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You Were Meant for Today
You were Meant for Today! It was quite a shock when I found out I was pregnant, for the third time, nearly 5 years after having given birth to my last little bundle of joy. To complicate matters, we received the news just weeks after we announced that we would be moving from our beloved community, leaving behind a life of ministry and part-time jobs that I loved. Suddenly, I had to come to grips with the idea that I would now be going backward. Or, at least that is how I interpreted the situation. Of course, I have pursued motherhood out of a calling and it has been one…
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Those Darn Expectations!
Every day we set them for ourselves and others and they are also set for you by others. They are sometimes really low and sometimes really high but rarely are there none. They judge, define and always create some level of anticipation. They are a part of every relationship, every situation, every dream and really every thought that comes out of our brain. They are (cue the booming drum sound Bom-Bom-Bom) – Expectations! Expectations are constant! Whether we want to admit it or not, we set them with everything. Want proof? Ok, you set one for this blog post. See, I told you so. Expectations are how we prepare ourselves or protect ourselves from the unknown. They give us…
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Unfinished Tasks
Today my guest blogger is Eva Burkholder. She writes about the weight of unfinished tasks. Eva (MACE, Columbia International University) is a missionary kid, wife, mother of two sons and a daughter-in-law, former cross-cultural worker, and missionary member care provider. Eva and her husband of thirty-one years live in Richardson, Texas. She blogs regularly at www.evaburkholder.com. Look for Eva's devotional on the life of Mary, available later this year. I like to cross things off my to-do list. I use tear-off notepads and make lists and lists of what needs to get done today and in the coming days. My lists include unwanted tasks as well as life-giving ones. Then I…
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What is Important?
What is important? After reading again today the obituary of a precious dad and father my thoughts ran back to 2011 when we lost the last of our parents. They had lived a robust life and loved living on the farm amidst tractors and plants. Daddy F. loved the new fallen snow and loved going out to use his favorite tool, the snow-blower—even at the ripe old age of 95! I had prayed that Mother B would live to celebrate their 73rd wedding anniversary and God answered. Daddy F. died 18 days later. It was bittersweet. Why do I share that personal story? It is because as my son grew…
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Sin rears its ugly head!
Genesis 3:8–17 Time: The dawn of human history Place: Eden Lesson Aim: To acknowledge that sin disrupts our relationship with God. Introduction Elizabeth was folding sheets in the bedroom when Matthew, her six year old, came in looking as if he were ready for Halloween. His face and arms were covered with decorative swirls of blue and green marker ink. Wide–eyed, his mother asked, “What happened to you?” Matthew blinked. “I was sleeping on the couch, and when I woke up, Caleb was drawing all over me with his markers!” Elizabeth shook her head. It would take at least an hour of intense scrubbing to get the…
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Women and Theological Education: Capitulating to Culture or Historically Rooted?
Not long ago, I overhead a female ministry leader noting with some enthusiasm that we are seeing the first generation in Christendom in which women have received theological higher education. But her statement, while well intentioned, was completely untrue. Some of our lack of knowledge about women’s history, particularly in the Protestant tradition, stems from post-Reformation amnesia about women in monastic spaces. About all we know—maybe—is that about 500 years ago a German nun, Katerina, married a former monk, Martin Luther, and religious living spaces were emptied of their occupants, partly in response to the Protestant Reformation. Here’s what we need to know, though: A similar phenomenon happened about that…
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Pride and Prejudice…and Gender Fluidity?
Suppose you heard that a vacation town had built a first-class theater and people attended in droves because the productions were that good. Suppose you paid your $66 dollars for tickets to a comedic, farcical adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and drove an hour to get there. Suppose you arrived early enough to attend the “Pre-Show Chat”–a presentation that focused on how Austen liked to challenge the rigidity of Victorian social, class and gender divisions. And “true to her spirit,” this production would champion diversity in gender roles so that you could “look beyond superficial gender distinctions to better see and appreciate the inner character” of the players.…
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The Significance of Little
I smoked my first cigarette in high school and continued for seven years. I so thoroughly enjoyed smoking that I overlooked the ridiculousness of my hiding the habit with breath mints, perfume, and darting from disapproving eyes. It took seven years for the hypocrisy and enslavement to exhaust me. I cried out to God and within two weeks I had quit–cold turkey. No patch. No pills. It was a miraculous deliverance that sparked my fledgling faith in God. Many people have shared similar stories of God working in their lives, usually at a point of their first coming or just returning to relationship with Christ. I think God sometimes…
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Did God Really Say?
I attended grad school in San Francisco in the 90’s. Each week a group of Christian students, faculty, and staff would gather in one of the small classrooms on the top floor for our CMDS meeting. This room had a floor-to-ceiling view of the Golden Gate Bridge where I can still picture the cars driving Northbound towards Sausalito. I adored the cute rainbow-painted tunnel arcs where the bridge merged with Marin County. My beloved friend’s uncle had painted those rainbows there many years prior. Every week I sat at the back of the room next to the window, gazing at the orange bridge stretched over hundreds of boats below. Some…
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Does Authenticity Take Preeminence Over Gracious Speech?
Authenticity has been a buzz word for several years. As with a lot of words, authenticity means different things to different people. Being real is a simple definition of authenticity. I connect with the idea that we need to be authentic with God and ourselves inviting Him to search our hearts (Psalm 139:23-24). Sins revealed should be confessed and forgiveness asked for followed by a dependence on Him for cleansing and empowering to walk in His ways. On a human level, authenticity should happen in the context of relationships that have built trust and respect. I personally have grappled with what authenticity looks like on the human level and specifically…