Brenda Rodgers

Author: Brenda Rodgers

  • Sacred Singleness Book Study Begins Next Tuesday! Download Discussion Questions Here!

    The Sacred Singleness Book Study will kick off next Tuesday, April 24th!

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    So what do I do in the meantime?

    1. If you haven’t gotten the book, Sacred Singleness by Leslie Ludy, yet do so now!
    2. Read chapters 1 and 2 before next Tuesday.
    3. Download the discussion questions for the first two chapters here:

    How will I participate?

    After reading chapters one and two and thinking about or answering the discussion questions, come back every Tuesday as I post on what we read the previous week. Then, join the discussion about the chapters by posting in the comments or on Facebook.

    We will read two chapters a week, and I will post the discussion questions for the upcoming chapters every Tuesday.

    If you don’t get to each of the chapters, don’t worry! We would love for you to still join the discussion (especially if you have some wonderful wisdom from a married woman’s point-of-view!).

    How This Book Is Challenging Me

    Yes, my days as a single woman have passed, but that does not mean that this book has not challenged me in so many ways! The first two chapters are about surrender – a spiritual discipline that is applicable in every woman’s life and one that is not always easy to do!

    Here are some of my favorite quotes from Leslie Ludy from the first two chapters:

    “I didn’t really believe that Jesus Christ could actually satisfy my heart at the deepest level and actually be my all in all. The truth was that I didn’t really think I could be happy, fulfilled, and content without having a guy to turn to for comfort.” – Sacred Singleness, p. 13

     

     “Even a beautiful God-scripted love story can never satisfy the way Jesus does.” – Sacred Singleness, p. 14

     

     “He wanted to make me completely willing to be single if He so chose – and not just willing, but eager and delighted to sacrifice my all for the One who gave everything for me.” – Sacred Singleness, p. 17

     

    “Taking up my cross meant deliberately choosing to give up “rights” that other people enjoyed and laying down my own plans, dreams, and agenda in order to make Jesus Christ my first love – not just in theory, but in real life.” – Sacred Singleness, p. 19

     

    “No matter how our selfish, fleshly side feels about it, laying everything on the altar before our King, and allowing Him to do with our lives whatever He sees fit, is where true Christianity begins.” – Sacred Singleness, p. 29

     

    So will you join us on this journey to find purpose in singleness? Please introduce yourself in the comments! And I’ll see you back here next Tuesday as we discuss chapters 1 and 2!

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  • New Rules for Announcing a Pregnancy

    The double line showed up before I could even put the stick down – the stick that revealed to me that there was not only one person in the small powder room of the downstairs in our house, but that there were really two. That’s when I decided on new rules for announcing my pregnancy.

    New Rules for Announcing a Pregnancy (more…)

  • Are You Praying to Be Used Big?

    Several years I finally gave up.

    I was coming out of a long season of demanding my way with God in most every aspect of my life – my relationships, my job, my money, my service in the church, my entire life.  I had dug my heals in so deeply that I was beginning to feel the consequences of shame and regret. Nothing satisfied me. I was depressed. And most of all I was tired.

    I was living around the presence of God but not truly living in the presence of God.  He was like an accessory in my life, but I was not surrendered to His will, His plan, His desires – even if it meant forfeiting my own. I was not consumed by His presence.

    And neither were my prayers.

    They were the typical prayers you would expect – please bless my family, please keep me safe, please bring me a husband. But they weren’t prayers that made me risk anything. That asked for my world to be turned upside down. That threatened my identity.

    Until the day that I gave up.

    On that day these words came from my mouth:

    “God, I want to be used big by you. Really big. Do whatever you have to do within me. Make me as uncomfortable as you need to. But no more am I going to run from your presence. Instead I am going to sit in it with the faith that you know what is best for me always. Please use me for something big.”

    Photo Credit: Creative Commons: Leland Francisco

    Fast forward three years and there I sat in an ICU room at three o’clock in the morning, my head rested on the side of the bed where my new husband laid.

    We found out about six months earlier that he would need a heart transplant, but never did I know that the road would look like this. Heart transplants in the hospital we were at are almost everyday procedures. But not for John. This night he laid there days before being put on life support after catching a staph infection. Our road was already long and now was going to be longer.

    The words I prayed a few years earlier, before I was even married, flashed through my mind.

    And this is how I responded to God:

    “Lord, I never thought this is how you would do it – using me to care for a dying husband after all the years I prayed for you to bring him to me. But I remember my prayer to you, and I know you are answering it for me in this moment. Please give me strength.”

    It is humbling to even attempt to understand the workings of our Creator – the reasons He does what He does or allows what He allows (Isaiah 55:8). But I can’t help but wonder if my prayer “to be used big” three years earlier showed God that I was finally ready to experience all He is capable of doing within me.

    During that time not only did John have a wife to be his helper, but it was an opportunity to give God every ounce of glory to all who were watching. I made it publicly clear from the start that whether John lived or died I would not turn my back on God. And people watched and listened. I would receive email after email about how John’s story was affecting people’s lives.

    Was this how God was using me big? I like to think so.

    The blessing became mine because for the first time in a long time I was not just surrounded by His presence, but I was in His presence.

    It was glorious.

    Today I continue to pray to be used big. Yes, I pray the other prayers, too, for health and safety and blessings. But I want more of what will rock my world in such a way that I have to cling to the Cross. I am fully aware that a bold prayer such as this asks God to allow things that may be uncomfortable, unpleasant, and scary. But how else will I know the power of Cross without taking up my own cross and following only after His purposes (Matthew 10: 37-39)?

    Today pray to be used big for God. As uncertain as those words may seem or whatever comes to your mind that you need to first lay at His feet, He will meet you there. And trust me, the blessing of sitting in your Lord’s presence will be yours.

    What comes to your mind when you think of praying a bold prayer such as this? Do you feel invigorated atthe possibilities or fearful? Please share with us. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

     

    The next week I published a follow-up to this post entitled “Pray to Be Used Big? Or Pray to Be Faithful?” Please read it here.

     

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  • Old Days, It’s Time to Say Good-Bye to You

    Join me today for 5 Minute Friday with The Gypsy Mama where we write for five minutes on a given topic.  No editing. No criticism.  No worry.  Today’s topic is: Good-Bye

    For a while there you served me well, Old Days. You helped me see myself as I once was and where He’s brought me. You showed me places that need to be healed. And the places that I need to heal in others. Today I understand more of who I am because of the memories you’ve allowed me to replay time and time again.

    But as of recent you’ve become more of a nagging dog beckoning at my feet. Not allowing me to let go of those days of old and grow into who I am meant to be now. Your expectations from when I was just a naive girl are too great for me to bear and suddenly I have become corroded with more regret and guilt than deliverance.

    So today I say good-bye to you, Old Days, and I ask that you don’t come back for a while. Unless you plan to point me back to my Father and remind me of His great love for me.

    Share with us today. What is one thing that you would like to say good-bye to?

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  • A Self-Confessed “Perfect” Mommy

    About eight weeks ago I found out that by the end of this year I will be a mommy – for the first time.  And in that moment it was like I stepped through a door of life that had always been sealed shut. All of a sudden every mommy blogger became my personal, bona fide expert and my most favorite person in the world.  Finally I could add to the conversation about morning sickness and weight gain and breastfeeding. And I now knew the meaning of hCG, VBAC, and EWCM. Day after day I began to soak in everything I could about how to be the perfect mommy. 

    Photo Credit: Creative Commons: Bill and Vicki Tracey

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  • When Life Comes Late

    From what I’ve been told, two weeks after I was expected to come into this world I finally made my appearance. That was the first of many of my delayed responses to life. I have never been ready, and life has seemed to always come late.

    Except for that dreaded third grade (yes, I said third grade) year when my body decided it wasn’t going to come late and the signs of womanhood began appearing. That was dreadful I must admit. I didn’t want any of that to come on time.

    At thirteen as other girls were excited about being invited to parties with girls AND boys, I was still secretly upstairs in my room playing with dolls – contently. When that boy kissed me for the first time at my first boy/girl dance I wanted to hide under the gymnasium bleachers by myself. And college was a whole other experience that expanded my mind to places I never knew existed and quite frankly didn’t want to know about. I was a little naive about life and slow to grow up the way my peers around me seemed to be. But it was good for me. I was safe there.

    Then college ended, and I started thinking about what was supposed to come next. Marriage, of course, and that’s what I wanted too. The only problem was I didn’t have a boyfriend, and never had for that matter. Marriage was coming no time soon.

    So the years went on and life around me continued to move along while mine just sat there, stagnant, waiting to start. My friends from college  were then married and even having babies. I was thirty years old living alone in a one bedroom apartment like I had for the past twelve years. Each year the same as the one before it.

    Eventually my time came. When everyone was on the second and third baby I was walking down the aisle hoping motherhood would come later too.

    And it did. I am expecting my first baby in October, and I am elated. I’ll be 36. A little late again.

    Life didn’t just come late for me in regards to marriage and babies either. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, and just recently have I begun to get a clue. I would love to be able to write some things and have them published. But all I can think about is how old I am now. It seems a bit too late for me, especially compared to all the women my age who majored in English like good writers do and have worked for magazines or published books or even written bestsellers.

    Life has just come late. Maybe just too late.

    Or has it?

    As I’ve been thinking about my life and marriage and baby and career, I wonder if all of it really has come too late or if it’s come at just the right time for me. 

    After all, what kind of wife or mother would I be had I not had the experiences in those years of waiting that taught me more about myself and God? And what would I now have to write down on paper and share with you had the stories not preceded?

    I have to rest on the fact that God’s plan is perfect and not for me to control. He knows the most intimate parts of my being that not only do I not know but even if I did I could not understand. He knows what I need to see and learn and try before I can be used by Him in the specific ways He has set out for me.

    He knows that His life within me has not come late but at its perfect time.

    So the next time I start to look around and envy the young bride or the thirty-six year old with a house full of children or the writer who seems perfect with every word, I am going to remember what God has showed me recently about His perfect timing for me.  I’m also going to remember all the men and women in the Bible who’s life seemed to come late, too, but then they were used mightily for God. I am going to thank God for this life His given me to make me more like Himself and ask Him to continue His work in me until it’s to completion – even if that means it comes a little late.

    Have you ever felt like life has come late for you? Please share with us in the comments. I would love to hear from you.

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