The Road To Godliness Is A Long One

Learning to wait is a large part of holiness, or creativity, or success of any kind. Teaching your child how to endure and how to wait with grace could change the whole story of their lives. This is a fallen world, and your children are guaranteed to meet pain, loneliness, and discouragement as they make their way within it, doubly so if they are pursuing holiness.

Every great athlete endures hours of hard work and discipline of the spirit to win the prize, to receive the crown. In the same way, you can train the hearts and spirits of your children to endure in the face of hardship so they can be like Paul, who “finished the course” to receive “the crown of righteousness” from “the Lord, the righteous Judge” (2 Timothy 4:7-8). You can teach them to run their race in faith, to fight their battles well, and to become heroes in the story of God.

Read more about this in 10 Gifts Of Heart.

Tea Time Tuesday: The Joy Of Lasting Friendships

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Hi, my wonderful friends. Today I am writing a note and recording my podcast in Cornwall, France. I have gathered here with my dear friend Ainsley Arment, who invited me to spend this reflective and special time in Scotland. I invited several dear friends I have known for many years. We built a ministry together and they supported me through conferences and brick, launches and developing small groups and always being there for me when I needed someone to help and encourage. We have had such heart deepening and soul, filling chats and or moments of friendship together the past few days. 

These women are bold, faithful, encouraging, and willing to take a risk to reach the world. Today was a really fun podcast and recording with Ainsley and my dear friends who have been a part of God‘s movement through our lives into this world. May he bless you with strength and integrity to reach out to others for a friendship and support and to walk with one another in building a movement that changes the world. You caught us giggling in the middle of our podcast. I hope our joy together encourages you just a bit. God bless you with friends and support that you need to live your story well.

God’s Grace And Beauty Are Eternal

The details and worries of my life seem to loom so large in my days, casting their shadows over my thoughts and my feelings about life. My perspective is so limited and finite, yet it can control me.

The troubles and petty things will eventually pass away by His grace and help. But God and His beauty are eternal. His desire is that I should walk through life with my eyes set on His goodness and my heart set on His beauty.

Read more about this in Your Mom Walk With God.

The Gift Of Hope

My hope is what carried me through health issues, struggles in my family, going five years without a salary, and so much more. Hope is the physician of each misery, and God has given us this gift to heal us from our pasts so we may have a future that is full of joy and light.

Yet, we are babies moving from immaturity toward maturity. Learning the grace of walking in the Spirit, as mere toddlers learning slowly, allowing God to hold us through the storms, is a process of growth. Even as my children had to learn to trust me, to obey my requests, to trust my wisdom, so our walk toward maturity in Christ is a process.

Read more about this in Help, I’m Drowning.

Tea Time Tuesday: Pathway Of Love

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“The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the full day.” Pr. 4:18

So is the path of love, It took me a lifetime of making choices to love, step by step, to become mature in living it out in my life—a process.

Letters from many say "Anger, passivity, sharp words, or criticism shaped my life growing up. Now, I do the same. I fear I’m ruining my children but I feel hopeless, exhausted. “

Without love, we become noisy gongs, clanging symbols, and fail to reach hearts of our people with messages of truth. Love is the most profound reflection of Christ in a fallen world.

I’ve never been loved too much. Have you?

We long for companionship, friendship, understanding, one to attend to our feelings, dreams. needs. So do our children. We invest in love by:

Asking someone to meet for coffee.

Staying up late with a teen who is anxious about life, and wonders if she is acceptable to her peers.

Holding a baby, rocking him until he falls securely asleep in protective arms.

Taking time for a cool drink, snacks with your husband so he can unload the stress he feels in life.

Making love a priority means giving up yourself, again and again. It’s the foundation of passing on faith.

As I read verses to my kids, I learned what God’s love was like. I slowly became a living picture of his love as I practiced one step at a time to behave in a way that helped them believe these truths.

Verses like:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself." Luke 10: 27

"Love is patient, love is kind. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in sin, but rejoices with truth. It always protects, always hopes, always trusts, always perseveres. Love never fails." I Corinthians 13: 4-8

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friend." John 15: 13

"Keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sin." I Peter 4:8

“Put on love, for love is a perfect bond of unity." Colossians 3:4

More on today’s new podcast.

Reminding Our Children Of Their Eternal Significance

As mothers, we have the hearts and the trust of our children from the earliest moments of their lives, and they need us for so many reasons. They naturally look to us for physical sustenance, protection, affection. Deep in their hearts, however, they also long for a special place to belong, a place to feel their worth, and they need us to help them find it.

These precious children were designed to fulfill a purpose for God by bringing his glory to bear through their lives. They were designed to be his hands, his voice, his heart and mind through the various kinds of work they undertake in his world.

Read more about this in The Ministry of Motherhood.

Finding Joy In Your Unique Puzzle

The circumstances you’ve been given are your unique puzzle. You must find a way to put the pieces together and bring cohesiveness to it.

What if your husband is never perfect and your children disappoint and you fail, and you continue to have a lot of issues to deal with that are hard? What if these things never change? How will you live? Will you be a victim to your uncontrollable circumstances, or can you pursue a path of growing acceptance with grace, happiness that is beyond your circumstances? Can you arm yourself ahead of time with attitudes, rhythms of life that bring grace, a determination to create beauty amidst it all, even if nothing changes?

If so, you will construct a place of goodness, redemption, and life with the pieces you are holding in your own hands.

Tea Time Tuesday: Finding Happiness in a Fallen World

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"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be." — Abraham Lincoln

What a fun memory in this photo—making friends with a horse and guard as I walked toward Trafalgar Square in London. Not sure what the guard thought, but the horse and I became friends. I was learning to celebrate each moment of life—though it was a long journey.

After I became a believer, I worked my way to righteousness: I attended church, Bible studies, tithed, decided to go into Christian work. I subconsciously expected God to bless my obedience by giving me everything I desired in life: marriage, family, success in my work. I thought in my heart, "I will be happy when I get married." I married at 28 and was surprised marriage didn't soothe the restlessness, complaining, make me happy in my circumstances.

I thought a child might fulfill me. I prayed, "Lord bless me with a child." I had 3 babes in the next 5 years. Instead of being fulfilled, I was overwhelmed with the responsibility of motherhood. I found myself thinking, "I will be happy when…” I filled in the blanks with a list in my mind (when the kids are out of diapers, or I have more friends, a bigger salary).

I loved my people dearly, but struggled with life.

The list marched grew daily. Over time, my expectations grew. Finally, it dawned on me that this is the "broken place." Earth is a temporary place where people are all sinful and subject to the disappointments of a fallen world. I can picture ideals, dreams of the life for which I was created, but Jesus never promised I would experience fulfillment in this world. I realized that if I didn't build my expectations on eternal realities, I would never be happy.

I had to become willing to place myself at the altar of God's will. I had to relinquish expectations about life, God, relationships—that I held tightly in my fist. With each relinquishment, I discovered I could trust God, find happiness.

Join me on my podcast for more.

God With Us Is More Than Enough

I have a memory of a friend asking me, “Why do you have so many miracles in your life?” Looking back now, I can see the answer to that question is that I need Jesus so much, and so often feel the need to allow Him to accomplish the things I could never do on my own. When I realized that He was with me and with my children, that He was my constant strength, and that He would help me conquer the battles in my home, it gave me the freedom to find rest in His abundant grace for me.

God Chose You To Be The Mother Of Your Children

God chose you to be the mother for your children. Trust that He will give you the wisdom and ability to shepherd them through their unique issues.

My own journey has involved radical acceptance of my children’s lives, and an awareness that every day might be filled with new surprises and interruptions.

That is where we encounter God’s grace at work in the most complicated moments of our lives, taking our complexities and weaving them into something beautiful.