Things Mama Told Me

  #Happy Friendsgiving Good friends are simply the family that we choose!  If you stopped by because you read my devotion today over at  Encouragement Cafe ,  WELCOME!   So glad you are here!  Let's thank God today for the gift of friendship and ask Him to give us the wisdom to choose friends who love us, sharpen us, encourage us, and remind us that a good friend truly is a blessing from above!  Help carry one another's burdens, and in this way you will obey the law of Christ. You think you are something when you really are nothing, you are only deceiving yourself. You should each judge your own conduct. If it is good, then you can be proud of what you yourself have done, without having to compare it with what someone else has done. For each of you have to carry your own load. -  Galatians 6:2-5 (GNT)  Getting married, moving to a city where you knew no one, buying a home, and starting a new job was an adventure. Except, all of my former friends were in

If you stopped by because you read my devotion today over at Encouragement Cafe , WELCOME!   So glad you are here!  In a season that requires us to focus our attention on giving thanks and giving to others today's devo is a reminder that sometimes it's the smallest actions that can make the biggest impact in someone else's life.  Be on the lookout this holiday season for ways to be thankful, share blessings with others, and above all else, leave enough margin in your schedule to simply be available. God can place the most unintentional situation into your life for the most intentional reasons, to simply pray with someone, share hope with someone, and above all LOVE someone like Christ.  Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12 (NIV)  The text message came to me a few days before Christmas. Desperate, my sweet friend, a newly divorced mother of six, was in a panic. Her ex-husband was threatening to not deposit the monthly chil

If you stopped by because you read my devotion today over at  Encouragement Cafe , WELCOME!   So glad you are here!  Today's devotional is a reminder of what happens when we try to be self-righteous before a perfect and righteous God. We exhaust ourselves and we absolutely fall short of God's glory every time. I spent years trying to do and say the right thing, then I got so exhausted and disenchanted by it all that I swung to the opposite side of the pendulum and rebelled. I was in the big leagues of being a backslider.  Neither place is good. Both places leave you feeling empty. I pray that we can learn to bask in the fullness of God's grace as we let go of our perfectionism and let God perfect us through Christ Jesus.   Remember, Lord, Your great mercy and love, for they are from of old.  Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to Your Love remember me, for You, Lord, are good.  Psalms 25:6-7 (NIV) As a little girl, sitting

How do you know if you suffer from Post-Traumatic Summer Disorder. These signs can help you recognize the symptoms of a person who lives for the summertime and grieves when seasons change. 1) You break into a cold sweat when you see school supplies on the store shelves on July 5th. Why does mainstream American marketing start shoving #2 pencils and notebook paper down our throats the day after Independence Day? We still have 8 weeks of summer to go people!! 2) When you are pulling pool floats out of the garage and you see snow boots and sleds, it makes you hyperventilate. "Please, no snow days this year." 3) When someone tells you that it is just too hot and they need cooler weather you try your best to restrain yourself. This is summertime in the South. If you don't like hot weather then move to Maine. You also know that these are the same people that will be complaining in January that they want "just one good snow" and by February for the snow to e

Dear Teacher - Thank you for your hard work and dedication to teach my children this year. As a former teacher myself I totally get how rewarding and exhausting it is to stand in front of a class of kids every single day, to be at the top of your game, and to constantly have to reinforce curriculum with discipline and pray that in between it all they are actually learning the concepts. I also know that you are in the end of year slump just as much as me.  When the school year began I was all about helping my kiddos with their homework and signing the folder every single day. I made them read every night and made sure they went to bed early on school nights so they could get up and get to school on time. I even volunteered for class parties, chaperoned a field trip, attended award ceremonies, turned in picture money on time, kept their lunch accounts in the positive, and made my kids sell stuff for the PTA fundraisers. It's really not anything that I enjoy doing but I want to hav

If you stopped by from Encouragement Cafe or Crosswalk - WELCOME. I am so glad that you are here. Today's devotional from Encouragement Cafe reminded me of how blessed and thankful I am that God sent me friends to do life with and help me keep my sanity. I found a blog that I published about a year and a half ago that I wrote to myself about cherishing the little moments of motherhood and not beating myself up when I wasn't "enjoying every moment."  Raising children is hard work. Period. And it gets flat out exhausting at times. There are many, many moments that I will miss as a mom but it is okay to say to yourself that you don't cherish every second and honestly, there are some things you just will be glad to see go. Be thankful for the little moments, reach out to your network of other moms, and thank God that children do change and grow and this stage in life will not last forever. Thanks for stopping by....be encouraged mama! "Cherish every minute

If you stopped by today from Encouragement Cafe , WELCOME. So glad that you are here. Today's devotion uses the story of Joseph to remind us of God's perfect sovereignty. Most people don't like to wait for anything especially prayers that seem to go unanswered or hit the ceiling and bounce back down.  I believe with all my heart that God hears our prayers for things that we have been waiting a long time to happen, but I also believe that God is absolutely sovereign and omniscient and He knows and understands things about our lives that we don't. So if you have found yourself in the waiting room of life, I pray that your prayers will be strengthened, your faith will grow, and your patience will abound because your God is with you even in the wait.  I wait for you, O Lord; you will answer, O Lord my God.  Psalm 38:15 Can I make a confession?  I don’t like to wait.  I don’t like waiting in long lines.  I get anxious in a waiting room for more than 10 minutes.  I w

If you stopped by today from Encouragement Cafe  WELCOME! So glad you are here! Today's devotional reminds us that the things in the life we consider a limitation or handicap, could actually be the exact thing that Christ is using to perfect us to be more like Him. I don't have all the answers nor do I pretend to understand why some of our prayers seem to go unfulfilled. But I do trust in The One who knows us, who hears us, who loves us more than we can fathom, and I believe that He works ALL THINGS together for good. This paraphrase of Paul from 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (The Message) is the perfect reminder that he too sought to the answer the question of why God allowed limits upon him. I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to

If you stopped by today from Encouragement Cafe , WELCOME! So glad you are here  Today's post is a reminder of one of the most difficult and heartbreaking times my husband and I have shared in our marriage, the loss of a baby. If you have experienced the loss of a baby at any stage of life, I want you to know that God sees your broken heart and grieves with you. I cannot give you all the answers on the why, but I can tell you that you are deeply loved by the One who binds up the broken-hearted and heals their wounds.  If you are looking for more support can I suggest you visit Sara's Laughter , an online Christian support community for couples who are dealing with infertility or miscarriage. I used this online support community many times during our years of drought and this community of Christians brought me so much healing and hope.  The full devotion can be found here. I am praying for anyone reading this today who may be experiencing the grief of infertility or misca

If you stopped by today from Encouragement Caf e or Crosswalk , WELCOME! So glad you are here.  We often sell ourselves short when it come to seeing ourselves as God sees us. Most little girls have no problem seeing themselves as a princess complete with fashion jewelry and lace trimmed gowns. But somewhere along the way we go from twirling in front of the mirror, to loathing the image reflected back at us.  We have let our looks become our identity. We have let our culture and our world influence how we see ourselves. We have defined ourselves by a number on the scale and that is not okay! We are loved by our Heavenly Father, The King, and He sees us as His beautiful creation. Let's quit letting the chatter in our minds make us feel bad about ourselves and let's learn to see ourselves as His Girl! We don't need to teach our girls to have more self-esteem, we need to teach them God-esteem.  The full devotional from Encouragement Cafe and Crosswalk is posted below. Plea