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February 1, 2016

The 4 Essentials needed to Thrive in Life

The 4 Essentials needed to ~~Survive~~ Thrive in Life

Survival skills are important for everyone to know in case of emergencies. I need to nail down some myself. But beyond that there are four essential things we need to put into place to be able to thrive, not just survive, in every area of life.

I’m talking about four essentials we need to know, practice and develop to successfully get through the dark valley of struggles and suffering, because we all go through trials at some point in life.

I’d never given thought to how I navigate the tough times in life until I knew I needed to write about my own journey through trials. Trials like cancer. When I blogged during cancer treatment I wrote about my responses to what I encountered, tears and fears and all, and what I did with those tears and fears.

I prayed, through tears. I dumped my fears on God and he traded them for his peace. I found strength and hope to keep on for one more day as I read God’s Word. I was comforted and helped in every way imaginable by the people around me, family and friends both near and far away.

And when I felt like giving up, on those dark days when I didn’t feel like getting up, I remembered my reason for being. And I got up. And kept going. For one more day.

When I analyzed these realities of my life, how I navigated the storms that came my way, I found names for them, and a way to share these powerful truths so that others could be strengthened. For one more day.

And I wrote Brokenness to Beauty. I found a way to share how to transform your brokenness into a beautiful life. How to thrive through the trials of life.

Now, not only can you buy Brokenness to Beauty online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, WestBow Press Bookstore and other outlets,

you can buy direct from me.

Yes! Now you can order Brokenness to Beauty from me and save on the cost per book. And I will personally sign your copy of Brokenness to Beauty!

To order Brokenness to Beauty directly from me, click here to go to my facebook Author page, and message me to open the conversation. Or leave a comment and we’ll talk. Help me get word out about how to thrive in life, not just survive.

January 12, 2016

Brokenness to Beauty available on Kindle

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December 19, 2015

Keeping Christmas

“Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” “Keep Christ in Christmas.”

Who of us has not heard, or as believers, even spoken, these pithy sayings meant to be statements of our belief in what Christmas is all about? Hey, in the face of the world’s co-opting of our most celebrated holy-day, we need to speak up and say what is right! Right?

The rub comes not in our willingness to speak up but in our actual living out those words at Christmas. Here is where our actions truly do speak louder than our words.

Our beliefs do shape our actions. However, even when we say we believe something, it can take a long time to filter down from our heads into our hands and feet, you know, to what we do and where we go.

So when we say “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” and “Keep Christ in Christmas,” how are we doing that in actual practice?

Since gift giving is an integral part of Christmas, and Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, do we consider giving a gift to him?

When our boys were small, my husband began a tradition for our family that he called “Christmas for Christ.” Though we bought a few gifts for our kids (and now grandkids) and a few other loved ones, we made it a point to “buy” something for Jesus comparable in price to the gifts we buy for others.

How do you buy Jesus a birthday present? Well, what does Jesus love? Where is his heart?

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17, ESV)[1].

Jesus came into the world (at Christmas!) to do the Father’s will: become the Savior the world needs, that you and I need.

Now Jesus sends us, his people, into the world to love others and tell them about the Savior. Based on things Jesus said, we believe our lives and the resources he’s placed in our hands should be focused on what he wants to do in his world, all year round as well as at Christmas time.

So, in our family we pray about which mission or ministry to send a special monetary gift to at Christmas time. That becomes our birthday gift to Jesus. Then we try to be sure our lifestyle and use of his resources line up with his purposes the rest of the year too. So the struggle to focus on Jesus is not just at Christmas time but all the time.

Sending monetary gifts is only one way to give Jesus a birthday present and keep Christ in Christmas. We can also do it by giving our time and efforts in ministry to others. There are opportunities all around us. We can check out our community’s local ministries to the needy or homeless, to the sick or shut-in, orphans and widows; or look into missions through our church.

What are your traditions for keeping Christmas about Christ? I’d love to hear how you give to Jesus for his birthday.

Share your traditions with me in the comment box. We can learn from each other about how to Keep Christ in Christmas, because truly, Jesus is the Reason for the Season.

Image by Coffee from https://pixabay.com

November 3, 2015

Goliaths and Greater Things

Picking up with the topic I started before my last post, Interlude of Fun in the Twilight Zone: David was faithful in his everyday, ordinary life as a shepherd, guiding and guarding the sheep, sometimes at great personal risk fighting lions and bears. It was there, in his everyday life that he grew strong wielding the weapons of his trade–the staff and sling and stones–and he grew strong in faith in God. He knew God and could confidently say, “the LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear …” (see I Samuel 17).

We too live ordinary, everyday lives. We too face our lions and bears, those trials and difficulties that come into our lives, perhaps threatening our livelihood, our families or even our very lives with health problems. These are the enemies that come to defeat us, enemies that threaten to destroy us.

Are we being faithful to fight them with the weapons given us—prayer and praise and the Word of God? Are we becoming adept in their use and growing in strength, growing in our trust in God? Can we say as David did, “the LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear …”

It is only in our ordinary, everyday lives faithfully facing the enemies that would destroy us—our lions and bears—that we learn to fight, becoming skilled and strong.

Ordinary life is where we learn to know and trust the LORD, bringing him glory as we fight our personal enemies. This, too, is where we learn to recognize another kind of enemy: Goliath.

Goliath wasn’t David’s personal enemy and he isn’t ours, though most of us have heard the story in those terms. Goliath is not our personal lion or bear. Oh no. He is a different enemy. Goliath, to be consistent with the text, in I Samuel 17, comes against and defies the armies of the living God; he defies the LORD of Hosts, the Lord Almighty.

Goliath is anything that is contrary to the person and purposes of God and he must be fought with weapons, not of this world, but weapons that have “divine power to demolish strongholds … and everything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God …” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Prayer and praise and the Word of God. These are the powerful weapons that we only become skilled at using in our ordinary, everyday lives fighting our lions and bears. The power of these weapons is spiritual, not of our flesh or the world, not originating with us but with God’s Spirit who lives in us.

When Jesus was on earth he fought many Goliaths. When he was about to leave and return to his Father in heaven he said to his disciples, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. … And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. … for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:12-17, NIV, emphasis added).

Jesus obviously expected that we too would fight Goliaths, all over the world. Else what did he mean by saying, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8, NIV)? (Notice the triple “and,” not “or.”)

Or this, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20, NIV)?

The Spirit was given for specific purposes, as we read from the above verses.

The questions we must ask ourselves are:

Do I recognize Goliath when I see him?
When I do see him, do I have the spirit of David that says, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
And do I have the chuztpah to reply to the naysayers as David did, drawing on his experience of trusting God and and finding him faithful to deliver, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine (1 Samuel 17:34-37, NIV, emphasis added).”
Do I have the jealousy for God’s Name that makes me willing to put “skin” in the game, my skin, for his Name and glory?

The greater works we are to do, that Jesus expects us to do, are waiting to be done. They are there waiting for us to step forward, as David did, in the name of the Lord Almighty, that the Father may be glorified in the Son—through us.

“David said to the Philistine, ‘You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, … and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands’”(1 Samuel 17:45-47).

Let us get stronger every day wielding the weapons of our warfare—prayer and praise and the Word of God—fighting our everyday lions and bears so that we may be strong in the Spirit and fit to recognize and fight Goliath–doing those greater things–for the sake of his Name, for the glory of the Father.

Let us fear God more than men.

How have you fared with your lions and bears? Have you discerned the Goliath that you should be challenging for his Name sake? How is it going? Send me your questions and comments about this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

New International Version (NIV)

October 31, 2015

Interlude for fun: There is a Twilight Zone and I know how to get there.

Several weeks ago Randy and I tackled the next painting project in our house. Having finished the kitchen and family room cabinets we started on the seven foot long built-in china cabinet in the dining room. All the cabinets in our house, which was built in 1979, are the original dark stained wood: kitchen and family room cabinets, china cabinet and the wall of cabinets in the hallway. We have so many cabinets we could rent storage space for extra cash. But they aren’t pretty anymore, hence the painting projects.

Anyway, back to the china cabinet. On the top there are four glass-fronted doors on cupboards which reach to the ceiling. The lower cabinet has two vertical rows of four drawers each (total 8 drawers) in the center, flanked by a door on the left and one on the right, with a generous seven foot countertop. We may fancy up the countertop later but for now it will be painted to match the rest of the built in cabinet.

First task was to remove all doors and drawers (and sand; thank you, Randy). That’s when the spooky part happened. Pulling out the top drawers wasn’t a big deal, just another empty drawer beneath each one. But the bottom two, oh my. Dust bunny graveyard. Fuzzy grossness personified.

And, what’s this? All this stuff coated with dead dust bunnies. Yuk. I pulled them out gingerly, vacuuming as I went, hoping for no scurrying eight-legged monsters (there were none). Papers and little round cd’s and an instruction manual for … something or other. And kids’ drawings that should have been magnetized to the fridge door. So much detritus.

But the jackpot prize of the denizens of the under-the-drawers-world was an 8 X 10 picture, in its cardboard stand-up frame, of a happy, smiling young man in his Mustangs Baseball uniform.

My heart sank. I felt so bad for the boy who loved baseball and was so proud of being on the team and who held his bat as he smiled for the camera, and who proudly gave that picture to his mom and dad.

And I felt so bad for that mom who must have looked all over her house for that picture of her son! The picture of the son she was so proud of, the picture she wanted to show to his grandparents, and in fact to anyone who, unsuspecting, happened by for a visit.

Where in the world had it gone?

I know where. Into the Twilight Zone.

It is those dark, hidden, unseen, never thought about places in our houses that are The Portals to the Twilight Zone, the place things go to disappear.

Until someone decides to paint the built-in china cabinet.

October 1, 2015

The In Between Place

This post from one of the blogs I follow, said what I have often said myself. She is saying things I’ve written into my own book, Brokenness to Beauty. The trials I’ve learned from were not just for me, as hers were not just for her; they are to be shared with others, as Amy Carmichael said long ago. I hope we can learn from each other.

September 15, 2015

How Does A Christian Get To Know God Better?

What are you doing to get to know God better? This blogger, Becky, says it so well, I wanted to share her post with you. Tell me what you think.

September 7, 2015

Life Goes On

I “met” Bill by discovering his blog, “Unshakable Hope.” I’m now a follower. Bill is a believer in Jesus Christ and it comes out in what he writes. I listen to what he has to say, not just because he is Christian, but because as a Christian he has learned truths from God about suffering in a very difficult school; Bill has ALS. He has much to teach us. Please read, “listen” and learn. And pray for Bill and his family. Leave a comment.

July 3, 2015

Eyes Wide Open

“Deliver those who are drawn away to death, and those who totter to the slaughter, hold them back [from their doom].

If you [profess ignorance and] say, Behold, we did not know this, does not He Who weighs and ponders the heart perceive and consider it? And He Who guards your life, does not He know it? And shall not He render to [you and] every man according to his works?” (Proverbs 24:11-12 (AMP)[1]

I cannot get away from these verses. Reading, memorizing, and reciting it is an act of pulling one’s head out of the proverbial sand, of taking off the blinders, of removing the wool covering from one’s eyes. My head, my eyes. No excuses. This is a powerful word from God and one we should seriously take to heart. We are accountable for our actions. And lack of action.

So I deliberately seek to learn about those “who are drawn away to death, and those who totter to the slaughter” so that I can have a hand in “holding them back [from their doom].” I also need friends who will challenge me to continue to pursue this task and not get sidetracked from it. (Don’t we have lots of distractions in our world?)

A few of us in Bakersfield are seeking to inform ourselves and encourage one another to obedience through the Bakersfield She Is Safe Advocacy Group.[2] We have committed to:

raising awareness about the needs of women and girls in the hard places of the world, specifically in northern India,
raising up more Christian women to join us in our efforts to rescue them,
and raising $15,000 to help fund Transformation Groups[3] in some of the worst areas of that part of north India.

Why India? We need to focus on one place to be effective, though we can certainly pray for other areas where the need is also great. But read these statistics taken from the She Is Safe website:

Why Anti-trafficking is Needed for Girls in India:

Approximately 1.2 million children are exploited in prostitution throughout the country of India (UNICEF 2010 India Country Report)
West Bengal (in northern India) is the most unsafe place for women and girls in India. It tops the list of states where the highest number of cases against women and girls are registered. (National Crime Bureau Report 2012)
Sex trafficking has devastating consequences for minors, including long-lasting physical and psychological trauma, disease, drug addiction, and even death. (2013 Trafficking in Persons Report)[4]

Bakersfield She Is Safe Advocacy Group 5K

Why India? Why not, when we have the opportunity to do great good for women and girls in a country of which it is said it is the worst place to be born female?

Pray for the women and girls of India, look through the SIS website, contact me. Join the Bakersfield SIS Advocacy Group as God prompts your heart, or start one in your town. We need more committed Christian women (and men!) to link arms and multiply our efforts to bring redemption, hope, and new life to our sisters in India.

We who live here in the US have had every opportunity for healthy and productive lives. We have been valued and cared for and loved. Our lives are so good because the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ has affected our culture and our personal lives. We have, therefore, the responsibility and the opportunity to share that hope and life with others who do not yet have it.

Please pray for the Transformation Groups (TG) in northern India and if you live in Bakersfield, JOIN us for PRAYER Sunday July 5 at 2PM for prayer for India, or pray right where you are:

Pray God give the TG leaders courage and grace in the face of the opposition they are experiencing. The enemy doesn’t want to let go his grip on the hundreds of thousands of women and girls trapped in sex slavery there!
Pray the leaders discover women of influence within the brothel city, the red light district and the train station who will be the “keys” to open the door to those areas.
Pray for God to tear down all the barriers and strongholds of the enemy, that those in physical and spiritual bondage may be set free by His power.

Father in heaven, Grant us grace and boldness and your power to be faithful to do this for the sake of the Lamb Who was slain for the sins of the whole world, and for the sake of those who need redemption through Jesus Christ—and for our own souls’ sake. Amen.

Reposted from the Abide Women’s Prayer Group blog.

[2] For more info on how you can get involved in an Advocacy group contact me at jacquelinegwallace@gmail.com or go to http://sheissafe.org/engage/

[3] For more information on Transformation Groups contact me at jacquelinegwallace@gmail.com or go to http://sheissafe.org/work/india-transformation-groups/

[4] http://sheissafe.org/work/india-anti-trafficking/

June 26, 2015

Faith small enough, but not too small

“Our praying needs to be pressed and pursued with an energy that never tires, a persistency which will not be denied, and a courage that never fails.” E.M. Bounds[1]

I’ve often said, “Perspective is Everything.” I am convinced that it is enormously important to see the world from the right perspective: God’s perspective.

But in prayer, Persistence is equally weighty. Jesus said so. He told a parable to his disciples so they could get a better grasp of its importance.

`“Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to turn coward (faint, lose heart, and give up). He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither reverenced and feared God nor respected or considered man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Protect and defend and give me justice against my adversary.’

And for a time he would not; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have neither reverence or fear for God nor respect or consideration for man, Yet because this widow continues to bother me, I will defend and protect and avenge her, lest she give me intolerable annoyance and wear me out by her continual coming or at the last she come and rail on me or assault me or strangle me.’

Then the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says! And will not [our just] God defend and protect and avenge His elect (His chosen ones), who cry to Him day and night? Will He defer them and delay help on their behalf? I tell you, He will defend and protect and avenge them speedily.

However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find [persistence in] faith on the earth?’” Luke 18:1-8 (AMP)[2]

I’ve always thought of Jesus’s last question, “However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find [persistence in] faith on the earth?” as him thinking out loud, mumbling to himself, not really addressing anyone else. He had previously expressed exasperation at the disciples’ lack of faith, in the incident of the demon possessed boy from whom the disciples could not cast out the demon.

“Jesus … said, ‘You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?’” (Matthew 17:17, NASB).[3]

When the disciples privately asked Jesus, after He cast out that demon, why they couldn’t drive it out He told them their faith was too little. Again the issue of faith.

Then He blows my mind by saying that a tiny amount of faith, the size of a small seed, can move mountains.

So I ask myself, what size is my faith? Is it as tiny as a small seed? Is my faith small enough to move mountains? Or is it even smaller?

If my faith is as small as a tiny seed, when is the last time I moved a mountain?

Or cast out a demon?

I know there are mountains that need moving. Mountains of spiritual obstacles opposed to the power and presence of God. And I know there are demon possessed people that need deliverance. We call their problems by other names too often. They need to be set free from chains that bind them to destructive ways of life.

What size faith do I have? What size faith do you have?

Do we have eyes to see the spiritual realities, to see things as Jesus sees them, to gain God’s perspective?

Do we want to see?

Do we want to exercise our puny faith so it grows big muscles so we can bind the strong man and plunder his house (Mark 3:27)? Jesus has defeated that satanic enemy of mankind. We only need believe big enough in our strong Savior. And nothing will be impossible to us (Matt. 17:20).

I want to believe big in our big God. How about you?

Our enemies are beginning to look big to us and ourselves to seem like grasshoppers in their eyes. Let’s remember God is with us, not them (Numbers 13:25ff)!

God help us not to fail but persist in faith and faith-filled prayer, so that Jesus will not say of us if we fail, it was “because of your little faith … For if you had faith even as small as a tiny mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move!’ and it would go far away. Nothing would be impossible” (Matthew 17:20, TLB).

Let’s pursue that mustard seed faith so that what appears to be impossible to us, when we see through Jesus’s eyes, we find is not impossible, because impossible doesn’t exist in God’s economy.

Bakersfield She Is Safe Advocacy Group is doing just that. With a handful of women, we have:

committed to raising awareness of the need of women and girls in north India to be set free from the horrors of sex trafficking and brothel life, where girls are used up and become old before their time and baby girls born to them are used in the sex trade,

committed to calling more Christian women in Bakersfield to join us,

committed to raising $15,000 dollars over the next year to help fund Transformation Groups in north India to train women in skills to give themselves and their families better lives, breaking free of the iron grip of brothel life. And woven into every fiber of what the TG’s do is the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ which truly sets them free.

What are you doing? Share your faith ventures by leaving a comment in the comment box.

Consider joining us, the Bakersfield Advocacy Group, in advocating for those who have no voice. Or form an Advocacy Group in your town. Go to She Is Safe (www.shissafe.org) to learn more.

Whatever you do, “Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death; don’t stand back and let them die. Don’t try to disclaim responsibility by saying you didn’t know about it. For God, who knows all hearts, knows yours, and he knows you knew! And he will reward everyone according to his deeds” (Proverbs 24:11-12, TLB).[4]

Adapted and re-posted from the Abide Women’s Prayer Group blog, a ministry of the Women of The Bridge Bible Church, Bakersfield, CA. Written by Jacque Wallace.

[1] http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/942850.E_M_Bounds

[2] Amplified Bible (AMP)

[3] New American Standard Bible (NASB)

[4] Living Bible (TLB)

The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Taken from https://www.biblegateway.com .