KRELLFISH

Pure Pleasure

Have you ever been asked these questions?

• How can you justify a $4.00 coffee when people in Africa are starving?
• Should you really buy that nice of a car when you could give the money to the poor?
• Do think you should go to the movies, concert or the game; isn't your time better spent volunteering somewhere?
• Do you need the latest computer when you're lucky to have one at all?
• I didn't know you drink, aren't you a Christian?

Maybe others haven't asked questions like these, but maybe you ask yourself and live with guilt every time you experience something pleasurable.

If so, Pure Pleasure by Gary Thomas is the book for you. Gary guides the reader through God's design for grace based living, which very much does include pleasure. God wants his children to live happily and to enjoy good things.

If we never experience guilt free pleasure, how can we give it away? If we cannot bring pleasure to others, we aren't living with abandon.

I want to bring pleasure to one lucky reader. Leave a comment on the biggest "guilt" question you think about or are asked the most.If I choose your name at random, I'll send you my copy of Pure Pleasure at the beginning of next week.

Click my Amazon box at the bottom of the page to order your copy today.

Special thank you to Zondervan for providing me a copy to review.

 

Tooch

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto 

Apparently this is a place in Scotland pronounced "tooch." 

In English it's simply pronounced tough. 

Wouldn't it be great if we came to a crossroads and had the ability to choose if we'd follow the tough path or take easy street?

Obviously we don't have the choice, but we do have the ability to choose.

So as hard as it is somedays, I figure I'm already heading toward tough, so I might as well look for the good along the way. It wouldn't hurt anything to enjoy myself a little bit, but most of all, it would be great if I could be a joy to others.

Maybe then the south side of the tracks would look a little more like the north, and they could get together more often.

Shopping Cart Abandonment

So as I was researching this post, I came across an article on why users abandon shopping carts. Excited, I clicked on it. As pictures of upside down shiny metal carts behind Safeway and other carts abandoned in strange places filled my head, I really wanted to know the psychology behind a shopping cart abandoner. Are they people who get a thrill off stealing the cart but then cannot get it up their apartment stairs? Do they not have room for it in their home? Do people drive the cart way out in the desert,dump it in a dried riverbed and see how long it takes to find it's way back to the store? Is it latchkey children with nothing better to do but shove the cart into traffic and run?

Well, it wasn't those kind of shopping carts. Apparently I'm not as tech minded as I thought, as the article referred to electronic shopping carts. People abandon those for all the reasons you might imagine, hidden charges, complicated sign up or sign out, slow internet connection,etc. 

Which made me see that all forms of abandonment are similar. Often people abandon relationships because they discover hidden things about the other person, they feel it's too complicated to get involved, too complicated to get out, or the relational connection is too slow and they give up.

All of those reasons though, focus on the other person, who we cannot change. God created each of us as unique individuals and we are the only ones who can change. 

Today is a good day to take a relational inventory. Ask yourself if you appear impatient, unavailable or non- accepting. 

If you are, what could you be doing differently to start living with intention and abandon?

What's Yours?

Jean Paul Gaultier Comes to Target: Stores to Undergo Major Facelift - DailyFinance.

So the latest to go under the knife is Target. They're having major work done; including placing implants in the beauty section, rolling out a new shoe department, enhancing the video game department, injecting the home improvement section and bringing in temporary store beauty aids.

 I'm sure the whole thing began in Scottsdale, AZ, home of plastic surgery.

I ask you though, what is your target this year? What are you going to implant, enhance, inject or improve?

Actually this has made me think about what I'm going to do. Today I finished a marathon I had been running in my writing world. Now that I'm coming off the runner's high, I'm getting excited about what's next. I want to be intentional though, about rest and recovery. 

Every journey must build that in, it's critical for facelifts of any kind.

What I Feel

So much thought centers not on feelings, but on choice actions. For example, even when we don't "feel" like it, we are to respect others, love unconditionally,etc. I know if we wait for feelings to always be there, we won't do much.

Today however, I was encouraged by the way I feel. 

The past three months have taught me about things in the medical field. I've learned about lots that I wish I had never heard of. Wry neck, Post Traumatic Memory Loss, Post Concussive Syndrome, the difference between a Neuroradiologist and a Neurologist and that CT stands for computed tomography, not cat. 

So in short, I feel like a Doctor. 

Okay, that's not what I feel like, a nurse maybe, but I digress. Even after not performing the actions that others define as strong, I realize that being strong isn't about what I do, but about how I feel. 

Through the past three months, God has made me feel strong. 

And deeply humbled and grateful.

Christian Meditation

Often we are wary of meditation because of it's association with Eastern religions. Christians will be surprised to find that meditation is viewed as an ancient spiritual discipline. While other meditative practices focus on emptying the mind, Christian meditation concentrates on filling the mind with scripture and the Holy Spirit. 

This book makes it very simple to understand how to be still and know that He is God. 

Thank you to B & B media for giving me this book to review. The opinions expressed here are solely mine.
 

The Mountain Beyond

Thank you to the B&B Media Group for graciously providing me with a review copy of The Mountain Beyond. My favorite thing about this book is how the author speaks of choices. Terry Miller doesn't grapple with the nine different choices we are offered in every situation today, but chooses how he will look at life. By owning his decisions, he is able to heal and inspires the reader with hope for healing as well.

Are You Facing a Mountain of Struggles?

The key to overcoming today’s troubles lies in the past.

 

Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX—Many of us will look back on the current economic crisis as a defining event in our lives.  Our nation faces an uphill climb as we seek to correct many of the mistakes that brought us to this point.  This is not the first major obstacle the American people have sought to overcome, and it won’t be the last.  Now is the time for us to embrace the wisdom of those who remember what it means to pull together as a community with committed faith in God that helps us keep climbing the mountains and obstacles of life as well as experience the victories achieved along the way.

 

In his new book, The Mountain Beyond, author Terry Miller invites readers to join him on a trip back to the America of his childhood in the 1940s and 1950s.  As they are transported to a small town at the foot of a Maryland mountain, readers will partake in the events that shaped not only Miller’s own life but the course of a nation’s history.

 

“Many of us travel to mountaintops in our lives.  What do we face as we make the journey?  The terrain along the paths and trails to the mountain’s top holds many of life’s truths, as sojourners travel to a destination that may not be the one originally planned,” says Miller.  “We have choices with each step we take.  Will we move forward or backward?  We can choose to go on to the top, take a different direction, stop along the way to get refreshed, or simply quit.  The choice is ours.”

 

Though Miller fondly remembers the innocence of the 1940s and 1950s, his own childhood was far from trouble-free.  As the writer honestly and frankly brings out, these times were simpler, perhaps even sweeter, though it still had its challenges and stumbling blocks.

 

Since his parents were basically absent from his life, he was raised by extended family.  It has taken many years for those wounds to heal, and they did but not without leaving scars.  In The Mountain Beyond, he passes on the gems of wisdom he unearthed through the choices and consequences of his youth, as well as the spiritual lessons he has learned along the way.

 

The Mountain Beyond treats readers to a guided tour of some of the most iconic symbols of small town America in days gone by.  Miller revisits the old swimming hole, the soda jerk, the boy scouts, the teenage road trip, and Halloween, 1950s style.  The dual themes of homemade fun and old-fashioned hard work are woven throughout the narrative.  While work ethics were instilled in the youth of his day, there was still time for fun!

 

With so much bad news dominating today’s outlook, The Mountain Beyond provides a refreshing escape to a sweeter time when doors to homes and cars were typically left unlocked.  This book is the ultimate feel-good read, and it is packed with life’s lessons.  

 

In times like these, Miller stresses the importance of perseverance.  “We must keep on climbing any time we encounter a roadblock, obstacle or mountain that stands in the way of achieving our goal. Unless we persevere, we will succumb to the barrier and miss the mark; we risk filling our lives with defeat rather than victory.”

 

One reader observed: “It was comforting to learn that the main character (obviously the author himself) eventually reached the peak of his mountain, where loneliness was turned to contentment and emptiness to fulfillment through Jesus Christ.”

 

 

The Mountain Beyond

 by Terry Miller

Xulon Press

ISBN: 978-1-60791-251-4/218 pages/softcover/$15.99

 

 

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Loving With Abandon

Seventeen years ago today I married the love of my life. If I could write a letter and mail it back to him on our wedding day in 1993, this is how it would read:

Dear Steve,

Don't mean to scare ya, but we are in for one wild ride. After spending the past seven years together, there isn't a better decision we could make in marrying each other today. God has had his hand on us and He'll never let us go as individuals or as the couple that he brought together.

Within the next few months, our "in sickness and in health" vows will be greatly tested. God will choose to save me and our baby and we will go on to have our own basketball team. I highly advise that you stay at the top of your game. 

Continue to be the saver that you are, as I'll develop an affinity for little blue boxes from Tiffany & Co.

Hone your communication and problem solving skills. Don't forget what you learned in your business law classes, you'll draw deeply from that knowledge over the next decade. 

Continue to encourage me to write, it will take precisely 14 years, but I will listen and eventually use the college degree you helped pay for.

Also continue to save for your dream car, I don't want to totally spoil it but 9-1-1 is in your future and it's no emergency.

We will meet fabulous people who will love us and let us down. 

We will passionately love our family and friends, and we will let them down. 

We will try to be perfect, but will often fall short. Be gentle with both of us and stay open to receiving God's grace and forgiveness.

Know that I won't abandon our love, but I will love you with abandon.

Know that I will test your patience mightily. 

There will be ecstatic joy, searing pain and everything in between.

But most of all, know that through it all, I will love you and our sons with everything in me. 

Many, many years from now, I want to go out in a blaze of glory-

Holding your hand.

All my love,

Audra

 

Living with Abandon

  It's a new year, the beginning of a new decade. I was surprised to see Time magazine refer to the last one as "The Decade from Hell." 

Wow. 

Not that a lot of horrific things didn't happen over the last ten years. We've won, laughed, loved, lost, cried, shook our fist at the man, grimaced, frowned and furled. But no matter what has happened, I won't characterize a quarter of my life as the "time from hell."

So the next decade is going to be all about learning and living with abandon. I'm going to be open to the places deep inside that never see light, I'll talk about topics I'd rather avoid and I will continue to break free of cultural definitions of self, others and God.

And that's just for starters.

What have you got?

Christmas Letters

 

There are two types of Christmas letters. One is the four page, single spaced, double sided, depressing, shoot- me- now letter. The other is the one I usually send out. All the accolades I can pack onto one page, highlighting my kid's Student Council Presidency, Honor Society, Ministry involvement, music awards, sports highlights and charity volunteerism. I've heard those make the average reader a little sick. 

But this year I didn't send one out. It would have been the year to do it. Our family collectively suffered a nasty ankle sprain, chronic sinus infections, Croup, Wry Neck, double foot surgery, an appendectomy, a Grade III concussion which rendered our son momentarily blind, disease in both knees, at least 6 ER visits, two hospital stays, and probably a Partridge in a Pear Tree. The list was so unbelievable that I couldn't bring myself to write it. So I thought I would do it differently this year.

It's simple really. God has never been better to us. After every valley, I would have mountain top moments where I needed to "tell it on the mountain." 

Jesus Christ is born and He loves all of us deeply.

 He has brought Peace.

Am I anxious for these trying medical times to be over? Absolutely. I cannot wait for 2010, only because I know the best is yet come.