Rain On Me

I am so blessed to be able to bring you the review of a special book. Rain On Me (Devotions of Hope and Encouragement for Difficult Times) by Holley Gerth may be a small hardback book in size, but it carries a powerful punch to the skies that grow troubled over our lives. Holley writes like a woman beyond her physical years, a woman of wisdom and of a tested and fired faith.

Within the forty daily devotions are words that read from a beautiful storyteller, but in a very personal way that all of us who live in this at times, dreary world can relate to. Holley sets the days in light of weather--the weather of life. The weather that brings mist, drizzle, pouring and the horizontal varieties of rain. But, with the constant drip that we feel from each weather system, we can also experience the beauty of a rainbow, the fresh scent left behind on the wind, tap roots that grow deeper and a renewed appreciation for clear skies and warm sunshine.

I savored this book during the quiet, stolen moments of my morning this past month. I recommend this book to anyone who has felt the need of an umbrella at times and haven't we all. This book is like that...an open, protecting, and cozy read of a book.

Holley is a gracious writer and a loving woman with a big heart. It is no wonder that she is senior editorial director for Dayspring Christian subsidiary of Hallmark. You can read Holley's blog at Heart to Heart with Holley

I want to share with you my favorite excerpt from the book entitled, Name That Hurricane.

Holley writes, "In the Bible names are powerful. When Naomi lost her husband and sons, she told people to call her Mara, which means "bitter". (Ruth 1:20)

Naomi named her storm. She wanted everyone to know that raindrops of loss had fallen on her life until every last bit of hope had been washed away. Later in her story, we find that God had brought hope to her again, but for this time she needed a way to address simply her pain.

What's the name of your storm? It could be loss, divorce, abuse, anger, addiction, infertility, brokenness, bankruptcy, chronic illness, death, depression, fear, guilt, or something else. Only you truly know the name your heart has spoken in the quiet moments and dark hours."

Beautiful isn't it? I have since named a storm, one that at this time is back building trying to reek havoc on my own life. Remembering there is calm inside the storm that is only found in Christ, I press on for open skies.

Are you experiencing a soaking rain right now or know someone who is? I would love to gift one of my readers with their very own copy of this book. Just have a look at Holley's beautiful blog, leave her a kind comment even if to say "Hello" and then come back to enter. Be sure you leave your email address and first name in your comment at my blog so I can get in contact with you if my little Samuel picks your name from the bed of his toy dump truck.

Deadline to comment is midnight Tuesday, December 1st and the name will be chosen on Wednesday, December 2nd and posted at the top of this entry as an update.

With much love...

Peggy

The Little House

"The little house was fairly bursting with good food stored away for the long winter. The pantry and the shed and the cellar were full, and so was the attic. Laura and Mary must play in the house now, for it was cold outdoors and the brown leaves were all falling from the trees. The fire in the cookstove never went out. At night Pa banked it with ashes to keep the coals alive till morning.

The attic was a lovely place to play. The large, round, colored pumpkins made beautiful chairs and tables. the red peppers and onions dangled overhead. The hams and the venison hung in their paper wrappings, and all the bunches of dried herbs, the spicy herbs for cooking and the bitter herbs for medicine, gave the place a dusty-spicy smell.

Often the wind howled outside with a cold and lonesome sound. But in the attic Laura and Mary played house with the squashes and the pumpkins, and everything was snug and cosy."

Taken from Little House In The Big Woods

Laura surely is a kindred spirit...

Peggy's Homemade Hamburger Soup

Here at my home I cook like the traditional women of the 40's and 50's and so I thought you may enjoy this big pot meal now since funds are so tight. This makes a two night meal for my large family and that includes menfolk who eat real big.

Take around 2 and 1/2 lbs. of hamburger browned and "almost drained fully" with about 2 big diced onions (we love'em here), about 5 lbs of potatoes diced, cooked tender and "almost drained fully" and 2 large cans of baked beans not drained and put altogether in a large pot. Add a good Ritz cracker (currently we love the Ritz vegetable ones) and you have a hearty meal.

Add a salad if you need one, but this meal stands on it's own. You may add some fresh baked rolls too and throw a bit of shredded cheese on the top of each filled bowl! Your kids will love this too!

YUMMY!

(For warm-up add a bit of water as this will thicken overnight.)

The Influence of Aloneness~Final

To read the first two parts of the three, please go HERE and HERE first and then come back.

While I am at sharing heart stuff...I also allow him to work on me within the lines of my blog. If I were not driven to write the things I do, I would not have a blog. I can easily share about my woe is me stuff on paper with pencil. I can not tell you how many times I would have had a long entry with titles such as these; "I am lonely today", "Does anyone really care about what I write?", "Help, this homeschooling year is not going as expected!", "I grow so weary of fussing teens." or "This will be my last entry as I am closing my blog". The encouragement road gets long, does it not?

I have a dear husband where I can turn for answers to questions that I am seeking, but there are times that the companionship of a woman is needed and exactly what the Lord calls for. I do wonder at times where she is. Do women really love unconditional with no strings attached? Do they really care about others just like themselves who spend day in and day out at home with their precious children only to be far removed from friendships. Have we fallen away from needing other sweet women?

I write for you...I write for those who like me feel the very same. Who for one reason or another can not open up fully for fear of hurt (you know the looking glass viewing some women enjoy doing), perhaps added to this is the sinful aspects of pride or failure to become humble.

In real life, its easier to be real I think, you are face to face, smile to smile, tear to tear, frown to frown...you hear the voice, the tenderness in the voice that cares about you. You can reach out for the hand. You can reach out for the heart and become a deeper friendship with one another. Computers and keyboards just fail us when wanting to become something more...something special, something unique in a cold hard world. But, does this hold true? I have found some gems that care more about keeping in touch online than some of those who could grow a beauty of a friendship if they only would take the time to reach out for my hand.

Maybe we all need to take a real hard look at ourselves, what is in those deep little crevices that carry grout. Get that little introspective toothbrush out and fine tune the cleaning that has been going on or perhaps not going on. We all know the dirt is there, but we just keep it there until it becomes built up.

For me, well I am going to search out a few, a few that seem to have a caring nature, that are known by their words, that feel perhaps the same as I do in writing this...are you there? I want to be an influence in someone's life, an influence that makes a difference, but I have needs as well, shortcomings and failures...there is no pedestal between friends, the path is level and sound.

So I guess in closing, this is for myself as much as for any, as it may only make sense to me. If the Holy Spirit once again uses any of these words to admonish...so be it...

"Alone is the absence of people while loneliness is the absence of connection."

The Influence of Aloneness~Part Two

Last week I began a small series of thoughts written in 3 parts. Please read  Part One here first. (Keep in mind I write things I need to hear and think to pass them along to perhaps others who are feeling the same.)

We all know the beauty that comes after sin has been confessed, repented of and replaced with a changed mind. Does not the veil of character sin hinder our testimony, our influence and most importantly our witness. Maybe not to the on-looking eye, but to the personal naked heart of the carrier that can not lay blameless before the Lord it surely does.

Imagine what blessings words can become when sin does not hide nor hinder clear thought. When all is open, when all is out there, the sense of honesty and clarity that that can bring forth is priceless. Not only to the bearer of the written word, but to the reader of them. Remember Kevin said he views "openness as total empowerment because it is the real you".

Real~genuine, authentic, sincere, honest, truthful. Is " real" hard to find today? Are we being real? Funny how in another issue of TCW, I was led to a similar article, but with simplicity as it's topic stating...

"Maybe we avoid true simplicity because it promises to strip us of our veneer, to who we are under all our posturing and makeovers and organized pantries and well-ordered social calendars. Living the simple life means giving up some of our ideals about how we want to be viewed by others. In other words, simplicity begins by eroding our pride."

Ouch! This whole idea will be frightening for some of us, as it will mean change. Change is not always an easy thing to undertake especially when it hits home and we've become quite comfortable in our ways. So what is the answer? I have none, but do have a few thoughts about myself... Sometimes I do not let others in because of pride, because of an independent spirit, because of my age (you know... you know it all), because of becoming self sufficient. I come from a long line of strong willed women who depend not too much on others for anything. Some of that is very good and healthy, but I have to be cautious or I will become an island and begin standing on my own two feet too long. So genes have something to do with this as well.

Not all independence is sinful, but this type is. We are to need others, to bring blessing into their lives because of our need. We are to be comfortable in our own skin, we are to not overkill with neediness, but when we always think we can do things on our own strength than it is too much. Even if we are taking things to the Lord, we can still become a loner type woman. I am she and I confess this.

I want to tell you how strongly the Holy Spirit prompted me to write this. He did not have to work on me long as my heart was indeed already fertile to his leading. That is one thing about me, I try hard to allow the Holy Spirit to work in and through my life. The working of Holy Spirit however does hurt and prunes the dead growth off of one's life.

A Call To Prayer Warriors

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.
The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called to the Lord;
I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.

Psalms 18:1-6

I am feeling strongly led tonight to put a call out to pray over this dark cloud of sickness that is creeping across the land. I can see it in my spirit...like a cloud of locust that would swarm across acres of crops and eat away at the healthy growth...such is this plague. I remember when reading in the Little House on the Prairie books, Laura shared about the darkness of the sky and how the sun was blocked from view. There is a spirit of fear and dread that this is causing as it comes against us and especially our children. I am feeling the rages in my spirit as I have a little boy with chronic heart disease. The battle is not ours to fight. I know this well, but we can wage war by bringing this prayer collectively as a body of Christ to the Lord and lay it at his feet.

So if you would like to join me, just leave a comment. We will believe together for protection for our loved ones and for those around us. I will be back on Monday to post, but feel called to get on my knees extra long and hard these next few days...I will plead the blood of protection and healing upon my doorpost...and yours.

The Influence of Aloneness~Part One~

I recently read in one of my many back issues of "Today's Christian Woman", where 42% of women are lonely either "often" or "constantly". In their article, "Isolation Nation" I found a few lines I would like to share with you.

"The "Social Isolation in American" study gave credence to Harvard professor Robert Putnam's 2000 book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. The book details how we've become a less social society since the 1950's: Americans know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and ever socialize with our families less often.

That decline is partly caused by our increasingly mobile society. We live in one neighborhood, work in another city, and attend church in a third locale. Consequently, we're not fully connected to any single community."

It highlighted that singles and us stay-at-home mothers are particularly susceptible to loneliness. Also, for women who work outside the home. "Even if women continue to work, their available free time is often spent at home trying to compensate for being gone all day, which leaves little time to develop relationships."

For some of us I found the next title "No Woman Is An Island" especially true. "Openness and authenticity help combat the loneliness trend. These qualities don't come easily. "Emotional vulnerability is a risky proposition," explains Kevin Dowing, cofounder and executive clinical director of Turning Point Counseling, a network of Christian therapists. "We fear rejection. So we project something fake, but then people aren't relating to who we really are--and we hate that, too."

How is it we get to the point of projecting "something fake"? I believe the "something fake" comes when we fear of someone using our heart for a target with a full cache of ammunition. We fear by being open and transparent, that someone will use that openness and transparency against us either by a holier-than-thou attitude or by using a wagging, hinged in the middle tongue. I have been on this side of a hurt and punctured heartache.

So what about opening up? Kevin Robertson, a Los Angels pastor says, " People are attracted to my openness," he says, "but they're scared to be open themselves because they see it as being totally vulnerable. But, I view openness as total empowerment because it's the real you."

Wow, the "real you"! That hits close to home doesn't it? Why, perhaps because the real me has faults; selfishness, envy, self centeredness, pride, jealousy, fill in the blank ____. Could that be why we do not have friends? Could this be why we are not being open with our friends, with our lives, might I even say our online spaces. Is this far-fetched, is my thinking gone to far, maybe I am treading on far too truthful ground.

For example, you see here online we can be any one we choose to be. Of course there is an element of keeping a secure hand on our personal life and that of our family's...both for their integrity and privacy. But I think we some times project a deceptive veil over ourselves. A veil that hides, conceals, cover ups if you will our weaknesses, but I wonder if weakness is the correct word for this type of cover up. Could the "weakness" or misty fog be sin?

For another line of thought I want to look at weakness as not perhaps embarrassment brought on by circumstances or how the the way the world makes us feel by having us measuring up to one another, but rather weakness masquerading as sin on our very part.

Weakness is a puny word for those brazen and blaring sins we carry around with us. You know the heavy backpack hoisted over our shoulder or the suitcase that is pinching off the circulation in our carrying hand...not to forget the ball and chain that leaves our ankles sliced and bleeding from the drag. Yes, the drag of unchecked sin is heavy, the decay mentally is draining and leaves no room for healthy growth.

continued...