Seasons of Life Christian Women's Conference

We have this treasure in jars of clay . . . - 2 Corinthians 4:7

Ladies, want to spend a day being pampered? Treated like the special woman you are? Then join us at the Punxsutawney First Church of God on Saturday, Oct. 16 for the Seasons of Life Christian Women's Conference. Speakers for the event, which is an extension of the Southern Christian Women ministry, are Deborah Dunn and Vonda Skelton, both born and bred Southerners. I'll be joining them on the platform to represent us Northern ladies. It's a day when North and South will meet again--this time to celebrate what we have in common: our womanhood and our faith.

Both Deborah, a licensed marriage counselor, and Vonda, a former nurse, are published authors and seasoned speakers. Deborah's books include Stupid about Men: Ten Rules for Getting Romance Right and Trapped in the Magic Mirror: Shattering the Illusions about Romance and Marriage. Vonda's books include Seeing Through the Lies: Unmasking the Myths Women Believe and the Bitsy mystery series for children.

I'll be featuring Deborah and Vonda on the conference blog page, Vonda in August and Deborah in September. But you don't have to wait until then to get to know them. Visit them online at their websites by clicking on their names in the first paragraph above.

Leading the worship songs that day will be John Tibbs, a gifted songwriter who travels around the country leading folks in worship with his energetic anthems and intimate spirit. A graduate of Punxsutawney Area High School,  John is currently finishing his studies at Anderson University, as well as serving as a worship leader at Madison Park Church of God in Anderson, Indiana. John's high school senior project was a CD of his own songs, Music for Kampala, which he produced to raise money for an AIDS clinic in Africa. (He raised over $5,600.) I'll be featuring John on the conference blog, but until then you can visit him online at www.johntibbsmusic.com.

The conference's purpose is two-fold: to minister to the women of the Punxsutawney area and to raise funds for the Punxsutawney Christian School. John, by the way, was a student of mine when I taught at the school.

Visit the conference blog page for more information and to find out where you can get tickets.

Mark your schedule for Saturday, Oct. 16--when North meets South to celebrate what we have in common: our womanhood and our faith.

What seems right . . .

. . . keep oneself from being polluted by the world. – James 1:27 (NIV)

For years I’ve waged a continuing war against hypothyroidism, weight gain, insomnia and fatigue. I’ve spent endless hours researching, especially the thyroid. Last fall I ordered a vitamin-mineral supplement especially formulated to support the thyroid gland. I worked on weight loss, avoiding sugar and white flour. I couldn’t give up my tea, though. I like it sweet—two packets of artificial sweetener per cup, two to three cups a day. Since sucralose was touted to be made from sugar, I figured it was better for me than the other kinds. It was the right thing to do. So I thought.

I did everything I could to get and stay healthy, even buying antibacterial hand soap and dishwashing liquid.

In March, I stopped taking the vitamin-mineral powder. Over-the-counter vitamins especially formulated for women my age (hint: the name includes the word “silver”) were less expensive, although the amount of the vitamins and minerals were different. By the end of June, the fatigue had returned with a vengeance. I blamed it on insomnia and my underachieving thyroid. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to sleep straight through the night,” I repeatedly muttered to myself.

Then one day while shopping, the headlines on the front page of a magazine caught my eye: “Dr. Oz’s Thyroid Cure.” I usually don’t allow myself to be lured by headlines at the checkout, but I was exhausted. And desperate. So I bought it. “Tell me something I don’t know,” I mumbled as I opened to page 36 and started reading. He did.

According to Dr. Oz, triclosan, a chemical used as an antibacterial agent in hand soaps and dish detergents, interferes with thyroid function. How many times a day do I wash my hands with antibacterial soap? And wash dishes with an antibacterial dishwashing liquid? And here I thought I was doing the right thing.

Not one to accept only one source, I got online and researched “triclosan” and found plenty of evidence to support Dr. Oz’s claim. What else interferes with thyroid function? I wondered. I googled “sucralose” + “effects”—and read that people have complained about weight gain, insomnia, brain fog and fatigue. As I read labels, I was surprised at how many products contain sucralose. I was getting a lot more of it than from the packets I stirred in my tea and sprinkled over my cereal.

Using calorieless sweeteners and antibacterial soaps seemed the right thing to do for my health and well-being, but, over time, the negative effects began to manifest themselves. I blamed them on everything but the true sources—which I continued to use.

Isn’t that just like sin? It sneaks into your life looking like something good, promising good things. As it wreaks its havoc, we blame everything else but the true source. “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right,” we say, quoting a popular song. Only when we acknowledge sin as sin can we get back on the road of spiritual health again.
     
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Dear God, open my eyes to the sin in my life. Give me the courage to confess it and the strength to banish it. Amen.

Special-Tea: Genesis 3, James 1:19-27

Dog days

    God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. – Psalm 46:1 (NIV)

Ah, the dog days of summer—the time of the year when hot, muggy weather leaves you sweating, panting, and seeking the coolest spot you can find—and counting your blessings if your home and place of work are air-conditioned.

Since I don’t work outside my home and my house doesn’t have AC, I count my blessings that I live in the country, far from hot pavement and 1,800 feet above sea level (a regional “mountaintop”), and surrounded by trees, which provide shade and coolness. Late afternoon, when the sun comes around and its blistering rays pour through my front windows, I pull down the shades, turn up the fans, and head for the back porch, which faces the wooded hillside; or the hammock, slung between two trees at the edge of the woods; or my son’s swimming pool next door—and sometimes all three.

I even have a “dog days” schedule: Up at 6, daily walk, breakfast and quiet time, then be at my computer by 8. I’ll work until 2, then head for the back porch or the hammock for a couple of hours of reading. I’ve a dozen volumes of both writing books and leisure books. While it may look like I’m not working, I’ll be learning about the craft of writing, analyzing the way other writers write, and when my eyes are closed, thinking about what I’ve read and plotting my next novel. Around five I’ll mosey to the kitchen and fix a quick, light, easy supper, which we’ll enjoy on the back porch. After supper, I’ll stack the dishwasher, then head for the porch again until it’s time to get ready for bed. Lights out at 10 p.m.

That’s how I deal with the dog days of summer.

“Dog days” got its name from the ancient Romans, who believed the hot, muggy weather from July 24 to August 24 was caused by Sirius, the “Dog Star,” the brightest star in the sky. Dog days were believed to be an evil time “when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies,” according Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, (1813). Indeed, my own children experienced mysterious fevers during extended periods of hot, muggy weather. Their fevers, I was told by an experienced mother, was the way their little bodies coped with the heat. I was advised to take them shopping—just walk around an air-conditioned store, dawdling in the frozen food section.

Life, too, has its dog days—times when things beyond your control stifle you and slow you down to a standstill, seeking a refuge. When all your efforts leave you panting and sweating, how do you cope? One way is to take the perspective of Job’s wife, who told the hapless man, “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9).

Or you can adopt the philosophy of David, whose numerous seasons of dog days are painstakingly chronicled in the Old Testament: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).   
     
      Dear God, remind me when the dog days of life come around again, that they are only for a season, and that You are the best way to cope with them. Amen.

     Special-Tea: Psalm 46

How do you cope with the "dog days" of summer? Leave a comment!

Running on "E"

      Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. – Mark 6:31(NIV)

    I ain’t as young as I used to be. Back in the day, I’d clean the entire house—a good cleaning—in two days, and wash all the windows and curtains and drapes in one. And that’s with refereeing three kids, two cats, and one dog on the side. And getting supper and gardening. Nowadays I’m lucky to get one room cleaned a week. If I do anything that requires physical exertion one day, I have to take it easy the next. And there’s just hubby and me.

     Which is why I don’t mind forgoing the social butterfly thing and being a quiet homebody. But the past couple of months have been unusually busy: three trips to Colorado in as many months (I never realized before how traveling can knock the stuffing out of you), a week-long writers conference, then coming home to clean the house and prepare for my daughter’s two-week visit. By the time she pulled up to the house with her two boys, I’d already been running on “E” (exhaustion) for longer than I cared to think about. My body screamed “REST!”

     So for the two weeks she’s home, I’m sleeping in until nine (unless my grandson gets me up), doing only what’s necessary to keep up with my freelance work (which amounts to maybe five hours a week), forgoing planning meals and activities for going with the flow. On Wednesday night, I stayed up until 2 a.m. reading. I haven’t done that in a long time.

    When a friend commented Facebook that she “will attempt to squeeze a lot into one day,” I replied that I “will attempt to squeeze in as little as possible, but include the following: read, spend time in the hammock and in my son’s pool, play games with the grandkids, go to my grandson’s minor league all star baseball championship game, and read until 2 a.m. again.” It’s a good thing I knew what I was going to write about and had this column outlined already, because as soon as I send it off, I’m going to join the grandkids in the pool.

    Fun. Idleness. Rest. Quiet. Nothing wrong with those. When God created us, he didn’t make us Energizer Bunnies. He fashioned human beings with bodies and minds and spirits that need rest. And to make sure we got the message, He included a day of rest a week in the Big Ten and mentioned the importance of rest several places in His Word. When Elijah, exhausted from the intense battle he’d just waged and won, fled to the desert, God gave him the rest he needed (1 Kings 19). And who can forget the words of David the shepherd: “He makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul” (Psalm 23:2-3).

    Feeling like you’re running on “E”? Carve out time for rest. Find those green pastures and still waters. Sit on the beach and watch the waves. Or on the back porch and watch the leaves. Or lie on your back in the grass and gaze at the clouds floating across the sky.

    Rest isn’t a sin. It’s a necessity.
   
    Dear God, teach me to rest. Amen.

      Special-Tea: Read Mark 6:30-32

For love of the game

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD.  – Psalm 33:12 (NIV)
   
I thought we were done. With baseball, that is.
    
After our son David played his final college game two years ago, I turned to the Pirates to get my baseball fix, watching the games on TV when they were televised and listening to the radio broadcasts when they weren’t. That first spring after David graduated was rough—no trips to plan and prepare for, no game schedule to work my life around. I tried to ignore the signs of withdrawal, telling myself that life moves on.

I was doing pretty well, I thought—until our oldest grandson got picked for this year’s Little League Minor League All-Star team. As I sat in the bleachers in Ridgway on Thursday watching the teams warm up, the memories came rushing back—picnics in town parks between games, long drives to out-of-the-way baseball fields, concession stand suppers, brackets, hot sun, hard bleachers, porta-potties (some with no toilet paper), my husband’s mutterings as he watched David pitch, the excitement, the hype, the thrill, the fun.

In a scene in the 1999 movie For Love of the Game, fictional owner Gary Wheeler of the Detroit Tigers tells star pitcher Billy Chapel he’s selling the team—too many complications have crept in. “I just can’t take it anymore,” he says. “The game stinks.”

“The game doesn’t stink, Mr. Wheeler,” Billy responds. “It’s a great game.”

Later on in the movie, when Billy’s pitching hand is bleeding profusely from a table saw accident and he’s lying unattended in the ER, his girlfriend screams in frustration, “Is this not America? Is baseball not America’s favorite pastime?”

Those two scenes resonate with me—baseball is a great game. And baseball so reflects what America—and life—is all about: hard work, striving to achieve a dream, having fun.

Across America you’ll find a baseball diamond in nearly every community, the sounds of bat hitting ball or glove resonating through the summer night, the roar of the crowd when the ball goes soaring, the aroma of hot dogs, greaseburgers, french fries, and chicken fingers teasing appetites all around. Go to a professional or amateur stadium, and you’ll take in not only nine innings of anything from disappointment to exhilaration, but also pierogy races (I always cheer for the one carrying the purse) and the mascot’s antics. You’ll leap for T-shirts flung into the crowd and scramble for foul balls. You’ll stand for the National Anthem performed before each game and, at Little League games, listen to the Little League Pledge:

“I trust in God. I love my country and will respect its laws. I will play fair and strive to win. But win or lose, I will always do my best.”

God, country, honor, doing one’s best—maybe the pledge is one reason I love baseball so much—it’s a pretty good code to live by.
         
Dear God, thank you for baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and everything that is America. Thank you for my country. Amen.
     

   Special-Tea: Read Psalm 1