By Julie Clinton
The weekend was packed with activity. We had traveled two hours for the final baseball tournament of the year. Our son, Zach, and his best friend, Josh Barrick, played on the team, and their dads were the coaches. We arrived home from the tournament just in time to get ready for our church’s six o’clock service, where our daughter, Megan, and Josh’s older sister, Jennifer, were singing in a choir. Jennifer’s grandfather was the guest speaker. It was an extraordinary night.
"Content"—it literally means "desiring no more than what one has; satisfied." Do you know someone who lives with such freedom? Contented, satisfied, settled, and fun to be around? I need more of that in my life. Paul was an unlikely ambassador for Christ. Before becoming a follower, he actively persecuted Christians (Acts 9:1-2).
Have you or someone you love ever battled depression? You’d be shocked at how many women have or currently are. If you answer yes to five of the nine symptoms below, and the symptoms last two weeks or more, you may want to read this very carefully. The good news is that you can overcome depression.
God is not wasting the pain in your life. He never wastes a wound. He’s healing you at this very moment and using that pain to show you a dream bigger than you realize. Joni Eareckson Tada found her dream, but only after a diving accident left her a teenage quadriplegic. In a wheelchair for nearly 40 years, she’s now a successful speaker, author, and artist, and a beloved advocate for the disabled. But coming to realize His dream has been a difficult journey filled with pain, patience, and healing. He calls you and me to the same journey.
Growing up, most girls struggle with their looks and feelings of self-worth. Remember the horn that popped up on the absolute tip of your nose—the one you were sure everyone in the whole school could see from 50 feet? As women, we still often feel less than adequate. Bad hair days. Fat days. Not feeling loved, cared for, appreciated, or worthwhile. We work hard to keep our lives and our families’ lives balanced. But the rewards often seem limited—very limited. And when we’re not rewarded, we can sometimes feel as if what we’re doing is meaningless and that we are worthless. If we are not careful, these feelings can lead to poor decisions, mistakes, and regrets.
We live in uncertain times and have plenty to be afraid of. Terrorism, economic collapse, unemployment, nuclear armament, identify theft… and that’s just the beginning. Bowling Green State University has identified the “Top 10 Fears that Keep People from Getting What They Want in Life:”
I remember the e-mail Tim and I got from a friend of ours shortly after his wedding. It told of a crystal vase he and his wife had received as a special wedding present, a vase that was very special to her. The e-mail also told about their first real fight they had as newlyweds. He wrote that in the heat of an argument, “I got stupid and so angry that I grabbed that vase, threw it across the room, and it split into a million pieces. It was awful. Since then it’s gone downhill.” In a Charlie Brown–style postscript at the end of the email he wrote, “Marriage…uggggghhhhh.”
Life is all a matter of perspective. If you’ve ever gotten tumbled in the ocean waves, you know the feeling of being completely out of control. Try as you might, there’s nothing you can do. Except hold your breath and wait for the inevitable face plant…in the sand. In Psalm 73, Asaph sounds just about as confused. Life isn’t fair. God seems silent. Asaph is befuddled. Jaded. Tossed and turned by waves of hurt and frustration.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve done something by myself because I bought into the idea that “if you want it done right, do it yourself.” Or the number of times I was too proud to ask for help because I thought I would seem less capable. And sometimes I refused to let others help because doing so would mean losing total control.
Our society seems to have become a sort of manufacturing company. If you are doing your part and keeping up with the assembly line, people like you and you fit in. If you decide to work a lot of overtime and not use your vacation or sick days, your boss may even promote you and praise you for all you do. But if you can’t keep up or simply choose not to, you’re expendable. Fitting seems to be all about usefulness.
Do you ever find yourself feeling guilty at the end of the day for wasting time? You beat yourself up because there were things that needed doing, and you just didn’t do them. And the things you did do you realize were things that didn’t matter anyway. Add to tomorrow’s list the things you didn’t do today, and now you feel even more overwhelmed—and paralyzed.
It is morning and I am in my car, parked in the lot at my children’s school, which is about 20 minutes from our home. That’s 40 minutes, roundtrip. On some days, I wish they attended the school closer to our home, but I’m committed to the commute because I believe in the value of this particular school and in what they are learning there.
How many women do you know who are really free? I don’t know many. Bondage is everywhere. We’re haunted by our pasts, burdened by self-pity, unwilling or unable to forgive ourselves or others, and held captive by our need to control. Instead of living big lives, we live small ones. Instead of living boldly, we live timidly. Instead of running freely we limp along, dragging the leg irons we’ve clamped onto our own legs.
What if you were given $86,400, every day for the rest of your life? What would you do with it? Let’s add one caveat. You have to spend all of it each day! Could you do it? How would you spend it? Tough decision, right?! Guess what – God gives you 86,400 seconds every day…and, you spend every one! Every day! How are you using your time?
Shaunti Feldhahn interviewed more than 1,000 men prior to writing her book For Women Only. Though it was no surprise that the interviews revealed that men desire more sex, what was surprising was why.
God never wastes our pain. He is gracious and wise to use it, if we'll let him, to grow and change us. The apostle Paul's life wasn't exactly easy…jail time, a shipwreck, being stoned. But somehow, in the midst of his hardship, Paul found God and experienced joy.
Ask most women today what they would like to be. Needy? Dependent? Clingy? Certainly not! Independent? Self-sufficient? Survivor? Yes! I was deeply moved recently by Carol Kent when she said, “I was used to being on the giving end of compassion, and I didn’t like being needy. When I allowed the people closest to me to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the middle of my darkest hour, I experienced the comfort of being loved by Him.”
Tim and I had a rough start to our marriage. We didn’t communicate well. Come to think of it, we didn’t do much of anything well. And of course, it was all his fault. So, I set about trying to change him. And to my disappointed surprise, nothing I did worked! Honestly, we were pretty hateful at times in the way we spoke to each other. Much of it was due to our youth and immaturity. Some of it was due to our circumstances. We were both
Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. —Ephesians 5:33 In Men are Like Waffles—Women are Like Spaghetti, Bill and Pam Farrell describe the mind of men and women.
Isaiah proclaimed his wonderful prophecies of the coming Messiah and King during treacherous and dangerous times. The nations around Judah were conspiring to invade. They were “plotting the ruin” of the nation. So when Isaiah was called by God to be His spokesperson, he was accepting a daunting and dangerous assignment. Yet Isaiah accepted it willingly and confidently.
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Julie Clinton M.Ad., M.B.A. Is president of Extraordinary Women and host of EWomen conferences all across America. A woman of deep faith, she cares passionately about seeing women live out their dreams by finding their freedom in Christ. Julie and her husband, Dr. Tim Clinton, live in Virginia and are the parents of Zach and Megan, who is married to Ben Allison.
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