love Archives - Page 2 of 5

Finding Love in a Book Shop

How to Find Love in a Book Shop by Veronica Henry is an interesting menagerie of stories written in third person from various points of view. The main story threaded throughout is from the point of view of Emelia, the daughter of a deceased bookstore owner, who loved his daughter, the books, and the town of Peasebrook.

Emilia’s mom died during her birth leaving Julius to raise her on his own. He wasn’t a savvy businessman as Emilia would discover following her father’s death. He gave away as much as he made in books that the debt left behind hung on Emilia’s heart like a millstone. The tension in the story comes from Ian Mendelip who sends his employee to seduce Emilia to sell the bookstore because the property would allow expansion. The charm of Emilia and the bookstore work its magic on Jackson. The books cause him to re-think his life.

How to Find Love in a Book Shop is You Got Mail meets Sleepless in Seattle. Love writes its own stories as the town of Peasebrook faces the past and the future, embraces change, and mends relationships. You can’t help, but smile in the end.

*Book given by publisher to review.

Lamenting and Wrestling

When I run, all I can hear is the pounding of my feet on the trail nearly in sync with the rhythm of my heart. I feel the heaviness of the sun on my skin and the sweat dripping into my eyes. I do not wear ear buds on the trail for safety reasons so I am aware of every snap of a twig. Running is more than just healthy exercise.

It’s my time with God.

It’s where I wrestle with my emotions; even lament.

Lamenting is a new word learned from a book I finished reading this year called, No More Faking Fine by Esther Fleece.

She says about Lamenting, “Lament is defined as an expression of grief. As I take a look at Scripture, I see that God seeks out those of us who are in need of him. He meets people with his comfort, and with his peace. So for the purposes of this book, and this movement, we’re defining lament as an expression of grief that God meets us in.”

Samuel Gill, a former worker with WorldVenture and now Life Coach in the Prescott area says this on his blog, “Most of us know that each snowflake has its own unique pattern. But do you know why? Each crystal acquires its unique pattern in its flight from the clouds down to earth. It is the result of a battle. As snow flakes pass through the atmosphere in their flight down to earth they encounter particles of dust and dirt. Thus the beauty of each snow flake is the result of conflict and pain.”

Have you ever pined for something? Have you ever pursued that something in spite of “conflict and pain?” God is the King of patience–the long-suffering kind of patience. It’s about the journey.

The journey is one where Seth Godin says in No Way Out, “The best long-term approach might be to learn something, to tough it out, to engage with the challenge. Because once you get through this, you’ll be different. Better. We always have a choice, but often, it’s a good idea to act as if we don’t.”

When I run, I don’t see the curving trail, hugged by scrub oak and trees. I see my support journey, and the distant mountain peak as the end of one journey to begin another–reaching those online who, unlike Esther Fleece, may not share in the comfort of knowing our Lord.

Thank you, friends and supporters. Your gifts and support are, “…a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. (click here to read full verse).”

Starting Out Right

Crazy schedules and a lifestyle of doing will wear you out. Creating new habits means starting the week out right. Every Monday and Tuesday of my new job and new schedule, I start out with reading a chapter in the Bible and sitting quietly. I want to listen to what God would tell me rather than fill the silence with my words.

In my mind, it’s not how often you read the Bible, but how you spend quality time reading the Bible. I do deeper study through books and leadership development courses, but something about simply reading the Bible in prayer and listening helps me keep peace. Monday and Tuesdays are my intimate times with the Lord.

How do you spend time learning the Bible and listening to the Lord?

New Support Numbers!

Since the beginning of December, I’ve been running active ministries and looking for a new job. I’ve also been praying and working to raise my support numbers.

God continues to work on the hearts of those He wants to use to support my work. I have a couple of verbal supports and I am at 22% support. It’s been tough to get everything done. The job hunting has taken away valuable free time, and I am pleased to say my prayers were answered.

Last week, I began my first week at a new job. The hours work well with ministry and I am slowly getting a feel for what my new schedule will look like with WorldVenture. I won’t say publicly where I am working as they are sensitive to the brand reputation of their company. It is my desire to keep my social media activity unconnected to the job. What I post is my own and not reflective of the company I work for.

I leave my role at Solid Rock Christian Fellowship as a church secretary to becoming Solid Rock’s church-supported Social Media Mentor (part of WorldVenture’s organization).

As a friend pointed out, “Working for money will make you miserable.” I do what I love and love what I do.

Will you continue praying for me?

Use Different Words About The Online World

When I read devotions, it’s always talking about using different words; find a new narrative in your head; because using different words will change how you think and feel. People, especially older adults, think of the online world as self-serving instead of serving.

If the narrative in your head is “self-serving,” you will spend less time on it, not use it strategically, and make that face you make when someone mentions social media. It’s not about becoming relevant as a church, but getting involved in people’s lives. You can keep your involvement simple or learn marketing to cast a broader net. I’ve found that God will direct you to certain social media apps if your heart is willing to serve.

What does serving online look like?

When someone posts a status that you feel the need to pray for, your timely comment, email, text, or private message is meaningful rather than just lurking. Your acknowledgment of love to that person will encourage them.
If someone needs help financially or with a food box, you can personally connect them with a Christian ministry in their area. Send them a private message, email, or text and start that conversation. Be their online friend while that Christian ministry becomes their face-to-face friend, walking with them in their struggles.
If someone becomes a believer, you can connect them with a pastor, deacon, or elder who can disciple and baptize them and ensure the “ball isn’t dropped.”
Encourage someone online in their goals.
Be an accountability partner with someone.
Be louder than the voice in their own heads so their identity can be aligned with Christ rather than whatever label the world pastes on them.

Communication is a big problem. People under use the tool or spend all their time marketing. Any tool can be negative, but it’s up to the church to use this tool to bring the people online into a fellowship of faith. If you don’t use this tool, someone else will.

Book Review: No More Faking Fine @EstherFleece

Two kinds of crowds exist in the Christian world: the peace makers who believe that forgiveness means reconciliation no matter what the situation or the danger, and people like me who understand that forgiveness is more important and reconciliation is not always possible. Esther Fleece wrote, No More Faking Fine, and it is a clarion call to the church to understand and learn how to lament.

“A lament saves us from staying stuck in grief and rescues us from a faith based on falsehoods. It was a false belief that led me to believe I was the reason for my parent’s divorce. It was a false belief that told me I would never find my way out of despair. These false beliefs, combined with my inability to lament, caused a deep wedge between me and God. God was not angry with me about this. He understands the complexity of human emotions. But I had to be willing to communicate with Him to see what I needed and what He was doing and to uncover the fake beliefs prohibiting my intimacy with Him. (pg. 38)”

Unlike other memoirs, No More Faking Fine honors her parents and the situation by focusing on the events and what God did through those events and her own psyche. It’s rife with Scripture, pointing her suffering and her recovery back towards an intimacy with God. The book became more than just a review for a publicist company; it became an act of worship, re-visitation of the past, and a lament. People who come from our similar, but varied backgrounds, can relate to this emotion-filled book. It is not written from hurt or revenge, but from a heart in healing and lament. In my experience, lament is not practiced in church because we are busy looking like we have everything together.

Even our Facebook pages are filled with happy, wish-you-were-me posts and pictures of happy families, healthy relationships, and people who, because they are busy, have no time to listen to someone else’s lament. No More Faking Fine goes into talking about how coping mechanisms fail and how pain has a purpose if it leads us back to God. She weaves her own story thinly throughout the book, but mostly gives us a theological look at her emotional and spiritual journey as she worked at coping with coming from an abusive and traumatic past.

What stood out to me was the fearlessness she learned as her faith grew in the Lord. I recall how I was trying to share with someone how a person can go to church all their life and not know Christ or have a relationship with Him in spite of hearing the same verses every week. It is through the relationships of the people that come around us during our time of lament that help us understand intimacy with God. Fellowship is tricky for some of us.

“Some of us need to be told that good people are still out there–and they are. But even when Jason and Tamy showed me in numerous ways that they were there for me, my heart still anticipated their abandonment. I didn’t want to keep them at a distance, but my self-sufficiency had turned against me, and I had no idea how to reverse it. (pg. 176; emphasis mine)”

I resonated with everything written in, No More Faking Fine. We even share some of the same struggles as I am sure some of you whom read it will identify with, too. People I minister to or meet that come from similar but different situations or backgrounds and are damaged have discovered that we share the same emotional struggles. Grief has many stages and that grief needs to be heard in safe places. While I love most of the books that I read on the subjects of grief and forgiveness, I can say with absolute confidence, No More Faking Fine needs to be read by others who struggle with lamenting. Isolation is our worst enemy.

We need the fellowship of non-judgmental believers to come around us with, “hugs and tissues,” instead of Job-like friends who only sit with us for a time until they try to “solve” or blame us for our problems. We need a fellowship of faith so we can recover, and mentors or loving families willing to come around us for gentle and timely correction or encouragement. Like Esther, we need to move forward in obedience to Christ in spite of our fears, real or imagined.

In quoting her namesake,

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14

You’re doing a great job, Esther.

Keep speaking to those of us who need to understand how to lament and draw closer to Jesus.

Help us become fearless by pointing us to Scripture.

READ ESTHER FLEECE’s WEBSITE

Thinking Differently on Success and Fame #Church

Scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed, I discovered an article rant on Hollywood. The smiling faces of famous rich people wearing clothes that cost more than I make in a month is like that bulletin board advertisement off Highway 69 whose photograph said to me, “Look at how happy I am, why aren’t you buying one of these homes?” God gives us gifts. Not all gifts are meant to go viral or make us wealthy.

Rafiq had a successful music business in France. He became a believer and moved back to North Africa with his family to play music for the Lord. When the interviewer (A Wind in the House of Islam by David Garrison) asked Rafiq why he didn’t work in New York or Los Angeles where his talent could get a bigger platform (and make a lot of money), Rafiq shared the dream he had about this question.

In his dream, an old man showed Rafiq a meadow with sheep. Rafiq also saw a little boy, “sitting on a hillside playing a flute.”

A Wind in the House of Islam continues on pages 97-98:

The old man in the dream said, “What else do you see?”

“I see a little shepherd boy.”

“And what is he doing?” the old man asked.

“He is playing a flute,” I said.

“And why is he playing a flute?”

“He is playing it,” I said, “so the sheep will know that they belong to him.”

The old man said gently, “You are that shepherd boy. And that is why you must continue your music, so the sheep know that they belong to him.”

Rafiq makes musicals in North Africa and his people are listening. I put down this book and went to read another chapter for my morning devotions in my NIV Stewardship Study Bible. It seemed like God had a theme: fame, money, success, and provision. I was listening. My heart felt a bit overwhelmed as 2016 brought the death of a family dog and medical bills. 2017 didn’t improve with the death of our cat and vet bills. Other things are happening, too, that made me feel stressed. The old voices in my head kept asking me, “What are you doing with your writing?” Those voices define success by money, celebrity status, and looks. I can’t listen to that voice anymore.

Exodus 3 talked about Moses and the burning bush. A shepherd was being called to go to a different pasture and use the gifts he didn’t know about yet to bring God’s people away from slavery. God instructed Moses to use the right wording to identify himself as sent from God–I Am. This would establish trust so Moses could follow God and lead his people to, “a land of milk and honey.” The devotion about this talked about how God provides for his people:

“God is both predictable and unpredictable He is absolutely predictable in his faithfulness to provide for our needs. What we cannot predict is how the Lord will provide. He uses various and sometimes surprising means of meeting our needs. Regardless of how he chooses to provide for our needs, he is utterly reliable.” (pg. 72, Exploring Stewardship; NIV Stewardship Study Bible).

The devotion quotes Andy Stanley’s reflection on giving. We are fearful as church people. We are compared to the farmer who fears losing his seed so he doesn’t plant anything. In my twenties, I gave little to nothing to God and His church. When I understood Stewardship, giving became a part of our morning worship, even our daily worship, as we pay monthly fees for ministry upkeep and invest in equipment to help share the Gospel as well as giving to our home church. Now that I am raising support, I find it odd to say how I like this feeling of standing on the precipice between middle class and poverty.

Instead of seeing the terrifying drop over the edge of the cliff, I see what Indiana Jones saw in, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: A bridge. The Lord’s provision: The free washer gifted to us from a friend, empathy from friends going through similar situations, unexpected new shoes and clothes that come from someone who likes to go shopping and the stores have no return policy, and income that comes from places I didn’t expect. It brings me back to Rafiq in North Africa.

The American Dream haunts us. Success as defined by our parents and grandparents make us feel inadequate when we are “only” using our gifts in seemingly small ways. When my name isn’t on a book cover or when I do not have a piece of paper from a prestigious college or university, you feel worthless, like you aren’t doing enough or aren’t qualified. People with great talent are looked on with pity when their platform isn’t big enough. Instead of looking at our gift as something to become famous with, we should look at our gift the way Rafiq now looks at his music–as a way to let the sheep know that they belong to Jesus.

Your writing, your music, or your gift doesn’t have to obviously be Christian. It can become a vehicle that leads to meaningful conversation online about your faith, your testimony, and what the Bible says about Isa al-Masih (Jesus).

What is God asking you to do with your gift and abilities? Is your giving too comfortable?

Why Firsts Change People’s Lives

He made me feel empowered when he brought me into his office. I sat down across from him, a nervous twenty-something year old, with the thought in my mind of, ‘What did I do?’

My boss ran the whole floor at Bank of America. As I sat down, he looked me straight in the eye and asked, “What can we do to improve things around here?” He held a pen and a pad of paper.

For the first time in my life, someone took me seriously. For the first time, someone believed in me. Someone thought I had value to contribute to a larger than life organization. That’s powerful. For the first time, I wasn’t Nikki who barely got by in High School and laughed at college. That was just the beginning of many firsts in my life that God would show me as He led me to Him. I was reminded of this recently after an extended video conference call. It caused me to think about the path I took since then, and the many mistakes I made getting here.

My old friend, Fear, likes to poke his head out from the shadows and say, “You are stupid. You are foolish.” He represents a very old enemy that, at one time, held power over me. Fear made me spend money I didn’t have, choose friends who weren’t healthy, and date people I knew would leave me anyway. Why should I be courageous when no one would help me if I fail? I was alone.

Yet, God would bring people in my life to prove He had never left my side. From the time Gwen Beatty saw me enter FBC Prescott (now Solid Rock Christian Fellowship) to when God brought a man who would become my husband that would start an unstoppable awakening in my soul. It is because of the people God brought in my life that I changed. Fear is everyone’s enemy.

What stops you from reaching out to people who make you uncomfortable? When I think of the American church, I share with others grave concerns about its ability to be like the courage of the persecuted church. Those concerns made me take a hard look at myself.

Am I friends with people who disagree with me?
Can I put a name to a different religion? Or in other words, have I ever had dinner with someone from a different religion, even country?
Is my Facebook “preaching to the choir,” or am I allowing God to use me on social media to do the hard work in building relationships with people who are different than me?

A verse caught my eye the other day from Ephesians 3:14-21:

This is why I kneel before the Father. Every ethnic group in heaven or on earth is recognized by him. I ask that he will strengthen you in your inner selves from the riches of his glory through the Spirit. I ask that Christ will live in your hearts through faith. As a result of having strong roots in love, I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. I ask that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God.

Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us; glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations, forever and always. Amen.

Firsts in life are important and life changing. You play a part in other people’s “firsts” whether you serve the homeless, internationals, or just go to church. Mentoring is important.

The above verse is my prayer for you and your church.

Can I pray further with you about something?