I stopped praying
If you came over from Encouragement for Today, welcome!
Today I asked my friend and mentor, Cecil Murphey, best-selling co-author of 90 Minutes in Heaven, to join us. Prayer is something we know is powerful, but what if you aren’t receiving an answer. Should you stop praying? That’s exactly what one man wanted to do, and it caused Cec to stop and consider why he would pray, even if he didn’t receive the answer he hoped.
Here’s Cec Murphey:
“I Stopped Praying” by Cecil Murphey
“I finally stopped praying for my two brothers.” Steven explained that he had prayed every day “for at least twelve years and it hasn’t made any difference.”
I didn’t know how to answer so I said, “I’m sorry you’re discouraged.” (more…)
Posted by Suzie @
6:04 am |
Incredible forgiveness, incredible freedom
I’m joining Deanna Allen, host of Pathway to Serenity blogtalk radio today at 11:00 PST (1:00 CT) to talk about why it’s hard to forgive, and the incredible freedom you find when you do. I hope you’ll join us! (To listen, click here!)
Has anyone ever told you that forgiving is easy?
Maybe forgiving the guy who acted like a fool on the highway isn’t too hard, or forgiving the lady who jumped in line ahead of you at the grocery store. Butwhat if someone has harmed you or a family member? What do you do then? How do you forgive?
I’ve been digging deep into the topic of forgiveness. I’ve lived it and discovered that there is incredible freedom in living a life of grace and mercy. But it’s not something that you just find along the way. It’s a purposeful intent to move beyond the burden and restrictions of bitterness, anger, rage, or unresolved emotions tied to a person or event.
Forgiveness is a bridge I thought I had crossed, but the deeper I delved into the meaning of the word forgiveness, the more I realized how much work remained in my own heart.
I discovered that there were several different meanings of the word, forgiveness. Eureka! That’s why it is so hard when someone tosses out the words, “Just forgive!”. Because they may be talking about forgiving an uncouth neighbor, when the kind of forgiveness you need has to come from Someone bigger than you, because the hurt is too large. I found this word as I studied:
Xariðzomai [Greek]: translated Charizomai – 1) to frankly forgive; 2) to give graciously, give freely, bestow
it’s the word Jesus used when He looked down at the men who had put Him on the cross, and said, “Forgive [Charizomai] them, for they know not what they do.”
I sat with friends about a year ago to hear their story. I loved their 22-year-old daughter. She’s a young woman with a feeding tube, unable to communicate in words, and in a wheelchair. I asked if they could share her story.
Hearing it broke my heart. (more…)
Posted by Suzie @
11:36 am |
Dear friend…
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…)
Posted by Suzie @
12:52 pm |
black iron gates
Sometimes, when God really wants to get my attention, He wakes me up in the middle of the night. I stare at the ivory trey ceiling, moonlight spilling in through the blinds and I know that it’s God. The clarity of the moment says, “listen”.
That happened the other night, after I visited the shelter where the black iron gates kept women and children from harm from their loved ones.
On that day, I sat quietly in my car afterwards, my world just a little larger than it had been a few moments earlier.
When I write, or when I speak, there will be women in the audience who are experiencing something so hard and so painful, that trite words or a formula or a canned speech or book only serves to cause them additional pain.
My visit to the shelter was a reminder of that.
And also a reminder of a conference a few years earlier. I was one of many workshop speakers, and then there were the keynoters–the women who spoke to the audience of thousands. I was standing in my booth when I heard a woman stop one of the speakers.
She was hesitant, standing there with her long dark hair, her Ugg-like boots, and a Bohemian skirt. “My husband and I are struggling,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes in pain when I heard the speaker’s response. She looked the woman up and down and patted her on the shoulder. “Shave your legs, sweetheart. Dress nice for your husband. Put on a little makeup.”
The speaker, immaculate in her cloned NYJones suit and matching shoes, gave her a quick hug and walked away.
The woman stood in the center of the massive conference center, stricken.
She was handed trite advice without any knowledge of the problem. Maybe the challenge was intimacy. Maybe it was spiritual. Maybe he was cheating. Or maybe she was just a tired mom of four who needed a break. But shaving your legs and throwing on some lipstick doesn’t even begin to cover most issues, much less a serious one.
How do we get to that place; where we fail to listen, where we think we are Methuselah, all wise, all knowing? Dear God, please don’t let me fall into that trap. Don’t let my world get so shallow and so isolated that I believe that the world is one rosy place, beautiful and unfettered, making my life or my perspective the total lens through which I peer.
It’s another set of black iron gates, where we are so shut in our own world that we forget what’s on the other side.
Those were the things running through my brain the other night. Waking from a peaceful slumber to a conversation with an all-knowing God. But it was more than just a conversation, because that’s the way God operates. It was a call to action.
My world is too small, and I have to do something about that. I have plans, but just need some prayer time to make sure I’m taking the right step in the right direction.
Deep down, I know it is.
Posted by Suzie @
12:54 pm |
Read, grow, think…
January 28, 2010 | Think
I love it when I’m on Facebook and someone throws out a status update on what they’re currently reading. I don’t know about you, but I usually have up to five books open at the same time. They’re scattered all over the house.
I struggle when I hear someone say, “I’ve not read a book since high school”. Books make you see the world through a bigger lens. It helps you experience different cultures, viewpoints, and experiences of other people. It broadens your understanding, so that when you speak it’s not solely out of your own worldview, because frankly the world is vastly larger than what happens in our back yard.
Every Thursday we’ll read, grow, and think together. I want to hear what you are reading. I want to know what you are thinking about those books. I’ll share what I’m currently reading and what I’m learning. Throw out ideas for books that you want to talk about.
Nonfiction
50 Ways to Feel Great Today: Keys to Beating Stress, Worry, and the Blues
by David B. Biebel, Dmin, James E. Dill, MD, Bobbie Dill, RN
Nonfiction; 222 pages
When I first picked up this book, I hoped for something really great. I’m an optimist and love the idea that the authors chose to focus on 50 great ways to feel better.
Perhaps because I’m an optimist, it didn’t set off any fireworks. Some of the suggestions are to lift weights, brain job, mentor someone, renew your hope, go to a water park.
I love books that challenge me, and going to a water park does make me feel better. Sunshine, water, flavored ice freezies — who wouldn’t feel better? But in a world where the economy is depressed, where marriages are strained, where families are struggling, I’m not sure going to a water park is going to be super helpful. (more…)
Posted by Suzie @
2:13 pm |
test results are in
I saw the 479 area code flash on my cell. I usually don’t answer calls I don’t recognize, but this one triggered something. Where had I seen that area code before?
It was the breast center calling to share the results of my BRCA1 genetic test. Melissa and I had traveled to the genetic counselor and I had made a decision to go through with it after hearing what this knowledge would mean for my girls, and my son.
If I had the gene (I was diagnosed with breast cancer and mestasis at 32, went through chemo, radiation, and two surgeries and had a 40% chance of surviving 5 years), it carried some heavy connotations for my daughters, and also for my son I discovered.
Leslie and Melissa are in their twenties, and as they approach the age I was when I was diagnosed, we knew that we needed that information.
The counselor shared that it would mean that they needed to be vigilant (which they are) about mammograms and MRI’s on a yearly basis, but also that if I was a gene carrier that all my children needed to be tested. If they carried the gene, it meant making heavy decisions such as removing breast tissue or a complete masectomy and removing ovaries after family planning was complete. For Ryan, it meant that he would need to be tested for other types of cancers, and that any daughters he might have would need to be tested.
The reality is that thousands of young adults and women are weighing these choices when presented with positive test results every day.
I held the cell in my hand tight when I heard: “We have the results,” the counselor said.
“They are negative. You do NOT have the gene.”
1000 pounds rolled of my shoulders.
If the answer had been positive, we would have faced that as a family. But it’s not, and that means that though my children still need to be vigilant since mom was diagnosed young, that there is no BRCA gene buried in their or their children’s DNA. No heavy decisions, and I’m glad we made the decision to test. We don’t have to guess anymore.
Why did I get breast cancer at the age of 32? I’ll never know. A percentage of the population is diagnosed with no family history and no gene. It was random.
I’ll never trade that part of my history, for it was a time that I learned to trust God implicitly, and so did my children because it was their momma that was sick…
That same momma is grateful beyond words today.
Posted by Suzie @
11:38 am |
