Come rejoice with me!

The Lord is very careful to show me just what I can and cannot share. He has told me time and again not to share some of my circumstances until the right time--when there would be a testimony to encourage and build up the faith of others.

That time of fruition is now.

My dear husband worked as the administrator of a denomination in a regional office covering 7 states for over 10 years. When the regional superintendent stepped down, he also stepped down. That was over 22 months ago.

Except for a few hours a month volunteering for a church plant, he has been unemployed all this time. He has applied to thousands of jobs--literally--with only a handful of interviews. He has a very unique background and training and needed a very special job.

So we have spent the last 2 years living on faith. We didn't even receive any unemployment insurance. At first we had 6 months worth of savings, but that didn't last the whole time. God would tell my husband just what to do each month--how to juggle, rearrange, etc. I could go through a long list of miracles--but it would take volumes. Let's just say that the amount of income we had minus the amount of bills we had leaves an equation whose numbers do not fit into the laws of mathematics!

It was God's divine providence that we have had this time. We learned so many things--I especially learned so much. We grew together as a couple and as a family--and our dependence on Him for our daily bread was so pronounced. Save maybe a handful of days, God's peace kept us through it all.

As a wife I grew by leaps and bounds. At first it was difficult for me to have my husband home all day--I didn't realize how territorial and independent I really was! But God was so gracious to burn that all out of me. I have found myself loving all of the precious time we have had together, and so much more relaxed and trusting about so many of the silly things I used to be concerned with.

This past month was the hardest--the Brook Cherith was drying up, and we had run out of things to do. We felt abandoned at times, tempted to fear for our future and the future of our children. We were just a breath away from losing everything--our house, our cars. I wish I could say I sailed through with flying colors--but I felt spent, like a woman lifting her hands in surrender, with the wind blowing through the holes throughout her body.

It was God's crucible, and, even though it was excruciatingly painful, I embraced it--I loved what He was doing. It was a time when I had a chance to trust Him without seeing, when I was totally blind and unable to make a move to help myself, even without the ability to see through the eyes of faith.

Then it happened--after so many months without so much as an interview, God brought the perfect job right into my husband's lap. The organization he will be working for has James 1:27 in it's charter--to care for the orphan and the widow. He will be part of a group that goes around the world helping the poor and needy, but in sustainable ways, helping indigenous peoples to help themselves! How wonderful is that?

But besides this, he will not be paid the typical low wages of a non-profit. This group is supported by a for-profit business, so his salary will concur with the for-profit market, meaning he will be making $14,000 more a year than the job he left--hallelujah!

It was during this time of gross under-employment I became pregnant with our 15th child. Some would have chided us for being so foolish. But we trusted, and just 2 months before she is due to make her entrance, her home is secure.

So I have the next few months to prepare for our new baby, and to readjust to a life without Daddy--I know I will be pining away for him, as will our children, especially the little ones. Our youngest have never known what it is like to have Daddy gone during the day, since he had been working from home since 2005.

We used to think we were serving God; we used to think we trusted. But we know now we had only been scratching the surface. We have grown in sanctity and faith. We have been changed and molded and humbled. We never want to go back.

If you have been under siege with the news of the economy, etc. and you are still trusting God--His economy is not of this world. He can make a way when there is no way--streams in the desert.

Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. Psalm 127

Worth it all

Can I brag on God a little bit?

Tragedy is never welcome, but if we trust in God, He can use it to bring things to the surface that turn into great blessings.

Our Anna, 5th child and 4th daughter, recently developed epileptic seizures. They began with massive migraines, then progressed to bouts of falling down and blacking out for periods of time. She was scared and confused.

She has been rooming in a condo not more than 3 miles from us with her older brother and sister. Her seizures have made it impossible for her to work, drive and carry on life without someone to assist her and watch her.

Her older brother and sister stepped in to help. Grace quit her job so she could watch Anna, take her to appointments, etc. David does not require anything of his sisters, and is perfectly fine taking care of both of them through this situation.

Daddy and I spent a few hours at their house yesterday. We brought the 4 youngest little girls with us. They were offered toys and refreshments while we sat around and listened to the latest musical endeavors of Grace and David--recordings and songs they've written together. Anna lounged comfortably, singing and looking relaxed and loved. Since it was Saturday and David was home, they had all been for a walk and were planning some other things together that day.

I was sitting there taking it all in, while another little person squirmed in my belly, just a few short weeks from making her entrance into the world. This past week I have been struggling with the usual; heartburn, restless leg syndrome, insomnia, etc., just as I had with all three of these. And I thought about all of the years, of the illnesses and correction and angst about how they would grow up and if they would follow God.

I looked over at Daddy and our eyes met--we were both beaming with joy.

How great our God is that He should have blessed us so much! We are undeserving, not always what we should be, often making mistakes. But God took all that we could give, which was worse than worthless, and has turned it into wonderful!

Anna has decided that God wanted to show her how helpless she was, and that when she is weak, He is strong. So there is a confidence and peace about her that radiates. On a recent visit to our local clinic where she has been seen, all of the staff remarked at how they all love her, how beautiful she is, etc. The love of God exudes from her--how precious!

As our children grow and leave, we are seeing them change--they make mistakes and work through their own insecurities and selfishness. But more and more we see a great transformation--they are making God their own, living for Him in the context of their own lives.

It is a marvelous thing to behold, and a privilege to have taken part.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28

Nerds, geeks and squares make for good company

It is amazing what passes for education today.

A relative of mine was celebrating her recent graduation, as a very popular girl with honors. While discussing an upcoming Fourth of July celebration, we were remarking how courageous our forefathers must have been to sign such a seditious document. She had no idea what we were talking about. When we told her the Fourth was dedicated to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, she was incredulous. When questioned as to what she thought the holiday was for she replied, "I thought it was to celebrate fireworks."

I once gave a ride to some relatives who were living on the edges of the drug culture. While we were riding along I played some classical music on the radio. You would have thought I had committed murder, the complaints were so demonstrative, and the accusations so sharp.

One of my daughters sat reading Shakespeare, Jane Austen and other true classics on her break at her first job. One of her coworkers remarked, "You mean you read books?"

Being ignorant and uneducated is all the rage. You cannot study or enjoy any pursuit other than shopping or entertainment or sports without feeling the sanction of others. If you paint or spend hours studying about war ships or conquering a musical instrument you are ostracized and put in a category where you can be examined and minimized like an insect specimen in a bottle.

And you are not allowed to be both active and capable in many things; you must stick to your category. People don't like it when someone is good in many areas--it makes them feel inferior in some way.

But the great men and women of the past never experienced such worries. Pursuing excellence in every area was to be expected, and the people we remember fondly in our history were accomplished in a broad spectrum of trades and pastimes.

I'm sad to say that people such as Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would have been thought too strange for public office. Franklin, besides being a writer and publisher, was known in Europe for being a scientist of electricity! Jefferson spent a lot of time experimenting with the tomato, then thought to be poisonous, and creating all sorts of delicious recipes in an attempt to convince others of its usefulness (and most of us thought tomato sauce came from Italy!). George Washington was not only a gifted general and statesman, but a farmer and a self-taught surveyor.

Explorers of the past, the ones who lived off of the land and dealt with the natives, were also great writers and artists--just take a peak into the logs and diaries of their adventures.

It is both a malady and a tragedy that we have been reduced to such low expectations. It will be our demise and the means to allow our new age to usher in the detestable ruler over the nations--the antichrist himself.

I love C.S. Lewis' explanation of the phenomenon, found here in his novel, The Screwtape Letters:

Democracy is the word with which you must lead them by the nose. The good work which our philological experts have already done in the corruption of human language makes it unnecessary to warn you that they should never be allowed to give this word a clear and definable meaning. They won't. It will never occur to them that democracy is properly the name of a political system, even a system of voting, and that this has only the most remote and tenuous connection with what you are trying to sell them. Nor of course must they ever be allowed to raise Aristotle's question: whether "democratic behaviour" means the behaviour that democracies like or the behaviour that will preserve a democracy. For if they did, it could hardly fail to occur to them that these need not be the same.

You are to use the word purely as an incantation; if you like, purely for its selling power. It is a name they venerate. And of course it is connected with the political ideal that men should be equally treated. You then make a stealthy transition in their minds from this political ideal to a factual belief that all men are equal. Especially the man you are working on. As a result you can use the word democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of human feelings. You can get him to practice, not only without shame but with a positive glow of self-approval, conduct which, if undefended by the magic word, would be universally derided.
...
Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level. But that is not all. Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to a full humanity, actually draw back from fear of being undemocratic.
...
What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how “democracy” (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practice, in a sense, “democracy.” But now “democracy” can do the same work without any tyranny other than her own. No one need now go through the field with a cane. The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones. The big ones are beginning to bite off their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.
....
Of course, this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will. That is part of the same movement. Penal taxes, designed for that purpose, are liquidating the Middle Class, the class who were prepared to save and spend and make sacrifices in order to have their children privately educated. The removal of this class, besides linking up with the abolition of education, is, fortunately, an inevitable effect of the spirit that says I’m as good as you. This was, after all, the social group which gave to the humans the overwhelming majority of their scientists, physicians, philosophers, theologians, poets, artists, composers, architects, jurists, and administrators. If ever there were a bunch of stalks that needed their tops knocked off, it was surely they. As an English politician remarked not long ago, “A democracy does not want great men.”

It would be idle to ask of such a creature whether by want it meant “need” or “like.” But you had better be clear. For here Aristotle’s question comes up again.

We, in Hell, would welcome the disappearance of democracy in the strict sense of that word, the political arrangement so called. Like all forms of government, it often works to our advantage, but on the whole less often than other forms. And what we must realize is that “democracy” in the diabolical sense (I’m as good as you, Being Like Folks, Togetherness) is the fittest instrument we could possibly have for extirpating political democracies from the face of the earth.

For “democracy” or the “democratic spirit” (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and quick to snarl or whimper at the first sign of criticism. And that is what Hell wishes every democratic people to be. For when such a nation meets in conflict a nation where children have been made to work at school, where talent is placed in high posts, and where the ignorant mass are allowed no say at all in public affairs, only one result is possible.

(By the way, our country was not founded as a "democracy", but a republic--a vast difference)

FATHER GOD, not "mother earth"

The earth is the LORD's,
and the fulness thereof;
the world, and they that dwell therein.
Psalm 24:1

It shouldn't be, "Love your mother", but "Obey Your Father!"

Why I love homeschooling

I love homeschooling--and for that I make no apologies.

Before I homeschooled my children, I was quite uneducated. I didn't know anything about history, or geography, or math. I didn't know how to be a friend, or a mother, or a wife, or even a Christian.

I thought I knew everything--I did quite well in school. My SAT scores were sky-high. I had traveled, I had experienced many things. I was "worldly wise", but I was not Godly-wise.

I didn't know it, but when I chose to teach my children at home, I took on much more than their education. What began with some workbooks and frustration blossomed into a lifestyle, and a rediscovery of what family life, life itself, should be.

It took a transition. At first I thought it was all about throwing some Bible verses in and giving my children an advantage. Lots of people I know start out this same way--it is to be expected of a generation filled with all sorts of disinformation about life and learning.

But very soon I began to become suspicious. My comfortable ideas about how the world worked and about my place in it became challenged more and more by the things I read and witnessed in my own children.

For instance, I was always lead to believe that every child should be taught to read in a certain pattern, at a certain time. When my first "pupil" refused to live up to the expectations of myself and others, I had to search for answers, and in the searching I found more than I ever knew I needed.

Over the years I have discovered that Christianity was never meant to dwell in neat little compartments--such as Sunday mornings and a few moments crammed between pop tarts and the drive to work. I found that God's Word was powerful to teach me things, things that had been drowned out by propaganda passing for news, loud music, fantastic television and the emotional appeals of movies at the theater.

In high school I was taught by a "scholar" who flattered a whole class of us into believing we were too smart for our own good. The course he taught was great for my writing skills--I learned the art of essay writing backwards and forwards--but everything else about it was full of beans. We were supposedly reading and writing about the "classics"--but they were only classics in the fact they had been published 15 or more years earlier, and that they were "politically correct" and meant to cause us to question our core beliefs. Among the tomes we were required to read were Siddhartha--a novel about "spiritual enlightenment" at the time of Buddha, and lots of Hemingway. I was a convinced Christian at the time, and I could barely read through so many pages of endless, despairing, meaninglessness. If these were the "classics", I wanted no part. My heart and mind was so thirsty for knowledge, but I had begun to believe that knowledge and Christianity were at odds--a sad fallacy that keeps many of us from living full lives.

Through homeschooling I have discovered, along with other homeschoolers, a richness of literature, science, and history never afforded to us through our former education. My children have a view of the world through the understanding of God's omnipotent, loving care and plan. They know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God has been active in the affairs of man, and that His active role did not end with the garden, or even with the Epistles, but His will is being enacted today in the affairs of mankind.

And they know that Jesus must be Lord--not only of the macros of life, but of the micros. The way we speak to each other, the roles we assume, how we handle our financial affairs, all must bow to the supremacy of scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Contrary to all the current wisdom, we have not been dropped into modern history without any underpinnings whatsoever; we have the witness and examples of multiple pilgrims that have gone on before, who were not only clergy, but magistrates and scientists and explorers.

I once watched Richard Dawkins, staunch atheist apologist, give some reasons for his vehement lack of belief. He was standing before the majestic Rocky Mountains, surrounded by a grove of quaking aspens, their leaves shimmering like polished gold in the fall sunshine. He was saying there was no evidence of a Creator--and I wanted to laugh out loud. The fact he could speak with his vocal chords or see the surrounding beauty with his eyes screamed to me irrefutably of the Master. Fellow homeschoolers such as Ken Ham have reclaimed scientific reasoning from the delusion of unbelievers and put it in its rightful place--pointing us to the marvelous mind of God. Every plant, every cloud is now replete with the knowledge of the Holy.

Through the reprints of books formerly abandoned in favor of "modern" thought, we have rediscovered a way of thinking predating Darwin and the existentialism begun in the 1800's. Our hearts have become settled, and our minds fed a feast, by looking at history, politics, and purpose through the practical application of scripture.

There are huge organizations preoccupied with the demise of homeschooling, and it is no mystery as to why. People who question, think, examine and evaluate on their own are dangerous. They were dangerous to King George in the 1700's, and they are dangerous to the global Utopians who actually believe in a hope for mankind apart from God.

Of course one does not have to homeschool in order to means, and although you won't hear about it on the local nightly news broadcast, homeschoolers are challenging, changing and bringing the benefits of what they are learning to every strata of society.

Comment moderation

Everyone seems to have an opinion, including myself. There are times when these outside opinions can seem overwhelming.

We are brought up to care about what others think; we care too much about what everyone else thinks about what sort of clothes we wear, where we live, what sort of car we drive.

How many times have I read or heard from others how they have made decisions based on whether or not it would seem "weird"--weird to whom? Weird to themselves, weird to God, or weird according to popular understanding?

A woman can't stay at home--whether or not she is married or has children--because, well, just because. We send our children to school out of fear--not so much the fear that our children may be harmed by staying home, but out of fear of how others might view us. We stick to having 2 children for all the "right" reasons--because it is hard, or because of our "health"--but mostly because we know what sort of a stir stepping out of the norm would create.

And we all have witnessed what happens to those brave souls who dare to be different. The sound of the wagging tongues is like the buzzing of flies around a picnic. People come offering all sorts of advice and warning. They share exaggerated anecdotes filled with gloom and failure. And they sit in groups and wait for the other shoe to drop so they can feel justified they behaved themselves and stuck to convention.

The story is old.

I love Jesus because He wasn't against convention, He was just for God. He didn't take stands just to stir things up, but He went against popular understanding out of obedience, because God's ways are higher than our own.

There were all sorts of people bucking the "system" in the 60's and 70's. They refused to cut their hair, lived in groups in log cabins without running water, and drove around in brightly-painted VW vans. Their whole existence was about being contrary, not about living a radical life out of the desire to be obedient to the transcendency of the Creator. And now these folks are running our country--destroying it from the perspective that anything simply "different" must be better.

Both camps, the conformist and the non-conformist, must surround themselves with other's voices in order to feel secure in their lifestyles. They fill magazines with baseless assertions and rally support for their causes with speeches full of empty but emotional appeal. Instead of evaluating one's ideals with the "facts", they validate their arguments with the unfounded and fallacious arguments of others.

And no one questions or thinks, because we have been trained to rely on others to do our thinking for us. Much like buying a chicken already roasted and ready to serve, we want our opinions served up for us, rubber-stamped by the "experts" who only need a few sanctioned initials before or after their names to be accepted without further query.

But the life lived for God, following in the steps of Jesus, is often a solitary one. Although we are afforded examples and brief companions, our hope and our direction does not come from such as these. There is a brotherhood, but not the one dreamed up by modern utopians. It is the brotherhood of many individuals walking on the same road--the narrow road. It is as A.W. Tozer describes; a number of pianos playing different tunes, but in perfect harmony as they each follow the music of the Maker.

And this is where we must be careful. We need each other, for encouragement and counsel and correction, but the input of others can never supercede the leading of the Holy Spirit through the firm foundation of God's Word.

Nothing of any significance has ever been done out of safety. Frontiers were not conquered by the ones who stayed home. Even though the way was frought with danger--Indians who attacked and disease that killed--we are all benefactors of the courage of the pioneers.

Let's accept the challenge to follow God, holding nothing back, not even our own need for acceptability.

Joshua and Caleb stood when everyone else was blubbering in their tents...

...the blubbering died in the desert, but Joshua and Caleb inherited the promise.

The great deception, part 2

Have you been touched or influenced by Jezebel?

She lives in the lives of many women we know, and some we have come to admire. She coaches and prods and bullies. She seduces and proselytizes. She sits in church pews and preaches from pulpits. She demoralizes and humiliates and intimidates.

We have become so comfortable with her in our society that we hardly recognize her when she is operating. We think it's normal for us to act as she did, and abnormal not to. We teach our children to follow her blindly and mimic her modus operandi as we have witnessed it in action for at least 2 generations past (she's always been around--but we haven't totally embraced her until these latter years).

Her ways are subtle--so subtle that women, and men, who actually love God and want to serve Him can become ensnared. The Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things, and who can know it?

It is so easy to drop one's jaw and point one's fingers at others, but we don't have control over them--we do have responsibility for ourselves.

The question is, are we operating as Jezebel did, or as Sarah did. How do we know?

• Jezebel loved glory and recognition. She used others to make herself happy. She worshiped herself--isn't there a magazine by that name?

• Jezebel was a man-hater, and enjoyed making the men in her life look very small. She hated authority, was extremely arrogant and a know-it-all.

• She was religious, and encouraged others to be also, all the while being an instrument of the enemy to bring others down, especially the extremely Godly.

• She was jealous and controlling--protecting herself even with the innocent and conniving to get her own way.

Some of us have been totally taken in by Jezzie and we are not aware of it. Others of us have simply been conditioned to act and react as she did because we have become culturally and familially accustomed to it. Either way, her patterns are destructive. They destroy men, women and children--if you've ever been a victim, you know all too well. They destroy churches. They destroy nations.

If we are serious about serving Christ and seeing His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, we need to eradicate any hint of her influences in our lives. This may take some soul-searching, and it may take some repenting before God.

I offer here some questions to get us started:

• Do I find myself in a pattern of wallowing in self-pity, coveting how others are treated or what they have, etc.?

• Have I ever found myself using emotional outbursts or threats to get my own way?

• Have I ever found myself quietly conniving and being sneaky to manipulate others so that I will be more comfortable in any way--even if the outcome may be good for the individual--doing it for "their own good"?

• Do I react immediately to any criticism whatsoever? Do I defend myself vehemently, whether I am wrong or not?

• Do I have a hard time admitting I am wrong?

• Do I sometimes believe I am wiser and smarter than the men in my life? Do I enjoy making them look small and insignificant, undermining their authority with others, including my children?

• Do I discourage others from becoming too righteous, encouraging them to "lighten up" and not take their relationship with God so seriously--mostly because they are convicting me and making me look bad?

• When I come across and individual, especially a woman, who is filled with the Holy Spirit and lives a submitted life, am I tempted to hate her or at least belittle her to excuse my own lack of submission?

• Do I encourage others in self-worship and sensuality? Do I accuse others of being "prudish" when they become convicted of dress or behaviors that are sensual in nature?

• Do I humiliate others in order to entrap them to do my bidding--wielding guilt and shame like a weapon?

• Am I happy when others close to me find a blessed relationship with Christ, or am I threatened this relationship will negatively affect me?

• Am I consumed with thoughts of how everything and everyone else affects me--to the point of obsession?

• Do I consider myself more holy or more spiritually gifted than others? Are even my prayers arrogant towards God--do I pray out of a love-relationship, or a religious duty, even for hours at a time, that will make me more "righteous"?

• Do I help others from a need to be "needed"--looking for recognition, even at the sake of the recipient's dignity--enjoying their dependency upon me without pointing them to God and His sufficiency for their lives?

• Do I meddle in affairs that do not directly concern me, instead of trusting them to God?

• Do I love gathering with others and emersing myself in the recalling of past, or present, hurts and bitternesses?

• Do I accuse others of being evil or doing evil things I excuse in myself?

• Do I curse others--foretelling gloom for them for not pleasing me or following me?

• Am I thankful? Am I able to express genuine thanks and appreciation to others, including God?

• Do I trust God to work things out for my good, or am I filled with unreasonable, imagined and exaggerated fears and anxiety?

If we honestly ask ourselves the above questions, we may be surprised at what we find. It is amazing how we can let things slip by.

But we can't change ourselves--that's just as dangerous a proposition.

We need help. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to help us break free.

For many of us, it will mean confession--to those we have hurt, to those to whom we can be accountable.

And we will need prayer from other believers--much more power when two or more are gathered to put the enemy to flight.

We also need to replace the old patterns with new ones--such as meditating on God's Word, practicing praise and thankfulness, even for the hard or unpleasant things.

Yes, Jezebel has great power--especially in our age--but God is not afraid of her, and neither should we be. We must clothe ourselves with humility--grasping the cloak of the blood of Jesus to cover our many sins, and claiming its power.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4:7

The great deception, part 1

She was educated. She came from an influential family. She was intelligent, and she knew how to get the job done--people didn't mess with her!

Her husband was not a bad guy--definitely not opposed to anything she proposed. He was laid-back, pretty much supported her every decision and career opportunity. In fact, he counted on her to take charge when he was in a pinch, and she loved taking up the opportunity to wield power and influence through domination, intimidation and manipulation.

This is not a description of a former presidential couple. This description is one of a demonic duo whose story is covered in 1st and 2nd Kings. It is appropriate for us today because it is descriptive of the modern marriage--one of super-charged women and ineffectual men.

Their names don't need to be protected, because neither of them were ever innocent; we know them as Jezebel and Ahab.

Jezebel's daddy was a pretty prominent guy. He was the high priest of Baal, that notorious god of obsessive sensuality, who knocked off the king of Tyre so he could take the throne. He raised Jezzie to become a good pagan, totally dedicated to the furthering of her religion. These days she would have her own lobbyist group, and we would be including her at Whitehouse prayer breakfasts. The ACLU would even cry murder if anyone suggested her Ashtorah shrines didn't warrant "equal access" on government facilities.

Ahab was a wimpy slob of a guy--for Bible times at least. Nothing like a Samson or David or even a Gideon. When the Assyrians threatened to take away all he owned, including his wives and children, it seemed just fine with him. And even when God was forced, for the sake of His name, to save the apostate Israel from the Assyrians, Ahab let the king of this pagan mob off scott-free--he was so P.C., so affable and spineless. He didn't mind that Jezebel killed off all of the priests of God, and he looked the other way whenever she lied and killed so he could have a little scrap of land he wanted. I get the impression he rather liked a ruthless woman working things out for him.

Jezebel was so ruthless, in fact, that she was able to intimidate one of God's greatest prophets ever into hiding and wishing he could die--now that's power! Elijah, the prophet in question, was the only one willing to confront Baal worship. With God's help, he totally made buffoons of the clowns who claimed to be priests of Baal, and God's power fell so mightily and demonstratively that it is one of the most hillarious and entertaining accounts of God's glory among men in the entire Bible.

But even after God's great show of power, Elijah ran to the hills. He sat under a tree, totally defeated and despairing after Jezebel promised to kill him. It seemed as though Jezzie would have the final word, but God had different plans.

And here we find Jehu--a vigorous, wild man, much like my dad and my husband. He had plenty of spine--more than enough to face down some silly, painted face with a nasty disposition. Her accusations, threats and attempts at seduction didn't phase him, didn't even cause him to notice her. He simply called for the emmasculated males whom she had enslaved to throw her down to be trampled under the feet of horses. Then, without a second thought, he went inside to quench his thirst with the boys. No ceremony, no mourning, no regret.

When asked if he was for peace, Jehu put things in perspective. He replied, "What have you to do with peace?" People of this day want peace--but they miss what true peace is. Peace is not the cessation of war, peace is concord with the Creator.

God's Word is not politically correct. If you read it closely, you will not find a flower-boy named Jesus, but you will find a mighty, righteous warrior explicitly submitted to the will of God. He was tender-hearted, and merciful, but His hands were as rough as His words. So many people have painted Him as a man of "peace"--but they have not read the entire story. Jesus came into the world to save it, but will return to judge it, with a sword and a blood-dipped robe. He Himself said He did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

I don't like Jezebel. I don't care that she was efficient or dedicated. She was evil. And I don't like Ahab--no matter how "agreeable" he was to his wife. They were both evil. Together they caused the whole nation of Israel to whore and fall away from God into detestable forms of idolatry.

And I don't like that the roles of men and women have been perverted and twisted into the examples of these two horrid examples. I'm tired of the images I have been fed from childhood--the briefcase-bearing, suit wearing successful woman, and the man who is satisfied with his televised sports and a few brewskis, no gumption required.

Even the church has been taken over. Just read this quote:

These are the two things I want you, please, to remember - abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.

This was taken from a sermon delivered by Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, dean of the Episcopal Divinity School. Admittedly, this is a very liberal school of theology, but I have been in a meeting of so-called Bible-believing pastors from all over the country in which a woman shared her embittered heart at not being "valued" as a true minister, and witnessed the other pastors put their arms around her with great care and "affirmation"--I wanted to throw up.

I know what it's like to have to link arms with pastor's wives who encourage members of their congregations to treat their husbands like so much white noise, or who brag they never set foot in their own kitchens because it is beneath them, then browbeat their own husbands to defend this awful position against other more Biblically-minded members.

But I want to be like Sarah--the Apostle Peter told me she should be my example, not Jezebel. Sarah trusted God, and she trusted God through her husband--silly as he was sometimes--and she adored him and gave him huge amounts of affection and even called him lord --now I know how awful that sounds to feminist ears--but it is music to God's ears. Sarah became mother to Isaac, grandmother to Jacob, and thus matriarch to the nation that would bring Jesus into the earth.

All of Jezebel's children were erradicated. Her body was eaten by the dogs--then scattered as dog-excrement all over the ground.

Jim Elliot once said something very wise:

He is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

I think I'll stay on God's side--looking the fool but being the wise.

Missionary work

I thought I would like to lend balance to my last post.

I love the Body of Christ. I love to read testimonies of how God is working and has worked through people all over the world throughout time.

I know Jesus Christ is the only answer, that there is no other. And I love to see Christians gather to love Him together.

It is so true that we are given a great responsibility to be His witnesses, to tell others so they, too, may know this wonder, this "secret" that is the ingredient to life and joy through a restored relationship with God.

I do become disheartened, however, when we become so "outwardly focused" we lose sight of the power of the Gospel as it is expressed in the wholeness of our lives. I wish to encourage those of us who will never preach in India that this power is available to us daily--even as we nurse a dying relative or nurture a hyperactive child.

We have God's Comforter, His Holy Spirit to come along-side and help us through each situation. I actually believe that we can lay hands, pray and see miracles happen right before our eyes!

I speak here to my sisters who are called to stay at home. I speak here telling you that the stories you hear about missionaries who had angels to help them, who cast out evil spirits, etc. are also meant for you in your everyday existence.

This world is so evil, and the devil hates us so much, that he attacks us in small ways daily--trying to wear us out. We at home have been made to think that God's powerful promises are only for those "out there", doing the work of the Lord. But we are are also doing that work!

We may not be called to fight the huge battles, and I pray for those who are, but our small battles can have great consequences, especially when we consider our children are to grow up and be influences in the next generation.

Therefore I am encouraging all of us who are at home, called to be Titus 2 and Proverbs 31 women, not to live life unaware of the battles going on in our own domain.

We need to be courageous, as God admonished Joshua, and claim our homes for Christ. We need to be full of praise, and we need to exercise our spiritual ears so we are aware of the subtle attacks of the enemy against our families.

And we need to appropriate the powerful tools God has given us for warfare. We need to be instant in prayer, we need to be in the Word, we need to be filled with His wisdom. We need to be humble and thankful in all situations, and sometimes we need to tell the devil, "That's enough of that!" and face him in the power of Jesus and tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he will not have our children or our family.

And our husbands need praying, warring women who will stand in the gap for them and pray the Word over them and believe in faith that God is taking care of us through them.

These are not small tasks. These things are bigger than we are. But too many generations have gone by without women who are fighters--battling with their hearts connected to heaven and their hands in the dishwater.

I believe we as women have a lot to answer for concerning the great slide into darkness our nation has been experiencing, but we also have great power, if we will rise to the occasion.