Why men and women are the way they are

Okay, so throughout my life I have been the therapist to many of my friends especially when it comes to relationships. I gave my friend this theory are to why men never seem to want to commit and why all women want to do is get married. She said I should write it down one day, so, today is that day.

Let’s start with the men since that is how it was in creation…
When God made man the world only consisted of Adam and the animals, no other companions. Adam was made alone, without any other human. That is how Adam was in a sense wired from the beginning.

Now the ladies…
Women were made for the sole purpose of man not to be alone. The first words God breathed over women before their existence was “It is not good for man to be alone… I will make a helper for him.” Just as Eve was made for Adam, women are made for men. Why else do you see five year old little girls playing house or having fake weddings?

Lisa Bevere, a speaker at SHINE 2008, said that men plan wars, women plan weddings…so true. Men had dominion over everything! They are still programmed with that idea even in the fallen world and women were made to support and help the man which we still want. Can I get a shout out from the single women who want to get married before the rapture?

Anyway, just as Adam accepted Eve as his wife, men, when you find your Eve you can break the “fear of commitment” (unless they are like the apostle Paul and stay single their entire life) and just as Eve was made for Adam, women, you were made for a specific someone (unless you are supposed to live like a nun).

Within His Grace,
Christina

Looking out for your peeps

Yep, I said peeps.

Anyway, I was really excited this morning as the team leaders of the internship were going to “kidnap” their team. This past week was a busy one as we all prepared our church to host almost 2,000 women at our SHINE women’s conference, which ROCKED! So, our director, Kassie, wants to do something to bless them and sort of hear about what they took from the weeks events. Here’s how it went down…

We started off our day with the normal routine arriving at the church at 8 AM and having prayer time. As I sat getting into the Word my Bible fell out of my lap and landed in Exodus where Moses was preparing God’s people for battle against the Amalakites. In order to do this, Moses said the day prior that he would keep his arms up high, holding his staff from sunrise to sunset. How many of you know that hold up your arms for 5 minutes is like torture and add the wait of a big stick it is ridiculous.

As you could imagine throughout the day Moses arms were killing him and he was tired of standing. 2 men by the names of Aaron, Moses brother and high priest, and Hur saw the struggle that Moses was having baring this weight and pressure alone. So Aaron and Hur brought a bolder for him to sit on and came under his arms to support him.

What an amazing story about supporting your brother and there are so many more like this one in the Bible to get encouraged from. That was also what we as team leaders were doing for the other interns, getting under them from the busy, hectic week and supporting them with a suprise trip to Starbucks.

To continue, I got all of my team together to a couch in our Annex, an overflow coffee atmosphere in my church, to meet up their so we could “pray” together. As everyone gathered around I started talking about the story from Exodus. Just as I was getting started one of my team members, Lorena, said that it was loud…she has no idea how much she set me up for this…anyway I agreed with her and said to everyone that we are going to go into the lobby. We got their and I said it still didn’t seem right so we headed outside. We then hoped into the suburban and they were so confused. They probably thought that we were ditching. But the look on their faces was worth it.

In the car I asked them to write down their Starbuck drink of choice…then I drove right past Starbucks. The looks again were priceless. Then we arrived to Starbucks and I gave them the Word from Exodus in full. It was an awesome escape; to be able to randomly say “we’re leaving” and being able to support them with a release of routine for a couple of hours.

I want to do it again!!!!!

The Attitude of Leadership

Resently I listened to a message given by Pastor Stovall Weems of Celebration Church about leadership. Being in a program called Celebration Leadership College I know plenty about the subject of being an effective leader, but he gave me a renewed respect and appreciation for my leaders and all the work they do.

In Mark 10:34-35, Jesus explains what some of the things leaders WILL go through…suffering, submitting to authority and serving others. Let me break it down for you:

1. Suffering- How does a leader, the boss, the big-cheese suffer in their corner office? Here’s how. They have the ultimate pressure on their sholders. So, re-examine all of the stress your job may have placed on you, count how many people are on your team and times it by that amount. That is how much they have to deal with.

2. Submitting to authority- They are the boss…who’d they have to submit to? Everyone submits to an authority. CEO’s submit to the board, the borad member submits to other board members, and you should submit to your leader. In order to be an impact in your work place or to better yourself in a better position you need to submit to the authority over you. Now, that does not mean to be a suck-up…submitting is by having a positive, not questioning them when they ask you to do something (unless it is morally wrong)…if they ask just do it. Also, show them the respect they deserve in that position. You can not like someone yet still respect them.

3. Serving others- I’ve often heard from leaders, Christian and non-Christian saying, ” I have more important things to do than help you.” Nothing can be more important than people. Unless you work with a computer and have no, NO, interaction what so ever than you are involved with people in your office or school. Now, don’t be a people-pleaser (pleasing others so that you may recieve a satisfaction from others) but serve with a generous heart and it will bring you a joy.

Serious, I’d suggest listening to this message…if you want to become an impact in your world listen to it. Visit www.celebration.org to listen to the podcast. Thanks and go serve others!

Christina

Time to get personal

Let me tell you a little but about myself and my testimony…

I was raised in the lutheran church. If you do not know anything about the lutheran denomination, it’s like the catholic church. In fact, I often refer to it as “cousin to catholics”. Anyway, my family was just not flourishing in the church and we left when I was about 12 years old. We then became active in another church where I learned that being baptized as a child and going to church every sunday did not mean that I was really connected to God, that it took a personal relationship and accepting the Jesus is the Son of God. So, when I was 13 I became what’d be called “saved”. By the next year, we left the church we were at and began attending Celebration Church. I started actively serving in the Children’s Ministry.

Fast forward about 3 years, I was 17 and just had my liscence for about 3 weeks when the worst happened. I was with a friend of mine driving home from the movie theater when a guy ran a red light while I was clearing the intersection. The car I was driving belonged to my mom, was only 6 months old and the first car my parents had financed in about 10 years. The guilt I had placed upon myself was heavy plus the physical pain was more than I could handle. I had experience soft tissue damage in my entire back, neck, left hip, right knee and my spine also shifted. Yet, the emotional termoil was worse than the physical. I thought that the care was more valuable and more needed than me. I blamed myself whenever I heard that my parents were tight on cash. I couldn’t forgive myself. Furthermore, because of the injuries I had I couldn’t serve in kids. I felt that my accident, my pain was a punishment. I couldn’t understand why God would put me through this and I began to fall away from God, my personal relationship with Jesus. I was still attending church, but my heart became sort of bitter and was not receiving anything that my pastor would speak about.

With all of the pain I was going through I looked to my friends for help. One day a friend of mine told me of how marijuana was a pain reliever and could help me out. At first I said no, but as time ran by I felt more and more worthless and thought that it would have been better if I had died in the car accident. So, when my friend reminded me about marijuana I finally said yes and got caught up in a world of lying to my family, hiding out, smoking pot which also led to drinking heavily and not caring about anything…not even my own life.

After about a year, I was almost caught with a friend of mine while we were smoking pot by her dad who was a cop. Scary!!! Anyway, at that moment God put it in my heart to see that anything I’d hide is not something that I’d want to have in my life. Before the accident, I was a very open person, open with my feelings, my activities, everything. Afterward, I shut everything that was important to me out. So, that was the last joint I smoked. It took a little later to stop with the alcohol because I justified it as, “well, booze is legal and I am just doing it a couple of years before the legal age limit.” But ulimtaely I put the bottle down and I rededicated my life to Jesus and the will of God.

After getting back on the right track with God, getting in depth with His Word, reaffirming my relationship with Jesus and learning to love myself again, I joined the Media ministry at my church and became a leader within 6 months. One year after that, I joined the Celebration Leadership College and my life became changed forever. God revealed to me that I am meant to help build and direct women, especially teenage girls, in making your foundation with Jesus strong so that nothing, NOTHING, can penetrate it. Now, in my second year of the internship, I am a team leader in CLC and within the church.

DO NOT limit God or put Him in a box. He took me from a low point in my life and turned it around making me into something that I would have never dreamt of. If you are in a low point of your life, I want to encourage you to not give up! It may seem like your drug, your pain is winning, but put trust in God and He will direct you out of trouble. He did for me and He can do the same for you. Remember, God loves you and so do I.

Christina       

Fresh off the Field

I was recently fortunate enough to spend 10 days in Africa in the small country of Swaziland. The Kingdom of Swaziland is actually located inside of the country South Africa (yes, South Africa is a country). Anyway, while I was there with a team of 15 people we worked at this carepoint in an area called Logoba in the city of Mbabane. Right now I want to share with you a specific moment that helped me see that no matter what I do I am contributing to something!

It was one of our last days at the carepoint and Kassie (the Director of CLC) and I were on the porch area sitting down surrounded by kids. There was this one little boy, couldn’t be older than two, and he was a little distressed. We both tried to comfort him by picking him up, but he wouldn’t let us hold him without crying even more. At first it was a bit discouraging that we couldn’t help calm him down, but within 10 minutes he was sitting on the ground between Kassie and I, in a corner completely asleep. God then told me that the little boy felt safe enough to fall asleep (which is huge) and it is because of the hard-work that Children’s Cup and its missionaries have performed that has made it safe for him. We couldn’t comfort him, but that carepoint is!

Kassie and I were unable to be a comfort to him physically but by sowing a seed into the carepoint with shoveling hard dirt and getting muddy we indirectly comforted him . The same came be said about you! What on earth am I getting at? Here it is… you may not be able to go to Africa or travel to another country to help others and share God’s love, but by giving to missions you are sowing a seed into places like Logoba carepoint. And there is always prayer. Your prayer can lead to someones miracle! Never underestimate the power of prayer! So, please pray for the missionaries who work day in and day out, Children’s Cup and Healing Place Church Swaziland that give out food and the Word of God, but most importantly the children.

Thank you so much for reading and especially praying.

Within His Grace,

Christina