The man in Miami who said he’s the christ is now in financial trouble and his ex-wife tells all in their divorce battle…

Scot McKnight raises the issue on why "women in ministry" is such a, well, "issue"

John Frye gives his take on the "issue"

The government failed us…immigrants are people too

Ladies, this is for you!

                                   www.thankyoubilly.com

Check it out here.

In doing my blog cruising today, I saw that Rudy posted about the Thriving Foundation and their work putting this wheel together below, I think its excellent, good material for my book which I’ll have to get permission to use. Since I have stopped looking for full-time work and accepted where God has me know, I’ve allowed what is bubbling up inside of me to peek out and one of those things is this book that has been brewing for a while and a women’s personal coaching initiative which will launch through CEFL and through www.confidencecoach.org and Hiram and I are going to be focusing on a few Rebound messages which will focus on those who don’t know the Lord and to the already convinced about how they can rebound from life situations to fulfill purpose. We are very acquainted with that. Yeah, pray for us :-).

This Sunday also begins our Sunday Summer Sabbaticals, so our church families can focus on their family and summer vacations. Yes, its unorthodox to NOT HAVE CHURCH ON SUNDAY but we have church whereever we are at any day of the week SO our gatherings will be on Thursdays from July 1-August 26. Its an experiment but if it helps our families THRIVE then it could be an every year thing!

Here is a lil peek at a very rough draft at what I started for my book…

A Letter to My Sisters/Hermanas

“All of us are scarred by life; it’s just that some scars show more clearly than others. Our scars tell us that we have lived.” Diana Golden

May 19, 2007

I originally began this book project on October 12, 2003 but it seems that I needed to do a little more living and get a few more scars before I was able to birth this book. As I wrote this letter to you, I was sitting in a hospital room in Florida after the near loss of my son Daniel Jeremiah on Mother’s Day. He was resuscitated five times that day but God allowed him to come back to me because simply, it just was not time for him to die. I cried a lot on that fateful Mother’s Day because I was preparing for loss and yet another scar. God spared me from that one but it was close.  However, while I sit in the hospital after my son survived his critical condition, my mind was on you because in a very real way, what happened to my son, happens to countless women around the world every day.

You may have survived countless things in your life but are near death spiritually. It is my hope that God will speak through the pages of this book and resusitate your soul. It is my prayer that you will see your scars from God’s perspective and allow God to use them to declare his glory. I ask that you park your cynicism somewhere until the end of the book and that you ask God to make himself real through the journey you will read about in these pages. 

Know this my sister, you are not alone and have never been. We have all been thrown lemons in life. We all belong to the Scarred Sister Fellowship but I promise you, if you allow yourself to feel the pain, cry the tears but commit to never quit your walk, your relationship with God, your ministry, God will showcase you as a thriving sister on a lemonade diet.

Remember scars are just reminders that we have lived. They can’t stop what God wants to do through you, only you can.

Your Sister,
Elizabeth D. Rios

Introduction:
Surviving is Important: Thriving is Elegant-
God’s Ultimate Plan is an Elegant Sister

I love May Angelou. Her words inspire those who hear them to try again. One of her quotes inspired me to write this book. It’s a quote I have bought on cards and have framed for my friends and myself, to remind us all that the goal is not merely surviving but thriving. The quote? “Surviving is Important. Thriving is Elegant.”

Many women go through life happy that they have survived the challenges that presented themselves in their lives. Don’t get me wrong. Surviving the storms of our lives is indeed something to celebrate because surviving means that there was a significant shift in our mentality not to accept a victim mentality or to walk around like the living dead. However, I want to challenge women to go a step further and believe that thriving is the ultimate goal.

Survival declares you made it, thriving declares to the world that you made it but you’re better now, you are flourishing holistically, mind, soul and body. I believe God wants women to thrive not merely survive. So what is thriving exactly?

The Webster’s dictionary defines thrive as:

a. To prosper by industry, economy, and good management of property; to increase in goods and estate;
b. To prosper in any business; to have increase or success
c. To increase in bulk or stature; to grow vigorously or luxuriantly, as a plant; to flourish

Survival on the other hand is defined as:

a. To remain alive; to continue to live
b. To live beyond the life or existence of; to live longer than; to outlive; to outlast, as to survive a person or event

In a nutshell, surviving is about status quo and maintenance living. Using the term for the purposes of this book then, survival means that we were not taken out by the last storm or trial in our life, we are perhaps still alive physically but are we still alive in our soul? Is it well in our soul? That is where thriving comes in, thriving is about prosperity and increase, about above and beyond what you expected, about abundant living, about seeing life with a new fresh lens and thus having a new take on the life we’ve lived thus far even with all its pain. This is the kind of life Jesus said he wants us to have. The Amplified version of John 10:10 tells us “…I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).”

Thriving proclaims the essence of God in our lives to a watching world. Anybody can survive but a women who is battle weary, red-eyed and scarred yet trusts in the Lord, testifies without opening her mouth that there is a God and there is no other. Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard said it best when he said, “to be a witness does not consist in engaging propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”   What does this mean? For those of you who hate traditional evangelism methods, this is the way to testify of God’s goodness…live your life thriving after death, after betrayals, after unspeakable horrors, the mystery of your life will shout out GOD.

Thriving tells the world that we have a God of power on our side that through His grace helped us get a footing in this world after a life draining situation passed through our lives. After the lemons of life, many women who merely survive are alive but are full of bitterness. However, the sisters who thrive look at life from a Godly perspective. They are not in denial about their pain but they have realized that each difficult moment they have gone through has opened their eyes and heart to the everyday beauty in a hurting world. This is what makes a thriving woman elegant to the world and beautifully molded by God.

A woman who is thriving is elegant because she is better able to handle the next few lemons that come her way because her faith was built from the last situation she went through. However, its important to note that thriving does not happen overnight. I feel sorry for the sisters who have been brain-washed by religious legalistic fanatics (no matter how well meaning) that made them think no grieving was allowed if you were a child of God. Thriving is what happens after you have survived a few things and have learned that God is God and we are not. Thriving happens when we are truly able to let go of what worries us and leave it in the capable hands of the Father.

I say this to remind you that thriving is the continual result of women who let themselves go through the process of being gutted. Just like fish being cleaned of all their insides before they are able to be presented on a plate for their ultimate destiny, so we are to go through the process of cleaning our insides before our ultimate purpose can be achieved in this world. The process involves pain, tears, anger, tantrums, and loss of faith and joy in God. However, if you truly seek to find the truth after your temporary setback or crisis, God will find you and reveal himself to you in ways that you never would have imagined.

At the end of the process, you find thriving. Only to find that process never really stops and thriving is a continual choice. It is elegant because onlookers see Jesus all over the woman who is thriving and that my sisters, is God’s ultimate purpose for all of us as we go through the many trials of life—to point others in His direction.

We have have chosen the narrow path as a disciple of Jesus and unfortunately just as it did for Jesus himself, this side of heaven our life comes with its share of lemons.  This book was written to remind women everywhere that we have before us a race and we need to finish it. “Well begun is just half done” (Aristole), good intentions don’t count, not realizing your full potential while you live this life well always bring sadness to our Lord. Hebrews 12:1 reminds us “..let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us.”  We can’t stop running this race we are in, the race that began the day we said yes to Jesus to be our savior and take a hold of our lives. I know its hard to see God in everything, to get up after life has badly bruised you, even as I write this I am sitting in a hospital room one day after my 17th Wedding anniversary with my son Daniel who died five times on Mother’s Day. Life is certainly hard but we do not have to coil over and be dead. We can be scarred by life, but still get up, and still stand. When the watching world sees that even if they never tell you, they see God’s elegant woman with beauty all over her.

I challenge you sister, don’t merely allow yourself to survive the challenges of life, I ask that you dare to believe God for the best in your life. Believe that you will thrive even after…

This song takes me back. My husband is a Spanish music enthusiast in so many ways, he instilled in me such an interest and love for Latino music and this is one of our all time favorites "Amanda Mia" or translated "My Love?" sung here by Cheo Feliciano. Oh man…

I’ll be taking vacation from July 8-23. I’ll be in Orlando then New York and I’m looking forward to it! However, I want to have a message I am preparing to preach while in NYC at my  home church to be simmering in my Spirit while on vacation. I like to prepare the message then simmer, allow God’s spirit to redirect and quicken me with any new thoughts on the message. 

Like I’ve mentioned many times on this blog, my greatest passions along with advocacy for women in leadership, is the challenge to remind everyone that while we are on this side of heaven, we will go through situations that will make us want to quit. However, we have to live our life with purpose, organize our life around that purpose and name and call out those things that distract us from that purpose.  While we are on earth, the devil will hound you (remember he’s "LIKE" a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour), press you to quit. But this is the other side of that…something is wrong if the devil isn’t interested in you.

My sister-in-law told me she shared this with the women praying in her church on Friday…the picture says it all doesn’t it. He’s the one carrying us through it ALL.

I’ll be selling my shirts at the 3rd Annual Women in Ministry conference in Ft. Lauderdale this Oct. There is something special about those of us who belong to the Pulpit Sisterhood. You see there has always been and will probably always be "an issue" with women preaching especially preaching to men. I don’t really argue about that, its a waste of time. The deal is simple, God uses both genders to fulfill His purpose on earth.