one thing

May 11, 2010 | Dear Friend, Living Free, Nurturing Family

I want to do better, Suzie.

I’m a pastor’s wife and I’m ashamed of the things I’m carrying into my children’s lives from my past.

Where do I start? (more…)

your family tree {{giveaway}}

May 10, 2010 | Knowing Christ, Living Free, Nurturing Family, Proverbs 31 Ministries

I stood in the small church nestled in the heart of the Rockies. I closed my eyes, wishing…. praying….longing… for a loved one to know Jesus. This desire was not wrapped around moral reasons, or hoping she’d find the straight and narrow, but because Jesus loves her with a great love and she hasn’t realized that yet. (more…)

unpacking

April 13, 2010 | Living Free

The email was confusing. Lots of Jesus stuff thrown in with an edge. I never like emails like that.

I don’t understand why my fellow believers send them. One theory is that email is faceless. People act in a way that they never would face to face. The other is that we are all a work in progress, and perhaps this is where they are in their journey.

My first instinct was to hit delete. But a wise friend once shared with me that almost all criticism, even that which is off center or harshly worded or aimed, has some value.

“Unpack it,” she said. “Throw away what doesn’t fit, what is in error, and look for truth. If you don’t find it, then at least you have dealt with it without getting emotions all tangled up in it.”

The first time I did this it felt strange. I wasn’t sure if it was good advice or just another way to tack on guilt or a to-do list item.

I found insight. Sometimes into my own behavior or motives, and at other times into that of the criticizer. It was especially valuable in close relationships. I almost always found nuggets of truth, and was able to work through it with that person with calm and clarity.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to “unpack” anything, but a series of emails have hit my inbox recently from a stranger. Another one popped in my inbox today.

I thought these would prove my wise friend wrong. They are off the mark. Unreasonable. And, if I’m honest, they make me uncomfortable because they use Jesus to hammer their viewpoint. I don’t agree with their view, and I think this kind of approach creates a great deal of confusion for people looking at faith from the outside in.

I unpacked the first one carefully. I was able to see that person’s POV. The second and third, not so much. But having unpacked each, I can respond..and then move on. That in itself is valuable.

How do you respond to criticism, especially if you believe it is unfair?

looking back, why?

March 26, 2010 | Living Free, Nurturing Family

Houses crowded together. Small patches of brown grass sported mattresses and bags of trash instead of the flowers I once remembered. I snaked between parked cars lining both sides of the street. I braked, pausing to look at 7856 E. Latimer Place, the home I grew up in.

Was it really that small?

The red brick had been painted a pastel blue. A metal awning arched over the driveway. The grand Mimosa that once towered over the house from the back yard was absent.

There was Ms. King’s house. Just across the street. The house that once housed the grand dame of the neighborhood. The Kings even had a pop-up pool in the backyard. We staged plays on the patio, charging neighbors a nickel. I always obeyed Mrs. King, who could raise an arched eyebrow from her throne, a wheelchair that graced her thin body.

There was the Hill’s home. Strict Mrs. Hill whose kids seemed perfect, except for that time Tony threw a lawn dart in the air and it came down and pierced him in the face.

I passed Sheila Shay’s house, my funny rebellious friend who died in a car accident.

Funny, looking at your past as an adult. How different it all seems.

It’s why it’s so important, I believe, to cruise down the streets of your childhood as an adult, seeing things that loom so large, and were at one time, through a different perspective.

As I shared the topic of forgiveness two weeks ago at Hearts at Home, I walked with nearly 500 women over the two days through their past. Tears fell. Sometimes they braked, looking at an incident, an event, a person, fully. Seeing it for what it was, and where it fit now in their life. How it affected their relationships. How it kept them in prison, or perhaps kept the offender there though they had changed.

How sometimes it was so very wrong, wrong, wrong and yet how tragic if it is still holding us tightly to the past, though we live among those who love us best.

Why is it important to cruise past the events that you just can’t quite let go? Because looking at it from a new perspective puts in its place, and allows you to move in a new direction.

Leaving some baggage behind at DEN

February 22, 2010 | Just thinking out loud, Knowing Christ, Living Free, Ministry Life

I sat in the Denver airport yesterday for six hours, and then another hour on the tarmac. That’s a lot of time to think.

I heard a lot of great speakers at the conference in downtown Denver this past week. That’s a huge benefit of teaching at these conferences, in that I am privileged to sit under the teaching and speaking of people I truly respect. Like Max Lucado. Kendra Smiley. Phillip Yancy. Phil Vischer.

One thing that I’ve learned about great speakers/pastors/lay people is that no matter how polished it is, or how great the powerpoint presentation or videos, if the audience doesn’t remember it the next day or know what do do with the message, then it’s just a message.

But if you wake up thinking about it the next day, and the next, it’s more than a message. It’s a call to action. Somehow those words transcended into a “you and God” moment, and you know that you need to do business with your Creator. (more…)

Dear friend…

February 1, 2010 | Dear Friend, Knowing Christ, Living Free

Dear Suzie,

I’ve been following your blog and your FB page. If you were to describe me I’d say I have religious leanings, but I usually fall to the other side in my day to day life.

I’m not like you. The truth is that I probably won’t fit, not in the way I dress, talk, act. But I want God.

You’ve been talking about being in the crossroads. I guess that describes me, right? So, what now?

DM (more…)