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Showing posts from May, 2016

Cultivating a tribe: The woman with an issue

So I can remember my mom singing with a trio back in the day and the song started like this "A woman tried many physicians, but they could not help, so unto Jesus she came.  And when the crowd they tried to restrain her, she whispered these words through her pain.  Touching Jesus is all that really matters, than your life will never be the same.  There only one way to touch Him, just whisper these words through your pain." Last week I talked about the women at the well, you know the one that really didn't care she was an outsider, whose life was a mess and yet when she met Jesus she was changed.  Well this week I want to talk to you about a women with an issue that she couldn't control.  A women that by her disease was made unclean and couldn't even go into the temple.  She risked everything for the hope of being healed.   You see when we look at a cultivating a tribe we need to look at the women with the issues.  I relate with this women probably more than I

Cultivating a Tribe: Unwanted woman

            I will never forget I walked into church one and I got "Oh girl, I love your outfit."  and "I love those shoes."  not one person asked me how I was.  Not one person asked what was new with me.  Although I got a lot of compliments on my outer appearance. I said the polite thing "Thank you so much"  but I wanted to yell "Seriously I did learn how to color coordinate in preschool, and yes, I know its cute that is why I picked it."  My husband laughed at me. Because honestly I love women who love fashion, but I love people more.   Others will now tell me the like my shoes just because they think it is hilarious, and it is, but it is a gentle reminder for us as women to see more than the outside, if you love purses, awesome. I love thrift stores, shopping for deals, and NEVER paying full price.  But the this is where we are as women sometimes, we don't want others to see our mess, our lives, how imperfect we are, so we hide behind shal

Learning to live UNASHAMED

    I can remember early memories of someone sticking a finger in my face "You should be ashamed of yourself."  I felt that shame as a child and I kept that shame clear into my adulthood, not even realizing it.  Shame gives way to fear, and I at thirty years old was so full of fear to the point that I couldn't walk in who God made me.  God was telling me to do this small group and I was telling him NO.  My family was going through a very hard season, and I was emotionally so spent trying to hold my life together.  Then God said pick up something else.  It was this thing called Propel Women.  I began the process, filling out the forms, doing the things that God told me to do, while I felt my life was too messy, I was not the right person for the job.  At every step I knew the enemy was attacking to the point that several things caused us to not even launch.  I knew at an early age God called me to tell others about Jesus.  But I could not seem to shake this feeling of '

God I am mad at you

It's something I was taught at a young age: God is perfect, his ways are higher, he is perfect, holy, and everything good. I could repeat this to anyone at a young age and truly believed it with all my heart.   As a child who isn't really a rule follower, I really struggled with the perfect God in my life.  You know the one that allowed me to be sexually abused as a child, spiritually abused clear into my adulthood.  You know the one that allowed male leaders to tell me that I was less than because of my gender, that they didn't believe in women, and therefore didn't believe in me.  As a child I looked at people and was confused, because I also met God through Jesus at an early age.  I accepted Christ as my savior from my earliest memories, I talked to God every night, told him about my day, I can remember this clear back to four.  So what do you do when you love God, but you don't necessarily love the people he put around us?  Or when life hits us in the gut and w