Christainity

Not Good Enough

/ Linda DeLay Wallace / Leave a comment

I realized that I have not written a blog for a while. In all honesty, I have been in a funk lately and I sometimes wonder why I have started this journey of writing. Do I really have anything to say that my readers have not heard a hundred times before? I frequently ask myself, what am I doing here? Sometimes doubts plague me and Satan shouts at me, “You are not good enough for this.”

Photo by Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash

I am going to be vulnerable here and share my doubts. When I struggle to sit and write another page in my book, I think maybe I am not creative enough and my characters are not real enough and my plot is not developed enough. I am not good enough to do this.

When I write about the hurts that my main character has had in her life, I remember hurts I have had in mine. And I think–I can’t do this God. I cannot revisit the pain that I hid for years. But I cannot reveal my character’s pain without acknowledging my own. And my past sometimes shouts at me that I am flawed and not good enough.

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Sitting at the Table

/ Linda DeLay Wallace / 2 Comments

Today I attended the funeral of a friend of mine. I tried to remember the first time I met Nancy. Our paths first crossed at a retreat put on by the Christian Campus House of Missouri University. That was in 1971. I did not meet her again until 1978, when I returned back home from living in Cincinnati for four years after college. It was then that I went back to Ferguson Christian Church, where I had helped with Jet Cadets during my college years. That was where Nancy and I first became friends.

Our lives continued to connect as we both moved to the same city, attended the same church for decades, and were recently in the same Bunco group. Over the years, we shared many meals together and when she cooked them–oh, yummy.

At her funeral it was noted that she was a marvelous cook (and she was), and she had a knack for hospitality (and she did). For years she served quietly behind the scenes helping with potlucks, cooking fabulous desserts (her chocolate pecan pie was a hit), and taking meals to the sick.

But the thing that impressed me most was from the time she learned she had pancreatic cancer, in her quiet and understated way, she was an amazing example of staying the course with her faith. She never wavered in her faith that God was a good God. All of those who visited with her came away with the same knowledge that her faith was what sustained her. On my last visit with her, her quiet certainty that heaven awaited her shined through. While I was tearful, she was calm and in her inimitable way, totally Nancy. Her organizational skills were always somewhat amazing, and true to form, she told me she had put everything in order so that her sisters would know where everything was and would not have to go searching for things.

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Remember Your Why

/ Linda DeLay Wallace / Leave a comment

I recently watched the Today show and they interviewed a running coach, Ryan Walsh. One of the first points he made was that anyone starting something new should always remember your why. Think about the reason you started, why you wanted to make this change, and what were the benefits of doing it. This resonated with me as I have started two large projects in my life.

Credit: Ivelin Radkov on iStock

My first project is eating healthy. My why was primarily for health reasons, but part of it is also vanity. Quite frankly, I am tired of buying plus size clothing and needing to stop a minute to catch my breath when I am walking any distance farther than a block. Some days are better than others when I make my eating choices. But on my recent vacation? All bets were off! I came back four pounds heavier and I really did make good choices, except for, well, maybe the ice cream. (and I have lost two of it in the first week back).

My next big project is finishing my novel. I have picked it up and set it back down more times than I can remember. But this year I picked it up and sent my first eight chapters to a friend, whose judgment I trust. Now she is waiting for the rest of it. I am attending the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) in September and I want to have my first rough draft finished. So I had to think long and hard about my why for this book.

My why is to address the amount of abuse that happens in a church and how we respond. Do we believe the person who says she was raped by her youth minister? Or do we hide it and pretend nothing happened, because why would we ruin his reputation like that? I have found this process for working through my writing has been cathartic to me. I was abused by a cousin as a child and it did not stop until I was old enough to realize he was not going to tell anyone (a threat he used with me). Even after the abuse stopped I felt dirty and ashamed. My salvation came from the Lord and all of the old me was wiped away because I knew that Christ did a marvelous thing when he made me brand new.

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Here We Go

/ Linda DeLay Wallace / Leave a comment

I am writing my first novel and I must confess that I have picked this up and put it back down for years! But God is nudging me and saying, “Finish it. You have something to say.” So I have made a goal to set aside July and August for some solid writing.

There are already so many people who have helped me as I have started this journey. I am part of a writer’s group that does a yearly retreat and they are so encouraging. I met with Kent Sanders, a writer in St. Charles MO, and he was SO supportive. I felt like I had just been to an awesome pep rally after spending time with him. If you have never listened to his podcast, The Daily Writer, I highly recommend it for anyone who writes. https://www.kentsanders.net/podcast/.

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Gaining a New Perspective

/ Linda DeLay Wallace / Leave a comment

I recently posted about a “dry fire” I had at my house on Mother’s Day. (https://lindadelaywallace.com/2022/05/13/smell-that-smoke/) It was quite an experience and because there was no soot or ash–only a house full of smoke–insurance would not cover anything. That meant that everything in my house had to be cleaned by yours truly, and luckily some faithful friends and family! It was an interesting two weeks following the incident.

Photo by KWON JUNHO on Unsplash

As I washed every cabinet and closet (and everything in them) in my house, I noticed that I had items I never used taking up space. Some of them were beautiful pieces of crystal that just sat in my upper cabinets the entire six years I have lived here. Some of them were clothes that I wondered what was I thinking when I purchased them. I have a fairly neat house, but when you must take every single thing out and clean it and evaluate it, it gives you a new perspective. My daughter cleaned my spice cabinet and ended up with about half the items I had before, because, well, you do not want to know how many expired spices I had!

After I disposed of expired items, gave away some of the crystal, and took bags of clothes and unused household items to the thrift store, I felt like a burden had lifted. I was unhindered by all of the things in my house that had been bogging me down and I look forward to not needing to “spring clean” or sort through clothes or cabinets. For now. Because no matter how careful I am, somehow clutter starts again, spices get expired, and laundry still needs to be done. But for all the hard work, there is a great freedom in the process I went through after the smoke cleared.

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How Should We Love?

/ Linda DeLay Wallace / Leave a comment

In the book of Acts we see the infancy of the church. As we read we find that as early as the third chapter of Acts, the body of believers was established after Peter addressed the crowd on the day of Pentecost. In Acts 3:42-47 we see the response of the believers, who devoted themselves to the teaching of Christ and to fellowship with one another. Some of the highlights of this passage: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship”, “selling their possession and goods, they gave to anyone who had need,” and “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

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Five Things to Remember When Life Becomes Overwhelming

/ Linda DeLay Wallace / Leave a comment

One of my friends shared on facebook that she is really struggling with all the things that life is throwing at her right now. Unfortunately, I think we can ALL identify with that feeling of being overwhelmed on occasion! Women, who tend to be fixers, sometimes have difficulty admitting they need help when life becomes overwhelming for them. So how do we learn to swallow our pride and ask for help? How do we let our friends and family know that we have reached a point where we are ready to scream, or cry, or just hide, until we can face life with equanimity again?

Photo by Anh Nguyen on Unsplash

For those of you who find yourself in this circumstance, here are five things I’ve found helpful.

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They Did Not Know It Was Good

/ Linda DeLay Wallace / Leave a comment

This evening as I was sitting in our Good Friday service, listening to our minister eloquently speak on the significance of Good Friday, I couldn’t help but think that for everyone who was present that day, it was not such a good Friday.

The fact of the matter is that not one individual who was present that day knew with certainty what was really occurring, not even the disciples who had spent the last three year with him. Indeed, even the last week with Jesus did not prepare them for what they experienced, even though Jesus himself spoke of what was coming.

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My Comfort Zone

/ Linda DeLay Wallace / Leave a comment

Do you ever go out of your comfort zone when it comes to serving God? It seems that since I have gotten older I have gone out of my comfort zone more frequently than when I was younger. I think when I was younger I was more consumed with parenting, being a spouse, and serving at church, than I was concerned about being out of my comfort zone. I think I worried more about making it through the day without a melt-down–either my kids or mine– than I thought about challenging myself to step out of my comfort zone more!

Recently one of my fellow church members contacted me and asked if I would be willing to speak on a rotation basis at a nearby assistant living facility. That was a stretch for me. I had been asked to speak for their small worship service and believe me, that was way out of my comfort zone. I speak for workshops and retreats for women’s groups, but I had never spoken for a service with older people. I was not sure exactly what to speak about as I wracked my brain for the normal topics I speak on. I prayed about what these individuals would want and need to hear about God.

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The Alabaster Jar

/ Linda DeLay Wallace / 4 Comments

Recently in my morning reading I arrived to Luke 7: 36-50. Before you read the rest of what I write, I would like you to read this passage (below). There is much speculation as to the identity of the woman. Some say it was Mary Magdalene, but any other time in Scripture where Mary Magdalene was involved, her name was given. It was speculated that it was Mary, the sister of Lazarus. Indeed, we do read in Matthew 26 of a woman anointing Jesus with costly oil while he was in Bethany and it is likely that it was Mary. But in this passage, the woman is not named, just her reputation was what defined her.

Here is a woman who has learned that Jesus would be at Simon’s house. I have to wonder, was she part of one of the crowds that listened to Jesus’ teaching? Did she stand at the back of the crowd, with her face mostly hidden, so that she could hear this man of whom she had heard so many tales? Did she know someone who had been healed by him or had she just heard the rumors and stories that were floating around? Whatever it was, it was obvious that Jesus’ words and actions had deeply touched her life.

The imagery of this woman standing behind the feet of Jesus while he is reclining at the table is powerful. She wets his feet with her copious tears and then wipes them with her hair. Not only does she wipe his feet with her hair, afterwards, she pours very expensive perfume on them. In many ways, the sheer magnitude of what she did is amazing.

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