As If There Is Anything Better In <br />The World Than Time With <br />Jesus And Your Girlfriends

I want to thank you who prayed for our women’s retreat this past weekend. How is it you can be crying buckets of tears one minute and laughing yourself into a stupor the next? I’m not certain, but I am willing to wager our men do not behave this way when they are together. What we have determined is that laughter is the best ab workout of all. You should see how buff we girls are..:))

I’m praising our God for being in our midst this weekend. The conference was entitled, ‘I AM – So You Don’t Have To Be’. We studied God in four contexts: I AM – Your Beauty, I AM – Your Sufficiency, I AM – Your Prestige, and I AM – Your Portion. I remain overwhelmed at the goodness of God who spoke to me so tenderly during the preparation for these lessons. He has truly shown me I can trade in my ‘am nots’ for His I AM – I’ll never be able to fully comprehend how He can transform so much personal dysfunction into a tool for wonders. I pray we will all be women who make our God famous!

I plan on sharing these messages with you here over the next few days. I hope they will continue to speak as they did this weekend. God’s Word can be trusted to do its perfect work. It will be in the days and weeks to come that we can see the fruit bearing that will take place because of His seed sown into our lives.

To the 26 girls who attended..What a blessing and encouragement you are to me! I am completely overwhelmed the Lord would place me in such a circle of friends, both old and new, from both within and outside our congregation, from teenagers to seniors. Seeing such diversity and love for one another, I am sure I witnessed a glimpse of heaven. Thank you for loving me and doing it quite well. Please know the affection is multiplied back to you ten-fold.

Here are a few photos from the weekend. Of course, I didn’t get near as many as I wanted. If you attended and have some to add, please email them to me!

March 26, 2007 | Filed Under Event Recaps, Uncategorized | 11 Comments 

CS Lewis Saturday

Mere Christianity – Preface

One can not get past the preface of this wonderful book without finding enough wisdom to fill pages. That is the gift of Lewis – few but profound words. He actually blistered me in the very first paragraph when he explained the editing process of turning these radio broadcasts in to printed matter. He explains that originally he used italics to emphasize the written words that he had also emphasized with his voice but later realized it was a mistake. He says, “A talker ought to use variations of voice for emphasis because his medium naturally lends itself to that method; but a writer ought not to use italics for the same purpose. He has his own, different, means of bringing out the key words and ought to use them.” So my friend C.S. would not like the way I emphasize my words, at all. *sigh*

Today’s Selected Quotes:

On his attempt at explaining ‘Mere Christianity’ and not simply putting forth as common something which would be peculiar to the Church of England:

“It is at her centre, where her truest children dwell, that each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine. And this suggests that at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice.”

I have learned from experience that when I was least “centered” is when I was the most argumentative. There are basic tenets of faith that all evangelicals hold to. Don’t you think it would make God smile if we could find unity in our commonality instead of being on the ‘lunatic fringe’?

To summarize the true purpose of the book, Lewis explains he does not intend to present an alternative to creeds of existing communions, but rather:

“It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in.”

So it is the hallway my girlfriends where we should strive to bring others. Not to say I don’t prefer they go through the same door as me, but I will have succeeded if I have inspired someone to try the doors.

Finally, in encouraging unity, Lewis urges us to obey the ‘rules of the house’:

“When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.”

The common rules of the house…I love that concept. May we be gracious to those whose chore charts differ from our own.

** Please join in with your own insights about these quotes….I am so interested in knowing what you take away from this…Have a great weekend!

March 21, 2007 | Filed Under CS Lewis Rocks | 5 Comments 

One Last Thing As I Happy Dance Around the Computer

I made a 100, I made a 100! On my New Testament Exam that is…wahooo!!!

Okay, I’m done now…

March 21, 2007 | Filed Under Things That Rock | 6 Comments 

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