Did you know? Einstein reportedly owned a beloved tomcat named Tiger? Friends used to overhear the famous scientist talking to the cat. Einstein also is quoted as saying, “A man has to work so hard so that something of his personality stays alive. A tomcat has it so easy: He has only to spray, and his presence is there for years on rainy days.”

What do you have to say about computer cat, above?

Write a caption and enter the contest for a book by a Christian author.

How cool is that? P.S. The winner of the previous Friday Funnies is the creative Kelly Pounds! She still deciding among the books offered to her.

You Are EnJOYable!

The sad sad sad statistics.

Did I say sad?

Nearly 2 million
Number of children trafficked each year for sex around the world. (UNICEF)

11
Average age of sex workers around the world. Some are as young as 5 years old. (CIA)

100,000
Number of children and young women who are trafficked in America today. They range in age from 9 to 19, with the average age being 11. (FBI/ABC News)

$32 billion
Amount of money generated annually by human trafficking. (International Justice Mission)

2nd
Ranking of human trafficking among all income-generating syndicates (after drugs). (Born2Fly)

I feel sick to my stomach. I want to kick something. I want to do something.

What about you?

Chances are. . .you don’t know what to do. Here’s one easy thing. Think about it. Pray about it. 

1. Have a yard/garage sale. On my website, I got a bunch of free resources to help you “save the girls.” Click the Save the Girls tab on my website and get your free Save the Girls Yard Sale Kit.

2. Hand out information sheets at your Save the Girls Yard Sale.

3. Promote Save the Girls by wearing Save the Girls tee shirts (if you like). Sell them too. They’re available at my store.

4. Donate a % of your proceeds to one of the anti-slavery charities at the Save the Girls page or another charity of your choice.

Ta-da! That easy.

If you have no plans for a yard sale or garage sale, consider talking to the youth leader at your church and hosting a Save the Girls car wash. Or do a lemonade stand. Or a bake sale?

Or?

Question: How can YOU make a difference?

You Are Amazing!

We women long to hear:

You

are

beautiful!

Yet we rarely do. We live in a put-down world with impossible beauty standards. Flawless faces leer at us while we wait in the checkout line. You’ve seen them, haven’t you?

Blemish-free skin, perfect noses, impeccable makeup. And just below the faces. . .

. . . big bosoms and slender, sculpted bods.

Who can compare?

Not me.

Not you.

No one.

Seriously, even supermodels are air-brushed.

I surveyed a dozen Christian women, ages 20 to 60, who attended my workshop “Inside Out Beauty.” The question I posed: What are two things would you change about your looks? They wrote their answers. No names. Complete anonymity.

The results: All but one mentioned weight.

No surprise. Everyone I know wants to lose a little, a little there.

The other things they’d change: hairy arms, wrinkles, age spots, eye color, hair color, even “my whole body.”

Ouch!

Here’s the big Q? How can we learn to see ourselves like Jesus does?

Question: What would you change about you? Leave a comment.

You Are Blessed,

Cari Kaufman, formerly a high priestess of Wicca, thought she could do everything — yep, everything — by herself, thank you very much. Really, who needs friends when you have yourself

and a cauldron?

Cari is my special guest on Tuesday’s blogtalkradio show “The Sisterhood of Beautiful Warriors,” which I host weekly at 1 p.m. Central. You can listen to the conversation LIVE or to the ARCHIVE. Please tell your family and friends, especially if they’ve struggled with the ugliness of self-sufficiency or with the occult.

After 10 years in the occult, she became a Christian. You can read her testimony.

Long story short, after lots and lots of prayer by her friend named Heather and Heather’s church choir, Cari read the end times novel Left Behind by the pool while on vacation. She told her husband, Charlie (also not a Christian. . .yet) that she felt terrified.

Cari admits, “I had, for over ten years, vehemently opposed Christ and his teachings and was pretty sure he would never want me in his camp. Charlie’s response to me was, ‘I don’t know anything about this stuff. . .ask Heather.’”

{Oooh, I love that Heather.}

A month later, Cari asked Jesus to wash away her sin, past, present and future.

In Jesus’ strength, she broke free of her “I-gotta-be-the-best” mentality and wrote a book on friendships titled Living Life with Strings Attached. It’s about forming deep, strong, and meaningful relationships with women around you. Cari says it’s a picture of God’s design for relationship.

Cari also is a certified life coach, professional speaker, and decorated military officer as well as a wife and mom.

Join us Tuesday! To enter the book giveaway for Living Life with Strings Attached, please leave a comment.

You Are Precious!

Do you have a burden for single women? How about troubled teens? Are you energized to open your home to others and make them feel welcome? Do you like comforting folks by bringing them meals or sending them cards?

God wired each of us for a purpose. I’m wired to encourage hurting Christian women find hope. Do you know how you’re wired? Do you know your heart’s passion?

In other words, what gets you out of bed other than the need for a caffeine fix? Continue reading this post over at Take Root & Write, where I have the column Counselors’ Coach.

You Are Amazing!

Bob Kellemen is a like-minded friend. We’re both biblical counselors, though he has many more letters after his name than I do, and we follow a call to help folks find hope and healing. His latest book is God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting. It is sponsored by GriefShare, a Christ-centered ministry with support groups worldwide.

Easy to read, practical and uplifting, this slim volume promises hope. It debunks the psychological model of Swiss-born psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who popularized a five-stage model of grieving based upon her research into how terminally ill persons respond to the news of their terminal illness. Her five stages have since been used worldwide to describe all grief responses: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

In his book, Bob says these “proposed stages in the grief process seek to track typical grief responses. However, they do not attempt to assess if this is what is best to occur. Nor could they assess, simply through scientific research, whether these responses correspond to God’s process for hurting (grieving) and hoping (growing). We must understand something about research in a fallen world. At best, it describes what typically occurs. It cannot, with assurance and authority, prescribe what should occur.”

He shares the Bible’s answer to moving through the grief process.

“Readers are gravely disappointed when the answers to their questions about suffering reflect more of the wisdom of the world than of the truth of God’s Word,” he says. “Christians long for an approach that faces suffering honestly and engages sufferers passionately—all in the context of presenting truth biblically and relevantly. We need to be able to face life’s losses in the context of God’s healing.

“Jesus did.”

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses includes questions for discussions and for journaling. It’s valuable wisdom and encouragement for women or men who suffer any life loss, including divorce, church conflict, the empty nest, death of a loved one.

To read a sample chapter or to purchase, click here.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

You Are Valuable!

Karen Hammons, the founder of The Offenders Wife blog and ministry, shared a heart-breaking story about her husband.

Yes, he was arrested.

Yes, the charge branded him a “sex offender.”

And yes, the church leaders told her she was welcome to attend worship services but

he was not.

You read that right. The church leaders said Danny was barred from church. His home church.

You can listen to her story, which aired on my radio show this week. This is the link: http://blogtalkradio.com/cwa-radio/2010/07/20/the-sisterhood-of-beautiful-warriors/

To make sure I heard her right, I asked her again.

“So they weren’t telling him to just stay away from kids’ ministry or youth ministry? The church leaders told him he could never step foot inside the church?”

Yep. Karen put a joy-filled spin on it. I was livid. The folks in my blogtalkradio show’s chatroom — where people may share comments while the show’s on — went wild.

“Where’s the grace?” one asked.

“If church’s barred all who’ve sinned, there wouldn’t be anyone in the pews or in the pulpit,” typed another.

Ya think?

I don’t know which church did this and I don’t want to. Karen was quick to say the church leaders did what they and their lawyer thought best.

She’s far more godly than I am. I’ll say that.

No one is condoning the actions of a man who has admitted to chatting with an underaged girl over the Internet. No. Not ever.

But the church leaders?! Were they right to bar this man from worship service with his wife and little boys? I say no. By the way, after a year, the Hammons found another church that welcomes them, warts and all. They now worship together.

Question: What do you say? Leave a comment.

You Are Beautiful!

Jesus told his followers 2,000 years ago, “You will have tribulation.” Tribulation is a fancy word for problems. It shouldn’t surprise when we suffer, but suffering is NOT fun. It hurts.

Jesus suffered.

You have and I have and so has Karen Watkins Hammons, Tuesday’s special guest on my Sisterhood of Beautiful Warrior blogtalkradio show at 1 p.m. Central. You can listen live or to the archive. Archives are the way to go if you cannot listen live. :-) 

Karen founded the ministry and blogsite “The Offender’s Wife.”

The Offender’s Wife is a Christ-centered ministry that reaches out to wives of accused or convicted sex offenders with encouragement and hope. Karen says that sex offenders are the modern day lepers of society.

She’s right on.

I know how I felt and what I thought when a registered sex offender moved in down the block. I told my kids to steer clear of his house even though it was unlikely he’d hurt them. I didn’t bother to befriend other members of the household.

My attitude is so unlike the way Jesus would think. Just as he reached out and touched a leper, I’m certain he’d knock on the door and “Welcome to the neighborhood.” Not me.

I’ve got a long way to go.

Karen and I will talk not only about her new ministry but also the feelings all Christian women feel at times: rejection, isolation misunderstanding and chaos.

As Karen wrote on her blog and I quote,

“You are so precious to Him. He loves you passionately and sees everything you are having to walk through right now. It’s dang hard. And He knows it. But He already knows how you are going to shine from this because of Him. He sees how you are going to be a stronger, more courageous, and beautiful person from this situation. Don’t give up. Don’t let the Enemy steal your inheritance of peace, joy, and the abundant life.”

Don’t you just love the way Karen tells it like it is? Life’s tough but you’re gonna make it because God is with you.

You God’s Precious One!

Watch this deeply moving music video by Johnny Cash. It’s worth four minutes of your time. Honest. Watch it all the way to the end, when some of your questions will get answers.

And some won’t.

This is life. Right? We hurt. But when will healing come?

Question: What is true healing?

You Are Cherished!