What if all we had was Skin Deep?

I flipped through channels the other day, landing on this inane show about who looked good in swimsuits and who did not.

They profiled an older lady who wore a bikini. When they showed a shot of her backside, the trendy hosts went OFF on her. Words like, "She better hide all that flubber." or "She has no right to be in public like that."

While I understand the importance of covering ourselves modestly (of course), it was the banter of these airbrushed people that horrified me. The woman's worth had everything to do with how she looked. And since she had cellulite, she was not worthy.

I flipped away.

But then all those words flooded through me.

I have flab. I have cellulite where there didn't use to be any. I'm not the same Mary I was at 20. I went down the woe-is-me, how-ugly-I-am trail for a few minutes before I told myself to stop. Then the question came to me: What if all we had was skin deep?

I knew a woman once who lived only for how she looked (and she was in ministry). As she aged and changed, I noticed fear and worry melt into her. She would not always be beautiful on the outside. As her "beauty" slipped away, panic set in.

I've had moments like those.

Sometimes I worry that I'll be disfigured in an awful accident as penance for worrying about how I look. I'm crazy that way. But when I settle myself and pray, I realize this central truth: My beauty is what's inside.

And my goal is not to race to prevent aging. Or wallow in pity as my body shifts. Or worry about how long I can wear certain swimsuits. My goal is to allow Jesus to beautify my soul, my heart, my inner life. No one, not even age, can rob me of that. And it's a beauty that can only grow, by God's grace.

I thank God this is not all there is. Because of the laws of entropy, everyone will get old and die. Things will sag. But our souls will live forever. Why not work on the beauty of the soul, hoping to live for that which is deeper than the skin?

Saturday Prayer: Everything

Lord, help me to stay in the moment today, to find a grateful heart, to rejoice in everything. I need Your heart, Your perspective, Your voice every day I walk this earth. Teach me to be compassionate, open, free. Live through me. Love through me.

I'm weary, worn out, and needy. But Your word says that in my weakness You are strong. So please be my strength today. Be my everything.

Today's Prayer: Heat

Lord, I did a silly thing biking in the heat, pushing myself, not drinking water, and now my body and brain are rebelling against me. Please help me rest today, to heal, to find comfort in not doing anything. For a doer like me, that's hard. But I know You are the God of the Sabbath, so I submit myself to rest. Amen.

Thursday Prayer: Life

Lord, as I go on my bike ride today, I thank You that I have legs to bike, arms to hold the handlebars, and breath in my lungs. Protect me and my riding companions from crazy drivers. As I see the beauty of Your creation, help me pause in my spirit to praise You.

And I lift up my daughter Julia to you, with her cough and my husband with his cough. Would You heal them? Help them to feel better soon.

I pray for the hours of my day, that I'd stop and remember You throughout. You are the Great I Am, and often I'm the great hurry-up-and-go. I need to pause, reflect.

You are big and I am small. Breathe life, Your life into me. Teach me what it actually means to walk in Texas as if I were walking the dusty streets of Galilee with You.

Amen.

Wednesday Prayer: Relationships

O dear relational God, the Three-in-One, who embodies relationship in every way. Help me to not pass by the people you place in my path today. Help me to open my heart to new folks, to not become embittered against those I know, to give freely of my time, realizing You hold every drop of time in Your hands. Enable me to love, forgive, overlook, pardon, let go.

Help me to bless when someone ceases to bless me. Give me joy when I'm persecuted. Rejuvenate me with Your Spirit so that I will minister in the opposite spirit of those who act as enemies. I want to bless, not curse. Shower grace, not judgment. But I can't do that at all, not without Your presence. So please walk with me today; teach me the power and joy of relationships.

And most of all, thank You for befriending me. I'm forever changed and grateful.

Amen.

Prayer for Jon - Kate + 8 and your marriage

I've never watched the show in its entirety. Never interacted much about what's going on. But anyone who's alive in America these days know they've filed for divorce. This makes me sad--for them, for their children, for the message it sends to the world about the fragility of marriage. So today, I'm praying for Jon and Kate...

Lord,

You know.

You see.

You give.

You join together.

Lord, I lift up not only Jon and Kate and their children, but every marriage represented by the readers reading this post. Lord, help us all to take seriously Your call to cleave. Your call to lay our lives down for one another. Your call to die to self and give sacrificially. Lord, would You play the TV show of our marriages on the screen of our minds, showing us where we all fall short? And the places You long to mend?

Lord, You don't join people together lightly. You don't place us in covenental relationships so we can casually destroy them. What happened with Jon and Kate happens with us. We bicker. We grow apart. We nourish ideas that our lives are better separate. And truth be told, we all have that little desire for fame, but are blind to its wretched fangs.

Lord, please heal. Please bring us to that place of deep, needy reliance on You, the Author of all love, the Beginning and the End of everything. Forgive us for straying. Forgive us for loving our reputations more than loving Your holiness.

We humbly come before You, asking for Your miraculous restoration. For Your beautiful, powerful, paradoxical redemption. For all the Jon and Kates of the world, including us. Would You reach down and rebuild? Would You help us to lay our dreams down at Your feet? To trust You to sift through the pain and misunderstandings and betrayals?

Because You sifted through all that on Your cross. You bore betrayal. You bore sin. You bore terrible, mocking words. You bore humanity turning its back. Surely if You bore all that, You can bear our marriages.

Amen.

Have issues with marketing?

I wrote a post today about marketing that pretty much highlights my heart in the matter. I'm curious what you think. Read it here.

Monday Prayers

Dear Jesus,

You are it.

You're the One I wake for.

Help me today to see You throughout the day. To hear Your voice. To understand Your nuance. To experience You as I serve You.

Speak through me. Listen through me. Minister through and to me. Help me to rest in Your forgiveness, to freely admit it when I've sinned against You or a friend or a family member. Help me be a woman who walks in truth, but isn't so in love with truth that I forget to be tender. Help me be kind and compassionate to everyone I see today. Undergird me with Your strength when I get weary. Help me to engage with people when tasks overwhelm.

Work through me. Write through me. Laugh through me.

Amen.

A Week of Prayer

This week I want to focus on prayer by, er, praying. I guess that makes sense! Here is my Sunday prayer:

Father God,

For me to say that to You is a huge thing. As a fatherless girl who had a gaping wound only a daddy could fill, You swept me into Your arms when I was fifteen. Thank You Lord for fathering me. For loving me. For disciplining me. For cherishing me. For challenging me. For pushing me. For holding me. For healing me. For listening to me. For seeing me. For choosing me. For beautifying me.

You are the Daddy I run to. The Father I embrace when life gets lonely or painful or bewildering. You are my hope, my joy, my all.

Thank You that You are big when I feel small. That Your hand is enough. Your life in me is enough. Your hope is enough.

I love you. I need you. I worship you.

Amen.

My Little Amish Book

A while back, my agent asked if I had any Amish suspense. I did not. But, being the feisty girl I am, I decided to create one. Here was my "pitch" I sent her. She, then, sent it on to my editor under the guise of seriousness.

(ALERT: This is parody, tongue in cheek. Please don't pester me to write Amish suspense!)

The Pitch:

Rachel Yoder is fed up! All that washing to do without electricity, Stephen’s constant need for Amish s*x, and Yoder children coming from her uterus every single year, Rachel decides to take things into her own Amish hands. One fateful night, she sneaks out the 9-paned window, attempting to fly with her Amish quilt as wings. She falls, nearly breaks both ankles, only to find Stephen aiming a gun at her, thinking her an intruder covered in a covert Amish quilt. Having been particularly cranky because he hadn’t had relations that night, he shoots first.

Discovering Rachel dead, he weeps, but then pulls himself together. He loves his Amish life more than his Amish wife, so he devises a diabolical plan to cover up the murder. After all, shunning is almost as bad as no more relations. His secret stays secret for two decades, his second wife Anna bearing more children and happily blessing him with 6,240 nights of relations (no s*x on Sunday). That is, until Anna discovers his diary and finds the truth. Will Anna expose Stephen and risk his homicidal wrath? Or will she keep mum, a quiet, submissive Proverbs 31 wife so life on the farm can stay the way it’s been for centuries?

Curious? You can read the editor's response and my subsequent chapters here. Start at the bottom and work your way up.

Want to join a significant network of published authors?

Christian Authors Network (CAN) is now accepting applications for membership through July 31st. CAN is an organization of Christian authors in a supportive association (and speaking from personal experience, CAN members provide both moral support and prayer support). We operate as a cooperative, Christ-centered venture, working together to get the word out about CAN authors’ books. We charge dues in order to fund a website and other CAN events and projects. CAN members count it a blessing to encourage and assist one another on this writing and marketing journey. To apply for membership you must have at least two books published or contracted by a traditional, royalty-paying CBA publishing house. For more information and to receive an application send your request with the words “membership application” in the subject line to CAN_INC@yahoo.com. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me off-loop. Thanks everyone!

Janice Hanna Thompson

I want to be an adventurous Christian

I read Hope Rising on the plane and during quiet moments at Write to Publish last week. And in many ways, it changed my perspective on my own life. Crawling into Kim Meeder's heart felt like jumping into an adventurer.

The story? Kim and her husband bought some over-used over-mined land in Oregon with a dream. What eventually unfolded was Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch, a place where the Meeders rescued, nurtured, and brought back to life battered horses and ponies. And in the process, they've invited battered and broken children to help them.

As the children help the horses heal, their own lives intersect that healing, and they emerge more whole, more healed.

The book is a series of vignettes, chronicling many stories of horses and children in need of renewal. I cried several times during this book, touched by the beauty of redemption and God's surprising way He chooses to do His redeeming.

But what struck me most was Kim's spirit. How she viewed life as an amazing adventure, how she burst with empathy for anyone or any beast that suffered. Her spirit, her love for Jesus, her determination to bless others oozes out of this book in an invitational way. Reading her words made me want to see life through her adventure-eyes, not passing up daily moments of eternal significance, but stopping, then reveling in them. I want to be more of a people noticer, an observer of those in pain, one who prays.

So if these are qualities you admire and would like to cultivate, I suggest you read this book. It's winsome, beautiful, and full of hope--that even the most abused can emerge whole.

Every people-loving Christian should read this book!

Wow.

Maybe it's because I think I left my heart in Africa, in the northern regions of Ghana. Maybe that's why I loved this book. Or maybe it's because I am deeply saddened by the state of children and women in some of the poorest nations on earth. Or because sometimes I don't feel like I do enough and I need a swift kick in the pants to jolt me out of my American complacency to remember the marginalized. Despite the why, I'm thankful I read Scared by Tom Davis.

Davis holds nothing back. The reader feels the blow by blow atrocities through the eyes of a reporter who has his own soul issues. We see poverty. Crime. Sexual exploitation. Evil. Hunger. Disease.

But in the midst of that, we also see the uncanny grace God lavishes on those who suffer, yet bend toward His ear. We see humanity at its best, helping each other, vying to love. And we see sparkling hope in impossible places.

Such is the reach and scope of this book. Written with sparse, direct prose, Davis is a keen storyteller whose heart for the widow and orphan bleeds onto the page.

Don't read this book unless you're willing to be haunted, then changed. I promise you both things will happen. And in the midst of that, hope. Blessed hope.

From a reader of my recent posts about boundaries in relationships . . . about predators

From Iona--a guest post by a blog reader:

Here are some lessons I'm finding must be taken to heart. These apply to perpetrators in general.


1. Touch Tests: A perpetrator will test your reception of his presence. A perpetrator may be attentive to the story of your past. He may wink as he evaluates your response to his presence. Testing may be in the form of a slight touch of the fingers or hands, or a hug. In I Corinthians 7:1, Paul exhorts man not to touch a woman, and perhaps men instinctively know that a woman is sexually aroused by touch. The solution, then, is not to allow yourself to be touched.

2. Words: A perpetrator may refer to your special relationship verbally. He may say things like, "I believe in you, your work, in us, or in our special relationship." What he is really saying is that you are a prime rib in his eyes. He only needs to find a barbeque grill in which to light the fire, then start smacking his lips in anticipation.

3. Places: A perpetrator may ask you to meet in a private room, behind closed doors, or away from the crowd. Wise feet will walk in the opposite direction and stay in the crowd. Find a female friend and stay close.

4. Actions: A perpetrator may display pride in self, or be unwilling to admit error. He may refer to his own needs, desires, and plans, but has no time to consider your emotional health and well-being. And he never makes a mistake. He may offer free editing or advice, but never an apology for his inappropriate actions. The person who claims to have no sin deceives himself and makes God a liar. God's word is not in that person (1 John 1:8,10).

5. Instructions: A perpetrator may say not to tell anyone, or that no one else needs to know. Make the effort to tell. The power of a secret is in the keeping of it.

6. Marriage: A perpetrator may mention an unhappy or unfulfilled marriage relationship. As he shares, be aware that he has not heeded Paul's warning in I Corinthians 7. Satan tempts marriage partners who deprive each other of their togetherness.

Within marriage, my husband:

• protects me
• prays for me
• loves me
• is my pal – companion

In the same way, Jesus:

• protects me, 1 Thess 5:23
• prays for me, John 17
• loves me, John 3:16
• promises to never leave me, Hebrews 13:5

A perpetrator:

1. looks out for himself, his desires, his dreams
2. cannot pray
3. loves himself, is not self-controlled, does not put needs of the other first
4. often abuses, then is gone. This person is not a companion, but a thief.

NOTE from Mary: Keep in mind perpetrators can be male or female....

Sexual abuse and predators

What do these two things have in common? Today I posted over at The Master's Artist about another touchy subject--how someone's "mark" from sexual abuse tends to invite predators, even in the Christian writing business. You can read the post here.

A really cool letter from a reader!

Hi Mary,

I have a divinely orchestrated story to tell you. I printed out your blog a few weeks back about finding your sweet spot for writing. I have never before printed out someone's blog. But the primary questions (what is your greatest joy? and what is the world's greatest need?) are great focus questions for anyone and so I read them to my husband on a road trip to South Carolina last Friday. We had a great conversation about where these collide in his life and in mine.

About a half hour later we were listening to Christian radio and all of sudden Tim Wildmon & Ray Pritchard were introducing you and talking about Daisy Chain. It may sound like a simple coincidence to some, but I don't believe in chance. Knowing your story of writing to Chuck Colson and then having him feature Daisy Chain on Breakpoint, makes my hair stand on end. Our God is so creative in showing us He is sovereign in things big and small. I love when He so graciously shows us His fingerprints.

May God bless you, Mary. I hope one day our paths will cross in some divinely orchestrated way. And please feel free to visit my blog: www.kristiejackson.blogspot.com

Kristie Jackson

An important post to read

"The Elephant in the Room" is my recent addition to Christian Fiction Online magazine. It wasn't easy to write, nor was the wisdom gained easily won. Here's the skinny: In this business (or any business you'll be a part of), you will interact with people of the opposite sex either in person or via email. How you decide to handle your interactions is up to you. But you must be purposeful and honest. Brutally honest.

There are some of you out there reading this post who are caught up in the ecstasy of an emotional affair over email. Some of you are cheating on your spouses in your head. Some of you are physically cheating on your spouses. All within the Christian writing community. And perhaps you've justified it. Or hidden it. Or are totally scared and worried that you'll get found out.

Here's the truth. You will get found out one way or another. It's better now to come clean and practice authenticity and repentance and restoration.

If you'd like to read what I've learned about this touchy, sensitive issue, you can read the article here.

Drink from the Well

Tonight I bring a message about drinking deeply from the well of Jesus. Please pray that my own heart would be satisfied in Him. Pray I'd hear His voice as I finish preparations. Pray I wouldn't be too tired, too distracted, too anything. Pray for the writers a Write to Publish that they would be stirred by this message.

Tell the Truth

Please pray for me tonight as I speak about the importance of truth to the Write to Publish crowd. It's a subject I'm passionate about, so pray that passion comes through. Pray my heart would be malleable, that I'd have a listening ear to the Spirit of God. Pray lives will be transformed, not just so folks will write better, but that they'll be healed.

Tonight's message

Please pray for me tonight as I bring my first message to the Write to Publish crowd. I'll be talking about our journeys as writers. Pray the Lord would invigorate my words. Pray I'd be interruptible. Pray many would be touched by the Holy Spirit. Thank you so much!

Doing something, but can't tell you yet

Today I'm doing something I've never really done before. I'm looking forward to the day, but would appreciate your prayers. Sorry to be clandestine, but that's all I can say. Hopefully I'll spill the beans soon.

Traveling Mercies

I'm off to Chicagoland today for a long week. Please pray for traveling mercies and encounters with Jesus along the way.