I spent last night and today at a women’s conference called “Hope for the Heart” that was started by our pastor’s wife about 10 years ago. This was my first time attending but I remember my mom taking about it when she went. It has grown into something really great. I don’t know the total count of how many women attending, but there were women from 100 different churches and at least 3 different states. If I had to guess I would say there were at least 400 of us there.

The guest speaker was Liz Curtis Higgs. Coincidentally, in my Bible study class we are doing one of her workbooks called “Loved By God”, which centers on the stories of Rebekah & Isaac and their sons, Jacob and Esau. What an interesting story and Liz just makes it all the more interesting with her wonderful insights.

She loved the story of these particular people so much that she actually started writing books about them, but moving the story to 1788 Scotland. She’s written 4 books about them in particular and also has written a couple of books about the bad girls of the Bible, among other things.

Plus she is just plain funny. The woman had us all just laughing until we cried.

If any of you ever get the chance to hear her speak, jump at it! You won’t regret it at all! And if you want to check her out, her website is www.lizcurtishiggs.com.

Ok, I’m bored, so now I’ll pass that along and bore anyone who looks at my page with a quiz….

                    http://www.testriffic.com/friendtest/2395682

Six people tried my little quiz. I really thought only 2 or 3 at most would do it, so it turned out to be more fun than I expected. Holley won…no surprise there, and my twin came in 2nd.

Here are the answers:

1. Harpo will be 14 in June.

2. My real hair color is brown. It hasn’t been naturally blonde since I hit puberty.

3. My favorite ethnic food is Indian….specifically Shrimp Korma…yummmmm!

4. My least favorite is Chinese.

5. So far I’ve only been to Mexico, but I’ll be going to Africa at the end of this year.

6. Sharon Lynn Holley and Carole Lynn Johnson both contributed to my daughter’s name.

7. Diet Pepsi, of course!

8. My twin and I will be 50 in June.

9. I love NY!!!

10. I’ve said “I do” 5 times. Once to what’shisname from when I was too young to know what I was doing, twice to Holley’s dad (what were we thinking???? ) and twice to Greg because of the whole tuition thing.

So, thanks to everyone who played along. I had fun!!

I’ve recently learned in my Bible study class that God had a lot to say about anger.

James 1:19 says in part “But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger.” Proverbs has some really good verses, like 14:29, “He who is slow to anger has great understanding, But he who is quick-tempered exalts folly.”

It made me start analyzing why I feel anger to begin with and I found that most of the time it’s not even anger. It’s another emotion that just comes out as anger. Like disappointment, frustration or jealousy or even envy. And the rest of the time it’s just plain being mad at myself for allowing whatever got to me to happen to begin with.

If it hadn’t been for anger, I think my relationship with my mom would have been 1000 times better those last 5 or 6 years. I was angry with so much when it came to her. And looking back on it now, it seems that if I had just taken the time to really think about it, so much of it could have been avoided. I had leftover anger because of childhood things. Well, not really. It seems now that most of that was anger at myself because I was too chicken to discuss those things with her. Even knowing that she would have probably claimed amnesia about some of it, just talking about it would have helped us both. And then there was the frustration of knowing that she was being taken advantage of by another person and she wouldn’t let me fix it. I should have just prayed about it and let God handle it, but back then I was too stubborn for that. (Have I mentioned that I’m somewhat of a control freak?)  I found myself a lot of times being angry because of her health issues, when most of that was just fear about losing her. So much wasted time being angry.

In the job that I do, taking care of a couple of ladies with handicaps, I find that if I allow it, I can stay quite angry with one of them. She tells lies almost daily, and is very manilulative and sometimes pretty darned defiant. But with what I’m now learning, I don’t react the way I used to with her. I know that if I let the things she does affect me on a personal level, I will react totally unprofessionally. But if I sit back and just be quiet and let God do the talking, we have a much happier home. He has helped me so much with my job.

I’ll be 50 this year and I can’t believe it took me this long to see something so simple. And I can only thank God that I finally have heard His word and that he has given me the ability to understand it so clearly and put it to use in my life. He is awesome! And I know that He has already forgiven me for being so foolish for so long.