Special Therapy for Special Girls

Do you ever hear about a cause that you just wish you could totally fund on your own because it’s just that good? Well this is one of them!!

I received this email from a friend the other day, she had already told me about this before the email, but reading her email just really made me sit back and think about how much ministries like Compact Family Services are doing for so many young lives. Here is her email.

Dear Friends,

I have a burden on my heart today for the girls of Hillcrest Children’s Home; specifically those 12-17 yrs. old.  In their short life these girls have already endured YEARS of abuse, emotionally and physically. Add to that fact they are growing up without the love and affection of a stable Christian family of their own.

Praise God for the ministry of Hillcrest!!

It was my privilege last week to meet with Ashley Grant.  She actually serves as director at Highlands Maternity Home, but works closely with the Hillcrest girls as well.

A door has opened for special love, care and healing to be brought to 15 needy girls at Hillcrest.  The Lord has connected Ashley with a wonderful massage therapist who herself was sexually abused as a young girl.  She was sent to receive weekly neck and shoulder massage treatments that strengthened her muscle and cell memory AND retrained her not to carry stress in her body. As a result of this positive healing, she became a massage therapist herself. This is exactly the care we desire to provide for these girls.

Since this massage therapist has been through the same/similar experiences, she is anxious to make a real difference in their lives.  She has offered a discounted price of $8 for 15minutes. Ashley’s goal/dream is to provide weekly sessions for all 15 girls.

I have offered to help raise 3 months worth of sessions for all 15.  After this amount of time they can document progress of each. This is a brand new way to minister to these precious girls.  They are just waiting on the funds to begin.

Here is the breakdown of cost:

• One girl per month is $32. One girl for 3 months: $96
• All 15 girls for one month is $480
• The total for all 15 girls for 3 months is $1,440.  Really not that much.

THANK YOU for Prayerfully considering what God would have you do! We know the great need, now we have responsibility.

All gifts can be sent directly to:
Compact Family Services
2325 Malvern Ave.
Hot Springs, AR. 71901
Memo line: Massages

Or online at compactfamilyservices.org.
Choose Get Involved on the menu and then choose give.
Under the Bold Heading “Project Contributions”
Choose the Hillcrest Special Project Fund- 890063.
Note: Massages

Either way you choose to give, please email a confirmation of your gift amount to Ashley at: agrant@agfsa.org. 

This is to ensure all donations are accounted for this project is quickly covered!

If you would be able to contribute to this project in any amount, I know that God will bless you for it! These girls are precious to God and they have a bright future ahead of them thanks to Compact Family Services and the Hillcrest Children’s Home.

Encouragement for Today by the Proverbs 31 Ministry Team

“Encouragement for Today: Devotions for Everyday Life features 100 daily readings that meet you where you are. Written by the Proverbs 31 Ministries team, authors Lysa TerKeurst, Renee Swope, Samantha Evilsizer, and more, share from the realities of everyday life – the highs and lows, the coffee spills, humorous stories, and tender moments.”

This quote is from the Proverbs 31 Ministries website regarding this book. This is such a true statement. Encouragement for Today is a great devotional book.

I love daily devotional books and here is why. I don’t have hours or even 30 minutes a day some days to sit down and read. I can find time to read a one or two page devotional though. While I do my best to fit in time to read the Word of God directly, devotionals sometimes focus my attention to one topic or issue and help me to search that out in the Word. I’m a bit scatterbrained at times so a little focus and a specific direction to think in helps me out!

I love the Proverbs 31 team and appreciate the work they do to help women grow in Christ!!


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com® book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255:“Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Halloween

The end of October is here. Facebook and Instagram are full of pictures of cute kids dressed up for Halloween activities they are attending. Pinterest is saturated with pins of yummy Halloween treat recipes and super cute Halloween crafts and DIY decorations (like the peacock pumpkin and gourd pictured here). People everywhere are planning and attending all kinds of carnivals, festivals, and parties to celebrate the occasion.

Growing up, I lived in the same house for as much of my childhood as I can remember. We lived on a circle with only one way in and out. For the most part, the only people who drove through either lived on our block or were visiting someone who lived on our block. My parents knew almost all of the neighbors and trick or treating around our block was safe and fun.

When I was younger, ours was a neighborhood where people would come on Halloween to trick or treat. Flocks of kids I didn’t know would come in by the car full to our little block and would ring our doorbells and ask for treats.

Occasionally I remember us going to a carnival or fall festival where we could dress up and wear our Halloween costumes. These were either put on by our church or the Christian School that we attended. Good food, games, face painting, hay rides, and just plain fun is what I remember about attending these events.

As I got older things changed some on Halloween. Familiar houses became unfamiliar as long time neighbors moved to other communities. Fewer kids came onto our block to trick or treat with us. I grew up and had a child of my own. Now all of the sudden, I’m the adult trying to decide what is appropriate and safe for my child on this particular holiday.

Obviously when he was little it didn’t matter too much what we did. He didn’t know that we were even supposed to do anything special on that day. As he grew up and understood what Halloween was (or at least what the other kids around him said it was) he would ask me if we were going to trick or treat.

A few years we have gone to another neighborhood and became one of the “flock of kids”. Most years, I have searched out church carnivals that we could go to. I didn’t care too much what church was hosting it; I was just looking for a fun, safe place for my son to enjoy the night.

As I have grown both into adulthood and grown spiritually speaking, there are things about Halloween that bother me. Kids dressed up in costumes that just make you cringe. Short skirts with fishnet stockings, or blood and gore like your six year old just came out of the latest R rated horror film. Neither of these things (regardless of your beliefs) are age appropriate for the children I have seen wearing them.

Unless you live in a small community and still know your neighbors, trick or treating is no longer safe. You can’t allow your kids to roam the streets and even if you go with them, you don’t know what you may end up with. You don’t know what you may expose your children to without realizing that you will. I’ve been to a few homes that just felt “evil” when you walked up. Regardless of how much innocent fun you can come up with for your kids on Halloween, it is hard to avoid the spooky, scary, and sometimes evil that comes along with it.

I’m not saying that Halloween is all bad and that you can’t find something fun and safe to do with your kids. My son will participate in a few Halloween activities this year and will dress up a few times this week. I will not ban him from participating in Halloween. However, I will find opportunities to talk to him about what is ok and what is not ok for our family to participate in. I will find opportunities to help him understand what things about Halloween line up with what we believe and what things do not.

For me, it isn’t about avoiding Halloween, it is about guarding against spiritual forces of darkness and teaching my son to do the same.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. – Ephesians 6:12-13

This year my son is dressing up as his own made up superhero, Super Jonathan (yes he made that up himself). Super Jonathan will be reminded this week about the whole armor of God: truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the word of God, and prayer. Put on the whole armor, then you can go out and be a superhero!

Redeemed Conference - L.I.F.E.

A few days before the beginning of the Redeemed Fall Conference, I received a random text message from Angelia Carpenter, the District Women’s Director for the Arkansas Assemblies of God. She was looking for a vinyl chair and said, “If you see one anywhere, let me know”. That made me curious, so I asked her what she needed it for. She told me she had this idea to redeem a chair for conference and then auction it off to raise some money for L.I.F.E.

That is all I needed to know. I didn’t have one or know of one, but there were a few resale shops close by, so I decided to go look for her. The first place I went to, there was this chair. The only chair in the place and it was only $8.00. I sent her a picture and picked it up for her.

Have you ever heard the saying “duct tape can fix anything”? Well, duct tape can redeem things too!!

We put the mat from the chair out and had anyone who wanted to put a piece of duct tape on the chair. Collectively, ladies at conference turned this plane jane chair into a redeemed work of art!

The chair was auctioned off and we raised money for missions! What a fun way to raise some mission’s money. That is one of the things I have picked up on since I’ve been around Angelia and some of the other ladies that work with her. I am always hearing someone say something like, “we could do (insert a million different ideas here) and raise money for missions”. I love it! I truly wish I had more opportunities to say that myself. Maybe I need to start looking for them.

If you are interested in learning more about L.I.F.E. please visit the Arkansas Women’s Department website.

Redeemed Conference - Redemption Crosses

“Redemption is Jesus taking the pieces of my life, the beautiful and the broken, to create something of worth for His Glory.”

One of the activities available at conference was making a Redemption Cross. This project is truly a depiction of redemption. The idea is that we take the pieces of cloth (the pieces of our lives) and place them on the cross. When we have finished the project, we end up with a patchwork cross that is not only a great decoration to hang or put on a shelf, but it is a representation of redemption in our lives.

Earlier in the year this was done at the women’s leadership training as well as at a women’s luncheon at our church. Ladies were encouraged as they laid their pieces on the cross to pray for a specific thing in their life that needed to be redeemed. They were encouraged to let that piece represent something that they were going to lay on the cross for Jesus to redeem. What a healing time for some of the ladies who participated in that!

There was a group of ladies that came in during conference to make a cross together as a group. There was a man in their church that was going through a lot in life it sounded like. They had decided to make a cross to take back to him. They were praying over their pieces and that cross while they were making it. I wish I knew what church it was and how the man reacted when he received it from them.

On to the craftiness!!

Here is how you can make your own Redemption Cross.

Materials:
1 wooden cross (you can either make your own or buy one)
Various Material Scraps/Pieces (cut to size)
Glue (Mod Podge is the best, but can get expensive. If you don’t want to use Mod Podge, you can mix Elmer’s glue and water half and half)
Sponge Brush for spreading the glue

Instructions:
The instructions are pretty simple. You take a piece of material and spread the glue mixture on the back. Place it where you want it on the cross. For best results, stretch and flatten the material so that it is smooth and there are no bubbles or bumps in the piece. Continue doing this until you cover the entire cross.

If you are using Mod Podge, after it is finished and dry, you may want to use a sealer finish to seal the edges well. If you are using the glue mixture, we found during conference, you really had to use a lot. You almost had to soak the material for it to stick.

The cross that I made at conference with the glue mixture turned out pretty cute, but after it dried there were quite a few air bubbles that weren’t there when it was wet, so if you can spare it, I would definitely recommend using Mod Podge!

Here are some pictures from the craft room at conference.

Redeemed Conference - Redeeming our Relationships

The message given by Kerry Clarensau during the Saturday morning service at conference was another one that hit me between the eyes.

Because we are human, we at times will make relationship mistakes. I am not only referring to a relationship with your better half, but even relationships with friends and acquaintances can be affected by our human tendencies and emotions.

Matthew 22:34-40 talks about the greatest commandment given by Jesus. It is the most important objective in life, to love God and love others.

But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

Jesus said to him, “‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus himself (red letter) said that loving God and loving others are the two most important commandments.

In my world, that means I need to slow down and reprioritize some things. It means that when I have laundry piled up and dishes in the sink and fourth grade homework that all need to be done at the same time, it is more important for me to show love to my husband and my son than it is for me to finish everything that needs to be done. My tendency is to get stressed and be impatient with my son when we are working on homework or try and do three things at once and not give him the attention that he needs to be successful at finishing his tasks.

In my world, it means that with a limited number of hours in the day, I need to make sure that even if something else gets neglected, spending time with Jesus doesn’t.

I’m a quote person so I love when I hear people say things that I can quote. One of the things Kerry said more than once over the course of the weekend was, “We need to be Jesus with skin on”. What a great visual. We need to be showing the love of Jesus to others through our words and actions. Jesus isn’t on earth anymore to stand beside someone, but you are and I am. We can make a difference in other people’s lives by being Jesus with skin on.

Steps to redeeming your relationships:

1. Take full responsibility for yourself (Galatians 5:13-26)
2. Choose mercy over harsh judgment
3. Learn from people with more experience and then pay it forward
4. Handle conflict with grace
• We can overlook an offense in love
• If we need to confront someone we need to do it in love
5.  Look for ways to encourage other people.

The Bible talks about the proper way to handle conflict. If we have an issue with someone, we are supposed to take that issue directly to the person. The reason for this is not to point out their faults, but to restore the relationship.

These principles apply to any relationship, but I’m going to take just a minute to insert something here that weighs on my heart constantly. The divorce rate in America is incredibly high and last I saw there isn’t much difference in the numbers between those inside and outside of the church. Within my immediate circle of influence I can count on one hand the number of people who are still married to their first spouse. This is due to varying circumstances and what I am getting ready to say doesn’t apply in every single situation, however, I feel the need to say it and I apologize if it sounds harsh.

While there are some acceptable reasons for divorcing someone, many times in life, people get a divorce for ridiculous reasons. Or, even if the reason may seem legitimate, they do nothing to work on their relationship before divorcing. They simply take the easy way out and sign the papers.

This is not God’s plan for marriage. It isn’t His plan for you. The pain of divorce is real. The pain it causes your children is real. The scars it can leave behind are real. If you could stick it out and go through the Redeeming process that God can take you through, wouldn’t you rather do that. Wouldn’t you rather look back on your life and say, “God saw us through and our family is still intact”? Instead of looking back and saying, “we aren’t together as a family anymore because I was just tired of fighting”. Or, “we aren’t together as a family anymore because my needs weren’t being met so I just decided to leave.”

I have personally seen families torn apart, and I have personally seen God Redeem Marriages. I can tell you from my experience, if you are struggling in your marriage, take it to God. Ask Him to Redeem it. If you are willing to stick it out and willing for God to ask you to make some changes (even if you think you are the one that is right), I believe that He will Redeem your marriage. Commit yourself and your family to Him and see what He can do. It won’t happen overnight, but I have seen it happen and I know that He can do it. Let Him Redeem your relationship.

More quotes from Kerry:
“When you fixate on something you can’t change, satan is thrilled because you are neglecting the thing you can change, YOU”

“Forgiveness isn’t a feeling. Forgiveness is a behavior. Unforgiveness ties us to the pain of what has happened.”

“You can’t feel your way into right behavior, but you can behave yourself into right feelings.”

“Love is the only thing that has ever changed people.”

Redeemed Conference - Redeeming our Perspective

Friday night’s service was an incredibly powerful service. The presence of the Lord was there from the beginning and never left. From the first utterance of sound to the last person leaving the auditorium, you knew you were in the presence of the Lord.

So many wonderful things happened even before Kerry began to speak. Anointed worship, tongues with interpretations, encouragement to keep trusting God and to keep walking in His redemption.

Kerry’s message Friday night was “Redeeming our Perspective”. We all have times when we let life get in the way of our perspective. I am guilty of that quite often actually and I was really glad that this was what she was speaking on.

Isaiah 43:1 says, “But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.”

In this verse the Lord is claiming you! You are His! He created you, redeemed you, and called you by your name. He knows you and He loves you!

Psalm 139:16-17 says, “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!”

In these verses we are reminded that God knew you before you were even conceived. He wrote the days of your being in his book before you even existed. He thinks precious and good thoughts about you.

These verses are a great place to start considering what our perspective should be. For me personally, but I think for women in general, we don’t give ourselves enough credit. We don’t think we are pretty enough, or good enough, or talented enough in life. We put ourselves down and we don’t feel worthy. I am the world’s worst at taking a compliment. When other people give me a compliment, my first reaction is, “yeah right”. But in these verses, God is complimenting me. He is complimenting you. He is telling you that you are worth something to Him. He is telling you that you are valuable to Him.

In Kerry’s book and in her message, she gave strategies for redeeming our perspective.

1. Allow God to define you. 
• Don’t compare yourself to others.
2. Find your security in God. 
• If I am dependent on Him, He gives me what I need moment by moment.
3. Accept your limitations. 
• There are certain non-negotiable limitations in life. We all need sleep, food, and there are only 24 hours in a day. 
• Every season of life has different limitations. 
• Live graciously within your limitations.
4. Stop longing for the ideal.
5. Embrace God’s purpose for your life

All of these things speak to me directly. I have struggled my entire life with feeling inadequate as I mentioned above. Never feeling like I was enough. But by God’s definition, I am exactly who I need to be, created by Him for Him and greatly loved.

Accepting limitations is something I also struggle with, but I think a lot of women struggle with that one too. We want to be the best and do it all. We weren’t made to do it all. At some point, we will reach our limit. We will reach a breaking point. We need to understand our limits and live within them.

Stop longing for the ideal. This one hit me square between the eyes. There are things in my life that I have struggled with and part of the struggle has been me wanting life to be a certain way. Life is not always ideal, but that doesn’t mean it is always bad.

This can apply in many ways, but here is an example. When I decided to go back to college after I was married and had a child, I couldn’t do everything by myself. My husband and my son had to pitch in around the house. We started teaching our son to fold towels. At first, I would let him fold them, but I would come back behind him and redo them. Now, this didn’t save me any time. It didn’t solve my dilemma of needing help getting things done. If I was just going to come back behind him and redo them, it didn’t do any good to ask him to do it to start with.

At some point, I realized that when he folded the towels, they didn’t sit pretty on the shelf, but they were clean and “folded” and put away. So, I finally let that go. As he got older and folded more towels, they started looking better. They still aren’t the way I fold them when he does them, but still, they are clean, folded, and put away.

The towels on the shelf don’t have to be perfect. The clothes in the drawers and hanging in the closet don’t have to be perfect. This is a topic for an entirely different post, but your spouse doesn’t have to be perfect! Live in reality and accept the fact that life will not be perfect. It is ok that it isn’t, because we serve a perfect God!

Embrace God’s purpose for your life. God has a plan and a purpose for everyone in life. Whatever that is embrace it head on and live it with everything that is in you.

I intend to continue to work on having a redeemed perspective. I want to continue to work on viewing myself the way God does and not letting the enemy convince me that I’m anything less. I pray the same for each of you.

Redeemed Conference – Redeeming our Sexuality

The 2013 Women’s Conference challenged me in many ways. One of the main ways it challenged me was through the workshop and messages presented by Kerry Clarensau, National Women’s Department Director for the Assemblies of God. Because of how much I want to say, I am going to post about the workshop and services separately.

The first thing on the workshop agenda was Kerry’s workshop on “Redeeming our Sexuality”. Before I say much more about this, let me just say that I read Kerry’s book prior to conference. I got to this chapter in the book and before I read it, I didn’t really expect it to apply to me. Boy was I wrong. There were things in this chapter of her book that absolutely applied to me and some of them were things that I hadn’t even considered before.

One of the things that Kerry said during this workshop was “God doesn’t want His daughters to carry around the baggage of sexual sin”. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the baggage is from you choosing to live in sexual sin. This could also apply to you if you are the victim of someone else’s sexual sin. These things, whether brought on ourselves or put on us by others are not a part of God’s plan for our lives and He wants us to live in freedom from them. He doesn’t want them to hold us back and keep us down.

When Kerry was talking about this, just her use of the phrase “God doesn’t want His daughters” immediately caught my attention. I forget entirely too quickly that I am God’s daughter. I go through life and I forget to view myself that way. This changes my perspective on myself. It changes the way I view myself. It drastically improves my self-worth and my self-esteem for me to view myself as God’s daughter. If you are saved and you haven’t thought about yourself from that perspective lately, try it!

Another thing that really got my attention was when Kerry said, “The world is really loud about sexual things, the Church needs to be just as loud.” I will admit, that this blog post in and of itself is a stretch for me. To be honest, I’m stretching myself to even write this post. The world has twisted the idea of sex to the point that it is uncomfortable for many people to even talk about (it is me). However, Kerry is right! Because the world is so loud about it, and because what they tell everyone is so wrong and full of lies, we need to be just as loud in speaking the truth.

Kerry shared five ways to set healthy boundaries around your sexuality.

1. Guard Your Heart
2. Avoid inappropriate conversations with your friends
3. Don’t let the flame die
4. Guard your heart from other men (never have alone conversation with someone of the opposite sex)
5. Be respectful of men. (The respect we show other people is not a reflection of the other person’s worthiness; it is a reflection of our character.

You can find out more in Kerry’s book “Redeemed: Embracing a Transformed Life”.

Remembering Buck and Nelma

Buck and Nelma Carpenter

Life can take a turn in a matter of seconds. On October 20, 2011, one family’s lives changed forever. The brakes on the vehicle that Nelma Carpenter was driving went out as she was exiting off the interstate. With herself and her grandchildren in the car with her, she knew they were going to have a wreck. All she could do was warn the children it was about to happen. In that moment, one of her grandchildren, Buck, leaned over to try and protect his little cousin. The car wrecked and life as this family knew it would never be the same.

Nelma, a precious woman of God and Buck, his cousin’s hero, went to be with Jesus that day. The other grandchildren survived the wreck, but the paramedics told the family that if Buck had not shielded his cousin, there would have been a third fatality.

Prior to the wreck, I knew who Nelma was but I really had not been able to get to know her. Buck and my son were in children’s church together, but I had not really gotten an opportunity to get to know him either.

During this time, I went to church some, but I was working on my degree and I let that keep me from going to church the way that I should have been. I remember one day my husband came home from church and told me “some lady”, who he couldn't remember her name, “asked for your phone number and said she wanted to call you”. I said ok, but I didn't really expect her to call. Mostly because so many people in my life before had said things like that but never did.

But that afternoon, she did call. It was Bucks mom, Angelia. She asked me how things were going and told me we needed to take the boys to Chuck-e-Cheese one day. I think about that phone call often. I think about how much I wish we would have made it to Chuck-e-Cheese.

It wasn’t long after that, the wreck happened. I couldn't imagine going through such a thing. I remember just sitting there wondering how this family was going to make it. How do you survive such a tragedy and keep going in life? I kept thinking of how messed up I would be if such a thing happened to me. I had no clue what they were going through, but I knew that it was the hardest thing they had faced so far in life.

A few months later, Angelia asked me to go with her to a women’s service that she was speaking at in Conway. I went with her, and this was really the beginning of our friendship. As I said earlier, I didn’t have the opportunity to get to know Nelma or Buck well at all. But here is what I have been able to do.

In this new found friendship that began, I have had unique opportunities as time passed. I have had the opportunity to watch a family go through the hardest time of their life, and to do it with such grace. I have been able to watch them and learn what it means to fully trust in God. I have been able to see what it means to believe in God and His faithfulness and to keep pressing forward with Jesus despite the hard times in life.

That night in Conway, just a few short months after the accident, the message that was shared was a message of perseverance. A message of how there are seasons in life. God created us to change and grow and that through each season of life He was there with us and would never leave us.

I have heard Angelia speak several times in the last two years, most recently just last week. That night the message was about finding peace in the Lord. How God wants us to not just have a little peace, where we are barely hanging on, but how He wants us to rest in His peace. Peace is something I continually struggle with, but I looked at my friend that night, and I thought to myself, “If this amazing woman can find a resting peace, then so can I.”

I have watched her and her family show the love of Christ to others even on days when it was obvious that they were struggling themselves. They always put others needs ahead of their own and they are continually striving to point others toward Jesus.

When I think about the Carpenter’s, I think about what it means to live life fully relying on Jesus. Fully trusting in Him and fully resting in His love. And then I think about what it looks like to live that out so that others can see Jesus in them.

What an amazing family, with an amazing testimony, and amazing strength. I have often said in the last few years that I want to be like Angelia when I grow up. I say that jokingly, but I do really mean it. If I can be half the woman of God that she is, half the wife and mother that she is, then I will have succeeded in this life.

My love and prayers go out to all of the Carpenter family today and every day.

You Are Good!!

Uniquely Authentic

“Same Song Second Verse”

I don’t know how many of you sang a song with that line in it as a child. I grew up in girl scouts and there was a song we used to sing called “Fried Ham”. A silly, fun, kid song that really had no point to it at all, but that was what made it so much fun. It went like this:

Fried Ham, Fried Ham, Cheese and Bologna
And after the macaroni, we’ll have onions and pickles and pretzels
And then we’ll have some more
Fried Ham, Fried Ham, Fried Ham

Then you would say, “Same song second verse, cheerleader voice and a whole lot worse”. Then you would repeat the song but you would imitate a cheerleader while you did it. It went on and on with many different voices (cheerleader, football player, valley girl, baby, opera style, cowboy, and the list could go on). As a kid, it was fun to try and sound like these different people. It was especially fun to hear a group of elementary girls give their impression of what a football player sounded like.

Now, this song is annoying enough on its own, but when you add in the different voices, it takes on a whole new level of (annoying) fun. I’m really not sure why my thoughts came around to this song (which now will be stuck in my head for a while). However, there is a connection between it and the life that I believe we are called to live as Christians.

There is a message to be shared. There are people waiting to hear it. God has called each of us if we are His, to share His message with others. It is what we are called to do as Christ followers. The Great Commission in Matthew 28 tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. We can start doing that by starting with those in our immediate circles. We don’t all have to go to a foreign mission field to make a difference in the world. We can make a difference one encounter at a time.

That being said, it is important to note that we all don’t have the same sphere of influence. I guess this is where this song came to mind. I can reach people in my immediate circle of influence by authentically being me. Now, I could act like I was someone else, but it would not be genuine and people see through that. People can tell when you are trying to be someone you are not, and quite frankly, it is a little annoying.

If you are a cheerleader, you have a greater ability to reach other cheerleaders. If you are a football player, you have a greater ability to reach other football players. If you sing, you have a greater ability to reach other singers. If you write, you have a greater ability to reach other writers. God has called us to love everyone and I believe we have the ability to share Him with anyone we meet, however, I believe that we are each uniquely able to reach a certain few people, that possibly no one else can.

I am not saying that you should only try and share Christ with those who are like you. NOT AT ALL!! I am saying that each of our abilities and hobbies, as we pursue them, puts us in contact with people who we otherwise would not have had the ability to meet.

We were created to be unique and there is only one you. Be you and let God use you as your true authentic self to reach those who truly and authentically relate to you.

There are a handful of ladies that I have met over the last several years that I truly admire. While I want to look back one day and say that I made the same kind of impact on the world that they did, I don’t want to do it by trying to be them. I will never be them. I was created to be authentically me and by being authentically me, I will be able to reach those I was created to impact for Christ.

Dare to be uniquely authentic and see where it takes you!

The Almost Birthday Failure

Have you ever had those moments as a parent when you feel like you have to be the worst mom ever? I have those occasionally. I had one recently.

On the way to church Sunday night my son said, “Mom! Do you know what happens in eight days?” I thought for a minute and then I felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety hit me like a ton of bricks. I said, “Yes”. He said, “Well, what”? I said, “It’s your birthday”.

Now, I hadn’t really forgotten that his birthday was coming up, but I completely put off thinking about it. Lucky for me he isn’t too picky about things. We can do big birthdays or we can do little birthdays, and so far he doesn’t seem to mind either way.

So, in a last minute scramble (last minute for me anyway) I initiated a plan and we now have a birthday party planned. Well, we have a place to have it and people invited and a cake ordered. I still need to get a few things and will have to pick up the cake and ice cream on Saturday morning on our way to the party.

I keep feeling like a terrible mom to think that I came so close to not doing anything for his birthday. I feel like had he not mentioned it, it may have turned out that way. But then I keep reminding myself, that it’s ok. Nothing has to be planned for a month in advance for it to turn out just fine (Although, that goes against the inner most planner that I am).

I actually think this will turn out to be a great party. We invited the kids from church to come and most of them I think are going to come. That in itself will be a great thing for him. We have had parties before where we have invited kids, but never really had many show up. So, I think he will have a great party, even if it is low key and quickly thrown together!

What do you think? How much do you think should go into a kids birthday party to make it a special day for them?

What are some fun birthday parties that you have thrown for your kids?

Redeemed Conference - Worship

Last week’s “Wordless Wednesday” post (pictured to the left) was a photo that was taken during worship at the 2013 Arkansas Assemblies of God Women’sFall Conference. What a fantastic conference, with a fantastic theme, and fantastic leadership! The theme for this year’s conference was “Redeemed” and it was a weekend of redemption for many women.

As far as the leadership, I believe this photo says it all. Angelia Carpenter (pictured in the front, center of the crowd), District Women’s Director, leads the way not only in what she says from the podium, but also by example. She is a woman of impeccable character, she is my friend, and she is the person whose example I am proud to follow.

Worship during the conference was led by Leah Smith from Beebe Open Arms Assembly of God. This worship team was anointed!! The presence of God was so powerful during both services and it was evident from the very first song to the very last.

If you get the opportunity sometime, you should attend one of these conferences. There is something about several hundred women gathering together to openly worship the Lord that is unexplainable. Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” This is a promise that is multiplied by several hundred at these conferences.

I will continue to share more about this conference, but for now, here are some more photos of the worship that took place!