Praying for Ourselves & Our Kids

Hey y’all,

I found this great resource on Pinterest that has a list of 31 Biblical Virtues to pray for your children. We’ve been using it for a few weeks and LOVE it! These are also things that you can pray for yourself. One big plus is that it already looks cute. You can just print it out or save it on your computer. It’s not another “Pinterest Project” to add to your list (my list is already way too long).

http://keepingitpersonal.com/2012/02/pray-for-kids/

Scroll down to orange letters at the bottom. Click and Print, it’s that easy I promise!

More coming on the blog soon! Keep coming back for more info about Summer Projects and Fort Collins.

Here’s a sample. The link has a better format for printing.

broken #hope

By Mary Wallace Wilson

I still anticipate seeing how God will work in our midst even after going to 29 years of Cru conferences! When I recently registered for Encounter, I saw that the theme this year is “broken #hope.” It seems the idea of “brokenness” has been in my path lately . . .

I have used Crawford Loritts book, Leadership As An Identity for our Women’s Council devotions. Crawford says that distinctively Christian leaders live from and lead with brokenness (among other characteristics). There was a time in my life when I couldn’t sing the stanza “Brokenness, brokenness is what I long for. Brokenness is what I need.” I felt like I was experiencing so much brokenness that I couldn’t take any more. And I surely wasn’t going to tell God that I longed for it OR that I needed it!

Check out what Crawford says:

Brokenness is a conscious, core awareness that you need God in all things. A broken person has come to realize that he is nothing and can do nothing apart from God’s presence and enabling power. (John 15:5) . . . For a Christian leader, brokenness is a dear friend, and pride is the enemy. When you are broken, you realize you cannot do it in your own power – you cannot earn salvation on your own, you cannot walk with God on your own, and you cannot fulfill God’s assignments on your own. P. 36

Brokenness is not a onetime event. It is never finished; it’s an ongoing process. P. 36

Sounds exciting, huh??!!! What about considering brokenness as a dear friend? I can’t say that I’m at the place where I consider brokenness as my dear friend, but I CAN say that I understand the benefit of brokenness in my life. That is to break my pride. Ouch. Brokenness does that to me every time. It reminds me that my greatest need in life is God. I can accomplish a lot in my own strength, but if the Holy Spirit isn’t empowering me, then my deeds are worthless.

Humility is where God wants me all the time and brokenness is a vessel that gets me to that place. Thankfully I can find my hope in God; He is always there for me! Let’s pray that God will speak to us at Encounter as clearly as He speaks to the students we recruit to come.

· How do you view brokenness? Is brokenness your dear friend?

· Think of a time when you have experienced brokenness. What did it feel like? How did you respond to those feelings?

· How did you experience God at that time?

How can you apply John 15:5 in your life?

“Whoever abides in me and I in him, it is he that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Black Mountain or Bust!

Today is different than any other day.  I’m sitting in the middle of a toy strewn living room (okay, that part is not different), and I’m making a list. Insert gasp if you know me at all.  I’m not a list maker by nature.  Ordinarily I like to busily run through my day welcoming interruptions and changes in our “plan”.  What has pushed my pendulum to the planning side you ask?  Three words: Fall Staff Conference. 

My mind is buzzing with phrases like: bring hair brush and also find hair brush; pack cooler for Celia; get cheese sticks; bring Keurig (mercy me do NOT forget the coffee); check pinterest for current hair trends and teach self to braid (seriously getting off track here) .  I’m making mental notes and biting my fingernails (cursed habit I have when I’m the least bit stressed).  And on this Monday morning my plan is interrupted by my beautiful Celia as she dumps her full sippy cup of milk onto her freshly styled outfit and her freshly cut strawberries. And as I hear milk gushing onto the floor I have one glorious revelation:  I don’t have it all together!!  I wipe up the milk and in that moment God puts me on my knees (literally).

I can overdose on the list making and bring enough extra socks to completely clothe every baby in Black Mountain in case of an emergency, but the blessed truth is still there.  What I need as I prepare for the weekend is to have my soul filled to the brim by Jesus himself.  That’s the point of the conference. 

We’re all coming from different places, some high/happy and others low/lonely.  There are areas in all of our hearts where we tend to make lists to cover what we lack and where we put on kind smiles to cover a frenzied daze.  We need rest from daily pressures we face. We need fellowship with others, and we need to meet together to worship God. I pray we find that this weekend in Black Mountain. I pray we would take a deep breath and gaze into the truth. Colossians 1:20-23 “He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.”

I want to continue to believe the truth and stand firmly in it.   I’m starting my fall staff conference list over right now and here it goes: Thank God I don’t have it all together, relish God’s word, be real when you talk to friends during the weekend, make new friends and be real with them too, make the stupid chex mix already and quit talking about it, pack humidifier (trust me on this one), paint fingernails, quit biting fingernails, get at least one latte from The Dripolator in Black Mountain, abandon the hair braiding endeavor for now, take a deep breath, welcome interruptions and let the pendulum fall where it may.

See you there!

Love,

Jenna Sherard

Not Exactly a Fairy Tale

Guest Post by April Knapp

I've been convicted of two things lately: one, that I run from difficulty and two, I am incredibly selfish.

If you think about  it, it really all comes down to that I am incredibly selfish. I run from difficulty because I want to be comfortable. I want to be comfortable because I am selfish.

Amusingly, I thought I was a pretty selfless person...that is, until I got married. Just a little over a year ago-oh how blind I was! But, God is using marriage to break me of my selfishness and make me more like Christ. It is painful, but also worth it!

Looking back on my singleness, I realize much of my desire to be married was selfish. Sure, I knew in my head that marriage isn't a cake walk, that I was called to serve my spouse, that it wouldn't cure my loneliness, etc. But in my heart I still believed that marriage would be great because it would cure my loneliness-at least mostly and I would always have a BFF and someone to talk to and hang out with and cuddle whom would protect me. Basically, I wanted to be coddled.

Don't get me wrong. Marriage is great and Jeff is my best friend and we enjoy many moments of cuddling, laughing, hanging out. But, marriage is great for different reasons than I thought- it's great because it is making me more like Christ. And though that is great, it is also painful. So, marriage isn't for the faint-hearted or for those who want to be coddled.

God is SO GOOD. Had I known this fully about marriage and had I known the depths of my selfishness, I probably would've ran the other way. I would have thought I wasn't ready. But, obviously, God thought I was ready because He made it very clear to me that I was supposed to marry Jeff. SO He is gracious to have kept me subconsciously and blissfully ignorant!

And He answered my prayer-not just my prayer to be married, but a different prayer. When I was about 23 years old, I heard a speaker talk about singleness. She challenged us to pray this prayer: "Lord, do not take the gift of singleness away from me until You have done all You can in and through me with my singleness."

It terrified me. But,what if God NEVER is done using my singleness? I had to come to terms with the truth that that would've been OK. I could be happy and content with singleness for the rest of my life. And no, that is not when God brought Jeff to me. (I HATE it when people say stuff like, "When I learned to be content, that is when I met my husband!" bleh.)

There was no "arriving" at any level. Every day I prayed that prayer. Some days, I truly meant it and some days God had to work in the depths of my heart to lay my desires to be married on the altar. I had seasons when I was content and joyful and LOVED being single- and seasons when I really struggled and just wanted to be married badly.

And then God brought Jeff to me-in the midst of the seasons. Even that took a while-a building of a friendship and some silly conflict-for both of us to love each other and see God's will for us to be married.

Now I see how God really did answer my "Singleness Prayer." He was done using singleness in my life to make me more like Christ. It was time to use marriage.

It's not exactly a fairy tale, but it's my story that God is writing. I love it because I love the Author and because He is so good and perfect and knows exactly was is right for me. I am thankful for my time being single and I am thankful to be married to a man who loves God and is stumbling after Him with me though both of us are far from perfect.

And I am thankful that I can be thankful and that my heart is in a place of gratefulness today. Now onto that selfishness...

Read more on April’s Blog here: www.reflectionsofasojourner.blogspot.com