The Meandering Mind of a Christian Woman

            When you were younger did you have different categories of friends? Perhaps there were one or two who were safe to introduce to your parents, maybe a few others that could be around once in a while and then there were the dangerous friends. The dangerous ones weren’t really bad; maybe their language was off color or they were school truants. Still, you were sure if your parents met them they’d be less than pleased with your choice of friends. We all want to please our parents, there is something about having their approval that is at the root of many counselors’ careers.             I did not have a posse of friends as a kid, it’s okay. I don’t want to think about what I have or don’t have, it is more important to consider who I am and how will I conduct myself. Recently, I have been considering what kind of friend I am and the kind of friend I want to be. I’ve decided I want to be the kind of friend the Jesus will proudly introduce to his Dad. Not a truant or a sometime

            I’m guessing you may have heard the following from an unchurched friend before; “If I set foot in the church the roof will fall in.” We tend to chuckle along because of the uncomfortable situation and let the topic die. I heard a song today (I did not catch the artist, I’m sorry) the refrain said, “there are no strangers, no outcast and God has no orphans.” It is important to remind people that the church on earth is comprised of sinful human beings; people with faults just like theirs. People prone to make mistakes, it happens.             I thought of my favorite Psalm 139 – verses 7-10 “ Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” We can never fall or run so far that God cannot reach us! God may have a runa

            Yesterday, I pointed out that Jesus did not condemn the sinful but I think it is important to point out that he did say, “Go, and sin no more.” It is pretty easy to overlook that caveat; after all, we know that he will forgive us. The word ‘repent’ is translated to turn from, when we repent our sin we should turn from it, important, yes. The part we forget is that when we do turn from sin, we turn to God.  He doesn’t just expect us to do it on our own.             The challenge can be that we are turning from something tangible, like drugs, pornography, gluttony and so on, to something spiritual. We cannot physically grasp something to pull ourselves from sin. We have to walk away from it with trust and faith that God will provide.             1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that yo

           I was at the grocery store today and saw a few people I know. However, a couple of them were so focused on their shopping they never saw me even though they appeared to look straight at me. I suppose we all get that focused sometimes. As I drove home I pondered how much of my life I live with tunnel vision. I can certainly get pretty focused, just ask my kids when I am focused on something and they attempt to talk to me.             Problems can do that to us. We get to a place where that is all we can see. There is nothing else, just this problem looming all around us. But if we step back we can see a bigger picture, we can see the bright spots in the midst of trouble. We get stronger, we see things we never saw before, we open our eyes to see blessings. I’ve always heard that we learn best from our mistakes and to a certain extent that is true. I know in my career mistakes stick with me far longer than lectures. Satan uses our mistakes to beat us over the head and accus

            When Elsa and I go for our walks, due to her age, I allow her to lead and decide how fast and far we will go. She does, however, possess the annoying habit of quite suddenly and without warning come to a dead stop directly in front of me. If I am not paying attention, I will stumble and fall.             Last week, my laptop did a very similar move and came to a dead stop giving me a black screen and only a black screen. So many emotions coursed through me as I stared at the screen; anger, heartache, devastation to name a few. I keep my writings and other documents for volunteer work that I do that are particularly important to me. I walked away from it and stressed about it for a bit. Then I prayed and went to bed. After work the following day I decided to see if I could change the video card (as recommended by friends) so I unplugged it, removed the battery and opened the back panel, stared at the innards, blew away some dust and slapped it a couple times. (I could

            I believe autumn is my favorite season. The cooling of a steamy, hot summer, no need for air conditioning, and the apple cinnamon candles are all good reasons to enjoy fall. My most beloved aspect though is the color. Living my life in the Midwest watching the leaves change color has always been a fascination. The thing is, once the leaves reach their bold color, they die and fall off the tree; to quote Bon Jovi they “go out in a blaze of glory.” In my overactive imagination, that is how see the Christian life and its mortal end.             Being a nurse, I have witnessed many deaths over the years. Some were quite peaceful and others rather distressing. I doubt that anyone else would say death is a blaze of glory, I would add, on this side of the event. Yet, for the Christian, imagine the blaze of glory awaiting us! I also had the privilege to witness the death of my husband, Don. Yes, it was a privilege. Don knew he was dying and he used his final few weeks of lif

Let me begin by saying if you haven’t ever seen ‘It’s a Wonderful Life” you should. With that in mind; I so often find myself relating to George Bailey, the main character. George had a wanderlust that went unsatisfied throughout his life. He finds himself in a very difficult circumstance and wishes he had never been born; he is granted this wish and gets to see what the world would look like without him. It is haunting and eye opening. While this brings George to the realization that he did have a wonderful life, it never does satisfy his wanderlust. Now, I have had the opportunity to travel and quite a bit to be honest; travel is much like a drug for me, I need another fix. I would even like to go so far as to move to entirely different region and find out what it is like to live in someplace new. In my 55 years I have lived within a 40 mile radius of where I grew up. I find myself searching the internet for ideas and daydream about the “what ifs” imagining that it will someho