Category: Culture, News, & Reviews

With the year rounding to a finish, I took a peek at my statistics to see which articles have been the most influential.  After this post I’ll be signing off until the New Year for a little rest and family holiday time.  If you’re new to the site (or missed one of these posts), you may enjoy checking out some of the more popular topics explored in 2013:

1. Mom v. Mom: The War I Didn’t See Coming

2. When Baby #2 Comes Along

3. The Mom Who Lies

4. Helping Little Hearts Overcome Sin

5. Running a Home While Running on Empty

6. The Woman I Wish I Could Be

7. Romancing a Guy

8. Do You Ever Worry You’ll Fall Out of Love?

9. How a Baby Changes Your Life

10. The Marriage Conversation You Ought to Have  

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a joyful Christmas!  See you in January!

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Last week I had the privilege of chatting with Jenny Schmidt of Channelmom, a radio show broadcasted on Denver’s KLVZ station.  Along with her team at Channelmom, Jenny’s mission is to love, coach, and encourage mom’s worldwide.  We talked about the pain behind Mommy Wars and discussed the controversial subject of Public School Education vs. Home Schooling for Christian moms.  The 2-part interview airs TODAY and TOMORROW at 5:30pm East Coast Time and 3:30pm Mountain Time.  Click on the link below to listen live!

LISTEN LIVE

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Today, all across the world grassroots prayer vigils are being held on behalf of Saeed Abedini, a Christian pastor, husband, and father who has been tortured and imprisoned in Iran for exactly one year today.  Pastor Saeed converted to Christianity thirteen years ago, and has been arrested ten times since then.  He was imprisoned in 2009 and released after agreeing to stop supporting home churches.  According to his wife, Abedini felt it was safe to return to Iran, his native home, since agreeing not to work with churches.  But last September, while crossing into Iran from Turkey via bus, immigration authorities seized and arrested him.  He was sentenced to eight years in the notoriously brutal Evin prison in Iran.  I first heard Pastor Saeed’s story through a Facebook news feed several months ago.  At the time he was in extremely poor physical health due to beatings and mistreatment in prison.  His wife and many others fear he will not last eight years.

What Can I Do? 

1. Send a letter to the Iranian government on Pastor Saeed’s behalf.  This morning on the radio, I heard his wife say they are hoping an influx of mail will urge the Iranian government to reconsider her husband’s imprisonment.  They’ve set it up so that all you really have to do is type in your name, and press “send.”  (View the letter Billy Graham wrote the Iranian president on Saeed Abedini’s behalf.)
2. Join one of the many prayer vigils, meeting today.  I think it would be incredible to gather with a throng of believers on behalf of the persecuted church, to pray for our brother in Christ and experience the POWER of the body united (Matt 18:20).  If you don’t live in a city where a vigil is being hosted, gather your family and pray!  You can join the vigil spiritually if not physically.
3. Share his story.  Put the miracle of the digital generation to use for the gospel of Christ!  The more we raise awareness, the better.

To read more about Saeed Abedini, click on the links below.

Over 100 Grassroots Prayer Vigils for Pastor Saeed Worldwide Thursday

Iran Sentences US Pastor to 8 Years in Prison

After One Year in Iranian Jail, Christian Pastor Pens Heartfelt Letter to Daughter

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Seven months ago I started blogging for one simple reason.  I like to write.  For me it’s as much a hobby as watching movies or playing ping pong.  And like any other hobby, it begged to be enjoyed.  But I quickly discovered that blogging is about a whole lot more than just writing.  It’s about influencing.  It’s about having a voice louder than your own.

And that is the part of blogging that has inspired me the most.  I am a boring stay-at-home mom.  But from my kitchen table, wearing my pajamas, I have had the opportunity to have a voice–however small it may be–in the lives of people from 63 different countries in the world.  That is unfathomable to me.  Blogging is a powerful tool, virtually limitless in scope.  It is more exciting and humbling than I imagined.

And it’s also more challenging.

I can remember groaning once because my kids woke up early and I just wanted five more minutes to finish a post.  I was trying to get it done while they ran around, and I was growing more irritated by the second.  Suddenly I pictured myself blurting, “Would you guys just leave me alone?  I’m trying to blog about being a good parent!”  The thought made me laugh…and feel awful…at the same time.  It is ironically grievous that you could become so engrossed in writing about life that you forfeit living it well.  And of course, there is the grand challenge in blogging (as in most of life) of remaining pure in heart.  Of being motivated by the things that first motivated you, and not getting swept up in the love of self.

For all of these reasons, I’ve decided to take a blogging break for the summer.  Recently some friends of mine have stressed the importance of simply “abiding.”  And that is what I am going to do with the extra free time.  I’m going to rest, enjoy my family, and abide in the Lord.  Isn’t God good?  What a priviledge to abide in Him–to find in Him the rest and refreshment we long for.

One last thing.  So many of you have encouraged me deeply in my blogging venture, and I want to thank you.  For many people this is no big deal, but for me it’s been a step of faith.  It’s been an attempt to use my passions and my gifts for the Kingdom, and it has not come without a fight!  Thank you for the encouragement.  I will see you in two months!

Sometime in elementary school I became captivated with Joni Eareckson.  My parents had a little cassette tape of her songs, and I would play it over and over, singing along.  When the rewind function on our tape player broke, I’d rewind the cassette tape on my finger, and then play it again.  I thought she was beautiful and strong and inspiring, every bit the sort of woman I wanted to be one day.

I had read a children’s book about her life, complete with color illustrations of her standing in her swimsuit, getting ready to take the fateful 1967 dive that would break her neck and render her a quadriplegic for life.  But what always remained a mystery was her relationship with her husband, Ken Tada.  He was never mentioned in the children’s books, and the older I got, the more I wondered about their relationship.  What sort of man marries a quadriplegic?  What sort of marriage can thrive under the constant burden of quadriplegia?   But nothing was ever said about it.  Until now.

Last month Joni and Ken released their first book on marriage–not a book about marriage principles and guidlelines–a book about their marriage.  Their story.  I’m not an avid non-fiction reader, but I read it in two days!  There were two things that made it so fascinating–the raw vulnerability, and the intense degree to which they suffered.  Most couples have gone through tough times, but how many of us can say we’ve woken up multiple times every night for thirty years to shift our spouse in bed?  How many of us have battled chronic pain, cancer, depression, and multiple brushes with death?  Or lived with scarcely any privacy because it required a small team of people just to keep our spouse alive and functioning?  How many of us have had to hire someone to “put our spouse to bed” every night because it required such extensive effort?

And yet, amazingly, this is a book every married couple can relate to.  Not in the quadriplegia sense, of course, but in the Tada’s honest portrayal of the excruciatingly difficult yet glorious gift of marriage.  I could relate to Joni’s longing for love but fearful insecurity.  Her desire to be near Ken, but not to stifle him, especially with the exhausting extent of her daily needs.  (At a particularly fragile time in their relationship, she went so far as limiting her fluid intake on the weekends so she wouldn’t burden him with the chore of changing her leg bag so frequently.)  I could relate to the frustration and despair that led to hopeless indifference when Ken discovered nothing could be found to cure Joni’s chronic pain.  I understood his need to get away and to find his own masculine identity apart from his “famous wife.”  The struggles are common to all of us–the strain, the insecurity, the poor communication, the gradual drifting from intimacy with God.  I, for one, am just glad they said it!  I’m glad they admitted that marriage is hard.  To be honest, it shocked my “Joni-Eareckson-fan-club” heart to learn that she let her marriage grow so distant.  That in the midst of great ministry, she had a weak relationship with her husband.  This is the kind of honesty that imparts hope!  Because we, the reader, get to watch God grow and strengthen their marriage.  And contrary to Hollywood chick-flicks, everything wasn’t solved in a week-end.  That was one of my favorite aspects of the book.  I got to see the Tada’s journey toward a stronger marriage over the course of many, many years.

But best of all, this book gives us a glimpse of God-honoring, Christ-exalting suffering.  This is the number one lesson I learned: when you can see Christ in the midst of your hell and faithfully cling to Him despite the worst suffering imaginable–you just may discover that the suffering becomes the greatest blessing of your life.  This was the case for the Tada’s–God used their worst nightmare as His instrument for healing their marriage.

On a side note, I was not crazy about the style in which the book is written.  I learned in a post-script that Joni’s editor suggested the book be written from the third person point-of-view.  Personally, I would’ve preferred to read the story from Joni and Ken’s own perspective.  It was a little strange to have an outside narrator telling the story, almost like it was a work of fiction.  There were also complaints that the book was hard to follow since it jumps back and forth between past and present events.  Honestly, neither of these stylistic details is a huge deal–you get used to the point-of-view, and there are bold-faced dates throughout the novel that make the sequence easy to follow.

Overall, this is a great read–endorsed by Francis Chan, R.C. Sproul, Franklin Graham, Max Lucado, Joshua Harris, Ravi Zacharias, Kay Arthur and many, many more.  I know I’m no Tim Challies, but for what it’s worth, I give it two thumbs up!  🙂

“What if we gave the average woman the opportunity to partner with women who have been rescued from human trafficking?” This idea drove Pastor Dave Terpstra to move his family to Mozambique, an epicenter of sex trafficking, where the majority of “prostitutes” are children. Knowing he was limited in his ability to “rescue” victims of human trafficking, Terpstra focused his attention on helping survivors rebuild their lives. Since the majority of women are sold into the sex slave industry as children, survivors typically have little to no education and work skills. But what if they could sell something? Used clothing is a major source of revenue in Mozambique, which got Terpstra thinking–what if these women could sell a commodity only women wanted to purchase? It would ensure their safety from being sold back into the industry, and it would allow them to heal and rebuild their lives around other women. The solution? Bras! While you and I likely have a drawer full of forgotten bras, in Mozambique, they are a luxury item that can bring in significant revenue.

In August 2010, Terpstra parterned with Kimba Langas, a stay-at-home mom from his previous church, and together, they launched a movement called “Free the Girls.” They created a simple Facebook page, hoping to collect a few hundred or thousand gently used bras per year.  In less than three years, Free the Girls has collected over 80,000 bras. Women in the program receive an initial inventory for free, and can buy more bras at a greatly reduced cost (which goes toward shipping fees).  Results are showing that women are making 3-5x minimum wage simply by selling bras!  Can you imagine it?  Your old bras liberating a victim of human trafficking?  Allowing another woman to provide a better life for her children–to protect them from becoming victims?  It blows my mind.  In 2011 Free the Girls partnered with Project Purpose, a shelter for rescuing and rehabilitating female victims of human trafficking.  This year they hope to launch their program in four new locations.  View the incredible journey (covered by CNN) below.

How can you get involved?  Free the Girls accepts all new and gently used bras, including nursing bras and sport bras.  You can host an event to collect bras, become a drop-off center, find a drop-off center near you, or mail your gently-used bras directly to Free the Girls.  You can also donate money or resources.  (New City Church Women–Emily Mantooth will be collecting donations this Sunday!!)  You don’t have to be a woman of great influence to start something.  That’s the beautiful genius of the movement.  Any high school girl with a couple of used bras and a handful of friends can wage war with an industry as evil as Satan himself.  So what are you waiting for?  Start digging through that drawer!  It’s never been easier to be a light for Christ in a very dark place.