40 Day Church Prayer Challenge

I know there are plenty of 40 day challenges flying around our society these days, but I am being convicted to start a 40 day prayer challenge for the local church. I know we probably don’t go to the same church, but that doesn’t matter, I am convinced that each and every church can use some prayer. I just can’t help but feeling like the local church is under a great deal of pressure right now. It might be the recent legal action in Texas and Idaho, or maybe it is the financial struggles of our nation or maybe it is just an unrest in my soul. Whatever it might be, I am going to spend the next 40 days praying for our church, it’s leaders, members, guests and neighbors. I hope you will consider joining me! I know that your church, it’s leaders, members guests and neighbors will be blessed.

My plan is to start praying on November 1st and continue until December 10th. (You can certainly choose the dates that work best for you!) This will cover our church while everyone is preparing for the Christmas season, a season when many visitors will enter our doors, and many who don’t know Christ will be seeking to find some direction. It seems like the perfect time to make an impact for the Kingdom.

At first, I was attempting to find a different group of people to pray for each day of the challenge. Our church is fairly small, so I fell short and only came up with 27 groups to pray for. I have included the list just because it might help you come up with ideas of your own. I have decided that I will be using a 7 day rotation, this way I will be praying for each major group of people several times during the challenge. The rotation I will be using looks like this:

Day 1-Pastors and Ministers

Day 2-Boards and Committees

Day 3-Volunteers and Employees

Day 4-Members and Guests

Day 5-Outreach and Church Ministries

Day 6-Community Residence

Day 7-Christians throughout the world

I pray that you and your family will consider accepting my challenge to pray for your local church for the next 40 days. I am so excited to see what our churches will be inspired to do with this little bit of extra prayer, and how many souls we are going to be able to reach this Christmas season!

Prayer List Ideas:

1-Pastors

2-Ministers

3-Council or Board

4-Host Team

5-Lay Leaders

6-Choir or band

7-Behind the scenes (tech crew, altar guild, and such)

8-Sunday school teachers

9-Small group leaders

10-Youth volunteers

11-outreach ministries

12-nursery workers

13-cleaners and repair persons

14-Secretaries, Receptionists and Administrative assistants

15-Committees

16-Children

17-Youth

18-Singles

19-Marriages

20-Families

21-Seniors

22-Members or Regular attendees

23-Occasional attendees

24-Guests

25-Community members in our sphere

26-Community members in need

27-Christians all over the World

The End Of The Rope

This is a brutally honest post, a reflection on how I have been feeling the last several days. I pray that if you are feeling similar, that you will know you are not alone. May God be glorified in your home, and may your heart and mind be filled with Christ Jesus!

The end of the rope

How did I get here?

The rope seems so long, strong and endless

But here is the end, the end, the end

I am not quite sure what to do

Let go, hang on, climb up,  

How much strength do I have left?

How much longer can I stay right here?

I think I'm scared

It is just as hard to let go, as to climb back up

But I can't just stay here, 

I must do something, but what? 

My head knows what to do.

It tells me that there will be troubles in this world,

But Christ has overcome the world

My heart isn't listening

My heart is heavy and broken

Trapped by an all consuming weight 

It doesn't see the Joy or Love the head sees

I don't think it can see at all these days

My head is telling my heart to lay down the burden

It is talking about an easy yoke and a burden that's light.

My heart can't see, it can't see the easy yoke, it can't see

My heart can't see here at the end of the rope

I must do something, do something

The end of the rope is scary, I shouldn't look at the end

The beginning of the rope is too high, I'll never make it there

Where should I look, what should I do?

Fix my eyes, fix my eyes on a mid point

The mid point is still too high, I'm not strong enough to make it there

Fix my eyes, but fix my eyes where on the rope?

The rope is too challenging, I don't want to look at the rope

Fix my eyes, fix my eyes off the rope?

My mind is telling me to fix my eyes on Jesus

Fix my eyes on Jesus, not the rope?

Fixing my eyes on Him may help my heart see, even at the end of the rope, my heart might see

My head is right, fixing on Jesus does seem better

Fixing my eyes on Jesus hasn't changed that I am at the end of the rope

But now, I see Jesus at the end of the rope with me 

He is with me, He is lifting my heart

Fixing my eyes on Jesus, at the end of the rope, He helps my heart to see

He helps my heart to see at the end of the rope

My heart is still heavy, I am still a bit scared

But I know I am not alone at the end of my rope



*****It seems my words may have conveyed a sense of despair instead of the attitude of melancholy I intended. Please know that I am not suicidal or even depressed. I thought of sharing these words because so many people think that I and many others they see in church, don't have great struggles, or always have an easy life. We don't. We have high mountains and low valleys just like you. I know my words convey a sense of overwhelmed conditions, a place where I can not make it on my own. This however, is often the best place to be with your faith. I know without a doubt that God is holding me in His hand and guiding my steps. These are steps I could not take all on my own. When this struggle is over or when my heart is no longer heavy, I will be able to look back and know without a doubt that God is the one that brought me through this moment. I will know that He is working in my life and guiding me through, I will know because there is no way I could have made it through the struggle completely on my own. I will once again know without a doubt, that the God that is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, knows my name and cares for me! I pray that when these words ring true in your life, that you would also know how much He loves YOU!

Me No Like That!

With a family our size, it is extremely difficult to find meals, activities, or entertainment, that everyone will enjoy. Sometimes it is more than difficult, sometimes it is down right frustrating. I am certain that if you have two or more children, you know exactly what I am talking about. Some days that can't even agree on the show they are going to watch for quiet time. So begins the argument.

We have been spending a great deal of time lately looking at our choices. We are looking at how our choices affect others, how our choices affect us and what might be the best choice we can make. It is tough, it is tough to get them to look beyond what they WANT to what might be best. But, there is some amazing learning taking place. Let me try to explain.

In our home there is a time in the early morning when children can choose a show to watch. Typically the first person awake gets to pick the show. Well, the two year old isn't too fond of this idea. He ALWAYS wants to watch "Curious George," he thinks it should always be his pick. We have had plenty of disagreements over the morning shows. However, I am happy to say that after examining our decision making process we are now usually able to come up with some compromises that involve no loud voices and no tears. Using our words, we all talk about what we would like, then what we would accept, or if we are willing to complete a task during this show and then return to watch a show a bit later. We still have some rough mornings, but the majority of them see good compromises.

We also have troubles sharing toys or items we want to play with. Again the hardest person to work with is the two year old, as he feels all the toys are his. In these situations we have asked the older children to find their little brother a similar toy or find a way to include him in their activity. This strategy works often, but sometimes we hear the phrase, "me no like that!" At that point, the real negotiating begins. If trading, taking turns or finding a similar toy doesn't work, we now have made some activity boxes that can usually completely distract him. He soon forgets what his brother has and is overjoyed with is pan of field corn kernels and small construction trucks.

These days are tough days with the two year old and his "me no like that," attitude. However, as I have been trying to work through these situations with him, I can clearly see the same attitude being displayed by some of the older members of our family and even some of our friends. I am wondering how do you get to be 14 or 25 or even 40 and still have a "me no like that," attitude. Did we not emphasize compromise when we had fewer children?

Let me encourage you to spend sometime emphasizing the need to compromise with our toys, shows and family activities. In my opinion our world has way too many people that want what they want when they want it. I have seen it at the grocery store, at the playground and even at church. People replace their good manners for fairly selfish demands, and see absolutely nothing wrong with it. I know that none of us want our children to grow up to become the "scene makers" at the store. Let's all work on teaching our children polite ways to say "no" and effective ways to move past the "me no like that" attitudes, I think we will truly enjoy the benefits of this hard work.

What's Your Story?

We had the opportunity to spend some quality time together at a Family Retreat last weekend. It was really nice! Great time to spend canoeing on the lake, gathering around the campfire, playing kickball, collecting rocks, connecting with other families and worshiping God together. If you find a family camp or retreat near you, I highly recommend you make time for it.

One of our sessions at the retreat was about stories. Our children hear and read tons of stories as they grow. Most of these stories are fiction or not true. This is different than most of the history of our world. Up until the last few decades, most stories being told by a family where true (or at least based on a true event) and told by family members around the table or at family gatherings. The times together were spent sharing Bible stories, fishing stories, stories about silly things Uncle Jimmy did when he was little, stories about how Grandpa and Grandma fell in love, and stories about how "life" use to be. You could trust the people telling you the stories and knew that even if there was a bit of exaggeration included for effect, the meaning of the story was true and part of your family's uniqueness.

Our session on stories encouraged all of us to think of true situations in our lives where we knew God had been present and demonstrated His great love for us. It was really interesting to hear what the children thought of as a special blessing from God. Many of our children needed to think for several minutes, but having my husband and I share stories first really helped them. Here is some of what we shared with each other:
     -My husband shared about a time when we were trying to buy "the perfect house," only for us to loose it because of a technicality. If we would have bought that house, our lives would be completely different now. (different job, different coach, different dance center, different church, etc.) God had a plan and that house was not part of it, even though we thought it was perfect. We are so glad we didn't get "the perfect house" now.
     -I shared a story about a time when we were trying to take a trip. I had an agenda and we NEEDED to leave by a certain time in order to meet my agenda. Well, we didn't, we were several hours late. I was so frustrated! However, as we journeyed on our trip we came to a deadly multi-car accident. An accident we probably would have been a part of if we would have left on time. I have never been so thankful to be running late. God had a different plan and I am thankful.
     -Our children shared stories about their dance class, their ability to join our family, their friendships and our church.
It was really a wonderful session. It was great to have the children think about how God is working in their lives and hear them tell the story.

Ok, that was fun, but what is the point really? Well, in our society today it is often difficult to talk to others about Christ and His amazing love. We often hear things like, "that is great if you want to believe that, but I don't believe in God;" or "you can't prove that their is a God;" or "God is just a myth, He isn't real." There are many things that people say about God and our faith. They even have research and science to back up their arguments. Many feel there is nothing we can say to people like this that will help them see the love of Christ. However, our session shared with us that NO ONE can argue with your story. Your story is true and it happen to you, so there is really nothing they can say to disqualify your statements. It is a great way to help others see the amazing things God is doing in the world around them. Stories are a great tool that God can use to help others learn about Him.

I think that we should think about our stories a couple of times a year, thinking of new stories each time. This will help our own children see the great things God is doing in their lives. It will help grow their faith and help them be prepared to share their stories with others. God is calling us to impact the world for His Kingdom, and now we can do that one story at a time.

Strong Marriage, Strong Family

I know that this is a blog about parenting, and not so much about marriage, but I believe that the first step to a strong family is a strong marriage. We have been blessed with over 20 years of marriage and have had our fair share of mistakes, but as Sarah Groves says in one of her songs..."life with you is half as hard and twice as good." I pray that your marriage is filled with love and joy, please allow me to share some things we have learned from our own mistakes, misconceptions or experiences.

1- He is not the same person I married. Personally, I feel one of the biggest misconceptions is that people aren't suppose to change. We see it in the media around us all the time, and unfortunately some of our friends have even started believing it. When I hear the phrase, "he is not the same person I married," I say "Praise God!" I am so thankful that my husband is not the same young, inexperienced, impatient man that I walked down the aisle with over two decades ago. Every year, every challenge, every new child, brings both of us a new perspective and a new understanding of how to best raise this family God has blessed us with. If we are completely honest with ourselves, we are not the same person either. As we both take time to seek Christ and grow in our relationship with Him, we will change. Our prayer is that we will become more like Christ and that our love for each other will grow stronger each and everyday.

2-Intimacy is important. I know that we all know this, however, I truly think we forget how important it is. Let me share a truly personal story....As most of you know, we have seven children and I homeschool most of them. I am sure you can imagine that their are many days when I am beyond tired. I know you have been there. You and I have spent the day teaching, driving, coaching, cleaning, cooking and managing a very busy household. There are literally days when I want nothing more than to collapse on the floor at 7pm. Unfortunately, my overcommitted days leave me with little or no energy for intimacy. But what is worse is that this exhausted attitude of mine has left my husband with the feeling that I am no longer interested in him. We had a rough patch awhile back, my husband actually confessed that sometimes I make him feel like he has the plague. Ouch! The man I love and desire to spend the rest of my life with just told me I treat him like he has a horrible disease. Not what I was hoping for! I know that we are not alone. There are far too many couples that have exhausted wives and husbands that feel like they are disease covered.

This is a tough issue, but it is extremely important, especially to our husbands! After my husband shared with me his feelings of disease infestation, I really needed to do some tough thinking. I was trying to think of ways to rectify this situation. My husband is the most important human in my life, I need to treat him that way. Are there things I could remove from my schedule? Could I adjust my sleeping pattern? Is there someplace we can send the kids for a night? What can I change that will make a long term difference in our relationship?

After much thought, I knew that my work load was not going to decrease. So, I needed to look at other things I could do to show my husband that I was still interested in him and that he doesn't have a disease. I decided to change my sleeping pattern to match his a little bit more and to change what I wear at night. Now, I am not talking a large investment at Victoria Secret, but definitely something a bit nicer than the normal t-shirt and sweats. :-) Go ahead and try something out of the ordinary....oversized button up shirts for easy accessibility; no panties; no pjs at all; put a nightlight in your room for some inexpensive "mood lighting;" get creative. :-) Just by thinking of some new ideas you are demonstrating to your husband that you love him and desire for him to know how important he really is.

3- Fight with dignity. To be completely honest, my husband and I hardly ever fight. We may disagree, but we rarely have a time when we are both seriously beyond angry. I think the main reason this happens is because we are able to disagree with dignity. We don't allow our small discussions to turn into name calling, screaming, dragging up every little thing, arguments. We love and respect each other enough to know that the other person isn't crazy and must have a valid point. Just because we disagree, doesn't mean we can't try to see the other person's point of view. This has taken some time, but I believe it is vitally important to fight with dignity. There is absolutely no reason to heap insults at the one person you love the most. You are spending the rest of your life with this man, don't say anything that you will regret!

4- Pray for your spouse. I know that our job as moms is all consuming and critically important, but I also know that our husband's jobs are just as important. Their jobs inside the home and outside our home are both stressful and time consuming. Our husbands need our prayers. You know what is needed most in your family, take time each week to pray specifically for the needs of your husband. Many times we have no idea what stresses they are feeling. Your prayers are especially needed when you are fighting or riding through a rough time in your marriage. The devil loves to divide our marriages, don't let him get a foothold!

5- Be proud to love your husband! This is different then the discussion in number two. Here, I want to encourage you to love your husband in front of your children and the world. Be sure to kiss and hug him good-bye and/or hello. Be proud to hold his hand or sit with his arm around you. Don't be afraid to give his rump a pinch when he bends over in front of you to get something. Enjoy each other! Enjoy being in a loving marriage relationship. Help your children to see how awesome a loving marriage relationship can be, they aren't going to see this in the media. Our children are often "embarrassed" by us and our love for each other. I put embarrassed in quotations, because I don't believe for a minute that they are truly embarrassed (we aren't that crazy), but I believe that they are happy to know that their parents love each other fully.

I truly pray that your marriage is a wonderful experience. I pray that it is strong and filled with much joy and love. I pray that your family is blessed by the relationship you and your husband have. No matter how long you have been married, let me encourage you to look at your family and see if there is one or two things you can do to bring more strength and vibrance to your marriage. I know that you agree with me that a strong marriage is the first step to a strong family.



*I am in no way asking anyone to be accepting of domestic abuse. If you are in an abusive marriage, please seek help immediately. You are a precious child of God and deserve to be treated as such. I come from a childhood home of domestic abuse and know the difficulty it brings. Please, for the sake of your children and your life, get help today. My prayers are with you!

Words of Wisdom

There are many times that I look at our children and just want to tell them everything all at once. I want to tell them they are "fearfully and wonderfully made." I want to tell them that God has great plans for their life and so they should trust Him and not stray from the path He has laid out for them. I want to tell them that people can be very mean, but that doesn't make them right. They should never allow people to make them feel less valuable than they really are. I want to tell them so much! But so many times I can't.

I can't have a 90 minute discussion with most of our children. Take our two year old, for example, I am blessed if I can get a 2 minute discussion in with him. Our six year old is barely sitting still long enough for us to snuggle and chat for 20 minutes. Even our 13 year old needs to be "in the mood" to have a long quality conversation. Sometimes I worry that I haven't shared all that I feel God is leading me to tell them, and they are growing so fast.

Well, many years ago I started a journal for each child. I try to write in them once every couple of months. I write whatever Bible verse is on my heart that day. I write the characteristics I see them developing as they grow. I write about a hard situation they faced recently and how I hope they will consider handling those situations in the future. I write about all the things I hope they will never question as they grow up, all the things I want to tell them in a long 90 minute chat but never get the chance.

We also use the books as a place for our family and friends to write their favorite verses or words of advice. It has been wonderful. Not only are our children going to receive a book filled with the words I have been praying about for their lives, but they are also getting a book filled with the wisdom and advice of their family and friends.

I know that our children will face some very tough times in their teens and twenties. They will most likely not want to come to me for advice. They may not even want to tell anyone in our family what they are struggling with. My prayer is that the words in these books will guide them through even their toughest days. That even though they may not want to ask my opinion, they can turn the pages and hear my voice in their life and know that I and many others love them and care about them deeply.

Our oldest child will be reaching a great milestone in the next month. As part of our celebration, we will be giving her the book written for her. I am very excited to see how the years of wisdom from so many faithful people will feed into her future.

I want to encourage you to write to your children. You may not want to start a journal, or write more than one or two letters, and that is perfectly fine. However, please take the time to write them at least once. Tell them how amazing they are, how much you love them and how much Jesus cares for them and their future. Tell them some of your favorite Bible verses and why they impact you so much. Tell them why your faith is so important and why you want them to develop their own faith. Tell them whatever is on your heart.

I pray that you and I are around to see our children grow to be grandparents, but if God has other plans, we know that our children will have hand written letters. Letters from us that will be a continual reminder to them of their worth and what an awesome blessing they are in our lives. Our days our short, may the Words of Wisdom that God leads us to write to our children sustain them even when we are no longer walking on this earth.

I would love to hear what your favorite verses are, or what topics you choose to write to your children about!

Laugh, Cry or Scream

I was chatting with a new mom at church this week. Her newborn was expressing her discontent with the current situation. Mom was either rocking too slowly, not holding the pacifier right or standing in the wrong room. :-) You know how newborns are, sometimes it is extremely difficult to figure out what they really want. Honestly, I think there are times the newborn doesn't even know what they really want themselves. Anyway, I was asking how things were going with this wonderful new blessing. She smiled and said, "well, we basically have three choices: laugh, cry or scream. I have done them all." I love it!!

This young mom just summed up most of parenting. We often feel we have only three choices: laugh, cry or scream, when situations jump into our days. And, I think there are some situations that warrant two of them or maybe even all three. Take for example the time when the potty training 2 year old sneaks into a different room to pooh in his pants. Only to be discovered a few moments later with pooh smeared all over his legs and stomach. Seriously, what do you do? Is screaming really going to help either of you at that exact moment? Or when a toy was left on the floor only to have an older sibling whom is reading while walking, trip. This trip causes the book to go flying from their hands and directly into Great-Grandma's heirloom vase, sending it crashing to the floor. Again, what is a parent to do?

I know personally, I find myself jumping right to the screaming choice way too often. Especially on those days when sleep was scarce or there is some issue preoccupying my mind. Then, I become even more frustrated because I have lost MY self-control. It can become a vicious cycle.

In many of the books I read, it talks about the example we set for our children. Screaming is not an example I want to be setting. On days when the situations seem to be hitting me faster than I can deal with them, I need to remember to stop, pray, and ask for God's guidance. I would also like to suggest that we have a forth option, we can laugh, cry, scream or teach. I know I, need to remember that every wrong choice or misbehavior is NOT a question of my authority or an act of disobedience. Sometimes misbehavior is just forgetting, sometimes it is an instance of never knowing and sometimes it is just frustration taking over. Personally, I am trying to work on teaching behavior more. Each and every situation is a chance for us to teach our children. We teach them how to react, how to respond, how to carry themselves and how they might respond differently in the future.

Let's visit my home for a moment. What do we see? Well there is the two year old that has decided to scream at the top of his lungs because his brother has the toy he wants. So after I make a face because the scream hurt my ears, I have the chance to kneel down and remind him to use his words. It would also be a great chance for him to practice exactly what to say a few times. This situation is also a chance for me to talk to his brother about sharing, trading and taking turns. Maybe he can find a toy that is just like the one he has for his little brother. This is a teaching moment. One that I will probably repeat twenty times before they both start to get the hang of it. One that I will need to work hard not to get frustrated with as I am repeating the same thing over and over. These little conversations are very important and all though it seems like we don't have enough time and that the children should have learned by now, it is my job to do my best to teach them how best to behave. 

There are many situations that we face in our family today that lead me to the "cry" or "scream" reactions because I didn't take the time to have the teaching conversations earlier. I now see the short, repetitive conversations that seem so frustrating when they are little, turn into long even more frustrating conversations when they are older. I am slowly learning that these small teaching moments are vitally important. So important, that I need to be intentional about teaching and allow other things to wait. 

Let me encourage you to stop whatever you are doing and take the time to have a great teaching conversation with your little ones. I am challenging myself this month to do more laughing and teaching than screaming and crying, will you join me?