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If you’re a parent of a teenage daughter, then this is the Christmas gift you want under your tree this season. Beautifully written by Lindsay Franklin, Adored: 365 Devotions for Young Women, affirms the truths of Scripture that your daughter is a precious daughter of God. Each daily devotional begins with a Scripture, relevant topical devotional, as well as space for your daughter to journal her thoughts or a prayer. Make this your daughter’s devotional for the coming year. 
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Kimberly Rae, Amazon bestselling author, has skillfully written the suspense thriller, The Shadow, the first book in the series, Rahab’s Rope. Through fictional story-telling, Kimberly highlights the horrific realities of human trafficking in India. Relevant and gripping, The Shadow, gives a glimpse into an issue in the forefront of the church at large, human trafficking, by using fiction to bring the reader into this dark, underground world. What I find unique about this book, is that the reader is given the opportunity to actually help the survivors of human trafficking in India. You don’t want to miss this suspense thriller!   Author, Debbie Johnson, has written a beautiful daily devotional called, A Pocketful of Seeds: When We Sow Life Happens.
This devotional is unique because each daily inspiration gives an idea or “daily seed” which challenges the reader to take action and make a change in their world. Debbie basis each devotional on Scripture and encourages the reader to take action, to take the Seed Challenge and sow seeds of change into your world every day for a year. This powerful, unique and creative book will keep you excited about your devotional reading every single day. Enjoy A Pocketful of Seeds: When We Sow Life Happens and sow seeds of change in your world!  Cherish…I love this word. I cherish my great grandmother’s quilts that hang lovingly in our home. I cherish my daughter’s dedication gown that’s made out of my wedding dress. I cherish these items. But, to me the word, cherish, means so much more than an emotional attachment to an object. It’s a relational word. The reason I cherish these objects is because of whom they belonged to. So, today, I want to explore what it means to cherish your spouse. It’s not a word we use much today…but it’s still a powerful word full of meaning.
Cherish means to cultivate with care and affection, to harbor in the mind deeply and resolutely. Let’s break down each meaning of cherish and see how it can help us have a healthy, loving marriage. 1. To cultivate with care and affection: Honestly, when I first got married this took me a while to figure out. The word cultivate always reminds me of a field of crops or a garden. My mom had a rose garden. To make her roses the best they could be, she would meticulously prune them, weed around them and fertilize them with – believe it or not, Maxwell coffee grounds. When the roses bloomed she would place vases of them around our home. So how do you cultivate your marriage? One thing I had to do was learn to keep the weeds out by being slow to speak. I can have a sharp tongue so I’ve learned to think before I speak so I don’t inflict damage with my words. Something else that keeps the weeds out is prayer. Praying for your husband every day helps your marriage to thrive and stay healthy. Like most men, my husband, loves physical touch so I had to be sensitive to his needs for physical affection. He loves it when I hold his hand or put my arm around him in public. Here are some more ideas on how cultivate care and affection:
2. To harbor in the mind deeply and resolutely: I view my marriage as a gift from God. On our wedding day, Mark and I made a covenant before God and to one another, and so we are resolute in our determination to make our marriage healthy and thriving. Because it is a priority to us, we have a date night every week. We keep the date on our calendars and we make sure nothing takes precedent over our time together. Here are some ideas to keep your marriage in your mind deeply and resolutely:
I’d love to hear your ideas of how to cherish your husband!  You know when you hold your new baby close in your arms and ask yourself all those questions moms ask? What’s she going to be like when she grows up? Who will she marry? What will she want to do with her life?
About two weeks ago and twenty years later, I found myself facing the answer to one of those questions. My daughter was setting out on an adventure hundreds of miles away from home, away from me. We found ourselves taking her hundreds of miles across country to live in a new city, with new people for a fantastic opportunity. Of course I always knew she would leave home. And it’s not that I didn’t want her to have this amazing opportunity. It’s just that my heart was breaking into a million pieces. It took us 3 days to drive her to her destination, and at times I would find myself just looking at her through the rearview mirror, thanking God for her, and simultaneously asking God for strength to let her go. Letting go of her, of each of my children, has been some of the hardest chapters of my life. Just this weekend while I was doing my grocery shopping, a mom of two rambunctious boys was in the cereal aisle at Target. If you’ve had two boys as I have, you know the excitement and chaos that can occur when boys are making their cereal choices. Her two boys got loud and hyped about their Cheerios. This mom looked at me with “that look” and said, “Tell me it gets better.” I told her it does but then I added, “Treasure these moments because they pass so quickly.” Then I walked away with puddles in my eyes. I miss those days. Let's be honest, making friends at any age isn't always easy. Join Julia as she gives helpful advice on making friends.
The burbs. I love them. I was raised in the suburbs. I’ve raised my family in the suburbs. The manicured lawns, close proximity to shops, restaurants, and schools, make the burbs this girl’s ideal place to live. Unlike living on a farm or the inner city, one of the things I love best about the suburbs is that it is a rat-free zone. NO RATS ALLOWED. It’s an unwritten code between rats and people; rats don’t dare tread in suburbia. They have the inner city sewers and farm fields in which to live happily ever after.
At least that was my experience until we moved to a meticulously planned community in sunny Florida. Florida is crawling with creatures many of us don’t see for a lifetime unless of course you move there and then they are everywhere: alligators lumbering from golf course to golf course, Sandhill cranes crossing roads with their newborns, sharks swimming in the gulf, but the one that caused me to lose my mind was (pretend you hear the soundtrack to jaws in the back ground) the fruit rat. If your neighbor has any kind of fruit trees in her backyard, chances are you will encounter rats in yours. And that’s what happened to us. Sitting in the backyard, enjoying the cool spring evening breeze, my husband, Mark, and I heard a rustle in the bushes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a black tail going in and out of the fence posts. I thought it was a snake until I saw its furry body and beady eyes. It definitely was not a snake but a rat…oh yeah…a disgusting rat. Like any normal red-blooded American female, I screamed bloody murder, and commanded my husband to obliterate it! My husband couldn’t find it so we thought it was one and done but oh no; night after night we saw a parade of rats running along our fence. I. WAS. SERIOUSLY.GROSSED. OUT. We set traps and strategically placed poison throughout the yard. We even pleaded with our neighbor to cut down her orange tree. She did not. So, the problem continued. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we found the little monsters nestled underneath our Rubbermaid storage shed in the corner of our yard. So here’s the deal. My mind snapped and I went into Boss Lady Mode. I directed my fifteen year old son to tear down that storage shed and get rid of their nest. While I was at work the next day, my son, called me yelling, “Mom, there are so many of them! I can’t get them all!” “What do you mean? Can’t get what?” “I’m shooting the rats with my BB gun.” “What? Your BB gun?” So, I’m hearing this scene play out over my cell while I’m at work. At first I thought he was crazy for trying to kill the rats with a BB gun, but at that point, my fifteen year old son was my knight in shining armor and I didn’t care. Totally in the zone, forgetting I was at work, I started screaming into the phone, “Get em! Get as many as you can!” I wanted those rats EVICTED from my property. I wanted, no, I needed those rats evicted off the face of the planet. My plan of action worked. With no storage shed for a hiding place, poison in every corner, and the threat of death by bb gun, the rats eventually left. Victory was mine! My burbs were safe once again. God has set us up for victory too. Satan wants nothing more than to steal, kill and destroy us. However, God made a way for us to overcome the enemy and evict him out of our lives by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. We have to resist him every day. He is the father of lies and wants us to believe every single lie he puts before us, and when we hear the voice of less in our minds, we need to counter act it by speaking the truth; the Word of God. James 4:7 says, “Resist the devil and he will flee.” We resist him by speaking the Word of God, worshiping, sharing our testimonies, and staying in His presence. Stand firm and learn to evict the enemy out of your life!  After years of abuse as a child, I built prison walls around my heart only the bars were made of anger; anger trying to hide the rejection and hurt I had experienced. I so desperately wanted to find the emotional intimacy that I didn’t get as a kid. Until one day, in the month of July 1981, I met Someone. He reached down into my broken mess and rescued me. That Someone is Jesus Christ, and since then I’ve been in a relationship with Him and He continues to give me a Fresh Start EVERY SINGE DAY. The Bible says in Lamentations 3:22-23, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Having experienced such pain and wounding as a child, to be able to experience His mercies every day is such a gift. AND it’s not just for me. It’s for each of you too. God is no respecter of persons. What He does for me He will do for you too. There are 3 things I want you to take with you today: Having experienced such pain and wounding as a child, to be able to experience His mercies every day is such a gift. AND it’s not just for me. It’s for each of you too. God is no respecter of persons. What He does for me He will do for you too. There are 3 things I want you to take with you today: Having experienced such pain and wounding as a child, to be able to experience His mercies every day is such a gift. AND it’s not just for me. It’s for each of you too. God is no respecter of persons. What He does for me He will do for you too. There are 3 things I want you to take with you today: 1. God is the Greatest Advocate for Women 2. God loves Fresh Starts 3. God ALWAYS provides a way out of temptation. God is the Greatest Advocate for Women His genealogy is dotted with women who lived outside of societal norms for their time and culture. Women such as Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba brought such things in His history as incest, prostitution, adultery and interethnic marriage which was forbidden in that culture. Author and psychologist, Dr. Diana Langberg, writes, “Jesus arrived as the seeming illegitimate son of a virgin in a culture that should have stoned her because she was very much outside the parameters. She did not maintain her role or place in that society…He went from there to swim upstream by saying things like looking on a female as a sex object is the equivalent of adultery (worthy of stoning in that culture). He began His ministry by blessing an unnamed bride in Cana. Women publicly traveled with Him, a stunning and offensive situation in that culture. He treated one woman as a male disciple when He affirmed her presence at His feet and treated another as an apostle when He paused in His work of saving the world to raise a girl-child from the dead, returned a son to a widow and brother to two grieving women. He accorded women dignity, honor, safety, education, and privilege.” And maybe that’s why He could relate so well to women and loves giving them, us, a Fresh Start. God Loves Fresh Starts You find her story in the Gospels (Mark 5:21-43, Matthew 9:18-26, Luke 8:40-56). Tired and weak, this woman had endured bleeding for 12 years. She spent all of her money seeking help from physicians and still was unable to find a cure. Hearing that a man named Jesus could heal the sick, she desperately wanted to find Him. After searching for Him, she found Jesus in the midst of a crowd. Pushing her way towards Him, she extended her hand and touched His hem. At that very moment, she began to tremble knowing that she was healed. Instinctively, she fell at His feet and told Him her story. Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.” (Mark 5:34) Like Tina, she experienced hope, grace, and love. Another woman, desperately in need of help, was pulled out of a room and into the street as the men looked forward to her stoning. She was caught with a man who was not her husband. Taken to Jesus, she was sure her life was over, but instead, she found life and not death, grace instead of judgment, love instead of shame. Jesus’ final words to a broken and promiscuous woman were, “Go and do not sin again.” There was no judgment in his words. Her sexual activity was not a secret to Jesus. They both knew what she had been doing. Yet the words, “neither do I condemn you,” took the condemnation away, filling her with hope. If there was a judgment to be found it was in the hearts of the self-righteous men who brought her to Jesus hoping to stone her to death. Rather, they came up against love personified and scattered away. The woman experienced healing because of this life-giving encounter with Jesus. And finally, we find Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman about issues of the heart. Sexual customs and prejudices were eradicated by Jesus when He spoke with her. The Bible says that Jews had no dealings with Samaritans let alone a Samaritan woman. He revealed that He knew of her five marriages as well as her current relationship. Astonished by His revelations of her life, she became a Christ-follower and influenced many in Samaria to become followers as well. John 4:39 (NAS) says, “From that city, many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all the things that I have done.’” Because Jesus was THE ultimate advocate for women, each life-giving interaction between Jesus and these women ended in something positive: freedom, healing, and conversions. God Always Provides a Way Out from Temptation As you begin your journey with a fresh start, you may encounter some of the same people, situations and old temptations will rear their ugly heads. Please remember that our God ALWAYS PROVIDES – ALWAYS PROVIDES – ALWAYS PROVIDES A WAY OUT. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.” When you feel stressed and your back is against the wall and you are tempted to do something you know is wrong…Look around, be observant and aware. He will provide a way out. Remember Ladies, He passionately loves you – each of you – you are precious beautiful women. He loves giving you a Fresh Start and His mercies are new for you every single day. Let me pray. “Father, thank You for fresh starts, for Your unending love, and Your mercies that are ours every single day. We love You. Help us to glorify You with our lives. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”  Hi, Ladies! This is session 8 and boy, it is a doozy! Navigating the Male-Dominated Church World is an interesting chapter and a topic that’s been a source of contention within Christendom.
I never intended to write a theological position on women leading in the church; however, I wanted to present different leadership experiences that women have had in churches. But for today, I want to focus on page 183 of chapter 8, on the following two paragraphs about how women view themselves. “I researched a few top songs of 2013: Pitbull’s, Timber, Lady Gaga’s, Do What You Want, and Justin Timberlake’s, Suit and Tie. After reading the lyrics, women are portrayed as sexual objects. Is it any wonder women often see themselves as sexual objects instead of women afforded all the honor, dignity and esteem of a daughter of the King. Here is an idea you won’t find in the lyrics of pop culture: 1Timothy 5:2 we read “Treat older women as you would your mother, and treat younger women with all purity as you would your own sisters.” (NLT) For the woman coming through the doors of a life-giving church for the first time, she needs her mind transformed by the living Word of God, His love and grace. She needs to know that Jesus was the ADVOCATE for women, affording them honor, dignity, and significance. She needs to know that God’s Holy Spirit is for men and women as the Bible says in Joel 2:28-29 “Then, after doing all those things, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants—men and women alike.” (NLT) She needs the opportunity to serve and worship in life-giving churches where she can be fully equipped to do the works of the ministry in all the fullness that God has for her. This is Life-Giving Leadership! Questions: Who or what helped you to form how you view yourself as a woman? As a leader? How can we help our daughters as well as the women we influence to value themselves? Prayer: Father, help us as women who love You and follow You, to represent You well in every area of our lives. Help us to steward wisely the opportunities to lead within the local church, our work, our families and our communities. We love You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. http://www.juliamateer.org/ |
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