Don’t you find it hauntingly interesting that all of us girls were hit so hard by her death? I stood in front of the television last night and wanted to bawl. Then, this morning I honestly felt a heaviness of spirit about it as I looked over the newspaper. I was moved when I opened the blog and Amanda had already written on it. I thought, “Like mother, like daughter. She can’t get it off her mind either.” We are both really sensitive, I reasoned. Then, I watched all of you react to it and dialogued with my staff about their own responses. Do you know what I think? I think it’s possible that, as different as we may kid ourselves into thinking that we are, her tragedy tapped into something hidden in all of us. She hit a major nerve in the feminine system. Anna Nicole Smith publicly fought and lost the same battle of insecurity that you and I privately fight. Had we had money, access, and opportunity, no telling what lengths we might have traveled to feel a little better about our broken selves.

Untreated by Jesus, the true Lover of our souls, we will be insatiably self-destructive and utterly impossible to make happy. My friend’s mom used to say, “Sometimes we’re happy and we don’t even know it.” Life is hard. Danged hard. If we each know (really know!) again today that we have a perfect Savior who loves us perfectly in all our imperfections and that nothing can take Him from us, AND if we have a few fellow sojourners (sistas!)to encourage us in Him along the way, as challenged as we may be, we are the happiest people in this cold, hard world. Let’s spread a smile across our face and show it. Sooner than later, somebody’s going to ask us to share the hope that is in us.

Anna Nicole Smith Dead

My heart is grieving over this woman. I see a soul who ended up taking every destructive road in her life and I wonder what went wrong early on.

We do not have to succumb to the turmoil and insanity of this life. There is one, Jesus Christ, who offers hope for the self-destructive starlet, for the drug addict, for the sexually broken, for the abused, for the impoverished, for the person grieving the loss of a child, and for the lonely. No one is beyond His reach.

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.
Isaiah 61:1-3

Um, I accidentally just rejected like 15 comments with no way to recover them. Ladies, I’m really sorry. This is what happens when I don’t have my tea in the morning! Going to remedy that now…

I’m selecting 12 Weekly Word Devotions for a little project we’re doing at LPM. If you’ve been reading our devos for a while and have a couple favorites, will you let me know which ones they are?

OK. I’ve almost cleaned out all the Starbuck’s receipts. Don’t even mess with me about my lipstick. As our sister said, it’s not like we’re talking about peace in the Middle East here. It was just a garage. I may consider putting my lipsticks in alphabetical order, however. They all start with “P.” My hair is wrecked from having my head in my purse. Seriously. I wasn’t THIS inspired.

I think I’ll do something I like better. I think I’ll start researching Esther.

My man just cleaned out the garage. I’m so inspired. I’m going to clean out my purse.

Our fellow blogger, Jackie, asked a good question after our lesson last night in Houston on friendships: BETH…… Okay tonight at Bible study we learned about calling our relationships by the right name.. we have friends, acquaintances, mentors, counselors, etc. SOOOO…. what do we call all these crazy ladies that have become an “online family”? They are a new sort of relationship.

I’ll tell you what we call us: SISTAS!!!!! Blood-kin in Jesus’ Name.

Thanks for having such a stinking blast with us over that ridiculous celebrity look-alike thing. You guys made me laugh until I nearly choked and threw up in my mouth. Here’s what it was about: I was teaching what I consider to be a pretty profound truth out of Proverbs 14:10. It says “Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.” Scripture doesn’t contradict Scripture so, needless to say, it doesn’t mean we can’t sympathize and even empathize with one another and bear each other’s burden. In fact, we are commanded to do exactly that. We’re told to laugh with those who laugh and weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:15)

In Proverbs 14:10, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Solomon was giving us insight into something we’ve all experienced but perhaps never quite understood. Two women of exactly the same spiritual maturity, marital status and age can get the same diagnosis and their hearts process it in completely different ways. Two believing women with nearly identical circumstances could have miscarriages at exactly the same point in a pregnancy and yet respond to it as polar opposites. Two women can make exactly the same salary and be exactly the same age and go to exactly the same church and have exactly the same friends yet respond to their singleness at 38 years of age profoundly differently. The point of the look-alike illustration is that we could Google every single bit of our physiological and psychological data, life traumas and challenges and perhaps come up a dozen other Americans that should match us then meet for lunch, hash it all out, and walk to our cars thinking, “I don’t even think SHE gets me.” And you’d probably be right. You see, somebody may have all your same circumstances but nobody has your heart. It is completely singled out before the One who formed it in His hands and said, “Let there be life.” And there was.

If we’re blessed indeed, we can find people who can relate but the more we come to know them, the more we’d see our differences and only be left with a deeper sense of isolation. There is ONE who totally gets you. Just one. Yes, we need human support. And, yes, hearts were created to be shared horizontally as well as vertically but no one can see into the grand canyon of your emotional being but God. That’s why we’ll never be okay if, in our deepest, most riveting hurts, we do not turn to Him and let Him completely and intimately tend to us. I am a firm believer in Godly counseling but the best of counselors should point you to the only One who is still there at 3:00 AM when you toss and turn and think you may not live till morning. St. Augustine described God as “interior intimo meo.” Deeper in me than I am in myself. God gets you when YOU don’t even get you. He doesn’t just love you. He loves your heart. Your broken, misshapen, road-weary heart. And mine. Let Him in. Let Him tend. There is SomeOne who really does understand. He is the Lord who heals us.

My mom should be on her way to Bible study right now. She and Sabrina, our ministry director, are probably in the car together singing praise music at the top of their lungs. I’m in the same boat with some of you who live too far away from Houston – I SO WISH I COULD BE THERE!

Someone posed an interesting question today under the celebrity look-alike post. Which saints or fellow members of the body of Christ would you choose to “look like”?

I’ll leave my answer in a comment and I’ll look for yours there, too. Not that you were going to, but you can’t say Beth!

Well, I’m off to the post office to mail out my son’s first birthday party invitations (sniff, sniff).

Happy Monday, everyone! I thought I would give a little update on my Five Pounds. I’ve been going to my aerobics classes, eating Lean Cuisines for lunch and sometimes dinner, and cutting out the fast food except for my once-a-week Chick-fil-a. For better or worse, I don’t own a scale, but I think the five pounds are gone or are pretty close to being gone. My clothes fit right again, but what’s better than that is I don’t feel guilty about my eating habits. Sweet freedom!

Yesterday I had some french fries and – I won’t lie – they were very, very, very delicious. My mouth was elated. But this morning I woke up with a stomach ache and I realized it was because I had eaten fried food for the first time in a while. I think my system is happier not having to deal with that and my mind is happier knowing I’m not being mastered by food. It’s a win-win situation!

Thankfully, my husband is doing this with me. We take turns being tempted by McDonald’s, but the other talks some sense into the weaker brother or sister. Then we do a fist-bump and congratulate ourselves on resisting. Curtis has definitely lost his five pounds. I know some of you were hoping to see his picture, but he wants to wait until April, which is when his Biggest Loser contest at work is over.

So yesterday I went to the Lean Cuisine web site to see if there are any good meals I’ve been missing out on. (Here’s my hit list: chicken carbonara, sesame chicken, spaghetti and meatballs, roasted garlic chicken pizza, and the southwest style chicken panini.) Let me just say that Lean Cuisine has got it goin’ on. You can send motivational e-cards to your friends dealing with their five pounds. Check this one out.

Is that perfect, or what?