Category Archives: Women

Guest Blogger: Audra Hibbs

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Posted by Mel on May 16, 2010 – 9:06 pm
Filed under Community, Journey, Women

Out of life’s storms come….hope! A hope- for better life circumstances, a closer walk with God, a realization of what is truly important! I have this amazing blessing of sharing life with some beautiful, Godly women who have these amazing stories and they live life willing to share their stormy moments in the hopes that it might bring hope to someone’s journey.  My friend Audra is one of those women. She has this amazing story that has had a huge impact on my life and I thought it would be great if she would be willing to share a little of her story here.  When I approached her about writing her story to share on the blog…she was absolutely agreeable.  Audra’s story is a story of hope and relationship with God and a “more excellent way”.  Audra and I had the unique experience of getting to know each other during my years as flag corps sponsor with the FHS band. Audra was in my first flag corps at Fredericktown, which that’s been 11years ago now! We were both much younger! I had just turned 30 and Audra was probably all of 14! She has had a huge impact on my journey with God. It was through her example as a young girl who loved Jesus with all her heart that encouraged me as I started my journey with God. After our paths had gone in different direction for several years God has put Audra and I back in relationship over the last two years….He always knows what we need!! During a very dark time in my journey God sent Audra and her story to give me hope and I don’t even think Audra realizes how important her words were to me at that time. Audra is a lot of things and I could write pages about her amazing character but what I want you to know about her is that she loves Jesus with this fierce and intense passion that is truly contagious to all around her. She is wise beyond her young years and she writes the most amazing, God-inspired words that are honest and raw. I hope when you get done reading her words here you’ll jump over to her blog-incomplete ramblings… and read some of her posts, they will impact your life!

Without any further “ramblings” on my part, Audra’s story………..

Dark Days

I’ve always loved rainy days.  Few things recharge my soul like an afternoon spent curled up under a fuzzy blanket, reading a book and listening to the gentle way rain hits the glass on my window.  And the distinctively green smell of the world after the rain passes.

Much like my affection for rainy days, the Lord has instilled in me over time a love for life-storms.  It seems counter-intuitive, really, and it hasn’t always been that way.  There was a specific period of my life that I refer to as my dark days.  At the time, it felt like every worst-case scenario that could arise arose…all at once.  My long-term relationship ended when the man with whom I’d been planning a life told me that he was homosexual; that moment alone created an epic war in the battleground of my heart in which Jesus and Satan battled it out for control over my perception of my femininity over the course of several years.  My brother and his wife, who had been like a second set of parents to me, separated and filed for divorce.  In the span of one year, three of my close friends passed away.  My childhood friends and I began to grow apart, simply because of the wear and tear of time and distance.  Change lurked around every corner, so much that it disoriented me on every possible level.  It felt as though a part of me was dying; every part of my life that I thought I could count on began to tear away at the seams.  And as that happened, my heart went through the same process of tearing and mending, ripping and healing.

But looking back on my life, my dark days, my great storm…they changed everything.  It took away from me the mediocre and gave me the extraordinary.  It took from me a life that was comfortable and sensible and predictable and gave me a life that is daily unexpected and unpredictable and vulnerable and infinitely more rewarding than anything I could have dreamed up on my own.  I have a career and a ministry and a circle of friendships and a husband that I would never trade for anything; each of them things and people that would have been forsaken had my former life stayed intact.

One of my favorite scriptures is I Corinthians 12:31: “But eagerly desire the greater gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way.”  This verse has become the most accurate description of the way I view the storms we encounter as believers or, more broadly, as humans.

I believe it’s easy for us to desire the greater gifts and get stuck there.  To dream up the life we desire, and to desire it so much that our brains can’t even comprehend anything more wonderful.  And yet, there’s always a more wonderful adventure to come; we always have a Creator whose nature is more extravagant than we can imagine.  And sometimes, when we become so stuck in those “greater things” we’re desiring, I think the Lord finds that the only way to get us to let go is to tear down those things long enough to show us His “still more excellent way.”

I believe there will always be another storm to come as long as we’re ardently chasing Christ; because as long as we’re chasing Christ, there will always be another level to His more excellent ways, at least until Heaven comes to Earth in completion.

So eagerly desire those greater gifts.  And when the Lord uses the storms of this life to tear them down, live not only in contentment but in hope, knowing that He’s about to reveal to you another of His endless progression of excellent ways.

Avatar The Movie: A Female Perspective

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Posted by Mel on December 28, 2009 – 8:49 pm
Filed under Movies, Women

Had the opportunity to see Avatar with the family this weekend. It was sold out for the two early shows by the time we’d goofed around and got over there to buy tickets. That left us with the option of  seeing it at 9:50,that’s p.m.,  which resulted in a little grumpiness from….everybody! Could we do it and then drive all the way home afterward. It is a looooong movie after all!! We had heard such rave reviews so we decided to give it the old college try.

Took the plunge and got our tickets. Showed up the required 30 minutes early so we could get seats together and still ended up sitting in the 5th row! This actually ended up being the best seats in the house as the 3d experience actually immersed us in the world of Pandora!  Sitting that close… everything else seemed to melt away.  I’m not going into great detail about the storyline. It was solid and had all the right elements for a good story-romance, conflict, resolve. Okay, maybe the romance part doesn’t appeal to everybody!

Hands down…the most fascinating part of the movie was Pandora and the experience of a new culture. I love travel and this movie certainly spoke to that love. Learning about a new culture, exploring the “countryside”, and meeting the people is so interesting. (I could have done without some of the scary creatures!) You will fall in love with the people of Pandora and when things get bad….you will cry with them. My dear husband thought it was a little “tree-hugging” and it was, truly. It made a great point that we, humans, aren’t very good about protecting our own planet’s natural resources. We prove that point very well in this movie.

My husband asked me after leaving the theatre what I thought…the only word I could use was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed by the scope of that movie. It was bigger than life! I realized while I was watching this world unfold that as amazing as it was….it still couldn’t hold a candle to heaven. (I may over think things just a little!) I know amazing thought and imagination went into the making of this “virtual” world. I was very much in awe of the beauty but truly overwhelmed when I realized if my imagination wasn’t able to process Pandora’s “make believe” beauty….it certainly leaves heaven out of my realm of understanding!

I encourage you to see this movie. It is fantastic, the technology used is mind boggling, and I don’t think many will come away disappointed. There’s a little bit of everything which should appeal to just about everybody.

Have you seen the movie? Leave me a comment and let me know what you thought….was it a thumbs up or thumbs down experience?

Angry Conversations……with God?

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Posted by Mel on October 6, 2009 – 7:46 pm
Filed under Books, Reviews, Women

I recently finished the book……..Angry Conversations With God. I noticed this book at B&N one day, picked it up – read the jacket cover – laughed – put it down. On a different visit to a different B&N, there it was again. This time I picked it up – carried it around – purchased it. Some books take me longer to read than others, this one I completed in no time. I found myself laughing out loud at times, other moments I was brought to tears. I think I identified so much with Susan’s writing because I found a little bit of me there.

I think Donald Miller hits it on the head when he says:

“If King David were a woman, and were funny, he’d be Susan Isaacs. And the thing about this book is: it surprises you. There are lines in it you won’t see coming. You’ll be handing this book to somebody else about a month from now, thinking ‘maybe this will help them understand me.’ You’ll do that because it helped you understand yourself first.” — Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz.)

(By the way, if you haven’t read Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller I highly recommend it!!)

That was exactly what I thought…people have to read this….this is exactly how I feel….then maybe I would make sense to people…maybe they would understand me!!! This book is not for the faint of heart. You will be challenged and you will be surprised. You might even be insulted. It’s not sugar coated – it’s very real, very funny….yet very raw and vulnerable. At the end of this book I felt relief, I felt like I peeled back another layer. It’s not an easy task to deal with your issues. Susan deals through hers with humor and some sarcasm, but her points are very clear. I don’t know what God thinks about Susan’s book but I like to think God loves us most when we are honest and we are real and we lean on him for our understanding.

I could continue on in detail but it’s probably best for you to unpack this one yourself. I was excited to see that both Susan & Donald will be speaking in St. Louis this weekend! I’ll let you know how that goes! Right now I plan on going by myself…which I think is really okay. It’s been a very long year and I’ve learned a lot about me and about how I react and relate to other people. I’ve noticed my strengths and weaknesses and I’ve realized that these can sometimes be interchangeable. I’ve learned to walk by faith through a very long, dark night. I’ve learned a lot about obedience and how terrifying and uncomfortable that can be!

Through it all I’ve learned….that I still have a lot to learn!!