Tag Archives: Marriage

On Marriage, Motherhood and Ministry

My readers often ask me how I do it – how I manage marriage, motherhood and ministry all at the same time.  The short answer is “I don’t” and the long answer is “He gives me grace”.  Though a book could be written on each aspect of my life and someday, probably will, today I want to start addressing these topics in little bites on my blog.  You’ve heard the expression “How do you eat an elephant” and most of us know that the only way you can do that is “one bite at a time”.  So, that’s how we’re going to start to cover these topics… a little at a time.

I will begin with a little background on where I came from and my thoughts about where I’m going.  I will always be completely open and transparent about everything because I believe that people are looking for other REAL people, not people wearing masks or personas.  The Lord knows we have enough of those kind of people!  When I’ve opened up like this in the past, some have said that it’s just TMI (too much information) and I need not tell every little detail of my life!  Continue reading →

A Good Heart

When Jim and I married, we had both lived a long time on this earth and a lot of history had been written in our lives before we came together as husband and wife.  So, there was much to learn about each other!

As with most people when they fall in love and begin to realize they are moving toward a life-long commitment, we would sometimes talk into the night – hour upon hour – just trying to ‘get to know’ one another.  The truth is, we are still learning! Continue reading →

A Good Heart

When Jim and I married, we had both lived a long time on this earth and a lot of history had been written in our lives before we came together as husband and wife.  So, there was much to learn about each other!

As with most people when they fall in love and begin to realize they are moving toward a life-long commitment, we would sometimes talk into the night – hour upon hour – just trying to ‘get to know’ one another.  The truth is, we are still learning!

After we had been married a while, I remember reading a story told by a man who had worked for Jim at PTL for ten years.  He drove a bulldozer and helped to clear PTL land for development.  He recounted that when he and Jim were clearing trees from some remote acres of PTL property to build campsites and bunkhouses, Jim discovered an elderly black couple living in a shack just off the edge of the property.

The man had only one arm and his wife was bedridden.  They didn’t have running water.  The man was cutting wood with a chain saw with his one hand, and they used that wood in a stove to cook their meals.

Without saying anything, Jim had a new trailer pulled in for them to live in.  Then, he had the trailer hooked up to a septic tank and had a well drilled for them so that they would have running water.

Nothing told me more about Jim’s heart than that story.

Matthew 12:35, “A good man out of the good treasure of His heart brings forth good things.”

Some of us need to mine the treasures in the hearts of our loved ones more often.  We need to dig deep and remember the good things that flow out of the hearts of the ones we love.

It’s all too easy to let life’s everyday pressures make us callous to the real heart of a person.  Recall something good about your loved one today.

Phillipians 4:8:  “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”

Marriage (Pt. 4)

My years of ministry in Master’s Commission had prepared me for whatever might come my way… or so I thought.  When I met Jim and fell in love with him and then married him shortly after, there were many challenges I had to face and overcome.  Some of the challenges had to do with who Jim was, what had happened to him, and Jim’s high-profile life.

I was instantly catapulted into the life of the famous, or in Jim’s case, infamous to many.  I had always had lots of friends but I also had a side of me that was private.  Continue reading →

Marriage (Pt. 3)

By the spring of 1989, I was getting my life together.  The ten-year nightmare of my ill-advised marriage was over.  I had recommitted my life to Christ, joined Master’s Commission, and began this wonderful life of living and ministering for Jesus.  I had been in ministry for several years when I met Jim at the Dream Center in L.A.

Shortly after I met Jim and we had our first date, both of us knew that it was far more than a date; we were already falling in love.  And we knew that it was God bringing this love into our lives at the very time both of us had just about given up on ever finding love again. Continue reading →

Marriage (Pt. 2)

During all the drama of my first marriage, I can still remember the times when the Spirit of God had wooed me.  He never left me, even in the midst of my rebellion.  There were times I would be high on drugs, and I could feel the Holy Spirit hovering over me, protecting me and shielding me from the agenda of the enemy – to steel, kill and destroy my life.  That may fly in the face of some religious thought out there, but it was true never-the-less. Continue reading →

Marriage (Pt. 1)

Part 1

In my book, “More Than I Could Ever Ask”, I tell all the details about my first husband whom I chose for all the wrong reasons, none of which had anything to do with God.  When I met him, I was very young and naïve and my ability to make good decisions was not yet mature.  Add to that the influence of drugs and you have a recipe for disaster and that is what happened.  The choices I made as a young woman led to 10 years of hell and heartache.

Remember the old Frank Sinatra song “I Did It My Way”?  It sounded really great to the generation that was being raised to indulge in the world and all of its pleasure.  We heard things like “go for the gusto” and “you only live once” and we bought it.  We bought the lie that we had a right to sinful lusts and worldly living that the Bible says brings pleasure for a season, but eventually brings death.  We bought the world’s philosophy of “self fulfillment”.    Remember the rock song “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”?  Boy, did we ever go after self-satisfaction!  When “self” rules in the heart, you will see everything that really means anything turned exactly upside down.  You will see the principles of the Bible destroyed and you will believe that destruction of Christian values is a “good thing” as you enjoy the temporary self-satisfaction.  We exchange the truth for a lie and call good evil, and evil good.

In the fifties, sixties and seventies, the world had begun to turn the Christian values of generations past into a lie, permeating every part of the family and God’s design for the family.  Everything in the world, all of its pleasures and all of its temporal thinking, values, and all of its best efforts to put life into order and to meet the needs and wants of mankind, has only perverted real truth and sent a tidal wave of disastrous proportions throughout our families.

I have often asked why the generation before me did not stand up for what was right.  I’ve wondered why the Christians and religious leaders sat by while prayer was taken out of schools and abortion was legalized and divorce was normalized – and did very little to stop the insanity.  As I look back, I’m almost angry.  But I now understand that each generation bears the responsibility for either honoring God or turning further from Him, and my generation doesn’t get a pass either.

Many times, out of the carnage of lives lived in pursuit of “self”, the eventual pain led us to search for something, anything, that could help!  But we went to the world for answers.   We read “self-help” and “psychology” books written by those who have a measure of understanding – as much as can be understood without spiritual revelation.  We watched television get crazier every day and we pulled our values from writers who do not know God – therefore, every thought is corrupt and gets worse continually.

I now understand that it was the mercy of God, and the prayers of those who went before us in our families, in our churches, in our messed up world, that showed us the way back to Him.

You see, there is no life apart from God.  There is no true fulfillment in relationships without His guidance and direction.  He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Marriage – Part 2
Marriage – Part 3
Marriage – Part 4

On Marriage, Motherhood and Ministry

My readers often ask me how I do it – how I manage marriage, motherhood and ministry all at the same time.  The short answer is “I don’t” and the long answer is “He gives me grace”.  Though a book could be written on each aspect of my life and someday, probably will, today I want to start addressing these topics in little bites on my blog.  You’ve heard the expression “How do you eat an elephant” and most of us know that the only way you can do that is “one bite at a time”.  So, that’s how we’re going to start to cover these topics… a little at a time.

I will begin with a little background on where I came from and my thoughts about where I’m going.  I will always be completely open and transparent about everything because I believe that people are looking for other REAL people, not people wearing masks or personas.  The Lord knows we have enough of those kind of people!  When I’ve opened up like this in the past, some have said that it’s just TMI (too much information) and I need not tell every little detail of my life!

But what I hear from my Heavenly Father is that my life is to be an open book because it is my testimony that will help many people to recover from lives that were train wrecks like mine, and to be restored to a place of right standing with God, and then to minister powerfully out of what He has done!  Rick Joyner has said that your anointing is in direct proportion to the degree of your suffering.  My decisions in my life before Jesus caused me much pain by my own rebellion.  But after you become a Christian, your life is supposed to be simple, wonderful and pain-free.  Well, isn’t it?

In my early years of ministry, I worked very hard to overcome rejection and shame.  Even after you are born-again into the family of God, sometimes it’s hard for others to forgive and forget your past.  Oh, they say you are accepted, but some will never view you in any other way than defective.  It’s ok.  You are not limited by what others may think or say.  You are playing to an audience of ONE.  You are free in God to do and say what He says.  Words are powerful.  They have the power to either heal or hinder.  As for me, I will use my words to help others heal (Isaiah 61).

Today, I live to tell of His love, forgiveness, goodness, and restoration.  I live to know Him and to make Him known.  There were those who encouraged me in my testimony, and there were those who preferred I would just come to church, sit quietly and not cause any waves.  Let those who are qualified to minister, minister!  As I said in an earlier blog, God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.

A religious spirit will always try to shut you up and sit you down or at the very least, minimize what you have to say.  This is my story, my testimony, and I will tell it to the world in the way God has instructed!  I am trusting that some of you need to hear it and will walk with me through this journey God has called Lori Beth Bakker’s life and testimony.

I will build with every new blog, so be sure to read my blogs regularly.  But if you miss one, they will be archived and readily available so you can go back to pick up prior ones.

God Bless You!

Lori Signature