Gateways to Joy

Today's post is a piggyback so to speak off of   Women Living Well.  While reading my "daily blogs" I saw where Courtney had written the above post. The post moved me still. I looove Courtney and the blogging ministry that God has given her.  Her posts are very thought-out and informative. I get many emails from women who experience abuse from the hands of the man that God has given to protect and love them. What I find sad are the "good abusers " of course no abuse is ever good, but there are some men, Christian men, who feel that if they are not physically hitting their wives or bashing them with words of profanity than they are not abusers. There are several types of abuse, men.  Did you know that the good old " silent treatment " is a form of abuse? Sometimes an awful lot is said by "you not saying."   Mr. Nice Guy usually seems to be the one who dishes out this type of emotional abuse and often times the wife has become ac...

Image via Wikipedia Have you ever responded to a circumstance in a way you wish you hadn't?  Me too.  I do it way more than I'd like to admit—even to myself. Take last night for instance.  A friend and I were talking outside in a parking lot,  I felt like he wasn't being totally forth coming about an issue he and I have been dealing with for a few years now.  Although I handled the situation better than I've handled some of our encounters in the past, I still didn't handle this issue the way I wanted to.  Clearly I see how the Lord is using me in this relationship to build my character, but I keep faltering.  We both ended up calling each other rude and he even called me mean before driving off. Let's try and remember this: OUR CHARACTER IS REVA LED BY OUR RESPONDS TO THE UNEXPECTED. Today, I was pulled toward Mary, the beloved mother of our Savior.  What a girl!  Look at her responds to her unexpected situation.  " 'Behold...