In today’s column I wrote about the damage that is done when we do not control the words that we say or the way that we say them.  I was recently introduced to the concept of a no-yelling-at-the-kids-challenge by a friend of mine.  It seems that there is a whole movement of mothers who are trying to tame their tempers and change the way they react to their children.

And while this challenge was originally created for mothers with children at home, I believe that anyone could benefit from committing to improving the way that they communicate with those around them.

You can find out more about the challenge on the Orange Rhino Challenge website.  She has lots of great tips and even has a “yelling meter.”

This is definitely proving to be MUCH harder than I thought it would be.  I have not made it one day this week without losing control of my temper and yelling at my kids.

Some things that I have noticed . . .

1.  There is no way that I am going to be able to do this on my own.  It is going to require a constant dependence on the Lord for the strength to control my words and my temper.

2.  It was probably not a good idea to start this challenge during a week that my hormones are going crazy . . . if you know what I mean.

3.  I need more sleep.  When I am tired my patience level completely bottoms out.  Time to put the books away, turn off the TV and go to bed at a descent hour.

4.  My biggest trigger is when they have repeatedly done something they are not supposed to do and instead of taking them time to discipline them at offense number one or two, I wait until my frustration level builds to the point where I cannot help but explode.  So I am trying to make a concerted effort to stop what I am doing and correct the situation as soon as it arises.

I have started to memorize Scripture verses about anger and the power of the tongue.  I have also realized that I handle my day so much better when I spend quiet time with the Lord in the morning instead of waiting until the kids go to bed at night.  If you would like to join me, here is a great verse with which to get started:

Proverbs 15:18 A hot-tempered man stirs up strife,  but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.

How about you?  I would love to hear what areas you struggle with the most when it comes to communicating with the people in your life.  They say that publicly setting a goal greatly influences whether or not we reach that goal, so please share your goal and plan for getting there.

I am going to be sending out encouraging notes several times a week and checking in to see how you are doing, so make sure to sign up to receive my blog updates in the upper right hand corner.  I promise to never inundate your e-mail inbox!

This won’t be easy, but with the support of like-minded individuals, prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit we can do this!

It all started two weeks ago when we talked about Katie Davis’ amazing story in our Adult Bible Fellowship group on Sunday morning.  On the way home, Steve asked what I was going to write this week’s newspaper column about.  I responded that I had not a clue.  He suggested that I write about Katie.

I spent Tuesday morning and afternoon researching her ministry and the orphan crisis in Uganda.  My heart broke for the children who were growing up without a mother and father’s love.  I was inspired by Katie and her complete commitment to serving “the least of these” in the name of Jesus Christ.  I began to examine my life to see if I had the same heart for the “widow and orphan” that God speaks of throughout the Bible and found myself woefully lacking.

That evening, as Steve and I were channel surfing after we put the girls to bed, we stumbled upon a documentary about widows and orphans in Kenya.  The faces on the screen and the stories were exactly the same as what I had read about earlier that same day.

Thursday morning we had the pleasure of hearing from a guest speaker, Kheri, at our homeschool co-op, an amazing young man who directs the Royal Kids School in – you guessed it – Kenya.  Again, the stories he shared about the children this school serves were the same familiar stories that bombarded me earlier in the week.

When I came home, an email from my editor was waiting in my inbox.  She said that my column reminded her of a piece that a friend had written a few weeks back and included a link to it.  Imagine my surprise when I clicked over to find that it was written by a man working for Food for the Hungry in Uganda!  Tears filled my eyes as I read the same heart-breaking stories all over again.

But stories of orphaned children and families being destroyed because of poverty and HIV were not the only message I had heard all week.  Even louder was the message that “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.” (James 1:27)

When I scanned my house, the possessions that fill every cabinet and closet, nook and cranny overwhelmed me.  Why do I have so much and others have so little?  Is this really the life that Jesus died on the cross for me to have?  A comfortable, safe life with lots of things when others are not sure where there next meal is coming from?  How can I have everything I need and more and still not be satisfied?

Katie and Kheri’s face haunted me.  Katie gave up all the comforts that this country provided her to live in what we would consider horrendous conditions (seriously, she had bats in her shower and lizards in her bed!).  Kheri struggles to make sure the school has the money they need to pay their teachers.  He witnesses the heart-break that these children face on daily basis.

But it was not their sad, sour countenance that passed through my dreams at night.  It was the complete and absolute joy that I saw in their faces that I just could not forget.  Have I ever really experienced that kind of peace and joy?

I began to pray about what changes God was clearly asking me to make in my life.  I made a mental list of all the things that I could sell with the intention of sending that money to Katie’s Amazima Ministry in Uganda and the Royal Kids School in Kenya.  While that seemed like a start, it just didn’t seem to be the answer.  I felt like God was asking for more.

As I was standing in the kitchen, my three girls came running in to give me a hug out of the blue and thank me for being a great mom.  And that is when it hit me.  Adoption.  God was asking me to give more than money to the African orphan crisis.  He was asking me to give myself, my life, my family, my love to a child in need.

When I approached my husband, he surprised me with his quick acceptance of my idea.  I should not have been surprised.  He was the one who had already requested adoption information from two different agencies a year ago.  It has always been his heart to adopt, it just took me a bit longer to come around.

We will be sending in our application later this week to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia.  We are so excited to begin this amazing journey that God has placed before us.  We know that we are going to have to depend on Him completely to make this happen.  I no longer desire to live a comfortable life.  In fact, I have never been able to reconcile Jesus’ statement that “we are to pick up our cross daily” with the life that I live.  When faced with the enormity of what happened at the cross, I see nothing like it in my life.  That is no longer acceptable.

We are also depending on Him to provide financially (adoption is expensive!) and we will still be selling lots of stuff in order to bring home our little girl (pageant friends: check back here for my big “cleaning out my pageant closet” sale!).

I am sharing all of this for two reasons.  One: would you please pray for us as we move into this new season of life?  Two: It is my hope that our journey will inspire others to take seriously God’s call to care for widows and orphans by asking Him what role He would have them play in bringing hope to the millions of orphaned children around the world.

The day after we made the decision to definitely move forward with our adoption, I heard this song on the radio.  It describes exactly how I feel right now and has become my anthem for this phase of my life.

Jeremy Camp – Reckless (Official Music Video) from jeremy-camp on GodTube.

While the Bible does make many promises, success and prosperity (in the worldly sense) are not one of them.

So how should we respond to Biblical correction and rebuke?  Read here to find out more.

Like the rest of the nation, my heart was completely broken when I heard of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday.  I have spent the last week hugging my own children tight and praying for the families who will never again feel the warmth of their own little ones close to their heart.  My mind cannot comprehend the horror that those 20 young children must have felt in the last minutes of their short lives.   

Those of us left behind are faced with the questions of “why?”, “how can we prevent this from happening again?”, “what causes someone to commit such a horrible act?”.  While there are certainly actionable answers to those questions, for a Christian the answer is both simplistic and frightening––there is evil in this world that seeks to destroy all that we hold dear.

In John 10:10 Jesus reminds us that “the thief (Satan) comes only to steal, kill and destroy.”  As we glance through the pages of history, we are confronted with unimaginable acts of violence.  We are so horrified by what happened at Sandy Hook because it involved young children, but unfortunately this is certainly not the first time the innocent have been slaughtered.   

From the moment that Cain killed Abel, man has been killing man.  Pharaoh ordered the death of baby Jewish boys in the time of Moses.  Soon after Jesus’ own birth, Herod the Great ordered the killing of all young male children in the town of Bethlehem.  We may be removed from these events by thousands of years, but the heartbreak of mourning parents still echoes to us throughout the centuries. 

In our own recent history we find appalling acts of terror such as the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide.  The random killing of students at Columbine, Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook shakes us to our core and makes us wonder where all the good in the world has gone.    

The good news is that Jesus did not just alert us to the prowling thief.  In John 10:10, Jesus goes on to tells us that He has come to give us life to the full.  His birth, life, death and resurrection is the hope we need as we face a scary and uncertain world.

Seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah the prophet predicted that a child would be virgin-born as a gift to all mankind.  This baby would be called Immanuel––literally “God with us”––Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace who will reign with justice and righteousness forever.

Isaiah goes on to tell us in chapter 25 that this Mighty King will come again and when He does He will “swallow up death forever.  The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.”  We can look forward to a time when there will be no more tears, crying or sadness––when Christ himself will take away all of our pain and suffering and replace it with unimaginable joy.

Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, that the individual who has trusted Jesus as their personal Saviour mourns death, but not as those who have no hope.  For death is not the end, but instead is just the beginning of eternal life. 

While the sadness caused by the loss of those precious children is overwhelming, we can be comforted to know that the moment they left this earth, they found themselves in the arms of Jesus.

For those of us left behind, these words from the treasured Christmas carol, O’Come, O’Come Emmanual have renewed meaning this year:

O Come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer

Our spirits by Thine advent here

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night

And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

In the meantime, I know that many of you have started new Bible reading plans and I wanted to let you know about this amazing FREE resource that is being given away by Logos.  If you are not familiar with Logos, they produce an incredible Bible study software program — that is also very expensive.

The good news for us is that they have put together a study Bible that includes some amazing tools to help you dig deeper into God’s Word and they are giving away 2.5 million copies.

The last I saw, there were only about 500,000 free copies left.  So hurry over to this link today to download your free copy.

Let me know what you think.  Also, I would love to hear what your Bible study goals for 2013 include.

How to Study the Bible Devotionally

And a great big “welcome!” to those of you who are visiting for the first time.  I would love to have you join us here as a blog subscriber by entering your email in the upper right corner.  I will be sharing further Bible study resources over the next few months that you don’t want to miss.

If you are looking for a place to start studying the Bible devotionally, might I suggest Psalm 15?  In fact, any of the Psalms would be a good place to start, but this one is so rich in meaning.  You will really enjoy studying it and applying the truths it holds to your life.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.  We would also love to hear how your study time is going and how studying God’s word has impacted your life.

My first column will not be on the paper’s site, so I decided to scan it and share it with you here. You can find my second column here.

I would love to hear your thoughts on my second column, What Are You Called To Do To Help the Poor?  Do you have any other suggestions on ways people can help those in need?  How has reaching out to the less fortunate impacted your life?

Last June, I was reading an article by Mary DeMuth about building a “platform” as a writer. One of the ways that she shared was to write a column for your local newspaper. I immediately thought, “Yea, right. There is no way I am going to write a religion column for the Free Lance-Star.”

About ten minutes after reading Mary’s article, I walked out to get the mail. Each week, we get a free copy of the paper and it just happened to come that day. The children were actually playing quietly (which doesn’t happen often) when I got back to the house, so I decided to relax a minute and read the paper.

When I opened it up, I could not believe my eyes. There was a full-page article announcing that the religion columnist, an older Baptist preacher, was stepping aside. When I told a friend this story she said, “Did you take your shoes off because you were standing on holy ground?”

I literally said aloud, “Okay, God. I get it.” I ran over to the computer, looked up the editor of the religion section and sent off an email letting her know that I wanted to be the new religion columnist.

After lots of prayer, writing samples, and weeks of back and forth emails, I am officially a religion columnist for Fredericksburg’s Free Lance-Star newspaper! I got up early this morning so I could get a copy (okay, I bought more than one) of my first bi-weekly column.

As I opened the paper and saw my precious words on this page, I whispered teary-eyed prayers of thanksgiving.

When I answered God’s call to share the message of His great love through writing and speaking over a year ago, I prayed this prayer:

God, I will knock on the doors, but it is up to You to open them for me. I will not go beating them down or try to accomplish things of my own accord. If you have something for me to do, please make it clear and pave the way to make it happen.

I am definitely guilty of thinking that I know what God’s will is and then forcing circumstances to make what I think should happen a reality. As you can imagine, things can get very ugly, very quickly. I have to constantly remind myself to leave it up to Him to open the doors before faithfully walking through them.

I want to always remember this example of Him clearly guiding my steps and the beautiful gift that came as a result of being obedient.

It would be so encouraging to hear your stories of God opening doors for you. When in your life have your experienced a series of events that were undeniably orchestrated by God?

I have a big announcement that I can’t wait to share with you all! Seriously, I am so excited that I may just start doing cartwheels. And that would be something since I have never been able to do a cartwheel before in my life. I have tried. It isn’t pretty. There is something terrifying about hurling your head towards the ground. I mean, why would I want to do that? I digress . . .

Check back tomorrow to find out what I am so excited about!

Enjoy your Friday night lam. Iiikkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkmmmmmmmmmmm. Opp
L. ,kpl
,thio,lull.oq

If you haven’t already, jump on over to read my guest post.

We all deserve a little pampering now and then, so I put together this beauty-queen-for-a-day gift package. I included some of my favorite items from my “competition days.”

First is this amazing facial mask that I discovered while competing at the Mrs. America Pageant in Hawaii. It leaves your skin so smooth! Perfect for those winning head shots.

No beauty queen goes out without her nails done. I love a nice neutral color.

Enhance your beauty queen smile with my favorite lip balm by Burt’s Bees.

Your feet will be ready for those strappy heels with this awesome foot polish.

And no self-respecting beauty queen would be caught without at least a little bling, so I included this great pair of sparklie earrings.

The winner will be announced on Friday.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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