Encouragement For Women

She smiled and played her role, but the rage inside began to build and consume her. "I wanted to escape that picture," she said. "I got burned by napalm, and I became a victim of war ... but growing up then, I became another kind of victim." She turned to Cao Dai, her Vietnamese religion, for answers. But they didn't come. "My heart was exactly like a black coffee cup," she said. "I wished I died in that attack with my cousin, with my south Vietnamese soldiers. I wish I died at that time so I won't suffer like that anymore ... it was so hard for me to carry all that burden with that hatred, with that anger and bitterness." One day, while visiting a library, Phuc found a Bible. For the first time, she started believing her life had a plan.  (read the full story here ) This is a portion of Kim's story.  She was the little girl in that dreadful pictured seared into our minds from Vietnam of the little naked girl crying...

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. Matthew 15:18-19 As I mentioned a month or so ago I am going through the Self-Confrontation Bible Study. I just finished up Chapters 10 - Dealing With Self (part two) and Chapter 11 - Anger and Bitterness. This whole study has not been fun, well I guess the point is not to have fun - but to grow. Growing can sometimes be painful, just like when we were kids and our legs ached at night...anybody remember that? So, I am growing - yes even in Winter! The Lord loves our pleas for his help in our lives and loves helping us dig, dig, dig into His word to reveal more of himself and to reveal more of ourselves to us. Which ultimately points us to our great need for Him! Anger and Bitterness - along with laziness is where my heart is deep in struggle. Now there are just a million...

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:31,32 (NIV) I cannot recall how many times I've been told how "nice" I am. Or when I was younger, "you're too sweet." I know that I've heard it enough that I believed it and it grew into pride. Thinking of it now seems a bit ridiculous, but seriously - I really have an issue with it. I work with much ambition to be seen as nice and kind. I work at being nice and kind. Imagine my shock to heart that some of my kindness is fake! Many years ago a woman from Calvary Fellowship Seattle gave me this small booklet with a yellow jacket. The title was, "How To Be Free From Bitterness." Truly it was a work God was doing even then, though I scoffed at the title and tucked it away on my bookshelf. It is also safe to say that I don't know ...

My day began waking up to my youngest son, tending to his needs then some time for reading my Bible. It should be noted that I have been slacking off on this important task and I have reaped what I have sown. I usually read at night before snoozing off, but like a pastor friend (John Aydelott ) of mine once said, "...it doesn't give you much time to apply it to your day nor to meditate on it." Well said John. Here is what I read: (Luke 18:1-8) 1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' 4 "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that...