Liz's Letters

This morning I started out my day as I do most days, by evaluating the things I have to do, the things I want to do, and the things that are happening no matter what. It helps me set my course for the day and then provides particulars that I want to pray about. It happens that this morning I had one item on my list that was not so appealing. I had to talk with someone about a negative aspect of her personality. It was work related and something that had to be done, but I was not looking forward to confronting someone on their reputation. After talking it over with God, I felt ready to go, knowing what had to be said could be done with grace. With His help, it would go well. I continued my time of prayer, spending time praying for the ones in my life who I have found myself with resentments toward. I struggled with prayers of blessings for them as I sometimes do. My mind started to wander and giving thought to how we summarize people in our lives. I thought about reputations, especially...

When I read the words in the Bible, out of the book of Romans, chapter 12, verse 5, I take them quite seriously. God's Word Translation of this passage is one of my favorites and it reads like this: Christ makes us one body...connected to each other. I love what God is saying here, I love what it means, and I love how it plays out in his perfect plan. I believe it, and I am willing to live it to the best of my ability, knowing that I must walk with Him in order to do it right. But I haven't always felt this way. And my husband hasn't either. When I met him, he wanted nothing to do with the organized church due to some pain he experienced in his life due to divorce in his family and the way it was handled in his "home" church. He worked through it and began attending again with me, then a new believer. We went together and I started out my relationship with Christ in a church family that surrounded me with love. In that family, though, I saw hurt and questioned God...

I have been a huge Carole King fan since I was about 12 years old. I loved listening to Carole sing, even as a young girl. I would sit on the floor in front of my mom's turntable with her albums in my lap and play her songs over and over, singing along with the lyrics that were on the back of the album or the insert that was inside the cover. Some of you don't know who or what I am talking about, but that is OK. She is a singer, songwriter and was most popular in the early 1970's. And I love her. For my 40th birthday, my best friend gave me a copy of Carole King's most famous recording, Tapestry, on CD. I had worn out my only copy, an LP and no longer had a working turntable on which to play it. That CD has been one of my favorite gifts in my many years of birthdays and other gift giving occasions. That one CD is a winner! (thanks, Ruthie! You rock!) I was listening to the CD the other day and listened to the words of one particular song with new interest. Her...

I found myself thinking about this almost all day...what is the difference between helping someone or hounding someone? I thought about the times that I have asked people to remind me to do things. I do it pretty often at work saying something like, "If you don't hear back from me by tomorrow, remind me." Or when I have made a decision to eat healthy or exercise and ask someone to hold me accountable, I expect frequent questions as to my behavior or how I have spent my time. I have never viewed this as bothersome, but only what was expected. If I ask someone to help me remember to do something, I expect them to ask me until it is done. One of my personality traits is being able to remember some things easily. It just comes natural to me. I remember dates, words, clothing that people had on when I met them...all kinds of strange things stick in my mind. Because of this, many of my friends have asked me to help them remember to do things. I have no problem with this, becau...

Have you ever had some one say something to you that normally should be no big deal, but your heart responds with a flood of emotions that catches you completely off guard? Your mind tells you, "Get a grip! This is not a problem!" or if you are a woman, you might evaluate the status of your cycle, especially if you are prone to wicked PMS like I am. But no matter how your mind tries to rationalize the fact that what was said is OK, your heart is still beating a mile a minute and some sort of emotion has just seized your ability to act like the adult you know you should be? This happened to me last week. A friend was passing along very normal, everyday information and I flipped out. I experienced what counselors describe as a misdirected emotional response due to a past experience, usually negative. A "primary" emotion, if you will. The emotion that surfaces is the primary emotion that one experienced in this similar, most likely painful, happening in the past. It is...

Yesterday was a monumental day for me. Due to a recent job promotion and an increase in salary to support this, I arranged for someone to come and clean my house professionally. I was nervous about this decision but excited at the same time. I felt a little frivolous. I tried to justify this decision with the "I just really don't have time" comments, but my dear husband reminded me of all the other things I do have time for (one being this blog) that I would rather do instead. I gave in and admitted that I just don't want to spend my entire weekend keeping my house clean anymore. Regardless of the reasons behind the decision, the day came yesterday...the first time someone else would clean our house. (thankfully it will happen while we are at work going forward but the first time she wanted us to be available.) My lovely house helper arrived promptly at 9:00 a.m., as agreed upon. She had already informed me that she would bring someone along to help. So, the ...

When people find out that I keep a blog, the next thing that occurs is usually the question, "Why do you blog?" This question comes most often from people that are in my "peer" group, also known as the older folks. The question that I get from younger people, by this I mean ones who are under 30, is, "YOU have a blog?" Their eyes are usually wide with large toothy smiles on their faces. I find myself defending my blogging enjoyment as if blogging is restricted to the younger generation as in MySpace , FaceBook , etc. (I have both of these also, but for different reasons than why I keep this blog.) When my hubby and I got together with our cousins over New Years, they did not even know what a blog was! (they are only SLIGHTLY older than we are!) I got the feeling they were very bewildered by my hobby and I found myself talking in circles trying to explain why I do this. The past couple of weeks, I have dedicated a fair amount of time to evaluating what it i...

God does not insist on our forgiving others for the sake of that person alone but for peace in our own lives. Lord, as hard as this may be for me to comprehend or rationalize, You Word is clear, if I forgive others when they sin against me (betrayal), You my heavenly Father, will also forgive me. But if I do not forgive others their sins, You my Father, will not forgive my own sins. (Matt.6:14-15) So empower me to bear with others and forgive whatever grievances I may have against them. Help me to forgive as You, Lord, have forgiven me. If someone sins against me seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to me and says, "I repent", I desire to be obedient to You. Strengthen me, Lord, to forgive him, to forgive her. -Beth Moore Praying God's Word Day by Day January 14

My pastor, Ed Young, is doing a sermon series on the topic of betrayal. He began last week and even though I had many obstacles to overcome in order to attend last weeks service, I made it to the final Sunday night service. I suspect that Satan may have been reeking havoc on my schedule on purpose since I really wanted to go and hear what Ed had to say about this topic. I was so curious to approach this topic from a personal standpoint, that I looked the word up in the dictionary. Here is Webster's definition of the word BETRAY transitive verb 1 : to lead astray ; especially : seduce 2 : to deliver to an enemy 3 : to fail or desert especially in time of need betray ed his family> 4 a : to reveal unintentionally betray one's true feelings> b : to disclose in violation of confidence betray a secret> intransitive verb : to prove false I intentionally studied my own life in effort to prepare for the upcoming messages. When I got to that first service, my pastor...

Here is a picture of me and Fred with cousins Jim and Jayne! Fred and Jim grew up like brothers and Jayne and I are convinced that we are blood related because we immediately loved one another from the start of our relationship nearly 20 years ago. We spent a lot of time with these folks until we moved to Virginia in 1995, at which time we sort of lost track. God brought us back together this past New Year's, (answer to prayer) and it is as if we never spent a decade away from our relationship. There is a lot to catch up on, and that will be fun! What a blessing to have them back in our lives, to find out we have even more in common than we did back then, and to be able to pick up where we left off! We are looking forward to great times ahead!

As New Year's Eve approached this past 2007, I decided that I was not going to make any New Year's Resolutions. The past two years, I have relocated the resolution's list to my birthday. For example, the year of turning 45 was the year to have more fun (since my doctor had told me my stress level was going to kill me if I did not get a grip on relaxing more). When I saw her for my annual exam around my 46 th birthday, she suggested that I have a little more fun with salads instead of hamburgers! Ha! So, I guess that my 46 th year will be more about health. Anyway, New Year's Resolutions were not on my list of priorities. I found myself discouraged with writing down all of the things that I wanted to do differently at the start of the New Year only to find most of those things unaccomplished at the start of the next. SO NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS FOR ME! Or so I thought... On December 30 th , I unexpectedly ran across something that my middle son had writte...