December 26, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

Christmas has been celebrated, now we wait to celebrate the New Year. My thoughts are turning to relationships. This week in between holidays is a reflective week for me. As I have attended marriage seminars, read books etc, I find there is a vast difference between males and females.

It may be obvious to you – to me….I have had to learn through the years. Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones for a while would dress like he was neither a man nor a woman. I remember being infatuated with that. I thought that the only difference was our equipment. As I have journeyed through this life starting with being a Mom of a son, I have learned that men ARE different than women. Not only with our equipment but also with the way we view things, approach life etc.

A woman in general is about soft, pretty, nurturing and basically girl stuff. A guy in general likes to be what a woman considers rough, they call each other names and find it fun, will hit each other on the shoulder rather than hugging. We also approach life differently. I love a book by the name of “Men are Waffles and Women are Spaghetti.” Men have a bunch of boxes and will operate in only one box at a time. Women are very global and will touch on everything and everything seems connected.

Men want respect. Respect to a man translates into love. Ephesians 5:33 “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” When I first learned this passage, I remember a light bulb going off in my head. Again, I had thought that my husband wanted hugs, wanted what I wanted. I am on a journey to find out what respect means to a man. To be honest….there are times where I am totally clueless.

I get it right often. Sometimes though, Junior will say that I am disrespecting him. I am crushed at that point. The last the last thing I Want to do is disrespect my husband. For the past many years our society has been concerned with the woman and we have become very female oriented. That does not help because there are two sexes out here.

I believe we need to “hear” Ephesians 5:21 “Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This does not say that either one is more important. We are often taught the next verse without “hearing” the last one, “Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” I believe we start off with verse 21 and Then verse 22 makes more sense to me.

In business, in the military, even in the church we find that there is a hierarchy. In the church, Jesus is the head. In business, the boss is the head and even in that there is a hierarchy. At the bank we had a supervisor, a manager, a vice president, a president, a first vice president….you get my drift.

I have also learned through the years that the husband should be the “head” of the family. That does not mean he gets to run rough shod over everyone. A true leader is one who is a servant. If you look at Jesus’ life, He came as a servant. He came to very poor parents. He was born in a stable. When He was in ministry, He had no possessions, other than His clothes. One of the most touching moments for me is when Jesus washed the disciple’s feet. This was a very “low class” job. Jesus was teaching Agape love. Seek another’s highest good. That is what a leader’s job should be – in my opinion.

When I am respecting Junior, I have a very content man on my hands. So what does respect look like? I can give a few ideas. Each man as each woman has their own type of love/respect. Junior loves when I notice his muscles – he works out and he likes when I notice his muscles. He likes when I compliment him on what he has accomplished – projects, going to work – when he worked. When we were dating, he loved when I told him he was a stud muffin. As the years have gone on for us, some of the things he liked at first are not as important now. That’s hard at times to figure out. For Junior, he has learned on a deep level that I am not interested in any man but him. As he has come to feel safe, he does not need me to tell him he is a stud muffin, he knows it, and so he does not need to hear it anymore.

I have learned from our many marriage seminars that we should study our spouses. When we do that, we begin to then have a truly rewarding relationship. I have been praying for our relationship since our honeymoon. Prayer is important to all aspects of our lives and our marriages are as important. Prayer often opens my heart to Junior’s needs, to what I am doing that needs to be changed. When Junior was in his “curb side shopping” mode – I started praying for God to open my eyes and heart to Junior. God began to show me that Junior had a heart for the “poor”. My husband would find bags of clothes. He would wash them and then take them to Salvation Army – so someone else could have clothes. I learned to accept this behavior and find it so touching.

As we start a new year, may I suggest that we begin to study the men in our lives, to figure out what they need? Maybe this is the year we quit being all about females and begin to notice that there are men out there as well.

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet

December 26, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

Christmas has been celebrated, now we wait to celebrate the New Year. My thoughts are turning to relationships. This week in between holidays is a reflective week for me. As I have attended marriage seminars, read books etc, I find there is a vast difference between males and females.

It may be obvious to you – to me….I have had to learn through the years. Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones for a while would dress like he was neither a man nor a woman. I remember being infatuated with that. I thought that the only difference was our equipment. As I have journeyed through this life starting with being a Mom of a son, I have learned that men ARE different than women. Not only with our equipment but also with the way we view things, approach life etc.

A woman in general is about soft, pretty, nurturing and basically girl stuff. A guy in general likes to be what a woman considers rough, they call each other names and find it fun, will hit each other on the shoulder rather than hugging. We also approach life differently. I love a book by the name of “Men are Waffles and Women are Spaghetti.” Men have a bunch of boxes and will operate in only one box at a time. Women are very global and will touch on everything and everything seems connected.

Men want respect. Respect to a man translates into love. Ephesians 5:33 “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” When I first learned this passage, I remember a light bulb going off in my head. Again, I had thought that my husband wanted hugs, wanted what I wanted. I am on a journey to find out what respect means to a man. To be honest….there are times where I am totally clueless.

I get it right often. Sometimes though, Junior will say that I am disrespecting him. I am crushed at that point. The last the last thing I Want to do is disrespect my husband. For the past many years our society has been concerned with the woman and we have become very female oriented. That does not help because there are two sexes out here.

I believe we need to “hear” Ephesians 5:21 “Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This does not say that either one is more important. We are often taught the next verse without “hearing” the last one, “Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” I believe we start off with verse 21 and Then verse 22 makes more sense to me.

In business, in the military, even in the church we find that there is a hierarchy. In the church, Jesus is the head. In business, the boss is the head and even in that there is a hierarchy. At the bank we had a supervisor, a manager, a vice president, a president, a first vice president….you get my drift.

I have also learned through the years that the husband should be the “head” of the family. That does not mean he gets to run rough shod over everyone. A true leader is one who is a servant. If you look at Jesus’ life, He came as a servant. He came to very poor parents. He was born in a stable. When He was in ministry, He had no possessions, other than His clothes. One of the most touching moments for me is when Jesus washed the disciple’s feet. This was a very “low class” job. Jesus was teaching Agape love. Seek another’s highest good. That is what a leader’s job should be – in my opinion.

When I am respecting Junior, I have a very content man on my hands. So what does respect look like? I can give a few ideas. Each man as each woman has their own type of love/respect. Junior loves when I notice his muscles – he works out and he likes when I notice his muscles. He likes when I compliment him on what he has accomplished – projects, going to work – when he worked. When we were dating, he loved when I told him he was a stud muffin. As the years have gone on for us, some of the things he liked at first are not as important now. That’s hard at times to figure out. For Junior, he has learned on a deep level that I am not interested in any man but him. As he has come to feel safe, he does not need me to tell him he is a stud muffin, he knows it, and so he does not need to hear it anymore.

I have learned from our many marriage seminars that we should study our spouses. When we do that, we begin to then have a truly rewarding relationship. I have been praying for our relationship since our honeymoon. Prayer is important to all aspects of our lives and our marriages are as important. Prayer often opens my heart to Junior’s needs, to what I am doing that needs to be changed. When Junior was in his “curb side shopping” mode – I started praying for God to open my eyes and heart to Junior. God began to show me that Junior had a heart for the “poor”. My husband would find bags of clothes. He would wash them and then take them to Salvation Army – so someone else could have clothes. I learned to accept this behavior and find it so touching.

As we start a new year, may I suggest that we begin to study the men in our lives, to figure out what they need? Maybe this is the year we quit being all about females and begin to notice that there are men out there as well.

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet

December 19, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

Wow! Christmas is next week. Can you believe it? So my thoughts have been running along the same lines as last week…..Jesus…..being born in a stable…..humble start and humble life. This week my thoughts are toward the gift giving- parts of Christmas.

Part of the charm of Christmas is the Wise Men coming along and giving Jesus gifts. Through the years I have learned that the Wise Men more than likely showed up two years into Jesus’ life. They did not show up in the stable along with the Shepherds like we see portrayed all the time.

The Wise Men brought three gifts we know of. They brought gold, incense and myrrh. These gifts were of no value to a two year old. He could not play with them; his diapers were not able to be changed by them, no bottle to feed him. Mathew 2:13-15 states, “When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

God provided for this family. That’s what the gifts did. It gave them a means to support themselves in a foreign land. Somewhere along the way to modern times we have come to believe that Christmas is not really about Jesus. It is now given another name such as…..Holiday celebration….Winter Solstice and totally nothing with Jesus in the celebration.

My mind keeps going back to the gifts that were brought to Jesus. God provided for this family – what they needed, not fun, not showy, fancy etc. I also remember when the Israelites’ were led away from Egypt on their way to the Promised Land. God provided for His people there too. He placed it on the Egyptians hearts to give the Israelites’ gifts. They were given silver, gold and clothing. This is what the gifts were for; silver and gold were used as money to support the community. Clothes were given for people to wear. Again the gifts were “humble” gifts, not showy, fancy or piled high for the sake of a “ton” of gifts that would be forgotten and not used within hours or days.

Another time of gifts comes to mind. In the desert God provided “manna” for the people to eat. They had food provided by God for 40 years. Each morning when they woke up “manna” was on the ground for them to eat. Again, the gift was not fancy, showy or about gifts given for the sake of a ton of presents.

When my children were little…..I didn’t really buy a ton of gifts for them to open each Christmas. They had 7 aunts and uncles who gave gifts to them. They had two sets of grandparents who bought for them and a Great Grandma. I could not justify piling the room high with gifts. My love language is not about being given gifts, so I had a hard time with it. I still have a hard time with a whole lot of gifts. I like to open a few – very few – still I do like opening gifts on Christmas and on my birthday.

I am starting to believe that this giving a ton of gifts mentality is not good. I am starting to believe when we give so many gifts we may be creating a mindset that we are to be “given” everything in life. We are to be handed life on a silver platter and we don’t have to work for what we get. I don’t believe that is what God had in mind. He teaches in Scripture again…. 2Thessalonians 3:10 “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule, ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”

God needs to be the one we rely on. When we are at the end of our rope, it should be to God we seek help, refuge. When my father’s parents walked out on my family after my Dad had polio, God gave my mother’s mother the heart to take us in. Our church provided food and clothing. My Mom went to work and we were given an income, later Dad went to work. God always provided for us. Sometimes he gave us people who took us under their wings and sometimes He gave my parents a job. Eventually though, we were to work. We were not on the hands of those who gave to us forever.

I believe that our gift giving should be “humble” not showy or fancy or even expensive for the sake of expensive. I believe we need to re-focus on Jesus and name Christmas as Christmas and if we do, I believe that our lives will truly be rich. Merry Christmas.

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet

December 12, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

It is December already, Christmas is around the corner. As I wrote about Christmas last year, I thought about how Jesus was born. He was born in a stable, laid in a manger which is a feeding trough for the animals. He was born to very poor parents and his mother was a teenager. Even now I have that Wow feeling. Then I like to ponder…..Jesus was a baby, he needed his diapers changed, he needed to be fed, and eventually he needed to be toilet trained. The Lord and Savior of our lives came to poor parents, to a teenage mother, and was a baby who needed to be loved, cared for. Another Wow!

I remember when my children were young; I wanted to create a Christmas like the ones on TV. I set myself up to fail. I wanted to bake, to have wonderful aromas wafting through our house. I wanted to have a picture perfect tree, each and EVERY year. It did not help that I had two very different children. My daughter loved tiny little things. My son loved giant things. We never could settle on the Right Christmas tree. Decorating the tree was impossible. When the kids were little, they put all the decorations in One spot and the rest of the tree was bare.

As an adult, the first few years after our divorce were hard. How do we celebrate? Many years Junior and I celebrated holidays on our own. We tried to pick different dates to celebrate, like the week before or after. Junior’s daughter soon settled into a holiday tradition with us. That was nice; we spent Christmas day at her place. Junior and Amy love to watch “A Christmas story.” My husband can watch that program over and over and he will laugh each and every time. I think I watch it just to watch as Junior gets all tickled. My son and his family had started to celebrate Christmas Eve day with us.

We are in Virginia now. We will learn some new ways to celebrate again. My sister has already included us with all their celebrations that they have. We will also need to figure out how we will do MI.

The years we learned to celebrate holidays on our own have taught me much. It is about Jesus. We always go to church – that will not change. It helps us to focus on Jesus – the real reason for the season. If I don’t have Jesus in the right spot in my heart….well the holiday then is not real.

I have also learned it is not the picture perfect house, the amount of presents under the Christmas tree; it is not the wonderful aroma of baked goods. What makes Christmas so special to me now is Jesus came into our SIN filled world. He came to teach us how much God the Father loves us. In love, well, for me when I finally figured out that I am loved, I have so much more calmness, courage and I feel like I truly matter. I have also learned that Jesus came as a baby, he grew into a man and ultimately died for me, my sins (anyone who will accept this gift).

As I close, I’d like to ask you…..Do you love Jesus. Have you met Him, invited Him to live in your heart? Is it time……

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet

December 5, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

My heart is thinking about this blog. In recent months, I’ve been asked by my very good friend, “who is your audience, what is your goal” in writing. Some other friends are concerned for me. I thought I would put down what I want to accomplish.

I have wanted to write letters have a conversation with women. Overall, I feel that I am doing what I felt I was led to do. For some years now, I believe God has been teaching me how to write, how to not be so prideful. I wanted a lot of recognition for a very long time. I felt inferior in many ways and was looking to “arrive.” As my writing grew stronger, I found that I did not need to be “special” anymore.

Junior loved my letters to him. He encouraged me to write. God sent my friend J to teach me. We got together for a year or two and I grew under her leadership. Next He sent S and I helped to write a newsletter for our Sunday school class.

As I was preparing to retire, I felt led to write letters to women in my life. My Scripture I have for this as I try to write is Titus 2:3-4 “Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.” I also use Ephesians 5:21 “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” And Ephesians 5:33 “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

In generations past multiple generations lived with each other. They helped each other with everyday life. Women had older women to guide them in child rearing, help with the child rearing. The older women helped the younger women understand what was going on in their bodies etc. For the past several generations, that has not happened. Our society became very mobile and parents raised their children on their own. Older people also began to go their own way.

My goal is to name things, feelings, etc and to offer my “older” woman’s advice. Sometimes I find that I struggle too. Many of the “feelings” I talk about, are feelings I have dealt with in my lifetime, not necessarily right now. It is my prayer, that by naming these feelings I may help someone on their life’s journey. I also want people to meet Jesus. Jesus has been such a great healer in my life and I want to share Him with others.

God has taught me to look at myself, to tell what I find in my journey through life. This can be mistaken and thought of as “it is about Janet.” In one way it is…..in another it is about trying to introduce Jesus’ love. My goal, my dream is that I make walking with Jesus a “real” day to day walk and in that He becomes real and someone to trust.

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet

November 28, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

Thanksgiving was this week. I keep thinking about being “thankful.” Being thankful has been one of those things that have helped me a whole lot. I must admit as I began my faith journey there were times that I questioned what I was learning, later though, I found that what God was teaching me was so very foundational to my well being.

As I go through my prayers pretty much each day, I find that I include saying “thank you” to God to be an important part of my prayers. Saying “thank you,” helps me to see what I do have, not focus so much on what I don’t and to begin to trust God when life feels like a roller coaster.

I have felt that a good portion of my life was lived on a roller coaster ride. The older I got, the more I wanted off that roller coaster. As I learned to see what I truly did have, I have found that I did not need to get as emotional about what was going on.

My “thank you” taught me that God has never let me be homeless. It took me a long time to quit fearing that I would be homeless. As I thanked God for the home I had, that He was part of my home and for the provisions, I began to see that God is truly watching out for me.

I also thank God for my husband. I thank God each day for my husband. I also ask Him to teach me to be the wife my husband needs. I thank God for the gift of writing and then each day I ask that God would “write” what He wants me to say.

I thank God for my friends. I thank God that I was able to be a mother. I thank God for my children and grandchildren. As I find myself thankful, I find I also am prayerful for them too. I thank God for the church family I have been placed with and I also pray for that church. I also pray for our friends, for our families. I thank God for our neighbors, past and present and I also lift them up in prayer.

When I worked, I thanked God for my job, for my co-workers and I prayed for them as well. I still pray for my coworkers. It seems like whatever I find myself thankful for I also find a need to pray for that as well.

As I have been thankful, as I have prayed for, I also find that I can let go of fear, of anger and resentment too. As I let go….I find peace. In that peace, I find I can move on with life, the good and bad parts.

Sometimes, I get stuck. Sometimes, I need extra help. God will provide. He always does. It may mean He will point me to call a friend. It may mean I need to talk to a professional. As I keep giving my heart to God, I find that I am able to move forward. I am so thankful that I have found Jesus….He has been the healer in my heart.

As I come to a close…..I would like to ask you…..What are you thankful for. Is it time to begin your thankful journey?

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet

November 21, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

My thoughts are taking me back to some struggles I’ve had in my life. One of the reasons that I find jury duty hard is that both sides sound really good once you hear them. Proverbs 18:17 “The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.”

I have a tendency to believe people and have a hard time discerning when I am being handed a line. When I am accused – I tend to want to believe the accusation. Later after the quarrel I begin to question the accusation. I begin to see other sides and then I am questioning the accusation.

In my faith journey with the Lord, I find that I want to please Him. I am finding that being right just to win an argument is not satisfying. I want to be a peace maker, but I also don’t want to be a doormat for someone to trample on either.

I used to have the false belief, if someone hits me, then I must turn the other cheek. As I went through counseling, I found that God isn’t asking me to roll over and let people stomp on me either. Again, I have a hard time reconciling when to back off, back away and when to stand my ground.

In my heart, I would be ever so happy if I could walk through life with no disagreements, hard feelings etc. Real life isn’t that simple, so I attempt to learn how to love and to disagree.

If I am pushed into a corner - I have a tendency to come out fighting. I get to a point where I don’t care and I will fight. I would rather not, but push comes to shove – well the fighter in me will come out.

As I try to reconcile my past I try to learn how to fight. I have gone through years and years of counseling. I wanted to change the parts of me that hurt and also that had a need to win.

My sister, some days I marvel at her, her wisdom. For most of my life – I found her to be “strange.” We have lived very different lives. We have walked very different paths. As I went through my divorce, she came alongside of me. To be honest, I was leery at first. She continued to reach out to me. I began to reach out to her. As we came to love each other, we found that we had put our trust in Jesus. I am able to love her in a way I had never been able to love before.

Being from the North – well, I am prickly to the Southern people. Again, I try hard not to be over bearing. I am praying fervently, for God to show me how Not to be so…..rough, overbearing and have strong points of view. (The type that offends that is.)

As I think this out, I find that I am also what God created me to be – we are not all a cookie cutter mold of perfection. If God wanted robots – he would have created us to be exactly the same. God made prickly pears and warm fuzzies. My personality is ok and God continues to teach me to be what He is creating me to be for His purpose. So I go forward trying to grow, trying to love – sometimes differently than others.

I have one more thought…..this one involves my husband. When we went to Wales last year, I marveled at my man. Junior can be a tough guy. With me, he is gentle, but anyone who meets him soon learns that he has an opinion AND he is not afraid to share it. When we were in Wales, Junior was able to talk to the roughest people. He met them where they were at and he was able to “speak” their way. He gave the love of Jesus to people I cannot begin to reach. If we were all to be soft and cuddly then there would be whole segments of people that would not “hear” of Jesus’ love.

I guess my “strong” personality does have a place, learning how to use it for God’s glory….well I continue to learn and grow…..

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet