sit. His lower body was covered by the blanket, but he still wore only swim trunks. Skin grafts, surgical scars, and pink skin from road burn covered large areas on the left side of his shirtless upper body. Thanks to an excellent helmet, his face and brain escaped injury when he crashed on an exit ramp going more than 100 mph. His motorcyle bounced off a concrete wall into a curb and slid across the asphalt. The handlebars punctured his side but struck no vital organs. He'd been through several surgeries for broken bones.

Eric has been on this road to recovery for three and a half months now. He's a 21-year-old former athlete, and he's just beginning the long, exhausting therapy process that may or may not enable him to walk again. Wanting to show us how he could slightly grip, he stared intently at his fingers, willing the signal to move through his damaged spinal cord, down his arm, and to his hand. The fingers fluttered forward, and Eric grinned.

So much trauma and pain. So far to go in the healing process with no guarantees. But Eric's smile radiated calm trust and even joy. The soul that spoke in his shining eyes said, "All is well."

The previous week he'd found the brain connection to raise and bend his arms. He can push his hair back. He can place his hand over his mouth. This brings him great delight.

Sam told us about taking Eric home for a visit. He was sitting in a leather recliner and requested her help to get up, but somehow as they attempted a transfer, the cushion slipped out of the chair and Eric slipped with it to the floor. She ended up beside him. Then they did about the only thing they could do. They laughed. And for the next little while, they just stayed there on the floor, talking and laughing.

He laughed as he told Grace and me about his mom's attempts to fix his hair the way he likes it. He laughed when a therapist I remembered from nine years ago entered the room and I reminded him he'd worn a pony tail back then. I never sensed the slightest hint of bitterness in Eric. No blaming. No whining. No asking, "Why me?" There was only peace, peace, peace.

Eric has gotten to know most of the other patients on the spinal cord injury floor. He expressed his concern for some of them and said he's tried to help them face their anger and questions. We talked for at least an hour. And always there was that smile. Always that light in his eye.

Finally I said, "Eric, I came here hoping I could encourage you. But I honestly think you've encouraged me more."

When we said goodbye to Eric and his lovely mother, it felt like leaving old friends. Dear friends. I will follow his story with much interest, because I know it will be beautiful.



I remember a line from an Amy Carmichael poem. "In acceptance lieth peace." There are things in life we would love to change, but we are powerless to do so. There comes a time when we have to decide we either believe there's a God ruling the universe or we don't.

I believe. Eric believes. It shines in his eyes and lights his smile, falling like a gentle benediction on anyone who enters his presence.

We comfort others with the comfort we've received. I visited Eric at BIR. And I was comforted.

Desperate Times, Steadfast Measures

My parents had immigrated to America when I was a baby. Now I was back as a grad student to spend a year in the city of my birth, Kolkata, India, doing research to try and eradicate poverty in the slums.

I rode a city bus to make my visits, and dressed in sarees like the rest of the women. But in the standing-room-only ladies' section of the bus, I towered over the shoulder-high heads surrounding me and felt suffocated by guilt. Why had I been so fortunate? I'd been given opportunities galore in America. My strong, tall body was the result of years of access to good nutrition. Meanwhile, undernourished Indian girls had to work long days scavenging on the streets or sewing in garment factories. Maybe the only godly response was to sell my stuff, renounce my citizenship, and spend my time and money serving the poor.

Yeah, right. What I really wanted to do was escape the guilt, rush back to my comfortable life in America, and forget these poor women altogether. That voice in my head continued to accuse me: And YOU call yourself a 'Christian'?

That's when God reminded me of what He expects of me. The bus careened to avoid a bicycle rickshaw and bounced over a stretch of potholes. I grabbed a sturdy metal bar suspended from the ceiling. The women around me teetered and stumbled, clutching each other and calling out for help.

Oh no! I thought. They're going to fall like ninepins! Should I let go of the bar and try to catch some of them?

Before I could make a move, about a dozen of them reached up and grabbed my arm to steady themselves. For the rest of the journey, everybody in the ladies' section hung on for dear life — me to the bar and them to me. Somehow, we all managed to stay on our feet.

I get it, God, I thought, exchanging grins with the other passengers. I'm not the Messiah, You are. All I need to do is stay put and hold on tight to You. I can manage that.

I didn't eliminate poverty in Kolkata that year (surprise, surprise), but God showed me ways to bless a few women while I was there. And I learned a big lesson when it comes to responding to global suffering. Godly sorrow spurs me to life-saving action. False guilt makes me cower and flee. How about you? When you encounter disasters, wars, homelessness, hunger, disease ... can you stay put and hold on to Jesus?

Peace,

Mitali

Photograph courtesy David Primmer

Behind the Scenes

(Cory, Leslie, and Nathan with Peter from the Newsboys).

Last year, my family had the opportunity to get backstage passes to a Newsboys concert. Truthfully, at the time, I thought their music was just okay. They really didn't stand out amongst the other Christian rock groups hitting the charts.

But all that changed once I saw them backstage. They were warm and genuine, like normal people, and their love for God was hard to miss.

As we waited, we had a chance to meet all of the guys right away--except Peter. He struck up a conversations with one of the teens at a table next to ours and talked and prayed with the kid for what seemed like 30-minutes. It was too awesome for words.

On their Adoration CD (my all time favorite), these are some of the words to the song, Blessed Father:

"Father, blessed Father, lead and guide us for thy namesake. And keep us in the shelter of your presence till we see your face."

That day, the Newsboys proved to me again the importance of sharing God's love not only "on stage," but also behind the scenes. It's a lesson I'm trying to incorporate into my own life, and the words of that song have become my prayer, "Father, guide me for thy namesake."

I pray this because on stage or off, in front of a crowd or alone, since we are God's kids His name is incorporated with who we are and what we do.

And you can be sure the eyes of others are always watching, taking it all in.

Flirt? Who? Me?

In The Perfect Girl, Jenna Rose meets Jamie Valentin, the school star jock, and just the ticket she needs to find her way into the popular crowd. Even though she doesn’t find Jamie particularly cute or interesting, she decides to get his attention. Her seemingly innocent flirting leads to potentially disastrous consequences.
So, how do you feel about flirting? Is it all harmless fun? And as a Christian, are you held to a higher standard of conduct when it comes to the opposite sex? Take this quiz and see where it leads you.

Part one: Do all his moves mean "I like you"?

You’re partnered with this guy in your lab class, and he asks you to meet him at the library after school to cram for your presentation next week.
*Yes
*No

He’s at your last two volleyball games, cheering the loudest when you score.
*Yes
*No

He said hi to you as you walked past him in the hall.
*Yes
*No

Your older brother’s best friend talked to you on the phone about a hot new CD that you have going in the background for ten minutes before he even asked to talk to your brother.
*Yes
*No

When the school photographer asked a group of your friends to pose for a yearbook picture, he stood behind you, wrapped his arms around your neck, and hugged you tightly, grinning over your shoulder.
*Yes
*No

Part Two: Do all your moves mean "I like you"?

You’re partnered with this guy in your lab class. You know he has a good grasp on his periodical table, and you’re just lost every time you look at it. You ask him to meet you at the library after school to cram for your presentation next week.
*Yes
*No

Everyone has school spirit at the basketball and football games, but for some reason the school loses their spirit come spring and baseball season. You happen to love baseball and get to every game you can. The centerfielder, while not pro material, has really shown heart and a lot of improvement since the beginning of the season. As a baseball fan, you appreciate his hard work and cheer as loud as you can for him every chance you get.
*Yes
*No

This guy who was your best friend through elementary school just looks like he is having a bad day as he slams his locker shut. You don’t really have any classes together anymore, and you’ve really lost touch. But you decide to say "hi" anyways hoping it will make him feel better.
*Yes
*No

Your older brother’s best friend calls, and you can hear the new Afters CD you’ve been wanting to get your hands on playing in the background. Before handing the phone over to your bro, you have to get the scoop on if its worth the cash or not.
*Yes
*No

When the school photographer asks your group of buds to pose for a picture, you wrap your arms around your friend sitting in the chair in front of you and give him a big hug. Everyone knows he’s been your best friends since kindergarten, and besides, this way, the ketchup you dribbled down the front of your shirt won’t be immortalized in the yearbook for eternity.
*Yes
*No

Wrap Up

When it comes to flirting, everyone has his/her own opinion. Innocent fun. Reckless behavior. Shallowness. The only way to find out if a guy likes you. The best way to get to know someone.
Those were some of the opinions I got the last time I talked with a group of teens about flirting.
Someone else said that it would be a lot easier if flirting was just listed as one of those Thou Shalt Not’s in the Bible. There’s a lot of things young people are going to face in life that aren’t spelled out in God’s Word. True, no where in the Bible does it say "Thou shalt not flirt," but there is plenty of tales of flirting gone bad (think of Joseph and the Pharoah’s wife in Genesis—right smack in the beginning of the Book.) In The Perfect Girl Jenna Rose thinks of flirting as a tool to get her what she wants, and as a result, she puts herself in danger.
There’s a belief in the world today that a girl should be able to take flirting as far as she wants, and then, when no means no, no means no. In a perfect world, all guys would respect women the way God intended them to, and that would be well and good. Too bad we don’t live there. In Psalm 51:10, the psalmist asks God to "create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit in me." If Jenna Rose had prayed like that, asking for a steadfast spirit and a pure heart, she would have found herself in a lot less trouble in her new school.

So, how’d you score? There’s no right or wrong answers here—just food for thought. Quizzes are a blast, I know. There’s nothing like hanging with your girls, a good cut on the radio, and the latest teen mag quiz in hand. They dare you to dream, look at things differently, and see things in a new perspective.
Or do they? In this quiz, did you look at part one differently after reading the questions in part two? Maybe even go back and change an answer or two? What’s your dating I.Q.? What kind of flirt are you? When you see these kind of titles, you have a preconceived notion of what your quiz results are going to be. Don’t get me wrong—I love quizzes. I still get a bit giddy when I get my mail and one of my mags has a quiz listed on the cover. (Of course, for me and the kind of magazines I get on a regular basis now, those quizzes have titles like Are you getting enough vitamins in your diet? And Do you get enough time away from the kids?) It’s fun to see if you can learn something new about yourself. But don’t let a quiz make such an impact on you that it changes you from the person that God wants you to be.

In His Service,
~B.

And now introducing...

Hi, my name is Melody Carlson. Some of you may already “know” me through my teen books (Diary of a Teenage Girl, TrueColors, etc.…) but I’ve been asked to “officially” introduce myself. First of all, I have to admit that I’ve never been a blogger, and that I tend to be a little e-challenged (I have a hard time keeping up with my own website). I guess it’s because I spend so much time writing, or maybe I just have an e-block. But back to introducing myself…. I grew up in what was considered a “non-traditional” home (at least back in the dark ages when I was a kid) because, due to my dad’s alcoholism, my parents got divorced when I was really young. After that, my mom remained single and went back to college. As a result, my older sister and I had quite a bit a “freedom,” meaning we pretty much came and went as we pleased. Not exactly an ideal way to grow up, although it was rather interesting at times (and I can still draw some good stories for my fiction from it). Then at the ripe old age of twelve I announced to anyone listening that I had become an atheist—not that it was such a big deal since we never went to church anyway. But for some reason I had the need to make my stand clear. And so I went through my early teens totally denying God’s existence and rebelling against pretty much everything and anything. But when I was fifteen and a half, I began to experience very real depression. To the point where I sometimes felt suicidal. I’d always enjoyed being a daredevil and doing crazy things like jumping off the railroad bridge into the river, but suddenly I found myself standing on high bridges with cement below and considering doing a swan dive. It didn’t really make sense to me because, despite my rebellious attitude, my life wasn’t that bad—I mean I had friends (even if they were wild), I got good grades, was popular enough to be a cheerleader (which I made fun of even back then), and I never had any problem with the boys either. So, what was my problem? Looking back I think it there were a couple of things at play. 1) I did have an undiagnosed chemical imbalance (a little on the manic-depressive side with what they now call “bipolar with hypo-mania” meaning you don’t have the extreme highs, but you do have the low-lows) which I probably inherited from my dad. And 2) I had this great big empty hole in my heart—that by itself should’ve been pretty depressing. Of course, I didn’t know that void was the space that I needed for God to fill. All I knew was that something was missing.That missing something was driven further home when, just before my sophomore year, a carload of kids that I knew were killed in a terrible wreck. It really made me aware of our mortality. And despite my claim that God wasn’t real, a part of me yearned for something beyond a short earthly life followed up by being planted underground and growing worms. And I remember crying and saying, “God, if you’re real, please show yourself to me.”A couple of months later, I was “kidnapped” by some Christian kids and literally taken, against my will, to a Young Life meeting. Man, I was so ticked (I probably used another word at the time). By then I’m sure I’d forgotten my desperate little prayer as I fumed in the backseat, wondering how I could escape these “friends” and what I knew would be a “religious gathering.” But by the time we were there, and the skits and songs and craziness had all transpired, I found myself caught totally off guard by the message. I had never heard the gospel before. And it was like something in me just clicked. Of course, I was too stubborn to give my heart to God just like that.So I attended a few more Young Life meetings, listening carefully to the messages, and then I went to what were called Rapp Sessions, a place where kids could talk about God, ask questions, or whatever. And finally, after several weeks of “investigation” I knew I could hold off no longer. During a Rapp Session, after I’d asked some challenging questions and received some good answers, I went outside into the drizzly night. And there, all by myself, and I asked Jesus into my heart. I had no idea what the long term ramifications for this commitment would be, but I knew that I needed God—desperately. I knew that I could not survive any longer on my own.The entire course of my life drastically changed that night. Oh, it wasn’t all easy-breezy from that day on, and I still dealt with my highs and lows, but I had Help now. And, never having had a real father, I was hungry to get to know my Heavenly Father. Consequently I devoured the Bible, started going to church, youth group, camps, Bible studies, whatever….I asked God into my life 34 years ago this week. And I’ve never regretted it. God has done amazing things, taken me to incredible places, and used me and my gifts in ways I never dreamed possible. What a ride!Okay, I better keep this short, but I’ll try to quickly bring you to date. After college, I worked as a Young Life leader where I met my husband, also a Young Life leader. We got married, had two sons, who are now grown. We’re still happily married, we live in a beautiful part of the country, I have the best job imaginable (full-time writing) and while life’s not perfect, it’s pretty good. And that is only because of God. Without God’s hand on my life…well, I seriously doubt that I’d still be here. God is good!

Waiting patiently...

I finally arrived home late last night after being delayed by lightning storms for two hours in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. It gave me a chance to observe how people waited. Some waited productively and patiently, and others ranted and stomped off to check other airlines’ available flights (thus missing boarding when there was finally a break in the lightning.) In the interest of posting my blog on time today, I am including (below) a short devotion from Girlz Rock (Zondervan 2005) about the importance of patience if you hope to obtain God’s promises…

“Imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” ~~Hebrews 6:12 (NIV)

The Bible is full of promises for the believer: promises for peace, success, joy, love, friendship, rewarding work, and much more. It takes two things for these promises to come true. The first ingredient is faith: believing God’s Word is true. The second necessary ingredi­ent is patience: keeping a positive attitude while you wait. Many believers have faith; few have patience. You need both. “After he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise” (Hebrews 6:15 NKJV emphasis added).

Jillian’s best friend was moving away. They’d been best friends and next-door neighbors for five years, and Jillian was brokenhearted at the news. She claimed Psalm 147:3: “[God] heals the heartbroken and ban­dages their wounds” (MSG). She truly believed God would do that for her, but when a week went by and she still felt sad, she decided the promise didn’t work. Jillian was wrong. The promise is sure, and God’s Word can be counted on. Jillian had faith—but she was missing the ingredient of patience.

Patience is the ability to stay steady during the challenging storms of life. You usually have to wait a length of time before you receive your promise. It’s like planting a seed (your faith), then waiting for the harvest to appear. The waiting time is the testing time. Will we continue to believe God for the promise when things get tough? Will we trust that God is bringing his promises to pass even before we see the results? “Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have, for God can be trusted to keep his promise” (Hebrews 10:23 NLT).

Are you waiting for a promise of God in your life? Then practice both faith and patience. It’s a winning combination.

Hope Perches on the Soul

(Tricia and Cory 1989)

When I first met Rob*, I thought he was something special. He was a football player, an honor student, and very handsome too. The best part was, he liked me. I was head-over-heals-excited. I thought I was in love.

“Dating” in my small town, consisted of being together at dances, at sporting events, and in cars hidden away on dark country roads. Our relationship became physical even before we had a chance to get to know each other’s heart. Then there were the attractions--mine to other guys and his to other girls--that caused all types of problems.

We dated from my sophomore year to my senior year—with more turbulence than a jet plane in a windstorm. When I found out I was pregnant, it was the final strain on the relationship. Our “romance,” as I knew it, was over.

My parents were upset, but they were committed to helping me stick it out. I’d already had an abortion the previous year--due to Rob’s insistence and my own fear--and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Though he wanted me to have a second abortion, I couldn’t do it. I already hated myself for the first one. I lived with the horror of the abortion decision every day and had nightmares about it every night.

You may remember that feeling of attending class, knowing--in secret--that you have a baby growing inside you. I felt hot and tense and unable to focus. Soon, the word got out and rumors spread. Glances were cast my way as I walked down the halls. Whispers behind my back. My friends acted awkward around me. Rob began dating someone else. I wanted to move away and never return. The next best thing was for me to drop out of regular school, which I did.

I was sick, tired, and getting bigger by the day. I enrolled in a school for “needy” teens, and I fit right in.

This all happened during my senior year, and while everyone was attending Homecoming and Prom, I was staying up late watching old movies and sleeping until noon. What had become of my life?

I clearly remember waking up one day and flipping on my favorite soap opera, The Young and the Restless. What an appropriate title to what I was feeling.

I rolled to my side, wrapped my arms around my expanding stomach and considered what a mess I’d made of my life. What happened to my dreams, plans, and goals for a good future?

Then I remembered . . . like a ray from a lighthouse breaking through a foggy coastline, I thought of the stories I’d heard as a child while attending Sunday school. Stories of God. God who loved me, not my performance. God who accepted me as I was, without my need to make myself look good.

So at that moment, I prayed. It wasn’t elegant, but it was from the heart. “Oh God, I’ve really screwed things up this time. If you can make things better, please try.”

And then that beam of light not only touched my memory, but also my heart. And in an unexplainable way, I felt different inside. Something birthed inside me. That something was hope.

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tunes without words and never stops at all,” said poet Emily Dickinson.
And at the moment, my soul sang.

I couldn’t count on people, but God proved I could count on Him. I was unmarried, pregnant, angry, and lonely. God was okay with that. I didn’t know where to go or what to do next. But the peace of God told me things would work out. I needed love, and He loved me. He wanted to prove I was someone special in His eyes—even when I felt far from special in my own.

Hope made its home in my heart that day. My life wasn’t suddenly “fixed.” I still didn’t know what to do with the mess I was in. I didn’t have all the answers. But hope told me it would be okay. It was a miracle, and I was full of wonder.

I Heard God

I heard God again this morning
Quiet and fresh, a voice that brushed
not only my ears, but my senses
A voice I had thought far away
until now and then all over again
He stepped into the silence
and let me know he was there
in me, in my life, always and ever present
But I had crowded him out,
filling the strong and quiet places in my life
with empty noise and wasted moments
Last week I turned it away and down,
and then off, and I realized
that he was there all the time, waiting
for me to sit quietly, face to face

and find him real all over again

by T. Suzanne Eller

(who is posting two days late)

I Can't Hear You!

"In my day, we didn't have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned." --Jane Haddam


I don’t know who Jane Haddam is, but she has irked me. The phrase "in my day" implies that her day was superior to my day. Now the thing is that I agree with what she is trying to say. But by starting out with the clear intention to slam "my day," completely stopped up my ears so that I could not listen to what followed.
What a shame.
Now if I was so offended that I couldn’t hear what she had to say, how do I know that the last part of the message has any worth to it.

Maturity.
Somewhere along the line, you learn to look at things in spite of how they are presented and judge the worth aside from the presenter.

It goes both ways. Sometimes the presenter has charisma and fills your ear with a bunch of nonsense that sure sounds good.

Or the presenter has the personality of a wart-covered toad and has a message of truth that sounds like a scum-covered pond full of insults.

Discernment.
Discernment comes with maturity. When you can
strip away the distracters and
focus on the content of the message and
make your judgments at that point, then you are operating on a standard God will bless.

Ms Jane Haddam was trying to say that self-esteem handed to you because the teacher or parent is afraid of bruising your ego isn’t worth much. Self-respect gained from your doing a job to the best of your ability will earn you a glow from the inside out.

At least, that is my interpretation. What’s yours?

Quote of the Day

Just a great quote for today's post that says far more than I could.

“The writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all of what he sees in this country today. For him, the fact that we are the most powerful and the wealthiest nation in the world doesn’t mean a thing in any positive sense. The sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions the writer sees in the life around him...

My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable...

The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural.”

—Flannery O’Conner

Christopher Maselli
TruthPop.com

Pesky Punctuation Mark

"Shift-8" on a keyboard may not seem like a powerful player when it comes to the written language, especially compared with letters or numbers. But this summer, I discovered how important a role it can play. Since writers aren't the most healthy people in the world, I decided to champion my poor, neglected body and lose a few pounds. I also started taking fish oil capsules, which are supposedly why Scandinavia is full of robust, energetic ninety-year-olds.

"Ten calories each," I thought, glancing quickly at the label. "This is good stuff."

After fifty days of dieting and taking fish oil capsules, that terrible red digital counter on the scale actually climbed to a higher number instead of obeying my desperate command to "STOP! STOP!"

That's when I took a closer look at the label on the bottle of fish oil capsules. Instead of 10 calories per capsule, as I had thought, the number actually read 10*. At the bottom of the pill, the asterisk was explained in extremely small type: "10% of a 2000 calorie daily diet." By overlooking the asterisk, I had consumed 50 pills at 200 calories each, for a total of 10,000 extra calories, adding five "daily calorie intakes" to those fifty days. To put it into perspective, I would have had to run 100 extra miles during those fifty days just to avoid gaining weight — two miles a day per pill.

Thanks a lot, asterisk.

The bad news is that these sneaky characters aren't just on pill bottles. They qualify "great offers" with time limits, hidden costs, and expiration dates, usually described in easy-to-ignore tiny type at the bottom of the page. Like most punctuation marks, asterisks can change the entire meaning of words, sentences, paragraphs, and entire manuscripts. Maybe that's why God, who is passionate about communication and truth, chose writers who were proficient in ancient Hebrew and Greek — two languages with no punctuation marks whatsoever. Especially that shifty-8 asterisk. What you read is what you get. Anyone need half-a-bottle of fish oil capsules?

Mitali

In awe of the seemingly small

I just returned from the doctor's office. I'll spare you the details of why I had to go there, because they are mundane and would quickly launch us into too-much-information land. Mostly I wanted to pass along a sweet story that made me happy and will remain in my memory--a soul smile I can always look back on when life enters a season of purposes crossed and dreams unreached.

Here's the story, from the beginning.

A woman in our church recently gave birth to twins--a boy and a girl. She told me that, even while she was pregnant, one of her babies always reacted whenever I started leading worship. After the twins were born, she said the boy, Jace, noticeably calmed when he heard me sing.

Last night I led worship for a women's meeting. Just me, a piano, and a microphone. The women were seated in a different part of the room from the piano, so I felt like I do when I'm home alone, just playing and singing from my heart to the Lord. A nurse who works for my doctor held Jace as I sang.

So, today when I went to the doctor's office, my nurse friend said, "I want you to know, as soon as he heard your voice, Jace relaxed in my arms and peace came over him. His mom had told me your singing always affects him that way, but I saw it for myself. It was amazing."

Wow. Just wow. I can't really tell you what this does to me.

As a writer, I want to write books many people will read and love. I want to make a difference. But I also know, if I connect with only one person in an eternal way, that's enough.

Likewise, I'd love to make music that touches many. But if that never happens, it's okay. My song touched a baby named Jace, even before he was born.

For me, this is amazing. And it's enough.

Whatever your dreams may be--whatever lofty goals you've set--look for the little ways your life touches others. It helps keep the disappointments in perspective and lends a sweetness to your days. Who knows? In God's eyes, one baby's smile may be worth much more than the applause of millions. I hope today you'll sense God's pleasure on the small things you do for Him.