Lessons from a Women’s Retreat

This weekend I had the opportunity to spend some time with 91 other God girls, as we took time away from our daily lives to seek God. In random order and point-form, here are some things I learned…

- Sandy Cooper truly is a good as her blog God Speaks Today! You know how some people are great at communicating God’s truths in writing, but when they speak you’re disappointed? Not so with Sandy. I’ve loved Sandy since I met her at a conference several summers ago. I love her even more now. She is hysterically funny, transparently real, and 100% Biblically sound in her teaching. Also, she’s very beautiful and skinny. (Sandy, that was for you.)

- If you take a fitness buff away from home for long enough, you will be able to lure her into eating the sugary treats she usually avoids. I won’t name names, but the blogger/speaker/writer also known as Fitness Friday Girl may have been seen eating a brownie, a rice crispie square, cookies, and TWO cupcakes. She’s still skinny…

- It really is true that when we seek God with all our heart we will find Him. I found Him again… Not that He was lost, but more like I had wandered far enough off the path that I couldn’t hear His voice calling me anymore. Oh, how I love the comfort of hearing His voice!

- If you hate women’s retreats, you’ve been going to the wrong ones. We had fun and loads of laughter together, we dug deep into God’s Word, we worshipped with abandon, we rested and had quiet times, we met new friends and grew closer to those we already knew. All this and we were on the team who planned and led the retreat!

- True balance in life may look incredibly unbalanced. True balance is found by asking God what He wants me to do for today. (Although I knew this, I needed to learn it again. Thanks for the reminder, Sandy.)

- I am blessed to be surrounded by women who love God and are true friends. Both face-to-face and keyboard-to-keyboard. Kelly, Beverly, and Sandy – you are blessings in my life. Thanks for this weekend.

- When a woman you don’t know comes up to you and tells you that she thinks you are beautiful, it can make a girl glow for days. (If you think nice thoughts about someone, please go tell her. You’ll make her day! Or week.)

- I am blessed to have a husband who loves me enough to send me away for a weekend every year to retreat. Not only did he give me the gift of time with God and girlfriends, he gave me the gift of coming home to dinner on the table, freshly bathed children, vacuumed floors, and laundry on the go. Pat, you are my blessing. (Sorry girls, he’s all mine!)

Filed Under: friendship, listening to God, marriage, my walk, real life, retreat April 2, 2012 By 5 Comments



Photobucket

Photo Tour of Haiti (pt 1)

The title of this post may be a bit misleading. You’re probably expecting photos of the terrain, the people, the traffic… All those things were profound. And I have lots of photos to share along those lines. But right now my memories of Haiti are all tied up in a group of 14 people.

It’s amazing how you can come to love strangers as if they’re family…

Here’s our first morning together, ready to board our first plane in Calgary.

In Miami, we had to find a place to store our supply bins (14 of them), rather than hauling them to our hotel.

We needed one last shot with our sign (Gerald and Blanche get artists’ credit for that) in Miami.

Once we arrived, the girls got settled in to our comfy accommodations. (You don’t want to see a photo of the boys’ room. Honestly!)

Project #1 – Digging holes. These holes will hold the pilings for the staircase of the trade school.

Project #1.5 – Tying rebar. This rebar belongs in those pilings, too.

These were our first couple of days in a glance. More to come, and likely to include the expected shots of the community…

Filed Under: friendship, Haiti, missions February 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment



Photobucket

Moving Day

Today, I have some exciting news!

No, no, no. I am NOT pregnant. Very funny.

Maybe I prefaced that wrong… I have some news to share that is very exciting to me. I have no idea whether it will turn your crank.

After much labor (pun intended) on the part of a couple very special women, my real, live, grown-up web site is ready to go!

E. Tyler Rowan

You’ll notice that my website is .ca – that’s because I’m Canadian. :) But, you’ll also find it if you use .com. Go ahead, try it! Cool, eh? (I know. My adolescent excitement is a bit much.)

I do hope my giddiness hasn’t scared you away from coming along with me on this interwebby move!

Technical Details:

If you are a regular reader here, and you get blog posts by following, through RSS feed, or via email, I’d love it if you headed over there and subscribed to the new feed!

But, if you’re like me (lazy), you don’t have to. From now on, when you come here, you’ll get sent there. And if you subscribe through my feedburner feed, I do believe you’ll get forwarded. Dontcha just love it when you don’t have to do any work?!

However… If you do not get a post delivered to you tomorrow through whatever feed means you use, please remember me and subscribe to the new site! (You never know when those technical glitches will affect things.)

Just to make sure they get their props:

Thank you so much to Holly of Crown Laid Down Designs. She is responsible for all that you see on the new site, with the exception of the words. Holly has spent many hours over the past two weeks dealing with my constant emails asking to switch this and tweak that. She is incredibly patient and detailed, and she was not satisfied until I was utterly in love with every detail! If we met in person, I just know we’d get along fantastically!

And a special thanks to my friend, Louise, of real life, Facebook, and Twitter, without whom I wouldn’t have even begun to try. Louise patiently sat with me for hours (in a hotel room with sketchy wifi access), holding my hand through the process of starting up a wordpress page, cheering me on every time I wanted to cry and give up. Her confidence and creative genius convinced me that “I can do it!” I love you, Louise. Not just for all your help, but for who you are.

And to my old friend Blogger… I thank you for making it easy for me to get my thoughts out there onto the world wide web. And for being free. And for being easy to use. In spite of your limitations and technical difficulties, I will forever have fond memories of you.

So, what’re you waiting for? Go check it out!

Disclaimer(s):
1. My blog was imported over there a while ago for testing purposes, so it’s missing a few posts. It will be totally up-to-date by tomorrow morning when my new post is up.
2. Also, if you’re like me and you hate the “click to continue reading” thingie, you’ll notice a tab for Blog along the top of the page. To avoid the “click to…” and to not see my little “welcome window” (as I fondly refer to it) every time you visit, you can either subscribe (via RSS or email) or add the blog page to your favourites. Does that make sense?

Photobucket

Filed Under: blogging, friendship, just because, real life September 27, 2011 By 10 Comments



Photobucket

A Heart of Flesh

Stay tuned for more great posts written by four fantastic and inspiring women. Two weeks of vacation for me means two weeks of fresh content for you. Enjoy! (And don’t forget to comment and let these ladies know that what they write matters.) See ya soon.

The words rushed over me with a slow, deep sting; and I felt judgment and misunderstanding and trembling and fear start to overtake me.

The person before me continued on; uttering unkind words meant to hurt, meant to cause havoc; casually flinging them at me like fiery darts full of poison. I swayed under the onslaught, longing oh so suddenly for that old heart of mine to come rushing to my rescue.
I reveled briefly in the remembrance of my old comforting friend; the dappled pebbles of indifference and smooth sleek skipping rocks of avoidance and huge weighty boulders of perceived control building an impenetrable fortress high and tall and impossible to break through around my bruising heart~ that heart of stone I had carried around most of my life like a ball and chain, dragging darkness and hopelessness and condemnation around with me as I stumbled through days where Jesus was no where to be found.
But oh the grace~ oh the sweet mercy~ the beauty of His love and salvation…
I blink and take a step back, letting THAT remembrance and THESE words overtake me; a salve to my weary soul…
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
~Ezekiel 36:26, NIV
I think as the rant continues that the new spirit I’ve been given is a gift to be shared. The steady beat of a heart of flesh; filled to the brim with His glorious love and acceptance and worthiness and joy~ filled to the brim with a new life meant to be proclaimed.
And when my heart is being attacked, when it is constricted with the pain and sorrows and unfairness of this world, I now have the choice to rush back to my old defenses, or to allow His defenses to stand firm.
When pressed to my limits, when my heart is being squeezed so tight I can barely see a way out; that’s when I can allow His love to overflow out of the new spirit He’s given me. That’s when I can shed grace on those that are unseeing.
Maybe that love will show them that they also can be covered; that their heart of stone can be a heart of flesh.
So I start to listen, start to ask questions, start to try to better understand why the other person is hurting so deep and so far that they feel poison words are the only answer.
We sit and share, and the first small seeds of faith are planted in a fellow sufferer’s heart as I share Jesus and pray they continue to run straight into His arms.
I’ve never been more grateful for a heart of flesh as the Gospel comes alive right before my eyes.
Is there a situation in your life that makes you want to run to old defenses? How can you allow the grace and love of Jesus to overcome?
——————————————————–
Today’s post is from a fellow BLASTer (Building Leaders, Authors, Speakers and Teachers), Lindsey Hartz. We haven’t met in person, but I’m sure when we do our conversation will take us through a whole pot of coffee.

Lindsey has a passion to see lives changed, and she’s willing to bare it all if her story will bring you one step closer to Him.

You can get to know Lindsey at A New Life, Twitter, and Facebook.

Filed Under: faith, friendship, guest post, real life August 16, 2011 By 1 Comment



Photobucket

Confessions of a Conditional Forgiver

I am a confronter.

I am not one to let problems sit and simmer until I feel ready to blow. I am not one to push issues aside and pretend they don’t exist. I prefer to deal with stuff head-on.

On the other hand, I am also very quick to forgive. Once something is out on the table and has been discussed, I’m ready to let go and move forward.

Recently, I’ve been feeling like God keeps telling me to skip step one and move right to step two. Forgive, let go, and move forward – no confrontation. But my human nature fights against that, telling me that in doing so, I’m avoiding the issue and letting those who hurt me off the hook.

It’s not like I think they need to be punished, but that if someone causes a hurt they need to be made aware. After all, if they don’t know they’ve hurt me, what’s to stop them from doing it again?

The family member whose neglect of both me and my kids ought to know that we feel ignored, right?

The family member who has nothing to say to me on Facebook when I share my life, but insists on commenting when I post anything that is not agreeable – that person should at least know that all negative and no positive hurts, right?

The friend(s) who don’t seem to be as interested as putting in the effort as I am to maintain our friendship need to be told that my feelings are hurt, right?

The friend who inadvertently betrayed my confidence and shared a private hurt publicly – that friend doesn’t deserve to be shamed or anything, but really should know that I feel betrayed, right?

I mean, if people never even know that they’ve hurt someone, how can they prevent it from happening again? Right? Am I right, here?

Some folks won’t forgive until they believe a person has truly changed. Some people won’t forgive unless there’s restitution. Some won’t forgive until they get an apology.

I’ve always prided myself on my forgiving nature. I don’t require changed people, restitution, or even an apology. I just want the person to know how I feel. Then I can forgive, no problem!

I’ve always been told that being willing to confront, in a loving way, is a good thing…Especially as compared to being non-confrontational or an avoider. In fact, learning to confront others in a way that does not leave them feeling hurt or attacked but provides them with new awareness and insight is a skill! At least, that’s what I’ve been told. And that’s what I’ve believed.

But in God’s eyes, unforgiveness is unforgiveness. In His Kingdom, forgiveness is not supposed to be conditional.

I realize that I’ve been using my skills in confrontation as a means of putting conditions on my forgiveness.

So how do I move into free forgiveness? The kind of forgiveness that is offered without any conditions? Without any confrontation? Without any “letting people know” anything?

Here are three truths I’m trying to remind myself of, as I bite my tongue (and hold my fingers) and learn to unconditionally forgive:

1. Offering forgiveness does not let someone off the hook. My job is not justice or even creating awareness. Those are God’s jobs. He will convict when someone does wrong. He will ensure that justice – His way – is served. Whether I forgive or not, He will deal with each person how He sees fit.

2. Offering forgiveness does set me free. The only person held captive by my unforgiveness is me. My emotions are tangled up. My tension level is high. My stomach is in knots. The unaware offender is, well, blissfully unaware. And those who offend knowingly are fooled into believing that they feel better for it. I’m the only one here who is stuck, hurting.

3. I have been commanded to forgive. Not everyone knows and loves God, which – in some ways – makes their hurtfulness less wrong. But I do know and love God. And if I choose to wallow in unforgiveness, I am wrong. Wrong with people and wrong with Him. If I want to be right with my God, I must forgive without conditions.

Forgiveness is not like writing a blank cheque, allowing someone the opportunity to take whatever they want. Forgiveness is more like taking someone’s IOU and stamping it “paid in full,” releasing them of the debt they owe. And if we refuse to forgive the debts owed to us by others, how can we expect our debt to be forgiven by the One who paid for us?

So for today, as I wrestle with my desire to confront, I will take my confrontations to God. I will remind Him of His job – to convict, to serve justice. I will pour out my hurt feelings and frustrations to Him and allow His awareness of my feelings to be my comfort. And I will try to let go – not to forget or avoid or pretend, but to just forgive.

Is there a hurt that you’re struggling to forgive today? I would love to pray for you.

Filed Under: family, forgiveness, friendship, my walk, real life, writing July 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment



Photobucket

Internet Buddies

I have made some of the best friendships long distance! Some women I’ve met through their blogs and don’t yet know in person, some bloggers whom I’ve had the privilege to meet, and others whose paths I’ve crossed at conferences and such.

Angela is a friend I met a She Speaks last year, and I thank God for bringing us together on the final eve of the conference. We’ve made a real heart connection over email this year, and even had a whole morning encouraging one another on Skype. Her ministry is growing beautifully, and I’m so excited for what God is going to do through her!

Today, I have the honor of sharing a post over on her blog, Rethinking My Thinking. It’s a part of her series on Wrestling with God – the marriage part. I pray that my story encourages you. You can read it here.

While you’re there, please say “Hi!” to Ang and take some time to read a few of her posts. I know you’ll be blessed.

Filed Under: friendship, linking, marriage May 31, 2011 By 1 Comment



Photobucket

Two Minutes Longer

Wednesday is our women’s Bible study morning. We all love Wednesday mornings for different reasons: two hours of childcare, coffee, snacks, girlfriend time, and of course, learning from God’s Word together.

Yesterday, a guest speaker shared about the ministry she launched in women’s prisons. The discussion in our group centred around the question, What can we do to help free people from their prisons? and in particular, How does this look for mothers with many small children?

Here are a few ideas we shared:

* Take two minutes longer in conversation with someone. Move just a tiny bit beyond typical small talk so that the person you’re talking with gets the sense that you really do want to know how they are. This doesn’t count only for friends, but strangers – the grocery clerk checking through your groceries, the person in line with you at Tim Horton’s or Starbucks, the unusual man who stops to chat for no apparent reason…

* Send a card. In the mail. It’s a simple as that – think of someone, write a card, pop it in the mail. I mean, don’t you get just a little bit happy when you receive mail that’s not a bill?

* Deliver a meal. Some people do this for new moms or when there’s a family death, but meals can be offered for all sorts of occasions (or for no reason at all). Moving, sick kids, hubby away for a long time – these are all great excuses to drop off dinner for someone.

Don’t cook? Yeah, me neither. But $10 for a frozen lasagna and a bag of caesar salad isn’t too hard to come by.

* Invite someone over for coffee and a visit. The fact is, being a mom can sometimes be a lonely gig. Nothing lifts the spirits as well as simply getting out of the house! So invite that other mom you’ve met at church or the kids’ school, the mom down the street, whoever. (You can also invite non-moms, of course! But if you’ve got preschoolers, make sure you warn her in advance. *wink*)

* Make a phone call or send an email to someone when you think of them. Say, “I was just thinking of you…”

There are a million things we can do as “ministry” that don’t require us to take time off work, find childcare, teach Bible studies, or visit prisons. It seems that we’ve run out of excuses. Our group challenged each other, and I’d like to extend that challenge to you…

This week, reach out to someone in friendship and encouragement. You can use one of the ideas we came up with as a group, or something completely different. And then, I hope you’ll come back to share what you did. That way we can spur one another on as we minister from where we’re at.

I’ll share what I did in the comments…

Filed Under: friendship, ministry, my walk, writing February 24, 2011 By 7 Comments



Photobucket

Things Worth Investing In

I spend money on a lot of things. Some are necessary – like food, gas for my Suburban (Which, incidentally, cost me $116 to fill this week! Ack!), and so on. Some are unnecessary but enjoyable – like McDonald’s, movie rentals, a cute pair of shoes. Some are important, but often get neglected – such as cosmetic repairs around the house. (Man, do we ever need a new coat of paint on these walls!) The same goes for how I spend my time and efforts. Necessary – housework. Enjoyable – TV. Neglected – writing.

Today I’m thinking of the many things that are worth our investment, but are set aside all too often. Three biggies come to mind…three areas that I want to be sure I’m not neglecting…three relationships that will require both our efforts and our finances if we want them to thrive.

1. Our hubbies (or wives, for the one guy who may actually read here).

Courting keeps our hearts turned toward the one we love. Never stop dating. Date regularly.

No matter how great our relationships are, there is always room for improvement. Be willing to spend the time and money on books, seminars, etc. that will build up the marital bond.

Time away. Together. The only way to truly assure your spouse that he is more important to you than kids, work, ministry, etc. is to be willing to leave all those things behind (for a weekend or a week) and be alone with him.

2. Our families.

One on one time. Want to turn your child’s heart toward you, toward God, toward obedience? Show that child how loved he/she is by investing a couple hours in just being together (with no one else).

Learning time. I believe it’s impossible to ever learn all that we need to know about parenting. Raising our children to love and honour God takes practice and lots of learning (on our part and theirs). Again, books and seminars will seldom be a waste of time or money.

3. Our friends.

Friendships require time together in order to grow and stay healthy. While some long-distance friendships may stand the test of time, many quietly fade into something that “once was.” Evidence that time together matters. Certainly our marriages, families, work, and ministries require a great deal from us, often leaving little in the way of energy, time, or finances. But a failure to invest in our friendships will eventually reveal itself as those relationships drift.

The beauty of friendship is that it is the one relationship where our financial investment doesn’t need to be much. While a spouse will likely grow dissatisfied with “home dates” over the coffee table, a girlfriend never does. Time is the key commodity that will keep friends close.

I once heard it said this way… Every 5000 kms or so, we make an appointment (or nowadays pull into a line up) for an oil change. We spend time waiting while the work is done, then we spend money to pay for that work. It isn’t always easy to sacrifice either the time or the money for that oil change, but we do it. We do it because we know that investing in regular maintenance on our vehicles will help prevent major breakdowns. (And we all know that major breakdowns take a whole LOT of our time and money!) If we put off this investment too long, something inevitably goes wrong.

Aren’t our relationships more valuable than our cars?

Filed Under: friendship, marriage, parenting, real life, writing January 4, 2011 By 3 Comments



Photobucket

Solitude

While enjoy moments of quiet and time to myself – such as my quiet time in the mornings or when I’m writing – I am largely a social person. Being with people fills me up, gives me energy, and brings me joy. Even if I’m feeling down and think that I want to hole up in my house, the best cure for a blue mood is a couple hours spent chatting it up with a girlfriend.

I think that’s what I miss most about my time leading women’s ministry. The fellowship and friendship were wrapped up with the work. Serving God through planning and implementing activities for women was fuel for my extroverted soul. I can’t say that I’ve had much of a social life to speak of in a number of years. But I was incredibly blessed in that my ministry became my social life.

These past months have revealed to me that speaking and writing are completely different from what I have known. They are solitary pursuits. The unfortunate side-effect of this ministry is that I am needing to block off large chunks of time where I “go off the social grid” in order to do what I need to get done. Adjusting to the quiet is not an easy thing. This fall, I have felt loneliness more stark than I’ve experienced at all since we moved over a year ago.

I write for my blog…alone.

I continue to research and edit my book proposal (albeit very slowly)…alone.

I pray about, research, and prepare for a talk…alone.

I travel to a speaking engagement…alone.

While I believe and have hope that this ministry will eventually grow beyond me, and that there will be a team of women together to plan and pray, write and speak, for this season it’s just me. Well, God and me. Don’t get me wrong, I love having time with God! (My recent three hour trip to speak was a wonderful time of worship and communion with Him.) Nothing can truly compare, though, to the special connection that happens in friendship with women.

There are, of course, other factors contributing to this loneliness. Appointments, assorted illnesses, nap times, and more have been filling up the few free days I have. My friends have busy lives, too. They’ve got ministries, jobs, appointments, and illnesses just like me.

You know, I’d really like to tie a neat little bow on this post. End with something about how God is sufficient. And He is. Yet knowing that He is doesn’t necessarily fill the void created by all this solitude. So as much as the writer in me wants to give you a conclusion, I can’t. At least not today. All I can leave you with is reality. And sometimes reality doesn’t wrap a story up in pretty paper, bringing joy and peace and closure. Sometimes reality just leaves you hanging in limbo.

Filed Under: friendship, ministry, real life December 8, 2010 By 2 Comments



Photobucket

How to be Superwoman (or not), part two

I’m still answering a question posed to me last week. If you haven’t yet, go ahead and read part one. Then when you hop back here it won’t seem as though I’m starting in the middle of a thought.

Step Three: Make time.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. ~Ecclesiastes 3:1

We’ve all heard it said that people make time for what’s important to them. It’s true. Writing is important to me, so I tackle it early in the morning before doing much of anything else (besides getting the kids off to school). I won’t even start a load of laundry before writing on my blog, because I know that I am far too easily distracted.

I used to give myself “Facebook time” while I ate my lunch, until I realized that I was allowing myself to waste an hour (or more) every day doing nothing! Instead, I now watch BLAST* teaching videos while I eat my lunch. (Just a note, on weekdays I don’t eat lunch with the kids. I feed them, and once they’re done and into quiet time/nap I sit down for mine.)

Not only do we need to make time for the important stuff and get rid of the time killers, we really need to allow ourselves to become okay with leaving some things undone (whether for today or forever). There are times when my house looks like a sty and I make the kids pull out the “cleanest” jeans from the dirty laundry pile. There are times when my desk looks like a hurricane victim and I will actually choose to throw away some things that could/should be done. I have only been parent helper at school once so far this year, and probably only two or three times last year (whereas some moms – the really good ones who I want to be like when I grow up – are there twice a month). And I have not placed a photo in an album since Megan’s birth more than seven years ago. So yeah, I don’t do it all! Not at all.

Step Four: Find your own super power.

Each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. ~1 Corinthians 7:7b
Do not neglect your gift… ~1 Timothy 4:14a

I just need to say one more thing about how I get done all that I need to… It’s all about personality and giftings! I like to be busy, I thrive on a full schedule, and I function best with my hands full. It’s a fine balance between really busy and too busy, but I’d like to think I’m self-aware enough that I usually pick up on the signals that I’m doing too much fairly quickly.

The fact is, I’m a deadline girl and I always have been. Homework assignments, exams, pumping gas, waitressing – all were done best when I was under pressure. Recently, as my schedule began to fill up with Heart to Heart stuff and Logos society things, Pat told me he was excited – excited for me to finally be busy because he knew he’d be fed yummier meals in a tidier house, all while I was actually (finally) getting to work on my book.

Maybe it’s not even that I thrive on being busy so much as I am too lazy to be allowed to be idle.

If you’re not built like me, then you’ll never be the kind of non-Superwoman I am. Each of us needs to find our own super powers. If you do best with the slow and steady method, that is your super power. Work with it. Embrace it. And for goodness sake, tell me how you always seem to be so calm, cool, and collected!

Lynne, Bobbie, does this answer your question? I know I didn’t include a daily schedule for you Bobbie, but I’m hoping this gives a pretty clear picture. Does it? Thanks for asking! (I can feel my brain beginning to click again.)

* If you are pursuing a ministry in speaking and writing, and BLAST catches your interest - definitely DO IT! The learning has been invaluable. And if you register, make sure you let Shannon (Ethridge) know I sent you, and she’ll give me a bit of a discount on my tuition. ;)

Filed Under: friendship, housework, ministry, motherhood, my walk, Q/A, real life, speaking, time experiment, writing November 23, 2010 By 2 Comments



Photobucket
« Older Posts