Happy Military Spouse Appreciation Day! It is a joy and privilege to be able to know you and serve with you as we support our husbands and our families in this crazy life called military life. I have been honored to know wives who are just starting out as newlyweds this year and others who have been doing this a long, long time. Trust God with your marriage and with your life. He is our source of strength.

This has been a crazy season of life. Taking on graduate classes on top of a already full schedule with speaking and ministry demands behind wife and mom responsibilities has made me ask the question, “What was I thinking,” more than once. But the truth is, I really am enjoying my classes. Especially my American Christianity class. Some great lessons there in the early church of America and what has worked, what hasn’t and why things are the way they are (or at least various interpretations of that thought.) So it may mean I’m not on FB as much or not able to blog as much (though I’m trying to be more consistent), but I know I’m learning much. And not just academically.

I wanted to share a new post with you over at MyProverbs31Life.com. I’ve enjoyed hearing from several readers this week. It always encourages me to hear that God’s used something I’ve written to encourage or motivate someone else. Wives of Faith is humming along; so many wonderful ladies who have joined our leadership team. We had our quarterly meeting (via Skype) this past Tuesday, and it’s exciting and encouraging for me to see women taking on their ministry areas as their own and all coming together, working together as a team, to minister to military wives.

If you’re looking for a speaker for your fall event, I’d love to be considered, though my fall is filling up fast. Please fill out a speaking request and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.

Finally, please be praying for a couple of speaking engagements I have coming up. April 28 I’m speaking at the Fall Ladies Luncheon at First Baptist Zachary, my home church. It’s always a little unsettling to speak to your home church. Cause they know you. Very, very well. There will be women there who taught me in elementary school (and know the trouble I got into occasionally). May 4-6 we will be holding our first ever Tour of Duty Live at Ridgecrest in North Carolina. This event, while I’m thrilled and excited to be having it, has not turned out as we’d hoped in terms of numbers. It will be a very small group of military wives attending – but you know, we serve such a BIG GOD. And I know He has some wonderful plans for that weekend and for that special group of women. But I definitely ask for your prayers that He will lead and guide me in what I say, that the worship in music will be heartfelt and praise-lifting and that we will see Him show up in a might way. Thank you in advance for your prayers.

This weekend was a pretty busy one for me. I was trying to finish up a week of class by taking a test (I’m taking 2 graduate classes towards my Master’s in Christian Leadership through Liberty University) and doing our taxes. I was stressed and resenting the beautiful sunshine outside and that I had no time to just enjoy it with my family.

But then I got online yesterday afternoon and ran across a video shared I think from a friend’s FB post. It was all about the Kimyal Tribe and the day they received Bibles for the very first time.

What would it be like to know of God, but not have His Word in front of you, in your language, to know MORE?

When I think about how much we take for granted, how much I take for granted. On a bookshelf right behind me as I type this are seven or eight different translations and versions of the Bible. There’s a study Bible sitting right next to me and a Devotional Bible on the end of my desk. God’s Word is all around me and yet, do I have the awe and the respect and the joy of getting to read it as these people do when they see these Bibles for the first time? Sadly, most of the time, I have to be honest and say I don’t always.

But watching this video makes me want to. It brought me to tears seeing the joy and the excitement on the people’s faces. Grown men sobbing with happiness and the weight of what has finally happened. It’s an incredible reminder of the blessing of having God’s Word – His instruction manual for living and for having relationship with Him – right in front of me.

After you watch the initial video, watch the other video I found on the World Team website. Very cool story giving some of the background of how many years Christians have devoted to this little area of the world. They sowed the seeds and they have seen God grow this tribe of people towards His heart. May we all have that prayer for our own nations and communities.

Visit the World Team website for more information. This is also where I found this other video that gives background on ministering to the Kimyal Tribe.

If you don’t read your Bible regularly, start. And if you sometimes read your Bible but not always with joy in the knowledge that these words are a gift to us – ask yourself how it would feel if you didn’t have those words in the first place?

I was flipping through my quiet time notebook this morning and ran across a verse I studied back in February that I wanted to share with you today. If you don’t have a regular study time, let me encourage you to start one. I don’t always stay as consistent as I’d like to, but when I do, I notice such a difference in my attitude and my joy. That’s because daily, we need to seek God’s presence and His peace in our lives. We do that by reading and studying His Word.

One of the best practices that I’ve learned to do just that, reading and really studying what God’s saying to me through His scripture, came from a Going Beyond event I attended led by Priscilla Shirer. That weekend she shared how she studies. I brought those notes home with me, and it has really helped me not just read, but apply what I read, to my daily life, and I’ve now filled up at least one mini-notebook and I’ve started another. (If you’d like to see the steps for a deeper understanding of the Bible during your quiet time, visit the Wives of Faith post I wrote recently about this topic. 

The verse I was studying back a couple of months ago was Romans 12:2 -

“Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.”

To me, this verse says that God calls us not to be like everyone else but be changed in such a major way that it’s evident from the outside that something on the inside has changed. A switch has been flipped, because we have renewed or made new again, our minds focused on God and on His promises and instructions. And when we do that we can understand and recognize what is good, pleasing and perfect to God.

Jesus changes our hearts but our minds must be changed on a daily basis. We do that by focusing on studying and knowing His Word and asking Him to be with us each and everyday. Only then can we see more clearly where He’s leading – and even when we can’t see, we can have the confidence that He sees when we cannot.

I was reminded about the importance of changing our minds on a daily basis, keeping them focused on Him, this week as I noticed more and more I was comparing myself to everyone else. Oh my goodness, just get on Pinterest for a nice jolt of inadequacy! There are so many wonderful and creative and amazing ideas out there – it makes me just shake my head and look at the bare walls in my home right now and think, what am I doing? (Well, I must be doing something otherwise I’d have the time to do something about those bare walls, lol.)

Even good things can trip us up sometimes. I caught a link to a blog post of an expert on leadership I read semi-regularly yesterday and suddenly felt woefully lacking in all things social media. This guy does it all! And I suddenly had this impulse to jump on my computer and start doing everything that HE was doing.

But God stopped me pretty quick. Because those things He has not called me to do.

Maybe He’ll open the door for one or two of those things later. But not right now. Not at this time. Right now He’s asking me to focus on what’s in front of me and do those things well (and I have a long way to go in that department at the moment).

So what about you? Is it tempting to run and try all of the things you see others doing? Even if you know in your heart that’s not necessarily what God’s calling you to do? Are you getting caught up in keeping up with your friends that you’ve stopped keeping up with your family? With your husband? Your kids?

There are lots of good things out there. Fun things. Creative things. But even in the midst of all of those wonderful things, let’s not get caught up in being so concerned with doing like others, that we forget that we’re only called to do like One. Stay focused on His Word for His hope. Trust Him. Allow yourself to be transformed in His reflection, by His example.

It’s ok to be different when we’re following His example.

(cross-posted at MyProverbs31Life.com)

This morning I shook my head as I read the articles popping up on my FB news feed about the battle  between Republican candidate and presumptive presidential GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann Romney and tv pundit and Democratic strategist, Hillary Rosen. Women were quickly  taking sides. (Though, honestly, all I saw was one side. I know, I don’t have a very diverse group of friends. But I like it that way. That’s why they’re my friends. But I digress…)

A lot of moms who work at home got greatly offended at Hillary’s comment she made last night on CNN that stated because Ann Romney chose to be a stay-at-home mom, she’d “never worked a day in her life.” I could understand. Some of the hardest working women I know don’t necessarily have a name plate in an office somewhere. But they have the word “Mom” drawn all over pictures hanging on their fridge. And they’ll tell you, they work hard.

It was a poor choice of words for Hillary. And she has since apologized for them. But she’s not the first to compare women to each other.

We compare ourselves to others and others to ourselves just as much.

You only have to look at FB or Twitter to see what I mean. Sometimes it’s subtle – sometimes it’s not. But we’re comparing. We’re pointing out our differences. Constantly. In the articles we post, the word-photos we tag, the statuses and the tweets we write. Except it’s not just about working moms and stay-at-home moms (isn’t that really so 1980s?). Now it’s breast feeding or not breast feeding, all natural foods or um, not-natural foods, home-schooling or not home-schooling. I once mentioned online some frustrations I was having with my son’s school and instantly I had 3 home school moms comment how they didn’t have those problems because they home school. Good for them, but not exactly helpful to me. I would never tell a home school mom who’s stressing over which curriculum to choose for their kids – “oh, wow, see I don’t have to worry about that because my kid’s teacher does that for me.”

I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of women over the last six or so years, in person and online. And let me tell you – we are all different! Some of us are VERY different. But I am amazed by our differences as well as our similarities. And that’s what I really want to talk about in this post. Because as different as most of us moms are from one another, there are a few things we all share.

1. We love our kids.

Sure, some of us may have the patience of gnats when it comes to our kids (or they might say they have kids who have the attention spans of gnats, thereby the lack of patience on their part), but most of us love our kids. We’d do anything for our kids. And that is one thing we share as moms. Whether we work outside the home or we work at home – we love our kids. We do what we need to do for our kids. And that’s all that really should matter.

2. We want to be good moms.

I don’t think any of us start out as moms saying “I’d like to be the worst mom I can be.” We want to be good moms. Maybe we want to be just like our moms. Or, maybe for some of us, we want to be better than our moms. But we want to make a difference with our kids. We want to help them and support them and see that they have a great life, a great start to life, and a great chance to be whatever it is they’re supposed to be.  So let’s support each other instead of tearing one another down. Let’s recognize we all have different callings. We have different approaches. But we all share the one thing in common. We’re moms… and we’d really like to be good moms. So let’s encourage each other. And give each other high-fives when we do something great (not slights or the occasional one-up comment like “oh, your child is walking at 12 months? My child started walking at 8 months and a month later she’s now reading Harry Potter books!”) , and hugs when we’ve messed up (not more salt for our wounds). ‘Cause chances are, we’re going to do both. Many, many times.

3. We’re looking for help.

As moms, we recognize that we need help! Why else do you think all of these mom blogs are popular? Why else do you think “pinning” is now the new “posting”? Why else are recipe and meal planning websites are all the rage, as well as money-saving blogs that teach us how to spend 25 cents and feed a family of four for a week? (I exaggerate… but barely.) We want help. We want to show love to our kids and we want to be good moms. And for those of us who have a relationship with God, He’s the one we turn to for our daily help – or at least we should be. I pray for myself as a mom often – but how often do I pray for the other moms I know? Probably not as often as I need to.

When you look at the big picture of how this world is moving and what’s at stake – arguing over who is working harder really is pointless. Because we’re all working hard.

So let the politicians point their fingers and try to make their points – political and otherwise. But don’t let them drag you into the fray. Instead, support each other. Love on each other. Be kind to each other.

As moms, we can all use  some of that.

“Strength  and honor are her clothing,

and she can laugh at the time to come.

She opens her mouth with wisdom

and loving instruction  is on her tongue.

She watches over the activities of her household

and is never idle.

²⁸ Her sons rise up and call her blessed.

Her husband also praises her… (Proverbs 31:25-28)

Hi friends!

I know I’ve been pretty quiet these days – after my husband returned from his deployment (which I realized I don’t think I ever posted the video here, so here you go!), I really wanted to focus on him and our family and the fall was filled with lots of activity as well as a lot of uncertainty.

But today is a pretty momentous day. And some of the uncertainty has ended. I blogged about it over at MyProverbs31Life. Go read the news!

In other news… hello and welcome to all my new readers! I’ve had an amazing number of you find me the last couple of days from Pinterest – and while I admit that I have an account, I’ll also admit that I haven’t done a whole lot with it. But maybe all of you can inspire me. Find me there at myprov31life and follow me and I’ll follow you back!

I am preparing for a busy 2012 – lots happening with my ministry, Wives of Faith, including my first Tour of Duty retreat that we’re holding at Ridgecrest! If you know a military wife who would benefit from this weekend, please sign her up or encourage her to go! We’ve gone to a lot of effort to provide a program for the children as well, so it’s my prayer that anyone who wants to go will be able to! But don’t wait too long to register – we’re holding only 50 spots and cannot guarantee there will be spaces after that.

I’m also hoping to redo this website soon. I just did a major redo for Wives of Faith, so I’ve been recuperating a bit from that major project, but hope to get started changing things up around here by the end of the year.

Will write more later! Have a blessed day!

Have you ever waited for God to work?

You’re expecting, you’re counting, you’re hoping, you’re…. waiting.

And the longer you wait, the more anxious you become? Or maybe the more perplexed? Or confused? Or discouraged?

Have you ever waited for God to work?

And yet, isn’t God working all the time? For even when His hand is not obvious, isn’t His Hand still on it?

Know what I mean?

He’s got it. He’s on it. He’s working.

We just can’t see it.

We’re like the child who can’t wait to open the beautiful wrapped gift sitting in front of him.

But it’s not time.

And so we wait.

And we fidget and we get up and walk around, and we sigh loudly, or complain quietly.

That the waiting is taking too long.

Waiting makes us feel…unsettled.

I don’t like to feel unsettled.

Limbo is not the address I wish to post on my Christmas cards this year.

But I think about some other folks who felt unsettled… and they got to feel that way for 40 years. And they sighed loudly, and they complained softly (and sometimes not so softly) and yet…

God was still in control.

Still in charge.

Still with a plan.

I think God uses our unsettled-ness to focus our attention. I’m doing a personal study of Hebrews this month and over and over, the author reminds us of God’s sovereignty. And Jesus’s gift. And God’s plan for us all.

So we wait… for the things spoken, and unspoken. With hearts yearning for hope and spirits hoping for peace.

And let the unsettled feelings come.

Because regardless of how long we’ll continue to wait…

There is one foundation we can rest our unsettled heads.

The Lord is my rock, 

my fortress, and my deliverer, 

my God, my mountain where I seek refuge, 

my shield  and the horn of my salvation, 

my stronghold. 

~ Psalm 18:2

Faith in the midst of uncertainty reminds us what faith means in the first place.