I need a resourceHi Suzanne,
I heard your name on a radio show and thought you might be able to point me to a good resource.
I’m a mental health case manager and I work with several people who have a history of physical and/or sexual abuse. Can you suggest a book that I might pass along that might help them to get back their lives and their sense of self-worth? Thanks, Felicia (more…)
Religion book of the day
The Woman I Am Becoming was featured as the Religion Book of the Day by Jim Agnew.
You are the bomba!
This morning I found a card resting against my bedroom door. I shuffled out of the bedroom with my morning non-personality intact. I picked up the card and opened it and the rocking music made my hips start to move.
La La Bomba! (more…)
I just don’t get the Bible
A few of my friends and I were sitting around a campfire recently and the conversation turned to faith.
“I just don’t understand the Bible,” one friend said. “I read it. I just don’t get it.”
Maybe that’s your struggle, too. One resource that has really be helpful to me is Studylight. It’s an online resource that allows you to read passages of scripture (it also has an audio feature that will read it to you), but it offers much more than that. (more…)
Faith is bigger than feelings
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
Parenting goes on, but different
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…)
Tiffany’s Story
Today I interview Tiffany Stuart. She talks about looking for love, an abortion she didn’t want, but had, and how God helped change this painful chapter in the story of her life.
Suzie: When you were in your early twenties, you said you abandoned your faith for a time. That’s interesting because there is a study out that says that 86% of twentysomethings leave their faith. What happened in your case?
Tiffany: My relationship with God grew stale in high school. I moved during my 9th grade summer to the desert away from my city and friends. My new friends weren’t believers, or if they were, I didn’t know it. So I had no accountability. No one asked me to youth group anymore. I didn’t really understand what I read in the Bible, and my family didn’t attend church.
So in my early twenties, I worked two jobs and started hanging out with my friends at nightclubs. Going to church after I partied on Saturday night just didn’t seem right. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite. I was either in or out. Out seemed like more fun.
Back then, my view of God was warped. I viewed Him as a punishing God if I didn’t do all the right things. I wasn’t exactly walking the holy road during those days. Who wants to run to an angry God who might say, “Shame on you”? Not me. So I walked away from my faith.
Suzie: What would you say to the twentysomething that is disillusioned with faith? Where do they turn when they have doubts or feel like they’ve failed? (more…)
Winner and February’s giveaway
Vicki Henry is the winner of Yvonne Ortega’s book, Journey Through Cancer.
Vicki said, “I enjoyed the interview with Yvonne Ortega. I loved her comment, “Be honest with God. He knows how you feel anyway. He loves you and can handle your thoughts and emotions without falling off his throne.” He is incredibly gracious.”
This month’s giveaway is a copy of Real Issues, Real Teens: What Every Parent Needs to Know by T. Suzanne Eller.
Nobody knows how teens really feel about things more than teens themselves. I interviewed 900+ teens over 9 months asking tough questions and promising to listen. Teens let me in to their thoughts and feelings and fears. These interviews form a bridge to practical help for parents of teens (or anyone who loves teens). This is some of what you’ll find inside: (more…)
My “Bucket” List
Today is a birthday. Not mine, but the guy I love. Richard is 49 today.
50 is a number that once seemed ancient but now is only one year away for Richard, and two for me. A wise man once said, “Old is always 15 years older than you are”.
I feel young. I feel healthy. I feel plugged in to life and to God and to purpose. I still love roller coasters and ministering to teens and hanging out with my family and adventure.
Maybe that is the key. We become old when we fail to notice and enjoy the small and wonderful opportunities all around us. This weekend I plan to see the movie, The Bucket List, with friends. In the movie, two guys meet in the hospital and decide to do all the things they’ve always dreamed of before they kick the bucket.
What is on my bucket list?
That’s the just the beginning. There are other very personal dreams that I have that involve loved ones, and for now those remain private, but I want to continue to believe and hope and pursue life and all that it holds.
What about you? What is on your “bucket” list?
Pastor to the Homeless, Rudy Rasmus
Pastor Rudy Rasmus is not your average pastor. His church is filled with 9,000 people, and a third are homeless. This is an excerpt from a recent press release:
The Rasmus family planned to rebuild the church and awaken the spirits of street dwellers who were otherwise forgotten, jobless, impoverished and addicted. Instead of shunning them away, Rudy and Juanita invited them inside, offering them a safe haven and a place of refuge. Many who suffered from mental illness, drug addictions and AIDS were offered hot showers and nourishing meals.
“The biggest misconception many people have about homeless people is that they’re lazy…There is no way you can be lazy and survive the streets. (The streets are) harsh, cold and brutal. Imagine this: You don’t have any money; you don’t have any resources; everything you own is with you and you’re literally moving your apartment every day. That is not a lazy person’s practice. A lazy person is a person who has resources and doesn’t use them.”
The downtrodden, once mistakenly identified as lollygaggers, found a friend in “Pastor Rudy” as he opened his heart and mind to them, listening attentively to their stories. He and Juanita soon founded Bread of Life, Inc., which currently feeds 7,000 men and women monthly. They eventually added Daybreak Community Health Facility, which provides rehabilitation for drug addicts and AIDS patients. St. John’s Academy for the inner city’s at-risk children and Touch 1 followed suit.
From Suzie: Go to Pastor Rudy’s website to find out more about Pastor Rudy, his church, and his anti-hunger initiative, as well as listen to stories from those changed by God’s love.
T. Suzanne Eller
Believing that God redeems our life stories, Suzanne teaches you how to give every chapter of your life to a relevant and life-changing Savior.
