She is only a baby, but she has the opportunity to have a life-changing surgery in a few weeks. However, her life is in the hands of others. Money, surgery, travel, all of these come through the hearts and hands of those in the States. Her name is Dolly. And she needs your help.
Recently, my friend and founder of Speaking Thru Me Ministries went to Liberia.
Ginger met Darlene while in Liberia in June 2010. Darlene’s mother, Cecelia, traveled 8 hours to meet the speaker team and request prayer for her daughter’s healing. Darlene was born with an omphalocele (organs on the outside of her body).
With God leading the way, surgery for Darlene has been scheduled at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville, TN. Darlene’s first appointment in the states will be October 11th with a tentative surgery date of October 21st.
Speaking Thru Me Ministries will need financial support for the cost of paperwork, travel, housing, etc… for this family to make the very long trip from Liberia to Tennessee.
Please consider donating to help Darlene today!
Through your generous donation with Speaking Thru Me, we can get Dolly here and give her a surgery that will forever change her destiny. I know, you have no real emotional attachment to this child. I know this is a story we’ve all heard. I know, this is not something new to us… but it is to her and her family. They are emotionally attached. This this their story. This is always their story. Now is our chance to help them rewrite the story of her life.
Please consider donating for Dolly at Speaking Thru Me. There you can use PayPal or send a check.
He sat there, day after day, blind. Then he heard that Jesus was coming close. His chance was now. Now was the time to do something? What? Try to get to him? Can’t. Blind. Try to get a friend to go get him? No one around.
He was desperate. So he shouted.
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
It stopped him. I imagine that he stopped dead in his tracks, smiled a half-smile, looked further down the road, then turned around. As he stared at Bartimaeus, he said to one of his disciples, “Call him.”
They went to…no, no, they called him (read, they yelled over to him on the side of the road), “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”
Bartimaeus, blind as a bat, jumps up, tosses his cloak aside and went to Jesus.
Check it. Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
wow
Talk about potentially opening a can ‘o worms. Bah, I don’t think Jesus would have asked it if He didn’t know the answer. I dunno.
Bartimaeus said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”
Done. Faith did it.
Best part: Bartimaeus then followed him down the same road he was not but moments earlier begging on.
What about you? What do you want Jesus to do for you?
Are you on the side of the road, begging, hurting, unable to see?
What do you need to toss aside to get to him? (See Hebrews 12:1)
Tell him.
Ask him.
Have faith in him.
Then, get up, receive what he has for you and start walking in your destiny, right in the footsteps of your Rabbi.
Here ye, here ye…. are you a pastor’s wife or a woman in ministry? Oh, yeah, you are… so, you need to join us for this!
This conference will uplift you, encourage you, and let you know that we are all in this together! I am so excited to help promote this and be a part of something so wonderful… for free!
Starting the week of September 7th and going through October 12, you can join us every Tuesday for short, but to the point, videos designed with you in mind.
Here are the ladies that I have the privlege of doing this with:
Lisa Jernigan
Patty Wyatt
Donna Politz
Lisa Young
Jenni Clayville
Cindy Beall
Holly Furtick
Tiffany Cooper
Heather Whittaker
Kay Warren
Lisa Hughes
Kerri Weems
Sherry Surratt
Amy Groeschel
Jessica Cornelius
Brandi Wilson
DeLynn Rizzo
and
Lori Wilhite
Go here and sign up! You’ll get a follow-up email with more information!
I hate those magazines at the check-out counter, but I can’t help but read every title. Poor Brad and Angelina. They can’t get a break!
Oh sure, some of you are saying, “Ah they love it. If they didn’t live that way….” Or, “What do you expect living in Hollywood?” yep, I’ve said it too. Still, they gotta hate all those photographers all. the. time.
What the heck is a celebrity? They made some good movies, they’re good lookin’, and have a lot of money. So. I know people like that…. minus the movies. Except for Jimmy Marsden. I’ve known him since 6th grade.
What’s the fascination with elevating people above people? Idolizing them? Why do we do that?
Why do we do it in the Christian world too? Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to hug that Beth Moore’s sweet neck, but why do we do to some in the Faith that the world does to Brad and Angelina?
Is that healthy?
Is that what we should do?
Is that what we should strive for?
I don’t think so.
But, I get it. We love what others do and we like to see them do it.
Third Day
David Crowder
Toby Mac
But should we?
I’m not a goer-to-concerts kind of girl. Well, I take that back, I couldn’t WAIT to see Neil Diamond and then to see U2. Come on! Legends! But, I don’t ever really drool and scream when I think about seeing Third Day. Love em. Love their music. But something rubs me the wrong way about giant concerts and I’ve even been to theirs!
Still, (I flip flop), I’d go see David Crowder in a heart beat. Once, JT and I had the privilege of spending a week with them at a pastor’s conference in Joplin, MO. They were the worship band. Oh mercy, that was refreshing.
(flip flop) But what did Jesus say? The first will be last and the last first?
(flip flop) These “celebrity status” people are doing great things, right? They are!
(flip flop) What about the whole “don’t let your left hand know what your right is doing.”
(flip flop) I’ve worshipped with the bands and read great books and am a better person because of them!
(flip flop) …….sigh…. do you see my issues?
I can’t stop it, though. I can’t stop the obsession with people. I can’t stop the fact that some people are well known and some aren’t. I even struggle in my flesh wanting in on a part of that.
If we aren’t careful, well, let me not try to judge what others are feeling…. If I’M not careful, I’ll be more about my status…than His. However, I truly believe you can do both– have a “celebrity status” and still maintain humility before a great God. I’ve watched my pastor, Craig Groeschel do it for years.
What about you? What do you think about Christian Celebrities?
Yesterday’s post stirred some stuff up concerning confession. I mean, we ALL know confession is the way to go, but why are so many people confessing after the worst train wreck of their life? Why not confess early on when things get a little “iffy”?
COULD part of the problem be that we don’t have a culture in our churches where we can confess without fear of judgment. ESPECIALLY for those in ministry?
Well? Do we?
I hope not! However, we can’t expect to confess without any fear. (by fear I mean, hey, if you’re going to confess I’d wage there are some butterflies in the old bread box, yaknowwhatImean?) Confession is no walk in the park, but the problem is that maybe people think they can even get into the park to try to walk! Maybe people don’t want to. Maybe they think they can handle it. Maybe they feel there is no one there for them.
I found out yesterday that worship pastor Steve Fee had an affair. Really? Another one? Seriously?
It irritated me but not because he was/is some great worship pastor who’s written a bunch of great songs and now “owes the entire Christian world an apology” (which I don’t think he does). Nope, it irritated me because…
1. Dude, tell someone before it goes that far.
2. How many more fallen leaders do we need?
3. Did he not see this coming?
4. Can we not learn from others who have made the same mistakes? 5. The enemy took another one down.
More than anything I’d like to punch that jerk right in the face. Uh, the devil, not Steve. He’s the only one I’d like to use every cuss word in the book on and if I weren’t a really awesome Christian I would. But, that’s beside the point.
The point??? Oh, people, we’ve got to FIGHT that s-o-b so that he doesn’t do it to us! After I read about the Fee’s I sent my husband JT a text telling him how thankful I was to have him. He quickly picked up the phone and asked, “Why do you say that?” I told him about what I’d been reading and we both said with double rainbows over our heads, “That will never happen to us.”
not really
we’re not that dumb
We talked about how vital it is to be raw with each other and how blessed we have been that one of us didn’t walk into an affair! God knows I’ve toyed with it and happened to have enough fear and kickin’ friends around me that I didn’t do it! It is but by the grace of God JT and I don’t have a “story to tell.”
But for those of you dealing with this, for those of you in the middle or just coming out, I want you to go toJenni Clayville’s site today. This week she, and others, are talking about affairs.
You’ll find who did it, who was hurt, how to find healing, and how to take the worst that the enemy could throw and you and shove it back in his face with the word of your testimony and the blood of the Lamb! (dang, that’ll preach!)
You will be blessed and you can find hope.
In the meantime, give the devil a swift kick in the *beeeep*!
I tossed out on the Twitter that I had writer’s block. A writer friend of mine (who edited my book and I owe him dinner or something but not by ourselves because that would not be appropriate although we would laugh a lot) Brannon Golden had this suggestion on my Facebook page:
That’s the Resistance talking. Google “Grammy nominated songs 1987.” Which one was your favorite and why? How are you different today from that person, and why? Now go! Fight! Win!
So, I did. I found this:
Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al”
Oh yeah. I had that entire song memorized in the 8th grade. So much so, that I wrote it all out in a spiral, would sing the whole thing any time it came on the radio and would sing it as a duet with my friend, Dorie. (I know, you pictured the fish.)
Ah, I LOVED that song. Just the other day it came on Pandora. I cranked it up and sang every word, just like I did when I was that scrawny 13 year old.
That was the kid who had just lost her grandparents in a plane crash that summer of 1986.
That was the kid who had watched her dad weep when crying was not a norm for him.
That was a little girl who had seen death and it was awful.
How am I different? Well, besides the obvious physical differences, I still hate death. I still hate to see my dad cry. But far from 13, I understand the legacy my grandparents left when that plane hit the ground.
They left a generation longing to be better people.
They left a young girl struggling to understand God and find his love in her pain.
They left a passion for God’s word and a love for teaching in that 13 year old baby heart.
They left a house that one day I pray is mine.
I would not be who I am had that plane made it safely to Dallas.
I’m stronger.
I’m funnier.
I’m closer to God because we’ve duked it out so many times.
My faith is greater than it ever was.
And sometimes for fun, I simply say, “I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me you can call me Al.”
Sometimes I can say more in a Tweet than I can in a blog post. I guess it’s because Twitter forces me to throw out all unnecessary words and just get down to the nitty-gritty (re-read that with a Nacho Libre accent. It’s funnier. If you haven’t seen Nacho Libre, well, then, shame on you.)
So rather than trying to come up with some long grand post, how about I shoot at you my thoughts Twitter style? Ok, good.
Spiritual tweets:
Love draws you in, grace frees you, and then love draws you in.
My deepest fear is that I’ll go unnoticed. Yep, that’s as deep as you can get for me.
If you don’t want to die sick, then you’d better start living well.
Jesus wasn’t considered beautiful, but he lead the most beautiful life.
You’re eternal beauty will turn spiritual heads.
Uh, not so spiritual:
Am I the only one who talks to myself while in the dressing room?
Mannequins make all clothes look better but why are all a size 0? They mock me. Even the headless ones.
It’s like my hair WANTS to mess with my mind!
Friends are like a good bra. They hold you up when you are down and squeeze you tight
when you floppin’ around makin’ a fool of yourself.
Darth Vader may have been on to something with the whole go around and breathe heavily in a black cape.
Intimidating to say the least.
Let just jump right on in by allowing me to ask you a question?
Do you struggle with a daily quiet time with Christ?
I mean, do you have some days where it’s real, and long, and meaningful, and then look up and a week or two have gone by? Maybe a month or two?
I know that everyone who chooses to follow Jesus struggles with this back and forth of spending time with Him and then, boink!, it’s been how long?…….. continue reading……
