“Our destiny is far greater than our potential.
Our destiny is uniquely ad perfectly fashioned for us.
Our destiny includes both delight and drudgery.
Our destiny is too important to compromise.
Our destiny is worthy sticking around for.
This is true for all of us.”
- The Cure: What if God isn’t Who You Think He is and Neither are You 

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 TIME LINE . . .  SHARON HERSH  . . .   MOBILE PHONE APPS  . . . IT’S HERE!! REGISTER FOR A FREE CHANGE TO “TEST” THIS CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY:  HTTP://GLOOAPP.COM/SHARONHERSH . . .  INCLUDED: PASSION FADES . . . CONFRONTING YOURSELF . . . THE STORY OF YOUR HEART . . . PASSION SIZZLES . . .

THE BRAVE CHANGE  . . .  52 SALVATION STORIES  (the stories will definitely continue into Sharon’s Year 53!)

. . . REFORMED THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY – PRESS RELEASE . . . . (http://www.rts.edu/orlando/faculty/bio.aspx?id=596)

THIS IS EXCITING!!! . . .  . . .SURPRISED BY HOPE     . . .

REAL RELATIONSHIPS/REAL SEX IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA –IS VIRGINIA FOR LOVERS???   . . .CHECK IT OUT . . .

THIRD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12 – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2012:

This seminar is for couples who are married, engaged
to be married, or thinking of marriage in the near
future. Anyone who wants to understand the realities
of God’s design for a passionate married life are
invited to attend, whether you are married or single,
in a relationship or currently not in a relationship.

Come and hear how God has designed intimacy to be
a meaningful part of His work and a reflection of His
glory in relationships.
Seminar begins Friday, October 12th
at 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Saturday session
begins at 8:30 am and ends at 12:30 pm
For more information, contact Alec Kean at (804)356-8013 or Kean@CenterForChristianCounseling.net

 

Sharon is the author of several books.  Her most recent is Begin Again, Believe Again: Embracing the Courage to Love With Abandon.  It picks ups where her most popular book, Bravehearts, left off — discussing the pain and privilege of real relationships in real lives.  Relationships give us a taste of heaven and a taste of hell.  If we can enjoy every taste of heaven, and keep the tastes of hell from turning our own lives into a hellacious constant reality, we are ready . . .to began again, try again, call an estranged friend again, hope again, risk again, believe again, be vulnerable again, pray again, include God again, try a date night again, forgive again, dream again, etc.  We are ready to dwell in the possibilities!

NEW PROJECTS

Sharon is working on an exciting, cutting-edge project with The Gloo Project  to create phone apps (I have surrendered to the 21st Century! and I love it!!) This project is going to make a difference.  Watch for:  IT’S HERE — SEE MUSINGS 9/29/12

YOU CAN STILL VIEW THESE APPS DURING THE OCTOBER TESTING PERIOD:

 

 Date Night Gone Wrong — Can you send me your date night stories — funny, painful, unbelievable stories that might help us all learn something or enjoy a good laugh? (sharon@sharonhersh.com).

What if God Were One of Us? — Send me your “God-sightings”  Take a deep breath, listen to amazing stories (God(?) in the next seat at a nail salon, getting a gold (not yellow) pedicure, and speaking jaw-dropping, oh-so-kind, life-changing words). Share your stories (sharon@sharonhersh.com).  You can help us look expectantly for wild, too-good-to-be-true but too-strange-to-not-be something . . . and, we might not feel so alone and even believe that we are sojourning with the wildest, most creative, real, loving Companion who we need to keep an eye on consistently because we can’t even imagine where He might show up next!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Sharon is a sought-after speaker for conferences, retreats, seminars, classes, trainings, or workshops.  She loves to speak any where in the world — to a group of 2 or 2,000.  Sharon is an Adjunct Faculty member at Reformed Theological Seminary, Colorado Christian University, and The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology — teaching graduate counseling courses.  Other subjects Sharon loves to speak on include:

Beyond Addiction is a seminar on The Truth & Lies About Addiction and The Path of Recovery & Renewal with a strong emphasis on the powerful truth that change is possible — for both addicts and those who love them.  This seminar can be in a 2-3 day format, a 1-day seminar, or a much shorter workshop.  Singer/songwriter Andy Gullahorn participates in this seminar to help make it a unique blend of authentic teaching, storytelling, video clips, research, testimonials, inspiration and ideas for true change from the heart, and artistic, compelling music.

The True Sisterhood: Sharing the Drama, Disappointment, and Delight of Relationships. Sharon uses the material and stories in her highly successful books: Bravehearts: Unlocking the Courage to Love With Abandon and Begin Again, Believe Again: Embracing the Courage to Love With Abandon.  Our design for relationship can leave us shattered, cynical, and confused or it can compel us to begin again, believe again, hope again, and love again.  Considering real-life experiences like broken relationships, singleness, estrangement from a child, addiction, adultery, Internet entanglement, comparison, gossip, and judgment — Sharon looks at the overwhelming barriers to a true sisterhood, and yet how female relationships can become the strong glue that tenderly holds us together so that we can live radically redemptive relational lives!

What’s a Parent For?  Sharon has written five parenting books including those in the Hand-in-Hand Parenting series like Mom, I Feel Fat! and Mom, I Hate my Life! and the award-winning Mothering Without Guilt.   She is available for parenting conferences to provide parents with encouragement and support, including interactive sessions that consider the music, movies, cultural trends, social media, video games, etc. of this culture and how we an offer our children something that just might provoke them to consider being taken out of the captivity of the self-absorbed, self-entitled, self-destructive culture to be taken in by Love.

Sharon is also the Director of Women’s Recovery & Renewal, a retreat ministry to struggling women and theircaregivers and would be happy to structure a retreat for a group of friends, a ministry team, or a group of colleagues to help you grow to know one another and understand ways that you can better take care of yourself,  support one another, and contribute to your world.

Sharon lives in Lone Tree, Colorado and is finding freedom and adventure in the empty-nest years.  She loves to travel, read, listen to music, and spend time with her friends.

“She packed up her potential and all she had learned, grabbed a cute pair of shoes and headed out to change a few things.” Leigh Standley

My favorite books:
NEW BOOK THAT I LOVE:  THE CURE: What if God isn’t who you think He is and neither are you (Lynch, McNicol, Thrall) Ragamuffin Gospel, Telling Stories, To Be Told, Beautiful Boy, Broken, All is Grace, Why I Stopped Going to Church, Abba’s Child, Dance Lessons for Zombies, Addiction & Grace, The Good & Beautiful Life, Falling Upward: A  Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, The Spirituality of Imperfection, Julian of Norwich — Showings, Welcome to My Country, Ruthless Trust, Lost & Found, Hope Again Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety, The Pastor: A Memoir, Three Free Sins,  All That Is Bitter & Sweet, Traveling Mercies. Holy Hunger, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up, Drinking: A Love Story, The Tragedy & Comedy of the Gospel. Any poetry by Mary Carr or Gerard Manley Hopkins.

My favorite music:
Andrew Peterson, Third Day, Metallica, John Denver, The Carpenters, JJ Heller, Andy Gullahorn, Jill Phillips, David Wilcox, Sara Grove, Gungor, Mumford & Sons, Vignette, After The Storm – A Compilation after Hurricane Katrina, Plumb, for King & Country, Ashley Cleveland, Carrie Underwood, Fernando Ortego, Josh Bales, Johnny Cash, Shane & Shane, Jimmy Wayne,

My favorite movies:
Working Girl, Pretty Woman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Into the Wild, Lord of the Rings (all of them), Beautiful, Chocolat, Leaving Las Vegas, Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Little Miss Sunshine, Crash, The Help

My favorite television shows:
Law & Order, House, The Cleaner (cancelled), The Wire (ended), The Good Wife, Breaking Bad, Dexter, Homeland, Nurse Jackie (my new favorite!), Missing (although I hear it’s cancelled — so sad), Touch

New friend worth checking out:  Terry Rush (http://www.terryrush.blogspot.com/)

My favorite quotations:
“The greatest enemy of the spiritual life is self-rejection BECAUSE it contradicts the Voice that calls you Beloved.” –Henri Nouwen

“The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of man, because His compulsion is our liberation.” — Henri Nouwen

“I guess we’re simply not meant to understand some things.  Bono,of U2, says that his favorite song is ‘Amazing Grace’and his second favorite is ‘Help Me Make it Through the Night,’ and most of the time, I have to let it go at that.”  Anne Lamott

“Acceptance is my answer to all my problems today . . . .”  The Big
Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

“He was supreme in the beginning and — leading the resurrection parade — he is supreme in the end.  From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone.  So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding.  Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe . . . get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross” (Colossians 1).

“Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me, but try waking up ever morning & loving the work all over again.  That’s what takes a real hero.”  Brian Andreas

“He miracle came announced and in an odd package. . .it looked different tan she had imagined. . .unpolished, untimely, unexpected. . .unpretentious. . .Yet it fit perfectly.  Divinely constructed solely for her.” Kristin Jongen