The Meandering Mind of a Christian Woman

            Everyone is a slave to someone or something. We like to think we are free and there is a grain of truth to that freedom, we do have the freedom to choose our master. I once heard that the first thing you think about on waking, will give you insight as to where your heart is.  I have had the occasion of pain being my master on waking and one might say, but you didn’t choose that master. At first blush that is true, but how I choose to allow or disallow the pain to govern my day is my choice. Matthew 6: 20, 21 “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” … verse 24 goes on to say “No man can serve two masters. Either you will hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”        ...

            There is a little plaque where I work that says, “What if you only had today what you thanked God for yesterday?” It is a great little reminder.  Many friends on Facebook perform the 30 days of thanks in November, citing different people or things each day for which they are thankful; I too have done that in the past. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so it is especially appropriate to express our gratitude to God. Considering that God gives us everything, we have much for which to be thankful.             We give thanks for our children, our parents, siblings, friends or maybe the fact that we don’t live close enough to family that we have to spend an entire day together. Of course there is also clothing, food and shelter; you know, the basics. Although these are worthy entities for which to be thankful; there is one really obvious and very important item that doesn’t immediately come ...

            As anyone from the Midwest is aware, the first snow of the season is an exciting adventure. It brings out the lovers and haters of snow. I believe if we could arrange for the snow to only fall in certain places and to leave roads, runways and sidewalks alone, everyone would enjoy it. Snow is beautiful to watch from a window and even to play in for a little while. If the snow is the right texture you can get creative with your snowman and fort building skills. As a child, my siblings and I would spend a lot of time playing the snow, returning inside with woolen mittens caked with mini snowballs, which we place on the heat register to dry so we could go back out in a few hours and do it all again. I will never forget pulling out the bread bags which we would put over our feet and into our boots for waterproofing (yeah, right) and insulation. I have always lived in Northern Illinois and without fail every winter, driving skills of the gener...

            Have you seen the video of a failed trust fall? You know the one where all the friends line up behind a person and she is to trust them to catch her but instead of falling backwards, she falls forward. It makes me laugh when I see it and then scratch my head in wonder how anyone could be so foolish.             It dawned on me today that Christians actually do this figuratively quite frequently. We say we trust God but when he puts us in a position we aren’t comfortable with we don’t trust him, we fall forward on our faces. The story that comes to mind is Jonah; talk about a trust fall failure! The book of Jonah begins with; “The word of the Lord came to Jonah.” That is a serious directive and what does Jonah do? The exact opposite of what God asked him to do, God said Ninevah and Jonah said Tarshish. As one continues to read the book we see how God eventually gets His way. Ninevah n...

            There seems to be a misperception that social media is blowing way out of proportion. People believe that Christians really care or get offended by a coffee cup. Say it isn’t so! Now, I am not a coffee drinker so it couldn’t be any lower on my list of concerns. I had no idea people took these things so seriously. I also hear people say that we “can’t” say Merry Christmas and this simply isn’t true. We can wish people Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Joyous Kwanza or the generic Happy Holiday; it is the person behind the phrase that matters. Love your neighbor as yourself.             Perhaps you have met someone who did get offended by your greeting; I have not. I believe that our responsibility is to share the joy of the season and not be caught up in the grumbling consumerism that has invaded the season. I have blogged about this before, it is sort of my soap box. We must rejoice an...

            So, I am in need of surgery on my knee, it was initially planned for early in December and has been pushed back to the week of Christmas. On the one hand I am looking forward to having the surgery done but the wait time is bothersome. It gives me more time to think about what is coming. Expectation can be exhilarating or frustrating but waiting is draining and exhausting. It was pointed out in church this morning that Jesus had foreknowledge of the life he would have here on earth.             Let’s put that in perspective. Look back on the first 20 years of your life. How many people did you cross in that time span that pushed your buttons and you had enough of them and cut off ties or at the very least wanted to cut off ties. How often did you scoff at others who were perhaps slower than you mentally or physically? Maybe you were bullied and had vengeful ideas about your tormentor....

            The last few days have been scattered for lack of a better word. I feel like I am in a world of shiny things that continually distract me. Some distractions are worthy like helping a friend in need. Other distractions not so much. It has been sort of like a week for celebrating Murphy’s Law, things that could go wrong, did. Mind you, nothing that went wrong was truly devastating, just frustrating. Even though these frustrations were minor they got into my head and festered a bit. I found myself with difficulty concentrating on things including my prayers.             My prayers tend to be all day conversations with God anyway but this week the interruptions in conversation were lasting longer than normal. When I struggle in this manner my tactic is usually to remember and recall any bible verses I know and recite them to myself.  It is a way to center myself. I found it difficul...