Women of Faith Conference 2010-update

Women of Faith Conference

Fri/Sat, October 1 & 2

US Airways Center

Section 118

Rows 9 & 10

Friday - 10:00-3:30pm

Friday - 7:00-10:00 pm

Saturday - 9:00 - 4:00 pm

Total Cost $89 which include 2 box lunches.

There is no discount for not coming Friday AM or PM. They have changed their policy since last year when there was a small discount.

All money needs to be to me on or before July 1.

Better Than A Hallelujah

I can't wait to get together again next week! Miss you all lots!

I heard this song yesterday and couldn't help but think about our friendship. It is so real, so raw, so weighted in love. Here are the lyrics and the link to the beautiful song. Hope it brightens your day. :)


Better Than A Hallelujah (Singer - Amy Grant)

God loves a lullaby
In a mothers tears in the dead of night
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes.
God loves the drunkards cry,
The soldiers plea not to let him die
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah.

The woman holding on for life,
The dying man giving up the fight
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes
The tears of shame for what's been done,
The silence when the words won't come
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

Here is the link to the video with lyrics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nMvvoXa9Yk&feature=PlayList&p=0A4A2CD043FB94E2&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=8

From Henri Nouwen

Living Faithfully in an Ambiguous World

Our hearts and minds desire clarity. We like to have a clear picture of a situation, a clear view of how things fit together, and clear insight into our own and the world's problems. But just as in nature colors and shapes mingle without clear-cut distinctions, human life doesn't offer the clarity we are looking for. The borders between love and hate, evil and good, beauty and ugliness, heroism and cowardice, care and neglect, guilt and blamelessness are mostly vague, ambiguous, and hard to discern.

It is not easy to live faithfully in a world full of ambiguities. We have to learn to make wise choices without needing to be entirely sure.

Verse For Your Day

I was reading in Colossians this morning and read something new....well, yes it has been there for centuries, but new to me. ;) I read it a few times and a few versions. It has a special meaning to me, but I pray the Lord has something in it for you also:

Colossians 2:16-23 (The Message)

^16-17So don't put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.

^18-19Don't tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They're a lot of hot air, that's all they are. They're completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.

^20-23So, then, if with Christ you've put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? "Don't touch this! Don't taste that! Don't go near this!" Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they're just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important.

God said no.

I'm not very big on forwards and the whole 'send-this-to-ten-people-thing', but my cousin sent this email to me and the message is soooo good. I wanted to share. Love you! And...yes, I did change the music settings. I missed it...hope that's okay! :)

God Said No...

I asked God to take away my habit.
God said, "No, it is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up."

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.
God said, "No, his spirit is whole, his body is only temporary."

I asked God to grant me patience.
God said, "No, patience is a byproduct of tribulations; it isn't granted, it is learned."

I asked God to give me happiness.
God said,"No, I give you blessings; Happiness is up to you."

I asked God to spare me pain.
God said, "No, suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me."

I asked God to make my spirit grow.
God said, "No, you must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful."

I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life.
God said, "No, I will give you life, so that you may enjoy all things."

I asked God to help me LOVE others, as much as He loves me.
God said, "Ahhhh, finally you have the idea."

March Prayer Requests/Praise Updates

Henri Nouwen-Today

Coming Together in Poverty

There are many forms of poverty: economic poverty, physical poverty, emotional poverty, mental poverty, and spiritual poverty. As long as we relate primarily to each other's wealth, health, stability, intelligence, and soul strength, we cannot develop true community. Community is not a talent show in which we dazzle the world with our combined gifts. Community is the place where our poverty is acknowledged and accepted, not as something we have to learn to cope with as best as we can but as a true source of new life.

Living community in whatever form - family, parish, twelve-step program, or intentional community (us)- challenges us to come together at the place of our poverty, believing that there we can reveal our richness.

I thought these words spoke so well to us.....looking forward to tonight my friends!

Verse for Today

From The Message Bible:
Titus 2
A God-Filled Life
1-6Your job is to speak out on the things that make for solid doctrine. Guide older men into lives of temperance, dignity, and wisdom, into healthy faith, love, and endurance. Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness. By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children, be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives. We don't want anyone looking down on God's Message because of their behavior. Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives.

Verse for Today

There are times I think 'modern' Christians want to disregard the law all together. Like somehow because of Grace it becomes completely obsolete. I do not believe that it does. I was reading in 1 Timothy this morning and I came across the following verse-I also posted part of it from The Message Bible because I love how it was written:

Paul writing-1 Timothy 1:8-11 (New International Version)

We know that the law is good if one uses it properly (the Amplified Bible says," for the purpose in which it was designed"). We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers,for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.
The Message:
It's true that moral guidance and counsel need to be given, but the way you say it and to whom you say it are as important as what you say.

Henri Nouwen Emails

I am not sure how many of you subscribe to Henri Nouwen's daily emails, but I love getting them each morning. Here is today's:
Listening as Spiritual Hospitality
To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.

Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.
________________________________________

Verse For Your Day

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 (New Living Translation)

¹¹ Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. ¹² Then people who are not Christians will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others.

Here is the message version:

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 (The Message)

^11-12Stay calm; mind your own business; do your own job. You've heard all this from us before, but a reminder never hurts. We want you living in a way that will command the respect of outsiders, not lying around sponging off your friends.

To The Rescue...

Luke 15:10 (NIV)
In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Luke 15: 8-10 (Message)
Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!' Count on it—that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.

Now I know we've talked about these two verses during our discussions a few times. And, I know this may seem like a random thought. But, nonetheless, it came to my mind, and I couldn't resist sharing with my girls.

I was silently reading a family devotional called Our Daily Bread (my stepmom gave it to me and I read it before my meals). I was presented with this question at the end of today's passage: Has heaven rejoiced or thrown a party over your rescue??

Wow...I never considered the fact that there may have been a party thrown on my lost soul's behalf....not for me, of course, but because I have been found many times!!!

There is a party every time a soul turns to God...I've read this before, but had never, ever considered myself included in that. I present the same question to you.

Have you ever considered that heaven has rejoiced over your rescue??? Please share.

Hugs, hugs, hugs.
Julie

Relationships...Isn't this what it's all about?

As this wonderful excerpt from Henri Nouwen came across my inbox, I was reminded of one of our recent discussions (during the Hosea study) about idolatry. How easy it is for others (friends, teachers, spouses, our children) to become our idols. I thought this excerpt so clearly speaks to our recent discussion about why/how those relationships are intended to be.

Creating a Home Together

Many human relationships are like the interlocking fingers of two hands. Our loneliness makes us cling to each other, and this mutual clinging makes us suffer immensely because it does not take our loneliness away. But the harder we try, the more desperate we become. Many of these "interlocking" relationships fall apart because they become suffocating and oppressive. Human relationships are meant to be like two hands folded together. They can move away from each other while still touching with the fingertips. They can create space between themselves, a little tent, a home, a safe place to be. True relationships among people point to God. They are like prayers in the world. Sometimes the hands that pray are fully touching, sometimes there is distance between them. They always move to and from each other, but they never lose touch. They keep praying to the One who brought them together.

These reflections are taken from Henri J.M. Nouwen's Bread for the Journey.

Verse of the Day

Hebrews 10:24-25 (New Living Translation)

24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

Mary - Prayer

Hi Girls,
I just talked to Phillip - Mary's husband. They are on the way to Gilbert Mercy hospital because Mary is in excruciating pain with acute appendicitis. She is going to have her appendix removed...please keep her in your prayers. I'll keep you posted when I hear more.

Love,
Julie

This Mornings Thoughts

This morning I was reading in Hebrews and my sisters as I read the end of chapter 5 and into Chapter 6 our group came to mind. I am going to post the Message version of it(with a couple bulrbs from the amplified)...I do like some of the wording in here. Milk or solid foods?



^{Hebrews 5: 11-14}I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you've picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby's milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God's ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.

Hebrews 6

^1-3So come on, let's leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on "salvation by self-help" and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we'll stay true to all that. But there's so much more. Let's get on with it!(Other versions use the terms move on to 'advance teachings')

^4-8Once people have seen the light, gotten a taste of heaven and been part of the work of the Holy Spirit, once they've personally experienced the sheer goodness of God's Word and the powers breaking in on us—if then they turn their backs on it, washing their hands of the whole thing, well, they can't start over as if nothing happened. That's impossible. Why, they've re-crucified Jesus! They've repudiated him in public! Parched ground that soaks up the rain and then produces an abundance of carrots and corn for its gardener gets God's "Well done!" But if it produces weeds and thistles, it's more likely to get cussed out. Fields like that are burned, not harvested.

^9-12I'm sure that won't happen to you, friends. I have better things in mind for you—salvation things! God doesn't miss anything. He knows perfectly well all the love you've shown him by helping needy Christians, and that you keep at it. And now I want each of you to extend that same intensity toward a full-bodied hope, and keep at it till the finish. Don't drag your feet. Be like those who stay the course with committed faith and then get everything promised to them.(Vs 12 in the amplified reads: by their learning of the entire personality on God in Christ in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness)