Faithchick

Lessons Learned in Limbo

For about the last six to eight months, we have been visitors at various churches. My kids had grown grumbly about going to church for a number of reasons. Although I wasn’t discontent at the church I was at, I did have some hurts that I couldn’t resolve. I thought maybe a change would be nice. In my twenty four years as Christian, I have attended three churches and one I had to leave because I was moving to another state. I don’t think I am church hopper. We did finally decide just to go back to our old church. In my months in limbo, I made some discoveries.  

 

First, church potluck isn’t just a reference for food. It can refer to attending various functions at different churches depending on where your needs are met. My daughter got invited to a youth group at a different church and it was a total answer to prayer. I have found my spiritual nourishment at a non denominational Bible study. My son has visited various youth groups and is still looking. I think it is healthy to lower our expectations about what Sunday morning can do for us and to seek out small group situations.

 

Second, churches are filled with some cold, closed down people. In a congregation of less than 75 people, it’s pretty easy to recognize new people. Yet, week after week people smiled at us, but really never bothered to strike up a conversation. One church we went to had a guy assigned to spot the new people and hand them a packet of information about the church. I so appreciated that an effort was being made.  I can not control the tone that is set in various churches, but I can be more aware of new people around me at church and try to make a connection. When someone new steps across the threshold of a church, the hard work has been done. They have done an incredibly courageous thing.  From now on I will just assume that the new person came because they have a need and are hopeful that the church will respond to that need.

 

Last night we went to our old church’s harvest party. It was good to be home. I know that no church will ever be perfect. Also, I need to be less of a spectator and more of an actor in my own faith. There were lessons learned in limbo, so it wasn’t a bad experience. 

 

Sharon

Dunn’s third and final installment in the Bargain Hunters mysteries, Death at a Discount, will be released in January 2009. You can read more about

Sharon

and her humorous who-dun-its at www.sharondunnbooks.com.    

To Boil or not to Boil

Economic whoas. Up and down stock market. Dire predictions. All this belt tightening is making my stomach hurt. Yeah, yeah, I know there may be hard economic times ahead and we need to stocked up on peanut butter and tomato soup. I have always been one that thought it was important to live within my means. I actually like the challenge of living within a budget. No surprise that my mystery series, The Bargain Hunters mysteries, is abut four women bonded together by the need to clip coupons.

I have been reading those articles about how to stretch your food dollar and I was glad to see that I was doing pretty much everything I could do. The only thing I haven’t done is buy my beans raw, instead of canned, and cook them myself. I guess that is the next step. The problem is that with writing, kids, a part time job and husband who wants to see me once in while, I start to picture me getting up at 3 a.m. to boil those beans.

With economizing, you are always measuring time against money. Everyone is different, but at some point sometimes it is worth it to spend the extra money because it buys you more time to do something else. I have friends who have someone come in and clean their houses because it gives them more time to do ministry minded things.

So I have decided not to boil the beans for now because the time and the sleep are of a higher value to me at this moment. It may change in the future. Remember, this advice that is okay to spend extra money sometimes is coming from me, the tightwad, a woman who in my husband’s words can “stretch a dime until it squeals.”

There is one other thing in those articles suggested that I need to do more often. One of the articles pointed out that if you buy your chickens whole and cut it up yourself, it saves money. I have done that a little bit, but I always had my hubby cut up the chicken. So the next thing on my “how to save money on groceries” list is to learn how to cut the bird myself.

So all this is just to say that yes, living on credit and outside of our means is not wise use of what God provides, but that sometimes time is as valuable as money.

Sharon Dunn’s third and final Bargain Hunter mystery, Death at a Discount, will be released January 2009. You can read more about

Sharon

and her humorous who-dun-its at www.sharondunnbooks.com.

God Speaks and finally, Sharon hears

Tell me if you think this is statically possible to happen to one family in one summer?

One. Two kids’ bikes get stolen out of our yard.

Two. Our car gets stolen from the repair place where it is parked

Three. Our other car gets damaged in a hail storm

Four. We have over $2000 in mold damage to our basement

Five. A pump in our well that cost upwards of $500 stops working 

Six. Our health insurance is raised to a rate we can no longer afford

Seven. We lose a five year battle to get our property taxes reduced because a substation went up next to our house.

Okay, after I spent a respectable amount of time stomping around and feeling really picked on, I stopped and said “Huh? I think God is trying to tell me something.” And being the super quick witted gal that I am, I think maybe it has something to do with money.

On top of all that I have been doing an exercise this summer where I started with Psalm 1 and Psalm 150. I reading my way toward the middle of  Psalms by chewing on both ends. Guess which verse seems to be coming up a lot: “trust in God’s unfailing love.”

I do not think that I have put my trust in money, but I have put my trust in my ability to money manage. So what does God do. He makes it impossible for my money managing skills to work; I am in a place where I have to depend on him. My Bargain Hunters mystery series examines issue around how people deal with and look at money, so I have thought about this a lot.

All this is just to say, when I let go of my ‘victim’ status and feeling sorry for myself (okay, sometime I get back into that whole pity thing) I can see God’s hand in this. I feel as though I am being trained for something through this experience, like a solider in boot camp. I can’t say what that something is. It may be a triumph and it may be an even bigger trial.

I don’t know, I just know that I am really oddly calm about the whole thing most of the time (believe me I have my moments) and I am just so delighted that after years of praying to hear God’s voice that I am a least able to step back and see him speaking through circumstances. 

Sharon Dunn is the author of five mysteries including Death of a Six Foot Teddy Bear. You can read more about her humorous who-dun-its at www.sharondunnbooks.com

      

Not That Clean

Maybe I am the only one who did this, but when my kids were little, it would never fail. After a stressful time of getting kids dressed and ready and loaded into the car, I would look over at the passenger seat and there would be one of my kids with chocolate stains on his or her face or mud or whatever.

So what would I do? You got it. The mommy spit clean. Didn’t want anyone thinking I was a bad mom who couldn’t keep her kids clean. The problem was even though the mud stain went away and my kid looked clean, he or she actually had my spit germs all over his or her face. The kid was way dirtier than when he had the mud stain on his face. Spit cleaning is gross. It was my fear of men (or in this case other moms) and what other people would think of me as a mom that made me do something like that.

When I first became a Christian so much of the advice I was given focused one externals, the stuff other Christians would see. Don’t do yoga? Horoscopes are evil? Don’t date a non Christian? It’s important to “witness” to non-believers, go to church. Nobody talked to me about the condition of my heart, which was really broken. Focusing on externals and thinking that is the way to be a good Christian only leads to self righteousness if you can maintain all the externals. I am reminded of Jesus telling the Pharisees that they were like whitewashed tombs with dead bones on the inside.

And if you can’t maintain all those externals, it just leads to feeling really defeated. I remember being wracked with guilt because I glanced at a horoscope in a woman’s magazine. When he chose a king, God cared more about David’s heart than he care about his physical stature. And when He chose me, he knew I loved him with all of my broken heart.

I think I have spent the second half of my Christianity trying to get back to that first love. How easy it is to be happy with the spit cleaned Christian life and the germs nobody sees. The problem is that people who do things to please men and people whose fruit is a result of a heart turned toward God often look the same. We  can fool everyone but the one who matters. But God sees my heart and I want him to be pleased with what he sees, regardless of the world thinks. Regardless of how I fall short of this kooky definitions of “good Christian mom” and “Good Christian wife.”

Sharon Dunn write humorous who-dun-its for the Christian market. You can read more about Sharon and her books at www.sharondunnbooks.com.    

My own Cheering Section

I grew up in a home that, because of my father’s alcoholism and all the baggage that comes with it, I became what I called a self-contained unit. I had very little expectation of support, encouragement or advice free of judgment; I learned to accomplish things and make decisions in isolation. It never occurred to me how much more I could accomplish if I had a cheering section in my life.

Today, I am preparing to teach a writing workshop at an ACFW conference that will be held September 18-21. Along with my husband, ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) has been the “cheering section” for my writing. If it hadn’t been for ACFW, I may not have continued to try to get my first book, Romance Rustlers, published. At one point, my first book almost sold; all the lights were green and it looked like the publisher would pick it up. Then after much waiting, they decided not to. I was devastated and I wanted to quit.

I went through all the usual stuff we Christians go through when faced with failure. Wondering if I was in God’s plan. Had I heard his voice clearly? I questioned why he would give me a talent and then not open doors for me to use it?

I am not one that shares failure and pain easily. I posted what had happened to the ACFW email loop thinking it was mostly an exercise in me taking a risk and learning to share my feelings and my failure. The response I got was overwhelming. I had people pray for me and offer encouragement.  The thing that helped the most was that other writers who were now published shared their stories of the first books that almost sold. What is that old saying, that Satan’s greatest weapon is to make us feel like we are alone in our pain?

It might not be a writer’s group for you. It might be a support group for addiction or a weight loss group or a quilting group that is about way more than quilting, but all of us need places where we can take our masks off and share our deepest pain. And all of us need a “cheering section” in the stands. I encourage you to seek that out in your life.

I’m excited about teaching a workshop at the conference in

Minneapolis

because it is my chance to give back. If you think writing might be your thing, there is more info about the conference at www.acfw.com. Even if you can’t attend the conference, there is info about joining ACFW.

Sharon

Dunn’s fifth mystery Death of a Six-Foot Teddy Bear was released in January 2008. It is book two in the Bargain Hunters mysteries. You can read more about

Sharon

and her humorous who-dun-its at www.sharondunnbooks.com.  

Author and Perfecter

Maybe it’s just me, but every once in a while I’ll be sitting in church and I will hear The Voice. I know it’s not God talking to me because The Voice takes whatever good feeling I have about worship and being with other believes and totally deflates me. The Voice reminds me of how little I seem to have accomplished for the God’s Kingdom.

Wasn’t I going to go to Bible college?  Shouldn’t I have done an overseas mission trip by now? Look at you, you have been a Christian for over twenty years and what have you done? I am reminded of all my shortcomings and failings as a wife and mom.

My head hangs a little lower and I don’t sing quite as loud. It is true that when I first became a Christian, I thought my life would be going in a much different direction than it has gone in. I don’t have all those measurable markers of the faith. And when I think of “ideal Christian woman,” I fall terribly short of that criteria. 

I know where The Voice comes from and I know it serves to make me feel defeated as a Christian. Now who would want that? Hmmm. Not my Lord and Savior.

The bumper sticker that I have seen really is true that God is not finished with me yet. And when that old frustration creeps in, two Bible verses serve as my breastplate and sword. Hebrews 12 tells me that God is the author and perfecter of my faith. And Philippians 1 says that He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it. He will not abandon me.

The truth is that nobody’s life turns out the way they expected and nobody’s New Life turns out the way they expected either that doesn’t make it wrong or any less of delight to God. Despite those seasons of spiritual shrinkage, my feet have always been pointed in the right direction. I have never stopped loving Jesus.

I like the phrase from Hebrews about God being the “author and perfecter of our faith.” As a writer I can tell you that rough drafts can be very scary and they often falls miles short of the vision I had for my story. I’m a rough draft in so many ways. But God has a vision for my life.       

             

Sharon Dunn writes mysteries for Christian readers. You can read more about Sharon and her humorous who-dun-its at www.sharondunnbooks.com. 

seeing the basement as half full

The rain has been relentless. We have had days and weeks of rain. Judging from the news, other parts of the country are having a Noah’s

Ark

experience as well. My heart goes out to those in the midst of flood devastation.

Our basement has filled with water. At first, we thought we could just get the trickle up with a few smartly placed towels, then we set up hourly excursions with the wet dry vac and now we are remembering to put on waterproof shoes at the top of the stairs so we can wade through it.

At a time when my kids thought they would be riding their bikes to the pool, we are staring at grey sky and mushing our way over soggy grass. Days spent inside drawing, reading, watching tv and playing video games has caused my kids to find a new hobby: fighting with each other.

It is supposed to be summer and we had expectations about how we would be spending it. My second Bargain Hunters mystery Death of a Six Foot Teddy Bear is all about how plans can get foiled by circumstances. One of the characters has a line that goes something like “You make a plan and God makes a plan. Guess who has seniority in the planning department.” Recently, I watched the movie Bella (a beautiful movie by the way). The voice over narration says something along the lines of “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

So God has made a plan. And the plan is that it will rain for many days. I can’t make the rain stop through the power of crabbiness. My only job is an attitude adjustment. And since my 2008 challenge has been to change my patterns of seeing the glass half empty, I need to come to a place of gratitude about the rain and the change in plans. I know there is that old line about the farmers really benefiting from all the moisture, but I’m not a farmer. So there must be something else.

All the rain has given me an excuse to curl up in a comforter and read from my stack of mysteries. Also, because I have trapped in the house, I have begun to clean out and organize cupboards and file cabinets that I would normally ignore. Yesterday, I had a really sweet cuddle time with my ten year old while we watched TV.

When we do get a break in the downpour and the sun comes out for a few minutes, we really appreciate it. A few days ago, we had about forty minutes of sunshine, the kids and I sat out on the balcony reading and eating snacks. Yesterday when the rain cleared for twenty minutes, my ten year old went outside and tossed the football. It was glorious.

I really didn’t appreciate what I had until it was gone. I won’t take sunshine for granted anymore. Thank you God for the rain.

Sharon Dunn is the author of many humorous who-dun-its including Death of a Garage Sale Newbie. You can read more about her Bargain Hunter mysteries and other books at www.sharondunnbooks.com.

Scary, Very Scary

I have two teenagers (ages 13 and 16), so I am always trying to be tuned in to teen culture. That way I will have a way to connect with them. The other day, while my ten year old was doing his gymnastics lesson, I picked up a local parenting magazine.

The article I read was about trends in teen dating (if you can call it that). Have you heard about this new "friends with benefits" thing? Apparently now it is accepted to have sex with someone just for the good physical feeling (I guess). No dating, no talking, no sharing lives, required, nothing  but sex. 

A decade ago, the cry from Christians was that there had been a death to reason, that most people made decisions based on emotion and that ethics were situational. To me, this now sounds like a death of emotion. A woman can't even expect that having  affection for a man is okay.  A guy can't even hope to find a safe haven for sharing his emotions and vunerabilties. How is this a "win" for anyone?

I find the whole this whole "hooking up culture" very disturbing. It seems that our expectations for sharing lives and getting emotional support from another human being will be gone. The possibility for intimate connection (and I don't mean just sexual) will disappear from our lives. 

This dismissal of emotional connection will trickle down to how we care for our children and our aging parents. How will deep friendships be sustained. As if radical feminism, which said the way to achieve equality is to be a bad as the boys who have hurt us,  hasn't done enough damage we will have a generation of broken people who have been told emotions, affection for someone, is not permitted.

I am grateful that neither of my kids has yet been consumed and destroyed by this scary trend. Even if my kids make smart choices, they will be surrounded by people who have programmed themselves not to feel emotional connection. 

I pray that the church and we as individual Christian can find ways to reach out to these poor kids.  

Once emotion is thrown out of the mix, what do we have left? Primitive instinct? That should be fun.

Sharon Dunn remains the vigilant Watchmen on the Tower where her kids are concerned and in her free moments, she writes humorous who-dun-its including her latest Bargain Hunters mystery Death of a Six Foot Teddy Bear. You can learn more about Sharon and her books at www.sharondunnbooks.com.       

My Favorite Chapter in the Bible

Has this happened to you? You set out read a whole book of the Bible and you get stuck on one chapter or one section. No matter what you do, you can't keep reading because that chapter is speaking to you, you want to take it it a part, to journal about it, to read it over and over, to relate it to events in your own life.

I say, being bogged down in a section of the Bible is a good thing. Forget whatever goal you set for yourself. Something about this section of the Bible is speaking to you in a new way.

Some years ago, I decided I was going to read Romans start to finish. All was going well for my little goal setting listing making Type A personality until I got to Romans 12. Day after day, I toldl myself it was time to move on, but I couldn't stop reading Romans 12. Every verse is a gem and the whole chapter is like an instruction manuel on how we ought to live with other believers and how we ought to treat other people.

Most people look at the chapter because it has the "gifts" list in it: teaching, encouraging, leadership etc. I love that section, but there is so much more. The instruction is so straight forward. I can't share every thing in a single blog post, but here are a few of the jewels.

Verse 1--answers the question How Do I know God's Will for my life? Answer: I will be able to discern his will by renewing my mind. The verse in Philipians that talks about thinking on what is true and good and noble comes to mind. For me, the renewing also happens when I quit playing the tapes of self condemnation (Romans 8) and judgement of others. Or, when I keep mulling over past events to the point where I am angry or hurt or whatever all over again. I got to shut those tapes off.

Verse 13--"Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. " pretty straight forward. I know food bills are getting higher. But anytime, we have one of those meals that stretches like spaghetti or stew, I pray that someone will drop by or that one of the kids will have a friend over so we can invite them to dinner. I am not much a party planner, but I like to practice on the spot hospitality. It's fun too, to offer to buy a friends cup of coffee when you run into them so you can sit and visit. All that is hospitality and it doesn't involve matching table cloth and napkins with name tags on the plates.

Verse 14--"Bless those who persecute you." I work at a college where most the faculty is liberal and humanist and agnostic. Don't get me wrong, I love the people I work with. I love people who love books and knowledge. The offhanded remarks about Christians that largely rise from ignorance (I think they think all Christians are like the televangelist they see on TV) give me lots of opportunity to bless.

Verse 18--"...as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." This is probably my fav. verse in the whole chapter. It is the one that pops into my head the most when I am about to pick a fight with someone or make a mountain out of a molehill. I am learning that it is possible to ask for what I want and to express hurt in a gentle way. I am learning that it is in my power to live in peace.      

There are so many more. But those are a few of my favs. If I was stranded on a desert island with a bunch of other people and could only have one chapter in the Bible, it would be Romans 12.

Sharon Dunn lives and loves and learns in a house with three kids, three cats and one hubby. You can read more about Sharon and her humorous who-dun-its at www.sharondunnbooks.com.         

      

Journal for Fun and Profit

I love to journal. I have kept a journal of some sort since high school. I have an irrational fear that I will need to journal and not have a blank one available, so I keep a stack of unused journals in my house that I get at discount department store for three or four dollars.  Journalling can serve a bunch of different purposes. Here are some of the ways I use my journals.

I journal story ideas when I am in the brainstorming stage of writing or when I get stuck in the middle of a plot and don't know what direction to go. This journal will be tossed once the book is written. I don't pay attention to any grammar rules or try to have nice penmanship. The pupose is to get ideas out and get them out fast. It doesn't have to look pretty on the page, I just need to get the massive tangle of thought in my head on straight concrete lines and that is often enough to renew my sense of direction as a writer

I journal out my prayers and my Bible reading. Without writing it down, my prayers quickly descend into a worryfest or bitter musing about events. The writing helps keep me focused and it is a good way of keeping track of answered prayer and of seeing how I have grown in my faith...or not grown. When I am bone dry and not even sure how to pray,  I simply copy out a psalm or other meaningful passage usually that will lead me toward a conversation with God on paper.

Finally, I journal as a form of therapy. It's a lot cheaper than a counselor (and if you have read any of my posts or my Bargain Hunter books, you know I am the queen of cheap) In attempting to understand my feelings or work through an event or conversation that has confused or upset me, something about writing it out and seeing the questions and thoughts I have in front of me helps me makes sense of life. This type of journalling sometimes turns into prayer as I write.

Recently, I did a brainstorm where I wrote down my earliest  childhood memory and worked my way forward through time. I did this for two reasons--to get story and character ideas from my own life and to look for patterns that might help me understand myself better. I read somewhere that our earliest memories are what set the fondation for our identity. There was a pattern in the memories of feeling alone and invisible, of having to figure things out on my own. I did not have a horrible childhood, I am sure I had many happy memories, but when I did the exercise, memories of calling for help and not getting it are the ones that rose to the surface as I pushed myself to brainstorm one memory after another.  The exercise also gave me a direction to pray in my life in terms of getting beyond that fondation of thinking I was invisible or rejected (both of which are lies form the pit of hell) and replacing it with the truth that I am precious and honored by my Savior and that he will always come to my rescue when I cry out for help.

I am such a journal snob that I actually have a type of journal I prefer to work with. The lines have to be a certain distance apart and the paper not have too much glare. The big issue though is that the journal needs to have a spiral binding so that when I flop it open it stay open (I know, picky, picky). The journals with Bible verses on pages are cool or once with a watercolor, but I am also inspired by the ones the have covers that could belong on a chick lit novels.  If you are thinking about journalling, give it try. You'll be surprised at the discoveries you make.

Some of Sharon's journals end up being books like her newest releases Death of a Six-Foot Teddy Bear, Book Two in the Bargain Hunters mysteries. You can read more about Sharon and her humorous who-dun-its at www.sharondunnbooks.com.