Lisa Buffaloe's Blog, page 163
September 10, 2012
Gwen Smith, my guest on Living Joyfully Free Radio!
Gwen Smith is a speaker, author, songwriter, and worship leader who inspires women toward the heart of God through stories, songs, and Scripture. Her fun, enthusiastic, and relatable communication style puts audiences at ease and bridges generational, denominational, and racial divides. As a co-founder of the conference and devotional ministry Girlfriends In God, Gwen has helped thousands of women experience how the Word of God and the power of grace, through Jesus Christ, rejuvenates faith and enriches lives.
Gwen has shared her stories and songs on LIFE Today, The 700 Club, The Good Life, The Harvest Show, Atlanta Live, and many other television and radio programs. She is the author of a book titled Broken Into Beautiful - which shares the same title as a heart-stirring song that she co-wrote and recorded.
Today, Gwen and the ministry team at Girlfriends In God encourage more than 500,000 women daily through their online devotions (www.GirlfriendsInGod.com). The “GiGs” have co-authored a book, Trusting God: A Girlfriends in God Devotional, that was released on December 13, 2011 with WaterBrook Multnomah Publishers. In addition, Gwen was a recording artist with Great Worship Songs and a staff songwriter for Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing from 2008 – 2011. She has written for Sunday Best Music Publishing since 2004. Her newest CD, Uncluttered, was released in early 2011.
Aside from all this formal bio information, those who know her best would tell you that Gwen is just a car-pooling, coffee-loving, chocolate-craving, Jesus-loving wife and mother who struggles like the rest of us with dirty dishes, everyday life, messy piles, mountains of laundry, complicated relationships and cellulite.
Though she travels regularly, Gwen’s top ministry priority is, and always will be, her family. She and her husband Brad have been married since 1993 and have been blessed with three cool kids (named Preston, Hunter and Kennedy) who are now officially: two teens and a tween.
In her spare time, Gwen loves to cheer loudly at her kid’s ballgames, play guitar, relax at the piano, and chat with her girlfriends. Her other interests include bargain shopping, hanging out at local coffee shops enjoying the dark roast, writing new songs, and studying her Bible. Gwen and her family reside in North Carolina, and are members at LIFE Fellowship Church (www.lifecharlotte.com.)
Visit Gwen’s Facebook at www.Facebook.com/GwenSmithMusic.
Or her website at www.GwenSmith.net
Please join me at Living JoyfullyFree Radio for a fun visit with Gwen Smith!
September 8, 2012
If today was my last day
If today was my last day…
I would want you to know that God loves you.
I would want you to know His grace is available for you.
I would want you to know God is a God of grace, mercy, and love. But God is also a God of justice. That person who wronged you, that got away with something very evil, God knows the truth and will repay.
I would want you to know that sometimes God’s people don’t always behave like God’s children, and I’m sorry.
I would want you to know that sometimes people claim to be God’s people, but they are not telling the truth. They lie.
I would want you to know that God is our Heavenly Father, a good, loving, Father. There is no evil in Him. He is kind, compassionate, gentle, pure love.
I would want you to know that hell exists. But God doesn’t send people to hell, God lets us decide. We choose. We can choose to put our faith and trust in His Son, Jesus Christ who offers forgiveness for sins and a way to Heaven. Or we chose to turn away. Please don’t risk choosing the wrong way.
If today was my last day, I would be waiting and hoping to see you in heaven.
If you have further questions about Jesus and heaven, please read… http://lisabuffaloe.com/questions-abo...
Praising God for His abundant blessings — Nadia’s Hope
Dear friends,
I’m so grateful. Nadia’s Hope was blessed with 16,557 downloads during her time as a free offering through Amazon. The novel stayed at the top of several categories crossing from Religious fiction into general romance. I’m receiving sweet messages from those the story has touched.
Nadia continues to sell on Amazon and will be available soon through other distributors. You can order a paperback version right now through CreateSpace.
List Price: $13.99
6″ x 9″ (15.24 x 22.86 cm)
Black & White on White paper
372 pages
Lisa Buffaloe Productions, L.L.C.
ISBN-13: 978-0985929534
ISBN-10: 0985929537
BISAC: Fiction / Christian / Romance
The Nightmares continue. Memories won’t heal. Nadia must make a choice.
Nadia Minsky fled Israel to escape her past, but she can’t outrun her nightmares. The throbbing scars along her hip and stomach are cruel reminders of shattered dreams.
Even though surgeons mended her body, her spirit still bleeds. Friends claim only God can heal her. For Nadia, trusting a God who allowed her to suffer is inconceivable.
Can close friends, a wild roommate, and a handsome medical student help Nadia learn to trust? Or will her past forever cripple her future?
CreateSpace eStore: https://www.createspace.com/3975666
Order through Amazon for Kindle… http://www.amazon.com/Nadias-Hope-ebook/dp/B00947X1G0/
www.lisabuffaloe.com
September 7, 2012
Matt Fore — Safe by a Mule
Hi, friends!
It’s time for another fun comedy clip from Christian comedian, Matt Fore!
Please hop over to Living Joyfully Free Radio for Matt Fore’s “Safe by a Mule“
http://www.livingjoyfullyfree.com/video/matt-fore-safe-by-a-mule/
September 6, 2012
Trash to Treasure
My family enjoys the beauty of God’s nature. When we lived in Texas, the Japanese Gardens in Fort Worth were a tranquil retreat from the rush of the modern world. The artistic stroke and genius of our Creator were incredibly obvious as we meandered on pathways through seven acres of ponds, waterfalls, trees, and flowers.
The gardens seemed to have been there for hundreds of years as the plants mesh with the gentle rolling terrain. Exotic Imperial Carp (Koi) unafraid of humans, beg for food pellets dispensed to visitors for a quarter. Squirrels, turtles, lizards, ducks, and geckos run free. Trees sway in the gentle breeze and water skips across the rocks of waterfalls.
We visited the site for years before learning the land was originally a gullied bluff used as a watering hole for cattle, a trash dump, a squatter’s camp, and then as a gravel pit to build the streets of old Fort Worth. Never would we have guessed that something so beautiful could have come from such an ugly beginning.
One of the many things I love about God is that He sees our potential—even when we are living in the pit. He takes us, cleans off the gravel and trash, and plants His Son, His Spirit, and His new life within us.
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland”
(Isaiah 43:19 NIV).
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5: 17 NIV).
Thank You Father for seeing beyond the mess and trash in our lives, and giving us a new and living Hope!
September 5, 2012
If you are feeling …
If you are feeling hopeless, where did you place your hope?
“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in You.” (Psalm 42:11, Psalm 33:22)
If you are feeling soul thirsty and hungry, where are you going to find your soul nourishment?
“Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. (John 6:35, 7:37-38).
If you are feeling empty, where are you looking to be filled?
“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Colossians 2:9-10 Matthew 5:6).
If you are feeling unloved, remember who loves you forever.
“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you. I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness The eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love. The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and onlySon, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Isaiah 54:10, Jeremiah 31:3, Psalm 33:18, Psalm 33:5, John 3:16).
In Christ you are never without hope, soul nourished, always filled, and forever loved!
September 4, 2012
Speak
Speak The Truth in love
Speak The Truth
Speak in Love
Speak
Jesus said, “What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light;
and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops.” (Matthew 10:27 NASB).
“Which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. Having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed, therefore I spoke,’ we also believe, therefore we also speak. Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ. Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord. Laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts. Speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”*
Speak The Truth in love
Speak The Truth
Speak in Love
Speak the utterances of God
*(1 Corinthians 2:13, 2 Corinthians 4:13, Ephesians 4:15, Ephesians 5:19, Ephesians 4:25, 1 Thessalonians 2:4, Titus 2:1, 1 Peter 4:11 NASB).
September 3, 2012
Please pass her on
When God calls us to do something, it’s easy to think in human terms there will be a reward for our service. And while that’s true, the reward may not be received here on earth. God’s plans and ways are much bigger than we can see with earthly eyes.
Our world is consumer based, consuming for our own consumption. God gives and blesses so we can give and bless others. Living lives for Christ means abandoning our plans and our ways. It means releasing what He has given us for His kingdom. We are created by an eternal God for eternal purposes.
As Christ followers, we are to spread His good news and share with others the hope and joy we have found through the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ. My goal is to honor God and to pass on what He has done in my life and the lives of others. I’ve been blessed to blog, write, and share testimonies of others through Living Joyfully Free Radio. And now I’m passing on stories laced with the hope found in Christ through fiction.
Last week I announced the release of my latest novel, Nadia’s Hope http://www.amazon.com/Nadias-Hope-ebook/dp/B00947X1G0. After the book was up and running, I kept thinking a price adjustment needed to be made. So I dropped it to $5.99. Then Saturday night I still felt the urge in my spirit that more was required, much more.
Sunday morning, the Oswald Chambers devotion, The Sacrament of Sacrifice, waited in my inbox. God’s “…purpose is not the development of a man; His purpose is to make a man exactly like Himself, and the characteristic of the Son of God is self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain, but what He pours through us that counts. … Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all.” Oswald Chambers
The most precious book I can offer God is Nadia’s Hope. The promo starts today. I’m offering the novel for free for the week. God gave me Nadia, and I’m giving her back to Him to take where He will.
If you are inclined please download Nadia’s Hope. Pass her to friends who are hurting. Pass the novel to others who haven’t healed, who ask the hard questions of where was God during the darkest hours. Pass her on to someone wanting a good read. Please pass her on.
http://www.amazon.com/Nadias-Hope-ebook/dp/B00947X1G0
(Even if you don’t have a Kindle, Amazon has free software to read Kindle books on your computer.)
To read the complete Oswald Chambers devotion, please link to… “The Sacrament Of Sacrifice“ — My Utmost For His Highest for 09/02/2012
Janet Thompson, my guest on Living Joyfully Free Radio!
Janet Thompson is a Christian multi-published author, speaker, mentor, cancer-survivor, wife, mom, and grandmother. Janet is the founder of Woman to Woman Mentoring and About His Work Ministries, also known as AHW Ministries. Janet’s passion and life focus is one generation teaching and training the next generation the things God and life have taught them.
Janet has a Bachelor of Science in Food Administration Degree from California Polytechnic University. She also has a Master of Business Administration Degree from California Lutheran University, and worked as a self-employed small business owner for fifteen years. Sensing God calling her into ministry with “Feed My sheep,” Janet obtained a Master of Arts in Christian Leadership Degree, with an emphasis on equipping the laity, from Fuller Theological Seminary. Janet is also a CLASS (Christian Leaders Authors and Speakers) graduate, and an active member of AWSA (Advanced Writers and Speakers Association).
Janet is the author of:
Woman to Woman Mentoring How to Start, Grow, and Maintain a Mentoring Ministry resources
The Team That Jesus Built: How to Develop, Equip, and Commission a Women’s Ministry Team
God’s Best for Your Life (First Place 4 Health)
Face-to-Face Bible Study Series
Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter Hope, Help, & Encouragement for Hurting Parents
Dear God, They Say It’s Cancer A Companion Guide for Women on the Breast Cancer Journey
Dear God, Why Can’t I Have a Baby: A Companion Guide for Couples on the Infertility Journey
Dear God, He’s Home! A Woman’s Guide to Her Stay-at-Home Man (March 2013)
Janet and her husband Dave have four married children and eleven delightfully fun grandchildren, whom they love to tell about Jesus. They are enjoying the season of life known as empty nest or as Janet formerly called it, Parents Time to Rest (Ha! Not hardly). Today they both continue to mentor and nurture faith in their family and joyfully serve the Lord. Dave is retired and a helpmate partner with Janet in About His Work Ministries.
After living in Southern California her entire life and serving in ministry at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, Janet and Dave moved to the mountains of Idaho, where the deer and the elk roam and they love their cozy cabin home!
Join me for a fun visit with Janet Thompson on Living Joyfully Free Radio!
http://www.livingjoyfullyfree.com/audio-items/janet-thompson/
Visit Janet at http://www.womantowomanmentoring.com/
August 31, 2012
Nadia’s Hope by Lisa Buffaloe
I’m so pleased to announce the release of my latest novel, Nadia’s Hope. This manuscript started almost ten years ago as a short story on forgiveness. I planned on giving the article to a friend. However once finished, I felt the urge to continue writing.
As Nadia’s journey unfolded, God revealed areas in my own life I had not faced and allowed Him to heal. The layers peeled away through tears and heartache. Nadia and I walked together to find answers to difficult questions.
I would be so honored if you would consider reading, Nadia’s Hope.
The nightmares continue. Memories won’t heal.
Nadia must make a choice.
Nadia Minsky fled Israel to escape her past, but she can’t outrun her nightmares. The throbbing scars along her hip and stomach are cruel reminders of shattered dreams. Even though surgeons mended her body, her spirit still bleeds. Friends claim only God can heal her. For Nadia, trusting a God who allowed her to suffer is inconceivable.
Can close friends, a wild roommate, and a handsome medical student help Nadia learn to trust? Or will she allow her past to forever cripple her future?
“… the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear Him,
on those whose hope is in His unfailing love.”
(Psalm 33:18 NIV)
Nadia’s Hope
2010 Women of Faith Writing Contest Finalist
Runner-up for Women’s Fiction, 2010 American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) Genesis Contest
Best of Conference for Adult Novel, 2007 North Texas Christian Writer’s Conference.
Order Nadia’s Hope on Amazon…
Paperback coming soon!
