I want to share with you an excerpt from an article that really spoke to me.  Jesus truly loves us more than we can imagine. Maybe you need to be reminded of that today, just as I do.

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Above Rubies, Issue # 84:  My Sheep, Mushies (by Kate Marchiniak)

Whenever I think back on this season of shepherding, a "Mushies" story is forever etched in my memory. It was a sunny day. I had gone into town to do the weekly errands, leaving the sheep contentedly grazing.  As I hopped out of the car on my return, the sound of continual bleating filled the air.  Something was up. It was Mushies. Her bleats were desperate.

I walked into the field. She immediately ran over, stood right in front of me, looked up at my face, and stamped her hoof, her bleats becoming more desperate by the minute.  My heart sank. I knew instinctively what had happened- a coyote had taken her lamb. She was trying to say to me, "Where have you taken my baby? What have you done with her?"

To fully understand her anguish, Mushies was the only orphan that had not conceived for many lambing seasons.  Usually, any infertile ewe is culled from the flock as production is important in a flock, but her special relationship with the shepherd saved her!

[...] As I looked down at my bleating Mushies, my heart went out to her. I tried to console her. Of course, I could not convey to her that it wasn't me that had taken her lamb. It was the enemy! It was living in a rugged land! She cried for days and wouldn't have anything to do with me for weeks.

I never loved her more. As her shepherd, my heart ached, and I wept over her loss. She never conceived again. Even as I type, I feel again the pain she went through!

Our Shepherd, Jesus, aches over our pain and weeks over the seasons of our loss, never loving us more. That can often sound trite in a season of pain, but, truly, there is no one who cares for us like Him.  Who knows us like our Shepherd? [...]

Truth rings from the old hymn, "No one ever cared for me like Jesus.  There's no other friend so kind as He. No one else could take the sin and darkness from me. O how much He cares for me!"


Aboverubies.org

The Pouring Out

I'm a woman of many blogs, I suppose.  There's a reason for that.  My MandyMom.com blog is more about my family, our homeschooling, and random stuff like that.  A Fighting Faith is more along the lines of what I've been pondering on spiritually, what I've been studying, what the Lord has been showing me.

My new blog, The Pouring Out, goes hand-in-hand with this blog so people will probably wonder why I bothered to create a new one rather than write those things here.

The Pouring Out was birthed out of.. well, the birth of Molly Jo.  Her birth (and the fact that she wasn't breathing and her heart stopped beating for a time) had a tremendous impact on me.  The Lord has been molding me through that, and I wanted to have a place to organize those thoughts pertaining to her birth (even if they don't seem like they pertain to it).  The Pouring Out is kind of a private place, although I have chosen to share it with the world wide web.  It's mostly just snippets- notes scrawled on a piece of paper or napkin, a snapshot here and there, a discussion with myself, a conversation with God- but I felt like it was something to be shared.

It's about miracles and how they transform a life- bring blind eyes to see, deaf ears to hear.  It's about how long a mere ten seconds can be when your baby doesn't have a heartbeat and how those ten seconds become a message to your heart.

So, if you're interested, here's the link:  http://thepouringout.blogspot.com

Easter voiced- my thoughts exactly

I really loved this post from Jen Hatmaker because, well, this is very similar to the journey my family and I have been on these last few years.  

It’s Easter.
Between ages 0-32, I celebrated Easter the fun way: with bunnies, baskets, and expensive clothes. What better way to say “Jesus reigns” than dressing my preschooler in a $45 dress to show her off in the church lobby? (You’re welcome, Jesus. Be blessed.)
Now, let’s be clear, if you had asked me what my Easter priorities were as I stood all fancy in the lobby, I’d become grave and mention the resurrection. For crying out loud, I’m a Christian. But truthfully, between the outfit shopping, the Easter baskets, the egg ______ (dying, stuffing, hiding, hunting), the pictures, the lunch menu, and the gift buying, Jesus was flat last. I started thinking about him as the band started at church, and I thought about him for a whole hour.

That’s just true.

But for the last three years, Jesus has messed with me. Frankly, he’s hijacked all my holiday endeavors. I’ve always celebrated holidays with a Cultural Major and a Spiritual Minor. Take Christmas, for example. I endlessly spent on garbage no one needed and worked myself into a December frenzy and oh well. La de da. Now I’m overwhelmed by the poor and the disgusting consumerism cycle and the heinous neglect of Jesus and the appalling nature of it all.

Then we got to Easter, or as God called it, Passover. “Easter” is a little name picked up from the Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess of spring, ‘Eostre’, who saved a frozen bird from the harsh winter by turning it into a magical rabbit who could lay eggs. Hence: ‘Easter’, bunnies, and eggs. Why are elements of a pagan religion associated with the highest holy day of the Christian faith? (Oh bother. Can’t we just carry on and dye our Eostre eggs in peace?)

Assessing the typical American Easter, on one side I see Jesus on the cross, humiliated and mutilated, bearing the failures of every person past and present, rescuing humanity through an astonishing miracle of divine redemption, splitting history in two and transforming the human experience for eternity. On the other side, I see us celebrating this monumental heroism with chocolate bunnies and boiled eggs, with Jesus as an afterthought. It doesn’t make sense. (Insert some of you tossing this book in the garbage. Don’t mess with my Easter fun, you hippie chick.)

Read the rest of her post HERE. (Link opens in new window.)

Sunday reads

Hey folks!  Today was an exhausting Sunday for us.  I had one of those good long naps that brought back memories of childhood Sundays.  I always thought my parents were really strange for taking midday naps on Sunday, but now I get it!  Whew, did I need ever that rest!  I  pray that your Sunday was been restful and rejuvenating.  It is my hope that you have been encouraged and strengthened in Christ, not only in your church gathering but in your own devotional time with the Lord. 

Here are some blog posts I've enjoyed "chewing on". I've included some excerpts, but definitely check out the full posts! 

Exactly one year ago, today, I left a twenty-five year pastorate and the professional ministry. The move came after a two year struggle of conscience where I tried to do what Wolfgang Simpson describes as “trying to cross the river without getting your feet wet.” After a year of reflection I offer to you the seven worst/best things I did as a conventional church pastor.

1. Took a full-time salary. Until I left the ministry I had no idea how corrupting a compensation package is to the church. It changes the way you think about yourself and changes the way people view you. You become a sort of professional Christian that floats above the unwashed masses of laity. It affects your decision-making almost every day. The Trinity becomes Father, Son and Holy Cash Flow. [.....]

-The 7 Worst (& 7 best) Things I did as a Pastor in a Traditional Church Ministry

In the previous blog post Longcuts, I shared that the expression of faith in simple, organic and missional paradigms of Christianity require intentionality on your part. Nothing is done for you. Your the initiator of the level of intimacy you want with God. Not only the initiator, but also responsible for your own maturity. Maturity is not easily or quickly attained, so the quicker we start on this journey the better. God expects us to mature, and Paul exhorts the Ephesians and us, in Ephesians 4:14-16 with, "Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature".

Children have everything done for them. We don't expect anything different, and neither do they. Of course, we want them to mature, to become more and more responsible for themselves in all areas. We move them into adulthood. We call this maturity. That is one of our main purposes as parents and adults in their lives.

Unfortunately, we don't have this same mindset in much of the church. The defining of maturity seems illusive, like a target we never hit or sure of where and what it is. We claim we are training, teaching, leading, etc. people into maturity, and yet they never seem to reach it! All through the process we communicate messages like: "you need me for your spiritual growth", or " without my leadership, you and everything else will fall apart", or "your not ready yet, and I'll be the one to know when you are".

-Longcuts , and the following post, Time to Grow Up

This is my hypothesis.  These parents aren’t trying to train their children to obey, they are trying to control chaos.  Their discipline is based on the amount of chaos they can handle at a given time.  Deliberate disobedience is far less of a concern.  Therefore the child learns to monitor their parent’s mood and the situation closely knowing that the things they can get away with are not dependent so much on them and their behavior as on their parents and the environment.  This is a disaster for kids.  It makes the parents patience and tolerance the real trigger for discipline instead of the child’s behavior.  It trains kids less how to obey and more how to manipulate a situation.  This leads the child to routinely push his or her parents to the edge since they have been systematically trained to find that edge of tolerance and keep their parents there continuously.  How exhausting for the parents.  How destructive for the children.  And when they see an obedient child their reaction is, “I wish my child had that temperament”.  So they blame their child when they have spent years training their children to behave in this manner.  There’s a much better, easier way.

- Controlling Chaos VS Obedience Training for Young Children


The author of this post so clearly puts into words what I love about being part of a simple home church that seeks to "do life" together. I truly love the people we meet with and am always looking forward to fellowshipping with them again.  The Spirit bonds us together as we share our heart and our struggles, teach, rebuke, and pray for one another, as well as join together and lift our hands in worship and praise to God.

- Read: I've Got Your Back

One of the hallmarks of Jesus’ character is His radical inclusivity. When Jesus walked this earth, He despised the spirit of separatism, elitism, and self-righteousness (Mark 9:38-40). And He still does today (Hebrews 13:8, NKJV).

Augustine’s famous line still holds true: “In essential, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

These essentials of the faith embody what C. S. Lewis called Mere Christianity—“the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times.” (An earlier version of the same idea was put forth by Vincent of Lerins: “Christianity is what has been held always, everywhere, and by all.”)

In this post, I’d like to make a few observations about the “non-essentials.”

To put it in a sentence: If the perfect interpretation of the Bible were the standard for Christian fellowship, then I would have had to disfellowship myself twenty years ago! I’m still learning, thank God, and my interpretations of Scripture are maturing. None of us has a corner on the truth. And if a person thinks they do, they’re deluded. In the words of Paul, “We know in part” (1 Cor. 13:9).

I have to wonder what will happen when Jesus returns. I can imagine all the Christians who specialized in “perfect doctrine” passing out after they discover who made it into the kingdom. Angels will be running around all over the place with smelling salts to wake them up!

The church of Jesus Christ is one. But we are called to maintain and guard the unity of that oneness (Eph. 4:2–3).

 - Rethinking Christian Unity


Love and Blessings in Christ,
      Mandy