Faith & God

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Rocking the (Gender) Boat

Let Her LeadOne of the most controversial subjects in the church today is the role of women. Should they be senior pastors? Are they allowed to teach adult Sunday School? What about teaching boys? Are women only allowed to work in the kitchen, change diapers, and knit baby blankets? Was Paul a misogynist? What does the Bible really say?

I’ve avoided this issue until now, but not because I don’t have an opinion. I do. I have a very strong opinion! But being of a personality type that abhors conflict, I just didn’t want to open a can of worms, female or otherwise. I’ve felt a lot like Moses at the burning bush—sure, I’ll have an opinion about this topic, but please get someone else to do the writing!

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Better Late Than…

Pete with our adorable distraction.

Pete with our adorable distraction.

If you read my previous post, you know that we’ve had family in town. Our daughter and her daughter (daddy had to work and couldn’t come) came to Colorado to give our other daughter a baby shower. I spent hours playing with, feeding, and snuggling with our 14-month-old cutie. I cut up fruit and veggies, skewered chicken, and arranged platters of food for the shower. In between we enjoyed time with our very pregnant daughter and her almost-a-daddy husband. Somehow, in the middle of all that, Friday’s blog post never got written. Gosh darn.

I realize it’s now Monday instead of Friday, but let me make it up to you. Here’s a link to one of the best posts I’ve read in ages (mine included). The writer had Sunday School in mind, but really his point applies to any sort of “Christian” education and discipleship. If this article is typical, I think I’ll be checking out Beliefs of the Heart on a regular basis!

I Wonder If Sunday School Is Destroying Our Kids

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Babies

Willow and Karin April 2013Babies. I definitely have babies on my mind this week.

Our granddaughter is visiting from the Pacific Northwest and I’m treasuring every moment. After 14 months, Willow’s parents have already lost a lot of sleep on her behalf. They’ve spent a fortune on medical bills (she was five weeks premature), baby furniture, clothes, diapers, and the gazillion other things a baby needs in our culture. And they’d do it all again, because they love her!

Our family went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch yesterday. Instead of ordering a whole meal for a baby, we each agreed to share some food off our plates. Willow enthusiastically gummed down everything from red bell peppers, tofu, and egg roll to mu shu pork and bits of scrambled egg and dried lilies fished out of my hot and sour soup. She ate a lot! Why would I give her so much of my lunch that I needed a snack when we got home? Of course, it’s because I love her!

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Did You Say Something?

Does God talk to you?

The Bible is full of examples of God talking to people. Sometimes He used an audible voice, such as when Jesus was baptized: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Other times He spoke through the prophets, although we don’t know how they heard His voice. He talked to Moses out of a burning bush. And one time, God even spoke through an ass! (See Numbers 22:28.)

The Urim and Thummim were used to cast lots, another way for the ancient Hebrews to know God’s will (1 Samuel 14:41 is one example). Gideon put out a fleece (Judges 6:36-40) to make sure he was hearing God correctly. Pete and I did too; w hen God asked us to move to Colorado, we asked for confirmation that we understood what He wanted us to do.

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Five Lies

This may come as a shock to you, but did you know that Christians lie? Yup, we do. In fact, our pastor recently listed five lies we commonly tell, things we say in the church that really are downright falsehoods. While we all laughed as he expounded on each item, at the same time I bet a lot of people were convicted—I know I was! I thought our pastor’s insights were worth sharing, so here we go:

greeters

Five Christian Lies and Exaggerations, by Brady Boyd

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Volunteer!

I can cut up a melon in minutes, core and slice a pear like a pro, roll and wrap a burrito before you can say, “egg and cheese and potato.” I can even run the industrial dish washer! How did I get so skilled? I volunteered to work in our church’s café.

Yes, this is the same eatery I complained about in my blog, “Carb Café.” The menu still mostly includes foods I cannot eat on my low-carb, sugar-free diet. At least they offer salads, paninis, and fruit cups now. I’m proud to say, Pete and I cut up all the fruit, at least on the Sundays we work.

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Selah

Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God You are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome and power
Our God, Our God…

Into the darkness you shine
Out of the ashes we Rise
There’s no One like You
None like You.

What an appropriate song for our church to sing this weekend! I doubt Chris Tomlin meant “out of the ashes we rise” literally when he wrote those words, but that’s exactly what so many in our congregation are doing this summer.

The service continued with other songs about how great and powerful God is, and how we can trust him in the midst of adversity. It was powerful. And yet…

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Good God

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away… and sometimes He gives back again. You may remember my mention of our friends, Gene and Nancy, who lost their home in the Black Forest fire. They lived on the same block where the fire started, and had literally minutes to wake their daughter-in-law, grab the dog, the computer hard drive, and a box of photos (stored by the front door!) before jumping in their cars and fleeing for their lives.

Their house burned down, along with the accumulated treasures of fifty years of marriage. They are mourning their loss, and it is substantial. Yet, they have no doubt that God is good and that He is watching over them. For example…

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Swazi Trip Update

(If you missed the rest of my posts about my upcoming mission trip to Swaziland, you can read them here, here, here, and here.)

We have plane reservations! I’m staring at a piece of paper listing our flights… a red-eye from Denver to London, then another red-eye from London to Johannesburg. When we finally arrive, at 7 a.m. local time, bleary and jet-lagged, we’ll board a van provided by Children’s Hope Chest (CHC) and drive the six or so hours to our home base in Manzini, Swaziland. I hope I can still function that afternoon!

Thanks to God nudging some extremely generous folks, my support is slowly coming in as well. Although I missed the first deadline (we were supposed to raise $1,500 by the end of May to pay the deposit on our plane reservations), I’m on track for the next one—$3,000 of the $3,500 total is due at the end of July. As of last week, my account contained over $2,300—what an incredible answer to prayer!

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Greater Than the Boogeyman

pop file error messagePete hasn’t had a break all week. First it was just the distraction of moving back into our house. Then the email router at the ICTA office stopped working. That used up five days and it still isn’t really fixed. On Thursday a construction crew on the street outside the office accidentally hit a gas line, and the entire building had to be evacuated. So much for getting any work done.

That evening our router at home starting having fits and we lost our internet service. Then, while on the phone to the phone company (which also provides our internet service), the home land line died. (You know it’s bad when you can’t call the phone company!) Oh, and did I mention that our poor cell reception is augmented by a “personal cell phone tower” which runs, you guessed it, over the internet. Pete had to leave the house to call the phone company on his cell phone.

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