Read ♥ Read ♥ Read

Maybe I’m biased (who? Me?) but I’ve never understood people who didn’t love to read.

When you read you can go anywhere, see anything, be anyone, experience anything at all and every emotion under the sun!

In just the books I’ve written I’ve been accused of kidnapping (TO SCHOOL A COWBOY) a touch psychic (BLIND SIGHT) and a werewolf with a biting sense of humor (MAKE ME HOWL.) Yes, as Jazzy, the werewolf, I could stand on my own two–make that four–feet. 🙂

When I was growing up, I was Will Rogers with a dry sense of humor, Jane Adams who married a president, Jane Addams who started the first child care centers in America, Amelia Earhart, who had such a sense of adventure she built her own roller coaster as a kid and later learned to fly, and Molly Pitcher, whose husband passed out at his cannon during the Revolutionary War, so she took over for him.

In my years (AND YEARS) of reading I’ve played with Dick, Jane and Spot and lived in a harem. I’ve been a pirate, where I learned to sword fight, I’ve fallen in love over and over again with heroes of every ilk, and I’ve explored the west with Louis L’Amour.

I’ve even walked with Jesus.

I can’t think of many places I haven’t read. Under the covers when I was a kid and supposed to be sleeping, the car, a plane, on a train, college libraries, classes, even on the delivery table when my youngest son was born. (The nurse wrestled the book from my hands when the actual delivery happened.)

The greatest gift I ever received or gave someone else was the love of reading. One of my biggest joys in life was taking my younger siblings and later my children to get their own library cards so they could check out any book they wanted. That was a real gift! (And it didn’t cost a dime.)

Have I mentioned I like to read? (Yes, I get a little passionate about it.)

How about you? What do you like to read?

 

Living Proof

Know what I did last weekend? I went to the Living Proof (Beth Moore) conference in T-Town. WHAT A BLESSING!

I was there with two of my sisters, Debbie Sparks and Amy Nation, and several of my spiritual sisters. What a fantastic time in the Lord!

And some of us got to sit right on the front row!

This video is a recap of the weekend. If you watch it, at four minutes in you’ll see my sister, Amy, in her wheelchair. Look quick! (That’s my arm in white clapping next to her. LOL!)

I’m telling you, I was hugely blessed from our time together. I had only one complaint about the entire weekend. (Not the rain.)

IT DIDN’T LAST LONG ENOUGH.

But then, even if it had gone on for a solid week, I’m not sure that would be long enough.

Living Proof Live: Tulsa, OK – Recap.

A little farther down on the Living Proof Blog, I saw this. And once more, I was blown away.

My Dear Sister,
God has summoned you
To a growth-spurt of Grace
Know your Biblical facts
And stand squarely and securely
On the Name of Jesus alone
With your head tucked under grace
Get out of your cemetery
And quit trying to call
That old you from the dead
You are somebody new
In Christ you are highly favored
And wildly empowered
Forever loved
Completely made clean
Sin no longer has dominion over you
Trade all your anxieties
For the peace of Jesus Christ
You have been justified freely
By His death and resurrection
Listen hard, Girlfriend:
You are FORGIVEN.
Live like you know it.
You are called to the obedience of faith
So credit Jesus alone
And take Him at His Word
He credits that as righteousness.
Never forget that God’s grace abounds
So if you find yourself in short supply
Get your head back under that spout
And drink like you’re dying of thirst
When times are hard
And your strength melts to weakness
God’s grace will always be sufficient
It won’t be long
Till we see His face
And He will show Himself worthy
Of every ounce of pain and faith
Now to Him who is able
To keep your feet from falling
And to present you
Before the Presence of His glory
With overwhelming joy
Be glory and majesty
Dominion and authority
Both now and forever
Amen

♥ Most Precious ♥

Want to see one of the coolest gifts, ever?

I’ve received lots of wonderful gifts in my life, and this ranks right up there at the very top.

Isn’t it beautiful?

It’s a gift I’ll always, always remember.

To be honest, I love every gift anyone has ever given me. I’m kinda like a little kid. You could give me a plastic squirt gun and I’d jump up and down with joy.

What’s so special about this simple white pitcher? (Besides the person who gave it to me.) It’s kind of like people. It’s what’s inside that makes it what it is.

Can you tell what’s on those pieces of paper? God’s word, written in the gifter’s hand.

 A lamp for my feet and a light for my path.

Proverbs 17:17–a hint to tell you who this was from.

BTW: I don’t leave the scriptures she wrote out for me lying around. I just wanted you to see them. 🙂

 A note also came with it. To me. Me, alone. (When you’re one of six kids, being the special “one” is unusual. And very welcome.) It tells me she loves me and that she prays for me each morning during her quiet time. And that the scriptures are ones that made her think of me or that God whispered to her about.

And she shared them with me.

I cry happy, thankful tears each time I look at my gift and think about (or read) the note, which lives in my Bible so I can read it and reread it.

I’ve thought about different ways I could use this idea for other people. I could make one of those memory boards with pretty ribbons to hold things in place, and put the scriptures under the ribbons. Or I could print them out and have them matted and framed at Hobby Lobby. There are tons of ways to share scriptures.

But nothing like that could ever mean what this has meant to me. A pitcher–not what The Woman at the Well used, but it holds the Living Water.

One more picture.

I hope you can read it.

Thank you, #4. Philippians 1:3-6 . . . Me, you, too!

For two years, having your note in my Bible and this pitcher of God’s words to you in my home has been a gift that kept on giving.

I’m looking forward to studying Gideon with you.

LY2.

Secret Prayer Sister

I have this thing God started putting on my heart many, many years ago. It’s a prayer thing.

Kind of hard to explain.

When I went to college, we had Secret Sisters. One person you bought gifts for, sent notes to, left little treats for, that kind of thing. I loved knowing that one person kept me in mind. (The best SS did special things all the time, not just on holidays.)

And sometimes you found that, during the time that person was your SS, she’d come to be your really good friend. (The best gift she could give . . . her friendship.)

Another thing that shines in my life have been my Prayer Partners. With four sisters and a brother who are all very strong Christians, I have built in prayer partners. These great people of God just love to pray for others. And, yes! He answers prayers. 🙂

But when we moved to Pryor Creek, my sibs were an hour and a half away and since it was before cell phones and free long distance (kind of) I didn’t talk to them all the time.

When we moved into that town of strangers (well, I knew the preacher and his wife, but that was it) I started asking God for PPs.

Like I said, God answers prayers, and He answered that prayer in a Big Way. He sent me a pair of prayers you wouldn’t believe. Becki and Judy are Wonderful Women of God. The kind that you would have read about in the scriptures if they’d been around in Jesus’s time.

Anyway, those two things came together–Secret Sisters and Prayer Partners became Secret Prayer Sisters (or Sibling, as the case may be.) God put a person in my path and somehow, He impressed on me (’cause He doesn’t speak to me out loud. No burning bushes thus far in my life.) that I needed to pray for that person. Not just once, and not just for a little while. I needed to pray for them for a year.

The first couple of women I felt led to pray for, I sent a card to and told them I would be lifting them up for the next year. I intended to do other special little things for her like a SS, but . . .  I didn’t. 😦 And I intended to send a note at the end of the year and tell them who I was.

I didn’t do that, either.

I did pray, though. Funny thing is, when I start praying for a person like that, I usually forget to quit. I’ve had several SPS over the years. Some I’ve prayed for shorter seasons. And some I’ve prayed for, for years.

And there are times when I don’t feel led to have a Secret Prayer Sister.

Yesterday, I felt as if God was leading me to pray for a new person–but this time, it different. This person doesn’t have big problems in her life. (Some of the women I’ve prayed for have had huge, Goliath sized problems.) This young woman is beautiful and talented and well off. (Those are often things I pray about.)

If you met her and just saw what is visible to the world, you’d think she had life by the tail. But she doesn’t. Far from it, in fact.

Something happened this week, and I inadvertently got a glimpse. She didn’t mean for it to happen, I’m sure. Just a short sentence she tossed out, but it grabbed me by the heart.

So I have a new SPS. (This one could be a Secret Prayer Granddaughter, but we won’t go there.) As usual, I’m not sure how long I’ll be praying for her, but I have a feeling it’ll be for a long time.

Now I have a question for you–Does God put special people on your heart? Do you tell them? Do you send a note and tell them you’re praying or do you keep it a secret, just between you and God?

Related articles

• Oxygen for the Soul (generationalwomanhood.org)
• Prayer partners! (nwmovement.wordpress.com)
• Prayers for My Prodigal on Prodigal Prayer Day (judydouglass.com)
• Praying in the Red-Light (moriahfaith.wordpress.com)

Is It Easter?

I saw one of those I-need-to-educate-you-silly-Christians things on Facebook the other day. It talked about some fertility goddess few people have heard of and that it (she?) was what Easter is really based on.

In that comment, even the word Easter was supposed to have come from that goddess’s name. The question is also asked in that comment, “or did you think eggs and bunnies had anything to do with the resurrection?”

I answered (you didn’t think I could keep my mouth shut, did you?) that maybe the proper name shouldn’t be ‘Easter’. (I’ve never actually seen it in the Bible any more than I’ve seen the word ‘Christmas’.) I even did a search online to see if I could find where the word came from. I found a lot of sermons, but finding the actual origin is a little hard.

The best I could find was

Easter: An Early Celebration of Christ’s Resurrection
Another idea involves the history of the Frankish church (Germans who settled in Rome during the fifth century). Their the celebration of Christ’s resurrection included the word alba, which means white (the color of the robes worn during the resurrection festival). Alba also meant sunrise. So when the name of the festival was translated into German, the sunrise meaning, ostern, was selected, likely in error. One theory is that Ostern is the origin of the word Easter.

 You can read more about it if you want.

The eggs and bunnies? They represent new beginnings. A brand new life–which is what we have when we’re in Christ. A life without blemish. Without stain. Without sin. Washed in The Blood, we’re whiter than snow, because Jesus paid the price for our sins when he died on the cross and rose again three days later.

Maybe we should just call it Resurrection Sunday.

It doesn’t matter what we call it. What matters is that you’ve accepted Christ. He died for my sin and yours.

Do you live for Him?

♥

Related articles

• Easter Is Not Named After Ishtar, And Other Truths I Have To Tell You (bellejarblog.wordpress.com)