Don’t Let It Steal Your Happiness: Overcoming Anger, Hurt, and Offense

The subject line of my email to my coach read, “Help me before I shoot her!”  Yes you read right. I was mad. More than that, I was crushed. I sent a copy of my ebook to a friend (who we will call Ann) who felt it was wise to forward it to her friend for an opinion (who we will call Sue). Now I didn’t ask Ann to do this, but after she told me she had already forwarded it, I said it was fine.

It appears that Sue gave Ann her perspective on my content. In Ann’s effort to help me out, she forwarded Sue’s observations to me asking, “Please read the response and keep an open mind. Do not allow the comments to hurt, but understand where she is coming from.” In so many words Sue remarked that the beginning of my book was full of gimmicks to get the reader's attention.  She went on to question my credentials and why I included, in her words, “goofy design allusions” avowing my work as false or unauthentic.  After I questioned Ann, she admitted too that she had issues following its format. I took this so personally.  In other times, Ann had given nothing but rave reviews on my work. Needless to say, my evening was ruined, I couldn’t sleep and felt saddened as I awakened the following morning.

Alright. I’m calm now, I promise.

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Be Unstoppable by Obeying God’s Voice: Don’t Let Anything Hold You Back

 

Earlier this year I felt led to start a prayer team call that would cover God’s marketplace daughters. He gave me the title “Circle of Prayer.” I asked the Lord to reveal who should be included in the circle. We were to take turns to pray as the Spirit would lead. All of the ladies were Believers and entrepreneurs and did show much interest and excitement; however, only two actually participated. I’d planned the perfect theme song and was piping it from my computer on every call. Within weeks each of these two ladies had commitments that would periodically come up and could not make the call. Becoming annoyed and frustrated, of course, I soon ended Circle of Prayer that had lasted a little under two months.

I’m sure I’d heard from God, I thought. My flesh was telling me that God never told me to do this; I was stepping out in arrogance which is why it wasn’t fruitful. But recently, I felt the urge to pick it up again. I didn’t move on it right away, but low and behold one of the two ladies contacted me about her Circle of Prayer team and asked if I wanted to participate. Ugh! God gave me the title Circle of Prayer! Why didn’t she call it something different? And besides, she hadn’t been available before. I became momentarily submerged under feelings of betrayal and bewilderment while thinking, “What do I do or say?”

“Prayer is prayer no matter who initiates it,” I thought!

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How Do You Know What to Do? The Secret to Making Right Decisions

A bi-weekly motivational column by Dr. Deana Murphy

I enjoy meeting new and interesting people. And of course if they are Believers, there seems to be a much lesser effort to communicate. The commonalities and same values sort of help the relationship get off the ground, you know, the comfort of sharing the respect and love for Christ. Yet much to my chagrin, not all interesting Believers share the same love and respect for him that the Bible speaks about.  

This isn’t my usual “get up and get going” article this week but there’s something on my heart I want to share and trust me, it will add value to your Christian walk and lifestyle.

Last week I attended a women’s summit where women of all persuasions were embraced. Now it was not my event and though I was an invited attendee, it isn’t my place to judge or comment on that. After all, Jesus did say, “go into all the world.” My presence and attitude was my living testament.

On the last day of the event, I agreed to have dinner with a lady who I eagerly wanted to network with. A couple of other ladies asked if they could join us.  While walking to the restaurant I discovered by the conversations that we were all Christians.  Settling in our seats around the table we placed our food orders and the two ladies ordered alcoholic beverages.

For me, Christianity means sound obedience to God’s word and the teachings of Christ including living by Proverbs 20:1: “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” It is not my place to judge these ladies; however it is obvious by this passage deception had obviously crept in. The Bible has much to say about many subjects and drinking alcoholic beverages is one of them. Unfortunately, too many Christians believe they can have a Budweiser in one hand and the Bible in the other—two diabolical opposing elements indeed.

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