WHAT INSPIRES YOU?

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Ephesians 6:18 (NIV)

Walking is a great form of exercise, and there are many health benefits to this simple exercise. It’s easy with very little wear-and-tear on the body. It increases your metabolism, gives you energy and provides mental clarity. Oh...and best of all, it’s FREE! LOL! And the only equipment it requires is your God given left and right feet!

However for me...there are also many spiritual benefits to taking a long walk in the morning. I have found that some of my best times with the Lord have been during my morning walks. I normally walk in the neighborhood next to mine because it’s an older one with huge oak trees that provide plenty of shade. While walking I find myself praying for those who live there. I don’t know any of the people who live in this neighborhood but still I find myself praying as the Spirit leads me.

This habit came about when I started working from home. In setting up my office I placed my desk right in front of a window looking out into my front yard. For years I’d worked in a building with NO windows at all and so I was excited that I could actually “see” the day that the Lord had given me. I have to admit that setting my office up this way has been a blessing and a curse…LOL! Why the curse? Well, because I get so EASILY distracted by the simplest activity outside of my window!!! Anyway, I digress....

Early into my new work routine from home, I began to notice a young woman walking down my street with her caregiver every morning. The woman was about my age and she had a son who was maybe a year younger than my daughter. She walked very slowly with a cane, and a serious limp, but she kept walking. (I later learned that she was a single mom who had suffered a major stroke a year earlier). One day as she was walking by, I made the decision that whenever I saw her, I would pray for her. Daily she walked—and daily I prayed for her progress and recovery, her son, and her caregiver.

Then one day the Holy Spirit convicted me...if she can walk, then you can too.

So, I started walking. I would get up, walk my daughter Mali to the bus stop and then once she was on the bus, I would take a walk in the neighborhood that is next to mine. And while I walked, I would pray. Sometimes, I would find myself praying for the kids waiting for their buses. Other times I would pray for protection of the homes while everyone was away at work or school. Sometimes if I saw someone in their yards, I would pray for them and their family specifically. However the Spirit led me, I would pray.

Regretfully, over the past year, I haven’t walked as much as I used too. I got out of the routine—mostly because I just got lazy and stopped. And when I started my fitness routine back up, it was to train for my 5K and well, honestly, there is no way I could pray while running…LOL!
It wasn’t until I began writing this blog that I remembered why I used to walk, and how I got started. And most of all, how much I enjoyed it.

I was just telling my sister this week that I wanted to get back into the habit of going to the gym in the mornings to walk on the treadmill, but now while the weather is warm, I think I will start back with my prayer walks instead. Thank you Holy Spirit for bringing this back to my remembrance!

I would also like to challenge you to do the same. Yes, to start going on a prayer walk for your neighborhood. Even if it’s only one day or evening a week. I promise you will be blessed by it and so will those who you are led to pray for.



Happy walking until next time!
Sasha

I will be back on Monday, July 5th, hope to see you then!


Tuesday's Blog: Maria will be bringing us, "Life Unscripted"

LEAPS OF FAITH

Hi Sisters!!

I’ve always had a favorite scene from Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade. It’s the scene where Indiana is almost through the maize of traps set to keep him from reaching the cup. He has survived all sorts of things, from traps to chop his head off, to trap floors he could fall through. At last he comes to the last step… and it’s a big one. He must step onto and cross a bridge that, from his perspective only looks like a long, long fall down an endless abyss. After a dramatic pause where he stares straight ahead and lifts his hand to his heart as if to stop the pounding, Indiana lifts his leg up high and… steps. Of coarse our original belief that he was stepping to his death is not true and I always sigh with relief when his foot touches an ancient but still very solid stone bridge, painted to blend in with its surroundings. It’s a cheesy example, but this is always how I imagined faith and really believing in God. You just have to step out, into the unknown and something miraculous will happen. It’s a heart-pounding and exhilarating adventure that you know will always turn out just right.

Undeniably, there are times that having faith is an exciting adventuresome thing. Even in my own life there have been faith situations that caused the heart rate to go up (lets face it, they make good stories later on). But what about the times when you can’t step out? Yeah, there’s still the great unknown out there but, who knows, maybe the invisible bridge is under construction, or you have to finish college before the real adventure can start. How do you trust when you aren’t Indiana Jones and you don’t have a bridge to step out onto? I’m not just talking about the times when everything just sits still. That’s frustrating too, but what about the times when there’s a situation and you really, truly can do absolutely nothing about it, you don’t have a step to take. I think that’s when the real faith comes in. We all like to play the Indiana Jones (we all have a little bit of the Indiana Jones in us). We all like our faith to be on our terms. We like to be the ones to take the step of faith instead of sitting patiently and letting God take care of it for us. The whole leap of faith thing is nice sounding but how often does that leap of faith actually rely on God? Or are our leaps of faith us believing in ourselves to take the risk, hoping that God will somehow save us?

Just a thought that entered my head as I struggle through how to trust God when I don’t have any control over the circumstances presented to me.



Blessings,
Lydia

Until Friday, July 16th, Keep the Faith!


Monday's Blog: Sasha's up, "Beauty & Healthy Lifestyes"

COBWEBS......

Good Day Sisters!

I admit it: I am a church voyeur. I love wandering into and around the big, old churches that are plastered over every city in Europe like stars in the sky. No matter which way you look at the sky, you will always see stars (on clear nights, obviously) – more often than not, it's the same with churches: glance up at the skyline of any town, large or small, and you will find countless spires pointing to the heavens; wander through the towns themselves, and around almost every corner you will come face to face with the old, imposing, impressive facades of any number of churches.

And so as I travel around I take time most every day to meander through the different towns, and find myself slipping into churches, gazing at altars, admiring stained glass windows. Yet what I'm really doing is looking for God in those often cavernous, stone buildings. They are indeed beautiful to look at, with an amazing sense of history to them – but so often feel more like museums or tourist traps than houses of worship.

Saying that, I found myself wandering through the old city of Munster, Germany, this afternoon. It is by no means the prettiest old city I've been in recently – it was one of the cities heaviest hit during World War II, and a lot of the original buildings were destroyed during the blitzes – but it was interesting nonetheless. There is, of course, the cathedral at the heart of the town – commanding, regal, and worth wandering around. I will never understand how people in the 12th / 13th / 14th centuries were able to build such huge, architecturally impressive buildings without the assistance of all of our modern technology! And yet, nothing we're building today is going to last anywhere near as long as the structures we have inherited from hundreds of years ago…

But I digress. The cathedral in Munster is indeed beautiful, and worth a visit, but it was in another church in that city – just a few hundred feet away from the cathedral – that I was struck with an epiphany – there really is no other word for it that I can find – both about my own beliefs, and about the state of Christianity – in all its forms – the world over.

The first thing that struck me when I walked through the doors of St. Lamperi was the organ. It is an incredible, sonorous thing, hung above the end of the nave, and was being masterfully played as I slipped inside. Everyone in the church was silent, listening to and appreciating the music; when finally the last notes died away, there was a moment of reverential silence, and then an outburst of applause, as everyone in the church got to their feet, clapping their appreciation for the organists and the music. At the altar end of the nave was an entire wall of blue-hued stained-glass windows. It was a beautiful church, and for once there was indeed a lightly reverential feel to it.

As I was about to leave the church, I noticed Him: a plain statue of our Lord and Savior, tucked away under the organ at the back of the church. It really was a very simple statue: Jesus was depicted in His robe, sandals on His feet, one hand outstretched, the other held across His breast. Both hands showed the nail marks, and the one across His chest was, sadly, missing the forefinger. He had no irises – simple blank eyeballs – and yet He still gave me the feeling that He was seeing me – I mean, really actually seeing me. It didn't seem to matter where I stood – up close, a little further away, off to one side – it felt like He was looking right at me. The feeling was so powerful, I nearly fell to my knees right there… Instead, I crept forward and reached up to touch His foot, lightly resting my hand for a minute on His toes, and remembering the story of the woman who washed His feet in expensive oils. Somehow, that story never really held any meaning for me until I saw that statue today.

And so to my epiphany… As I stood there, already feeling profoundly moved by this statue of Jesus, I noticed that His shoulder seemed to be quite thick with dust, and idly thought the church cleaners needed to come by with their feather dusters. Then suddenly I realized that He was covered in cobwebs – big, thick, black strings of cobwebs, like someone had sprayed a can of black silly string at the statue. It was instantly clear that no-one had thought to dust the statue in a very long time – it was a forgotten relic, hidden away in a corner, passed over more often than not by everyone who came through the church.

What a metaphor that was for me, both with regard to the church as a whole, and closer to home, with regard to my own attempts (or lack thereof) to follow Christ. So often, Jesus takes a back burner to everything else going on in our lives, going in our world. I know when I started this job that I had confident plans to attend church every Sunday, no matter where I was or what I was doing – yet in two months of being over here, I've managed to attend exactly two services – and both of those in the first three weeks I was here.

It's not just about attending services, though – although it is, of course, important to be surrounded and supported by other Christians. I brought one of my many Bibles with me to the UK, along with a couple of Bible studies, full of good intentions of traveling with them and doing studies even as I crisscrossed Europe. Also gone by the wayside: reasoned away by the "fact" that I carry so much paper weight with me anyway (over 800 pages of reports by the end of a 2-week trip) that I "couldn't afford" to carry any more "unnecessary" weight.

I stood at His feet today, feeling those unseeing eyes gazing down at me, that shroud of cobwebs bearing witness to how forgotten He has become, and burst into tears… So much sacrifice, a lifetime of scorn and suffering, a painful, excruciating death…. For what?

When I got to my next hotel this evening, I asked the Reception Desk to find a Protestant church service for me to attend tomorrow. There's one in English at 12.30pm; you can bet I'll be in the front pew, begging God to forgive my selfishness and thanking Him for His ultimate sacrifice. And when I get back to the UK next weekend, I'll be printing and laminating the photo I took of that statue, to carry with me – inside my Bible – on every future trip, a constant reminder that He deserves so much more from me than tears at the back of a church in front of a forgotten statue….



Blessings & Hugs
Esther-Marie

I will be back on Thursday, July 15th!


Friday's Blog: Lyida "Eighteen"

FORGIVE and LET GO!

Want a quick lesson in forgiveness? Look at how children handle it. Children are upset with each other one second and best friends the next. I worked with children in foster care and heard some of the most heartbreaking stories involving neglect and abuse. Oftentimes the child still expressed love for the parent who abused them and wanted to go back home to live with them.

Forgiveness takes on a personal meaning at this time. You see, the person who wasn’t around when I struggled with shaping Kaiya into the young woman she is today, wanted to come to her graduation. In fact, he came to her graduation and brought his wife who barely even knows Kaiya. This situation tormented me for several weeks. Some of you may have questions: Why was she upset, is she still in love with him? Is she one of those mothers that try to sabotage the relationship between a father and his child(ren)? Her child is now 13 years old, should she be over it by now? To answer those questions: No, I’m no longer in love with her dad. I have always maintained an open door policy (within reason) for her father and his family. Yes, I should be over it but I’m not because I have deep rooted resentment in my heart. I have treated forgiveness as a gift I really didn’t want to give and I would take it back when I felt like I was offended again. Pretty childish right? Of course I know the verse from Mark 11:25 that says “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” I’m also familiar with the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18:21-35) Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” (Verses 21-22) To tell you the truth and I believe he’s on his seventy times seven, right about now. LOL! Forgiving a repeat offender causes me to feel as if I’m the weaker person… am I weak if the person feels like he or she can continually mistreat me? Being the “better” person gets old really quick! Ironically enough, I’m dealing with a situation right now where a dear friend is expressing disappointment in me, he won’t tell me why he’s upset and he’s also giving me the silent treatment. Hmmm….Amazing how we want forgiveness immediately but are unwilling to grant it immediately to our offenders when they ask.

In one of my conversations with God, the word “soul tie” came up in my spirit. A quick Google search found this definition: A soul tie is like a linkage in the soul realm between two people. It links their souls together, which can bring forth either beneficial results or negative results. A soul tie can be physical, spiritual or emotional; soul ties can bring forth positive or negative results. In my case, I still had a physical soul tie with Kaiya’s father because of the past sexual relationship we shared. The bottom line is his decision to come to Kaiya’s graduation, even with his wife, has nothing to do with me at all. The day was Kaiya’s. There are other things he’s done over the years to irritate me but I have to put my feelings aside and “grin and bear it” for at least four more years. Imagine me grinning now ~smile~.

Does forgiving your trespassers equal better health? According to many sources the answer is yes! Some of the health benefits include: healthier relationships, greater spiritual and psychological well-being, less stress and hostility, lower blood pressure, fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety and chronic pain, lower risk of alcohol and substance abuse. If the spiritual reasons don’t motivate you, maybe living a long healthy life will be an incentive to forgive.

Dear Sisters in Christ, I have to tell you this may be the most difficult blog I will ever write because the issue of unforgiveness is what I believe to be my biggest flaw and sin. If any of you are wrestling with resentment and unforgiveness, my prayer is for you to see if there are any soul ties present and destroy them, give the gift of forgiveness. I understand that you have been hurt and may feel used. Heed the Word of God, Proverbs 20:22 says, “Do not say, "I'll pay you back for this wrong!" Wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you.”

Lisa Bevere has written the book “Kissed the Girls and Made Them Cry: Why Women Lose When We Give In” this is a great book to read if you need healing and a better understanding of sexual soul ties. It also helps you to understand the importance of forgiving yourself as well as others.

I would like to leave you with two quotes on forgiveness. Oscar Wilde said “Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.” This last quote is from Lewis B. Smedes, author of Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve. Lewis said: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”



In Christian love,
Jennifer


I'll be back with more in 2 weeks, Wednesday, June 30th. Hope to see you then


Thursday's Blog: Esther-Marie "Single Women & Travel"

Read A Good Book.....Lately?

This morning as I was lying in bed talking to the Holy Spirit about what this blog should be about, I started thinking about reading. Why? I don’t know, but it was the only topic that seemed to come to mind. Okay, so now I’m at the computer and here we go. LOL!!

Saturday will be our first virtual book club call, and I’m very excited. I’m one who loves book clubs. I have been a member of a book club, and have also run them for neighborhood women. I think women join book clubs for different reasons. Yes, the most obvious is that you like to read, but I think the fellowship with other women is also a big draw. So it is safe to say that book clubs offer a time of fellowship and they inspire people to read. But there is something else I’ve noticed, and that is there are always the ones who never finish reading the book. The reasons why they didn’t finish are endless, life unscripted (any and everything happens), spirit of procrastination, the book is boring, had company, my period was on, my kids were acting out, my husband was getting on my nerves, I had so many commitments at church, I am tired, I don’t know why I joined, I really don’t like to read, I just couldn’t find the time…..

…..Hum, are these some of the same reasons we don’t read our Bible (The Good Book) on a consistent bases? I’m going to step out on a limb here and say, “Yes!”

I love to read, but then again most writers are readers. We are inspired by words. My love for books started with my first library card and first library book, “Curious George”. In fact I have it sitting in my bookcase and just renewed it online yesterday. My 5 year old granddaughter is in love with Curious George and the library, (chip off the old block). I grew up in a time when there was only one TV in the house (if that), it was never on 24/7 and you had to use your imagination every day of your life. When I came in from school you didn’t plop down in front of the TV (there were no computers), you did your homework, chores, maybe a little time outside to play, set the table, ate dinner, washed the dinner dishes, took your bath and then you got to watch a little TV before…off to bed. That was a perfect school evening, but if I was on punishment (which seemed like most of the time) there was no TV and I either went to bed early or stayed in my room and read. The summertime was also a time of much reading. During the heat of the day (again because the TV was not on all day), you played board games, jacks, had fun with your dolls and read books. Too this day, whenever it’s a rainy dreary day, I have to fight the urge to lie in bed and read all day. Those are some of my fondest memories as a child. But even as much as I love to read, it has become a struggle some days. And I don’t seem to be alone in this predicament either.

My mail carrier I’m sure some days is tired of delivering so many magazines to my house. Somehow I got hooked into a system where I get magazines subscriptions for next to nothing. And sisters, the lust of my eye has caused me a problem. Let’s see, I get Food & Wine, Prevention, Ladies Home Journal, Good House Keeping, Philadelphia Magazine, Bazaar, Glamour, and O magazine. And not to long ago I got rid of Martha Stewart, and Food Magazine. Would you believe that I got a 1 year subscription for O magazine for $5.00? That’s the problem; they were all so inexpensive that I just couldn’t say, “No.” Do I read all of them? “NO!” and that is the real problem. So, now as the subscriptions are running out, I’m going to cut it down to 3 magazines a month, or maybe even 2…LOL!! Because the truth is, if it only cost $1, but I don’t read them, then it is a waste of money. I do read my “Believers Voice of Victory” Christian magazine, and it is free. Now what does that tell you? LOL!!

Okay, let’s get back to the book club….Cheryl is the host for this month and if you joined for June, then you are part of a yahoo group and we are talking about the book a little bit before our call on Saturday. We have some who have finished, and others barely getting started, but that is how book clubs go. And that’s okay; because it is an extra curricular activity, but what I’ve noticed is that we can also get into a slump where we treat reading our Bibles as an extra curricular activity. And that’s not okay.

All the reasons we use to not finish a book for a book club are the same excuses we use to not read our Bibles on a consistent bases. But there is one big difference! A book club is for fun and enjoyment. Bible reading not only changes your life, but it can also save it too! It is not prudent to treat our Bibles like a pile of unread magazines that we hope to read one day. It shouldn’t be something we dust off once a week to lug to church. It should be something we make time for every day. And we should be so excited about what we read that we want to share it with someone else and through our excitement encourage them to read it too. We should start book clubs just about the Bible. Think about it, you meet on the phone once a week with a friend or two to discuss how you were inspired the past week through the Word of God. Wow!! How awesome is that?! It doesn’t have to be anything deep, just a conversation about what you’ve been reading. I have a dear friend and we talk about God’s Word, every week. She is a teacher of the Word so she studies it a lot, and talking to her often inspires me to go look up stuff and meditate on it. She provokes me unto good works!!! Sisters, we need to start provoking one another to read the Word of God consistently.

If you are guilty of not spending time with the Holy Spirit and your Bible, then it is time to put away the excuses, the spirit of procrastination and make time. None of our good works supersede us spending time in the Word. And I say that because we have a tendency to lead very busy lives, but it is still not a reason for us to forgo our time with the Lord. The Bible is our spiritual food. How many days are you willing to go without eating natural food? How long can you last without food, before we become weak or ill and our bodies go into starvation mode? Would starving to death be on your “Top 10” list of things to do? No! Yet, how many days does it take to become weak spiritually? How many days does it take to go into a spiritual starvation mode? Where we don’t make the choice to starve ourselves naturally, every day that we don’t read our Bibles, we make the choice to starve our spirit.

If you are one who thinks the Bible is boring, change your translation. If you are a person who really is not a reader, then ask someone to agree with you in prayer for that to change. Please sisters know that the King James Version is not the only translation to read, and if someone has told you that, they are mistaken. Jesus did not speak “King James Old English” the Torah and original epistles of the Bible were not written in King James Old English. If you have difficulty reading, you can follow alone on Biblegateway.com audio as you read the New International translation. No more excuses!! If you need to be held accountable, then get an accountability partner. And one last word of caution, please don’t take on reading the Bible in one year or putting unrealistic expectations on yourself. Start out with 15 minutes a day, and learn to be faithful and consistent in that. As your desire to read the Bible increases so will the amount of time you spend reading. Take one day at a time!

Sisters….I pray that you have been encouraged to pick up the best book ever written and put away all excuses. A love affair with God is better than anything this world has to offer. How can you have that? By spending time with Him through His Word!



Blessings and Love
Ponnie


Wednesday’s Blog: Jennifer has something very special for the “Working Single Moms” and you don’t want to miss it.