What’s AGE got to do with it?…review

Title: What’s AGE got to do with it?

Author: Robin McGraw

Classification: Self-help

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Price: $24.99

Hardcover: 240 pages

ISBN: 1400202140

I must admit I ordered this book for review because I was intrigued about how a woman of 55 can look so good.  Hair, skin, nails, clothes, even shoes everyday, and all day.  For those of us who don’t have an unlimited budget to work with, taking care of your health as well as we would like doesn’t happen for the most part.  Looking our best may be being swamped in the middle of 6 children at one time, homeschooling, 2-3 loads of dishes in the dishwasher and 2-3 loads of clothes.  Fixing 3 nutritious meals everyday, cleaning and all while trying to maintain some balance in the world of being a pastors wife.

After reading the first part of this book I realized that this book is really about Robin, not about the rest of us.  I got out of it that she was more excited about telling us about herself than she was about how to stay healthy and look good so we would BE healthy and feel good.  I think that by the time a woman has reached her 50’s, none of the things that Robin has talked about doing will make much of a difference.  Most of the things had to have been focused on during their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s to make a difference.  If they are looking for a quick fix to look like Robin McGraw, they aren’t going to find it in this book.  This book was a huge disappointment for me.

Prayers Needed

I would like to reach out to all who read this blog and ask for two specific prayer requests.

First, Donald Palmer, one of the greatest giving Christians I have ever known, needs prayers as do his family.  Donald is in the hospital, where he has been for 2 weeks or so, and is not doing well at all.  Please pray that God watch over him and his family, in particular his wife Marion.  The have been married for 64 years and have been inseparable.  She is currently in a nursing home and unable to be at his bedside.  They were together up until Donald had to go into the hospital to manage pain.  The family takes Marion to see him as often as they can but she doesn’t move around to well and with it being so cold out they are not getting to spend much time together.  Please pray that God’s will is done in the healing of Donald.  He is a precious child of God and has done insurmountable things to help others, always giving of himself, just as Jesus commands us to do.  He is a true follower of Jesus Christ in every way.

Second, I belong to a Pastors Wives group on yahoo and there is a fellow PW that is dealing with a family crisis right now.  Last night about 10:00 they found him in the shower, he had hung himself.  The managed to get his heart beating and breathing again, however he is unable to breathe on his own and his heart is only beating at a very low voltage rate.  He left no note and no one knows of any reason why this tragedy happened but they need our prayers.  Prayers for a miracle of healing in his body, and prayers of comfort for the family.

Please remember these two families in your prayers.  I will update you as I receive information.  Thank you and God bless.

A family that prays together stays together

I met a friend for lunch today.  It was a truly wonderful time of fellowship and sharing in Christ with each other.  Things God has done in my life, things he has done in her life.  It was a time of sharing pain, answered prayers, and how God has and is working in our lives.  I found a privilege to sit with her and talk to her and hopefully she felt the same.

The only thing that I regretted about the afternoon we spent together is that I think we were so excited to see each other and to finally have a chance to talk face to face that we just dug in and started eating and I totally forgot to ask the Lord’s blessing on our meal.  I was so ashamed after I got in the van I immediately asked forgiveness from God.  Here I am trying to be a friend, a Christian friend and the first thing out of the gate I forget to pray.  Please forgive me, dear friend, and I won’t let it happen again.

With that in mind, I came home to do my devotion and I opened up a book sponsored by Family Life called Two Hearts Praying As One, by Barbara and Dennis Rainey.  They are truly a remarkable couple that are co-founders of FamilyLife, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ.  Dennis co-hosts the daily radio program FamilyLife Today, heard by 3 million or so people each week.  They have 6 children and live in Little Rock Arkansas.  I read everything of theirs I can get my hands on.  I feel they have a passion for saving souls, in particular families, like no other.

So this got to me to thinking…When is the last time I prayed with my family.  Now not that I don’t pray FOR my family but when is the last time I sat down with ALL of my children and prayed for them WITH them.  They need to know I pray for them.  They need to SEE that I pray for them.  Not just at supper, or before traveling, but all the time.  Without ceasing.

Richard and I pray together as often as we can.  I love praying with my spouse.  I feel so uplifted when we pray together.  God blesses our marriage when we do so.  Here is an excerpt from the before mentioned book:

Praying together as a couple will enrich, enhance, and fortify your life, marriage, and family.  Praying together may be the single most important spiritual discipline you and your spouse will ever share.  Here’s why:

Are you lacking intimacy in your marriage? Praying together will take you to new levels of intimacy far beyond what you thought possible.

Is there conflict in your marriage? Praying together will defuse, disarm, resolve, and prevent disagreements.

Do you want more transparency in your marriage? Praying together is certain to open your hearts to one another.

Do you feel distant from God? Here’s a scriptural promise to grab onto and apply:  “Call to me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know”  (Jeremiah 33:3).

Are you fearful?  Disappointed?  Discouraged?  Worried?  Angry?  Hopeless? Praying together will calm the storms in your heart marriage, and family.

Are you struggling against sin? Praying as a couple exposes sin so God can work.

Are you near divorce? Praying as a couple restores unity of heart, mind, and purpose.

If you want your family to be all that God intended for it to be you HAVE to pray together as a family or even as a couple everyday for those intentions to be revealed.  Is it the only thing we have to do to have a successful family?  No. but it is the first step toward experiencing the blessings of having God at the center of your marriage.

Prayer will test your resolve, your perseverance, your humility, and even your courage.  And as you pray, keep in mind that you will meet spiritual opposition.  Old fuzzy nose, as Richard likes to call him, knows the spiritual power available to family united in prayer.  After all he was one of the highest angels in Heaven.  he will oppose your efforts to come together as a family in prayer.

On a higher note, prayer can bless your life beyond belief.  The Bible tells us in James 5:16 that “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”  Prayer is the Christian’s most powerful resource in communing with God.  The results are often greater than we thought were possible.  Some people see prayer as a last resort to be tried when all else fails.  This approach is backward.  Prayer should come first.  Because God’s power is infinitely greater than ours, it only makes sense to rely on it, especially because God encourages us to do so.

Pray with you spouse.  Pray with your children.  Do it often and with a passion of really meaning it.  You WILL be rewarded for it.

Mothers of Influence … Susannah Annesley Wesley

It was time to pray.  A woman of strong opinions and convictions, Susannah Wesley knelt, her Bible in hand, and pulled the large apron over her head.  Her children knew not to interrupt her for the next hour.  This was their mother’s daily time alone with God– time to seek His face and intercede for her children — and her routine never wavered.

Unlike the old woman in the shoe from the Mother Goose Rhyme, Susannah knew exactly how she wanted to raise her children.  The mother of nineteen (only nine survived to adulthood) spent at least one hour a day praying for each and everyone of them.  But that wasn’t the end of it.  Susannah also made time to set aside an hour during the week with each of her children to focus only on that one child and to discuss spiritual matters.  It was a disciplined household that ran like a finely tuned clock.

Susannah once wrote, “I sinsist upon conquering the child’s will early on.  Self-will is the root of all sin and misery, so whatever cherishes this in children ensures their after-wretchedness.  Whatever checks and mortifies it, promotes their future happiness and piety.  When we consider that relihion is doing the will fo God and not our own, the one grand impediment to our temporal and eternal happiness is this self-will.  thus no indulgence of it can be trivial, no denial unprofitable.

“Heaven or hell depends on this alone; so that the parent who studies to subdue self-will in his child, works together with God in the renewing and saving of a soul.  The parent who indulges the child’s self-will does the devil’s work, makes religion impracticable, salvation unattainable, and does all that in him lies, to damn his child, soul and body, forever.”

It was not an easy life.  Susannah’s husband, Samuel, was poorly paid as the rector of St. Andrew’s Church in Epworth, Lincolnshire, England, and was often away from home.  It was left up to her to steer their children down a path of righteousness, while a the same time making sure the food stretched to feed all their hungry little mouths.  But she never wavered.  The London-born mother also found time to home-school her children for six hours each day, teaching them literature, music, mathematics, science, Latin, Greek, and theology.

Having grown up with her minister father (a Puritan) and known religious persecution, Susannah wanted her life to count for God.  As a child, she prayed that He would use her to light a spiritual fire in England that would spread around the world.  He did, but not in the way she imagined.  Instead God called Susannah to serve as a mother, and it would be her son John, an ordained Anglican priest, who would experience a spiritual awakening and launch the Methodist movement.   And her son Charles, also an Anglican priest, would give the church more than 9,000 cherished hymns.

Samuel Wesley once told hi wife that “some of the truly great people are the ones who were faithful in doing little things.”  there is no doubt it was Susannah’s “little” prayers that changed the world.

Taken from the book Mothers of Influence published in 2005 by Bordon Books.

New Bible Study starting

I took a Bible study a few years ago and again recently got out the book to go over some things in it.  It is called Having a Mary Heart in a  Martha World.  The author is Joanna Weaver.  She is a pastor’s wife, and mother of two.  Her articles have appeared in such publications as Focus on the Family, Guideposts, and Home-Life.  She is also an award winning author of the wedding gift book, With This Ring.  She lives in Whitefish, Montana with her family.

I found this book a very easy to follow study, well written with a message much more than it appeared to be on the surface.  She challenges us and encourages us to live day by day as a Mary in a Martha world.

Joanna has been gracious enough to allow me to use excerpts of her book on a blog I have started called “Seeking His Will“.  It is a 12 week study that will change your life.  It is about the life of two women who is not that different from today’s woman.  We long to sit at the feet of our Lord and learn from him but the business of the world will not leave us alone.  For me it is the 6 children living in my home or helping my husband with the day to day tasks of ministering to 3 churches or supper, or teaching my daughter (I home school her) or just a mere ring of the phone.

Please join us in this wonderful study in Seeking His Face and learning more about how we can walk a closer walk with God.

If you have ever felt that you weren’t Godly enough, lovely enough or aren’t doing enough, this is the study for you.  The Study starts on Monday, Jan 19th.  If you plan on following along please leave me a comment so I can pray for you during this commitment.

Hope to see you there.  If you are having trouble finding where to go there is a button on the right column.  If you click on it, it will take you directly to the blog.

Posting more often……

Me?  Actually post more often?  Well that is one of the things on the list of things I want to accomplish before Jan. 1 of 2010.  You can find the complete list here (#47).  Well it actually isn’t a completed list but it is a start anyway.  So I am going to give it my best shot.  I have been figuring out a way to do just that.  See my problem is that some days I don’t actually have anything to say.  I know, Cindy, you find that hard to believe, however some days I just don’t know what to blog about.  So this is what I have come up with.

I am going to have set days that I blog about certain stuff.  I haven’t quite got it all worked out yet but I was thinking about ways I can reach more people for Jesus (# 22 on the list).  I am going to try to post every day but as some of you who follow my blog know I tried the 100 days of blogging and I made it like 11 days or something.

I am going to try to lead a womens bible study online (from a 2nd blog that I have yet to determine what the name will be).  It is called Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, by Joanna Weaver.  It will be a 12 week study and others will be encouraged to participate via their blog and/or email.

Then on this blog, on the same day every week, I am going to be spreading the word of Mothers of influence.  This is a magnificent journey through some of the most influential mothers in history.  Such as Suzanna Wesley, Laura Bush, Morrow Coffey Graham, and many others.

Another day I am going to blog something about Homeschooling.

Yet another day I will be on blogging on having a Godly marriage.

In the midst of this hopefully I can update on family happenings.

Not sure if I will have the time to blog on the weekends or not but I am going to give it my best shot.  I really want to make my blog a tool for God.  Although I like blogging about everyday life, I sometimes feel like it is babble because I need something to write.  I am going to try this for a while and see what happens.

Your thoughts?  Leave me a comment and tell me what you think.