Moore “Feathers”

“Lord,” Beth Moore’s daughter reportedly prayed prior to her mother’s address to a large group, “we don’t want anybody to get the idea that our family is perfect.  It’s not.  But I thank You, God, that because of You, it’s real.  (Feathers From My Nest: A Mother’s Reflections, p. 97)

This daughter’s prayer sums up Beth Moore’s Feathers From My Nest, a skillful weft of reflection, inspiration and homespun homilies.  Its 214 pages are divided into 18 chapters that include strolls down memory lane featuring family togetherness, rhetorical reminiscence, and reflections on hearth and home.  Themes, both primary, secondary and tertiary, run the gamut from insincerity and hypocrisy to triumph and tears, trust and obey and mercy and memories.  All are told with Moore’s trademark wit, passion, and the kind of ebullient effervescence that could charm nine gallons out of a ten-gallon hat.

Introduction and Resonance

The four-page introduction, “Feathers From My Nest,” is a clever take-off on Matthew 10:29, 31.  It includes some poignant conversations between “Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow” that will strike a responsive chord with parents of a certain age. Other passages will resonate especially well with moms, such as:

“I wanted so badly to be the perfect mother and raise my children in the perfect home.  Not that I had ever had it or seen it.  The irony is that as hard as I worked to keep harsh realities out of their lives, my children learned a few right inside our own home.  Let’s face it.  No family lives a fairy tale.” (p. 96)

The section on car pooling from 127,000 miles a la the “Moore mobile” is hilarious – and will have “been there, done that” readers chuckling down the road, too.  Dog lovers will enjoy The Stray Dog – and so will feline fans (it’s not just about a lovable, opportunistic black dog).  Speaking of black, the black and white family photos –  mostly featuring Moore’s two daughters – which accompany the facing page of each chapter heading add an intimate “three dimensional” family flavor.  The final chapter, One Slightly Gray, Well-Seasoned Man is a tribute to Moore’s husband and rounds out these maternal reflections nicely.

Structure and Style

Astute readers may notice that Moore has a tendency to overwrite on occasion, such as in The Index Cards.  Here Moore can’t seem to decide which specific target to tackle, so she adopts a shot-gun style and sprays everything with what is perhaps an overlong, somewhat random chapter.  In this chapter Moore expands a relatively brief vignette related to Deuteronomy 6:5-7 into twelve pages touching on God’s love, parents as teachers, His name is wonderful, joy, broadening boundaries, and “family altar time.”    Some themes are related, some are redundant, and some deserve separate chapters for clarity’s sake.  All are laced with Scripture and/or a biblical perspective.

Some readers will find this autobiographical “smorgasborg” tender and endearing; others may find it smarmy and reach for a roll of Rolaids.  If you like Beth Moore, you’ll like Feathers. If not, you may want to skip this one.

Reviewed by: Kristine Lowder

Roads Diverged

A Little Lowder

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The Choices I Get To Make

I get to choose daily what type of attitude I “clothe” myself with.

I get to choose whether I see my cup as half empty or half full {on the days that my proverbial cup doth not runneth over}.

And get this: I even get to choose the “climate” of my home.

Wow.  What a reality check.  What a great honor.  What a hefty responsibility!

We, as women {especially as wives and mothers}, have a tremendous impact on the “tone” of our home environment.  In short…we set it.

It is sweet.  Or it is sour.

Unlike the sauce, It cannot be both.

I get to choose how I respond to my children when they behave poorly.  I get to rise above and initiate an energizing cycle, in spite of bad behavior, and regardless of how badly I may have slept the night before {thanks to them}…or simply react negatively out of my own selfishness and immaturity.

Wisdom or impulse.  It’s my choice.

I get to choose how I respond to my husband when he is weary, unknowingly abrupt, and still in “work mode” {which, translated, means treating me in a way I interpret as unloving}.  Choosing to love and serve, even when I am feeling unloved and empty.

I get to choose.  Every time.

Fuel or water.

What will I choose to pour over the situations I find myself standing on the verge of on a day-to-day basis?  And those I find myself hopelessly stuck in on rare occasion?

My attitude has the potential to change everything…the basic dynamic of my day…of his day…of their day.

I’ve heard it said, “attitude is everything”.  And the older I get, the more I grasp the magnitude of that statement.  It’s undeniable…our attitude has the potential tomake or break us, and those around us.

And the heart-breaking truth is, I’ve failed miserably in this department over the past few weeks.  Specifically in regards to my sweet husband.

I so easily turn my focus inward.  Selfishness consumes my thinking, and a mutually uncomfortable season in our marriage, brief as it may be, becomes one where all I see is my own emptiness.

I am instantly the victim, my husband the culprit.

Sucked into the vortex of my own self-centered, little pity party, I fail to recognize where my man is struggling, where he is feeling worn down and empty, and how my superficial attempt to explain my feelings leaves him feeling dejected and insufficient.

Fuel or water?

I had been choosing fuel almost exclusively for a week.  Crying myself to sleep, I made agreements about myself and my marriage that were so far from the truth, but were powerful enough to slowly drive a wedge between us.  Intimacy, shot.  Heart, hardened.  Climate, frosty.

My perspective clouded by selfishness, I held him at arm’s length and practically demanded my {emotional} needs got met before his {physical} needs had a chance of being met.

How does the knowledge I’ve acquired regarding the differences between men and women get forgotten so easily.  While I was processing legitimate heart-ache, I was going about it the wrong way.  I know that isn’t how this relationship thing works!  I know that isn’t the way God intended me to love my husband.  I know that isn’t the way to woo my husband’s heart.

It starts with dying to self.  Laying my agenda aside.  Loving extravagantly – without expectation – and allowing God to do “His thing”.

I forgot the power of pure water.

I’ve laid my bucket of fuel aside, pursued my husband’s heart {in spite of feeling the nagging ache of loneliness…oh, how I despise ‘night shift’}, intentionally prioritizing the refreshment of his weary soul…and now find myself reveling in the sweetness of God’s upside-down way of doing love.

My cup runneth over!

It’s delightful.  It’s mind-blowing.  It’s life-giving.  Tis’ sweet, my friends!

And it has energized the heck out of my marriage.

I get to choose.  Initiate an energizing cycle, or perpetuate the destruction of the crazy cycle.

All because of a small {okay, enormous} decision to change the attitude of my heart.

I’ve written previously about my love for the often quoted saying by Chuck Swindoll… “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life…The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

I’ve had an attitude adjustment over the past week {and for this, my husband is eternally grateful}.

It was hard and awkward and tear-filled.  But oh, so necessary.

And oh, so worth it!

{because marriage, God’s way, always is}

By Joy McMillan, Simply Bloom

Irreconcilable Differences

We have all heard the final decision, irreconcilable differences, marking the end of a marriage. A judge signs his name to official documents, and two people once pledged as one separate. They each try to pick up the broken pieces, and say goodbye to a love they once knew. Divorce is a reality; it leaves its mark on individuals, families and society. There are many contributing factors, but we discover irreconcilable differences at the top of the list.

The word irreconcilable is such a tragic word. It implies any hope of agreement and settling disputes is impossible. If partners truly have tried through counseling to be reconciled, they must feel defeated. Praise God; we are not permanently separated from God by irreconcilable differences!

 Jesus closed the gap, and our great counselor, the Holy Spirit healed all our wounds. (2 Corinthians 5:17-21) Not only are we reconciled to the heavenly Father, He gives us a ministry to reconcile others.  Hear the plea, “ Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:20-21 NAS).” We can leave our lives of defeat behind, and put to death our fears of irreconcilable differences.

Love is Hard

Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, it is not pompous,
It is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

In the second reading for this weekend, St. Paul offers a beautiful description of all that love should be. This teaching is appropriate for all kinds of love – love between family members, love between friends, and love between spouses. It offers a blueprint of how to live in harmony with those important to us. The love described in this scripture passage is the ideal, yet it stands in stark contrast to the image of love that popular culture presents, especially for married couples.

It smacked of irony that the same day I heard this reading, I heard of two young couples who are considering divorce. They both have been married less than three years, and one couple has a small child. Marriage isn’t what they expected. They just aren’t in love with each other anymore.

I’m not close to these couples and I know that the only people who knows what goes on in a marriage are the two people involved. There are certainly reasons why some couples shouldn’t be married, terrible things that no one should have to endure. There are also some people who were not able to make that marriage commitment in the first place for whatever reason. My intention is not to condemn anyone.

Nevertheless, I hear more and more people using the reason “we’re not in love anymore” as a reason for divorce. It makes me wonder what these people think that love is supposed to be. Is their idea of love St. Paul’s description or the world’s idea that love is fireworks and romance?

Anyone who has been married for a while knows that marriage is not all wine and roses. Two imperfect people joined in holy matrimony create an imperfect union. Romance often gets lost in the work of day to day living. Marriages have ups and downs and those downs can last for years. Rough spots can be trying to the soul and to the relationship. There are going to be times when the thought of being married to the same person for the next however many years is simply too much to bear. There will be times when walking away seems like the only reasonable solution.

The best advice I ever got when I was getting married came from a coworker. She had been married for eleven years at the time. She told me, “I can stay married, if only for today.” I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve repeated that advice to myself. That is what a good marriage is made of – one day at a time. It is getting up and choosing to live St. Paul’s version of love, even when the feeling is not there. It is choosing to be patient and kind and putting the other person first. It is praying for the strength to keep going. I wish that more people spoke that truth to young couples who are getting married.

Love is all those wonderful things that St. Paul talks about. Love, true love, is also hard. It takes a strong commitment and a willingness to get through the difficult times one day at a time. Then we can live the true vision of love that God wants for us.

by Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur
http://spiritualwomanthoughts.blogspot.com

Love Is….

Love Is…. ~ Author Unknown

 

 

 

If I keep my house immaculately clean and am envied by all for my interior decorating,

 

But do not show love in my family -

 

I’m just another housewife.

 

 

If I’m always producing lovely things – sewing, art;

 

If I always look attractive and speak intelligently, but am not loving to my family –

 

I am nothing.

 

 

If I’m busy in community affairs,

 

teach Sunday School, and drive the carpool,

 

But fail to give adequate love to my family -

 

I gain nothing.

 

 

Love changes diapers, cleans up messes, and ties shoes – over and over again.

 

 

Love is kind, though tired and frazzled.

 

 

Love doesn’t envy other women – one whose children are “spaced” better, or in school so she has time to pursue her own interests.

 

Love doesn’t try to impress others with my abilities or knowledge as a mother.

 

 

Love doesn’t scream at the kids.

 

 

Love doesn’t feel cheated because I didn’t get to do what I wanted to do today – sew, read, soak in a hot tub.

 

 

Love doesn’t lose my temper easily.

 

 

Love doesn’t assume that my children are being naughty just because the noise level is irritating.

 

Love doesn’t rejoice when other people’s children misbehave and make mine look good.

 

 

Love is genuinely happy whe others are honored by their children.