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Ugly Shoes
I had to share one of the stories that a minister's wife posted on our forum. It is a make you smile a "crooked smile" story. Read it and be blessed with how she handled a "DCM"
Okay, ladies, I just know some of you will appreciate this.
We had kinda a rough time last Sunday morning. Nothing seemed to work out right. I truly felt that Satan did not want God's Word going forth. It was SO frustrating but we persevered and got through it with HIS help. But after the service, as I was rounding up my two lovely kiddos, I had a dear church member (dcm) stop me just to tell me that she loved it that I wore ugly shoes. That's right, she intentionally sought me out to tell me my shoes were UGLY! You know after all that went on that morning all she came away with was that my shoes were ugly?!? REALLY??? I happen to like the shoes I wore and think they are very cute and really I am not upset but rather in a state of disbelief. I find it rather hilarious and hope you do to.
Just so you feel better, I did go out for a little retail therapy that afternoon. Ha-ha. It was great! DCM's will do the most amazing things.Click on the link and post your response to a fellow Minister's Wife |
Hope for Tomorrow 
Ministry is full of occasions when we need encouragement.
You know those times when you just want to quit - or when your husband is
discouraged - and yet we hesitate to voice such discouragement. People we serve
come to us with problems and life issues, and expect a word of hope for their
tomorrow. I began to think about
hope and examine my own sense of hope. I
discovered we often use the word hope when we really mean wish. Not good!
Look at hope from Webster's
dictionary. [1913 Webster]
(1)
A desire -- combined with expectation; a thing
desired; to desire with belief in possibility of obtaining;
(2) One who, or that which, gives hope, furnishes ground of expectation,
or promises desired good.
(3)
That which is hoped for; an object of hope
Even Webster's
Dictionary speaks the truth of God! Take time to read the scriptures
included below, and put the above definitions in place of the word "hope". You
will find great encouragement for your soul! You will find: hope
for today!
Hebrews 6 refers to our having strong encouragement
because we ran for refuge, grasping the hope set before us. Verse 19 says, "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul,
a hope both sure and steadfast, and one which enters within the veil". This verse pictures a small inlet
connected with an open body of water. The inlet is quiet, not directly exposed
to upheavals or dangers of open waters.
Hope functions as an anchor, a safeguard, a link of security
for our very soul. The anchor is firm and certain, and trust-worthy. It
holds us IN that safe quiet place, securely connected in calm water, even
when our boat is battling storms out in the open sea.
I need a quiet safe place, don't you? This hope takes us
into the holy place, behind the veil - where only one priest each year was
permitted. Jesus tore down that separating veil and is forever our High Priest providing
ongoing and direct access to our Heavenly Father.
Look at Webster's definition
once again, and add these points:
Christ
is the actual object of the believer's hope, because it is in His second
coming that the hope of glory will be fulfilled (1 Tim.
1:1; Col.
1:27; Titus
2:13).
It is a
living hope, a hope not frail and perishable, but having a perennial life
(1 Pet.
1:3).
Our
hope is based on God, (I John 3:3).
Now, a personal
examination - what is the object of YOUR hope? Sometimes we privately trust
our husband, or powerful friends, or even retirement accounts! We "hope" the
next place of service will be better than this one - - -or we "hope" tomorrow
will be better than today. Click on the link and finish reading Anita's thoughts on "Hope for Tomorrow"
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Motherhood Redefined
By Heather Moore
Heather
and her husband, Bruce, minister at LifePoint Church in Tampa, FL. She writes a weekly devotional for www.thedailykick.com. Log on and be apart of
a conversation on motherhood and ministry!
I checked my watch. It was 11:23 a.m. to be exact. So early in the day, and I just changed
the third dirty diaper. The
day was shaping up to be more smelly and less exciting than I hoped.
To be honest, there are
days when I long for some excitement.
As a pastor's wife, I daydream about doing something important at the
church. Eagerly, I await the details
of my husband's day because I love to hear about ministry, I love to talk about
ministry, I love to hear the stories of God at work in people's lives. Some days I wish I could be at the
church to be apart of something big.
My tendency is to think
the mundane is unimportant because it is dull, boring. Truly, the polar opposite of
exhilarating. There are no
awards ceremonies for changing the poopiest diapers; no one celebrates the
wiping of runny noses.
But it occurs to me that
everyone from Oprah to slick L.A. marketing executives can 'redefine' anything
these days. (Oprah says that 50 is
the new 30. As I approach middle
age this is one 'redefinition' I don't mind.)
My redefinition of
motherhood involves finding beauty in the mundane. I have the task of raising
the lovely soul God has entrusted to me.
It is my responsibility to shape her character, expose her to God's global Kingdom, and to
launch her into her future.
Before my daughter was
born, I prayed three things. I
prayed she would be tall. Sounds
silly, but being short has never afforded me the opportunity to purchase pants
off the ready to wear rack.
Well, that's not exactly true.
I could buy the perfect length jeans from Petite Sophisticate. But I'd rather not wear jeans with
elastic in the back.
Naturally, I thought it would be nice if my daughter never needed a
tailor.
Also, I hoped she would
get her dad's personality. His
personality attracts all sorts of people.
He has friends from all walks of life. Every time I turn around, he is encouraging those around
him.
Thirdly, I prayed my
daughter would be the next Lottie Moon.
Not many people know who
Lottie Moon was. Charlotte Diggs,
her given name, was a young single woman who in 1873 left the security of home,
gave up all comforts and conveniences, and yielded all that she was and all she
hoped to be for God to use in the distant land of China. So committed to the cause of Christ
that when a famine hit the land and food was scarce she gave away all her
food. She literally starved to
death while protecting and saving the lives of countless Chinese children. Even in death she yielded all she had,
every morsel of food, for the cause of Christ.
I never want my daughter
to know the pains of hunger or the thirst of dehydration. I want to her to know true love and
marry a wonderful man. I want her
to experience the absolute overwhelming joy of having a child of her own.
What I do want, however,
is for my daughter to possess the same spirit as Lottie Moon. I want her to live with a willingness
to abandon all comforts, all dreams, all conveniences in order to fulfill God's
dreams and plans for her life. I
hope she accomplishes things I could never do and that she goes places I never
went. I hope she attempts things I
was too scared to try.
Desiring these things for
my daughter means my responsibility is huge. I have to expose her to cultures, languages, and all manner
of odd foods in order to cultivate a love for the world. There will be a day when I take her on
her first mission trip and have to explain to her why there are children who
live in one-room huts and sleep on dirt floors. I will have to model sacrificial service and generous giving
to prove that God is trustworthy....that God is worth abandoning all comforts and
conveniences for in order to be apart of His global kingdom.
Shaping her character will
require capitalizing on hundreds of teachable moments. I have to watch and be ready to catch
those teachable moments so they don't come and go without my notice. That means I have to be aware of the
mundane, because God might choose to work through moments that I think
unimportant. God's ways are not my
ways and He might deem a moment important that I think otherwise. He finds beauty in things I gloss
over. He finds value in things
that seem insignificant to me.
Therefore, I must also see
beauty in the mundane. I must be
poised to catch those moments.
Those dirty diapers and
runny noses aren't so mundane.
There is beauty in the mundane because each day presents an opportunity
to dream big dreams and think big thoughts for my daughter. Every day is the opportunity to shape a
little girl into a young woman who is so committed to carrying out God's plan
for her life that she changes the world.
Suddenly, my job
description is brimming with excitement. Motherhood redefined. World changer.
Future builder.
Character shaper.
It doesn't get more exciting than that!
So the next time my
husband comes home and says what did you today? My proud reply will be "I
helped change the world, launched a future, and shaped a soul today. What did you do?"
How are you redefining
motherhood? Share your thoughts so
we can start a conversation! Click here to start the conversation.
Heather Moore
www.thedailykick.com
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My Mom the Minister's Wife!
written by Kelley James
Children's Minister and future Minister's Wife
My mom, Roseanna James, has been the wife of a minister
since she stepped into her wedding dress way back in 1974 and lined up at the church alter next to her brides
maids bedecked in coordinating pastel eyelet dresses (poor girls, not really
sure what Mom was thinking with that!)
Over the years, I have been able to watch my mom navigate through the
ebb and flow that is ministry in the American church; both the good and the
bad, the ugly and beautiful. This
spring, like my mom, I will become the wife of a minister, and I would like to
be able to say that I will handle being a minister's wife with the grace and
gumption that she has these last 35 years. So, I've taken to writing down the
things, those tidbits of wisdom and insanity that she has passed on over the
years, in hopes that I too will flourish in the fire that sometimes church work
can be.
There are so many things I admire and respect about my
mom as a minister's wife that I could literally write pages about her, but I'll
spare you my gush and only give you the top 4 idioms from "The Roseanna" that I
have gleaned and held closely to my heart.
1. "Cling
to the Word baby! When nothing else makes sense, when your whole world is out
of control, you bury yourself in the Word. You hold tight to it, you make it
your bread and water and you won't go wrong!" - At home we call my mom "LHS" as
in little holy spirit. She LOVES God's Word and loves to apply it to her life
and the lives of all those around her.
She's the only woman I've ever met who studies sometimes 10 hours for a
Sunday School lesson, and she's also the first person I call when I need sound,
Godly wisdom, because I know it will be based on the God's Word.
2. "You need to understand that we are
shepherds, called by God to protect the flock in the church, but baby, you need
to also understand that the flock has sheep that bite and sometimes they bite
really hard."-Mom said this to me in my first year as a Children's Minister
when I called her crying because I had just been yelled out by an angry church
member. She followed this up by
reminding me that God loves His sheep, all of them, even the biters, but He
also tends to whack the disobedient sheep with a big stick sooner or later, and
I needed only to stay grounded and obedient to Him and He'd eventually deal
with the biting sheep.
3. "God
never promised that the church would provide for us. His Word says HE
would provide for us."-- I heard this MANY times over the course of my
life. Usually, Mom reminded us of
this when Dad's raise wasn't approved by the finance team or the money for the
bills was more than the money in the checking account. Even as a little kid (and especially
now as an adult) I have found great comfort in knowing that God was my
provider, my caretaker, and one who would make sure I had all I needed.
4. "I
don't go to business meetings.
They just get me angry at the people who gripe at your daddy. If I don't know who's griping, then I
don't have to worry about getting bitter at anybody."-- I always thought this was really great
wisdom and a totally GREAT excuse for getting out of a business meeting....and
YES, I'm totally using this when I'm a Minister's wife.
We bless you Roseanna for being a faithful Minister's Wife. We ask God to surround you with honor as a shield and may you experience His presence with you in a new and fresh way! Thank you for being an example to your children and to the rest of us that have watched you live a God-centered life. We honor you today!
Do you know a Minister's Wife that we can honor?
Click on this link and give us her name.
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OUR HOUSE!
We need your prayers as we are working through all of the legalities in the next few months. We have many women who have expressed interest in their churches and ministries helping us make this a place of retreat for you the Minister's Wife!
Go to the forum and post your dreams and thoughts about this house.
Click here.
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IGetItLife! Event
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