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On Prayer …
I’m reading Bryan Chapell’s book, Praying Backwards, so I’m thinking a lot about prayer these days. How (rightfully) ashamed I am by my all-too-frequent bouts of prayerlessness. And yet how comforted I am by the patience and kindness of God. Two lines from a recent Andree Seu article, This Body of Death, has also stuck with me: “Remember too, even the friends who like you best spend no more than five minutes a day thinking of you. God thinks of you all the time; talk to Him.” Thank you, Mrs. Seu, for the wonderful reminder! And thank You, God, for calling us all to pray. “Our hearts are restless…
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What Kind of Person Have You Been to God?
A friend sent me his powerpoint presentation on peacemaking and I was very blessed (and challenged!) by his closing Oswald Chambers quote. Thought you might be too, so here it is: Watch the kind of people God brings around you and you will be humiliated to find that this is His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. ‘Now,’ He says, ‘exhibit to that one exactly what I have shown to you.’ Now that’s going to take some mulling. And I assume some repentance. Thank God for His grace! Amen & Amen
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Pursuing Peace with Our Parents–Hope for This Mother’s Day (and Every Day)
Happy Mother’s Day! We’re about to head off to church … but I thought you might enjoy reading the article that I recently had published in the Peacemaker Ministries eMagazine (eNews @ Peacemaker Ministries). Hope it blesses you! And that you enjoy a wonderful Sabbath day of worship and rest. Yours, Tara B. Pursuing Peace with Our Parents–Hope for This Mother’s Day (and Every Day) Does Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day) fill you with gratitude for the loving, faithful, and godly parents you have? Praise the Lord! The blessing of true Christian fellowship with our parents cannot be overstated (or over-celebrated). But for many of us, relationships with our parents…
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Do your prayers sound like this? Do mine?
Each week, when I receive the email prayer requests from our congregation, I am constantly amazed by the prayers of a young (elementary-aged) girl in our church. I’ve begun to capture them in a Word doc. so that I can look over them all at once and see the beautiful, God-centered balance of worship, thanksgiving, intercession, and supplication that this little girl has. I have been so encouraged AND challenged by her prayers. Out of the mouths of babes! (I’ve even wondered if my publisher would ever be interested in putting them in a book form. Who knows?!) In the interim (and with the permission of her mother, but changing…
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Ajith on the Possibilities of Grace
Earlier this year, one of my all-time favorite theologians and ministers, Ajith Fernando (of Youth for Christ) wrote a wonderful article on Christian leadership and the possibilities of grace. A few paragraphs really struck me personally, because I could SO relate to the “people who society has given up on.” (I’ve had a bunch of people–ostensibly friends who loved me–give up on me without warning.) O, that I would learn to give the kind of grace that Dr. Fernando speaks of in this excerpt! Hope it blesses you as much as it blessed me. God bless you! And G’nite– Your friend, Tara B. — (An excerpt from LEADERSHIP ISSUES:…
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One line. SO much encouragement.
So something really sad happened to me today … a person I consider a friend said something to me that really hurt. Fred is URGING me to let it go. Don’t even think about it. Just cover it with grace. And I’m trying. But I’m still feeling very sad. I will tell you something encouraging, though. A friend wrote me a quick email today on a totally unrelated subject (SHE is actually going through some REALLY hard stuff these days) … and signed it with this line: “Take heart my friend, the Lord is with us!” Ah! What a good reminder. And what a wonderful encouragement too. Isn’t it amazing…
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Teaching Children = BEING Taught Ourselves
Want to hear a wonderful example of sharing the gospel with preschoolers? I just received this lovely email and thought it might bless you — hope so! Sending you lots of love, t PS I edited it a bit and took out the identifying information too. — Hi Tara, I’ve been thinking about writing to you for a week or so now. I don’t particularly wish to clutter your e-mail box, but have been chatting with my preschoolers and have been blown away by how simple the gospel really is. I thought you might appreciate hearing about some of the conversations we’ve had at our house – they’ve actually been…
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Who me? Bitter?
Before I moved from Chicago to Montana, I began an “email friendship” with a gifted Christian conciliator in the Midwest. (We were both in the Peacemaker Ministries Conciliator Training Program at the time and we were sharing notes / encouragement / etc.) Recently, this “spiritual father” emailed me this message and I thought it might bless you too. So (with his permission and changing identifying information to protect the stories of life that belong to others), here it is. (Oh, and … Who me? Struggle with bitterness? Can you imagine why he would think this would be an appropriate encouragement and message for little ol’ ME? hah hah) Dear Tara,…
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We Can Ignore It–But It’ll Still Kill Us
Another AMAZING point that the speaker made last night had to do with the nature of SIN. She mentioned how she had actually felt the “lump” or “ridge” in her breast for weeks before she did anything about it. She told herself: “It’s just tissue.” “It’s just cystic.” But of course it was the most aggressive, deadly breast cancer known to Man. Left untreated it would kill her for sure. She (again) regaled us as she described her tendency to minimize her sin: “I guess I have some issues with anger management.” And to make excuses and shift blame: “Yes, I raised my voice to you and I probably shouldn’t…
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Have you ever prayed this prayer and received THIS response?
Last night I heard one of the most God-centered, beautiful, biblical, deep, NOT “felt-needs / name it and claim it / I love God because He blesses me” testimonies. It was incredible. It was amazing. I wept and wept and was moved to worship God and was encouraged in my faith and … well … it was just lovely. (Lovely is not quite the word, but I’m not really coming up with the right one. It was good–good in all its goodness, its God-ness. It was right. It was a foretaste of Heaven. It brought us all to the Cross and turned our eyes off of ourselves and the speaker…
