Use your spiritual gifts and introduction of our trivia contest

Good morning everyone!

This week marks the second anniversary of our True Woman blog. Boy has time flied by. To celebrate this milestone, we are having a trivia contest along with our normal entries this week. Whoever has the most correct answers at the end of this week, will win a very nice prize!!! (because of cost restraints, we can only award a prize to members of the Missio Dei Fellowship) In case of a tie, we will have some kind of "tie breaker".

So, please read the blog entry and trivia question and if you know the answer, click on "Comments" at the bottom of the page and give it your best shot. Please make sure that you enter your name before you click send so we know who's answer is who's. If you would like to leave a comment about the blog entry, please do that as well.

We hope that you enjoy our blog and continue to check in each day during the contest and after the contest.

So, put on your thinking caps....

I read a good saying by Henry van Dyke this week. He says "Use what talents you possess: The forest would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best". That is so true. God has given us all spiritual gifts to use to bring glory to Him. We just need to step out in faith and use them.

I encourage you to ask God where He would like you to use your gift for Him. If you are open and watching for opportunities, I believe that He will show you. I have found that it is very rewarding to use my gifts in service to the Lord. I think you will too.

And now the moment you have been waiting for....(drum roll)....

Can you name the 12 apostles? Who replaced the one who betrayed Jesus?

Good luck!!!

Relationships –Pt 3

So what does it mean to show mercy in our relationships?

Again Ted Tripp and Tim Lane (from the book Relationships-- A Mess worth Making) make these main suggestions:

Mercy means you expect suffering in your relationships and are willing to endure it
Are you willing to be inconvenience and suffer for some else’s sake?

Mercy means you resist the temptation of favoritism
Truth is, we like whom we like and we stick to them. If we’re only comfortable showing hospitality to like minded people—we could show a little more mercy.

Mercy rejects a “personal happiness” agenda
As good trained Americans (living in America ) that we are, we are in the business of pursuing comfort, ease, relaxation, and happiness non stop. But are we willing to forgo those very things to bring comfort and ease to others?

Mercy means you overlook minor offences
Are you easily irritated by what other people say or do? We all have these annoyances that while we can be oblivious to them, we can be quite disturbed if others show their not so pretty side. Can you get over it?

Mercy means you live with a commitment to forgive
We will sin against others and inevitably they will sin against us. Offer what God offers you everyday.

Mercy does not compromise what is morally right and true
Here we don’t leave and turn our back from the sinner, or ignore the sin committed. We rather point them to God’s Law, God’s principles and persevere along side of them.

As I was writing this blog, I couldn’t but think about the many instances where Jaz, Betsy, and Nichole, have shown me mercy as we related to one another in this blog. Nichole stands out in my mind. When we first started this blog I new Nichole the least, but in time she got to know me close and personal as she faithfully editing my blogs and made me look like I knew where commas and periods belonged. Her tireless efforts to be flexible (especially with me…) were humbling and admirable. Her efforts, not mine, are what make her relationship to me a precious one. And today is her b-day--so happy birthday girl!!

I’ll end this with a quick announcement…

Today is my last day posting here at True Women. And though my relationship with these very especial friends of mine does not depend on this blog, I sure will miss interacting with them on a weekly basis. I don’t know if I’ll be back, but I’m sure if I ask nicely they’ll let me visit from time to time...They delight in serving our Lord via this blog. They don’t take their job lightly and mind you no one is asking or expecting them to—they just do it for the Lord. But now it’s my turn to become their most faithful reader and biggest fan and so I will!

Relationships – Pt 2

I remember going to the priest, one time as a teenager and confessing to him how I just couldn’t stand certain people and how I would get so irritated and annoyed by them. His response though shocking has resonated with me ever since as he uttered these words; “have you ever considered that others may find you irritating and annoying as well?” I was speechless…and you know that’s hard for me to do!! You may laugh, but all too often without even knowing or even intending we act as though we’re the greatest gift to society and not only that, we act as people’s holy spirit, and we expect them to “conform to ourselves.” We’re naturally bent to please ourselves. As women, we not only are good at making it all revolve around us, at times, but with our friend visiting every month you could be a victim of being at the wrong place at the wrong time…

When we consider all the relationships we come in contact with in our work place, at school, in our family, our extended family, our church family, our hobbies, we can get caught up in the agendas and logistics of it all and lose sight of the goal in our relationships. The goal is to reflect God at work in us. Unfortunately, the more I talk to women in particular, the more I hear how there’s a lack of tolerance for others, how loneliness is a real thing, and without a doubt how much they desire for better functioning relationships. We want mature relationships without the growing pains.

So, for time sake I won’t explore the million reasons why relationships are hard, though you know that at the heart of the matter is our sin of self-centerness.

But, what can we do to reflect Christ likeness in our relationships? Consider mercy. Mercy is like humility, we all desire it; we read books, we talk about it, we challenge others to do that (like me right now), but we wish talking and reading all about it would equal practicing them. But why do we find it so hard to practice mercy? Paul Tripp & Tim Lane put it this way, in their book:

“We want to think of ourselves as fundamentally different from the people who need mercy when, in fact, we are the same. We too are flawed people; we too need mercy every day of our lives. But it is more comfortable to think of ourselves as righteous and strong while others are needy and weak. So, when it comes to mercy, we are double-minded. We’d rather give mercy than need it, but even then, we wish the giving wasn’t so costly—and revealing.”

Not showing mercy reveals our love of other things rather than God and the things of God. But we’ve been treated with immeasurable amount of mercy from our Heavenly Father. Those of us saved by the blood of Christ know mercy wasn’t earned or deserved—it was a gift. And none of us would want God to stop showing us mercy. Showing mercy to others not only will change your relationships—but it will change you.

I’ll finish up on Thursday with some practical applications on how to show mercy to others.

So let’s get out there and show mercy to others today.

We Were Made For Relationships

I once heard that the babies of the family tend to be very friendly and practically have never met a "stranger." I am the baby of my family (thank goodness, after 8 kids...) and if you know me, you would know that, that is for the most part true of myself. I may lack in other places, but not in relationships or friendships. However, I pursue relationships sometimes without even giving a second thought. Last week Jasmine directed us to an article encouraging women to seek five specific types of woman relationships. I found it extremely helpful and encouraging but these words really caught my attention; "Look for a woman who makes her relationship with God a priority." I can honestly say I didn't seek these types of women in my life--they CAME to me! I've been richly blessed in that department, and is not due to my wise choices and irresistible personality, but rather God's mercy on me. The more I considered the subject of friendships and relationships I realized we cannot be best friends with everyone and have the privilege of having five real good friends. More often than not, what we have are relationships; you know the occasional visit to that friend of yours from High School or college, and then there are the relationships that take work to have, and the ones that are not so impressed by you and your talents and they make you grit your teeth... and the ones that we hide from, and of course the ones you wish you did not have to have...

In my search for more "bosom friend" relationships material, I found this very insightful book called Relationships A Mess Worth Making by Tim Lane and Paul Tripp. In only the first few pages he makes the argument that we must not be surprised that we (male and female) long for relationships. We were created in the image of God and in the Trinity we find a community of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Neat huh? I never thought of it that way. Good, I can breath easier now, my delight in relationships is not, after all, such a crazy idea to pursue. The authors go on to say that the problem with relationships is not that we have them, but that we don't give them their proper place. They quote C.S. Lewis with this:

When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.

So, they make the point to say that this may not always be so clear to us, but the following could be evidences of reversing the order of things:

Letting go of a moment of hurt
Becoming defensive when challenged
Avoiding conflict out of fear
Being too political at work
Gossiping about people
Pursuing comfortable relationships and avoiding difficult ones
Doubting God when our relationships are messy
Envying other people's friendships
Controlling relationships out of a desire for security
Blowing up at people when our agendas are trampled
Living in bitter isolation in the face of disappointment


Okay my "bosom friends", we'll talk about this more next week. Have a safe and blessed weekend!!