Well it's been way too long again hasn't it. Sorry about that. I have spent the past 10 days or so in the States with family and on a trip to the National Women of Faith Conference in San Antonio. To say I have been richly blessed is a tremendous understatement. It was wonderful.
When I am in places like that now, I am just so touched to watch folks using the gifts God placed within them. We heard Donald Miller speak and he was just so deep and thoughtful about where our paradigm's for church come from and how much they are affected by the culture and time in which we live. For instance he walked through different era's but described that during the Industrial revolution it had become all about business and so our churches looked like companies during that time and if you didn't "produce" for the boss then you got fired and so we sorta took some of that on even in our churches. We now live in an "entertainment" era with commercialism on every corner and so in a sense we are "selling a good show" and he just spoke about how deeply we are affected even in our religious cultures by what's going on around us. Some wonderful things to think about.
Nicole C Mullen's new album coming out in April is a must have. There is a song on there called One Touch that talks about the woman with the issue of blood wanting to get to Jesus just to touch the hem of his garment that is so moving.
The most deeply touching part of the weekend for me was Chonda Pierce. She is a Christian comedian for those of you who don't know her and she stood on stage and just freely and transparently described her war with depression over the past year or so. It was so hard to watch and yet there was this sense that even in a room with 18,000 women that this was the way it was supposed to be, the way we do Jesus for one another. Being real and inviting others to do the same as we run to the Great Physician. Anyway she read notes from her journal about wanting someone to just end her life, that she had just written a month ago and told stories about how despair settles in and how real depression is and she was just a model of courage and authenticity and I was touched that I wasn't sitting watching some "show" that I was entering into a very for real battle not for a celebrity we've all watched entertain us, but for the soul of a sister who is battling for her very life. Changed things somehow for all of us I think.
Anyway it was a great weekend. Got to spend some time with some of my favorite people on the planet which was a gift and ate like little piggies and I'm headed back to Honduras on Wednesday morning. I'll go back refilled and refreshed and challenged in new ways to love Him more. I love that!!
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