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Younger Women…Be Humble and Keep Asking!
Last week I wrote a post to older women as a result of an email I received from a younger leader. You can read that post here. Today I want to address how younger women can be catalysts to bridge the gap to connect with older women. First of all, you need to understand a couple of things about older women (I’m talking mostly about Boomers and older, although as I said last week we are ALL older and younger than someone). Here are a few myths these women may be believing: “I do not know all the answers, how can I mentor a younger women?” “My stories are sacred and…
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Older Women….Share Your Story!
All of us have a life story…one story with many chapters. Have you ever thought about how God showed up in every chapter and that He can use that chapter to touch the life of someone else? Why, then, do older women sometimes fail to see the impact their life can have on younger women? Why do they sometimes fail to share the tough stories of their life story? Stories of failure, pain, weakness, hardship and sin? What could be holding us back? (BY THE WAY…ALL of us are older than someone so we are ALL older women! Smile!) I had an email last week from a young leader who…
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Who Are You Training? Yes, YOU!
So, if you read this title and thought, “this doesn’t apply to me”, you are wrong. “But”, you say, “I’m not a leader.” Again, you are wrong! Answer this: are you serving anywhere? maybe at church? in your community? in your family? do you hold down a job? are you teaching a class? are you seeking to live out your Christian faith on a daly basis? If you can say yes to any of those questions, then…you ARE a leader! SO, now that we have that settled, my next question is this: Who are you training to take your place? “Hold on….take my place? I like my place! Besides I…
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Faith Under Pressure
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. One of my daughters recently wrote a long FaceBook post making this point very clear. Here is what Alycia Neighbours posted (and I share with her permission): So I’m going to preach y’all a sermon… Faith Under Pressure James 1:2-4 The Message (MSG) “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not…
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Prayer…a Different Perspective
If you are like me, you have read many books on prayer. Authors like T.W. Hunt, Jennifer Kennedy Dean, Henry Blackaby, Jim Cymbala and so many others have had powerful books published for our spiritual growth. You have probably done Bible studies on the topic of prayer. And if you have been a Christian for a while, you’ve prayed quite a bit. Although Jesus gives His disciples a pattern for prayer in the Gospels (Matthew 6:9-13 & Luke 11:2-4), there is no one way to pray. At different seasons in life and with different needs, we pray as our heart leads us. But one thing is true, we pray differently…
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Blessed in the Mess
If I asked you to describe your life right now, how would you respond? Would you include any of these words: difficult, overwhelming, disappointing, mysterious, painful, answerless, frustrating? If so, I so get it. But do you realize that amidst our mess God has blessings for us? The Lord showed me this one morning as I drove to work after completing a 3 day fabulous, but exhausting, conference (the biggest leadership event we host). Several things had occurred during those 3 days that weren’t part of the plan, so the stress of coordinating and hosting this conference grew beyond my expectation. During the conference, my mother (who had dementia) had…
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Stuck?
What do you think of when your hear the word “stuck”? Perhaps your car has been stuck in snow this winter. Or maybe like me, you’ve been stuck in sand with your car! I think about the Israelites who were stuck in the wilderness even though it was of their own doing due to disobedience and lack of faith in God’s provision. Maybe this is just where you are in life. Not where you used to be but not where you want to be? Ever feel like that? Perhaps you feel like you are in a foggy valley and surrounded by mountains on all sides with no way out. I know…
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Personal Treasure or Free Handout?
I am one Bible study student who loves to use workbooks and videos. I also teach a women’s life group and lead a D-group (discipleship group) at my church. Usually I have specific curriculum to use for those as well. This has helped me to be disciplined in my study of the Word. It has led me to a regular time daily with the Lord as I’ve sought to know and love Him more. The one thing that has pushed me even deeper and led me to reading extra commentary is teaching the Word. Even though I have lots of information and questions in the studies written by others, when…
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Perfect, Broken or Perfectly Shaped?
How often do you hear someone say (or perhaps you have said it), “I’m broken and unusable.” Or “I can’t be forgiven for what I’ve done.” Or perhaps, “I know God has forgiven me, but I know He can’t use me after what I’ve done.” Maybe even you have thought these things. As I’ve mentioned, I LOVE beach time. And I love what God teaches me when I’m at the shore. One of the sweetest messages He’s given me relates to how I look for big, perfect, whole shells. Perhaps like this shell I found. It was big and perfect. I wanted to find more! Then I came across this one…
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A Grace Disguised
While at the beach recently I read Jerry Sitser’s book,A Grace Disguised . This is a transparent journey with a man who lost his daughter, wife and mother in a tragic car wreck. It was a head on with someone driving under the influence. Jerry must then figure out how to seek God in the midst of trying to be both mother and father to his three other young children. As the subtitle says, Jerry shares “how the soul grows through loss”. While he never seeks to compare his loss to anyone else’s, he shares the struggle of finding a good God in the midst of such pain. The main focus of…