Hi, Friends!

News of some great new opportunities for us to keep in touch!

First, my Everyday Inspired blogcast. Spend a few minutes with me everyday and we’ll find God’s inspiration in our lives! I believe God is always inviting us to notice the blessings around us. When we do, marvelous things happen. Subscribe to the blogcast and listen live everyday, or download it later.

Second, come settle into The Shack with me and author Wm. Paul Young, July 8-9, 2011. Paul Young visits the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, and we’ve put together a wonderful, one-night retreat to reflect on his book. I’ll be hosting/facilitating the retreat. Register here.

So, whaddaya say? Let’s live everyday inspired!

Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas is on sale now at a special 2-for-$20 price! That’s over 20% off the regular price. Order your signed copies today and get started on these timely, brief daily devotions when the holidays officially kick off on Thanksgiving Day. The books are great hostess gifts, too!

Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas is on sale now at a special 2-for-$20 price! That’s over 20% off the regular price. Order your copies today and get started on these timely, brief daily devotions when the holidays officially kick off on Thanksgiving Day. The books are great hostess gifts, too!

Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas is on sale now at a special 2-for-$20 price! That’s over 20% off the regular price. Order your copies today and get started on these timely, brief daily devotions when the holidays officially kick off on Thanksgiving Day. The books are great hostess gifts, too!

Last year about this time, I met a woman who burst into tears at the thought of all the work she had ahead of her in the coming weeks.  I do my best to keep it out of my mind, but the truth is the days are ticking away and the rush will be here before we know it.  Today I stopped at Walgreen’s to get our Halloween candy, and lurking in the next aisle were the lighted Christmas trees.  I ran for cover in the opposite direction.

As we look ahead to the next two months, eight weeks, 61 days, 1,464 hours or 87,840 minutes (I could have given you the seconds, but that thought made my heart race too much), we need to break it down into manageable chunks or we will break down like my friend.  So, one day (or even one step) at a time should be our mantra.

The most beneficial minutes of these next 61 days will be the ones we spend in gratitude and prayer–gratitude for our countless blessings, and prayer for God’s grace to enter into our daily lives and sustain us.  I’ve found that on the days that begin with prayer, I handle things so much better.  The circumstances may not be any different, but I know I move through them with greater humor and grace.

Perhaps the first item on our holiday to-do list should be to set aside time every morning to reconnect with our Creator.  Let’s sit in that peace, and carry it with us through the day.  And one day will lead to another, and eventually, we’ll live our way to a blessed Christmas Day.

This song was the soundtrack to a scene I recently described as one of God’s kaleidoscope moments—when God takes various little pieces of our lives and brings them together in a beautiful way.

Last December, I was driving home, alone, on a bitterly cold night. The chimes that open Mariah’s song rang out from the radio, and I instantly cranked up the volume. My heart filled with joy at this happy song, and I remembered my family’s delighted faces as they’d dance and sing it along with me. Now, you also need to know that I love baseball, and grew up with the Cardinals. My dad and I shared not only a love of baseball, but December birthdays as well. These are important details.

Back to the car. So, I’m not far from home as I tool along, dancing and singing with Mariah and her crew. When I’m alone like this, I can imagine for just a moment that I’m the lead singer belting out this marvelous tune. But even in a fantasy world I know I cannot match Mariah’s range. As she soared to the heights of the song’s final chorus, I pulled my car over and lip-synched with her. I closed my eyes, and missed not a beat as her voice and my heart rose to “all I want for Christmas is…..you!” Tears streamed down my face, as if overflowing straight from my heart. I opened my eyes and saw my two hands, in black leather gloves, pointing heavenward.

At first I thought I’d simply pointed the way to Mariah’s stratospheric note. But then realizations, like tiny bits of colored glass, tumbled into place:
• Black gloves
• Batting gloves
• Albert Pujols after he hits a home run, rounding home and praising God
• Dad

You get it? All I want for Christmas is…You:
• My beautiful family
• My Dad who’s now in heaven
• And God, who is the end of all our desires, and the only true fulfillment of our longing.

See, while the song sings of one woman’s desire for her lover at the holidays, it heralds a much deeper need in all of us—to be loved completely, as God ultimately does. To be loved and known so intimately, that on a bitter cold night on a dark road, God delighted to fashion together the right music and images and message to fill my heart and remind me, once again, how very loved I am.  This is an important message during the holidays for all of us, as we scramble about preoccupied with details and tasks and stressing over gifts and food.  What really matters, throughout the year and particularly at Christmastime, is to remember and experience how very deeply we are loved.

Update: I just discovered that Mariah Carey is releasing her second Christmas album next month. And it includes a “reworked” version of “All I want for Christmas is you.” I gotta ask: How’s she gonna top the original?

It’s an evening event for prayer, music, fellowship and reflection on the meaning of the season.  Simple to host, the event is wildly popular and at many churches has grown every year. 

For more details on how to host an event, visit these websites:

WELS Women’s Ministry

Morning Star Church

And, I highly recommend this speaker for your event! 

A Great Christmas Surprise! from Maria Rodgers O'Rourke on Vimeo.

So I wanted to be sure you heard about her new song.  It has a powerful message for us when life’s trials seem to be too much:  God loves us just as much in our pain as he does in our joy.  Maybe we think we have to get it all together before we can talk to God, like the only face God wants to see is a happy one.  “Better than a Hallelujah” assures us that no matter what we’re feeling, God loves us and throws his arms open to us anytime we turn to him–in laughter or in tears.

Amy Grant’s Her music often finds that hidden spot in my heart, heals the pain, and helps me feel God’s great love once again. Her new song and video tell a bittersweet story; maybe some of the words will touch your heart, too.

“Why It’s Okay (Actually, Essential) to Put Yourself First” is a wonderful article recently published on Oprah.com.  The author, Valerie Monroe, tells a compelling story of how she “learned the hard way to put myself first.”

There are really two selves to consider here, one the “self”: that woman, wife, mother, sister, friend, daughter who is always putting others first, and; the “Self”: that marvelous, unique person who has been created by God and whom God constantly invites into deeper relationship, and fuller expression, in life.

Take for example the sisters in scripture who embody these two selves:  Martha and Mary.

In Luke’s Gospel, we read: “But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’” 

Let’s rewind a bit and take a look at the scene that took place before Jesus’ remark to Martha. When we first met Martha, she was running around her house hosting Jesus and his disciples. Martha was trying to be a good hostess; after all, she had a celebrity in her midst! In her whirlwind of activity, she noticed her sister, Mary, had seated herself at the foot of Jesus and was enjoying his teaching. Noting Jesus’ hold on Mary’s attention, Martha asked him to intercede with Mary and ask her to contribute to the work of entertaining their guests. Instead, Jesus turns his rebuke to Martha, and seems to judge her efforts as unimportant.

How hurtful and confusing! Martha was doing what she’d been raised to do—prepare a lovely table for her guests—and doing it well, no doubt. Yet the teacher whom she admired seemed unsympathetic to her plight. Imagine the sting of embarrassment in her heart, the flush of red on her cheeks, and the tears that filled her eyes as she turned away from Jesus.

We cannot hear the tone of voice with which Jesus speaks to Martha. If she was harried and unable to enjoy herself at the party, perhaps his words were spoken with compassion. Perhaps he was inviting her to relax a bit and enjoy the fellowship of the gathering, and not let the tasks of entertaining consume her. This is good advice for everyday of life, not just when hosting a party. Martha, so occupied with serving others, needs to tend her “self” so that she won’t get burned out.

Perhaps Mary’s is the better choice, or at least should be the first choice in our busy lives–to take time in prayer and quiet ourselves in the presence of God.  Mary
 is tending to her “Self”:  that part of her where God resides.

Our busy days challenge us to attend to the Self as well as the self.  When both are cared for, marvelous transformations take place.

Consider the next time we meet Martha in the Scriptures, in John’s Gospel:
“Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’”

Just a few few short years after her dinner party, we meet a woman transformed by faith. Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus very much. When Lazarus died, Jesus came to visit the sisters, and Martha was the one who met him on the road and proclaimed her faith in him. The one busy and distracted by many things becomes the one to declare her faith so simply and plainly that Jesus performs one of the most powerful and dramatic miracles of his ministry. Her faith healed her brother, and her family. If Martha can be so changed, there is hope for all the Martha’s in the world!

And so it is essential, to be the fullest expression of God’s love to those around us, to put our Self first, and our self. 

Why It’s Okay (Actually, Essential) to Put Yourself First