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Finding the Mother Inside

May 9, 2013

I’m a step-parent so Mother’s Day always holds some bittersweet moments for me. I’ve learned through 36 years how to step back, step-aside, step-away and even step-up to support my husband and to honor the mother of his children as well. Mothering didn’t appear the way I had always imagined it would — as a Hallmark Card.  It’s been more like the cards that make you laugh or even tear up with the honesty of sentiment. My step-children have always remembered me on mother’s day often giving me the greatest gift which is to share their father with me through the years.

Dorothea Dix, a social reformer of the 19th Century was never a mother nor was she a step-mother. Her own mother may well have been mentally ill. At least she was "unavailable."  Dorothea tried desperately to adopt a [ … ]

Failing

May 8, 2013

As parents, we don’t like to see our kids fail—even if failure might provide just the reality check they need. I’m no scientist, but I think we’re biologically programmed to try to protect our children from the hurt and pain that failure brings, even if it means pushing them to persevere in something that lies outside their strengths and long-term interests. We make the tone-deaf kid practice piano. We book time at the batting cages for a child who’s better suited to the library than the ball field. We insist on the advanced-placement class, thinking it will aid on college applications, even though the pressure makes the child (and therefore the whole family) miserable all year.

Factor in the reality that we somehow think a child’s failure is a reflection on us—What will people think of me if my child [ … ]

Leaning In

May 7, 2013

As women, most of us need an example like Mary’s [the mother of Jesus] to help us believe God can use us in any significant way. We have no trouble believing God can use others, but when we look at ourselves, all we can see is our inadequacies and inabilities. So, clinging white-knuckled to our comfort zones, we tend to stick with what comes naturally. We shrink back from God’s upward call and find ourselves reluctant to say, “Yes, Lord! I’m Your servant. Use me as You please!”

I’ll be the first to admit that’s often been true of me. I find it easy to believe God can use my husband. When we started Gateway Church, for instance, I had no doubt God would bless it. My excitement soared, and my faith roared into action as I stood on the [ … ]

Mary’s Faith

May 3, 2013

Most of us have heard Mary’s story so many times we take it for granted. We sang about it at Christmastime standing on risers, dressed as white-robed preschool choir cherubs. We acted it out in nativity plays at church. We heard over and over again about the angel who came to tell Mary of God’s plan and how she responded with a statement so simple and full of faith that it’s echoed through the ages ever since: “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”

As children, we didn’t grasp the gravity of the statement. To us it was just a line from a Christmas pageant. Even as adults, we sometimes think of it that way. But Mary never did. For her it was a momentous declaration of faith that forever changed [ … ]

Ministry Happens

April 19, 2013

When we don’t pace ourselves, we tend to miss divine appointments right and left. In fact, they seem like human interruptions. We get so consumed with trying to get where we think God wants us to go that we put on spiritual blinders and miss the Goose trails He wants to take us down. The key is slowing down your pace, taking off your sandals, and experiencing God right here, right now.

…Spiritual maturity has less to do with long-range visions than it does with moment-by-moment sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. And it is our moment-by-moment sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that turns life into an everyday adventure.

Excerpted from Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson

Daily Reflection: How can you slow down and listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit today?

Waiting and Hope

April 16, 2013

“Gardens are about waiting and about hope as much as they are about anything.

You wait for spring to come and for roses to bud out and for the earth to green up again. You wait for seeds to germinate and irises to spread. You wait for the dogwoods to turn white and pink and for the maple to go golden in the fall. And all the while you hold a vision of some new thing in your head, of what the garden will be someday.

You cannot hurry it along, not any of it. Spring comes when it comes; roses bloom when they will; the garden grows at its own sweet pace. What it teaches you is to wait, to be patient, and to pay attention.

Some morning the sun will rise, and something you have always dreamed of [ … ]

Sneak Peek: For Women Only, For Men Only, For Couples Only Participant’s Guide by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn

April 12, 2013

So that’s what she means! So that’s what he’s thinking!

Click here to download chapter one of this Participant’s Guide.

For years, men and women have seen great life change as they used these groundbreaking books in small groups, Bible studies, Sunday school classes, and premarital or marriage counseling.  Now this participant’s guide makes the content even more illuminating.

Get ready to know “the other half” in a whole new way!

Click here to download chapter one of this Participant’s Guide.

Lost in Him

April 11, 2013

The progression toward oneness with God leaves you absent of yourself. Lost in Him.

As you move more fully into what God sees and what He desires, you’ll no longer be concerned with what you lack or how you’ve failed. As you walk with Him day by day, you will come to see yourself through His truths.

Afraid that you can’t get past your past?

Getting lost in intimacy with God will assure your heart that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Fearful that you can’t overcome a sinful habit?

Intimacy with God will bring you to believe that your “old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no [ … ]

Generosity

April 10, 2013

The famous psychiatrist Karl Menninger noted that the single most important indicator of a person’s mental health was generosity. “Generous people are rarely mentally ill,” he wrote.  I think the early social reformer Dorothea Dix understood that concept. She’d survived a difficult childhood and was a successful teacher by the time she was fifteen opening a school for girls when young ladies rarely attended school. By the time she was twenty, she had a bestselling book, the first of many. Yet she often had serious bouts with a lung illness and terrible fatigue, some of which appeared to be related to great sadness and loneliness.

When she began working on behalf of the mentally ill later in her life, her health dramatically improved.  Where she’d stayed home from church for fear of catching a cold on the Boston streets or [ … ]

Stand Up

April 9, 2013

Sometimes we do stand up for what we believe. We tell someone it’s wrong to use God’s name as a cuss word, or we ask our unbelieving friends what they think happens after they die. But more often than not, it seems we just sink deeper into our chair, change the subject, leave the room, or just tell our conscience to take a hike. Our convictions are a private matter, we rationalize (that is, rational lies). It’s important not to make waves or come across as if we’re better than somebody else.

When we make decisions to obey God—even when it costs us something—and to live out our faith in our day-to-day life, it will be hard, but it will be good. And it will be good because God loves to bless us when we are faithful to stand for [ … ]