And Now I Present . . .

Mary E. DeMuth was the lady in the photo that I posted yesterday. She is a follower of Jesus and is blessed with a wonderful gift for writing. Both fiction and nonfiction.

As shown above, her most recent book is entitled Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture. When Mary was asked during an interview about why she decided to write this particular book in light of the numerous parenting books that are already on the market, she said,

I always struggle when I write a parenting book because I feel so darned small and weak. I don’t parent perfectly. But, we did live through two and half years in France, the hotbed of hyper-postmodernity. We had to learn how to parent our kids in that culture. It occurred to me that the things we learned would be helpful to American parents too.

In Authentic Parenting, she explains how parents can help their children prepare for the world outside their door. Yet, she does this without falling into the trite, formulaic x-number-of-steps approach. Instead, she unpacks the stories from her family's time in France, relaying their triumphs as well as their failures. And while she is unpacking their stories, she effortlessly weaves in Scripture and its application to today's culture as she urges parents to do the following:

**Talk to your kids. Listen. Share your story.

**Dare to believe that God has much to teach you through your kids. Be humble enough to learn from them.

**Create a haven for your kids, an oasis in your home that protects, supports, and gives kids space to be themselves. Take seriously the mandate that you are responsible for the soul-nurturing of your children.

**Teach your children to joyfully engage their world, while holding tightly to Jesus’ hand. Teaching this comes primarily from modeling it in your own life. Do you engage your neighbors? Are you more interested in God’s kingdom than your own?

**Admit your failures openly with your children, showing how much you need Jesus to live your daily life.

Throughout the book, I love how Mary doesn't come across as the know-it-all who has all the answers for parenting. Her book does not aim to present the "perfect parent to-do list." Instead, as the book's title aptly states, the advice that Mary shares is that of Authentic Parenting. And yet, I was amazed at how many of the practical ways that Mary provided for parents to use with their children would benefit individuals who don't have children by allowing them to draw closer to Christ in their own spiritual walk.

At its core, Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture is timely, relevant, practical, and encouraging. And because of those qualities, the book will enlighten all who read it.

If you'd like to learn more about Mary E. DeMuth and her other works, visit her crazy blog here. And for some other views on the book, check out the other blogs participating on the Authentic Parenting Tour this week. For a complete listing of the blogs participating in the six week tour, visit here.
Abundant Blessings
Actual Unretouched Photo
Bluebonnet in the Snow
child of divorce/child of god
Geaux2Girl
Good Word Editing
Halland
RappFamilyAixtremeLife
Ripples and Reflections
Spaghettipie
So Many Books...So Little Time
The Point
Tiffany Colter
Toni V. Lee

Setting the Stage

Who is the lady in the picture?

She’s an author who “oozes Jesus” as one of my friends so aptly put it. And after reading this author’s new book, as well as her daily blog for the past four months, I’d have to agree.

Did I forget to mention her name? No, I purposely withheld it and the name of her new book so that you’d return tomorrow for answers. See you then!

Called To Pray

My mentor gave me a copy of a sermon that Max Lucado delivered entitled “Esther: Called to Pray.” Using stories from the biblical book of Esther, it focuses on how God brings people into our lives and places us in situations so that we will take the opportunity to pray. Lucado states,

You thought you got that new job because you deserved a promotion. I’m telling you, you got that new job because God wants you to stay there and pray for those people. You thought you were moved into that neighborhood because it was the best house you could find. I’m telling you that you are an assigned missionary to that neighborhood to pray for those people. You thought you were given that fourth grade class to teach just because the other teacher got sick and you got to be the substitute. Wrong! You were sent to that class because those 26 children need somebody to pray over them. You thought you were given this nation because you just happened to follow a certain lineage of a certain generation. Wrong! God has assigned you and He has assigned me to be prayer warriors for this nation, to intercede.

And I would go as far as to say this, church, that a day that passes that you don’t invite God’s kingdom to come into your world is a day wasted. . . . What God is doing is He is offering us the privilege of being a part of His strategy. When we come before Him and we say, “I don’t know how You’re going to do it, but please do it. Your ways are not my ways and I’m not going to complain at Your timing, though I would like to have it real soon. But I want Your will in this matter.”

Lucado’s words spoke to me because, as I've written before, I’ve struggled with understanding why God brings people into my path.

For instance, today was our clerk’s last day. Our clerks always work for just a year, and then they go out to spread their wings. It is a difficult transition for me because I have enjoyed working with each of the five clerks we’ve had thus far. Each one has brought a different vibe to our pod. And at the end of each year, I’m sad to see the clerk go. It takes me a while to adjust to the new clerks who arrive each September.

But through this sermon, I have been reminded that God keeps me in my job, in my house, and in my church and brings new people to my path for me to pray for them. That’s something that is so do-able. I just need to be obedient and do it.

Think about where you are and who you can pray for. After all, we are ALL called to pray. And when God’s people pray, anything is possible.

Sinful Weeds

With all the rain that we’ve had this summer, I haven’t had many chances to go outside and work in my flower beds to get the weed population under control. There was a brief break in the clouds a few days ago, and I took that opportunity to take back over my flower beds from the grip of all the evil weeds.

I’m reminded each time that I tend my “garden” that there are so many similarities with my spiritual life. As I struggle to pull out a weed whose roots have grown deep into the rock-hard Texas clay, I recognize that this is akin to what happens when I fail to identify a sin in its early stage and uproot it; it takes a firm grip and is harder to get rid of it. Instead of a quick pull, I have to work really hard and exert a lot of effort, possibly even get out some tools, in order to extricate it. It’s kind of a painful, and often dirty, process that usually takes a while.

And one reason for that might be that I’m not tending the garden or my spiritual life as often as I should. If I spent more time in God‘s Word, maybe I’d recognize the sin more quickly; just like if I spent more time in the garden, maybe I’d recognize the weeds more quickly before they could sink their roots down deep. Maybe I’d even take some preventive steps to thwart the sinful weeds from growing in the first place, like praying for God to protect me from going down paths that lead to sin.

“Lord, I pray that you would help me tend my spiritual garden often, that you would keep me on the alert for the sinful weeds that I’m prone to, and that you would help me to keep the soil in my spiritual garden open to growing beautiful flowers instead of sinful weeds.”

Works in Progress

Maybe you've been wondering what I've been up to since I haven't been posting as frequently. Well, I haven't stopped writing. Quite the contrary. I've been working on a few different things.

• For one, I have a fiction piece that I've been working on for my writers' group. You can read that assignment here.
• In a little over a week, I'll give you a glimpse into a new book (by a local Christian author) that just released and will be making a stop here as part of its blog tour.
• And about a month from now, I hope to have a piece written about my dad.

In the interim, I'll still post some of my devotional blogs, but I also wanted to whet your appetite for what's to come. I hope you'll stop back by again soon!

Childlike Anticipation

It doesn’t take Christmas for me to be filled with childlike anticipation. Though that feeling is usually centered around times with gifts. And gift giving to be more specific.

I have this trait/disorder of not being able to wait to give a gift. As soon as I buy a gift, I want to give it. But having family and friends who live more than a few hours’ drive away, it just isn’t feasible for me to be able to give them their gifts immediately. And the postal service can only go so far in one day unless you shell out the big bucks for the overnite ponies.

So I’ve come up with a new little habit. After I ship the package, I wait a few minutes, and then I get the urge to call to see if the package has made it. You’d think I’d be able to resist the urge. Surely as much as I’ve waited for other things in my life I could wait to hear from the recipient. But, I don’t.

Case in point: My sister’s birthday is tomorrow. I shipped her gift via Priority Mail on Friday morning. I knew her gift would arrive yesterday barring any mishandling or (gasp) loss of the package. And so I called. Not once, but twice yesterday to see if she’d gotten it. She hadn’t even made it home, and so I spoiled the surprise (not that she was getting a birthday present but that it was arriving that day). Spoiling the surprise doesn’t dissuade me from making the calls. I just need to know that the gift has arrived.

I’m sure that there are probably support groups out there for this little disorder that I suffer from. But, I don’t want to be cured. Instead, I’d rather have this childlike anticipation transfer over into other areas of my life. Like my spiritual walk.

What would it be like to apply that childlike anticipation to waiting for Jesus’s triumphant return? Or looking forward to Heaven? Or even just looking forward each day to what God might do in, around, and through me?

I don’t know, so I guess I’ll just have to try it.

In the meantime, happy birthday to my awesome sister!

Drowning Out The Noise

As I was driving today, I noticed that I was driving right next to a train and didn’t even hear it. The radio in my car wasn’t blaring, but it was enough to cover up the sounds of the train. As I thought about this, I saw some similarities between drowning out the noise of life and living in a cocoon, protected from the burdens in other people’s lives.

I think I was more acutely aware of this today because last night I read a chapter in The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan that talked about paying attention to the details of life. Buchanan encourages readers to restore Sabbath, and one of the practices that he describes to experience Sabbath rest is to stop to find what’s missing. He urges readers, “See it all. Like Adam, name it.”

God’s creation inspires me, but I often don’t let it. I can’t hear the birds singing in the morning because I’ve got the radio on while I’m getting ready for work. I don’t hear the children in the neighborhood playing in the evenings because I have the television on. I can’t hear the locusts at night because I turn on a sound conditioner to cover up the endless barking of the next-door neighbor’s dog. And by drowning out God’s creation, I’m often removing the opportunity to hear from God.

All of the man-made sounds that I’m replacing God’s sounds with are merely imitations. These imitations keep me distracted. And by staying distracted, I don’t have to deal with things in my life, like the emptiness that comes from unmet desires. But counterfeit imitations only suffice for so long. And then I crave the real thing.

Tonight, now that I’m out of the cocoon, I’m looking forward to spending time with a family who is going through a difficult time after the father was injured in a fall last week. And now that I’ve had it with artificial sounds for a while, I’m looking forward to the real sounds of a Texas summer night.