Once, I heard a godly friend of mine, whom I looked up to, say that her purpose in life was to be married and to have kids. Shock was the only emotion I remember feeling. There are death and sickness in this world. There are poverty and brokenness. Jesus said to go heal the sick and free His people from bondage.
This last week, attending a memorial service, having a friend go through brain surgery for the second time, and watching our nation dying after the Presidential election, passed like a trance before my eyes. There is more to life than being married and having kids. God did not put us on earth to merely be, to merely find our soul mate or to merely have babies. We were put on earth to be a flame as well as a breath to the world.
My heart is burdened for my own generation, for my own friends, for my own family. There is a purpose for everyone. We were no accident. Understand that God’s pursuit of our lives is not to have it scudded into the wind. There is more to life. There is more to us. Put the focus on becoming the salt of the world rather than finding the perfect mate. Pursue God with every being, every heartbeat, every thought and every second. Learn His Word, it will explain His Will and purpose for us.
Yes, there is more to life than marriage and children. There is something bigger and better - God and the obedience to what He wants completed.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Middle Watch
Watching him speak, seeing God’s Light shining through him, creates this disturbance in my heart that engulfs me like it does in the sight of phenomenal people. There is a poem I learned written by a Korean poet in the 16th Century called, “Middle Watch”. It eloquently reflects how I wish the day would last more than 24 hours every time he is by my side.
I will cut out the Middle Watch
of this long midwinter night
and store it away.
Then
when my lover returns
I will take it out and roll it
inch by inch
to lengthen that day.
Middle Watch is between midnight and 8a.m –the time when your community is asleep, when the world seems to stop, when the beauty of your life is hidden away between the hours, the minutes, the seconds.
On the streets, I watched him talk as the sun slowly sets trying to shine with every ounce of its light before forcing us to part for the night.
I will cut out the Middle Watch
of this long midwinter night
and store it away.
Then
when my lover returns
I will take it out and roll it
inch by inch
to lengthen that day.
Middle Watch is between midnight and 8a.m –the time when your community is asleep, when the world seems to stop, when the beauty of your life is hidden away between the hours, the minutes, the seconds.
On the streets, I watched him talk as the sun slowly sets trying to shine with every ounce of its light before forcing us to part for the night.
Monday, October 20, 2008
We Can’t Always Get What We Want
He sat down beside me in the coffee shop near our church. The question he asked left a bitter attitude in my heart. Trying desperately to reply with grace, I said, “Money never motivated me. I don’t want to marry for money. I want a man who is on fire for God. I want to marry a minister or a pastor.”
“But you understand they don’t have money? They can’t buy the things you are use to.”
I wanted to reply: Only a man in love with God will have moments of joy so intense that sickness and devastating issues will seem insignificant in comparison. Money can never solve anything. It can help, but it’s not that important to me. I want a husband, not a bank. I want a lover, not a trophy. I want a relationship, not a competition with my friends on who has more or better materials.
Many secular friends and co-workers tell me that I’m too picky and that "what we want, we can’t always get".
I want the whole world to know that my God is an awesome God! His Kingdom tells me that He will give me my heart’s desire. My desire is to be with a Godly man -with or without money. Stop telling me I should marry a man with money; someone who can support me and take care of me. I can take care of myself and support myself. I know what I want, and I want what I want. Besides, you never know what happiness you might find amongst the poor and abandoned.
Try it! Date someone who loves God rather than money. It will change you... maybe even your life.
“But you understand they don’t have money? They can’t buy the things you are use to.”
I wanted to reply: Only a man in love with God will have moments of joy so intense that sickness and devastating issues will seem insignificant in comparison. Money can never solve anything. It can help, but it’s not that important to me. I want a husband, not a bank. I want a lover, not a trophy. I want a relationship, not a competition with my friends on who has more or better materials.
Many secular friends and co-workers tell me that I’m too picky and that "what we want, we can’t always get".
I want the whole world to know that my God is an awesome God! His Kingdom tells me that He will give me my heart’s desire. My desire is to be with a Godly man -with or without money. Stop telling me I should marry a man with money; someone who can support me and take care of me. I can take care of myself and support myself. I know what I want, and I want what I want. Besides, you never know what happiness you might find amongst the poor and abandoned.
Try it! Date someone who loves God rather than money. It will change you... maybe even your life.
Friday, October 3, 2008
You Are Worth 10 Cows
I read this story along time ago in the Reader's Digest. It had such a huge impact on me that I made copies for all my friends and forced them to read it. It was such a revelation that my friend, Amy and I performed it at our 20’s group during one of our yearly Valentine’s Dinner parties.
My motto is that we should love our friends not because they are beautiful, we should love them with the kind of love that makes them beautiful. This story reiterates it perfectly.
This is one of the mandatory articles I make my Inner Beauty small group read. As you can see, Johnny Lingo's wife is still in my heart - it reminds me that Jesus paid more than 10 cows for us. He paid with His Life.
JOHNNY LINGO'S 8-COW WIFE By Patricia McGerr
When I sailed to Kiniwata, an island in the Pacific, I took along a notebook. After I got back it was filled with descriptions of flora and fauna, native customs and costume. But the only note that still interests me is the one that says: "Johnny Lingo gave eight cows to Sarita’s father." And I don’t need to have it in writing. I’m reminded of it every time I see a woman belittling her husband or a wife withering under her husband’s scorn. I want to say to them, "You should know why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife."
Johnny Lingo wasn’t exactly his name. But that’s what Shenkin, the manager of the guest house on Kiniwata, called him. Shenkin was from Chicago and had a habit of Americanizing the names of the islanders. But Johnny was mentioned by many people in many connections. If I wanted to spend a few days on the neighboring island of Nurabandi, Johnny Lingo would put me up. If I wanted to fish he could show me where the biting was best. If it was pearls I sought, he would bring the best buys. The people of Kiniwata all spoke highly of Johnny Lingo. Yet when they spoke they smiled, and the smiles were slightly mocking.
"Get Johnny Lingo to help you find what you want and let him do the bargaining," advised Shenkin. "Johnny knows how to make a deal." "Johnny Lingo!" A boy seated nearby hooted the name and rocked with laughter. "What goes on?" I demanded. "Everybody tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up. Let me in on the joke."
"Oh, the people like to laugh," Shenkin said, shruggingly. "Johnny's the brightest, the strongest young man in the islands, And for his age, the richest." "But if he’s all you say, what is there to laugh about?" "Only one thing. Five months ago, at fall festival, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife. He paid her father eight cows!
I knew enough about island customs to be impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one. "Good Lord!" I said, "Eight cows! She must have beauty that takes your breath away." "She’s not ugly," he conceded, and smiled a little. "But the kindest could only call Sarita plain. Sam Karoo, her father, was afraid she’d be left on his hands."
"But then he got eight cows for her? Isn’t that extraordinary?"
"Never been paid before."
"Yet you call Johnny’s wife plain?"
"I said it would be kindness to call her plain. She was skinny. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked. She was scared of her own shadow."
"Well," I said, "I guess there’s just no accounting for love."
"True enough," agreed the man. "And that’s why the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny. They get special satisfaction from the fact that the sharpest trader in the islands was bested by dull old Sam Karoo."
"But how?"
"No one knows and everyone wonders. All the cousins were urging Sam to ask for three cows and hold out for two until he was sure Johnny’d pay only one. Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said, ‘Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.’"
"Eight cows," I murmured. "I’d like to meet this Johnny Lingo." And I wanted fish. I wanted pearls. So the next afternoon I beached my boat at Nurabandi. And I noticed as I asked directions to Johnny’s house that his name brought no sly smile to the lips of his fellow Nurabandians. And when I met the slim, serious young man, when he welcomed me with grace to his home, I was glad that from his own people he had respect unmingled with mockery. We sat in his house and talked. Then he asked, "You come here from Kiniwata?"
"Yes."
"They speak of me on that island?"
"They say there’s nothing I might want they you can’t help me get."
He smiled gently. "My wife is from Kiniwata."
"Yes, I know."
"They speak of her?"
"A little."
"What do they say?"
"Why, just..." The question caught me off balance. "They told me you were married at festival time."
"Nothing more?" The curve of his eyebrows told me he knew there had to be more. "They also say the marriage settlement was eight cows." I paused. "They wonder why."
"They ask that?" His eyes lightened with pleasure. "Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the eight cows?" I nodded. "And in Nurabandi everyone knows it too." His chest expanded with satisfaction. "Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita." So that’s the answer, I thought: vanity.
And then I saw her. I watched her enter the room to place flowers on the table. She stood still a moment to smile at the young man beside me. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right. I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me. "You admire her?" he murmured. "She...she’s glorious. But she’s not Sarita from Kiniwata," I said.
"There’s only one Sarita. Perhaps she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata." "She doesn’t. I heard she was homely. They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated by Sam Karoo." "You think eight cows were too many?" A smile slid over his lips.
"No. But how can she be so different?"
"Do you ever think," he asked, "what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when the women talk, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two? This could not happen to my Sarita."
"Then you did this just to make your wife happy?"
"I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes. But I wanted more than that. You say she is different. This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows she is worth more than any other woman in the islands."
"Then you wanted -"
"I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman."
"But —" I was close to understanding.
"But," he finished softly, "I wanted an eight-cow wife."
My motto is that we should love our friends not because they are beautiful, we should love them with the kind of love that makes them beautiful. This story reiterates it perfectly.
This is one of the mandatory articles I make my Inner Beauty small group read. As you can see, Johnny Lingo's wife is still in my heart - it reminds me that Jesus paid more than 10 cows for us. He paid with His Life.
JOHNNY LINGO'S 8-COW WIFE By Patricia McGerr
When I sailed to Kiniwata, an island in the Pacific, I took along a notebook. After I got back it was filled with descriptions of flora and fauna, native customs and costume. But the only note that still interests me is the one that says: "Johnny Lingo gave eight cows to Sarita’s father." And I don’t need to have it in writing. I’m reminded of it every time I see a woman belittling her husband or a wife withering under her husband’s scorn. I want to say to them, "You should know why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife."
Johnny Lingo wasn’t exactly his name. But that’s what Shenkin, the manager of the guest house on Kiniwata, called him. Shenkin was from Chicago and had a habit of Americanizing the names of the islanders. But Johnny was mentioned by many people in many connections. If I wanted to spend a few days on the neighboring island of Nurabandi, Johnny Lingo would put me up. If I wanted to fish he could show me where the biting was best. If it was pearls I sought, he would bring the best buys. The people of Kiniwata all spoke highly of Johnny Lingo. Yet when they spoke they smiled, and the smiles were slightly mocking.
"Get Johnny Lingo to help you find what you want and let him do the bargaining," advised Shenkin. "Johnny knows how to make a deal." "Johnny Lingo!" A boy seated nearby hooted the name and rocked with laughter. "What goes on?" I demanded. "Everybody tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up. Let me in on the joke."
"Oh, the people like to laugh," Shenkin said, shruggingly. "Johnny's the brightest, the strongest young man in the islands, And for his age, the richest." "But if he’s all you say, what is there to laugh about?" "Only one thing. Five months ago, at fall festival, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife. He paid her father eight cows!
I knew enough about island customs to be impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one. "Good Lord!" I said, "Eight cows! She must have beauty that takes your breath away." "She’s not ugly," he conceded, and smiled a little. "But the kindest could only call Sarita plain. Sam Karoo, her father, was afraid she’d be left on his hands."
"But then he got eight cows for her? Isn’t that extraordinary?"
"Never been paid before."
"Yet you call Johnny’s wife plain?"
"I said it would be kindness to call her plain. She was skinny. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked. She was scared of her own shadow."
"Well," I said, "I guess there’s just no accounting for love."
"True enough," agreed the man. "And that’s why the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny. They get special satisfaction from the fact that the sharpest trader in the islands was bested by dull old Sam Karoo."
"But how?"
"No one knows and everyone wonders. All the cousins were urging Sam to ask for three cows and hold out for two until he was sure Johnny’d pay only one. Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said, ‘Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.’"
"Eight cows," I murmured. "I’d like to meet this Johnny Lingo." And I wanted fish. I wanted pearls. So the next afternoon I beached my boat at Nurabandi. And I noticed as I asked directions to Johnny’s house that his name brought no sly smile to the lips of his fellow Nurabandians. And when I met the slim, serious young man, when he welcomed me with grace to his home, I was glad that from his own people he had respect unmingled with mockery. We sat in his house and talked. Then he asked, "You come here from Kiniwata?"
"Yes."
"They speak of me on that island?"
"They say there’s nothing I might want they you can’t help me get."
He smiled gently. "My wife is from Kiniwata."
"Yes, I know."
"They speak of her?"
"A little."
"What do they say?"
"Why, just..." The question caught me off balance. "They told me you were married at festival time."
"Nothing more?" The curve of his eyebrows told me he knew there had to be more. "They also say the marriage settlement was eight cows." I paused. "They wonder why."
"They ask that?" His eyes lightened with pleasure. "Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the eight cows?" I nodded. "And in Nurabandi everyone knows it too." His chest expanded with satisfaction. "Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita." So that’s the answer, I thought: vanity.
And then I saw her. I watched her enter the room to place flowers on the table. She stood still a moment to smile at the young man beside me. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right. I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me. "You admire her?" he murmured. "She...she’s glorious. But she’s not Sarita from Kiniwata," I said.
"There’s only one Sarita. Perhaps she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata." "She doesn’t. I heard she was homely. They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated by Sam Karoo." "You think eight cows were too many?" A smile slid over his lips.
"No. But how can she be so different?"
"Do you ever think," he asked, "what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when the women talk, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two? This could not happen to my Sarita."
"Then you did this just to make your wife happy?"
"I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes. But I wanted more than that. You say she is different. This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows she is worth more than any other woman in the islands."
"Then you wanted -"
"I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman."
"But —" I was close to understanding.
"But," he finished softly, "I wanted an eight-cow wife."
Monday, September 22, 2008
Beauty is nothing less than Jesus
God is all about beauty. He is the light, while Satan is the reverse –darkness. We are to worship God in the beauty of holiness. We worship Satan in the beauty of unholiness.
In Matthew 16:17, Peter had a revelation that Jesus is Lord. He doesn’t understand from his own knowledge; the Holy Spirit gave him that revelation. Understanding doesn’t change a life. It doesn’t make you more attractive or more beautiful for understanding the Bible or by understanding what God thinks. A revelation of how God thinks will change a life.
You want to be beautiful? Worship God in Holiness. It is all about the beauty of Holiness. Holiness is beautiful. Unholiness (premarital sex, adultery, cattiness, pornography, gossip, venting, judging others) is ugly. When we do any of the examples above, we are worshipping Satan in his unholiness, we become ugly and no matter how many money we spend on clothes, make-up, shoes, facial products, we will never be beautiful.
Proverbs 20:29 The glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the beauty of the old. Gray hair represents wisdom. Wisdom is beautiful. It means that you know what to do, when to do it, how to do it and YOU DO IT! A fool is ugly. A fool knows what to, when to do it, how to do it but HE DOESN’T DO IT! The only way to follow the wise is to allow the Holy Spirit to guide you and not let the flesh control you.
We have the Holy Spirit in us, but the book of Ephesians tells us that we can grieve and quench the Holy Spirit. We do this by any kind of unholiness. If we want to be beautiful and to stay beautiful, we have to radiate Holiness, to walk, talk, think, breath like Jesus- nothing less than how Jesus would be. Once we are like Christ; we will radiate holiness and that is what makes us beautiful –to God and to man.
In Matthew 16:17, Peter had a revelation that Jesus is Lord. He doesn’t understand from his own knowledge; the Holy Spirit gave him that revelation. Understanding doesn’t change a life. It doesn’t make you more attractive or more beautiful for understanding the Bible or by understanding what God thinks. A revelation of how God thinks will change a life.
You want to be beautiful? Worship God in Holiness. It is all about the beauty of Holiness. Holiness is beautiful. Unholiness (premarital sex, adultery, cattiness, pornography, gossip, venting, judging others) is ugly. When we do any of the examples above, we are worshipping Satan in his unholiness, we become ugly and no matter how many money we spend on clothes, make-up, shoes, facial products, we will never be beautiful.
Proverbs 20:29 The glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the beauty of the old. Gray hair represents wisdom. Wisdom is beautiful. It means that you know what to do, when to do it, how to do it and YOU DO IT! A fool is ugly. A fool knows what to, when to do it, how to do it but HE DOESN’T DO IT! The only way to follow the wise is to allow the Holy Spirit to guide you and not let the flesh control you.
We have the Holy Spirit in us, but the book of Ephesians tells us that we can grieve and quench the Holy Spirit. We do this by any kind of unholiness. If we want to be beautiful and to stay beautiful, we have to radiate Holiness, to walk, talk, think, breath like Jesus- nothing less than how Jesus would be. Once we are like Christ; we will radiate holiness and that is what makes us beautiful –to God and to man.
Monday, July 28, 2008
This week has been a roller coaster ride for me. My emotion has been up and down spinning without stopping. Weeks like this make me wonder if I truly have Jesus in my heart. The world is in control of my emotions when I know I should allow the Holy Spirit to guide me. The only way to get off this crazy dysfunctional ride is to leave it with God, all of it – the longing, the dreams, the goals. Sometimes, you have to toss away everything and start with nothing. Sometimes, that is the only way to be happy, the only way to be content.
What do you need to throw away?
What do you need to throw away?
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
All I Want
His mother responded to him on the phone, "You can't stop some people, Jones. They come into your life destine to leave it. You can wrap your arms tight around them. The best you can hope to do is slow them down a little 'cause there's no holding on tight enough."
Israel: I try to hold on to the memories, the smell, the touch, the friendships, the hugs, but they all slowly slip away. The only thing that is everlasting is the love of Christ. Your spouse might leave, your children, your family, your friends will, too. But God will never leave you, no matter what you do.
Israel: I try to hold on to the memories, the smell, the touch, the friendships, the hugs, but they all slowly slip away. The only thing that is everlasting is the love of Christ. Your spouse might leave, your children, your family, your friends will, too. But God will never leave you, no matter what you do.
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