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Encouragement

Encouragement

A Noble Woman

Super exciting update: My friend Pat Layton has been chosen as a candidate for the She is Noble contest. And I am thrilled. Praying she gets the $10,000 for her ministry. Congrats Pat! Just last week a friend sent me a preview for a new movie called Noble. The movie tells the story of a passionate and noble woman who just happens to be named Christina Noble. Christina overcame a terrible childhood in Ireland – homelessness, the death of her mother, an alcoholic father – and traveled a nontraditional path to South Asia, where she was inspired to take up the cause for hundreds of abandoned and orphaned children. The movie has already won six awards, a best foreign film award and two audience awards. Noble is good story and a story for good–and I love movies like that. So I am jumping on the bandwagon. The movie producers are doing something noble and want it to be a celebration of noble woman everywhere who are making a positive difference in the world. They are asking women to nominate noble women to be featured (they are going to video some of them) and entered to win $10,000 for their charity. So today, I am …

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Encouragement

Are You So Overwhelmed You Can’t Move?

Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Kind of stuck? Like you just can’t move? I rolled to a stop last year. My list of responsibilities had accumulated so much weight that no matter how hard I pushed to keep it all going, I was losing momentum. I felt so…heavy. And so I had to stop–not everything. I have a family, after all. But I took inventory and dropped what I could. I couldn’t stop my pacemaker surgery and a heart ablation. I couldn’t stop my daughter’s graduation. I couldn’t stop going to work, cooking, and laundry. But there was a lot I could stop, including blogging. The last blog that I posted other than Sunday Suppers posts was in September, four months ago. And I confess Libby and my sister, Kathie, helped me with Sunday Suppers. This is not the first time in my life that I have put myself under the pile. And I am sure it won’t be the last. I have an optimistic bent that induces me to overcommit. Do you suffer from this malady? It is prone to infect women more then men — and moms most of all. We are excellent multitaskers. So what is just …

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Encouragement

10 Ways to Break a Bad Mood Cycle

One of my good friends, Courtney DeFeo, author of In This House, We Will Giggle ….. uses creative and fun ways to teach the 12 virtues to your children. For example, Courtney uses the “Giving Thanks” bag, which you can design with your kids, to demonstrate gratitude to your kids. Some of the other virtues covered in the book are faith, love, and forgiveness. Love them all! ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Imagine your house was flooding with tsunami-sized waves and your kids were running for their lives. Your husband is ahead of you picking up the kids turning back with intense look of fear all over his face. They are all running for the door. We’ve never had a flood like that. I’ve just seen these faces of fear. Because I have been the tsunami tearing through our home. And they are running for safe ground away from my bad mood or far away from the wrath of the clean-up monster. It’s so horrific I am admitting this to you today, because I am supposed to be the queen of fun and great moods. I have struggled with my moods. I do love a fun home, but little things can certainly set me …

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Encouragement

Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas

Two weeks, that’s all you get to see Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas. Yikes, that’s fast! But it is only in theaters for a short time. This is one I will make time for because of the content. I love Christmas and the story is something that I can relate to. I get a little mad when people want to take Christ out of Christmas. It’s just irrational to me. So I like the story line of the movie–Christmas needs to be saved. And I like Kirk–he loves his family. And so do Phil and Kay Robertson from Duck Dynasty…they like Christmas, Christ, and family. Go see the movie, take the family and remember why we really celebrate Christmas before we are knee deep in a sea of wrapping paper!

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Encouragement

23 Blast

Where there is tragedy and loss, God can still give hope and abundant life. {Tweet this} I thought about that as I watched the movie, 23 Blast. It’s the true story of a boy who plays football in a small Kentucky town where game time looks like something you’d see in Friday Night Lights. The town loves football. The boy loves football. And the boy’s parents love watching him pursue his passion. Then, in a 24-hour span, the boy, now in high school, goes blind. When I saw what his mother and father experienced, it made me think of how I felt when we learned about my daughter Emily’s illness: When you discover your child has a life-threatening illness, you grieve for the loss of the life you envisioned for your child. Knowing they will be bound to a schedule of medication, a body that responds differently to life, and a more high-risk future is painful to take in. But the boy’s story doesn’t end there. He overcomes in a big way. He plays high school football — even with his blindness! After graduation, he gets his Ph.D. I think his parents might feel as I do, as I wrote about …

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Encouragement

When the Going Gets Tough: Academics

When my kids were growing up, I often wished they would just stop growing up! This was especially true in regards to school–it just kept getting harder. And that meant more and more and more time on school and less and less and less time on us. It also meant that they would, at times, become discouraged. Well I didn’t like that and neither should you. Yes, academics are tough but so are moms and we can help our kids! So here are 3 ways I help my kids when the going gets tough: academics! 1. Give Special Encouragement in the Tougher Years: Everyone knows that some grades are tons harder than others. Sometimes, it’s those difficult grade transitions jumping from one school to the next. That means there are at least 3 opportunities for sure to look out for: between elementary and middle school, between middle school and high school, and between high school and college. Other times it’s subject jumps that throw kids. For mine, it was usually math. Certain math years are tougher. When your kids hit a difficult year you can keep them going with a lot of encouragement and prayer. I have often used …

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Encouragement

When the Going Gets Tough: Sports

So your son grew up playing baseball. He joined the team with his neighborhood friends and enjoyed playing catch, hitting the ball, and of course sliding into home base. But as he got older, little league turned into travel ball and things just weren’t the same. Things got harder as the competition and the pressure increased. When the going gets tough in sports, how do we keep our kids going strong? It’s not easy. Sports are not just for fun anymore. In fact, by the time a child is about 10 there is a good chance that he/she is on a team that is getting competitive. Yet, kids want to play. They want to be with their friends. So what do you do to keep them from burning out and giving up? Well as your child moves from playing for fun to playing competitively, here are 3 ways to help them along: 1. Remind them of their original love for the sport. Pressure to perform perfectly. Pressure to always do things better than before. Pressure to win. When the pressure becomes overwhelming—and trust me, it will!—the best thing to do is have your child take a step back and …

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Encouragement

Just Be You

Once we start playing the comparison game, it’s hard to stop. There’s my friend Marcie—the perfect mom with her counters always sparkling, her carpet clutter-free, and her kids smiling like little angels. There’s my friend Laura—the peaceful mom with her endless patience and tenderness with her children. Then there’s me—texting my kids to ask where they are, unsuccessfully attempting to cook a simple dinner, and hiding in the laundry room behind growing piles of dirty clothes. Sometimes, we hear this little voice in the back of our minds telling us that our kids would be better off with another kind of mom—and we start to believe it. We start doubting, and ask ourselves, “Why can’t I be more like Marcie or Laura??” In this video clip from Moms’ Night Out, we see the main character Ally going through these same emotions. She questions her abilities as a mom, and convinces herself that God made a mistake. But the truth is that from the beginning of time, God has planned for you to be EXACTLY where you are. God put your child in your care…and the mom you are is the mom God wanted your child to have. Like Ally, we …

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Encouragement

Is Your Child Becoming Your Identical?

When I’m with my husband, I strive to be a good wife. When I’m with my kids, I strive to be a good mom. When I’m at work, I strive to be a good boss. But in those few moments I have alone, I start to wonder what makes me me. And I can’t help thinking, “Who am I? Am I spending my whole life people pleasing?” In the new movie, The Identical, I watched a young man struggle with the very same question. On the one hand, his father is pushing him to follow in his footsteps in ministry (I followed in my dads–banking). On the other hand, the son can’t shake the feeling deep in his bones that he needs to make music (I changed careers after just 3 years). My dad didn’t really try to make me an identical. He wouldn’t have knowingly wanted that. But sometimes it just happens, we direct our children in the path we want them to go. No matter what season of life we find ourselves in, it’s always a struggle to know who we truly are. So here are 2 steps to take to find your identity and be able to …

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Encouragement

9 Habits for a Happy Home

Thinking about everything I’ve got to get done today makes my head spin. And spinning stresses me out. There are a million things that seem to be pulling me in a million different directions—from work to friends to keeping track of the kids and their needs… It’s overwhelming! And that is not what I want. I want to have a happy home. And I’m sure a lot of you feel the same. But before we go crazy with all the things that need to get done before our heads hit the pillow tonight, maybe it’s time to stop the spinning and make sure we have a few happy habits in place. The kind that will keep us focused on joy in all the crazy. Hold your child and husband every chance you get. Answer every child’s “MOM!” as if an angel was calling for you. Pray daily, hourly, every second if necessary. Push every negative thought into the disposal and turn it on. Yearn for now, appreciate this stage of your child’s life. Have Sunday Supper together in your kitchen with your family. Order your days efficiently so that you have time to play. Maintain peace and forgive daily. …

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