Ruth Nieves

With all the craziness of life...the daily routine, it is so easy to get overwhelmed and side tracked. Man, I find it so easy to lose sight of what is important...laughing with my kids, hugging my husband, sharing with a friend. If you are anything like me, you can close yourself off and not invite people for dinner during the week because with homework, laundry and dinner, you just can't fit one more thing in. How fulfilling it is to break out of THE routine and have friends over for an informal, casual meal. Just simple food with lots of laughs. So what that the kids go to bed a half hour later. They have learned more from the two hours that their friends were over than sleeping for that 1/2 hour. I am a stickler when it comes to schedules and routine, but tonight I discovered that it really is okay to veer from that once in a while. The laundry is still upstairs...waiting. The toys are on the floor...waiting. But my friend and I washed dishes together and laughed. She was much q...

When you have tried it all....Stand! When you have cried and pleaded...Stand! When you have yelled and screamed...Stand! When you have prayed and feel like the heavens are like brass...Stand! Stand, immovable, firm, rooted in the truth. The truth that "this too shall pass." That one day you will look back and maybe even laugh at the situation you are now facing. A wonderful story that came to my attention is the story of the Women of Paradise Road. These were the wives of military officers, taken captive by the Japanese in Southeast Asia during WW II. These women were elite and came from affluent and influential heritage. But they were taken and separated from their husbands and children and brutalized, tortured, starved and deprived of civility. Yet somehow they made it. Two years of neglect and death and yet they made it. How? What was it that gave them the strength to endure, to persevere? What was that one thing that made them keep going? They didn't know when help wa...

Is true beauty what the world says is true beauty? Is true beauty being thin and flawless ( would be nice, though), having curves in the right places and having just the right amount of cleavage (I wish)? True beauty in the world's standards is a deception, a lie. Why? Because if you speak or ask anyone of the women that grace the covers of any of those magazines or billboards they would tell you that they are anything but perfect. It takes hours to look like that. There is a lot of photo shop going on...masking all of the flaws. There are women all over the world who are altering their appearances, trying to attain a look. They are bleaching their skin, they are rounding out their eyes through surgery. They think that if they can just look a certain way,they can be accepted, affirmed. They believe that if they look a certain way that they will "feel" better about themselves. Yet, many of us know that this just ain't so. True beauty does not come from with "out...

Last night, I shared on the season's in a woman's life. All of us are in different season's. Many of us have gone through the same or similar seasons as the other. Some of us have raised our children already and are now empty nesters, some of us are just now raising our children. There are some of us who may be going through a divorce or have been widowed. Then some of us may have just received a promotion or gotten a new house or just had a baby. Maybe you are newly married. In every season of our lives there is something to learn. The season, whether painful or joyful is not in vain. It isn't just for us to go through it. We are to learn from it, whatever God may desire, and it is meant to bring comfort to another woman in your life. I have learned that in every season of my life, God has been there. Even when I should have been silent and spoken out of turn to try to get my point across. Verse 7 in Ecclesiastes says, "there is a time to keep silent and a time to...

What is a warrior chick? Well, I am a warrior chick. I am a warrior chick because I am a fighter, a warrior. Why? Because I live. I live in a world where as a woman, I wear many hats. I wear the hat of a wife, a mom, a sister, a daughter. I wear the hat of a pastor's wife, a friend, a counselor. I also wear the hat of a christian, an employee. There are some battles I have chosen and there are some battles I have been drafted into. I chose to be a mom and a wife. The battles fought in these two roles have been hard. I have been hit the hardest as a mom and wife. But I did not choose to lose my son, I did not choose that battle, that loss. And though it was a devastating blow, I chose not to stay down. I chose to rise up. Did I want to rise up? Many days, no. But I had to make a choice. Live defeated and down or rise up and fight. I chose to rise up and fight. Fight for my right to believe in a God who really does love me. Despite what was being whispered in my ear. You cannot throw...