I'm Grateful For ...

What am I grateful for this Thanksgiving? It’s simple – that I know, really know and experience God in all of His power and glory in my life.

Approximately twenty years ago I sat around the table with seven other women from different denominations and walks of life at a Walk to Emmaus retreat. My heart grew heavier and heavier over the weekend as I realized that each one of these women didn’t know the Word of God and consequently didn’t know my friend Jesus. I ached for them. I couldn’t imagine living life without a living, dynamic relationship with God.

As I sat there I thought about how knowing God– His Words – His heart had made all the difference in my life. Given me security when parents were gone for a month to find a new job and home. Given me resilience when the days were dark with the confusing betrayal of a father who’s supposed to love not hurt. Held me up during repeated rejection in the awkward teen years. I hid under his wings during depression and stood in the high tower of Christ when I just couldn’t take anymore. His Words were the anchor of my soul. His grace my enabling power to keep on going. The Holy Spirit my protection, comfort and guide. Christ’s love enfolded me bringing healing to the ache of my soul. His acceptance ignited life and hope.

Yes – knowing Jesus was the greatest thing in all the world – just the greatest and everybody’s got to know who Jesus is --- my Savior, deliverer, constant companion, lover of my soul, hope rising, health and healing, mentor, guide, encourager, comfort and yes – my best friend.

So this Thanksgiving I give thanks for all the people who made it possible for me to know my Jesus. My grandmothers who prayed, my mother who took me to church and lived for Jesus, my teachers and pastors and so many other people. I thank God that He has revealed Himself to us and He is a personal God.

But, my heart is still heavy because there are so many who come to church but really don’t know God or His Word. They aren’t experiencing Him, as God desires. I hope as an act of Thanksgiving you will open your whole heart and life to experiencing God more fully.

Graham Kendrick wrote a song that says it best:

All I once held dear, built my life upon,

All this world reveres and wars to own,

All I once thought gain I have counted loss,

Spent and worthless now compared to this.

Knowing You, Jesus, knowing you.

There is no greater thing.

You're my all, You're the best, You're my joy,

My righteousness; and I love You, Lord.

For those of us who really know him, let’s give back this Thanksgiving by sharing our life with Christ with others in tangible way. Thanksgiving is not just an attitude it’s also an action. Get out there and do acts of Thanksgiving.

Gratefully -- Angela

That Was Easy

Trying desperately to open my hermetically sealed turkey breast, I reached for my kitchen scissors and cut through the hard plastic, pulled it apart only to find it was sealed in yet another level of softer plastic. Try as I might to open the plastic, it would not budge. Once again I reached for my kitchen scissors.

I don’t know about you but ten years ago I didn’t have kitchen scissors. I didn’t even need kitchen scissors. My only scissors were safely tucked away in my sewing box. But now? I use kitchen scissors all the time.

There may have been a time in your life when you didn’t seem to need the Bible so much either. It may have been relegated to the bookshelf in your bedroom or den. But in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in desperate times. We really need the Word not just on Sundays or for the occasional emergency but at our fingers tips, as close as the kitchen scissors.

You may be facing some impossible situations in your life, and like me with the sealed turkey breast, you’re using the wrong tool to deal with them. The appropriate tool is God’s Word. What does He have to say about your situation?

Too many times we wallow in our circumstances, or go to well meaning friends but it leaves us frustrated and more desperate. God’s Word has everything we need for “life and godliness” according to 2 Peter 2:3.

As the kitchen scissors have more than one use, so God’s Word is not only a good tool to use in difficult situations but also for maturing and becoming all God has designed us to be.

“2 Timothy 2:15-16 tells us:

“And how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith I Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

It’s God’s goal for us to be thorough equipped for every good work He has created us to do. We cannot do it without knowing His Word. Isn’t it time to take our Bible out of hiding and leave it where we can see if often? Read it, memorize it, make 3 x 5 cards of scripture and put in our sight lines at home, in the car or at work.

We need to make the Word as accessible as the kitchen scissors. Then maybe, like Staples, you can say, “that was easy.”

Easy Suggestions for Making Friends

I recently suggested to someone that they needed to make some friends. She quickly asked, “How do I do that?” I as quickly quoted Proverbs 18:24 “A man that has friends must show himself friendly…” Being friendly can be challenging when you’re an introvert or you’ve had negative experiences with friendships in the past. But, the past is the past. Learn from it and move on because we are all wired to need friends.

1. Start with where you are – at work, at the Gym, in a small group or at an activity you enjoy. Many times friendships are started or built based on common interests. Like -minded people are found in the places you love to be. But you will need to spark a conversation – be friendly.

2. Show Genuine Interest in the Other person. Ask simple questions about their job, family and interests and really listen. Don’t pry, just showing an interest in them and really listening can put them at ease with you. Look at them while you are listening, don’t allow yourself to be distracting by others or by thinking about what you will say next. Just listen and say what comes naturally in response.

3. Get out of your comfort zone to connect. Sometimes we hide in our offices during the staff Birthday party or at lunch. When I worked at Olivet College I purposefully ate in the break room with others rather than staying in my office. I didn’t always appreciate the jokes but I was connecting instead of avoiding. Go to the next social event at church – Chick Café’, Church Picnic, CAG Day Celebration dinner and meet people and be friendly.

4. Smile – a smile is your best support in making friends. It makes you look friendly. Look people in the eye when you say “hello” and genuinely smile. You’re smiling at a potential friend. Start a conversation about the weather or something not controversial.

5. Be friendly by making the first move. Send an email sharing information or a website about your common interest. Just start communicating and use the mode they enjoy – Facebook, email, text or phone. Push through your fear of rejection or being overwhelmed and just go for it – ask them for coffee, lunch or to do something interesting. Maybe a road trip that involves your common interest.

6. If you’re really shy, ask a leader at work or church to help introduce you to different people to break the ice. If you go to a Sunday School class or church event let someone know that you need help getting to know people. There are those of us who love to help connect people. Express you fears or concerns so that they can be sensitive to you. But when it comes down to it you will still need to show yourself friendly.

7. Host a Fun Event either at your home or in a restaurant. Maybe a girls night out, a dinner party, a celebration of some sort – just because you want to. A jewelry or make-up party, pampered chef, whatever – the list is endless. If it’s a common interest party then all the better. Scrapbooking, gardening, motorcycling, decorating. Just find a reason to be social to get people together. Even suggest that they invite a friend or two.

8. Know what you want in a Friend. Loyalty, confidant, faithfulness, fun, intelligent conversation, support, challenge. Also know what you don't want and don't go there -- controlling, domineering, overwhelming, boundry crosser, etc. It takes time and patience. Friendship doesn't happen overnight.

Yes, friendship can be scary or risky and always has the possibility of pain. But pain is not misery; it’s a normal part of life. When you find a good friend you find a gift and you give a gift. You need friends more than you know or understand. Do whatever it takes to be a friend and make a friend.

Falling In Love Can Be Hazardous

Falling in love is exhilarating! There’s nothing like it! You feel more alive than any other time in life. But falling in love can be hazardous to your health if you allow the heart to block your thinking. Heartbreak is inevitable.

It surprises me that young people think that healthy dating habits come naturally! They think they would never fall in love with someone who would later break their hearts and the hearts of their children.

But after forty years of marriage and ministry, Pastor and I have seen an unbelievable amount of miserable couples, broken families and devastated children. None of us thinks it will happen to us. But it does. If we don't prepare and plan for success then no preparation or planning naturally leads to failure. No one wants to fail but so few want to prepare or plan. It means admitting we don't have all the answers and that goes against our pride. Last time I heard, "Pride goes before a fall."

Fifty percent of Christian couples end up in divorce – the same rate as non-Christians. This doesn’t include the couples who stay together but haven’t grown in their relationship skills enough to even be happy. They don't know how to communicate, resolve conflict, validate each others dreams and the list goes on.

What is the cause? Well, Dr. John Van Epps will tell us the major cause is faulty dating. What we do in dating sets us up for poor choices and latter heartbreak. Marriage relationships are difficult enough with someone with whom you are compatible; but unbearable if they end of being incompatible.

In our Love Thinks Workshop next Saturday, March 5^th, you can prepare yourself with the knowledge needed to develop skill in dating. Then you can use that skill for making better decisions and building healthier relationships. That's a good place to start.

Go to www.lovethinksde.com to register today! I hope to see you there!

My Stint as a Jerk

What do you think of when you hear the word “Jerk?” One person told me, “When I hear the word jerk, I think of someone who is a really bad and lousy person with little or no value, especially for marriage.” We probably all have different definitions of the word jerk according to our experience. But that is not the one we’re looking for here.

Maybe we should look at the dictionary’s definition for jerk.

Definition of Jerk: Slang. . a contemptibly naive, fatuous, foolish, or inconsequential person.

Naïve: lack of experience, judgment or information. Credulous; little or no formal training

Credulous: willing to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence; gullible.

Fat·u·ous /ˈfætʃuəs/ - foolish or inane, especially in an unconscious, complacent manner; silly.

Foolish = resulting from or showing a lack of sense; ill-considered; unwise: a foolish action, a foolish speech. Lacking forethought or caution.

So, if we go by the dictionary definition a Jerk is “someone who lacks experience, judgment or information.” When I started dating as a teenager I would say that definitely described me. I think it describes most teens and many young adults. I had gathered no experience or information about how to go about a dating relationship without getting taken advantage of, hurting the other person or making many mistakes of judgment

I was definitely credulous in that I was too willing and ready to trust. I just expect other people to be trustworthy since I am. How naïve! I don’t think I was “fatuous” but a little foolish, “yes”. I lacked caution because I was naïve and too trusting. So I guess you could say I was a jerk and didn’t even know it.

By the time I started dating the man who is now my husband I had learned some information about what I wanted and didn’t want in a man. I had some experience but not enough. At one point we both realized that the relationship was going too quickly. We had to pull in the reigns of the runaway horse, so to speak. We were at college and we ate together, worked together, studied together and had fun together. We realized that we needed to see each other less and pace the relationship or we wouldn’t be able to keep to our values.

One night after two hours on the phone with him arguing about who I smiled at that day, I realized he was a jealous man. I absolutely knew jealousy was one thing I just couldn’t tolerate. I broke off the relationship. I told him I would pray for him and that I loved him but jealousy was one thing I wouldn’t live with. Had we not paced the relationship better, my head would not have gotten through to my heart. After a month of us both being apart and fasting and praying, he was delivered from the insecurities that drove his jealousy.

How did we know we needed to recalibrate the pace of our relationship? It was because our heads were still working with our hearts in the relationship. We weren’t so emotionally or physically involved that the hormones hijacked our judgment. This is one of the principles taught in the Love Thinks Workshop.

You won’t learn this important information in a movie or magazine. But for the price of a couple of movies and a soda, you can learn what you need to practice for healthy relationships in every area of life.

How to know if you're a Jerk

Most of us would never think that we would fall in love with a Jerk. But just talk to many who are divorced and they’ll tell you they didn’t either. So just what are the criteria for being a jerk? Well, first Jerks come in both genders; it’s not specific to one gender.

According to Dr. John Van Epp, founder of Love Thinks, the most fundamental identifying feature of true jerks is their persistent resistance to never changing their core jerk qualities. NEVER! Of course, they never show these qualities before you are blinded by the hormones that produce the euphoria that causes you to be blind to them. The part of your brain ithat produces judgment is literally turned off by the hormones so you don’t see the negative traits until it’s too late.

What are some of those core jerk qualities?

• Jerks habitually break boundaries
• Players – play the field, need the fix.
• Space invaders – what’s yours is mine; entitled to your attention, interest, money, time, and emotional support. You have to adjust to their agenda
• Utter Inability to see anything from anyone else’s perspective –
• This will be very frustrating but easy to overlook at first.
• You never feel understood or validated.
• In time you feel invisible to your partner
• Dangerous lack of emotional controls or balance
• Failure to express emotions appropriately immobilizes ones ability to build healthy relationships.
• Immature and emotionally turbulent or
• Emotionally flat and inexpressive
• Either explosive and overly reactive or
• Flatliners – seem easy going but later you discover that they are cold and detached.
• Emotionally unstable people are usually very good at the beginning of the relationship.

Believe me, Pastor and I have dealt with many married couples who never realized they were displaying the qualities of a jerk because they were blinded to their own selfish, issue produced behavior.

So What are the Signs of Being in Danger of Falling for a Jerk?

Relationship too fast paced’ accelerated attachment is like superglue

· Overlook and minimize problems

· Blinds vision; see the part and not the whole.

· Intoxicates your hormones and emotions so that you feel safe and secure in the poor relationship.

You could be in love with a jerk or be a jerk and not even realize it. I’ll share Pastor and my experience of being jerks in the next post and what we did. But until then, please consider attending this workshop to empower you to build a healthy dating relationship instead of being blinded by love.

Go to www.lovethinksde.com for more information or to register.

“Emotional Bonding is intrinsic to relationships and learning how you bond provides a practical guide for pacing your relationships. This is way to be immunized against the love-is-blind infection.” Dr. John Van Epp

Choosing to Love

With Valentines day just a few days away there’s lots of emphasis on love and the heart. Usually the emphasis is on your heart throb boyfriend or husband and how he will show his love. I heard one lady was thrilled to receive a specific iron that she really wanted. That would definitely not be something that said “I love you sooooooo much” for me. Yet, I’ve been disappointed in the dinners out with steak too rare or tough, too long of a wait, restaurant freezing and a whole list of other date dampening experiences.

Recently, I came home late from work and my loving husband had bought lean pork chops for me to make for dinner. I was bone tired on a Friday night and my body was screaming, “take me out, pleeeease.” Instead, I gathered my resources and stood cooking for an hour. We had one of the best meals I’ve eaten in a long time and a great date night. We hadn’t planned every detail or spent a lot of money but it rivaled many of our Valentine meals out.

Love can be spontaneous, unexpected moments of happiness and connecting with our husbands. Some of my best planned have been my most disappointing times. The over expectation of Valentines Day can set us up for disappointment. Love really is more of a choice than a feeling. Once the euphoria of hormones has settled in the dust of courtship, what remains are moment by moment choices to love and be loved.

My husband had chosen to love by grocery shopping and I had chosen to love by cooking. Love is a joint effort in marriage. I’m not sure if we will top that date night but I know he makes choices to love every day; not just Valentines day.

I hope your Valentines day celebration will be a good one but even more I hope you choose to love all year long in big and small ways, unexpected and spontaneous ways that say, “I love you soooooo much!”

Don't Forget!

In Deuteronomy 6, God tells the Israelites, whatever you do, “don’t forget the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt.” (verse 12) God knew that they had a pattern of forgetting Him. They would forget His faithfulness, His miracles, His provision and protection.

What caused this chronic forgetfulness? Influences from outside the nation was the main culprit. The Moabites, Philistines, Jebusites – you name them. As the Israelites intermarried and did business with the surrounding nations, they were influenced to add their gods to their worship. Eventually they would forsake the worship of the one true God -- Jehovah.

But it wasn’t just the outside influences, it was their humanness or sinful nature. That nature had a tendency to wander far from God. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” (Isa. 53) The sinful nature likes to play god, as if we know better than Him. The sinful nature wants its’ own way.

We aren’t any different today. We are prone to wander too -- far from God. We’re constantly bombarded by evil or negative influences all around us. Some we could block by our choices, but others just hit us in the face when we leave our homes. We also question God’s ways and will. We think we know better than God. We are all too human.

Unlike the Israelites we have an advantage. We are in the New Covenant of grace. Christ’s sacrifice broke the power of the sinful nature and set us free to be like Christ. However, we have to learn daily to grow and walk in this new freedom. This takes some concentration, commitment and intentionality.

That’s what God was really talking about in Deuteronomy 6. Jesus said that all the commandments can be rolled up into this, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and with all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.” Falling madly in love with God with all that I am will express itself in all I do. This is a process of intentional growth in our love for God. It’s a constant process of dying to those influences that would pull me away from God, and giving attention to those things that cause me to be mindful of God.

Read the first seven verses of Deuteronomy 6 and think about how you would apply that truth for the twenty-first century. Stop right now – read and apply for your life.

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

I don’t know about you, but I’m an “out of sight, out of mind person.” I need constant reminders. Besides reading the Word and praying, I sing praises while taking my shower, post scriptures to remember from devotions to pop up in my computer task bar, set alarms on my phone to “set my mind on things above”, play worship songs at home and in the car. I may not write the Word on the doorpost or gates but I have them memorized in my heart and I have scripture on my refrigerator. I do regularly share what God has impressed upon me from scripture and write it in my journal. My conversation does include the Lord and many times it’s been your sharing that has influenced me.

I hope you’ll comment about how you would apply these verses for our times. We need to help one another be more consciously aware of God’s presence and power in our lives. We need to be influenced more by the things of God than by the things of this world. How will we do this in 2011?

2011 Here We Boldly Come!

It’s a new year and there’s something about beginning a new year that makes me want to de-clutter, clean house and re-organize. My office at church has desperately needed some attention so I dove into the process. I threw away bags of the obsolete, archived the old but useful or important, gave away what could be used by someone but no longer needed by me, and re-organized my office.

While looking through the box of production pictures from years past, I was overwhelmed with emotion. Tears flooded my eyes and poured down my cheeks as my chest heaved with the memories of what God has done. Yes, I saw pictures of people who have moved on, moved away or even died. But it wasn’t that which produced this emotion.

It was the memory of the fear I used to face with each production met by the constant faithfulness of God. I used to ask myself, “What in the world have I committed to? God, isn’t there someone else more qualified, more creative, more confident than me?” Fear of not having enough people for each highly creative portion of the musicals used to haunt me? When we first started I did a little bit of everything but sound. But as the ministry grew, I had to believe that God would bring along the talent needed and so, He did.

Then when we moved into the new sanctuary in late 2002 I wondered, “Okay, God, how are we going to fill all this space with sets?” ‘How will we ever get it all done in time? But, I had learned that God is faithful. So now when the fear hit the pit of my stomach, I responded “But God is faithful.” And, He was.

These pictures represented God’s faithfulness. I was overwhelmed not with fear but with gratitude for God’s continual faithfulness through all the years.

There’s an old song that says, “Many things about tomorrow, I don’t seem to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow and I know He holds my hand.” None of us know what 2011 holds for us personally, our families, our jobs, our church or our nation. But this one thing we can know – God is faithful and no matter what comes our way, He is with us to help and support, to cheer and encourage, and to bless and empower.

No fear in 2011! Let trust in God calm our spirits and soothe our troubled minds. As God has been faithful to me through every detail of the musicals through over twenty years, so He will be faithful to us as we “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” 2011, here we boldly come!