The reason I bring this up is to make you aware of the damage done by well-meaning preachers who in their concern for their flocks’ souls, use scriptural manipulation in order to control their parishioners. In my church, because they did not want their teens straying they forbid any normal youthful activities. Dancing, movies, and bowling, just to name a few, were all taboo. They cited scriptures with such words as “lascivious” as proof that these activities would lead us to dance with the devil.

When Paul admonished us to “rightly divide the word of truth” he meant to preach it correctly, straying neither to a liberal nor a legalistic bent. Using scripture to bring people into line is not only wrong; it is too often a failure. Within my church I saw dozens of teens leave, some of them saying, “If I’m going to hell anyway, I’ll go have fun on the way.”

I often wonder how many of them would still be serving God had the Word been applied more truthfully. No doubt, some would still have strayed; however, I wonder how many would have returned like the Prodigal Son when they realized their rebellion was not as fulfilling as they had hoped. I believe if they had understood grace they may have returned.

Something to think about. Have any of you experienced what I’m saying? I sincerely hope not, but I’d like to hear from you.

Groan.  I know, I know.  Some of you may ask why I would want to watch that show?  Well, call it a guilty pleasure or just spending time with a friend who was watching it but I actually walked away from the final episode with a lot more on my mind than just who ended up getting a ring and a proposal.

The first thing I learned from watching The Bachelor is that everyone desires to be loved.  Why else would an presumably sane person actually chose to subject themselves to the scrutiny and competition of finding love played out on national television?  What some people might call an act of desperation, I call an honest desire to find someone, anyone, to truly love them.  People do crazy things for love!  That being said, how often do I go on autopilot in my world, ignoring the silent cries of people around me to feel loved?  The simplest gesture can be enough to change someone’s day for the sake of feeling loved.  I need to open my eyes and see all my “neighbors” as people in search of love remembering that I know how to introduce them to the ultimate lover of their soul.

Second, I noticed that sometimes people don’t recognize love when it is being shown right to them!  The 2^nd runner up this season lost her chance with the Bachelor because she was too self conscious to accept the love he was trying to offer her.  She came to mind when I was in a Bible study going through the book of Romans recently.  The entire book of Romans points out that Jesus is CONSTANTLY showing his love for me and I constantly miss it!  Sometimes the overwhelming awareness of my sin keeps me from accepting the unconditional love offered by my savior.  Ultimately, his love is a free gift that is always available to me but I must accept it.  I must take it.  That might feel that I must risk rejection to get that love.  I think the young woman had been hurt so many times in previous relationships that she had a hard time believing the Bachelor when he said he wanted to be with her.  She was unwilling to risk her heart again for fear that she might be wounded yet again.  But Jesus NEVER wounds.  He ONLY heals.  What feels like possible rejection is always the enemy lying to me and helping convince me that Jesus might not be trustworthy after all.  I cannot make this eternal mistake!  I HAVE to risk my heart in order to receive the love of Christ but in the end it is really never a risk.  It’s a guarantee if I will just believe that Jesus wants ME!

Finally, watching the Bachelor teaches me a lot about how selfless love must be to last.  Between the Bachelor and the Bachelorette there have been something like 17 seasons of match-making and as of today I think only two matchups have actually lasted.  Gosh I wonder why!  You throw a bunch of people together to compete for the attention of one person and what you get is a reality-show competition not unlike the Amazing Race or The Apprentice.  Potential suitors (contestants) are eliminated based on looks, whether or not there is a “spark” of feeling or for no reason at all. Love has nothing to do with a situation like that!

At a marriage conference Ken and I attended last year I heard several times that over the course of a life together you are inevitably going to have moments when you don’t really “like” your spouse but the marriages that last are the ones that simply chose to stick it out no matter what.  Hmm, so feelings don’t always tell us the truth?  Imagine that.  After only two months of the most unusual dating the world has ever known there is no way that those two people who propose to one another on the finale can really selflessly give themselves to one another for a lifetime!  Instead they have merely whittled down a list of 20 potentials to one” winner”.

Romans 5:8 says But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Christ loved us so selflessly that he actually DIED to get our attention!  He says in John 15:13: Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

And finally 1 Corinthians 13 teaches us most about love in verses 4-8: Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.  This does not sound like a reality TV show to me.  This sounds like the spiritual, sacred thing we call love that could only come from a superior being like an Almighty God.

Love is a choice and it is a verb.  It’s not a feeling.  And universally, everyone is looking for it.  It is my goal in writing this little tongue-in-cheek article to get us all to remember to view those around us as individuals looking for the acceptance that only a relationship with God can bring.  And the best part is that he offers it to us freely with no strings attached and THAT is something we can always rely on!

Years ago, Mike and I bought a white minivan. All of a sudden, every third car on the road was a white minivan. Who would have thought there were so many white vans?

And when you’re pregnant – who do you see? Pregnant women!

Because of this similarity I feel secure assuming that if I’m dealing with big changes in my life right now, a good many of you are also. The interesting thing about change is it brings stress. Even good change. A change like a marriage or a new baby is a wonderful change, yet produces stress none the less.

Hard changes bring even more stress than good changes. It’s difficult enough when a tough situation develops, but when said hard times stretch out like a dog on a rug in front of the fire – settled down to stay – one of several responses will occur:

1. what at first is acceptance, may turn to anger
2. what at first is trust and peace, can morph into rebellion
3. waiting for it to pass may impel us to seek a solution on our own

Does it help or hinder that since this trial began I have, at different points, chosen all three responses? Does it help or hinder that my stress hasn’t abated, the answer hasn’t materialized, and I’m still going through it?

Have I learned anything? Yes. I have learned that God is faithful. I am learning to rest and trust. I am still battling bewilderment, frustration, and the Why?s

Tell me what you’ve learned. Everyone who comments will be entered into a drawing to receive a free Sunday’s Promise. Name will be drawn on March 15th. (Read more on Romance Series – A New Day link at top of page.)

God bless your day,
Janice

An illustration on this truth was brought home last summer when a huge wind storm hit Boise.  Boise’s nickname is City of Trees. We have a long love affair with trees and every yard, corner lot, park and sidewalk flaunts wonderful speciments that add beauty to our town.  In a span of four hours last August, a devastating number of our trees were destroyed.  Morning light revealed them lying on the ground, leaning against houses, crushing roofs or cars, and blocking roads.

While the winds had exceeded gusts of eighty miles an hour, we had withstood winds like that and stronger in previous years, so we asked Why had this wind brought down so many trees?

It was discovered that modern irrigation was the culprit.  A practice of watering our lawns regularly had trained the trees to spread out their roots and drink the surface water instead of drilling down to drink from the water table.  The deep nourishment that would have provided roots for stability was not accessed.  And in adversity they toppled.

Keep this lesson in mind this New Year.  We can sit in the pew all polished and pressed, attend conferences smiling brightly, but if we do not have any spiritual depth, we will fall when the storm comes.  Nourish your spiritual roots this year and remain strong.

And if you’ve already been aware of the necessity for this in your life.  Tell us, what do you do to nourish your spiritual roots?

Gratefulness accepts each situation at face value, allowing us to see how it enriches our lives. For instance, it reminds me each Monday how blessed I am to be able to do my laundry in the comfort and convenience of my home instead of lugging piles of dirty clothes to the laundromat.  Interestingly, if I was at the laundromat, gratefulness would remind me how blessed I am not to be pounding my dirty garments on the rocks of the river bank.  Gratefulness isn’t visionary, it accepts what is instead of longing for what could be. Gratefulness cannot dwell in a heart filled with bitterness.

Like internal smog, bitterness obscures our spiritual sight. It keeps us from enjoying what God has given us. As long as we allow bitterness to dwell within we can never be grateful for the laundromat experience because we feel we deserve the washer/dryer in our home. We’ll assure ourselves we’ve been cheated and list all the ways life has shortchanged us.

But if we daily pray, “Create in me a clean heart, Oh God, and renew a right spirit within me,” we will rid ourselves of this disease of discontent. By repenting we allow the Holy Spirit to wash the windows of our heart. And then we can clearly see all that God has done to bless us.

1. I always thought I’d be a writer when I grew up. Then I hit the half-century birthday and discovered I’d overshot my goal without hitting the mark.
2. I swore I’d never marry a preacher.
3. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to have kids, so I had three just to try it out.
4. I am not, never have been, do not intend to ever become a perfectionist.
5. The pursuit of money is a tiresome taskmaster and not worth losing family, health, or sleep in order to gain.
6. I look forward to growing old with my hubby.
7. Teenagers are a whole lot more fun than toddlers.
8. My greatest ambition is to become organized. (Coincidentally, this is also my husband’s greatest ambition for me.)
9. Purses are my passion.
10. A great find at a garage sale makes my day.
11. I drink my caffeine cold – a cola to start my day!
12. I love being a pastor’s wife.
13. Until I met Neree I had never known a happy PW, so initially becoming one was not a pleasant prospect.
14. I love church and the Church.
15. I just joined Romance Writers of America — whodathunkit?

Only 3 Left!

Be the first PW in your state to get a free copy of Sunday’s Promise.  Just email me your name, mailing address and the church/ministry you are affiliated with.  The first 15 who respond from different states, will receive a copy of the first book in the  A New Day series for free! Just send an email to: janicetpw@msn.com

To date I have mailed out 12 copies of the book to women in South Carolina, Florida, California, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Arizona, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Virginia.  Live in a different state from these?  Send me an email and be one of the last 3 winners.

________________________________________________________________________________________

If you had to list the hardest thing you do as a Christian, what would it be? Loving the unlovely? Serving others? Praying? For many Christians a consistent devotional life is their greatest test. If there is anything I’ve learned about the Enemy, it is that he is a fighter. Because he dwells in the spirit realm, he knows all too well the power we have available to us in prayer. Therefore, strategist that he is, preventing us from praying is of paramount importance to him.

Napoleon once said “an army marches on its stomach.” In the same way, our effectiveness in our spiritual march is directly proportional to our spiritual nourishment of prayer and Bible study.

Much of the mail I receive from PW’s deal with their feelings of inadequacy — ill equipped for the ministry. Whatever our picture of who we should be looks like, we know we have not, and are not attaining it. However, praying does not depend on talent, money, or the classes we’ve taken. Any of us can accomplish great things on the behalf of our people by our prayers. To pray effectively, what does it take?

• Discipline: Prov. 8:17: “I love those who love me; and those who diligently seek me will find me.
• Humility: 1 Peter 5:6,7: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, cast all your cares upon Him, because He cares for you.
• Perseverance: Matt. 7:7: “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you.”
• Faith: James 1:6: “Ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.”

In the same way, if we neglect ourselves spiritually, our hearts become just like my cleared garden plot. A root of bitterness can spring up in the rocky soil of hurt feelings; the weed of discontent will take hold when we don’t spend time in prayer and praise; and the snare of covetousness will rapidly take root in soil not cleansed by repentance. Like the weeds in my flower garden, that seemingly appeared overnight, little sins find fertile ground when our spiritual life has not been cultivated by the Word and prayer.

From the book, “The Power of Prayer,” by R.A. Torrey, some hindrances that keep us from setting aside time each day to pray are:
1. Idols in the heart (Isaiah 14:1-3)
2. An unforgiving spirit (Mark 11:25, Matthew 6:14,15)
3. Doubt (James 1:6,7)
4. Mistreating our spouse (1 Peter 3:1)
5. Unconfessed sin (Isaiah 59:1,2)
6. We don’t ask according to God’s will (James 4:3)
7. Stinginess in giving (Proverbs 21:13)

If you see any of these noxious plants appearing in your spiritual garden, you can find the perfect weed killer in Psalms 51:2 – “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” Happy planting!

• Type A is the PW with her own specific call to ministry. I assumed she soared — anyone with their own “God-mantle” surely didn’t battle the same doubts and fears that I did.
• Type B married a man with a specific call to the ministry. In this category are actually two sub-categories: those who are thrilled to share their husband’s call and those who feel that their husband’s call is just that — their husband’s – and spend their life busily drawing the boundaries between his call and their life.
• Type C, however, are pastors’ wives who didn’t marry a pastor at all. They married an electrician or an accountant, maybe a bus driver. However, sometime after the marriage their husband admitted to or received a call to the ministry and their life changed drastically.

I have great empathy for what they must go through. It is one thing to get on the road of life and aim your car for a specific destination. The road may be bumpy, but there’s security in knowing where you’re going. To suddenly be driving to one destination and have the driver wheel onto an exit and head in exactly the opposite direction must be catastrophic to the emotions. Jill Briscoe, in “Renewal on the Run” has encouragement for those who fit Type C. She uses Peter’s wife as the example. This is a woman who married a fisherman. It was a lifestyle she knew, it had a stable income and was socially accepted. However, God had another agenda for Peter’s life and took him down another road.

What this boils down to is it does not matter if you have a personal call, you’re sharing a call or whether you were drafted mid-season, for in whatever situation you find yourself you can rest in the knowledge that God foresaw it, even foreordained it, and with His help you can succeed.

[Reprinted by Permission from Brynwood Publishing]

We became friends when I, the mother of two toddlers, discovered I was once again pregnant.  Sharon provided support for my bouts of morning sickness.  She became “auntie” to my kids – sitting with them during church services while I played the piano, babysitting while I ran errands and encouraging me in my mothering trials.

When Jenny, the new baby, was only four days old, we bundled her in a blanket and made the 60-mile trip to Denver to be with Sharon while she had an MRI.  The unexplained numbness spreading down the right side of her body was discovered to be a form of spina bifida — undetected since birth.  With the passing years it had degenerated her spine to the point that she needed surgery or would die. The surgeon assured us it was a routine operation.  She could expect to be home a week after surgery.

However, it didn’t go as planned.  In disentangling ganglia from her brainstem, the surgeon had to cut more deeply than he intended thus erasing her motor skills.  In the waiting room we listened to his report. “Will she recover?” Doug inquired steadily.  Not easily upset, he just wanted to know what to expect.  “Of course,” the surgeon assured us, “it just means she will need intensive therapy before she can go home.”

All through the long summer, Sharon stayed at Rose Medical Center, attending therapy sessions several times a day.  Each visit would bring an improvement.  She first learned to control her flailing limbs, then to feed herself, followed by sitting, crawling – the red high-tops laced snugly around wobbly joints.   She’d laugh and say, “Jenny and I are twins, we learned to crawl at the same time.”

Four months after the surgery, she was allowed to go home on the condition that she would return for therapy three days a week.   Doug, a school administrator, had already taken many hours off in order to be with his wife.  With school starting there was much he needed to accomplish to get ready for the upcoming year.  Once September came he couldn’t leave his job three days a week to transport her to the doctor.  There had to be a solution.

I sat in our women’s Bible study the week Sharon went home and laid out their dilemma:  There wasn’t insurance coverage to keep her in the hospital; it had to be outpatient  therapy.  Doug couldn’t transport her three times a week; what could we do?  The Bible is practical, it says, “Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it mightily unto the Lord.”  So we did.  We formed a carpool.

If you drew lines between our church, Sharon’s house, and Rose Medical Center, it would create a near perfect equilateral triangle, each side approximately 45 miles long.  On Monday mornings, at 7:30 a.m., with Jenny strapped  into her car seat and three-year-old David in his (leaving behind five-year-old Jana to wait for the bus with Dad), I would head out Highway 105 to Sharon’s house.  Upon arriving, I’d help her into the wheelchair, pulling it awkwardly out the door, over the rocks and tufts that pass for grass in high-altitude Colorado, maneuver her into the front seat, fold up the steel and leather contraption, wrestle it into the trunk, and set out for Denver, another 45 miles away.

Once at the medical center, the kids and I would wait in the waiting room.  If the weather was nice, we’d go to the park or do a little shopping.  At the end of her session, we’d repeat the trip in reverse, arriving back at our house about 2 p.m.  An entire day that exhausted the kids, Sharon, and me, but necessary to her recovery.

John and Mary, a retired couple in the church, made Wednesday their day.  The most faithful of friends, they never missed one week of taking Sharon to therapy.  Upbeat and optimistic, they provided a lot of encouragement when progress seemed slow.  On Friday, Karen, a home-schooling mom, and her three children did the trip.  The kids practiced times tables or spelling in the car and continued lessons in the waiting room during Sharon’s sessions.

Whenever regulars had other commitments there was an assortment of friends to step in.  Sherrie or Donna was happy to pinch hit.  A second Karen took over halfway through the year when home-schooling Karen needed a break.   By hook or crook, we saw that Sharon got her therapy.

We shared in all her firsts:  First time standing alone, first steps, first time fixing dinner for her family.  The first Sunday she returned to church was a milestone for our congregation.  Doug wheeled her up the stairs and down the main aisle, the high-tops peeking demurely from under the edge of the lap quilt.  We stood and cheered; exuberantly congratulating ourselves for the part we had played in her recovery thus far.  As the months progressed and she got stronger, the sessions were reduced to two days a week, then one day.

One long hard year later, she was finished.  Every time I see Sharon walk, I am reminded of loyal friends who stood staunchly beside her, putting aside their own pursuits for a year to help her regain her life.  I see in living color, love in action: the growth of a church body that learned when a member is hurting, we all hurt, and in order to be whole, we all must engage in the healing process.

[Reprinted by permission from The Pastor's Wife newsletter]

When comparing this attitude between younger and older Christians, age isn’t necessarily a factor. Although, older parishioners may believe this myth more because of the silence that was common between ministers and laity in the past. Decades ago, pastors suffered in silence (and died young) for their stoicism.

As much as it dismays me to find parishioners who want us on a pedestal, I’m even more concerned when I meet a pastor’s wife who believes it’s her obligation to be perfect. I’m saddened to think about the struggles and pain she’ll face alone. For one of the tragedies you’ll endure by placing yourself on a pedestal is isolation.

Pedestals are lonely places. They don’t lend themselves to horizontal sharing. They circumvent emotional access between you and your sisters. When you live on a higher plane, you can’t admit: “I’m depressed, please pray with me,” or “I’m struggling with my kids, can you help?” It also works against you by forcing your parishioners to keep a distance. They’ll avoid sharing their battles because they assume you can’t understand their problems.

Pedestals also become a spiritual stumbling block. Just as some people may not come to you for help because of your perfect ness, conversely others may come to you for the solutions to all their situations, circumventing seeking God’s answer for them. They may look to you for approval and accept it as God’s approval. It has happened before when people followed their earthly shepherds, even into heresy, because they didn’t have their eyes on the Great Shepherd or their feet firmly grounded in God’s word.

You can check your pedestal position every once in awhile by asking yourself these pertinent questions:

1. Am I acting honestly in my relationships?

2.  Do I serve people in order to point them to God or to gain their approval?

Just something to ponder,

God’s blessings,

Janice

[Reprinted from 1998 TPW]

When I think about everything a woman is seeking from her mate, the fundamental desire is the realization that out of all the women in the world, he chose you.  Romance is good, laughter is wonderful, shared goals and dreams are essential, but knowing that he will choose you every time over everyone and anything standing is what gives us our security.

When a husband is a workaholic, the extra hours are not what cause the pain, it is that he chose his job over you.  It does not matter what is substituted, the damage is caused because we have come in second place. And my heart went out to Tiger’s wife and every wife who has thought she had been chosen by her lover only to discover that he didn’t have the same definition of choose that she had.  I still get a thrill when Mike walks into a room and our eyes meet.  That connection reminds me that I am the one he is searching for first.  That I am important to him.  Each time it happens we reinforce our emotional bond.

This Christmas Season, dwell on the fact that you were chosen by God.  That everything that played out down through the ages was done in order that you might be chosen by Emmanuel to be His love. And allow it to burn brightly within and comfort you.  Blessed are you among women for God chose you.

Have a very blessed and Merry Christmas.

Janice

John 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you.

At the weeping rock in Zion National Park

I am a class-A procrastinator. I could teach evasion tactics to black-ops (yeah, a lot of my time is spent reading espionage thrillers if you couldn’t tell). Which of course explains why it took me two months to get a new program up and running on the website, not to mention why I just got my box of winter clothes stored away – just in time to take them out again, and why my Fourth of July decorations stayed up until September 1st.

Despite what my family and friends believe, I do not like being a procrastinator. I long to be organized; an on-top-of-everything woman. So in search of a solution, I logged onto Amazon to search for a book I could order (someday) and read (later) to help me curb this problem. I found, The Now Habit — A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination. I punched the button on my new Kindle reader. In less than 60 seconds the book was downloaded and ready for me to read. Well, how is that going to help a procrastinator? Having it right here means I need to read it right now. So I did — or scanned it, I guess I don’t need to add lying to my problems.

Imagine my relief when I learned from the book that I really was not lazy. Yes! I am actually a perfectionist who avoids completing tasks in order to stave the inevitable poor self esteem that will result from not completing said task perfectly.Obviously that was not the whole theme of the book. It did have some helpful hints for me, and I am glad I paid $4.99 for it; it was worth my time.

However, the popular glossing of unpalatable truth brought to my mind how un-Politically Correct the Bible is. The Bible reduces problems to their bare essentials, strips away subterfuge and, in my case, identifies my personal procrastination problem succinctly as lazy [Prov. 6:6-10].

Unfortunately for me, the Bible is right. First of all, I know beyond a doubt that perfectionism is not something with which I struggle. I procrastinate because I’d rather: smell the flowers, read a book, take a walk, go for a drive, surf the internet. It is true I also procrastinate when too many things pile up and I am immobilized because of the weight of what awaits me. And there are strategies to help me, however, most of the solutions start with not procrastinating, so you see the cycle I’m dealing with here.

However, when you’re really ready to deal with a problem, it is comforting to know that the advice you receive is direct and true, whether it’s couched in pretty language or not. Excusing a drinking problem with explanations of stress or abuse with excuses of a bad childhood yourself, keeps us locked in our destructive cycle. God’s Word calls it what it is and offers the solutions. How comforting.

It was a lot of fun. We rented an apartment clubhouse and I’d go in about 7 a.m., make my mother-in-law’s Famous Egg & Sausage Casserole, brew up coffee, slice fruit and generally get prepared — praying over each chair and table as I set up. By 8:15 they began stumbling in, still sleepy, but willing to get out of bed early to meet on Saturday. We played ice breakers, handed out door prizes, ate, laughed and got to know each other.   I brought a 45-minute Bible lesson and we managed it all in one and a half hours, start to finish. In the span of a few years I had approximately 40 different women who came through the door and were taught and mentored.

Then last fall we had a series of events that occurred in our church in which a large portion of our already small congregation moved out of state for new jobs, due to high unemployment in our area. This occurred at the same time that the apartment association of the clubhouse we were renting doubled our fees.  Suddenly we couldn’t afford to pay the rental fee for the club house. I brainstormed all sorts of scenarios: moving it to the church – something I didn’t feel was what God wanted me to do because I knew many of the women  would not attend. I considered asking for a small donation to help pay for the rental, but again, didn’t feel that was what God was directing.  So, as a last resort, I simply asked God what I should do. His answer was simple: Stop.

Stop? Stop a Bible study? But it’s going too good, God. Who will minister to these unchurched women? I’m having success here why would I quit?

Again, I heard: Stop.

So I made the announcement and stopped the Bible study. It was a very hard decision to explain, even to myself.

So, six months later, I look back on that decision and ponder what I learned from it.
1. I realize I am learning to trust His instruction even when it doesn’t make sense to me.
2. I find confidence that whatever God planned to be accomplished through the Bible study had been accomplished for this time and it was time to stop.
3. I understand that a plan that is birthed by God can be stopped at God’s discretion — ie: we should not beat programs (and ourselves) to death keeping something going past the time that God has decreed.

Too often, we can take a program that was birthed by God and when its time has been accomplished, and God allows obstacles to enter, we don’t ask if its fulfilled its purpose we – by hook and by crook – keep that program going.

The God who starts something is also able to say it’s time to stop. Listen carefully to what God is saying.  Don’t start something unless God has told you to do so and definitely, do not keep it running longer than he says it should.

God Bless,

Janice