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I had no hope because my eyes were on ME …
Last week*, Fred and I had one of the most disturbing — fights? difficult conversations? “opportunities”? future peacemaker seminar illustrations? — of our lives. The — let’s just call it a fight — the fight itself was nothing new. Seriously — it was fight #24 or something in our marriage. But here is the truly frightening aspect of it … Unlike most of our “challenges” (fight just sounds too strong), at the end, we usually reconcile rather quickly. We may be hurt, but we readily confess, forgive, and begin to move on. That didn’t happen last week. In fact, I became extremely, extremely sad. I was grief-stricken. Overwhelmed. Disturbed in…
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Growth in Grace Measured over YEARS …
Eleven years ago, a woman in my church quoted Peacemaking Women to me: “Tara? People don’t need fixing, they need growing. And growth is measured in terms of years, not projects.” What a kind thing to say. What a gracious way to live. Six months later, this woman’s sister wrote me an email that was similarly kind: “Tara? We all struggle. Sometimes we struggle with the same thing over and over again and it seems like we are not making progress. But herein lies the truth: God is at work. His will is to sanctify his children. And nothing can thwart God’s will. God IS working in us, Tara – because He…
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Uncharitable Presumptions & Being Really, Really TIRED
Today would have been a very easy day to think some extremely uncharitable presumptions about me. I didn’t make it home from my event until midnight (which was around 1AM for my body because of the time zone differentials. Getting ready for church felt like I was lifting arms and legs made of 300 pounds of concrete. But I did it—I was eager to be at corporate worship and happy to be together as a family. Still. If you were one of the 500 people past whom I walked without a cheerfully greeting? (I tried! Believe me, I tried! But it got to the point where a migraine started in…
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Frank and Open Discussions About S*X
Years ago, a woman in our church and I have held Sunday morning “discussion times” with some of the teen and young adult women in our church. My co-teacher did an amazing job of summarizing and presenting all three years of the Susan Hunt curriculum for teens during our classes last year. This summer, we wanted to go even deeper into concepts related to biblical womanhood, so I created handouts and homework each week around the following topics: – Women as Courageous Leaders (trusting God and using our gifts in the home, church, workplace, and community) with a specific focus on formal education money/debt, career, marriage goals / infertility issues. Egalitarianism…
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Not able to remember what it feels like to have a dream and a goal and a purpose …
In order to prep for my “Persevering with Grace When Our Leaders Let us Down” workshop (that I’ll be giving at a women’s leadership conference in a few days), I am deep into pruning 80+ pages of notes down to 20. (Eek!! Eek for the fact that these conferences are HERE this week and EEK that I still have so much work to do!!) In the middle of my outlines, I found notes from a conversation I had years ago with a woman in my church. She was helping me because I was in a real spiritual funk (depression?) and one of her points was that I was not submitting…
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How to Have a Healthy and Vibrant Church
Quite awhile ago, I received an email from a blog-lurker who asked if I had any book recommendations on how to have a healthy, vibrant church that loves one another. My snow delays and misconnected flights yesterday … … gave me the time to (finally!) respond. So here’s the list I came up with (plus a few additions). I’d be curious to hear if you would’ve added other books: – Jonathan Leeman, The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline – Edmund P. Clowney, Living in Christ’s Church – James Thompson, Our Life Together – Bruce Milne, We Belong Together:…
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Phases of Writing
I’m officially working on my next book, so I’ve been thinking a lot about the (wonderful!) time I spent writing Redeeming Church Conflicts with Cap’n Dave. Towards the end of our work together, I remember one particularly enjoyable call when I spent five hours on the phone listening to my coauthor paint vivid pictures of example after example of “redeeming church conflicts.” It was wonderful—he is profoundly wise; his heart is for the Lord and the Church; and MAN! Can he paint a detailed picture of Christians redeeming conflict (or not redeeming conflict—many of his examples are like diamonds laid against black velvet; insight by the power of antithesis). He describes (sometimes…
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Being Kicked to the Relational Curb
I once had a pastor who preached a wonderful sermon on 1 Peter 4:7-11 entitled, “Love Each Other Deeply.” Consider the life-changing truths that he mentioned: – CS Lewis stated that “love is risky business,” “love makes us vulnerable,” and, “the only way to keep your heart intact is to give your heart to no one–not even an animal.” How right he is! (This reminded me of something this very pastor once said to Fred and me years ago. We were talking about how terribly even ostensibly mature Christians can treat people, and our former pastor said this, “It’s ministry. It hurts.” Isn’t that true? If it were chocolate, it…
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When we are cruelly attacked by someone who SHOULD be protecting us …
I just found out that a dear friend of mine was recently verbally hurt by her dad. (Strange, because I had a stressful dream about my own dad last night and then I woke up at 6:30AM–on the EAST COAST!! so, like, 4:30 for my Montana bod–and found her email in my Inbox.) I immediately prayed for her (of course) and tried to encourage her in an email response. (Since I didn’t think I should be calling anyone on the west coast at that hour.) I’ve changed the name and details … but I thought that you might be helped by what I wrote too, so here it is. Blessed…
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God’s Provision re: My Fear of Inadvertent Heresy – Prof. Dennis Johnson
Nancy Guthrie and Prof. Dennis Johnson have a wonderful episode of “How to Teach the Bible” that I encourage you to listen to: Teaching Jesus as Prophet, Priest, and King What wonderful reminders of specific ways that Jesus truly does answer our biggest questions and our greatest fears. If you are not familiar with Nancy Guthrie, I encourage you to visit her website and learn more about her extensive teaching materials and her ministry of Respite Retreats for those grieving the loss of children, too: Nancy Guthrie And if you aren’t already benefiting from the rich, biblical teaching of Prof. Dennis Johnson, I urge you to read and study his materials, too:…
