Maxine Marsolini and I will interview Dr. Gregory Jantz about emotional abuse on our blog talk radio show on Monday January 31^st. Dr. Jantz says many victims of emotional abuse tend to minimize their abuse even though the abuse can affect all their relationships. Has emotional abuse affected you? Go through the check list below, identifying whether you were emotionally abused in the past or are being abused presently. Then tune in to our show on the 31^st and let Dr. Jantz tell you how to begin healing.

Signs of Emotional Abuse from the book

Healing the Scars of Emotional Abuse

by Dr. Gregory Jantz

1. Making the person feel worthless
2. Putting the blame for one’s mistakes on the other person
3. Minimizing the other person’s point of view
4. Threatening or hinting of physical or sexual abuse
5. Going into fits of rage
6. Failing to fulfill commitments or promises made or implied
7. Lying to avoid responsibility for the truth
8. Refusing to acknowledge the other person’s feeling
9. Verbally or physically humiliating the other person through inappropriate gestures, comments, or “jokes”
10. Using shame or guilt to manipulate the actions of the other person
11.  Not allowing the other person to articulate his or her feelings
12. Denying the person access to his or her personal possessions or pets
13. Withholding financial resources
14. Refusing to communicate with the other person – the silent treatment
15. Displaying extreme ranges of mood
16. Making conditional agreements in which the conditions keep changing to avoid fulfilling the agreement
17. Using a hostile or sarcastic tone of voice with the other person
18. Being critical or each action, thought or remark of the other person
19. Viewing others as a part of that person’s own personality as opposed to individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, and opinions
20. Belittling, humiliating, marginalizing, and / or ignoring the other person

Prayer Prompting Stones

A Hands-on Prayer List

 Great Hand-Crafted Christmas Present

 

© Jeannie St. John Taylor

               All through the Bible, God uses stones as reminders.

                In the first book of the Bible, Jacob took the stone he used as a pillow and set it upright so he would remember the place where God met him in a dream (see Gen 28:11).

                God wrote his Ten Commandments on a stone with his own finger so his children would never forget his laws (see Ex.31:18).

               He instructed Moses to incorporate engraved precious stones into the clothing the high priest wore when entering the Most Holy Place. When God saw the stones he was “reminded of his people continually” (Ex. 28:29 NLT).

               When the Israelites crossed into the Promised Land, God told them to set up memorial stones on the bank of the river so that, in the future, their children would be curious and ask about the stones. Their questions would remind the parents to share the story of how God opened a path through the Jordan River when the Ark of the LORD started across (see Josh. 4:6-9).

               In the New Testament, the Apostle Peter refers to Jesus as the cornerstone and declares we are the living stones God is building into his spiritual temple (see 2 Pet. 2: 5,6). The last book of the Bible mentions the white stone engraved with the new name

Jesus will give us when we enter heaven and change into perfect beings (see Rev. 2:17).

               How appropriate for us to use stones as visual reminders to pray for our friends and loved ones, the very people Jesus longs to perfect as he builds them into the living stones of his temple.

 

Assembling the Stones

Purchase polished semi-precious colored stones at a gift store or buy polished river rocks at any craft store

Making the Stones into a Prayer List

With a fine point permanent marker or an enamel pen, neatly print the name of one person for whom

You wish to pray on each stone. A single name can represent an entire family: i.e. “Barb” might remind you to pray for Barb, her husband, her parents and all ten of her children.

Arrange the name-stones in a dish that has a special meaning for you. I like to use a crystal bowl, or

shallow crystal coaster for fewer stones, because crystal symbolizes purity. You may use a bowl with special meaning to your family.

 Or you may prefer a hand-crafted earthen bowl to help you remember we humans are made of clay.

Set the stones in the bowl on a table or the counter where they will catch your eye and remind you to pray.

How to Use the Name Stones

               Every day, sort through the name-stones one at a time. As you read the name on each stone, ask the Holy Sprit to show you how to pray for the name on the stone and the names he / she represents. Then pause for a moment before you begin praying to give the Holy Spirit time to speak into your thoughts.

More Ways to Use the Stones

Explain the purpose of the stones to your loved ones. Then expect to hear clicking sounds when they’re

alone in a room with the stones. They will be sorting through the pile, looking for their name-stone, feeling

affirmed and loved by you — and God.

To help with a difficult day at school, let your child take his / her name-stone with him / her. It will

Comfort your child as he / she remembers you are praying.

Display the stones in a prominent place in your home or on your desk  at work. They will offer unexpected

opportunities to witness.

When someone is going through a difficult time, stick their name-stone in your pocket or purse to remind

yourself to pray through the day.

Look Up These Stones in the Bible

Altars built from uncut stones (see Ex. 20:25)

Stones used to determine God’s will, the Urim and Thummim, (see Ex. 28:30)

Stones used to kill Goliath, the giant threatening God’s people (see 1 Sam. 17:40)

Stones used to execute lawbreakers (see Deut. 13:10)

Repairing the stone walls that surround and protect Jerusalem (see Neh. Chapters 3 & 4)

Stones would cheer for Jesus if people didn’t (See Luke 19:40)

No stone could keep Jesus in the grave (Mark 16:3,4)

Precious stones inlaid into the walls of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:18)

Warning!

   Always remember that the stones themselves have no power. They are simply a visual reminder to pray.

(Jeannie’s Prayer Stone come packaged as a kit complete with

stones, bowl, and a name pen on Christianbook.com.)

Pumpkin Recipes

Tapioca Filled Baked Pumpkin Dessert 

One small to medium pumpkin (no larger than a basketball).

·        Cut off top of pumpkin and clean it out as you would a Jack-o-lantern. Bake on a rack over a pan of water in the oven at 350 until you can pierce it with a fork.

·        Filling option one: Fill the cooked pumpkin with already-made tapioca pudding purchased in the refrigerated section of your grocery. Bake until hot through.

·        Filling  option two: Follow the directions for making tapioca pudding on the back of a box of dry tapioca pearls. Fill the pumpkin with the tapioca. Bake for half an hour. 

Tip: Wrap this delicious dessert in large bath towels and it will stay hot for three to four hours while you wait for company to arrive. To eat, scoop out the cooked pumpkin along with the tapioca.

Dinner in a Pumpkin

One small to medium pumpkin no larger than a basketball.

·        Cut off top of pumpkin and clean it out as you would a Jack-o-lantern. 

1 onion, chopped                                                                                  2 tbsp. brown sugar

1 tbsp. of oil                                                                                          1 can cream of chicken soup

1 ½ - 2 lbs. ground beef                                                                        2 tbsp. soy sauce

1 4 oz. can mushrooms, drained                                                            1 ½ c. cooked rice

One can sliced water chestnuts, drained

·        Saute onions in oil until tender. Add meat and brown. Drain off drippings. Add all ingredients together and simmer for ten minutes. Spoon into pumpkin. Bake on a rack over a pan of water in the oven at 350 until you can easily pierce it with a fork. About an hour.

 Pumpkin Bread

Cream together:

1 c. oil

2 c. white sugar

Then add:

4 beaten eggs

1 pound pumpkin (2 cups)

Put these together then add to above:

               3 c. flour

               1 tsp. salt

               ½ c. nuts

               3 tsp. cinnamon

Dissolve in hot water and add to above:

1 tsp. soda        

Spray two loaf pans with cooking spray. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees.

              

A Powerful Way to Pray

God gave my daughter the gift of tongues years before this story begins, but she rarely used it. She felt foolish doing so. Was she babbling nonsense? Had God really given her the gift? Sometimes she worried she just made the whole thing up.

Recently while facing a challenge, Tori’s prayers seemed to hit a ceiling. Finally, as a last resort she decided to pray in her tongue. Soon after she began praying, she experienced a powerful breakthrough in the situation. Excited, she shared with her husband. He said since he’d never heard her pray in her tongue, maybe for their regular nightly prayers she should spend some time praying that way.

She did.

He listened.

Her husband is Jewish and knows some Hebrew. When her prayer finished he said, “Tori, you’re praying in Hebrew.” Some of the words he recognized. Others he looked up. But the main phrase she had been speaking over and over was, “Consecrated to God. Consecrated to God.”

God knows Tori’s heart. He knows she wants more than anything to be consecrated to God. So he gave the most effective words she could pray in the language Adam and Eve probably spoke in the garden. He guided her to focus on him and declare her love for him rather than asking for help.

And then he helped her.
            Though God has not given me the gift of tongues, I want the same thing Tori wants. I long to be consecrated to God. So I’ve begun praying aloud, declaring in front of all the heavenly powers as well as to God, “Consecrated to God.” I pray in my only tongue, English, and mean it with ever fiber of my being.

When I do that, I feel God powerful presence. That’s the best gift possible, even though I know he’s also answering my requests.

Uncle Eldon 

In sorting through my files this morning, I ran across a brief devotional I wrote a few years back about my sweet Uncle Eldon Fuhrman. (You can find him on Wikipedia.) I wrote this devotional after he called to let me know he was retiring from his job as seminary president to care for his wife because her dementia had grown worse. I greatly admired my uncle and thought his sacrifice might inspire you.

Uncle Eldon's news caused me to fumble the phone and slop coffee on my jeans. “But Uncle Eldon!” I protested. “Seminary presidents don’t just retire in the throes of a successful career. Students and teachers need you. That job is your life. It gives you purpose.” I didn't say he should hire someone to take care of my aunt, but I thought it.

“Your Aunt Blanche needs me more, honey. The school can find another president, but no one else can love your aunt through dementia. She’s my purpose. Besides,” I detected joy in his voice, “This gives me more time to pray.”

Over the next fifteen years, I talked to my uncle often. He told me he prayed for me and each of my children daily. Eventually, he and my aunt moved into a nursing home and both needed wheelchairs, but he could still drive. So every day he loaded my aunt into his car for a long drive to visit the seminary. Before returning to the nursing home, he parked in front of the dorm named for him and prayed for each resident at length.

When he died in his late eighties, my Uncle Eldon still knew his purpose.

Thought: When tempted to feel old and useless, I remember my uncle and know God still has a purpose for me.   

Verses: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” Eccl. 3:1 KJV

             “So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me.” Ps. 71:18 ESV

NAME THE BABY CONTEST

Come up with a name for the newest addition to our family and win my latest novel, City of a Thousand Gods. He / she, born on June 30th at about noon, is a heifer or bull of dazzling red with a snow white face. Since we don't know the gender of the calf yet, the name will need to be appropriate for either a boy or girl.

I'll announce the winner by Saturday, July 14th. If I choose your the name you gave the baby, you'll win a copy of my novel. 

We already have three nominations: Cheers, Fourth of July and RootBeer. You can do better than that, can't you! Enter today and submit as many names as you'd like. Look at those long eyelashes and the red rings around her / his eyes. How can you resist naming that adorable little (if 80 pounds can be considered little) thing.

Late yesterday, I uploaded my just-finished picture book, Pumpkins Party All Night, to Youtube.

I started the project approximately five years ago and had finished half the illustrations when a life-threatening illness struck my husband. I stopped everything to care for him. Then, within three weeks of the onset of Ray's problems, I started losing my vision, but couldn't afford the time to go to the doctor and get it checked. Ray needed me at home. Eight weeks later, when his kidneys began functioning again and we could stop at-home IV's, I visited the eye specialist. He told me I had Dry Macular Degeneration (the slow-moving type) as well as wrinkled retinas. The wrinkles had left several blind spots in each eye and he could do nothing for the MD except suggest vitamins that could slow it down. The floaters and strings should go away on their own.


For the next two years, I was afraid to even attempt detailed illustration work. But to my great joy, I could still see well enough to work on the computer. The floaters disappeared and the MD didn't get worse. I ignored the words jumping on the page when I read my Bible. I didn't mind that I read slowly and could no longer finish the introduction to Star Wars scrolling across the screen. I was just thrilled that I could work and drive.

I painted a few large abstracts, savoring every minute of the creative process, and spent my days writing the novel City of a Thousand Gods. When I finished writing the book two years later, without even thinking about it ahead of time, I started painting a cover for the novel. I was shocked when I realized what I was doing! And that I could see just fine. Though my vision hadn't actually improved, I no longer noticed it as much -- kind of like the pea-sized spot in the middle of my computer glasses that is now invisible to me.

So I took up where I left off with the pumpkin book, and in the middle of the process I made a greeting card featuring the illustration above which I sent to a friend. A general-market publisher saw the card and contacted me, letting me know they were interested in the book. We communicated a few times before I decided not to give the book to them.

But that didn't change my purpose for the book -- I wrote Pumpkins for Christians to use with their children during the Fall season when others celebrated with witches and goblins. Unfortunately, the book doesn't 'fit' a Christian publisher.

That's why I uploaded to Youtube and have no plans to submit the book to any publisher. And that's why I need your help. If enough people go to Youtube and look at the book now, by October parents should be able to find it. So please go look for it and then pass the word along to friends with children.

The address for Pumpkins Party All Night is  http://youtu.be/ZCYe0jWPM0Y. If the link doesn't work just go to the Youtube site and type my name and the book title into the search bar.

Thank you so much! Remember, it's free on Youtube! I love that! 

The Sky Speaks

(Photo courtesy Riki Meyers)

“The heavens tell of the glory of God.

The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship.

Day after day they continue to speak;

Night after night they make him known.

There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.

Their message has gone out to all the earth,

And their words to all the world.”

Psalm 119: 1-4

For thousands of years mankind has lifted eyes to the heavens knowing the sky would BE.

Never changing.

A constant.

Constantly changing.

For thousands of years never once exactly the same.

The sky moves continuously as it fulfills its purpose

DECLARING GOD’S GLORY.

The sky whispers God’s quiet beauty.
The rising sun paints white puffs with pinks and lavender.

Azure melts into the deep blue of a cloudless summer sky.

Filmy orange stripes stretch across the horizon at sunset.

The cobalt night sky twinkles with specks of light.

The sky sighs God’s presence in the warm breeze that swirls around us,

embracing us,

caressing upturned faces.

The wild sky calls out the wonder of a wild God.

Roaring God’s power in the storm that pulsates brilliant orange and yellow, then darkens. 

Lifting birds and driving them backwards.

Shooting jagged fire east to west. 

Thunder shouts. 

Clouds swirl and collide then descend as tornadoes, snatching up houses and massive oaks.

After the storm, the sky murmurs God’s love, arching His rainbow-promise of protection through lingering droplets.

The sky’s beauty beckons us, stirs a longing to merge with God’s glory.

We ascend in metal shells, the sky encloses us, shaking tons of steel traveling through clouds as easily as it flutters an aspen leaf.

We scale the tallest peaks to touch the sky. 

Its heights freeze us. 

Thin oxygen sucks breath from our lungs.

No one can survive the naked embrace of God’s sky.

Yet it reaches down to touch us and utters comfort.

Settling to the earth as fog

Obliterating massive mountains.  

Blanketing cities with white that halts human activity.

Granting permission for warmth to pass through and coax food from frozen ground.

Releasing water to paints flowers with brilliant color and rush over waterfalls.

The sky ceaselessly speaks God’s glory.

It will never pause until the day it trumpets the glory of 

Christ’s return

And  melts with fervent heat.

Christian Picture Books on Youtube

A couple of days ago, my daughter-in-law sent me this video of my barely-two grandson declaring his love for God. In the middle of a chat they were having about some scones he helped make, he changed the subject to say he'd been watching Grandma's books on Youtube, and then . . . the declaration. Check it out.

Titus Loves God 

What a thrill!

That video reveals precisely why I write and illustrate picture books, why I consider books for young children possibly more important than books for grown-ups and why I've put several of my out-of-print and never-published books on Youtube.

And why I hope other Christian authors will do the same.

I've included the links for seven of my Youtube books below. You can click on these or cut and paste them into your browser or just type my name into the Youtube search bar. I hope that you'll pass these links along to anyone you know with young children or grandchildren.

            1.    Am I Praying . . .  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdVfDFZOzxg&context=C41e31c3ADvjVQa1PpcFMvZ1qjgHEDOh_pJI9MDbUSCnOQl6tNtlg=  

2.     Does God Have A Job . . . . http://youtu.be/wbQJNg5w_ic

3.     You Wouldn’t Love Me If You Knew . . .  http://youtu.be/JpgnH1IanQI

4.     Sleepwalking Susan  . . . http://youtu.be/QsgZubPFOVU

5.     Bubba was a Bad Boa . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imKt74QWmA8

6.     Bridget’s Bubbles . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3CgVYrRrJY&feature=relmfu

7.    Why Did God Create Me? http://youtu.be/hzr-_Ov9zP4

             Second copy only slightly different -- http://youtu.be/m3r2Uto2He8