I have to be honest. I had a hard week and didn't get to read these chapters as early as I had wanted to. So, when I sat down to read them, I was at work, trying to take a short break to eat lunch and read my chapters. I was feeling frustrated with work and the constant stream of "same-ness". How ironic to read on the very second page that the mundane things of life are the very things that help us serve our purpose! God values today and the gifts He's given us to use today.
I am guilty of being a woman who doesn't know her own unique gifts and how those apply to fulfilling God's purpose. I truly never felt like I had talents. I am so wrong! I do have talents; unique, God-given talents that are just mine! Now I have to discover what they are and how to use them to fulfill God's purpose for my life.
I especially enjoyed reading about how our everyday roles are important. When we go about our routine each day, God is using that to fulfill His purpose! I felt sympathy for Katie and couldn't imagine how it must have felt to lose your job 18 days before Christmas and then to make life ok for the kids and to see how this would turn out for the good. It was refreshing to read that Katie couldn't see how it would work out until later when she looked back on that time.
Katie gave us some steps so we could do what matters today. We have to set our priorities, take care of ourselves, not panic and seize the moment. Are you working on these areas to grow and fulfill God's purpose?
Chapter 4
"...Love each other just as much as I love you. Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples." John 13:34-35
This step was much easier to read for me. I felt like it would be much easier to get through, until I realized how much I don't show love to people. Ouch!
I can be the sassy girl in the store line to the cashier or the impatient driver behind a slow moving vehicle. I truly don't like myself when I am doing these things and I have tried to work on this. Now I understand that I can't do this myself without loving people as Jesus commanded. I also understand that this is something that I will always be challenged by in my life.
Katie tells us that we are to focus on loving as Jesus loves because our love for him will grow. That deepened love for Jesus will lead us to worship and to establish healthy relationships with others. Those relationships will support us during the hard times in life. I have lived this love before and desire to live it again.
When we lived in Tulsa, we were part of a very large Sunday School class that had 50 couples. An average of 40 couples per week came to class every Sunday! That class was so large that we had our own President, Treasurer, Activity Director and Care Committee. Steve and I had been a part of the class for two years when my dad suddenly passed away. I was 5 1/2 months pregnant with Levi (my first child) and we were 13 days from moving into our first home. We had to go home to Phoenix for my dad's funeral. When we came home, that Sunday School class had come to our home and finished all of our packing! They had everything labeled, stacked and organized just as I would have had it! In addition, they drove us to/from the airport, sent cards for months and brought us food. Even now as I type this, I am overwhelmed by the love they showed us.
I want to be the person that is there for others unconditionally and with the love of Jesus! To do this, Katie's steps include: making a loving difference and noticing when you are doing it, get connected at church (sound familiar?), offer forgiveness, develop relational habits and pray for the unloving and unlovable.
I pray that the love of Jesus will shine through me! I will walk spend much time on this step in the weeks to come!
4 comments:
Wow, I really liked this chapter. As Monique stated, I never felt like I had talents...especially God-given ones! I have been learning over the last couple of years that things that have happened to me in the past have happened for a reason. God gave me Alyssa at 15 years old to keep me from heading down the path I was headed for. If not for Him putting her in my life when he did, who knows if I would even be here right now.
So I guess I wouldn't say that being a teenage mom is a talent but that is something that I feel God has made me for a purpose! I need to mentor these girls!! Help them, talk with them...something, I don't know!!
Reading about the everyday roles really made me open my eyes. It is so easy for me to get caught up in the "day-to-day" stuff that goes on in our family, that I don't take time out to really sit back and just think about what it is that He is doing. One of my talents is to be a great mother and I sometimes can't even slow down or take a "time-out" to play with my kids. I like at the end where she says we need to seize the moment..."Don't miss the daily parade of life my looking for the circus tent and magic show!"
Chapter 4
As some of my friends would already know, I have a hard time with forgiveness. I'm getting better though! I try to love others as Jesus loves me but sometimes...well...my attitude takes over. I'm working on the whole grace thing.
Since coming to OLF I have met a phenomenal group of women whom I can trust hole heartedly. I love them dearly like I never have any other friend before. If this is the kind if love that Katie is talking about then I have found it!! I just hope that I am as loving in return to them.
Dawn
"I'm so grateful that God never wastes a hurt. [God] uses them all to prepare our heart, mind, body, and soul to receive and worship."
I absolutely LOVED these two sentences in the book! How true it is to be able to look back on our lives and still find the "Hallelujah Anyhow!" in e-v-e-r-y situation. I grew up with a very fundalmentalist Christian mother and a, for the most part, absent father (you know, a few weeks every summer to catch up for a year of separation). It was an incredibly difficult time for all of us - and that's something I've come to appreciate. I used to focus on how that situation affected ME. As I've grown older I realize that my mom was just doing the best she could with the tools she was given at that time in her life. That epiphany has allowed me to forgive her for the past, and develop a much healthier relationship with her now.
I forgive my father, too. Afterall, he was an alcoholic - so he was DEFINITELY doing the best he could with whatever tools he could find. And the divorce allowed him to seek the help he needed to remain sober these past 30 years, and to develop a wonderful relationship with Baby Girl.
In 1997 I got a divorce after only 2 years of marriage (and 5 years of dating). But, "hallelujah!" I'd just started working with this kinda quiet/strong guy who was also going through a divorce so we were able to kinda support each other through the pain... and eventually fall in love.
In July of 2006 I had a miscarriage. But, "Hallelujah!" - two months later I found out I was pregnant! For me, I think the experience was my body's way of cleaning out years of bad habits, wild livin', and birth control (for me, a good habit!) and simply making a warm, inviting, healthy home for Mercy. Now you all know why I named her what I did!
In closing - 'cuz I just realized I've written a dissertation and told y'all a WHOLE lot mo' than I planned! - I just want to encourage everyone that when things are difficult and everything seems, well, shitty! Remember, HOW that experience changes our lives and encourages us to positively affect the lives of those around us is part of God's purpose. LIFE is God's purpose for us.
I am sorry I am so late posting comments! This week totally got away from me, but here they are.
Chapter 3
If I’m honest, I have no idea what my talents are. It is actually what I think about the most as far as my future and what it holds What do I do well every day what simple stuff do I take for granted that is what I am supposed to do at my best for God. She says God values today and I know this rings true in my heart. It is so funny to read how she talks about being a mom as something she took for granted and didn’t feel had purpose, when that is what I want the most to do everyday. I want to be a mommy so badly, to shape a little life and to do all the silly daily things that if I had been able to do easily I would not have felt the same way about I am sure. But that doesn’t stop the ache and the feeling that I am not doing what I am meant to do. So I have to find out what I am meant to do while in this period of my life, I am hoping this book is really going to help me to start down that road.
That said, God knows my life and he knows what he has planned for me and he will use this sadness in my life for good. So what are my everyday things that I do today and how can I do them better? That is what I am working on! I still go back to the not knowing what my talents are! Very loud laugh, not a talent! So discovering my talents is what I need to work on, because I don’t think you can know your purpose without knowing your giftings.
Chapter 4
Loving people, that is really the only thing I would say I think might be part of my gifting, I have the gift of empathy which makes truly caring about people easy for me. It is funny she puts these chapters together when I don’t think she means them to go together like that. So I am thinking yeah I’ve got this chapter, this is so much better than the last chapter, at least I have some grip on this. Then I stumble across the Love people like Jesus loves you! Uh oh, that means loving all people! I am so lucky that Jesus does not love people like I love people. I think I am seeing that I am pickier than I thought I was. So to be completely honest I start out this chapter thinking this is my easy comment chapter and end it thinking, I have so much to work on!
I have been having a hard time forming my thoughts to comment on these 2 chapters because there was just so much in them. I do remember when I did not embrace my every day roles in my life as a wife and mother. Until I went to my very first Women of Faith conference and one of the speakers spoke directly to me from the podium. She said if you are a mother and you feel like your role is not important that is a lie. That I have the most improtant role there is - teaching my children about God. That really hit me hard.
I loved reading about Lydia in Acts 16:11-15. I want to be like Lydia! One of the coolest things it says was that the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul and that she and her household had been baptized. Did you get that? Her whole household! That gave me such hope for some my family memebers.
Praying for those who are unlovely or unloving is easy for me because I am doing it from afar - if you can understand what I mean. I am not necessarily showing them love. I was a little convicted when she wrote to pray that God will reveal to you one particular relationship in which he would like you to invest more love, time, energy, and/or resources. Was anyone else convicted enough to do this?
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