From “Meet Me At the Well”

February 12, 2008 | quotes

Insurance companies tell us to take a video recording of our valuables in case of fire. Those things represent a large investment that will need to be replaced. What is on your treasure list today? Make a list in your journal of everything visible in your home that you wouldn’t want to leave behind. What gives each thing value to you?

Now make a list of invisible treasures. These are priceless. We know that nothing can ever replace what matters most in this life and for eternity. If God calls you home anytime soon, what will you take with you? What will you keep forever?

Knowing which treasure lasts forever and which do not, how will this affect the way you live now? What needs to change? Write it down in your journal and ask God to help you do that. pg. 112, Meet Me at the Well

Meet Me at the Well: Take a month and water your soul by Virelle Kidder

Moody Publishers, 2008

Faith is bigger than feelings

February 11, 2008 | T. Suzanne Eller

Yesterday I got to sit with about 15 teens and talk about God. It’s one of my favorite things to do. 

We talked about two faith truths:

1. Faith is meant to be simple, rather than complex

2. God is so much bigger than we know

We talked about a few things that make faith complex and that cause these two truths to get murky. One of those things is: when faith becomes only as big as our last experience–good or bad.

We feel God and we soar high, and then we fail or fall or fail to feel God and we plummet. I’ve worked with teens for nearly 20 years and I often know when a teen is struggling. They don’t worship because they feel judged by another (they know what I did last Friday night) or they feel unworthy.

And yet running to God is exactly where we find what we need during those times. We worship God not because of our feelings, or lack thereof, but because He’s faithful and powerful and changes our hearts and the direction of our lives.

I’ve also watched them go away to camp or experience an amazing connection with God, and they soar, which is awesome. But the next week when life gets tough or people let them down or they get immersed in life, they bungee jump down again because they feel God has somehow slipped off the radar.

I asked the teens to consider that it’s not another person that makes the judgment call on his or her relationship with God, and that asking for help or direction or forgiveness when we make mistakes or lose our way is true worship. It’s standing vulnerable before God and letting him in to the good and bad of our lives, rather than running the other direction because you feel “less than” or turning to what feels good at the moment because you feel you can’t face God.

I also asked them to consider that God doesn’t change when people do or when feelings go away. That He’s faithful. That’s He’s still the Creator of the Universe. That we don’t have to pack God in a backpack when life is transitional, because He’s omnipresent and not hard to find when we seek Him.

I love it when I see the tiny light bulb flash in the heart of a person and I know that they’ve just jumped a hurdle in their faith. That’s what happened yesterday as I sat in a small group of teens hungry for vibrant faith.

Suz

Christian Book Preview Review

February 8, 2008 | reviews

From Christian Book Preview

a review of The Woman I Am Becoming: Embracing the Chase for Identity, Faith, and Destiny
by T. Suzanne Eller

Fresh from her ground–breaking book The Mom I Want to Be, speaker and young–adult mentor Suzie Eller offers 18–to–29–year–old women an honest, faith–filled look at the journey to maturity. In The Woman I Am Becoming, she acknowledges the pressure to look and act a certain way, and helps readers explore key questions:

• What is a real woman?
• Where do I fit?
• What should I look like?
• Who should I be with?
• Where am I going?
• What about my faith?

Each short chapter offers words from Suzie’s own story and an application, followed by real–life advice from older women who are still becoming. Concluding questions then help readers make what they’re reading their own.

Review: by Elece Hollis, Christian Book Preview Reviewer

The Woman I am Becoming: Embracing the Chase for Identity, Faith, and Destiny, by T. Suzanne Eller is a book for women in their twenties, that aims to fill a generation gap. Eller reminds readers that life in America has changed with families having moved apart leaving many young women without guides and role models for life. Finding a mentor or worthy examples to follow is one theme of this book. (more…)

Parenting goes on, but different

T. Suzanne Eller

Richard is sweeping the floors. Leslie and Melissa are winging their way here to decorate the house. Today I make several fruit pizzas (to die for, see the recipe below). Tomorrow night my home will be filled with friends of Ryan and Kristin as we hold their first wedding shower, a couple’s shower.Our Oklahoma weather has decided to cooperate, and we’ll host a “make your own pizza” party in the kitchen and on the deck with lights and candles.

The one thing I hoped for my children, besides a life of vibrant faith, was to meet and love someone and to have a strong, loving, fun marriage.

Josh and Melissa have it. Leslie and Stephen do as well. Now I get to watch Ryan and Kristin start their life together. She’s blond and fun and laid-back, and she loves Ryan. She has a southern drawl, “Suhweetheart”, she says to my son. She’s affectionate. She’s smart. I love her like a daughter already.

Ryan is into the wedding as much as she is, maybe more. He’s ready to start his life, especially to say goodbye to five years of living with a host of roommates and to settle down with Kristin. He’s tired of guys who eat his food, dogs who chew the deck, and guys who set the carpet and couch on fire by throwing gas in the fireplace (a true story). (more…)

Mad Mary by Liz Curtis Higgs

February 7, 2008 | reviews

Liz Curtis Higgs is one of my favorite authors, for many reasons. The first is that she didn’t allow herself to be pushed into a literary corner where you can only be funny or spiritual or deep. She’s a funny lady, but also a writer with depth. It’s a nice combination. She’s a nonfiction author, but her last several books are fiction.

I’m reading one of her books right now: Mad Mary: A Bad Girl from Magdala, Transformed at His Appearing

In this book, published by Waterbrook Press, Higgs shares the story of Mary, a woman who appears homeless, but who lost her mind and her bearings after the suicide of her daughter.  She meets Jake, a pastor who works in the inner city church, and the last thing that she wants is an intrusive pastor in her world. (more…)