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Archive for the category “Anita Lustrea”

06 May 2013
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Midday blog: How Important is it to Know Yourself?

David Benner is an author in the genre of spiritual formation books.

In his book Sacred Companions in a chapter called ‘Hospitatlity, Presence & Dialogue’ Benner talks about how important it is to know yourself.  Several of our past Midday guests have brought that concept to the table: Gordon and Gail MacDonald, Janet Davis, Leslie Vernick and Jennifer Degler, just to name a few.  However, it remains a controversial topic within the Christian community.

I offer this quote from David Benner and would love to see a good conversation ensue.  I did this recently on my Facebook page and I was surprised at the variety of thoughts and opinions on the topic.

Benner says, “Spirituality not grounded in humanness is no earthly good. Worse, it can actually be dangerous.”  Further down the page he says, “This draws our attention to the importance and interdependence of knowing both God and self. As argued by John Calvin in the opening pages of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, there is no deep knowing of God apart from a deep knowing of self and no deep knowing of self apart from a deep knowing of God. Meister Eckhart, the fourteenth century Christian mystic and theologian, said the same thing two centuries earlier. Knowing God and knowing self are both necessary for wholeness and holiness.

How tragic it is when a person invests all his or her energy in knowing God and none in genuinely knowing him or herself. And how terrifying when such a person is in a position of leadership or influence. Christian maturity demands that we know God and ourselves, recognizing that deep knowing of each supports deeper knowing of the other.”

What do you think?

Anita LustreaAnita Lustrea is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and has worked for Moody Radio since 1984. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and loves to connect with Midday Connection listeners face-to-face. Anita lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Mike, and her son, John. To learn more about Anita, her speaking schedule and her blog, please visit her website.

Posted in Anita Lustrea and tagged , ,
08 Apr 2013
8 Comments

Midday blog: Abuse

What sends you through the roof, or often moves you to tears, or even creates an angry fire in your belly when you encounter it? For me, it’s the issue of abuse.  Abuse of all kinds. Emotional, physical, verbal, spiritual, sexual, even power abuse. These are just a few kinds of abuses that can destroy lives. When I think of how people are held captive because of abuse, or stuck emotionally or spiritually because of something that happened years ago, my heart breaks. It affects me deeply and I can start to burn with anger, a righteous anger. Not at the person who is quagmired, but at the evil that is keeping them bound and in chains.

Recently we’ve been doing a series on emotional and verbal abuse with Dr. Jennifer Degler.  The emails that have poured in are astounding. Sometimes the emails announced a person’s first time discovery of abuse. Other emails spoke of suspecting themselves as the abuser and wanting to change.

Sometimes when one type of abuse occurs other abuses are also present.  I’m always shocked at the level of abuse within the Christian community, and maybe even more so when the abuse is sexual in nature.

Another kind of abuse that raises my ire is spiritual abuse.  Possibly because I’ve been a victim of it and I can’t stand seeing it perpetrated on others, especially young people. What makes certain kinds of abuses more difficult to spot and name? I believe it is the subtle nature of the abuse. There might be some truth laced with some lies. When scripture or the gospel is distorted sometimes the concept of grace can become totally lost and a church or a person becomes no longer safe. In May we’ll wrap up our Verbal and Emotional Abuse Series, and we’ll have a broadcast focused on Spiritual Abuse.

What is it that stirs up your righteous anger?

Anita LustreaAnita Lustrea is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and has worked for Moody Radio since 1984. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and loves to connect with Midday Connection listeners face-to-face. Anita lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Mike, and her son, John. To learn more about Anita, her speaking schedule and her blog, please visit her website.

 

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11 Mar 2013
3 Comments

Midday blog: In Celebration of International Women’s Day

I have become the woman that I am thanks to the presence of other amazing women in my life. Some of these women have passed through the story of my life quickly, making a brief but significant stop. Some have come into my life and stuck around for a while, while others, even women I’ve never personally spoken with, have had a lasting effect on me.

I believe we’ve been hesitant to celebrate International Women’s Day in the evangelical community for fear of looking like a bunch of feminists. Unfortunately, feminist is one of those words that has been hijacked and we need to reclaim it. Of all people, the Christian community needs to value women highly, following in the foot steps of Jesus.

Let me list some of my own spiritual midwives, the women who have helped birth who I am today. These are in no particular order, and I’ll likely forget some. When I found myself going through a divorce, Jan Silvious stepped to the plate along with my neighbor Faith. Faith introduced me to her church community where Sandy entered the picture. Kim and Lisa were two women who stepped into my life for a moment in time with huge impact. Dee Brestin and Janet Davis continue to have great influence on my life, as does Gail MacDonald.

When I look back in my personal history I see Diana Knutsen, Senior Girls counselor at Ben Lippen School, drawing me out, seeing something worthwhile in me. I think she was the one that got me started on my journey of healing. A piece of all the women I’ve mentioned and more are part of every word I say each day. That’s a powerful thought.

As I look back over this list of women, not at all exhaustive, I’m reminded of my responsibility to other women. What will I say to help them on their journey, to get them to dig a little deeper, or decide to engage in the tougher issues they’d rather bury in a secluded place?

Who are the women you’d like to celebrate, women who have helped birth the person you have become and are becoming?

(International Women’s Day was March 8. Learn more here.)

Anita LustreaAnita Lustrea is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and has worked for Moody Radio since 1984. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and loves to connect with Midday Connection listeners face-to-face. Anita lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Mike, and her son, John. To learn more about Anita, her speaking schedule and her blog, please visit her website.

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11 Feb 2013
3 Comments

Midday blog: Does Fear Hold You Back?

I’m all about communicating Freedom to Women. I believe that is my calling but often I find that fear holds me back. Fear is the antithesis of freedom. So how can we live free and fearless? A number of years ago God answered that question for me in an unexpected way.

A piece of my story is about divorce. I went through a divorce about 12 years ago and one of my biggest fears was that life was over, I was finished, all washed up! God couldn’t use a divorced woman. I believed I’d been sidelined. That’s what some people told me, and that was my perception after growing up and spending most of my life inside the Church. God, however, had another idea! He sent some amazing people into my life to speak a different message into my heart and soul, a message of life, hope and healing. Today I speak to thousands of women every day on Midday Connection and get to share that same message of freedom and healing and life.

Here is one of my favorite verses in Scripture on the topic of freedom, Galatians 5:1.  “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.” How about it, will you stay free along with me?

What’s your story? What is one of your biggest fears that you’ve watched God dismantle as he helped you see His truth?

Anita LustreaAnita Lustrea is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and has worked for Moody Radio since 1984. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and loves to connect with Midday Connection listeners face-to-face. Anita lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Mike, and her son, John. To learn more about Anita, her speaking schedule and her blog, please visit her website.

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14 Jan 2013
3 Comments

Midday blog: Racial Reconciliation Matters

2013 is an historic year. Not only does it mark the inauguration of another American President, but it marks the anniversary of several important events in American history. Events during two tumultuous periods in our history, the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement.

January 1 marked the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. April 16 marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. July 1 – 3 marks the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. And August 28 marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech. Marking anniversaries usually means we have something to celebrate, and I believe we do. I also believe we have farther to go and more that we could be celebrating.

Our nation’s first African American President will soon be inaugurated for a second term. Whether or not you agree with his policies and positions, it is significant for a nation that was built on slavery to have elected an African American to its highest public office. And yet inequities still abound. There are only six Black CEO’s of Fortune 500 Companies, accounting for 1.2 percent of all Fortune 500 CEO’s. Moving away from the world of good paychecks and nice neighborhoods, when a streetlight goes out in urban America, especially a part of urban America where violence occurs with frequency, good luck getting the streetlight fixed. In suburban America, if the same problem occurs, the light will be fixed within days, not months. This is one relatively small issue that is symptomatic of greater issues.

As Christ followers, we need to lead the way in having conversations that help, not hinder, the healing of the racial divide in our country. I want to point you back to Midday Connection on January 8 to hear an enlightening conversation with two African American women about Racial Reconciliation. We will continue the talking with them and take the topic deeper on February 5.  And on Thursday, January 17, we will dig into the New Testament book of Mark with Bible teacher Michael Card when we’ll talk about the worth and dignity of the individual. I hope you can join us as we try to be healing agents when we have these gospel focused conversations.

Anita LustreaAnita Lustrea is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and has worked for Moody Radio since 1984. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and loves to connect with Midday Connection listeners face-to-face. Anita lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Mike, and her son, John. To learn more about Anita, her speaking schedule and her blog, please visit her website.

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24 Dec 2012

Midday blog: The Real View of Christ’s Birth

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.  The idyllic picture of Christmas Eve is children nestled all snug in their beds.

The truth of Christmas Eve on many levels is active, maybe even chaotic.  If you have young children, then you are racing around like crazy to get everything in order under the tree for Christmas morning.  Or you are getting up at the crack of dawn to make last minute preparations.

If you are about to have a child, your Christmas Eve might contain pacing the floor, lower abdominal cramping and even cries of pain.  You aren’t heading to bed for a peaceful sleep, that’s for certain.  You can’t lie down flat anymore and you’re up 5 times a night heading to the bathroom.  No one is snug in their bed if mom has gone into labor.

But labor in a hospital or with a midwife present is a far cry from labor in a smelly stable.  Those beautiful birthing rooms bear no resemblance to Mary’s experience birthing the Messiah.  Today’s western birthing experience contains a doctor or midwife, dad, maybe a grandma, but not shepherds and cows and sheep and probably stable mice scurrying about.  How comfortable would you feel lying on a bed of hay legs spread for who knows who to view the birth of your very first child.

Not such a Hallmark kind of picture, but it is the truth of how our Savior came into the world.  Even when we read from Luke’s gospel, “And she brought forth her firstborn, a son, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn,” we tend to sentimentalize the picture.

Giving birth to the Christ child cost Mary something.  It began with the loss of her reputation, her dignity, and ultimately it cost the life of her firstborn son.

May God grant us a few moments during this Christmas season to ponder a truer view of the birth of Christ this Christmas.

Anita Lustrea

Anita Lustrea is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and has worked for Moody Radio since 1984. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and loves to connect with Midday Connection listeners face-to-face. Anita lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Mike, and her son, John. To learn more about Anita, her speaking schedule and her blog, please visit her website.

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26 Nov 2012
2 Comments

Midday blog: Redeeming Christmas

The Christmas mandates of our culture overwhelm me. You know them well. Christmas card sending, gift buying, house decorating (inside and out), and if you have children, toss in age appropriate Christmas craft ideas with them. Really, we find ourselves in a sort of wilderness of busyness, excess, and clutter of all kinds, especially as Christmas approaches.

1) If Christmas seems a burden, may I suggest a few things that might be helpful.Find a good Advent devotional book and tenaciously guard 5 – 10 minutes a day to read it. If you are married, ask your spouse to watch the young ones for that short amount of time.  If you are a single mom, either tell, don’t ask, your children that you need mommy time for 10 minutes and then lock yourself in the bathroom!

I have several advent devotional suggestions:
The Gospel of Christmas  - by Patty Kirk
Preparing for Jesus – Walter Wangerin Jr.
Watch for the Light – Various writers
The Uncluttered Heart – Beth Richardson

There are so many other good choices, these are just a few that I’ve used through the years.

 2) Scale down. Who says you have to deck the halls to the point of exhausting yourself and everyone around you. Maybe you choose to put out one nativity scene, not all 5 you own.  Maybe you decorate a small tree, a table top tree, not the colossal one you usually put up.  Remember, these are thoughts, suggestions that might help you transform Advent into a season of reflection over exhaustion.

 3) Look outward.  Consider where you might give this year that has nothing to do with getting.  A homeless shelter, a gift for children halfway around the world.  Some act of charity that will make a difference. Forget buying that “one more trinket” for those who already have too much, and look beyond yourself.

I hope this gets you thinking of ways you can transform your Advent and Christmas experience starting today!

Anita Lustrea

Anita Lustrea is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and has worked for Moody Radio since 1984. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and loves to connect with Midday Connection listeners face-to-face. Anita lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Mike, and her son, John. To learn more about Anita, her speaking schedule and her blog, please visit her website.

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05 Nov 2012
2 Comments

Midday blog: Our Privilege

Voting is a serious activity. We spend months, leading up to any election, hearing about the issues and debating the stands of various political opponents. We are so used to the political process in our country that sometimes we forget the price paid for such an opportunity.

A few weeks ago an online ”friend” forwarded me a lengthy email with the subject line ‘Women’s Right to Vote’. I usually delete these kinds of forwards, but for whatever reason I opened it and started to cursor my way down through the pictures and captions it contained.  There were photos of women picketing, holding signs reading, “President Wilson how long do you advise us to wait?” and “Wilson against Women”. This looked like a typical peaceful picketing scene you might see today, but as the pictures continued, it was a reminder that women paid a high price for the right to vote which was finally granted in 1920. During one of the non-violent picketing times, 40 prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against a group of women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’ By the end of the evening these women, who had been beaten, were barely alive.

We’re familiar with the name Susan B. Anthony, but how about Lucy Burns. She was left in her cell, her hands chained to the cell bars above her head where she was left hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. Dora Lewis was hurled into an iron bed in a cell where she was knocked out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. For weeks these imprisoned women’s water came only by way of an open pail. Their food, a colorless slop, was infested with worms.  Some of the treatment given these women is unspeakeable, but it serves as a difficult yet important reminder.

Sometimes we feel going to the polls is inconvenient, it seems more obligation than privilege. The truth is that we stand on the shoulder’s of women who paid a high price so that we can exercise the right to vote.  Think of them as you walk into the voting booth this year and cast your ballot.

Anita LustreaAnita Lustrea is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and has worked for Moody Radio since 1984. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and loves to connect with Midday Connection listeners face-to-face. Anita lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Mike, and her son, John. To learn more about Anita, her speaking schedule and her blog, please visit her website.

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24 Sep 2012
3 Comments

Midday blog: Nature

Connecting with God in nature is important to me. Gary Thomas’s book Sacred Pathways has an assessment tool helpful for determining ways you best connect with God. Two primary God connections for me are silence and solitude and nature. Sometimes they go hand in hand.

This past August I had the opportunity to head to northern Maine to the small town of Littleton. It is the place I call home. If you are around me for any length of time the subject of Maine pops up. Sometimes I wonder why this geographical spot is so important to me. What I do know is that it holds physical and spiritual significance in my life.

Forty two years ago my father with the help of my two brothers built a small log home on a lake there. Believe it or not my family is the only family to populate the lake. I guess solitude was built into me at a very young age. And then there is nature. Each year in late spring I find myself craving the pine, cedar, and white birch laden forests that surround the lake I call home.  If I head to Maine early enough I can still get in on eating fiddleheads, the fern you pick in early spring when it curls up tight. Any other time of year and it is poisonous to eat.

Foliage is not the only part of nature that speaks to me. The moose and bear, the loons, great blue herons and eagles all speak of our creator in ways to numerous to elaborate in this short post.

I read a blogpost recently from the Henri Nouwen Society that asks helpful questions about how we relate to creation. “How do we live in creation?  Do we relate to it as a place full of “things” we can use for whatever need we want to fulfill and whatever goal we wish to accomplish?   Or do we see creation first of all as a sacramental reality, a sacred space where God reveals to us the immense beauty of the Divine?” 

God’s handiwork is sacred and it can be a sanctuary for us to spend time in worship and adoration of our Almighty God. Whether through a small leaf or a beautiful sunset, spend some time discovering the beauty of God through his creation this week.

 
Anita LustreaAnita Lustrea is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and has worked for Moody Radio since 1984. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and loves to connect with Midday Connection listeners face-to-face. Anita lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Mike, and her son, John. To learn more about Anita, her speaking schedule and her blog, please visit her website.

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24 Jul 2012
1 Comment

Midday blog: Less about Me, more about We

I’ve been watching the Tour de France for the last 3 weeks. It is the longest race of the cycling season.  Most of the riders have virtually no possibility of winning the Tour. And while only one person can win the race, the Tour de France is largely a team event with moments for individual glory built in.

Each team has nine riders. One is the christened leader. The rest are called domestiques, each world class riders in their own right, but with specific skill sets. Some are great climbers, some sprinters, some incredible pace setters. Their role is to do whatever it takes to help the leader win the Tour de France. They are to spend themselves physically in order for the leader to draft behind them. The leader of the team stays on their wheel when the going gets tough. The domestiques help pull their man up the mountain and back down. They sacrifice themselves to support the leader. Everyone knows what the role demands. Do a good job as a domestique and perhaps you’ll get a chance to lead your own team someday. That’s what happened to Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong. But for most riders they toil in obscurity year in and year out on bike racing’s biggest stages. Without them the star attraction wouldn’t shine as brightly or would be less effective. There is no way LeMond or Armstrong could have won the Tour de France on his own.

This year as I watched Bradley Wiggins win the Tour de France, I also watched his younger teammate, Chris Froome, who likely could have taken the win away from Wiggins but honored his commitment to be a domestique. The tour has distinct parallels to the body of Christ.

We each have gifts and talents. Sometimes I’m up front. Sometimes I’m backstage. Sometimes I get the spotlight on me and sometimes I get to shine the spot light on someone else. Each role is good and necessary. The topic of gifts and talents is all over the New Testament. From the words of Paul to the parables of Jesus. The Tour de France is just a contemporary example, a reminder that no one person can do it all and that God doesn’t expect that from anyone. It’s a reminder that this life is far less about the ‘me’ than it is about the ‘we’.

Anita LustreaAnita Lustrea is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and has worked for Moody Radio since 1984. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and loves to connect with Midday Connection listeners face-to-face. Anita lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Mike, and her son, John. To learn more about Anita, her speaking schedule and her blog, please visit her website.

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