My Word for 2015: ABIDE

Happy New Year! Did you have a good New Year's Eve? We spent the evening hosting friends in our home. We had some yummy dinner, and let the kiddos play till midnight! Most of them made it, and Ava loved having her friend here. 

I've been picking a word for the year every year since 2011, I really love doing this. It's a great way for me to focus the year. I also enjoy the process of sitting down talking to the Lord and praying about the year ahead. It's through this process that I choose my word for the year. 

Last year God challenged me to THRIVE, you can read more about that here. Looking back on 2014 I see where God challenged me in this, I see where practically I put forth steps to make sure I was thriving. To make sure that things were different than they were before. 

This year, I want to abide. 

abide

[uh-bahyd] Spell Syllables

• Synonyms
• Examples
• Word Origin

verb (used without object), abode or abided, abiding.

1.to remain; continue; stay:

Abide with me. Submit to. live in a certain place. remain in or continue in a state. stop temporarily and wait. 

I love that it says to remain. Now, most of the time in our culture we're taught that we shouldn't remain that it's essential to growth to keep moving forward, to strive for more, etc. On some levels this is true, and in some situations it's essential to move forward for growth. But this is not always the case. 

When I think about what the Lord wants to teach me, I can't help but abide in Him. Rest in Him. Remain in Him. 

Submit to Him. 

I love that scripture so much. It's so clear, and it's so my heart. I want to dwell in the presence of the most high. I want to abide in the shadow of Jesus. 

Our culture tells us that when we're in someone's shadow that it's a bad thing, a place we don't want to be. But in the shadow of Jesus there's protection, guidance and love. 

This is where I want to be. 

When my focus is Jesus and my actions towards others is love the rest just falls into place. 

Abide with Jesus.

Dwell with him. Remain in Him.

I want growth this year, I have lots of goals that I want to accomplish but I don't want to lose my focus. I don't want to miss what's the priority here in my life. My people. My husband. My kids. Ministry, and loving others. 

This year I will abide. 

Do you have a word for the year? If so I'd love to hear it, let me know in the comments below. 

Sole Hope Shoe Cutting Party

I first heard about Sole Hope back in March of this year via Thrive Moms. If you haven't heard of Sole Hope before, they are a faith based organization that helps provide medical relief from children & adults whom have suffered from jiggers. They provide medical care, and then also give them shoes to help stop future infections. It's an amazing organization helping those in Eastern Africa. 

In order to give people shoes, they have to be made first. This is where we can step in and help cut fabric to be made into shoes. 

My husband and I decided with all our family coming into town we wanted to do some sort of service project with them while they were here. We wanted to give back together. We wanted to do something this Christmas that took the focus off of us and put the focus back on others. We decided to host a shoe cutting party for Sole Hope with our family. 

I ordered a shoe cutting kit from Sole Hope, that explained all we needed and gave us instructions on how to cut the shoes. We sat around my kitchen table, traced patterns, cut denim scraps into shoes and talked about ways to give back. 

We showed our family a video of what Sole Hope is doing in Uganda to help aide in this relief for people infected by jiggers. 

This project sparked many conversations about how we can help give back to those around us. We cut 16 pairs of shoes that day. We prayed over the shoes and the feet they will one day cover. I'm humbled by this simple act of shoe cutting. 

If you're looking for a great way to give back right from the comfort of your home I encourage you to check out Sole Hope and host a shoe cutting party of your own, or give a financial gift or do both! 

I'm excited to host another one of these parties with the ladies at my church later next year. For more information on Sole Hope visit them here. #zerojiggers #solehope 

When God Gives it Back to You.

At the beginning of this year God asked me to give back to him three very specific things. I've mentioned them before, but simply put they'd become idols to me. These things I had been trying to hold close to them, and make something happen with them. There's was no room for God to bless them if I was holding on so tightly to them thinking I knew better than God. 

Ahh... when I felt the Lord tell me to give them up, sacrifice and lay them down I won't lie. It hurt. I mulled over it for days thinking "God is that you, are you really telling me to let this go, give this to you?"

Once I made the choice to listen to the Lord, it was a freeing feeling. I'd let go of the things I was trying so hard to control, trying so hard to make happen in my own strength. When the reality of it is, when something is truly of the Lord only He can take it where you want it to go. You can't. It's not yours. It's His. When he's called us to something, he can bring it to fruition. We are only called to be obediant to His calling. 

When I laid those things down earlier this year, I didn't know if I'd ever feel the same way about them, or be connected to them again. It reminds me of the story in the Bible when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. 

This is a crazy story, Isaac was Abraham's son. A son he'd waited all his life to have. Literally. God has kept his promise to his wife Sarah whom everyone including her thought she was barren. Can you imagine God asking you to do something like that? God tells him to take his son up the mountain and give him as burnt offering to him (Gen. 22:2) 

At one point Isaac looks at his father and asks where the lamb is that they are going to sacrifice? Good question Isaac, all the while Abraham knows it's his son. He just tells him that the Lord will provide. They get to the top and Abraham binds his son up with the wood to offer him as the burnt offering. 

Seriously can you imagine? It makes what God asked of me seem so little. Abraham does it though. And just when he's about to lift a hand to his son, an Angel of the Lord calls out to him. He says to him, that he knows he fears the Lord because he has not with held anything from him, not even his only son. 

Then God provides a ram caught in a thicket for Abraham to offer as a sacrifice. Can you imagine what Isaac must have been thinking the whole time? But what an amazing testimony that Abraham provided to his son by being faithful to what the Lord had called him to do! 

Through out this year I have been able to see God's hand working in my life as a direct result of me giving Him the things in which he asked, giving over and sacrificing the things that I'd once made into idols. It has not always been easy, it has been rough and emotional at times. But God has done something amazing in my life this year. I have more peace now that I'm not holding so tightly to things and trying to control them on my own.

The best part of all I have seen his fruit. I have seen growth in myself in areas I know now that were held back because of my lack of faith, my lack of trust in areas of my life. Just as Abraham followed through with what God asked him to, as result God was pleased with his offering and gave it back to him. 

God has surprised me this year as result of my faithfulness and drawing near to him, He's brought back things to me, and fulfilled dreams in my heart that no on but Him knew were there. 

Most of the time we sacrifice and don't even know or expect the fruit that will come from it. All we know is that we're being faithful. His blessings flow from that.

I'm thankful and completely humbled by the things he's brought my way this year, and I know they are a direct result of my sacrifice earlier this year. 

What he's brought back and blessed me with is ten fold better than what I could have done on my own, or was trying to do. 

How has God surprised you this year? Have you laid anything down at the altar this year to him? Tell me about it below, I would love to hear your stories of how God has blessed you because of your faithfulness to Him. 

'Your Legacy' Dr. James Dobson Review + Giveaway

I have been a long time fan of Dr. James Dobson and his books for a while now. I started reading them when Ava was a little over a year old. He's got some great books on parenting children & discipline. I love his commitment to raising Godly children and having healthy Christ centered families. Dare to Discipline is a favorite of mine. 

I had the chance to review his new Building a Family Legacy series which includes 8 DVDs on various topics (see below for the complete list.) I think the idea of leaving a legacy for our children isn't something we talk a whole lot about these day, or even hear about. I feel though that it's so vital to consider this when raising our children. 

My husband and I are always asking ourselves;

What do we want our children to remember about our family?

What values do we want them to have?

How can we leave a lasting impression and legacy for them?

In the Your Legacy DVD Dobson unpacks the value of leaving a spiritual legacy for your family, shares his own experiences with his own ancestors and what he did for his own family. He also challenges us to do the same for our families.

Other DVD titles include:

• Your Legacy
• Bringing up Boys
• Bringing up Girls
• Love For A Lifetime
• The Strong-Willed Child
• Dare To Discipline
• Straight Talk To Men
• Wanting To Believe with Ryan Dobson

Now for the fun part; I'm giving away 3 copies of the Your Legacy DVD by Dr. James Dobson. To enter comment below with your best tip for raising healthy families. It can be anything you want, the best way you get dinner on the table, how you get your kiddos to eat their veggies or your best tip for breaking up sibling fights. I wanna hear about it. Contest will run from now until Friday night. Winners will be announced Saturday morning and emailed for notification. Connect with them on Facebook & Twitter. 

The Lord Will Fight for You.

this print and others are available in my shop, go here to shop this print and others. 

I started out this year knowing that there were some really specific things that God was asking me to surrender, some things God even asked me to give them up. 

They'd become idols to me. 

At first I'll be honest, I didn't want to. I wanted to keep them close to me, control them and I wanted to decide that I was going to do with them. Not Him. 

At the end of last year I surrendered those things to God, not knowing if I would get them back or see them again in my life. I did it knowing that God wanted to do some really specific things in my heart through that sacrifice. 

It was a pruning time for me. I think during that time God decided that he'd just prune all the things in my life while he was at it. 

All this stuff started coming out of the wood work, so to speak.

I began to be challenged in my faith. I began to be challenged in my relationships and friendships. Good and bad. 

This entire year has been a year of revelation, learning to trust God in new ways, learning to let go of things that weren't really my own anyway. They were his. 

As I mentioned I've been going through a rough time this year in my friendships. I've felt attacked, I've felt not heard or listened to. I've had my character come into question as well as my motives. Things that have rocked me to the core and deeply saddened me. 

I've gone back and forth about what to do. What do I say? How do I handle this in a Godly way? How do I show the love of Christ and rest in him through this time?

God kept bringing me back to this scripture in Exodus 14:14

The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still. 

When Moses says this to the Isrealites it's right before they cross the Red Sea. They are fleeing Egypt and breaking free from Pharoah. A time and season where they faced persecution and unfairness towards them. 

Some crazy stuff, plagues, death of first born sons, the passover. Crazy things I've never experienced in my life. 

And in this moment when they are about to cross the sea into freedom, Moses tells them don't be afraid (Ex. 14:13) stand firm and you will see deliverance the Lord will bring you to today. Then he says;

The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still.

Sometimes there's a whole lots of chaos around us. Sometimes there's a whole lot of pain, uncertainty, sadness and heartbreak all around us. Sometimes our flesh wants to rise up and tell people off, or defend ourselves in righteous anger. But that's not what God wants. 

He wants us to be still. He wants us to rest in Him. 

He wants us to know that he will fight for us. He's already gone to battle for us. He's already won the victory for us. 

We need only to be still and rest in Him. 

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