Category: identity

Beware of Becoming a Blog Follower

Has the term “blog groupie” been invented yet? If not, I’m inventing it because I am one! There are a few bloggers who I am total groupie about. Not only do a read their posts, but I like to know where they went to school, how many children they have, what’s their favorite ice-cream flavor. It’s a little embarrassing, but it’s the truth. I get star-struck easily. And if I happen to meet them in real life (which I have on occasion), I even get nervous!

Image courtesy of CoolDesign / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Recently a blog post was shared in my Facebook feed by one of the bloggers who I would probably get nervous meeting. The comment accompanying it said something to the effect that “if you don’t already read [the shared blog], then you should, it’s a must-read.”

Then, a few days later, another blogger – this time not just a blogger but an author, a speaker, a really famous Christian blogger/writer person – shared a post from [the same blog] recommended by the previous blogger.

Then another big-time Christian blogger guest posted on [this same blog] that I had seen mentioned previously by the two other bloggers.

Now three Christian bloggers had recommended [this blog]. I was familiar with [this blog] that all three of these bloggers recommended. Something a few weeks previous came across my newsfeed from her blog, and I checked it out. Like some of them, this blogger isn’t really just a blogger. She’s an author, speaker. She’s even been on T.V. She’s a famous person.

But what I read really disturbed me. It’s not just that controversial social issues were being discussed. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it was the way Truth was being represented. And even more so that these three Christians bloggers, who I would get nervous meeting, recommended me read her blog.

As I looked around in her big-ish corner of the world-wide-web, Jesus was talked about . . . along with Buddha, the Koran, and other eastern religions. And meditation. And hell. And other things that were not the Truth of the Gospel.

It was a light bulb moment for me.

It was like God pricked my heart right then. Watch your star-struckedness!

Just because someone writes about Jesus, doesn’t make her words Truth. (and that includes my words, too, my friends!)

Just because a big-blogger, writer, speaker, T.V. personality, recommends, guest posts, or says, “You have to check out this blog!”, doesn’t mean that it’s a recommendation I should trust.

I read lots and lots of stuff online. But am I holding what I read up to the Word of God to see how it stands against Truth? The Bible is very clear that false teachers and prophets abound all around us – possibly even in the Christian blogs we hang out in. With the internet we are susceptible to them more than ever.

But what about the young Christian, new in her faith and soaking up anything she can find about Jesus? Maybe she follows these three Christian bloggers who have just recommended, quoted, and guest posted for [this other blogger/writer]. Is she being led haphazardly by this recommendation?

So, this is my caution to blog followers:

1. Hold everything you read up to the Word of God. We will not agree on everything (Titus 3:9), but the Gospel shouldn’t be a place of discrepancy.

2. Be careful what you promote, endorse, and share. No, there’s no way to know everything about a person. I recommended Rob Bell’s DVDs to several people before he wrote Love Wins, so I’m just as guilty as the next person. But now I am mindful of it. That young Christian needs to know Truth, and if she’s looking up to you, then you’re the one who needs to point her to it.

I know you might be dying to know [the blogger/writer] I’m referring to in this post. I’m not sharing the name because the purpose is not to get an online Christian war started. It doesn’t matter who it is. The purpose of this post is to share with you a trend I’m seeing online in the Christians blogging world. A trend my heart’s been pricked by. It’s the ever so slight, innocent, bend towards a type of political correctness when it comes to the Gospel. I can try to be politically correct about many things but the Gospel of Jesus is not one of them.

We have to beware of becoming a blog follower and instead focus on being a Jesus follower.

And that includes myself.

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.’ 1 Peter 5:8

What can you add to this conversation?

June 18, 2013
Embracing Your Gifts, Letting Go of Perfection

As a child I was raised by a master organizer. An A-type personality, if you will. I remember my childhood home so well. No shoes left on the floor downstairs. Every t-shirt neatly folded and placed in its assigned drawer. Even food had its own place in the refrigerator.

Then there was my bedroom. I was fortunate to have a mom with a “shut the door” policy. Even though the rest of the house knew no junk drawers, messes, or clutter, I was allowed to keep my room how I wanted it. When I was about eight years old I remember asking for permission to mess up my neatly folded drawers of clothes. My best friend didn’t have nice and neat dresser drawers, so I didn’t want them either. “Sure,” my mom said, “but I don’t know how you’ll keep anything free of wrinkles that way.”

That was my goal – to keep my life free of wrinkles like my mom. And I wanted to just as good at it as she was. However, that wasn’t me. That was the pseudo me.

Today I am featured at Encouragement Cafe Devotions talking about When Perfectionism Steals Your Identity. Read the rest of my story there and how I am overcoming an identity stolen by perfectionism.

May 31, 2013
What Shade of Red Does Your Heart Bleed?

Every time I open my computer another need reaches out and tries to grab my heart. Most of the time it’s successful.

A picture of starving children begging for clean water reminds me of my short trip to Africa. Parents beg for prayer as their child fights for his life. A news article proves how many babies really are dying every day from abortion. The eyes of a young girl caught in human trafficking peer back at me. There’s one more plea to become an organ donor. Finally an online friend redeems an orphan through adoption.

My heart begins to bleed, and I want to go into super-frantic mode to do something – anything. But that quickly ends in exhaustion as I contemplate how vast these needs and how small I am. Then comes the guilt.

Guilt for not doing more. Guilt for not selling everything and giving it to the poor. Guilt for not filling my house with orphans. Guilt for not being an advocate and standing up for those babies who will die today. Just plain guilt.

But sometimes the guilt comes from another place. A place of not having a bleeding heart but just a heart that hurts. I don’t like the injustice I see. I want it to be different. I’m sad. I even ask Jesus to come back quickly so that it will be over. But my heart doesn’t bleed. So I ask myself, “Why isn’t my heart bleeding over this?” And I feel guilty.

I read a blog post that Beth Moore wrote recently, and it was liberating for me. First, because it showed me that I’m not the only one who feels this way. And secondly, because of this:

“What do you look like when you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength?” ~ Beth Moore

The person I look like has a heart bleeding with her own shade of red. It’s a shade of red different from anyone else’s because it’s the one God gave specifically to me.

My heart bleeds for unborn babies who die from their imaginary lack of grown-up dignity. It bleeds for women who go on and on believing lies from the enemy instead of experiencing God’s redemptive power. It bleeds for children with bloated stomachs and shoe-less feet. It bleeds for single people who have the opportunity to serve God whole heartily and plan for a future marriage that glorifies Him, but they don’t take advantage of it. It bleeds for the orphan who thinks she’s not chosen. It bleeds for a culture that says raising children full-time is not using a woman’s full potential. It bleeds for the Seventeen magazine article entitled “Tips for a Better Make Out Session”. It bleeds for the woman stuffed in a wooden box to be transported to another country through human trafficking. It bleeds for the infant waiting for a heart transplant. It bleeds for the face that I know is so far from God.

This is the shade of red my heart bleeds. For everything else it hurts, but this is what causes it to bleed.

What makes my heart bleed gets the first of me.

When there’s a 5K in my hometown to support the Crisis Pregnancy Center, that’s where I spend my Saturday morning. When a young college woman from the singles Bible study I lead breaks up with her boyfriend, that’s who I invite over. When a missionary friend who lives in Africa needs support, that’s where I give it. When my baby daughter wants me to hold her just a little bit longer, that’s when I sing just a little bit louder.

And when I wake up each morning to a new day, my bleeding heart gets the first-fruits of my prayers. I pray with focused intention knowing that this is what I look like when I love God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength. He assigned me each of these to make my heart bleed.

Where would they be if I let guilt stop me.

What makes your heart bleed your shade of red?

April 22, 2013
Here, My Higher Calling {Five Minute Friday}

Today is Five Minute Friday where writers write for only five minutes forgetting everything technical and focusing only on the inspirational. Today’s topic is: Here.

My days are spent working, learning, achieving, reaching for this Higher Calling I yearn for. Yet it doesn’t come easily. One step forward, two steps back, and I wonder where He is in all of it. Doesn’t He see my heart? Doesn’t He know my needs? Doesn’t He want to bless me?

My default looks to the right and to the left seeing all of them leaping forward toward their Higher Callings, too. Except they just keep propelling forward. No backward motion for them. Jealousy becomes my best friend. I wonder again, “Where are You?”

Then I notice the small garden that I live in with a tree or two and some azaleas growing around the corners. “I am here”, He says, “and this is your Higher Calling”.

It may not be in magazine articles or blog statistics or book contracts or speaking engagements. It may not be in name knowing or popularity, but my Higher Calling is here.

It’s in the cry that tells me my Baby Girl wants to be held. It’s in the discouraging look my husband brings home from work. It’s in the single women who meet at my house every other week for small group.

My Higher Calling is here.

So when you look around and don’t see the Higher Calling you have set for yourself, look again. Find Him here. And here will be your Higher Calling.

How does this speak to you today? What is your Higher Calling here?

April 12, 2013
What Life’s Like Now in My Small Room of the World Wide Web

It’s been such a long time since I’ve really sat down and spent time here, my little room in the world-wide-web. I almost feel like a stranger, and I hate that.

This blog is my baby. She was conceived way before my precious Baby Girl came into life last year. Out of the excitement of getting married I birthed her. This is what she looked like then.

Then two years later this happened.

I sat in an ICU room, and God told me to write. I know that may sound hokie to some of you, but I remember it like it was yesterday. He told me that stories have to be shared so that others can live. Not live physically. Live spiritually. Know that they’re not alone. And that they’re loved. So that in the pain He still gets the glory. And others wonder what that’s about.

So I committed to telling that story and the others in my life. My life verse was born around that time too. Along with memories I didn’t even know I had about sitting in my room as a girl and writing. But not majoring in English because I didn’t think I was as smart as all the other English majors. I didn’t think I could do it.

For five years now I have kept plugging away at this writing thing. More really blogging thing. It’s been so hard. My perfectionism ties my hands more than makes them better. Instead of just writing, I study writing. But the more you study the more there is to study. As Jeff Goins says, at the end of the day, you just have to sit your butt in the chair and do the work – or something like that.

I went to the She Speaks conference last summer and took this.

I knew I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t done the work yet. But the sting from the three rejections hurt no less.

Then, three months later God fulfilled a desire from my eight year old heart when my mom wrote “homemaker” in my School Days book under “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I became a mom, and a mom to a girl, no less, who I secretly named years ago and her daddy and I talked about like she was in the room with us way before she came here to live. My Love.

If you were to ask me what is the one thing in life I want more than any other it would be to stay at home and raise this child for as long as possible. But my husband ~~wants~~ would prefer me to work outside the home. Maybe not today but definitely one day. Even though I already got off the ferris wheel once – I mean a few times.

“I’ll write”, I tell myself. I’ll work at home and write. Which of course can be done if it’s God’s will. But right now that’s not happening.

Taking the advice of pastors and counselors and friends (yes, this has been the heaviest personal burden I’ve carried), I’m following Moses’s lead and using what’s in my hand – my degrees, my experience.

I started a blog last week that I can monetize that helps moms teach their children “right where they are”. It’s where I pour out everything I know about teaching and children from my 13 years in the classroom. Plus, there will be other motherhood stuff on there that I like to talk about. It’s called Triple Braided Kids. It’s my “business blog”.

I would love for you to stop by, and even enter a giveaway or two or three or four – there’s actually two weeks worth of giveaways going on right now, and their for really good prizes – I mean really good.

So where does that leave this baby that I started five years ago under the first name “The Rodgers Two”? I don’t know yet. God hasn’t told me to give her up, and I hope He doesn’t because I love my space here, ever so small, and it will be hard to let her go.

But it is time for my baby to grow up, and that means I need time to decorate a new room for her. While I’m praying and thinking and dreaming about that, I may not be around here as much. Sure, I’ll stop in to tell you about other places I’m writing now and again, but there won’t be a regular post schedule. Hopefully soon I’ll be back with a new passion, vision, purpose, and full of intentional wisdom from the Lord.

So I can keep telling His stories.

March 24, 2013
The One True Label-Maker

My Baby Girl got her first label in the hospital. She was 29 hours old.

The nurse came in to try to help her breastfeed. I say “try to help” because I quickly learned that sometimes things are just better left to a mama and her baby. Baby Girl’s mouth was only yay long, and of course she was nourished from a cord for the past nine months, so there was a bit of a learning curve for both of us.

“She’s a lazy eater”, the words came barreling out of her mouth, “You better watch her, or she’ll end up being a grazer”.

I just laid there, Baby Girl in my arms, disbelief all over my face. It had only been 29 hours. Twenty. nine. hours. and already I turned into mama bear.

I was so caught off guard that I didn’t even know what to say, then for days later I thought of all the things I should have said. You know how the perfect words come after you’ve crafted them and re-crafted them over and over in your mind?

At 29 days old my Baby Girl had a type, she was one-of-those, she had a label. Lazy. A grazer.

Baby Girl’s next label came yesterday. It was most likely an innocent comment meant to express how fast she’s growing. But it was a label nonetheless, and it got this mama-bear’s hair to stand on end again.

“She’s huge!”, the comment said of a picture I posted of Baby Girl’s healthy and happy four-month picture.

Huge {exclamation point}, really? She’s really huge? Isn’t there a kinder, gentler expression than that? Maybe, “Wow! She’s growing so fast” or “You’re so blessed that she’s healthy!” or “I can’t believe she’s gotten so big already!”

Again, it’s all about semantics, but still the label was there and my heart broke for my perfect child.

Earlier in the day had listened to a podcast by Andy Stanley. He was speaking to middle school students, but I might as well be thirteen because I still have a lot to learn too. The whole sermon was about the labels that are put on us and the only One who has authority to be our label-maker.

God seems to speak to me in bundles. That’s how He gets my attention. A subject will come up in a conversation, then a scripture verse, then I’ll experience it, then in a podcast. Finally I’ll get it and know that this “subject” is really a lesson, and I need to listen.

Yesterday my lesson was on labels, and more specifically labels that will be put on my Baby Girl. Throughout her lifetime people will put hundreds of labels on her. Some positive and some negative, and undoubtedly I will be one of those people because I’m just that fallen and imperfect. There is nothing I can do to stop her from being labeled.

But what I can do is teach her what God wants her to do when the stickiness of the labels adheres to her person.

I can teach her that she cannot stop the labels from coming, so there is no point in trying. We live in a broken world and people are broken. We all use labels to help us cope with that brokenness.

I can teach her that the only One who has the authority to label her is God. He is the only One who matters. He’s the only One whose label will make a difference.

I can teach her to rip off the labels people (including herself) stick on her before they become super-glued. It’s important that she recognizes others’ labels quickly and deals with them.

I can teach her how to replace those labels that she ripped off from other people with new ones – ones from God. Labels that tell her she is worthy and perfect and forgiven and beautiful.

I can teach her to keep God’s labels adhered to her heart, so tight that if they are ripped off it will burn a little and she will notice.

I can teach her that God is the only One who has the authority to label other people, too, so she needs to love others and not put labels on them herself.

God is our label-maker. And He’s my Baby Girl’s label-maker. This is what I will teach her.

Image courtesy of suphakit73/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How do you handle the labels put on you or your family? Do you recognize them early and replace them with truth?

March 5, 2013