Excerpt from my new book!

Well, I really am writing a book! I have a good start on the first chapter down. It is going to be good. I am excited! The working title is Like a Pearl and it is a comparison to daily wisdom, lessons learned and such to pearls and the process by which they are formed.

Here is an excerpt of what I have thus far. Let me know what you think!

One day at work I noticed a bright neon yellow butterfly that was folded and lying motionless on the sidewalk. I felt bad for the beautiful creature. Over the next couple of days I noticed how every time I stepped outside the butterfly was still in the same lifeless position on the ground. On the fourth day, though, the butterfly was nowhere to be found. Instead what I saw were scattered pieces of neon yellow broken and crushed into the sidewalk.

This scenario caused me to start thinking about butterflies and their life spans. Butterflies were not always butterflies, they started as caterpillars. Caterpillars are not very attractive creatures with their furry bodies and how they slowly creep about with their hundreds of legs. They give me the eebie jeebies! I remember in children's church when I was growing up a familiar lesson on being born again was the life change of a caterpillar undergoing metamorphosis to become a butterfly. Jesus can take your ugliness and turn you into a pure and beautiful new creation was the object of the lesson. As I thought more about the neon yellow butterfly I watched over the course of a week go from being lifeless to being crushed it became clearer to me there is a deeper significance to this lesson. Yes, when we become born again Jesus does make us like new but when we are baby Christians we are fragile and easily hurt -- just like a fragile butterfly.

Friends, I need to tell you that the Lord wants you to grow and mature and move past that stage. I do not believe the Lord ever intended to have us remain a like a butterfly. Butterflies are fragile and are easily crushed. The Lord wants to make us strong and through Him we are more than conquerors. I recently heard Joyce Myer say that sometimes the Lord allows us to go through trials that we think are attacks of the devil but are really experiences he has decided to keep us in to test us and put us through the fire. Think about a pearl. Pearls are strong, unbreakable and rare.

The process by which a pearl is formed is not glamorous by any means. A pearl is formed over a period of years as an oyster forms layers of nacre around an irritant that got stuck inside the shell. The little oyster had to go through agony and pain to create something so beautiful. Sisters, there is beauty in the pain. It is not time to check out now. I believe the Lord wants to bring us to the next level - He wants to make us like a pearl.

More on Chris Tomlin

I wrote this last night:

Ever since I recently found out 37-year old multi-Dove award-winning Christian artist Chris Tomlin was still single, I have not been able to get the question of "why?!" out of my head. The possibilities (of course he is single because of God's will for his life) of why this good looking, amazing man of God, singer/songwriter/musician who is pushing forty is still single just astounds me and scares me too. 1) Why is he still single? This guy is amazing! I know the reason definitely isn't that there aren't any willing women who are strong in their faith and would be a good wife for him. Didn't you know? Good looking, Christian men of God in the body of Christ are on a major shortage. Yep, there are three women to every one man in the church.

I was watching video footage of him on his website. I wasn't paying much attention to his words as his I was his eyes. Jesus said the eyes are the window to the soul. His ran of deep waters. I've never before seen anyone who had such love in his eyes. It was so intense that though I was watching him on a computer screen I had to turn my gaze from his eyes. It was like he was truly the embodiment of 2 Corinthians 3:18.

If anything, he has given me more hope that to whatever age the Lord makes me remain single there will still be single and amazing men of God around. It also makes me aim even higher with my standards. I want a man that is on the same playing field and the same caliber as greats like Chris Tomlin, Michael W. Smith or Jeremy Camp.

I hope the Lord blesses Chris and his long wait proves to have been well worth it.

2 Corinthians 3:18 (King James Version)
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.