Shannon’s SCW Blog

No, it’s Sydney!

Good Day, Mates! I can’t even begin to tell you of the amazing blessings and favor we’ve experienced on our “Land Down Under” trip so far, and the conference I came to speak at doesn’t even officially start until tomorrow! God’s presence is so overwhelming here in Sydney that I feel like this is as close to Heaven as anyone can get in a lifetime!

Our 29-hour journey was surprisingly smooth, and we arrived to an incredibly posh ocean-view hotel room filled with huge bouquets of fragrant flowers, gourmet chocolate, and some of Pastors Phil & Chris Pringle’s awesome books, DVDs, etc. Check out his AMAZING biblical artwork at www.philpringle.com.

Coming back here to Christian City Church (C3) has been like “coming home,” even though I’ve only been here one other time. But that one time was all it took to fall in love with the people and the spirit of ministry and excellence on this campus. My daughter, Erin, fell so in love with it last time that she’s been planning to move here and attend their School of Creative Arts next February.

I should be overwhelmingly sad that my baby girl will be moving half-way around the world in 120 days, but I’m too excited for her to be sad just yet. We had told God on the way here that we didn’t just want to pound the pavement and go from landlord to landlord until we found something tolerable, but that we wanted HIM to open a door wide and make it incredibly clear that this potential living arrangement was a divine appointment. It happened exactly that way!!! We were approached by the admissions director saying that there is a wonderful lady who works here at the church who’d be willing to rent Erin a room during her 11-month stay – and she is also an artist with a garage-studio who’s been through the exact visual arts program that Erin will be going through. We couldn’t ask for a better match!

We had an amazing evening last night at a mother/daughter banquet – eating Thai food and speaking TOGETHER for the first time! I’ve been trying to convince Erin for at least 5 years that she should prayerfully consider speaking with me because she’s so mature and wise. She finally consented, and she took the microphone and ran with it like a pro last night, encouraging the girls to guard their hearts and invest in healthy relationships with girlfriends, guy friends, God, and especially with their moms (or “mums” as they’re called here) during this pivotal season of their lives.

The EveryWoman Conference starts tomorrow night, so please pray for the 1,600+ ladies who’ll be traveling here from all over Australia – that the Lord would totally touch their lives, marriages, and families in incredibly deep, transforming ways!

Many thanks for listening to me gush and for lifting us up in prayer,
Shannon

Get a load of the wonderful ladies I’ll be ministering alongside in Oxford Falls, Australia at the EveryWoman 2009 Conference – they are a HOOT, and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their “Operation Uplift” program – check it out, and join us if you can — Oct. 29-31st at Christian City Church!

http://123campaign.com/web_link.php?ml_uid=4ac437f859ae6&lf=2009_10

I just returned from speaking at the Freshwind 2009 Conference in Alberta, Canada, and it’s safe to say I’ll be on an adrenaline rush for a while! What an amazing experience!

Imagine 500+ women of all ages, from all walks of life, gathered together with a common purpose: To get “Up Close” with God and with Others (the theme of the weekend). Some of the highlights were:

• Watching the international dance team “Epo” perform moves I didn’t know the human body was capable of!
• Being led in worship by Melanie Melo. If you haven’t heard of her yet, you will someday. She introduced us to a song called “More Than Ashes” by Merchant Band (available on iTunes), with a chorus that goes: “There’s gonna be a wedding – it’s the reason that I’m living – to marry the Lamb!” SO powerful!
• Watching as women reached out and ministered to one another in such tender ways during Saturday night’s altar call. I kept thinking, “Surely God is delighted… Surely Satan is NOT!”
• Discovering that the entire book table had completely sold out after the second speaking session! Praise God I didn’t have to lug any back to the U.S., and that every “seed” I took into Canada has been “planted!”
• Listening in amazement during the open-microphone Q&A time, where women unashamedly verbalized the kinds of questions about female sexuality that neither their mothers nor their churches had ever addressed. Hallelujah that “church ladies” and “good girls” are finally able to talk openly about God’s gift of S-E-X!
• Watching Canadians Carolyn Carleton & Deanna Sudom (two of my online B.L.A.S.T. participants) boldly seize the opportunity to share brief testimonies about how God is leading them to work toward becoming more effective writers & speakers. They both made this mama proud!
• Fellowshipping with the phenomenal leaders of P.A.O.C. (Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada) — FreshWind’s sponsoring organization. I’m so honored to have been invited, and look so forward to partnering in ministry with them again!

Quite honestly, I always feel like I receive so much more than I give when I speak. Women flock around expressing their gratitude for writing books and delivering messages that have touched them deeply, but they don’t realize that I’m just as deeply touched by the fact that they are willing to read those books, or sit and listen to me tell my stories about how God has rocked my world! It wouldn’t be very much fun telling those stories over and over to empty chairs.

So now I get to unpack my suitcase, do laundry, and prepare to head out again this weekend. Please pray for my daughter and I as we fly to Sydney, Australia for the EveryWoman 2009 Conference at Christian City Church of Oxford Falls!

Blessed and oh, so grateful that this is how I get to spend my time on earth!
Shannon

We’ve enjoyed reading all of the positive responses to the last blog, “Facebook Fiasco,” where I discouraged women (and men) from reaching out to reunite with ex-lovers with “friend requests.”  It’s simply a bad idea!

However, some have asked, “What do we do if an ex pursues US?”  First, there’s always the delete or ignore button.  That’s what those keys are for – to get rid of things you don’t want to deal with, and who wants to deal with an ex-boyfriend who’s come back around to get his big fat ego stroked?

Perhaps you fear appearing rude.  So what?  Wasn’t it rude of him to reach out to you after he ripped your heart out and stomped on it, or cheated on you, or simply stopped calling (or however it ended)?  If women were more comfortable assertively guarding both their physical & emotional boundaries, we wouldn’t have to waste so much time and effort licking the wounds we allowed other men to inflict on us.

But if you simply can’t ignore him for whatever reason, here’s the best strategy I know of…

Make it completely UN-FUN for him!

Don’t play his little game.  In fact, it’s okay to make him feel stupid for even trying if he refuses to keep interactions as superficial as they should be.  Remember, you teach people how to treat you, and you need to teach him that you’re NOT his little plaything that he can come back around to whenever he’s lonely or bored.

For example, several years ago an ex-boyfriend from high school (I’ll call him “Tim”) came calling — literally – calling me on the telephone several times during the day while my husband was at work.  (The inventor of Facebook was still going through puberty at the time, so I guess telephone calls were Tim’s best strategy.)

He was singing a sad song about how his wife was being unfaithful to him and he was calling me under the guise of, “What should I do to win her back?  Help me!”  But based on what I knew about this guy, and how many times he’d cheated on his wife long before she cheated on him, I knew he was just a skirt-chaser, and I was his next would-be-victim.  So I just made it incredibly UN-FUN for him.

He’d say stuff like:  “She’s never really understood me like you did!”
to which I’d respond, “Oh, I think she’s understood you far better than you think!”

When he said, “Remember what great times you and I had together?”
I replied, “I’ve had much greater ones with my husband.”

He tried, “I saw your face on your website – you’re even prettier now!”
I retorted, “Thanks, but I’m smarter too.  I have no desire to be your marriage counselor, Tim.  You’ll need to find someone you’ve never dated for that.”

He didn’t keep calling.  And why should he?  He wasn’t getting his ego stroked like he’d planned.

I also remember receiving an email shortly after my first book release.  It was from an older man who used to pursue me inappropriately when I was a teenager, singing cheesy songs like “I’d make love to you in a New York minute, and take my Texas time to do it!”  In the email, he gushed for several paragraphs about how wonderful it was to watch me grow up and blossom into an incredibly beautiful woman.  I wanted to barf when I recalled how he used to paw at me like I was a piece of meat.

I responded to his email, “This is Shannon’s husband, Greg, managing her email box while she’s traveling.  God has certainly done a lot in Shannon’s life, and I’m so proud to be married to her.”  I blind-carbon-copied Greg on the email so he’d be aware of my defense strategy, and he was happy to comply.

Funny, this man didn’t keep emailing back.  Did I feel guilty over my little trick?  Not at all.  Even if you did feel guilty for such a thing, I’d rather feel guilty over posing as my husband than for cheating on him.

Remember, the internet can be a powerful tool to help you reconnect with old friends, but be smart!  Keep your romantic strolls down memory lane limited to those memories you’ve made with your husband!

Wishing you nothing but the healthiest of relationships,
Shannon

I met a woman this weekend at a marriage conference (I’ll call her Hannah) who was grief-stricken over her best friend’s behavior.  She had used Facebook to look up an old boyfriend, and the cyber-reunion turned into an extramarital affair.  Her marriage was destroyed, her family was divided, and Hannah is aching for every single person involved in the negative ripple effects.  “Our families have been friends forever, and the idea of losing my best friend is bad enough, but to think of what she’s put her husband, children, and every person she loves through makes me just as angry as I am sad.”  We shed tears and shared hugs, but I knew I could never ease Hannah’s pain from the hole her best friend had made in her heart.

I share this to encourage you, Ladies (and Gentlemen), to banish the thought of contacting your ex-boyfriends or girlfriends – EVER!  I’ve experienced the same temptation, but then realized, “What could possibly come of it?  Some sort of stroll down memory lane that re-awakens passions that I struggled to put to sleep long ago?  Why walk into THAT nightmare when I have the kind of husband and family that most women only dream of?”   I’m very thankful that common sense has kept me in a safe place in regards to cyber-relationships.  I hope you can say the same.

Moral of the story:  Don’t let social networking become your new nightmare!  Limit your “friends” to those who truly enhance your life, marriage, family & career, and remember that it’s best to leave your old lovers alone!

Wishing you a guarded heart,
Shannon