Top Her Couture

Today, I will practice prayer and meditation.  Whether I feel desperate, uneasy, or peaceful, I will make the effort to connect with my Higher Power, at least for a moment today. Prayer is a great form of not only loving a Higher Power, but also ourselves.  It gives us a chance to to connect with the deeper part(s) of 'us', our life, and our growth.  The relationship we develop with the Higher Power allows us to be heard, touched, and even changed for the best.  Prayer is not necessarily a religion thing.  It is merely a link to our soul. Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer.  PSALM 4:1

The bottom line is that life change begins with a teachable heart.  It requires a heart that willingly receives the Lord’s instruction. It requires a humble heart It requires a willing heart It requires a surrendered heart. It requires discipline and sacrifice. We must be willing to bare our heart and soul and ask God as David did in Psalm 139.

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” 2 Corinthians 13:14 Be kind, for everyone you know is facing a great battle. A true community is something you will have to fight for. You'll have to fight to get one, and you'll have to fight to keep it afloat. But you fight for it like you bail out a life raft during a storm at sea. You want this thing to work. You need this thing to work. You can't ditch it and jump back on the cruise ship. This is the church; this is all you have. Without it, you'll go down. Or back to prison. Suddenly all those "one another's" in Scripture make sense. Love one another. Bear one another's burdens. Forgive one another. Acts of kindness become deeply meaningful because we know we are at war. Knowing full well that we are all facing battles of our own, we give one another the benefit of the doubt. Leigh isn't intentionally being distan...

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame?" (Ps. 4:2). These blows aren't random or incidental. They strike directly at some part of the heart, turn the very thing God created to be a source of celebration into a source of shame. And so you can at least begin to discover your glory by looking more closely at what you were shamed for. Look at what's been assaulted, used, abused. As Bernard of Clairvaux said, "Through the heart's wound, I see its secret." Let me put it this way: What has life taught you about your God-given glory? What have you believed about your heart over the years? "That it's not worth anyone's time," said a woman. Her parents were too busy to really want to know her. "That it's weak," confided a friend. He suffered several emasculating blows as a boy, and his father simply shamed him for it. "That I shouldn't trust it to anyone." "That it's selfish and self-centered." ...

It is a mystery almost too great to mention, but God is the expression of the very thing we seek in each other. For do we not bear God's image? Are we not a living portrait of God? Indeed we are, and in a most surprising place-in our gender . "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27). Follow me closely now. Gender-masculinity and femininity-is how we bear the image of God. "I thought that there was only one kind of soul," said a shocked friend. "And God sort of poured those souls into male or female bodies." Many people believe something like that. But it contradicts the Word of God. We bear his image as men and women, and God does not have a body. So it must be at the level of the soul-the eternal part of us-that we reflect God. The text is clear; it is as a man or as a woman that the image is bestowed. God wanted to show the world something of his strength. Is he not a g...

Against the flesh, the traitor within, a warrior uses discipline. We have a two-dimensional version of this now, which we call a "quiet time." But most men have a hard time sustaining any sort of devotional life because it has no vital connection to recovering and protecting their strength; it feels about as important as flossing. But if you saw your life as a great battle and you knew you needed time with God for your very survival, you would do it. Maybe not perfectly-nobody ever does and that's not the point anyway-but you would have a reason to seek him. We give a halfhearted attempt at the spiritual disciplines when the only reason we have is that we "ought" to. But we'll find a way to make it work when we are convinced we're history if we don't. Time with God each day is not about academic study or getting through a certain amount of Scripture or any of that. It's about connecting with God. We've got to keep those lines of communicat...