The Actor posted the following on his Facebook:
Do not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. - Gal. 6:9
I'm encouraged that he posted that...we are struggling mightily to not become weary in doing good (that would be writing essays for AP classes). We turned a corner on attitude, but it's still a mind-grinding load of work. He gets weary of doing it; I get weary of trying to be the understanding supportive mom and not slip back into the role of being angry when he doesn't do it the way I think he should.
He's got to find his own voice. Even if he turns in the essay late, if he writes a really good one it will pull his average up. Not as much as if it had been turned in on time, but up is up.
The key for him is to not give up until the good essay is written...the key for me is to not give up praying for him and encouraging him to do his best work.
But these late night efforts are making me tired enough that my ears are ringing.
Thank you, Lord, that as he makes the shifts in his mental gears to grasp the form of essay writing they will get easier for him.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
SHE: The Battleground Reflections (5)
I have a son who must get on the computer momentarily to finish homework (essay writing!), so my evening reflections will be brief.
At the end of Saturday morning's general session, in which Susan Dyer spoke of having an encounter with God, all the leadership ladies were called to the front to pray for folks.
But, knowing what was going on in my heart, that I had very recently identified two very large issues that were ongoing battles, I didn't feel competent to pray for anyone. And, the moment the release was given to ask for prayer, I scooted down the line a bit and asked Mama Lela to pray for me.
Oh...if only I could accurately describe Mama Lela. This lady ministers to people in the highest and lowest place in our city and she treats them all exactly the same. She absolutely loves people without condition and without reservation. I probably squalled on her shoulder for a good 10 minutes. And it was ok. She prayed over me, she exhorted me, she encouraged me, and most of all she just gave me a good Mama Lela hug.
And if I hadn't had anyone else ask me if I was ok for the whole weekend, that would have been enough. ;)
At the end of Saturday morning's general session, in which Susan Dyer spoke of having an encounter with God, all the leadership ladies were called to the front to pray for folks.
But, knowing what was going on in my heart, that I had very recently identified two very large issues that were ongoing battles, I didn't feel competent to pray for anyone. And, the moment the release was given to ask for prayer, I scooted down the line a bit and asked Mama Lela to pray for me.
Oh...if only I could accurately describe Mama Lela. This lady ministers to people in the highest and lowest place in our city and she treats them all exactly the same. She absolutely loves people without condition and without reservation. I probably squalled on her shoulder for a good 10 minutes. And it was ok. She prayed over me, she exhorted me, she encouraged me, and most of all she just gave me a good Mama Lela hug.
And if I hadn't had anyone else ask me if I was ok for the whole weekend, that would have been enough. ;)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
SHE: The Battleground Reflections(4)
One of the major paradigm shifts that hit me over the weekend has to do with The Actor. I'm not going to go into details; let me just say that we have had an ongoing battle w/responsibility as it pertains to schoolwork since grade 4. On Labor Day, I checked the online grade posts and, well, the explosion you heard that day was my reaction to the abysmal numbers I saw there.
But it matters...if he has a grade below 70 on his report card, he gets booted from the magnet program.
So we did the Serious Talks (or, as he calls it, the Series of Lectures) again. PTA open house was last Tuesday; his drama teacher set him down and straight up got in his face with the serious ultimatums: either turn it around, or you'll be pulled from the one act.
After last week's youth group session, he came home and rather sheepishly said that his youth pastor had preached the very things he'd been hearing from all of us regarding his schoolwork for the previous two days. That was encouraging, but I still wasn't sure whether or not anything would change.
"What is wrong? What's the problem? What happened to him?" were questions I was both asking and being asked. The answer was...I don't know. The best explanation he had was that, while he expected this year to be difficult (he has three AP classes), it was much more difficult than he expected and he just wasn't ready for it and dropped the ball.
I was frustrated and angry with him. We have been over it and over it and over it but it wasn't changing.
Then...Saturday afternoon's breakout session. Susan Dyer spoke on Nehemiah and the disgrace of Jerusalem...and how Nehemiah approached the situation. She gave us a worksheet with some specific things to list. She told us to focus on one situation in our lives which needed to 'no longer be a disgrace' (Neh. 2:17) and answer a series of questions about it:
1. Define the problem: - a) What's at stake? b) What needs to be addressed c) What will happen if this need goes unaddressed?
2. Offer a solution: a) Present a clear, compelling solution; b) What goals must be set to accomplish this mission? c) Write a testimony as if the victory were already won.
As I wrote out answers to those questions, with the Actor's situation in mind, I suddenly remembered one of the principles of spiritual warfare: If there is no apparent natural cause, there's a good chance there is a supernatural cause.
This was a spiritual attack; the enemy is going after my son's destiny.
I realized that we'd been approaching it all wrong; he needs to be fighting a spiritual battle.
And every time he picks up his pen..or sits at the computer...with the intent to work diligently with excellence, he fights the battle. When he refuses to listen to the lying thoughts that tell him the work is too hard, he fights the battle. When he chooses to work instead of play, he fights the battle.
I told him all this between the afternoon and evening sessions; he received it well. I prayed over him the testimony I'd written as part of the exercise.
I literally felt something shift in the atmosphere of the house.
Is the war over? No...but at least we are fighting the right enemy now.
And if I had received no other instruction on the warfare in my own life, that would have been enough.
But it matters...if he has a grade below 70 on his report card, he gets booted from the magnet program.
So we did the Serious Talks (or, as he calls it, the Series of Lectures) again. PTA open house was last Tuesday; his drama teacher set him down and straight up got in his face with the serious ultimatums: either turn it around, or you'll be pulled from the one act.
After last week's youth group session, he came home and rather sheepishly said that his youth pastor had preached the very things he'd been hearing from all of us regarding his schoolwork for the previous two days. That was encouraging, but I still wasn't sure whether or not anything would change.
"What is wrong? What's the problem? What happened to him?" were questions I was both asking and being asked. The answer was...I don't know. The best explanation he had was that, while he expected this year to be difficult (he has three AP classes), it was much more difficult than he expected and he just wasn't ready for it and dropped the ball.
I was frustrated and angry with him. We have been over it and over it and over it but it wasn't changing.
Then...Saturday afternoon's breakout session. Susan Dyer spoke on Nehemiah and the disgrace of Jerusalem...and how Nehemiah approached the situation. She gave us a worksheet with some specific things to list. She told us to focus on one situation in our lives which needed to 'no longer be a disgrace' (Neh. 2:17) and answer a series of questions about it:
1. Define the problem: - a) What's at stake? b) What needs to be addressed c) What will happen if this need goes unaddressed?
2. Offer a solution: a) Present a clear, compelling solution; b) What goals must be set to accomplish this mission? c) Write a testimony as if the victory were already won.
As I wrote out answers to those questions, with the Actor's situation in mind, I suddenly remembered one of the principles of spiritual warfare: If there is no apparent natural cause, there's a good chance there is a supernatural cause.
This was a spiritual attack; the enemy is going after my son's destiny.
I realized that we'd been approaching it all wrong; he needs to be fighting a spiritual battle.
And every time he picks up his pen..or sits at the computer...with the intent to work diligently with excellence, he fights the battle. When he refuses to listen to the lying thoughts that tell him the work is too hard, he fights the battle. When he chooses to work instead of play, he fights the battle.
I told him all this between the afternoon and evening sessions; he received it well. I prayed over him the testimony I'd written as part of the exercise.
I literally felt something shift in the atmosphere of the house.
Is the war over? No...but at least we are fighting the right enemy now.
And if I had received no other instruction on the warfare in my own life, that would have been enough.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
SHE: The Battleground Reflections (3)
Well, we are computer sharing...two kids needed the computer this evening so I'm propping my eyelids open tonight since I couldn't get to the computer ahead of them.
So I'm not going for deep tonight, but the conference was applicable on so many levels, and I'll just share one of the simple things I carried away. One of the other deaconesses does dance as worship, and she opened the Thursday night session w/ a dance to a song I've never heard before (I'll google it one of these days)...'War Cry', by Michah Stampley.
As I watched it, I realized it would be a fabulous song for the Friends class to use in a human video... and we do 'Battle Stations', a unit on spiritual warfare, in next year's rotation.
So, yeah, there's a lot to glean when women get together to go after God. ;)
So I'm not going for deep tonight, but the conference was applicable on so many levels, and I'll just share one of the simple things I carried away. One of the other deaconesses does dance as worship, and she opened the Thursday night session w/ a dance to a song I've never heard before (I'll google it one of these days)...'War Cry', by Michah Stampley.
As I watched it, I realized it would be a fabulous song for the Friends class to use in a human video... and we do 'Battle Stations', a unit on spiritual warfare, in next year's rotation.
So, yeah, there's a lot to glean when women get together to go after God. ;)
Monday, September 14, 2009
SHE: The Battleground Reflections (2)
This is from one of the Friday afternoon breakout sessions:
Dawn talked about a crushing counseling load she had at one time. It was beyond her to be able to deal with the number of folks that were requesting counseling sessions. After some talk w/others in her ministry, they decided to require a bit of time investment from potential counselees.
The requirement was to spend 10 hours seeking God on their own...the suggestion was during lunchtime...before coming in for counseling. Actually, if I remember right, she said she told the folks to spend the 10 hours with God and then call the office about counseling. Not 10 hours reading the Bible...10 hours in prayer, with journaling.
Dawn asked the ladies their to guess how many people out of the dozens on the list actually followed the instructions, then called.
I guessed five. The correct answer was...zero.
The implication was that people are not willing to invest themselves in their own spiritual future. I don't know if it's possible that some folks *did* spend the time seeking God and then found they actually didn't need the counseling or not; she didn't go into that much detail. I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that that was the case, but I really think it's probably just that no one persevered in seeking God.
We all want shortcuts. Someone with 'A Word' to us to take the responsibility of seeking our own direction off of us.
Folks, I got convicted. I see the powerful anointing on the ladies who spoke and our own pastors and I know that did not come cheap or easy or at the word of someone else. It came because they paid the price in time seeking God.
I'm not sure how or when, but I'm going to put a box on the sidebar...'seeking time', I'll call it...to just keep me accountable to you all to do some seeking myself. It's time I quit moaning that I don't have a 'spiritual mentor' and just go for God myself.
And if I were not challenged to do anything else over the weekend, that would have been enough.
Dawn talked about a crushing counseling load she had at one time. It was beyond her to be able to deal with the number of folks that were requesting counseling sessions. After some talk w/others in her ministry, they decided to require a bit of time investment from potential counselees.
The requirement was to spend 10 hours seeking God on their own...the suggestion was during lunchtime...before coming in for counseling. Actually, if I remember right, she said she told the folks to spend the 10 hours with God and then call the office about counseling. Not 10 hours reading the Bible...10 hours in prayer, with journaling.
Dawn asked the ladies their to guess how many people out of the dozens on the list actually followed the instructions, then called.
I guessed five. The correct answer was...zero.
The implication was that people are not willing to invest themselves in their own spiritual future. I don't know if it's possible that some folks *did* spend the time seeking God and then found they actually didn't need the counseling or not; she didn't go into that much detail. I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that that was the case, but I really think it's probably just that no one persevered in seeking God.
We all want shortcuts. Someone with 'A Word' to us to take the responsibility of seeking our own direction off of us.
Folks, I got convicted. I see the powerful anointing on the ladies who spoke and our own pastors and I know that did not come cheap or easy or at the word of someone else. It came because they paid the price in time seeking God.
I'm not sure how or when, but I'm going to put a box on the sidebar...'seeking time', I'll call it...to just keep me accountable to you all to do some seeking myself. It's time I quit moaning that I don't have a 'spiritual mentor' and just go for God myself.
And if I were not challenged to do anything else over the weekend, that would have been enough.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
SHE: The Battleground Reflections
This COULD go for pages and pages, you know...
Or maybe I'll just split it up into different posts and make this the Topic of the Week. Yeah, that's it.
Thursday night leaders meeting was a bit of a training session. Since we were to be working the altars during the conference ministering to women, we first ministered to each other. I'm not going to go into details, but I will say that what I heard from the lady who was my 'practice partner', and whom I knew by face and name only, was a tremendous encouragement to me. She spoke to me in terms that applied directly to a dream of mine, one that I was beginning to think was just something I'd wasted time on...indulging my whims rather than following God. There was no way she could've known anything about it...in fact, she rather couched the words in phrases to make them less specific than they were, because they sounded odd to her. But they made sense to me.
Now, to be sure, I don't know anything more about timing or even ultimately if that dream will ever come to any kind of fruition. But I wouldn't have heard the words I heard if God didn't have a purpose for the writing of it.
My heart was encouraged. And if I'd heard nothing else all weekend that moved me, that would have been enough.
Or maybe I'll just split it up into different posts and make this the Topic of the Week. Yeah, that's it.
Thursday night leaders meeting was a bit of a training session. Since we were to be working the altars during the conference ministering to women, we first ministered to each other. I'm not going to go into details, but I will say that what I heard from the lady who was my 'practice partner', and whom I knew by face and name only, was a tremendous encouragement to me. She spoke to me in terms that applied directly to a dream of mine, one that I was beginning to think was just something I'd wasted time on...indulging my whims rather than following God. There was no way she could've known anything about it...in fact, she rather couched the words in phrases to make them less specific than they were, because they sounded odd to her. But they made sense to me.
Now, to be sure, I don't know anything more about timing or even ultimately if that dream will ever come to any kind of fruition. But I wouldn't have heard the words I heard if God didn't have a purpose for the writing of it.
My heart was encouraged. And if I'd heard nothing else all weekend that moved me, that would have been enough.
Friday, September 11, 2009
More Streaming
It's 11:11...and I'm still processing, so I'm not coherent enough to talk sensibly about what I'm getting from the conference yet.
But I did want to pass along that we were informed that the morning sessions will be on the web as well as the evening...so you can hear from Susan Dyer at 10 AM CDT tomorrow as well as Dawn Sweigart at 6:30 PM CDT tomorrow evening.
It's been good...and I've gotten some real encouragement! But I'm headed for a meeting with my pillow and I'm late! ;)
But I did want to pass along that we were informed that the morning sessions will be on the web as well as the evening...so you can hear from Susan Dyer at 10 AM CDT tomorrow as well as Dawn Sweigart at 6:30 PM CDT tomorrow evening.
It's been good...and I've gotten some real encouragement! But I'm headed for a meeting with my pillow and I'm late! ;)
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