God is good!

Recently I was led to resign my position as a teacher. It was with much prayer and consideration that I did this. This past weekend, I attended a silent prayer retreat in which the Lord confirmed that my decision was of His urging. He also cornered me on my lack of action in my spiritual life. The theme that kept coming back up all weekend was "what are you waiting for?" and "What's holding you back?" So, back in my "real world" I am making efforts to develop two ministries that the Lord has put on my heart for a few years now. The prayer ministry area is one that I am familiar and comfortable working in. However, a ministry to women is a bit out of my comfort zone. I know God will provide me with the ability to do anything He calls me to do. So, at the church business meeting this week, I will be asking to add those two ministries to our church budget.

July 26, 2012 - Rambling on attitudes in society

It has been quite some time since my last post on this blog. My apologies. Today finds me perplexed at the attitudes our society has developed about personal beliefs, sexual and lifestyle preference and telling God how to run things. In recent days, Dan Cathy (current COO of Chick-fil-a and son of the founder) upheld his Christian beliefs in the sanctity of marriage - the traditional, Biblical view of marriage between one man and one woman. If I am not mistaken, he has the right to voice his personal beliefs and then run his family owned business accordingly. However, the homosexual activist have labeled him as being filled with hate and homophobic. His comments did not bash the homosexual lifestyle, they simply supported his personal beliefs. Taking a Biblical stance on marriage and sexual propriety requires one to not approve of homosexuality as a lifestyle choice. By no means does that indicate the believer hates anyone. On the contrary; believers are called to love all people and not tolerate sin. According to the Bible, homosexuality is a sin; just as over indulging in food or alcohol, sex outside of marriage, profanity, malice, hate, envy, and countless other actions/thoughts are sin. If one chooses to partake in a certain sinful act, that is their right to choose to do so. However, it does not give them the right to infringe on a Christian's right to choose to maintain a Biblical lifestyle and not condone what others might choose. Should a celebrity or other person of fame choose to openly declare their homosexuality, they are hailed as a societal hero of sorts. "Hurray" the public shouts for them standing up for the rights to freely choose their lifestyle preference. However, a person such as Dan Cathy makes a stance to uphold their Christian view of the appropriate marriage lifestyle and they are bashed for "hating" others and not having a tolerance for differences. That is such backwards thinking. It is the kind of thing civil wars are made of. We have been there already, people. We should learn from the past and remember what countless people have fought so hard to achieve - freedom for ALL citizens of the U.S. Not merely freedom for those who might agree with your personal opinions.

Healthy mind, healthy body

I have been thinking lately (dangerous I know) that while I consider myself relatively healthy, I may only be deceiving myself. I don't exercise. I eat pretty much what I want (case in point --- I treated myself to Chik-fil-A for lunch and upsized my waffle fries to large). I don't have a regulary "going to bed" time. I don't drink enough water. Hmmmm........ wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that I take medications for hypertension and high-cholesterol?

So, in the next week and a half, before reporting back to work, I want to implement better eating habits and start exercising again. I even have my own treadmill, for goodness' sake, so I can't allow "can't get to the YMCA" to make a difference in whether I exercise or not.

Hopefully, my next posting will be positive results in the physical health arena.

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Now for the healthy mind part. I know what my biggest problem here is as well. Oh, I'm taking classes and enriching my head knowledge. However, I do not read my Bible regularly. Shameful for a pastor's wife to admit on the WWW, but if we're being honest here........ admit I must. So, another commitment I want to make is to God Himself that I want to get to know Him better, listen to Him closer, and understand His character by reading His Word every day.

Again, my prayer is that the next posting will find me deep in the pages of Scripture and asking a lot of questions of the Lord...... that's how we get to know someone, right? We listen to their words and ask them questions........

Reflections for today

Today is a busy day. Finished the preliminary draft of the workbook for our church's upcoming prayer retreat. In the middle of wrapping that up, I thought I'd check my Facebook friends out. There was a video posted called "Rain" by Rob Bell with Nooma. I don't know if you've seen any of the Nooma videos, but they are awesome and will make you pause and think about things seriously. This video deals with the subject of making it through the storms in life. It took me by surprise: not the content of the video, but at some point it touched me very strongly and I just broke down and wept; for no apparent reason. There is something there, so I am opening up my spiritual eyes to see what God has in store for this retreat.