• Relationships & Peacemaking

    Peacemaking & The Fall

    Incredibly keen insights from GH (in Maryland) … I am going to mull on them for awhile. Happy Tuesday! Love, Tara B. “Dear Tara, I was too busy studying and preparing lessons for the young Moms’ class at VBS when your e-mail came inviting participation in your on-line survey. However, I am finally freer than I have been in a while and wanted to open some lines of discussion with you. I don’t know that I have a great deal to offer on the subject. Most has been learned in the school of hard knocks. However, having been involved in [women’s ministry] now for 25+ years, I have had many…

  • Grace in Daily Life

    Wow! What a praise!

    I received this email from a woman who won a prize for completing my “peacemaking women” survey and boy! It was SO encouraging that I thought I would share it with you too. Love to all, Tara B. “I just had to let you know how our sovereign God works through others. I received your package in the mail today and was in disbelief when I opened the package. You sent me a copy of Dr. Welch’s book on depression and there is no way you could have known that I had been trying to figure out a quick way to get a copy to give a friend of mine.…

  • Singleness & Marriage

    Submission and Headship at 100 Feet Below the Ocean

    On two of our ten SCUBA dives last week, Fred’s depth gauge broke. (Bummer!) It wasn’t dangerous or anything, but it meant that our normal dive buddy pattern had to adjust even after we had descended. (Usually, Fred checks his depth gauge and air level CONSTANTLY during our dives and I’m more of a “check it occasionally” person. It’s funny because I often think, “MAN, Fred checks his gauges a lot” and Fred says that he often thinks, “MAN, Tara should check her gauges more often.” Isn’t marriage a hoot?) ANYWAY … normally when we dive, I like to let Fred take the “lead” so that I’m responsible for adjusting…

  • Hope in Suffering

    Discussion Board Logins?

    If you’ve tried to join our discussion board and NOT received a password/login, would you PLEASE email me and let me know? As some of you may have noticed, we’re having a bit of a struggle keeping SPAM (especially pornography SPAM! Ick!!!) off of my blog and our discussion board, so some legitimate friends may have been denied a login. SO sorry for the inconvenience! Thanks for letting me know.   (Oh — and if you email me, you’ll probably get my “out of the office until 8/22” autoreply, as soon as I can get to my computer and Fred is awake, I’ll try to cancel that. But please trust…

  • Perfectionism & Shame

    Thinking through my entire adult life …

    During our vacation, one day I had over an hour to myself to just sit and think and pray. I was very relaxed and I began to “replay” or think about my entire adult life. It made me very sad. I thought about high school where I so desperately wanted to have real friends and some sort of “home” … and I thought I did in my circle of (choir / marching band / french club / speech team / NHS) friends. But then I remembered how my friends confronted me on my (many!) weaknesses and I had to PERFORM to get to keep being around them (which I did)…

  • Hope in Suffering

    Suffering and Glory

    This week I received another email from pastor and professor (and missionary and hero of the faith!) Ajith Fernando and I was (yet again!) reminded of the goodness and the glory of God … and thus drawn to worship Him more rightly. Since so much of peacemaking involves suffering … (check out my “Search Past Blog Entries” on Suffering and you’ll see that I’ve posted on this topic a LOT), I thought it might be a particular encouragement to you all. Hope so. Sending you my love, Tara Barthel PS If you don’t yet know Dr. Fernando and his ministry and books, I urge you to get to know him.…

  • Grace in Daily Life

    John Piper on Jesus’ Commands

    I just received a wonderfully encouraging email that included a link to a John Piper sermon and I thought it might be a blessing to you too: The Man Went Down to His House Justified I encourage you to drink it in and head into your day with your heart fixed firmly on the Saving, Redeeming, Steadfast Love of the Lord! To tempt you a little, I’ll let you know that in this sermon, Pastor Piper asks three questions: 1. What difference does it make that the eternal, incarnate, fully divine, fully human, sinless Son of God spoke this? 2. What difference does it make that his main reason for…

  • Relationships & Peacemaking

    When We’ve Wronged Someone

    Sorry that I can’t remember the citation or where I read this article … but I thought it might be a blessing to you, so here it is: Donne and the Return Home Keith Cox “John Donne, the Renaissance poet, left us numerous treasures in his work. Recall that he instructed, “No man is an island” (Footnote 1: John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, xxvii.) and “Never send for whom the bell tolls, the bell tolls for you.” (Footnote 2: John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, xxvii.) Beyond these now famous lines Donne, through his works, has left us the witness of one who deeply understood and insightfully expressed the…

  • Relationships & Peacemaking

    Don’t use your “personality” as an excuse!

    Many times when I’m talking and praying with women, I hear things like this: – “But that’s just the way that I am!” – “SHE needs to ACCEPT ME!” – “No one talks to me at church! I sit there every Sunday and NO ONE approaches ME. Same thing at women’s Bible study. So THAT’S why I’m not going ANY MORE.” I think about this a lot because I am so often tempted to say those EXACT SAME THINGS. And yet … and yet … – Didn’t Jesus come to save you from that “just the way that I am”-ness? (paraphrasing Patsy Clairmont) – Are we called to BE accepted…