rambling rosemarie

Is the need for affirmation really a need? Is it a sinful desire to want affirmation? What kind of affirmation is good and what kind of affirmation is sinful? Paul seemed to affirm the actions of some of the folks in the churches he wrote, while not mincing words when confrontation was in order. Do we need the occasional atta'boy or atta' girl to keep us motivated to do right? Does the need increase or decrease as one grows older? Where should single people find words of affirmation? In Scripture alone? Does or should the gift of encouragement include giving words of affirmation to people not likely to receive them anywhere else? Does anyone even give rip? Just asking.

I have a pastor friend who hates to be fussed over in any fashion. He is a no nonsense, tell it like it is sort who really doesn't give a rip if the truth offends you, but don't confuse that as being the same as whether or not he cares about the disposition of your soul. I will take his surgical style of preaching over any warm fuzzy, seeker friendly, make you feel good about yourself sweet tasting poison available in most churches. Conviction and compassion are my ultimate mix for encouragement. I am blessed to have listened to him and heard both. You can find them both here.

The hard times of life. The times when your are bruised and raw. When it hurts to breathe and each beat of your heart feels like it is sending glass shards through your soul. That's when it happens and you know. Your circumstances are horrible. You cannot imagine why everything has gone so horribly wrong all at once and in a nanosecond you are transported from the abject poverty of puny faith and hopelessness to knowing that you are safely tucked under God's wing. You know that all of your doubts to the contrary cannot keep you from His grace and mercy when He chooses to bestow it upon you. I have had some of the hardest months of my life thus far come crashing down on me like waves, forming a tsunami of circumstances. Circumstances way beyond of my control, threatening to take my feet out from under me. The last three days have been full of anguish for me. My sister called and through her sobs and heartbreak all I could understand were the words, "Daddy is dying....

Recently I had a conversation with my friend and brother in the Lord, Mark, or johnMark as I know him best. Mark has a blog worth reading and you'll find it here . In our conversation we talked about writing styles and Mark complimented mine. We chatted a bit about writing and I realized that while he envies my wordsmithing, I envy his discipline and tenacity. Mark wants to be a better writer and he works at it. I wish my posts were read by more people and that more folks would comment on their content, but unlike Mark, I am not doing anything about it. So while our envy of one another is mutual, he has the more valuable and desirable skill. I have written before about discipline, or the "D" word. Discipline- dreaded but coveted discipline. I make halfhearted attempts at acquiring it but never get much further than the 'want to' part. If 'want to' isn't converted to action it's pretty useless. Discipline means you actually have to get up...

Last night I had the honor and privilege to present some information to the women of my church. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love and appreciate them. The seminar I did was on fear. God is clever and He had me present the information to them because I needed it. It's not that I don't want to study things for my own benefit and growth, but whenever I do a topical study to teach it, I see how badly I needed it and how much more I have to repent of than I realized. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. That's a topic I want to return to in another post. I want to talk about the ladies for a moment. They are an incredibly loving group of women. Women who seek God and are teachable. They have gone out of their way to include me and love on me, which speaks volumes of their characters because I am not all that lovable. I am not being self-deprecating here. I am a mix of endearing and maddening qualities like anyone else. What I am telling you is ...

Sometimes God uses people you don't know to tell you things you need to know or you already know but you've forgotten to act upon. Today in a the chat channel I frequent, someone I love and trust put a link to a website up and said, "If you have not watched or listened to this, you must." He was so right. I hope that you will grab some tissues and sit and watch this video . I hope you will let this woman change your life, your priorities, and your relationship with God. Rachel Barkey is the type of woman I would like to be, but pray I will never have to become. My faithless, cowardly heart begs to be given an easier path. God has used her life to show me the shallowness in mine and to encourage me that it does not have to be this way. What a testimony of Christ in her life!

I am tired of hearing about the economic crisis as if We the People had nothing to do with it. I am tired of hearing about how Barack Obama is going to save us from the mistakes and mishandling of the prior administration. We are living with the aftermath of our own choices. We over-extended ourselves. We needed more square footage in our homes, more nifty gadgets and widgets for our walls and desks and in our entertainment centers. We needed faster cars with more equipment. We bought the goods at inflated prices. We continue to patronize the companies who make enough profit to send their executives begging for our tax money in corporate jets while staying in posh resorts and pretending they are broke. We bought their stocks and we were happy when we were blissfully ignorant and our portfolio numbers didn't come looking like [this]. I am about sick to death of hearing how President Elect, Barack Obama is going to save us from the evil we created ourselves. We are the ones that ...

A couple nights ago I had the opportunity to check in with my buddy, Carla. This working for a living thing that I am doing now is getting in the way of my time on-line with some wonderful friends. Carla is a cyber-sibling extraordinaire! I have told you all before that she is one of those Proverbs 31 types; wife, mom to seven, grandmother to one, homeschooler, blogger, webmaster, businesswoman, author...... getting the picture? The only thing the Proverbs 31 woman had over on Carla was some servants to get the housework done. In the midst of her other official roles Carla has been doing things like encouraging me to write. Ok, so she isn't perfect! She's getting there! She has also been a good sounding board. We share struggles. She and I are very different women. I am more of a Proverbs 32 woman who accomplishes very little and gripes about it a lot. We have had some similar difficult experiences and so we share some common struggles. It is really a gift when God gives you so...

In preparation for my posts on fear I have been doing some reflection on the path my life has taken and how different fears have motivated me. There are healthy fears, reasonable fears and unreasonable fears. I have been compelled to act by all three with varying measures of success and/or catastrophic results. One thing that has remained a constant, God's faithfulness. The college I used to work for had special chapel services once a semester. They were called "Stones of Remembrance." As I reflect on my time at the college, besides some people, those chapels are the thing I miss the most. The idea was that someone would select a stone to be added to a pile that was placed in a prominent place on campus. He or she would give testimony to a time in their life that God demonstrated His faithfulness in a unique way. Then their stone would be added to those of other students, faculty and staff who had also given their testimonies. The idea was based on Joshua 4:9ff ...

The disciples and those on the periphery of the ministry must have been miserable the day after their friend and Lord was crucified. The shock and horror of Jesus' treatment, their abject fear for their lives all coupled with their grief and despair had to leave them physically spent and emotionally vacant. Have you ever been there? When you've cried so hard that the only thing you feel is the knot in the back of your throat? Your body all but shuts down and you move through essential activities as though you are operating on tracks. You are walking wounded. I can only imagine what they felt and what they talked about. Surely there were some in stunned disbelief and some who were making plans on what to do if the crowd should turn on them. For three years their lives had been focused on one thing and now their one thing was gone. How would they survive? Who would they be? Where would they go? Would the pain ever stop? They had no idea what was in store for them. For me the E...

Unhappiness is when your back finally heals enough that you can walk, drive and sit without screaming in pain... Sunday morning comes and your driveway is covered with 2 inches of ice. I really don't want to complain though because the ice was part of an amazing demonstration put on by Almighty God. We had thunder and lightning while it snowed. Prior to the snow fall was a bit of freezing rain. When the lightning flashed it lit the night sky so the freezing rain looked like glitter flying in the wind. The resulting slab of ice was worth the price of the light show. However, when your driveway looks like an ice-skating rink, there are choices that have to be made and none of them are good. Do you risk sliding down your driveway in your automobile and hope that your car doesn't slide into the telephone pole? It only helps to have a four wheel drive when some of the wheels can get traction. Speaking of traction, the other option was to risk putting my back out again by grabbing th...

In my earlier post on confrontation , I talked about the bad reputation confrontation has, and why we need to rethink letting the world tell us it is bad. We need to quit taking advice from the world in all matters, but that's another post for another day. I fear this post is going to be lengthy enough and difficult to get done. Confrontation is a complex issue that takes wisdom and discernment. When done correctly, it is about restoration and reconciliation, strengthening and challenging. It means loving someone enough to tell them the hard things they don't want to hear in a way that removes their defenses and leaves them with only two choices; continue in sin or repent. It also means being willing to get into the trenches with them and fight the good fight and not condemning when failure occurs. Although it can yield instantaneous results as Nathan's confrontation of David did, more often it is a process. If you're going to confront someone, you need to be in fo...

I love confrontation, though I don't always appreciate it at the moment I am being confronted and seldom appreciate it when it isn't done biblically. Biblical confrontation is a loving, life-saving tool that we Christians have allowed the world to define and label for us. Why is it we insist on letting the world define truth for us? Why are we so willing to believe them when they tell us confrontation is evil and nothing more than bigoted intolerance? We have even let the world tell us intolerance is wrong but there are things we should not tolerate. The irony is even those in the world would agree with that statement, they just have subjective standards on what is intolerable. Unfortunately, we have given the world reason to point the finger of blame at us. The valuable tools we have been given by God have all been counterfeited by the enemy of our souls. In our flesh, we have abused confrontation and exhortation in the name of Christ. Anytime we operate in the flesh the...

I woke up today feeling weak. Not physically weak, though that often accompanies feeling incapable and unable to face the day's demands. I am talking about feeling spiritually weak. The feeling that I have great temptations and puny faith with which to resist them. Puny faith... Jesus was speaking to me when he accused his disciples "Oh you of little faith!" Only when I read that I think, "You think their faith is puny? You should see mine!" And then of course I realize He does see my faith. He is the author and perfecter of my faith. It's not like He is unaware or I caught him not paying attention. My Lord is not wringing his hands and wondering how to get me through today. As William Bridge put it; "Our victory lies not in ourselves and our own habitual strength, but in Christ's fresh assistance." It's sort of like the Greek philosopher Heraclitus pointed out, we can never step into the same river twice, the water is always being...