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Showing posts from 2009

2010 - The Year of a Fast

I am writing this without understanding anything about what I am about to say...it is all new for me. I feel (with fear and trembling of failure) in my heart that God is calling me to a "Year of Fast" for 2010. Fasting is not something I have ever been good at....I always had good excuses: "well, I need to eat while I am on medication or I don't want to get sickly or weak while taking care of my children." God only knows all the excuses I can make up. I am not big on new year's resolutions, either...so I am not going to call this one. I already don't feel good about keeping it, so I don't need to doom it with failure by calling it a 'new year's resolution for 2010'. God prompted me with this idea...I know it didn't come from me, that is for sure. And that very day on the moody radio was a talk show about fasting...now is anyone saying, "God confirmation". So I wrote down the author and name of the book and checked to see if

Is ACLU looking out for your rights?

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The Tennessean, one of my local newspapers, had a headline stating that ACLU's Winberg has been keeping her eye on our rights - I so disagree! ACLU’s Winberg does not keep her eyes on my right s, though she might be keeping her eye on ‘your’ rights. Speak for yourself and not the readership as a whole. ACLU strongly protects the rights of non-Christians, homosexuals, and others wanting sexual liberties to have sex when and with whomever they want. Christians want Biblical standard protected: sanctity of life, marriage as one man and one woman and freedom of speech and religious expression in public life. Working in TN she herself stated that “TN continues to be a battleground for the radical religious right ” and she has fought ‘those people’ throughout her career. Well, in TN ‘those people’, people whose lives are radically changed because they know Jesus as their Lord and Savior are most of the people in the Tennessean readership. So it is not only a lie that she is keeping

The Ultimate Journey - 7 Practical Steps for Christians

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Have you been sold on the "easy yoke" of the Christian life ? Why did you say the sinner's prayer? Did you want all of your problems to ride away in the sunset on the promise of eternal life in heaven? If you did, you were lied to, duped by some over zealous evangelistic Christian that was trying as hard as possible to get as many converts as they could. Have you ever noticed that those same people are not the disciplining type? No, they focus on numbers, big events, reaching the masses all in the name of the Great Commission! "Go!" They read those words and that is their charge. They are going about doing everything they can to bring lost into the church. Their focus is not on the baby Christians who need to be taught. Nah, someone else can waste their time changing the spiritual diapers. They see the big world of fish swimming about and they intend to catch every one that they can scoop up in their wide and broad net. "Keep it simple stupid." Don

Easy Solution for Racism

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"Racist" is a word being thrown around widely today. People who disagree with the values, thoughts, ideas or morals of someone can be quickly called 'racist' if the person is dark skinned. Is it possible that people may actually not agree with a person's life values/goals/agenda and it has nothing to do with skin color? Yes! Many people actually really do listen to what others' say and do,without giving any weight to skin color, when making decisions of whether to identify with or agree with the person. Is it also possible that people may actually not agree with a person just based on their skin color regardless to the person's life values/goals/agenda and it has everything to do with skin color? Yes! These people regardless of their skin color are racist. Anyone who uses color of skin to identify with or separate out others are racist. So what is the solution for racism? Thus, the answer to racism is to believe and apply the history of the human race as g

President or King Obama?

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The President of the United States is not a King! While he should be presidential in maintaining the respect of the highest office of our Republic, and thereby respected in likewise manner. We the People do not give deference to our president as one does to a King or Queen, Royalty of a Nation. Barack Husien Obama or his supporters should not be shocked by the response he is receiving as he continues to rally in campaign-furor leading chanting crowds of supporters and attacking quips to those dare oppose him. Gathering opposing view emails and website by gestapo-style 'reporting of fishy' material to the white house, "KGB" video taping of tea party rally participants, and mass e-mailing unsolicited propaganda-syle leaflets flying into email boxes of defending the President's HealthCare truths are not constitutional or the American way of an Executive Branch, White House, protocol. This is vastly different from previous administrations. So I am not surprised we are

Truth Does Not Change

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The winds of change are blowing. If you are established in truth, it is absolute, and need not change. What is changing? That is a good question to ask. Who is changing? We are to change, conforming to the Truth. Truth never needs to be corrected, repackaged, transformed, enlightened by a new opinion. What sets America apart from other countries is that our founding fathers, set up a government based on unchanging principles. They did not look for the best methods of governing of their day. They looked to principles that could pass the muster of the Bible. Principles equal rights, not fairness or equal things. Can current bills in congress pass the muster of the Bible. Are they right Biblically? Are they necessary? Are they fully funded? Are they written in plain english that can be clearly understood instead of needing to be litigated to get their intent interpreted by the judicial system (too fond of writing laws from the bench)? Our founding fathers understood that certain rights w

Fearless by Max Lucado - Book Reveiw

True to Max Lucado's rich visual storytelling style of writing, he draws the reader quickly into his book, Fearless, with a real life story. Fearless is a state of being that God offers to all of His children and Max Lucado begins in Chapter One asking, "What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats?...Can you imagine a life with no fear?" This is the possibility in Jesus that Max Lucado writes about in the next chapters of his book, and he is serious about your ability to live fearless practically day in and day out, even in the fears of today (debt, terrorist, swine flu, politics, foreclosures and job loss). He grabs the reader with his talent to make the Bible come to life as he reveals the treasures many of us miss in a quick Bible reading. He teaches that "Fear corrodes our confidence in God’s goodness." and "We begin to wonder if love lives in heaven" since so many terrible things are happening all around us. This book is packed f

Creating a New Church - Good Enough for the Future

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Call For Change In light of reading a blog post by a Southern Baptist Church Pastor on the fact that SBC organizations needed to "rise up a new breed of leaders who can truly cooperate, examine, dissect, implement and strategize to create a new convention of churches that say the past had its place but it is not good enough for the future." I became alert to how familiar this sounded to the current events of our American Country today. He went further to say " A changing world deals ruthlessly with ministry and organizations that don’t embrace change, and people are coming to respect that fact more every day. The Cooperative Program and the Southern Baptist paradigms of organizations are broke. We can fix it, change it, or simply sit back and continue the tired rhetoric of “we just need to keep doing what we have been doing…just work harder.” My Personal Response: While I have been a member of a SBC church for over 10 years, I only have allegiance to God. He can organi

She Still Calls Me Daddy by Robert Wolgemuth Book Review

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At first look, She Still Calls Me Daddy appears to be a book written by a man for other men. Pleasantly, it turns out to be a delightfully interesting book, rich with wisdom of experience for a much wider audience. Robert Wolgemuth has beautifully crafted a book that is an easy, must-read for new Fathers-of-the-Bride. But more surprisingly, he has written a book that is an insightful read for mothers and parents, in general, at all stages of life. The relevance comes from the writing being authentically lived; Wolgemuth has lived the words written in this book. The gem of this book is his coming to terms that his role of daddy, protector of his daughter, changes to daddy, protector of his daughters’ marriage! I simply love this. Who would not desire a person who deeply loves them to be working intentionally to protect their marriage? Wolgemuth shares the purposeful shift in his father-daughter relationship, the moment he released her from his care by speaking the word, “Her mother

Editorial La La Land - Congressman Bart Gordon

I tried to send this to my local newspaper but I got a notice the their website key verification failed after I hit the send button. Fortunately I have learned to make a copy of all my letters to the editor because most of the time they end up in Editorial La La Land. So here goes my letter to the editor, maybe someone in my State will get to read it: Thank you for the article this weekend about the telephone meeting planned by Our Congressman Bart Gordon. On Thursday, last week I personally made a trip downtown to ask when our representative was going to be meeting with his constituents, as he has all previous years. I was told by the receptionist that he had not yet decided on a time but I could call anytime and see if a date had been set. As most constituents of the 6th district I was befuddled trying to figure out how it was "more convenient" for his 700,000 constituents to go online and sign up for one of two telephone "meetings". The only person convenienced b

Is the Whitehouse Trying to Intimidate Free Speech?

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While this may not seem odd to most, I am highly uncomfortable with the current Presidential administration. This was on a recent white house government post : There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov . Freedom to Speech I see nothing wrong with people blogging or emailing their take on issues in America. There is always a lot of disinformation. Separating lies from facts is one of the reasons American owe it to themselves and their families to be highly educated. It is essential to not be spoon fed facts from government, schools, newspapers, news shows, television or speeches

Are You a Writer or do you write?

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Being a writer and a speaker is not something I would like to try to do. It is much more! It is who God created me to be. I have always loved to journal, to express my thoughts and feeling in writing. Can you trace back through your life, seeing God's hand in developing you as a writer? At age 10, I ‘ran away from home’. As I walked several miles, I ended up at a corner drug store. I purchased a little memo pad and a pen. After getting an ice cream cone at Baskin and Robbins, I sat on a curb near the small strip mall, and placed my hurting heart into word on this little pad. Words Flow Words have always flowed easy for me, like a river flooded by an opened dam. Even at young ages, while I didn’t know God personally, I felt His presence leading me to write. Do you feel His presence when you write, like He is guiding you to ideas to type? In High School, I joined a Creative Writing class. I wrote a poem about flowers blossoming and soon withering to die, but expressed how people

Do Your Children Have Passion?

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If I hope to instill a passion to worship in my children, passion for God must begin in me! If there ever was someone in your life that can identify a fake, its your own children. They know you much better than you believe. As they mature, they carefully watch what you do and almost without a thought ignore what you say. A child can learn to passionately worship even before they can read or right. As wonderful as this truth is, any mom knows it cuts with a two-edged sword. Because just as much as they can learn good spiritual lessons from us, they also absorb our negative, lazy or dead works. "Hypocrite! You, brood of vipers!," called John to the pharisees of his day. All nice and clean on the outside, worshipful in the sight of others, but harsh words, selfish motivation and judgmental of others in the private places of their life. A child of a pharisee would know that his pious father didn't publicly display who he truly was. And your child too, sees and knows who yo

Home schoolers Medieval Dance Party

Have you ever wondered how homeschoolers spend their summers? Well, this is a fun video created by Amanda Read a newly graduated homeschooler who just finished her first semester of college on the President's list with a 4.0 and edited by her sister Rachel Read who is in High School. Yes, right brain activity is what homeschooling is all about! While most public school children spend endless days exercising their left brain thinking skills, homeschoolers are actively developing right brain skills of imagination, synthesis, design, storytelling, play, caring and purposeful meaning of living. Homeschoolers are very high in emotional intelligence, not only IQ (genetic/academic). Truly the best is a blend of learning that is using the whole-mind, both the right (creative/emphathizer/high concept) and left (knowledge/information/high tech). The strong development of both sides of the brain are paramont in today's world that is global, faster and quickly moving to purposeful, n