my blessed life

Anyone else have a newly-turned teenager in their homes?  Our daughter just turned 13 back in March and we are entering new territory. Not bad territory, mind you.  Just new and different.  I keep having to remind myself that it's time to begin allowing more freedoms and giving more responsibilities. We are also in the throes of much angst.  Brought on by a million hormones, I'm sure.  In all of that, I am constantly reminding myself to speak my daughter's love language. I am a big fan of Gary Chapman's books The Five Love Languages and The Five Love Languages of Children .  They are chock-full of so much wisdom!  I even keep a little poster on my fridge of how to practically live out the love languages with your family.   This new book, co-authored by Gary Chapman and Paige Haley Drygas, is  A Teen's Guide to the 5 Love Languages .  I love the subtitle:  How to Understand Yourself and Improve All Your Relationships...

In case you haven't heard yet about this amazing new book that is about to launch... Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World by Kristen Welch (of We are THAT Family ) is a must-read for parents who are looking for encouragement, inspiration, and creative ideas on how to bring more gratitude into their homes.  I know I am one of those parents and I was so excited to be chosen for the launch team for this book.   This book is being such a blessing to me, my husband, and, ultimately, our children!  Each chapter is filled with godly principles and Scripture and ends with practical application ideas for you to begin putting in place with your family immediately.   Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World 'hits the shelves' on January 26th ...but if you pre-order by January 25th you get an amazing Global Family Kit with your book--plus free (domestic) shipping!   Head over here to read more about it. sporting my gratitude bracelet from Mer...

I'm excited about this new year!  I'm so ready to put last year behind me. 2015 was just a tough year with lots of challenges.  Not that I don't expect challenges in this new year but I am just planning to face them with more grace, more patience, more of reliance on God.  Basically just more of God.  Without Him I can do nothing! My grace is sufficient for you; for my power is made perfect in weakness. II Corinthians 12:9 Some ways I am taking on the new year's challenges are: daily Bible reading ...I'm going back to one of my fave reading plans: the chronological one with the YouVersion Bible app reading a new-to-be but old devotional for the first time: My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers beginning my mornings with prayer and coffee--the best way! How are you beginning  your new year?

I have to say, I was excited when I was recently given the chance to review a copy of The CEB Student Bible .  My husband and I had been discussing getting a new Bible for our daughter.  She is twelve now and in 7th grade.  Her current Bible was given to her when she first was learning to read in kindergarten and she was really ready for a Bible with more study helps geared toward her age.  Because we had liked the CEB Deep Blue Bible that we got for our son we felt that this one was definitely worth exploring.   This student Bible is written in the Common English translation, which is great for younger readers as it makes the text easier to understand.  It's target audience is ages 13 and up.  It includes prayers and notes written by students, for students.  Various ministers and Bible scholars have also contributed more than 400 articles, discussion questions, and activities designed to engage students with the Scriptures.  All goo...

Today I am excited to share with you an amazing new book by my in-real-life friend, Nancy, at There Is Grace .  Unshakable: Finding Faith to Weather the Storm releases this week and is a powerful read for anyone!  I was honored to be able to read this book before its release and I was incredibly moved by it.   Unshakable chronicles Nancy's story of being diagnosed with the "C" word: cancer.  That is definitely a storm that many have been through and can relate to.  However, this book is not just for those weather a diagnosis of cancer, but for all of us.  We all have storms to weather through: the death of a loved one, a divorce, other illnesses, a family crisis, {you fill in the blank} ....this list could go on and on.  There is no one in this world untouched by storms of life.   Nancy does a remarkable job of sharing her deep faith in God and in His Word.  In fact, she uses God's Word in powerful ways throughout this book, sho...

I love Easter!  Not only is it in the lovely season of spring, it represents all that makes life worthwhile--HE LIVES and because of that I can live in fullness of life, too.  Not just in Heaven, but even here on earth.  I'm so thankful for that! As long as I can remember Easter has always been a "busy" day for me.  I grew up in a minister's home so my dad was always preaching somewhere on Easter--whether as a guest minister or in the church he pastored for several years.  Then I married and my husband and I have also been in ministry full-time for 14 of the 18 years we've been married--the past 4 years as senior pastors. And the Easter weekend just gets busier.  But it's a good kind of busy.  Like today, we were at our church nearly all day for a fun event we like to call Easter Eggstravaganza.  It's a fun day for our church to simply bless our community with free food, games, petting zoo, some fun giveaways, and an egg hunt for the kidd...

Award-winning writer Philip Yancey's latest book, Vanishing Grace , is my first non-fiction read of the new year.  And, wow.  What a read. His subtitle was what drew me in, wanting to find out more about this book: what ever happened to the Good News? In this book, Yancey explores why the Christian Church stirs up such negative feelings these days.  That's a question that I've often wondered myself and I was very interested to see what his research revealed. In reading this book I have certainly been convicted.  Not necessarily because I have personally done things that "turn non-believers off from the Gospel", but because I am guilty by association with others who also claim my same beliefs and who have been very offensive at times. I don't like that evangelical Christians are mostly known for that they are "against" rather than what they are "for".  It frustrates me that American Christians especially will get all up in a...

Happy New Year to you!! I hope you have a wonderful first day of the first month of this fresh slate we're blessed with each year. While any time is a good time to read the Bible, January 1st is an obvious choice to begin to read the Bible through in a year.  And a great way to do that is by using the You Version app on your smart phone, tablet, or computer! I used this reading plan for the first time last year and loved it!  I could pick up my phone anywhere and have my reading plan at my fingertips.  And as a person who loves to see progress on my 'to do' lists, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the little graph each day showing me my reading progress for the year:) Another benefit to this app is that you can choose different styles of reading plans.  Last year I chose the chronological plan and absolutely loved it.  It was so interesting to see exactly where all of those prophets fit into the timeline of the Old Testament!  You can also choose diff...

I was pretty excited recently to have the opportunity to review the new set of books from InScribed Studies .  I have to admit that I was not at all familiar with InScribed Studies , but I was intrigued by these titles and subtitles.  I occasionally lead Bible studies for women at our church and am often overwhelmed--and underwhelmed--by the studies find.  So I was excited to check these out ...and I was not disappointed! Just RISE UP! by Sarah Francis Martin is an incredible study focused on 'a call to make Jesus famous'.  Sarah writes in such a disarming and easy tone and shares from a very personal place.  She dives deep into Psalm 145 as she tackles topics like living a life of praise, having a kingdom perspective, humility, influence, and more.  Sarah challenges her readers to allow this study to be a 'catalyst toward meaningful conversations between you and the Lord'.   I absolutely love how she has designed this book to guide yo...

Up until recently I have only been vaguely familiar with the Secret Keeper Girl organization.  This is a wonderful ministry devoted to teaching girls ages 8-12 about purity, modesty, and about "keeping the deepest secrets of their beauty for just one man".  Having an 11-year-old daughter, this definitely strikes a cord with me. So I was very excited to have the opportunity to review a copy of Secret Keeper Girl's newest book for moms,  8 Great Dates: Best Friends and Mean Girls  by Dannah Gresh. This book is all about relationships.  Your relationships as a mother, your relationship with your daughter, and--primarily--your daughters relationships with God, her parents, her siblings, her BFF, her neighbors, mean girls, and boys.   There are three short introductory chapters, then you dive into '8 Great Date' ideas designed to help you discuss all of the above relationships with your daughter.   For each date idea there is: a cha...

I know it's been a while.  And I've missed being here.  I hope things are going well with you. Life has been fast and furious around here these past few months and I simply needed to step away from so much time online in order to keep my sanity. I had lost my zeal for blogging.  Sort of lost my direction, in a way.  There are so many voices out there telling me how to improve my blog, how to make more money from  blogging, how to promote yourself better...  I just got tired of it all. I needed a little break.  So I took a couple of months off and it's been good. ***** Life has been a bit hectic lately and I am desperately trying to be intentional about how I spend my time.   More intentional in my walk with Jesus.  More intentional with my children.  More intentional with my marriage.  More intentional in my home. Believe me, I'm not getting it perfect.  In fact, most days I fail miserably.   Bu...

Well, I'm not actually here to debate; however, we did attend the much-talked-about debate between evolutionist Bill Nye and creationist Ken Ham earlier this month.  It's been so crazy around here that I haven't even had a chance to mention it.    When the debate was first announced, we thought it would be a good experience for our family.  So my husband was up bright and early the day that tickets went on sale.  It's a good thing, too, because they sold out in 2 minutes!  We were very excited! So we made the trip up to the Cincinnati area the day of the debate and just got checked into our hotel and headed back to the debate to get as good of seats as possible.  As you can see in the photo above, we were toward the back of the auditorium.  It was a packed house!   And it truly was a great experience for our family!  I really did wonder how my kiddos would do, needing to sit through a 2.5 hour debate with no restro...

It has been a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend here!  Mine has been filled with family, food, laughter, games, shopping, and more food.  We enjoyed time with both of our families this holiday and that has been so nice. Today was also a great day with our spiritual family at our church.  It was wonderful to worship with fellow believers and to hear a message of hope . Tonight our family enjoyed sitting around our kitchen table and lighting the first candle on our Advent wreath~which represents hope, by the way.  I always love this special time of the year when we begin the special family devotions of Advent. I just wanted to share with your some of our favorite resources. For several years now we have enjoyed reading through The Advent Book each night in December as we count down to Christmas Day. We also love the Jesse Tree devotionals by Ann Voskamp.  You can click here to download them for free. This year we are also using some notes ...

(this post contains affiliate links) I remember first hearing about " stick-figuring through the Bible " and was a little perplexed and a little intrigued by the concept.   Grapevine Studies were unlike any other Bible curriculum that I had seen.  So when I saw a freebie lesson offered on Facebook last winter I snagged it.   The lesson was on the Last Supper and it was perfect for our Good Friday family Bible study.  And we loved it!  The kids thought drawing out each aspect of the story was so much fun and they really enjoyed it so much.  And I did, too.  It was a joy to teach!  So when it came time to finalize our curriculum for this fall I knew that Grapevine Studies must be included.   I decided to start with New Testament Overview Part 1: Birth of John to Jesus' Ministry for my son and we have not been disappointed.  He LOVES it and requests to do it first thing every day.   We are using the Level 2 c...

This past month I was so excited to be chosen to be a part of the launch team for the new book by Courtney Joseph, Women Living Well .  You may be familiar with Courtney's blog of the same name.   She is a true source of inspiration and a voice to return to biblical principles in our modern world.   Women Living Well is one of the most inspiring, convicting, encouraging, and challenging books that I've read in quite a while.  I am very happy to share with you about it and recommend it to you. The subtitle of Courtney's book, 'Finding Your Joy in God, Your man, Your Kids, and Your Home' , gives a peek into the topics addressed in this book.  Women Living Well is divided into four parts: 1.) your walk with the King, 2.) your marriage, 3.) your parenting, and 4.) your homemaking. "Mothering is an intense, around-the-clock job, and solitude is not something that just happens by chance.  We have to create it.  ...It is in time of solit...

I rarely have a quiet Sunday morning.  Usually Sunday mornings are filled with activity for me: getting myself ready for church (I am a pastor's wife, after all), helping my children get ready for church, preparing a quick breakfast, maybe preparing something for lunch, making final preparations to teach a children's class, making sure the dog is taken care of.  Then when all of that is finished, we jump in the car and head to church where much more activity ensues.  Sundays generally don't have a quiet moment for me until the afternoon--and sometimes even those can be busy as well. Today is different though. I am sitting here by the French doors to our back deck watching the rain come down, as I stay wrapped up in my pink Snuggie in a comfy chair with my cell phone, my Bible and some good books and the laptop for my companions while my family is all at church. I am recovering. This past week I underwent a hysterectomy.  It was a long time coming and my body ...

Still looking for some great {learning} activities for your family this summer?  Here's one for you: Around the World in 60 Days from ThrivingFamily.com (a part of Focus on the Family ). Around the World in 60 Days takes you through 27 countries on six continents over the course of the summer.  Each day your family will be learning new things about those countries and also learning how to pray for the people in them.  They can "stamp" their "passport" each day as well to show their progress on their "travels". This is a wonderful way for your kiddos to learn geography and how to be more missions-minded at the same time! Click here to download the free resources : the map, the passport, and the itinerary for your trip. ***** Don't miss a thing here at My Blessed Life! Subscribe, Follow, and "Like" today!

I am feeling brokenhearted today for the beautiful people of Oklahoma, but I know my heartbreak is nothing compared to what they are feeling. I am so thankful that our many family and friends there are okay ...but so many there are not okay.  Their lives will never be the same. Please pray for Oklahoma.

This month has been so incredibly busy.  I still can't believe that it's nearly over.  And May is shaping up to be a total blur! Sometimes you just have to let some things go and hang on for the ride.  I feel like that's what I'm doing these days.  There is just so much going on at this time of the year every year. End-of-the-school-year wrapping up, Mother's Day planning, church yard sale, special church events, science fair, co-op, upcoming mini-vacation, finalizing yearbook pages for our homeschool group, special ladies' events at church, helping my mother because of her broken shoulder, helping my husband every way that I can because he wears too many "hats", trying to plan our garden, ...the "list" never stops, right? And sometimes I don't do so well when I'm feeling overwhelmed.  I really just want to curl up on the sofa with a pint of Graeter's Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip ice cream and watch hours of Psych.  No...

We had a really lovely Easter weekend.  We began our festivities on Good Friday with some yummy strawberry and cream scones and a Bible lesson on the Last Supper from Grapevine Studies.  Then we spent the day just enjoying each other as a family, doing some of our traditional Easter activities, and preparing an Easter dinner for our extended family that evening.   Saturday the rain held off long enough for us to have tons of fun at our church's Easter Eggstravaganza.  There the kiddos had a blast hunting candy-filled eggs, taking horse rides, and playing with the baby animals borrowed from a local farm.  We had a wonderful turnout from our community and everyone had a great time together!  That evening at home we let the kiddos dig into their Easter baskets--a little early, yes, but Sunday mornings always seem so busy that we wanted them to be able to take their time a little. Easter Sunday was truly blessed!  Our worship service at church was...