Finding time for prayer and devotion can be difficult while working, chasing kids, cleaning house, washing clothes, cooking, and doing the hundreds of other tasks a woman does in a day. But without daily prayer and devotion, those tasks are made that much harder because we lack the spiritual uplifting and guidance in our lives. Luckily, many websites offer free daily or weekly devotionals you can receive by e-mail.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:35)
Women spend more time on the Internet perusing message boards, forums, e-mails, and writing blogs than men according to Internet usage statistics. In this world-wide environment, Christians are a minority. Go to any social bookmarking site such as Technorati or Netscape and search the term “christianity.” Your results will show a great many posts speaking against Christianity and Christians. Just as in life, your behavior and words on the internet will impact these perceptions. Are you practicing “love one unto another,” or are you engaging in heated exchanges encouraged by the anonymity of a fabricated username?
I visit alot of forums because of my writing and other online work. I have watched what I thought was a benign remark quickly spiral out of control because someone took it the wrong way or found some offense, often unintended. Couple this with the removal of normal communication cues such as body language, voice inflection, and immediate feedback, and it is easy to misinterpret comments and posts. My experience is that these online cat fights happen most often when women are involved in the conversation.
For lifelong Catholic Carol Katter, refusing to pay dues to the teacher’s union that financially supports abortion agendas was a moral and religious decision. When membership became mandatory, she attempted to donate her dues to a charity rather than the Ohio Education Association, a chapter of the Nation Education Association (NEA). This option is allowed by the chapter’s bylaws for Seventh-Day Adventists and Mennonite churches because of their history of objection to union membership. However, when the Catholic teacher asked for the same religious consideration, she was told she had to either change religions or pay her dues.
Katter took her case to court, and the ruling by the federal district court was unequivocably in favor of Katter. “Any public employee who was a member of a “bona fide religion or religious body which has historically held conscientious objections to joining or financially supporting an employee organization … shall not be required to join or financially support any employee organization.” (CNSNews.com)
Hopefully, this case will set an example for all employee organizations that even the unions are not exempt from religious rights.
Read a full accounting of the case.
I officially transferred my membership to the First United Methodist Church in my hometown on Sunday. I had been without a home church for several years after a split in the one I was attending. Basically, I had been church hopping, looking for a new home. I have been attending First Methodist for about a year, and even recently began serving on one of the committees, so it was time to transfer membership. After the service on Sunday, I started thinking about the different churches I had visited. Somehow, through very loose associations with the word “hopping,” I realized that churches and bars have a lot in common.
As a college student, I did my fair share of bar hopping. Although my usual drink of choice was Coca Cola, I enjoyed the energy and companionship of the bar scene. Plus, I have always been a night owl and the bars were the only places open the same hours I was awake. But in playing my loose associations game Sunday, I started comparing the atmosphere of bars I had visited to churches I have visited. I came to the conclusion that there are three basic types of each.
One type of bar is a vampiric sort of place. When you first walk in, everyone is friendly and seems to be having a good time. The longer you stay, though, the more you realize that the people are feeding off each other (figuratively, of course). They are all “alcoholics,” accepting each other as such and encouraging the continuation because facing life sober is too frightening. In the church, this translates into one in which the members are friendly, welcoming, and searching for perfection by absorbing each others problems. (more…)
Joni Eareckson was born in 1949 in Baltimore, Maryland. She gave her heart to Jesus at a youth conference in 1964. In 1967, she was paralyzed during a dive in the Chesapeake Bay. At the young age of 17, Joni found herself facing the rest of her life in wheelchair. Two years of rehabilitation gave Joni new skills needed to live that life. She began to learn how to paint by holding the brush with her mouth. She became an accomplished artist and began showing her artwork at art fairs. A local television station did a feature on Joni, which resulted in an interview with Barbara Walters, which then led to a publisher asking her to write a book and Billy Graham’s film ministry producing a movie. Thousands of letters were received from others with disabilities, and thus began Joni and Friends International Disability Center in 1979. Joni married Ken Tada in 1982.
Some days you just want to get away. It’s not that anything particularly bad has happened or anything has gone wrong. You just need a little mini vacation from typical life. The kids are behaving, the husband is behaving, and the day is normal; but you suddenly look around and think, “I don’t want to be doing this today!”
I had one of those times yesterday. I seemed to be trapped in a cycle of “I should be…but I don’t want to.” Luckily, I have a God who is there with me all the time. I have a quiet place in my mind that I go to meet God on those days. I see a meadow, sometimes with tiny wildflowers, sometimes with just waving green grass. A little to the left, about a third of the way in the meadow, is a big, leafy tree. It has thick, strong branches that reach out and create a cool shady circle. I imagine that God walks there and when I just need a quick break, I go there to meet him. I set aside all of my roles as wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, writer, and whatever else someone might want me to be that day. When I go there, I am simply God’s. Sometimes I talk to him. Sometimes I just sit and feel his presence, a soft bunny in my lap and a clear blue stream flowing behind me.
I am going to be writing a periodic post on successful Christian women. I would like some reader input on who your inspirations and role models are. They can be from any time period, any part of the world, any denomination, and successful at anything. I am looking for women who exemplify a Christian spirit and who, through life, work, or life’s work, set an example that women have vital roles to play in God’s kingdom and we can make a difference through Christ.
You can send your ideas to me through the “contact” link or leave a comment. Just give me the woman’s name and a few sentences about why she should be featured, and I will do the research. Any resources you may already know about, though, would be appreciated. Leave a link to your own blog or website, and if I use your idea I will include your link in a special thank you in the post.
Never stop learning, either from history or from each other! When we believe we know all we can know is when we miss out on important lessons. God has an uncanny ability to lead us to those people we need in our lives at that specific time. Your role model might just be the inspiration someone else needs to hear right now.
I have blogged about my husband’s annoying habit of snoring. I have a habit that annoys me, too. I swear. To myself. All the time. The daily running dialogue with myself in my head is scattered with “Forgive me, Lord”s throughout my waking hours. Fortunately, I am a careful speaker who usually thinks through every sentence before saying it, so I don’t unintentionally swear out loud. It is still a habit that annoys me, though. I learned to cuss (or curse, or swear) like a sailor long before I became a Christian. And it is a particularly appalling habit for a Christian woman.
The most frightening statement of the century: “The negative influence of religion and its subsequent contribution to child abuse from religious beliefs and practices requires us to ask whether organized religion is an institution that needs limits set on how early it should have access to children.” (Nasiretti)
The Center for Inquiry has gained cosultative status at the U.N. They will now use that status to promote their stated mission as “A global federation committed to…secularism.” According to LifeSite.net, the chairman for the Center for Inquiry’s India chapter, Innaiah Nasiretti, stated religious influence is a “severe shortcoming in the global campaign to protect children” and a contributor to child abuse saying, “In one form or another, all religions violate the rights of children.” The Council for Secular Humanism is part of this organization and bills itself as “North America’s leading organization for non-religious people.”
Ruth Bell Graham was remembered in a public memorial on Saturday, June 16, 2007, before being laid to rest in a private funeral at the Billy Graham Library. The public service filled the 2,000-seat arena to capacity as friends, family and mourners paid tribute to her life. The video of the service, as well as archived taped interviews with Mrs. Graham herself, are available for viewing at CBN.com.
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Annoying habits; personality quirks; nervous tics; we all have them. And our spouses seem to develop more of them the longer we are together. “I have one nerve left, and you’re on it” always brings a giggle because we can relate so well. “Familiarity breeds contempt” is a harsher version, but that statement did not become popular for lack of reference, either. Somewhere around year two of marriage, the cute is suddenly not so cute anymore, and habits once lovingly ignored begin to encroach on our sanity. I can’t help but think even the Apostles must have been mighty miffed when Jesus slept like a baby on the boat while a storm threatened to smash it to toothpicks. “Would you believe HE’S ASLEEP again! How can he sleep at time like this? We’re in a raging storm, in a wooden boat, with the Son of God, and HE’S ASLEEP!”
My husband snores. Loudly. Every night for 10 years and 11 months. At first, I paid it no attention. Lots of people snore, and since I read every night I could tune it out. Gradually, though, I couldn’t tune it out anymore. The more I noticed it, the louder it got. It was not unusual for me to be in bed reading first, but I soon found myself rushing to get everything done so I could go to bed, and hopefully to sleep, first. It took years to build up, but then I found myself a couple of nights going to sleep on the couch because I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I would actually get mad at him and lie awake furiously debating whether to wake him up and make him get on the couch or if it was easier to go myself. I was losing it!
“Her life is ruled by the Bible more than any person I’ve ever known.” Billy Graham on his wife, Ruth Bell Graham
Ruth Bell Graham’s legacy lives on in her husband, Reverend Billy Graham, and her children and grandchildren. But she also left behind a legacy in words. She authored and co-authored many books, as well as having many written about her by other authors. Her death on June 14, 2007, reverberates throughout the world from her birthplace in China to her home in North Carolina. This remarkable woman had the ability to touch the lives of millions through her intelligence, love, laughter, and understanding. I have compiled this list of books both by her and about her in the hopes that you will read at least one of them and learn from the examples of a woman who loved and lived for Christ each day of her life.
Ruth Bell Graham, wife of evangelist Billy Graham, died today at her home in North Carolina. She was a talented writer, adoring mother, devoted wife, and a strong Christian woman. Born in 1920 to missionary parents in China, her life was a fascinating walk through most of the last century from the rise of communism in China to receiving the Congressional Gold Medal jointly with her husband in 1996, to spending her last years with her husband, five children, and 19 grandchildren.
Mrs. Graham was a vital part of her husband’s ministry. She not only helped in the ministry itself, but Billy Graham often credited his wife for being his strength and greatest supporter, without whom his ministry would not have been possible.
Mrs. Graham has joined our God in Heaven today. As I write these words, I can imagine that Jesus has held her in his arms, “smoothed the furrows from her brow,” and renewed her spirit with a joy beyond all understanding. She has finally been able to look on God’s face and see his beauty. She has run the race, and in God’s eyes I know she was a winner.
For Mr. Graham, my heart-felt prayers are with him and his family. I cannot imagine the combined grief over her loss and perfect peace that she has finally reached her true home. The example of her life will shine for all Christian women to follow until that day Jesus returns to us.
Mrs. Graham, I hope you are there now taking your rightful place with the greats. What a tea party awaits you!
Ruth Bell Graham Memorial Site
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Life as a Christian Woman is in its second week now. I am listing a few of my favorite things and people here so you can get to know me better. I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, that Jesus was the son of God and died for our sins, and that he was resurrected to the right hand of God, sending the Holy Spirit to us to guide and comfort us. Beyond that, I am constantly searching to learn just what it is that God wants me to know here in this world so that when I join him in Heaven he will say, “I am pleased.” My favorites are a few things that have brought me peace, laughter, and understanding along the way.
BOOKS
The King James Version Bible
Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell
The Case for Christ (and subsequent series) by Lee Strobel
Fiction: The Pendragon Cycle by Stephen R. Lawhead
Fiction: The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas
Look for these books on Amazon
MAGAZINES
Today’s Christian Woman
The Biblical Archaeology Review
Christianity Today
MUSIC
David Phelps (see video of “No More Night” below)
The Gaither Vocal Band
Randy Travis
Charlotte Church “The Prayer”
PEOPLE
Billy Graham
John Hagee
Pope John Paul II (although I am not Catholic)
Mother Teresa
Mark Lowry, a Christian comedian
My favorite song and comfort by one of the greatest tenors to ever grace the stage — David Phelps singing “No More Night”:
I am still searching for my favorite websites and web content. Be sure to check out the blogs Find Religion and Parenting and Religion.
Share your favorite websites, things and people, Christian or non.
When MyTrueSelf1 made this video, she was searching for the legacy of Christian women. In her search, she discovered that most of the great historical Christians viewed women as inferior, incapable of intelligence, and even the root of evil.
We know that history was not exactly kind to women, and those struggles continue today in many parts of the world. But what is our current legacy? What foundations are we laying today for those young Christian women who will follow us? I have mentioned the women role models in a previous post, but many of those historical role models made their contributions against all odds. Are we now offering a chance for women to make contributions because of the odds?
Life as a Christian Woman explores Biblical truths as they apply to modern faith and the vital roles we can play in the body of Christ. Some topics are easy, such as Christ died for our sins. Others, like divorce, single parenthood, work, and submission to our spouses are more challenging. Then there are days we just need a good laugh with God. Together, we can learn practical faith in an impractical world.
Life as a Christian Woman Author(s)
» Linda-Williams
christian women
christian books
christian music
DavidPhelps
