A Misconception

Money is such a funny thing. How can pieces of paper and metal stir up so many strong and differing emotions? I get excited about getting a little birthday "mad money", but sometimes I dread paying the bills. Remember how proud you were your first pay day? That money represented hours of hard work. Money can't make you happy all by itself, but it sure can make you miserable if there's a shortage.

I've had this funny misconception about money. I was a teacher, so I had this idea that if something is truly noble that it doesn't require money. That works ok for feeling better about your salary when you're a teacher on a limited outcome, but it's not always true.

I've found that out as a member of the Proverbs 31 team. I watch in awe as God uses the words in the devotions that our team writes sitting at our own little desks in our homes. I listen to the testimonies of lives changed at our speaking events. My heart swells with encouragement when I hear Lysa's and Renee's voices come through my radio with a message from God's heart. I stand amazed at how God confirms callings and builds His Kingdom at She Speaks. These are all noble things--things that God has brought into being--and they all cost money.

Today Lysa wrote an excellent message on our website that tells how your money is spent when it's sent to Proverbs 31, and Wendy wrote a devotion that writes about the power of one. Would you pray and ask God if you are one that He wants to partner with Proverbs 31 in prayer or finances? We would love you to join with us in this exciting journey of spreading the gospel and building the Kingdom!

Florida Love-Fest

Do you have a group of people that you know that allow you to be your true self? They're people who live out their lives in faith, authenticity, and humor. This weekend I got the deep pleasure of being with a group of women like that. The Women of the Word (WOW) group from Park Place Wesleyan in Pinellas Park, FL had their annual retreat, and I got to go along to speak.

This is the second year that I've retreated with this group, and I come away refreshed, encouraged and feeling fully myself. They are the perfect combination of godliness and looniness. All the laughter, affection and yummy snacks do a body good.

They've got me to thinking about lots of things in my own life. How authentically do I really live? How much have I invested in friendships? Am I honest about my own struggles, pain and fear (even to myself and with God)?

WOW Women, you wow me! I love each of you and hope that God's Word from Colossians 3 will bring us all into new places of obedience and greater intimacy with Jesus than ever before.

Fun Firsts

It wasn't too long ago that I was all weepy about my oldest starting high school. I have to admit, though, that it's really turning out to be fun. The night of the first football game was almost a debacle, but it turned out great.

It all started when they had to move the football game up to Thursday night because of Hanna the Hurricane. Anson and Barry raced over to school at 4:00 for the early band warm-up, and Nolan headed to soccer practice with our neighbor. Everything seemed to be going well, but at 8:10 I was pacing and waiting for Nolan to come home. Soccer practice had run late, and it looked like we'd miss the all-important half-time show. I hate to admit it, but I could have cared less about the football part of the outing. I called Barry, and he told me that there was only 8 minutes left in the half. I almost started crying that I was going to miss Anson's first marching performance.

About that time, our neighbors turned the corner. I hurried Nolan into the car, screeched on two wheels out of the neighborhood, and sprinted through the parking lot to the sound of the band warming up. We made it! The performance was terrific, and I screamed and cheered just like all the other freshman moms around me. Here's a picture of Anson (on the right) in his best "I'm in the band, and I'm baaaad" pose.

The Land of Oz

For any of you who have met me, you may be shocked to learn that I was born in Manhattan, Kansas. You won't be surprised that my family moved to NC when I was 3, and I learned to do most of my talkin' here in the south.

Last week, I spent most of the week in my home state visiting my sweet 94-year-old grandmother, an aunt, uncles and cousins. It was a tough week, because we were there primarily to help move my grandmother to an assisted living facility and to visit my uncle who has been diagnosed with cancer. Here's a picture of my brother, Jason, (other known aliases: Wiggy, JDster, J-Do), my grandmother and me. We're sitting on the couch that she bought when she was first married, but we're in her new digs which are lovely.

I've had a hard transition home, and I've cried a lot since I've gotten back to Holly Springs. I want to focus on the positive today, though. The time last week with my grandmother was such a gift. I've always loved her, because she's my grandmother. Last week we truly bonded, and I miss her terribly. I got to watch her as she struggled through this move. It wasn't easy for her. She had moved to a retirement community 14 years ago where she expected to live until the end of her life. This move was for her good but not of her choosing, and it was understandably difficult.

Watching her rise above the helplessness, the sadness and the anger was an amazing thing. Grandma is suffering with dementia, but in a clear moment, she expressed that she knew that she is now in a place where she will be cared for better than before. She settled into a positive outlook, thanking all those in our family who had helped her, and she started making her new place a home. Last night when I called to check on her, she told me how everyone thinks her new home is beautiful, how friendly her new neighbors are and how she enjoyed the church services in the new center.

Just like your family, mine isn't perfect either. This week, though, I was truly proud to be part of such a loving, positive, fun and strong group. During a time that could have been terrible, challenges were met with patience and humor. I saw it in my mom, dad, brother, uncle, aunt and especially my grandmother. Family is a blessing, and today I'm going to focus my thoughts on that.

Overflowing

My heart is overflowing this morning with gratefulness for our Encouragement for Today readers. I'll have some official numbers from Compassion in a few days, but the response to the challenge was tremendous. Many of you initiated new sponsorships, but I got some unexpected responses, too. I had so many comments and emails telling me about the Compassion children that you are already sponsoring. Without fail, we all feel that these children are part of our family. Just like me, you're amazed at how God's blessings flow back to us when we give.

I was also inspired to read your comments and emails about other ways that God has called you to give. Adoption, foster care and elder care are other ways that our readers are stoking hope in the hearts of those in need.

Thank you so much for sharing from the overflow of your hearts. God is so good--all the time!

A Challenge to Share

Imagine that! A picture of me with my mouth wide open! Shift your gaze to that gorgeous face to my right, though. She was one of the beautiful children sitting with me at the table at one of the Compassion projects in Ecuador that I talked about in today's devotion. That trip was a huge marker on a journey that God has been designing for me. I wanted to share a little more about the journey in the blog today.

The BIG THING I want to do today is to share a challenge. Did God tug at your heart about changing the life of a child as you read the devotion today? I urge you to respond. Here's the challenge that God has laid on my heart. As a group of God-loving, Jesus-serving, devotion-reading people, I believe that God wants to make a difference through us today. If you'll look to the right of this post (oops! not my family but the face right above), you'll see a sweet little face of a child who is in need. Please stop and take a minute to pray right now and ask God if He wants you to sponsor this child. The post below will give you some details. I've written and rewritten this post, but God has impressed on my heart that it is He who will do the work today. So I'm giving up on eloquent words or heart-wrenching pleas to move your heart to sponsor a child. Please just pray and be obedient to what God is speaking.

As part of the challenge, I'd ask you to help encourage others. If you decide to sponsor a child today, would you please leave a comment to share what God impressed on your heart? Did you know that He was giving you an opportunity outside of your sphere of personal influence? Did that child across the globe share your child's birthday? Are you waiting for your own child and investing in the life of someone else's? Please, please share.

Compassion can give us numbers of sponsored children in a few days, and I'll post them when I get them. I'm excited already! It's not about numbers, but in this case it represents the number of children with changed lives. In the mean time will you help to spur others on to good works? Comment anonymously if you'd feel more comfortable, but we'll all be encouraged to hear how God is working. As my boys say, "Don't leave me hangin'!" Here are some things God has done in my heart and family through child sponsorship:

Giving. God's been speaking it to me through Dr. Stafford's book Too Small to Ignore that I quoted in today's devotion. He spoke it to me this morning through the podcast that I listened to as I ran. He spoke it to me through Marybeth's devotion yesterday. Giving...

No matter how much or how little we have, God asks us to be givers--of our time, our gifts, our resources, our money. It's a total contradiction in a culture that teaches us to be hyper-consumers. I have to say that God has been pretty "in my face" about my life and my attitude about money in the last few days. I can't say that I'm feeling very comfortable about some of the changes that I'm being called to, but I can say with confidence that I know that God's ways are best.

I'm excited about issuing a challenge to our readers. I want to give you a place to start in being a God-called giver. God has been showing me that life change starts with an action that agrees with the direction God is leading. Just one action. Today I challenge our devotion readers to sponsor a child through Compassion International. God has put a big vision in my heart. Let's see how many children we can save together today!

To the right of this post is a picture of a real child who has real and probably desperate needs. For just $32.00 a month, you can help change not only the life of this child but the lives of everyone in his or her family for generations to come. It's a fairly small donation that will make a huge impact in the life of a family. I love Compassion so much because they have a staff of nationals all over the world that use American dollars to meet the spiritual, educational, nutritional and medical needs of children in a culturally appropriate way through local churches.

You may already be sponsoring a child through Compassion or another organization. That's fantastic! Would you pray and ask God if He'd have you sponsor a second child or send an extra donation to the organization you support? I'm just asking you to ask God. Your obedience to what ever He says is perfect.

My family's budget is fairly tight, but we've adopted a much-loved family tradition that was suggested by a friend. Each month we have a meal of beans and rice that replaces a time that we would have gone out to eat. This meal helps to finance our sponsorship, but it's done so much more. My family is gaining a bigger view of the world. We've been reminded that not everyone gets to eat the way we usually eat, and we are more sensitive to bigger needs than the newest edition of Guitar Hero or those new cute shoes (shocking to me, too!). It's also a time when we write to Manuel, our sponsored child. If you know that your family budget is already stretched thin, would you prayerfully consider this as a way to sponsor a child? Here's a picture of me with Manuel who I got to meet when our team traveled to Ecuador. One of the top ten memorable moments of my life!

If God has been speaking to your heart about giving, here's your chance to take an action in the right direction. I'm so excited about that! Click on that beautiful face on the right, and don't miss coming back here to see what kind of impact that Proverbs 31 devotion readers can make on the world for God's Kingdom!

Hannah

When I was young, I'd dream of what my life would be as a grown up woman. I dreamed of teaching a classroom of children with faces upturned with eagerness to learn as I taught. I dreamed of a handsome, godly man who would fall madly in love with me and would grow old with me. I dreamed of having a rough and tumble little boy and a spirited girl. (I like girly, girls, but I love girls with a little sass and a lot of sparkle in their eyes.)

Years later as I lay on the table during my ultrasound for my second child, I had just a millisecond of sadness when the doctor announced that I was having another boy. I LOVE being the mom of two boys, and God has abundantly blessed me with 6 beautiful nieces that I adore. With two boys, though, I never got to use the name for a girl that I've loved since I was a teen--Hannah. I came to love that name as I read I Samuel in the Bible for the first time. Hannah has been one of my favorite women in the Bible ever since, and she was part of my reading this morning. I wanted to share a few thoughts about this committed woman.

In I Samuel 1, the story starts with the lineage of Elkanah, Hannah's husband. We find out that Elkanah, the sly devil, had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah was the fertile one. We don't know how many children Peninnah had, but in vs 4 it refers to "all her sons and daughters". It sounds like sister Peninnah certainly had a quiver-full. Hannah, on the other hand, had no children.

Even though Barry and I have 2 children, it was difficult to get pregnant both times. There was a wait and waiting was hard. I have just a glimpse into the pain of infertility. I have friends who have had larger struggles with infertility. Some ended with adoptions and some with bio-babies, but all women who have waited for a baby can feel the ache of Hannah's empty arms.

After enduring a wait of many years and the torment of Penninah, Hannah's heart could contain no more. Vs 10 says, "In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord." Eli, the priest, saw her praying silently and chastised her for being drunk. Hannah responded in vs 15-16, "Not so, my lord...I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief."

In these verses, I found a woman who was able to pour it all out to the Lord. Somewhere along the line, I picked up the notion that I wasn't supposed to do that. I began to think that it was only spiritual to pray for others and that "stuffing" was the appropriate response to the aches in my own heart. God showed me through Hannah that I need to pour it all out to Him. It still doesn't always come easy to me. I'm a glass-half-full girl, and I don't always deal well with negative thoughts and emotions. I tend to use the Scarlett O'Hara method of "I'll think about that tomorrow" or the opposite extreme of being consumed and overwhelmed.

Hannah shows a better way. Is your heart full of bitterness today? Pour it out to Jesus. Is it locked in unforgiveness? Pour it out to Jesus. Are you grieving over a loss? Pour it out to Jesus. Are you angry at God for unanswered prayer? Pour it out and tell Him. Are you consumed with worry over a situation? Pour it out and give it to Him. Are you like Hannah and suffering with the pain of infertility? Pour it out to Jesus.

I've been pouring out the last couple of weeks about friendships, finances and grief for my uncle's illness. Each time I come away with knowing that God is the keeper of my heart and the lover of my soul. He is faithful to pour out compassion and grace into my heart after its been emptied of all the bitterness, grief and worry. Empty your heart before Him today like Hannah and ask Him to fill it with the comfort and peace that only He can offer.