Picking Your Brains

Over the years, the Lord has so graciously given me the sweetest mentors and friends. Older women (well, not really old, because they were probably my age now ;)) came alongside me those years when I was a single teacher living away from home. When He stirred my heart to want more of Him than I knew, He sent this young mama to an awesome fellowship of Bible study ladies who introduced me to Beth Moore. In the last few months, He's sent me the dearest prayer partners and wisdom-givers who are holding me up as He grows a speaking ministry in me.

He's sent me some awesome mall buddies and chocolate chip cookie bakers (and eaters) and coffee-drinking gals.

I love worshipping alongside my sisters in Christ, and I love women's ministry.

This weekend, our church hosted our second Ladies' Gathering. We had an amazing day of God's Word in testimony and in song, and sweet times of laughter and prayer.

Besides the planning team, there were 14 people there.

Our church is not huge, but it is not small enough to consider 14 people a crowd. Don't get me wrong. I know numbers are not the point; hearts are. The Most Important Guest showed up and showed off. The women who came left blessed and full of the Spirit. They want to come back.

My question for you is this: what does your church do, or what do you wish your church would do, to draw women in ? I'm asking for the spiritual and the practical. How do you make women hungry for more, and how do you schedule and plan so that the ball game or shopping or a nap doesn't seem like the better deal? I realize our hectic lifestyles ( which I would argue are not of God, but that's another post) often make prioritizing extremely difficult. I know everyone can't do everything; several women let me know that they wanted to be there, but life happened in the way it does.

How do you, my far-flung group of imaginary friends, stay connected with the ladies of your church? What binds your heart to those sisters in Christ?

Thanks for sharing your collective wisdom with me. The Lord is binding my heart to yours, even though we can't see each other. Let's sit over our coffee cups and share how God moves among the women in your church body. I'll eat your chocolate chip cookie for you.

Blessings,
Ginger

To Everything There is a Season

So glad I took this a week or so ago:


because now it looks like this:


The leaves, glorious in their fall finery, could not withstand the wind and rain. Their beauty meant something was dying.

Please pray this morning for the teacher for whom I am subbing in a few weeks. In addition to her own health problems , she lost her father Tuesday. I cannot imagine the physical and emotional stress of going through that while in the ninth month of a high-risk pregnancy.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time thinking about losing my own father almost three years ago in December.

I remember those last days, both beautiful and terrible.
To sit at the bedside of that elderly man in his final hours was one of the great privileges of my life.
To know that he had finally seen his need for a Savior days before was one of the great blessings of my life.

I don't really understand this mystery of living and dying. I only know that God so cherishes this cycle He created that, through it, He imparted grace to the fragile things He made.

The sacrifice of Jesus Christ brought our pardon and set us free from our earthbound chains of sin and death.

His beautiful and terrible dying meant something could now be living.

Be blessed,
Ginger

Midweek Mary Moment

In our Stepping Up study, I looked at these verses in Jude:

To Him Who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy--to the Only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power,and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore!
Jude 24-25

Tasty Tuesday:Chicken Chili Soup

**Edited to add: Note to Self: Check to see if memory card is in camera before photographing your supper.


At least that's what I'm calling it.

Over the weekend, I had my annual autumn allergy attack, complete with headache and sore throat. In this rotten estate, I visited my sweet friend whose daughter is DD#2's BFF. She took pity on me and served me a cup of Harry and David's ginger spice tea with sourwood honey. Ahh...just what the doctor ordered. If the hot spicy goodness of the tea wasn't enough, she handed me a bowl of the best chicken soup I've ever put in my mouth.

Alas, there was no formal recipe for me to copy. How sad.

So last night, as the headache lingered on, I craved that soup again and went to work on a copycat. I wanted a) to get as close as possible to the original and b) to avoid the grocery store at all cost.

That last part meant I had to wing it on the seasonings, because my friend used a packet of white chicken chili seasoning mix, which will become a pantry staple at my house in the future.

Here's what I concocted:

White Chicken Chili Soup

2 cans chicken broth
2 cups cooked, shredded chicken (If you happen to have taco-flavored chicken in your freezer as I have, use it. If not, prepare the chicken however you like. You may want to boil it and prepare homemade broth, or cook it with salsa and seasonings like mine. )
2 cans great northern beans, drained
1 small can chopped green chilies
1 small onion, chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1 can whole kernel corn
1 packet white chili seasoning OR
2 tsp. cumin
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp seasoned salt (or more to taste)
1 tsp pepper
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup chopped broccoli, very lightly steamed, or 1 pkg. frozen chopped broccoli, thawed

Dump everything except the rice and broccoli in your crockpot and let it cook on low for 6-8 hours. Before serving, add the rice and broccoli and heat through.

Serve this to your pitiful sick friends with some cornbread (with NO added sugar, or your southern bloggy friends will label you a heretic). It tastes lots better than zinc lozenges.
I'm linking this up with Jen's Tasty Tuesday at Beauty and Bedlam.

Be blessed and allergy-free,
Ginger

This is Only a Test

Awhile back, I shared that our family was praying about a decision.

It's made.

In a few weeks, I'll be taking a long term subbing position at a local middle school. Yes, that's right. I'm having such a blast with the hormonal middle schooler in my own home that I've decided to be with 120 of them every weekday for at least six weeks.

For the record, I did this professionally before I had any children of my own. When I left to become a stay-at-home mommy, I thought I had shaken the dust of all 7th and 8th grade classrooms from my feet. Apparently, I now need a do-over.

God has a way of doing that, doesn't He?

Here's the thing: In Round 1 of my teaching career, I wasn't very good at it. I had been a believer since I was nine, but I was only beginning to grasp that there was more to this walking with Jesus than just being a good church girl. I was deeply in bondage to perfectionism, and perfectionism and teaching do not mix. The Lord was setting me up for when He was really going to rattle my cage as a new mama, but that's another post (or two, or three).

A few years ago, I went back to full-time teaching in a private school. I loved my 3rd graders.
They still wanted me to like them. I loved being silly with them, and I loved teaching them from
God's word. Soon, however, it became clear that there was much my husband and I did not love about other things at that school, and it was obvious that God was moving me in a different direction.

I was bitter about that for a long time.

Then one day, I heard Him speak so distinctly to me that His voice may as well have been audible. My sweet Father tapped me on the shoulder and said, " I did that, Ginger. No one had the power to move you from that place but Me. I did it. Now let's move on, shall we?"

Yep, He sure did. That's what He said. Maybe He doesn't talk that way to you, but with this girl, He has to be blunt. Otherwise I miss it.

And now, this season. It's been a long journey back to a middle school classroom. A bittersweet journey. There's been much to love in being back at home . I wasn't sure I wanted to give that up, as nice and necessary as added income is right now. After much praying and much heavenly silence, my husband and I got to a point where the thought of me being full-time temporarily didn't make us sick to our stomachs. (Does that sound odd? Please don't get the impression that we are independently wealthy. This economy has hit educators hard; it's just that we've now had many years of seeing God provide, and we have lived relatively simply for a long time.) We felt we could go forward.

We're moving on, my Father and I. For those of you who have done Beth Moore's Stepping Up, this will no doubt be a large part of my face-down listening.

Speak, Lord, for your servant really wants to pass the test this time around .

Blessings,
Ginger

The Postman Cometh

Day before yesterday, this arrived in my mailbox:

So today, this is my kitchen table:


"My soul yearns for You in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for You. When Your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness. " Isaiah 26:9

Be blessed this weekend,
Ginger

Midweek Mary Moment

A word of hope for you this week...