Temporarily closing Monogabliss

Unfortunately, life is taking it’s toll on me right now.  Between my parents illnesses (cancer) and large amounts of time and energy that my “real” job is taking right now, I am not at a point where I can continue writing.  I am prayerfully considering the future of the blog, so if you would pray for me and for God’s will to be done with this ministry? I appreciate it.

I will be locking comments on this very soon.  I just don’t have time to moderate.  For those of you who have been faithfully following me from Christian Nymphos to Monogabliss, I appreciate you very much.

Sarah’s Story

The next woman I would like to write about reminds me of my DD. She and her brother are what I term “the microwave generation”….they don’t have any concept what it is like to wait for anything. I hear from her more times than I really want to the phrase, “I can’t wait that long! It’s too long!” I can imagine that was a key phrase that God heard from Sarai as well.

The book of Genesis gives us an insight on this woman of faith. She was married to a man named Abram and she was barren. She had no children. She and Abram lived in Haran until her husband got a call from the Lord to leave his homeland and to travel to Canaan, where the Lord would make him into a great nation. I am sure that this poor woman spent a lot of time riding on a camel, camping out in tents, not knowing where in the world the Lord was taking them, but following her husband to the ends of the Earth.

She went through a lot, too though, that her husband asked of her. Genesis 12:10-20 talks about a journey they had to take to Egypt during a famine where Abram asked his wife to pretend she was his sister, so that he wouldn’t be killed because of her beauty. So she was taken in by the Pharoah and Abram was treated well, but ummmm….the Lord was not too pleased with this decision they made. He struck the Pharoah’s household with serious diseases until the Pharoah realized that he had brought in Abram’s wife for his own! Now, Abram didn’t ask her to do this once, but twice! (see Genesis 20)

Okay, enough about Abram’s sin. But through all this time, Sarai was still barren. No children, so how could it be possible for Abram to become a great nation without any children? What do you think, ladies? Is it time to take things out of God’s hands and do it ourself? Well, Sarai thought it was. It just wasn’t happening as God had planned, so how could it hurt to try it all by myself? So we move on to Genesis 16, where Sarai does just this. Well she couldn’t have babies, but her servant Hagar could! So she tells her husband, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.” (Gen. 16:2) What? Sarai is giving her husband permission to sleep with another woman? Is she crazy? The thought of MY DH sleeping with another woman…I don’t think I could handle that. And why is the blame on the Lord? Is he REALLY the one keeping her from having children? So Abram agreed and Hagar got pregnant. And guess what….Mrs. Abram was not the least bit happy about this. Why? It was her idea, right? But no……. Sarai comes back with the big one…THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT. “Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.” (Gen. 16:5) Do you ever make a decision to do something then realize what a huge mistake this was when you get the results? I think Sarai did. But there, working as her maid, was a woman who bore her husband a son when she could not. She was probably very hurt and thought that God had forgotten his promise.

But God kept reiterating his promise to Abram and even changed his name to Abraham, and God changed Sarai’s name to Sarah. They were 100 and 90 years old respectively. Abraham and Sarah, who were well past childbearing age, both laughed that they would conceive and bear a child in their old age, but God did keep his promise. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son, and they called him Isaac, which means “laughter”.

What can we learn from Sarah? I think the most important thing is that when God makes a promise, He will keep it. Has God ever made a promise to you? Has He fulfilled that promise yet? If the answer is no, then we continue to wait. To my DH, it probably seemed like God would never change me into the wife that I was intended to be, but he waited patiently, never once thinking about leaving me or cheating on me. God’s ways are the best ways. And His timing is never the same way as ours.

What would you have done in Sarah’s shoes? Would you have taken matters into your own hand? It’s easy to say, “Nah, I would never do that”, but I bet if we got that nagging feeling of “I can’t wait that long! It’s too long!”, might we be thinking of invitro fertilization? adoption? a surrogate mother like Sarah did? Take some notes from Sarah and file it in your memory banks. History does tend to repeat itself, but if we remember her plight when we face a long, hard road, maybe it will comfort us to think of her happiness when God’s promise WAS fulfilled. Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Gen 21:6-7)

Lies Women Believe….: Chapter 1 – Truth or Consequences

This chapter begins by taking us back to the Garden of Eden.  Back to our sister, Eve and the deception she encountered with the serpent.   Satan knew he would have to subtly trick Adam and Eve into doubting God’s intention for them…. by using a campaign aimed at appearing reasonable and not anti-God.   Lies, half truths, and cleverly disguised falsehoods were all it took to cause Eve to doubt and to take the fruit and eat it.

God had given them everything.   Everything in the garden was theirs … BUT one thing… the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.   God knew if they ate from that tree, they would be eternally separated from Him.

I loved this quote from her on p. 31  “Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst; he promises honor and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure, and pays with pain; he promises profit, and pays with loss; he promises life, and pays with death.”  (Puritan pastor Thomas Brooks Isn’t that so true?   Satan is no longer just a serpent…  he appears to us in so many different ways… he’s so hard to see sometimes…. but if we are armed with God’s truth, we can see him every time.

As women, we are prone to fall for Satan’s deception.   Oil of Olay will get rid of all those lines and wrinkles…. melt 10 pounds in 10 minutes! … I am sure you can name many, many deceptions that are thrown at women on a daily basis.

In believing something, put it to the test of these questions…

1.  What is the message here?

2.  Is it really true?

3.  Am I being deceived by a way of thinking that is contrary to the Truth?

When we don’t consider these, we can move from being deceived to being in bondage over it…. when we listen to a lie, we then dwell on the lie…ponder it, think it over… hmmm…. when we dwell on the lie, then we start to believe the lie (Genesis 3:6a) and when we believe the lie, we act on it and we are caught, hook , line and sinker.  (Genesis 3:6b-7)

How do we get free from the bondage of lies?  She lists several steps…

1. Identify the area(s) of bondage or sinful behavior.

2. Identify the lie(s) at the root of that bondage or behavior.

3. Replace the lie(s) with the Truth.

Next week, we will hit on the first of the lies women believe… lies about God.