Hey there Bible Challenge readers! We have arrived at Friday once again. It’s our weekly check-in day and I would love to read your comments of encouragement to one another!

Today I wanted to give you 7 Ways to Pray for Your Husband for 7 Days to follow up with some of the most popular posts on the blog, listed at the bottom of this post. There are certain times of day in our family’s schedule that praying for my husband is more natural than others. I often pray for my hubby first thing in the morning before our feet even hit the floor or last thing at night.

I also recommend Stormie Omartian’s book, The Power of a Praying Wife. That book changed my prayer life years ago.

With that said, here we go with 7 Ways to Pray for Your Husband for 7 Days: IMPLORE to God on your husband’s behalf.  Implore means to make urgent supplication. By praying for your husband for 7 days, you are deciding that you will make your husband a priority in  your prayer life.

Day 1: I- Invite the Lord to reveal to you the specific areas of marriage for which you need to pray. Praying for your husband can seem daunting at times simply because you aren’t sure where to start. You want God to bless and move, but you’re not sure what to ask for. Simply asking God to help you think through the areas in which you need to be praying for your husband is the first step. If you are completing this exercise as a challenge, then my encouragement is for day 1, write the prayer needs down.

Day 2: M- Manage your heart towards your husband and the Lord. Confess sin and ask for forgiveness. It’s impossible to be angry or upset with someone for whom you are praying. Your prayers are effective when you do your part of confession. (James 5:16)

Day 3: P- Persist in taking your husband before God. There have been times in my marriage when I determined to pray more for my husband and I failed. Do I love my husband? Beyond words. Do I want God to work in our lives? Yes. Do I want my husband to feel the benefits of my prayers on his behalf? Absolutely. Then persisting in my prayer life is necessary. Today we commit to not just 7 days, but a lifetime of praying for our husbands.

Day 4: L- Listen to your husband’s needs. Goodness, ya’ll, I’m half hoping my hubby doesn’t read this one. How can I pray for my hubby if I’m not listening to him and in tune with his needs and heart’s desires? I fail in this area so often, but I know how important this is. Let’s work on this one together.

Day 5: O- Offer to take his prayer requests. I like to think I know what my husband would ask me to pray for. But there could be something on his heart of which I’m not aware. Add today’s information to your list from Day 1.

Day 6:R- Remember the blessings of your marriage. Thank God for your husband and all of his characteristics and qualities you love. Look back over your marriage and praise God for the hills you’ve climbed and valleys you’ve crossed.

Day 7: E- Expect God to work abundantly in your marriage. He will answer your prayers for your husband and loves to answer our prayers. Tell God you can’t wait to see the work He performs in your lives as a result of being committed to praying for your husband.

HUGE NEWS TODAY!

My Facebook fans requested an ebook sale and well, what they request, they receive. So my ebook, The Sensational Scent of Prayer is on sale for only $.99 through the end of day Monday, 5/27!! Please be sure to share the news for me, will you?

CLICK HERE or on the graphic to purchase The Sensational Scent of Prayer ebook for only $.99.

And here are the links to the posts mentioned above:

7 Ways to Praise Your Husband for 7 Days

7 Ways to Praise Your Children for 7 Days

7 Ways to Pray for Your Children for 7 Days

Have a wonderful weekend with your family!

The post 7 Ways to Pray for Your Husband for 7 Days appeared first on .

Hey there! What is summer for around your house?

Yesterday I gave you The Summer Creed for Parenting and outlined what I really want to remember this summer. I hope you took the challenge and came up with your own!

And while summer is about laziness, the pool, marshmallows and all that awesomeness, for our family, it is also about reading. Which, in a way, makes it no different than any other season.

Last Friday I introduced you to the Children’s Bible Reading Plan for the gospel of John.  I love to read any time of the year, but I am really looking forward to summer reading by the pool.

And after thinking about summer just a bit more, I remembered that we have the summer reading program at our local branch of the metropolitan library (sidebar: voted #1 library in the nation for several years!) and I’ve been working on a few reading lists.

So with all the reading we have going on, I created a free printable of summer reading bookmarks to help us keep track of where we are.

I thought you might enjoy them also.

They look like this: (miniversion)

So click on the graphic above to open a pdf with six bookmarks to print on 1 8×11 sheet. Or click HERE.

Then get to reading!

Enjoy and have a great Thursday!

The post Summer Reading Bookmarks appeared first on .

Hey there! I’m so glad you are linking up to Whimsical Wednesdays- our linkup day moved from Mondays to Wednesdays as of last week and I’m excited for my blogging friends to join in today.

I’m still in a summer preparation mode and I don’t know about you, but while I love summer tremendously, I do have to change my mode of thinking a bit. I need to relax, take a deep breath, and realize that the somewhat organized, halfway orderly house I enjoy keeping will be in disarray much of the time, due to the number of bodies living there.

So I decided to make a Summer Creed for Parents; well, for me. Shhh, don’t tell my kids. They might hold me to it and then you never know what could happen. But, seriously, I want to be focused on what is truly important.

A creed is more about stating what you already believe than it is about what you want to become. Therefore, I present to you the Summer Creed for Parents:

I believe that summers are designed for fun in the sun.
That spotless floors are only a temporary blessing.
That full refrigerators should be emptied well.

I believe that those well loved will laugh contagiously.
That happy loud voices are ok in open spaces…
and small spaces on occasion.

I believe that swimming is meant to be often.
That popsicles are best when dripped lavishly.
That cotton candy at the ball park is the reason we go.

I believe that the best conversations with my children
Often occur around bonfires
And roasted marshmallows taste best when you have to blow them out first.

(Not really, but someone has to eat the burnt ones.)

I believe that there are times when dirt must be ignored
Because the opportunity of making memories often includes
making messes.

I believe that while summers should contain a certain amount of laziness
Our devotion to God and His Word should not.
And thankfully, God never takes vacations.

Maybe you don’t agree with my creed point by point. Can I simply encourage you to make your own, thereby setting your sight on what truly matters this summer? You’ll be so glad you did.

What would your summer parenting creed include? Do share!

Bloggers: Love to have you link up!

The post Summer Creed for Parents appeared first on .

Each year for almost all of mine and my awesome husband’s 13 year marriage, we have made it a point to have an annual getaway without the children. One year I was 38 weeks pregnant on our anniversary, so we didn’t schedule it that particular year, but we typically schedule the getaway on and around our anniversary. And one year I had a three week old sweetie baby and we packed her along for the ride. So there have been a few exceptions, but this has been no easy task.

I can’t express to you how important this is for marriage. I know some of you are thinking, “We can’t afford to do that.” Actually, neither can we.  But we make it a priority because we believe it is well worth the investment. And some of you might be thinking: “We don’t have child care for that- none of our parents are available to watch our children.” And we don’t have parents who watch our crew either.

So how do we do it?  I thought it might be worthwhile to some of you if I passed along our tips on scheduling married getaways.  Here we go:

1. Plan your trip to take place during value season if you are going to a hotspot vacation area. This significantly reduces the cost of a cabin or hotel room.

2. Take advantage of anniversary specials.  One of the hotels we enjoy has a Buy 1 Get the 2nd night free anniversary deal that suits our situation perfectly.

3. Set aside or pay for your larger expenses of the trip as early as you can. We typically use our tax refund to pay for our lodging since that is our biggest expense.

4. Shop for your food and eat in. We typically eat only one meal out per day while we are on a married getaway. This saves a TON of money and works well for us.

5. Have a firm and comfortable child care schedule in place. We have a team of people, relatives, friends, and caregivers, who take shifts when we need extended child care, which is usually only once a year. The schedule is calculated weeks in advance of the getaway.

6.  Be confident that this time is an investment in your marriage. Enjoy one another and agree to the amount of time you work or use your phones.

7. Conversation is incredibly critical to being friends in marriage. One of my favorite parts of our married getaways is talking and listening to my husband. We travel for a total of 12 hours for our typical trip. This provides an awesome opportunity to chat about life without interruption.

8. Use whatever time you can. If you can’t take time off work, make it a weekend. If you can’t afford several nights, schedule just one and make it worthwhile.

9. Try something new on your adventure! Whether it’s a restaurant or dessert or candy. This year, we looked at cowboy boots. Honestly, we didn’t buy any because we couldn’t, but we sure had fun admiring the boots.

10. And you knew this was coming… renew your intimacy in your marriage. Buy new lingerie, light the fire, be romantic! This is important in everyday married life, but especially key for a getaway.

What are your best tips for having married getaways? I’d love it if you would share them with us!

The post 10 Tips For Having Married Getaways appeared first on .

With summer quickly approaching and a schedule change in close proximity for many of us,  today I was thinking about how often I hear people say: “Wow, you must be busy.” Or “I am just too busy.” Or “We are just too busy for that.”

And I really don’t want to use the excuse of being “too busy” as a Christian, a wife, or a mom.

Today I was thinking about ways to know if you are too busy and I though I would share this list with you. Just in case some of you wonder whether or not you’re too busy. Now keep in mind that these points will happen to all of us occasionally. But if you find yourself in repetition mode on any one item, then you’re probably too busy.

1. If you find yourself skipping your quiet time with God, with the promise that you will catch up later, but never doing it, then you are too busy.

2. If you skip meals a few times a week or the same meal every day, then you’re too busy.

3. If you are continually saying to someone, “I’m sorry, could you wait just a minute?”, then you’re probably too busy.

4. If you get impatient when waiting at a drive-thru window for more than 4 minutes, then you just might be too busy.

5. If you are losing touch with the ones you love the most, you are definitely too busy.

6. If you feel stressed for no direct reason, then you could be too busy.

7. If those you love have stopped asking for your time, then you’re definitely too busy.

8. If you can’t remember the last time you were ahead of schedule, you are too busy.

9. If you continually feel tired even after sleeping all night, you might be too busy.

10. If you never take a time of rest during an entire week during the day, then you are probably too busy.

11. If you always do something else at the same time as eating meals, other than  conversation or relationship-building, then you are too busy.

12. If you find yourself forgetting routine steps of daily living, you may be too busy.

13. If you continually feel worried about how you are spending your time, you might simply be too busy.

14. If your schedule continually provides a feeling of being overwhelmed, you are probably too busy.

15. If you forget to pray before meals, you might be too busy.

16. If you can’t remember the last time you took time off, you are probably too busy.

17. If you don’t know when you last studied your Bible, you are definitely too busy.

18. If you have missed several weeks of church in a row, you could be too busy.

19. If simple activities feel ginormous, then possibly you’re too busy.

20. If you said yes to several of the above statements, you’re too busy.

So if you know you are too busy, then what do you do about it?

You learn to say “No.” Honestly, when I’ve evaluated the times that I knew I was too busy, it was because I overcommitted and overscheduled. I just needed to learn to say “No.”

How do you feel about being “too busy?” I would appreciate your sharing so much!

The post 20 Ways to Know If You are Too Busy appeared first on .

The post Bible Reading Challenge Day 139 appeared first on .

The post Bible Reading Challenge Day 138 appeared first on .

The Bible Reading Challenge for this year is moving along just great! I’m so thankful for each of you who have continued to keep reading and encouraging one another to keep going each week.

Today I’ve been preparing for summer break with calendaring, activities, and daily schedule (or lack thereof). And I’m so excited to bring to you this summer Bible Reading plan for children! This plan covers the book of John and is designed for 3rd through 6th graders. If your child is younger than 3rd grade, you could still do the plan by reading aloud to your child/children.

I chose the book of John for our summer reading, which has 21 chapters. I divided each chapter in half to keep the segments a little smaller.  The approximate reading time for each half chapter is 15-20 minutes, depending on the speed of your reader.

John is the gospel that is written simply, yet descriptively. Whenever I receive an email asking where to start reading the Bible, I typically recommend the “small” books of John, I, II, and III, and then immediately after reading those, I recommend the gospel of John.

Divided in this manner, the Bible reading plan can be completed in 6 weeks- making it perfect for a summer reading program!

I hope you enjoy and I’d love your feedback on this one-of-a-kind children’s Bible reading plan! Just click on the graphic or here to download.

And now for our Bible Challenge Readers, it’s check-in day! Be sure to leave a comment to let us know how you are doing with the reading and if there is any way we can encourage you.

Have a fabulous weekend!

The post Bible Reading Plan for Children – Great for Summer! appeared first on .

I am so excited to present to you the “Thank You God for Puppies Book Review & Giveaway.” When I was growing up, we had various cats and dogs as outdoor pets. My sister was a cat lover- me, not so much. I do enjoy dogs; my favorite growing up was a fluffy collie we named “Laddy.” I’m sure you have guessed he was the male version of Lassie. And he was.

Our family doesn’t own pets currently. To be perfectly honest, I just don’t want to clean up after them. I enjoy caring for them from a feeding standpoint…but I just don’t like picking up their poop (Hey, this is a REAL blog. ) Mostly I don’t think our family is ready for the commitment. As you can see by the photo to the right, it’s a happening place. So for now, no pets.

However, my children LOVE animals. They love going to the zoo and they enjoy looking at all kinds of animals. When the books arrived from Tommy Nelson, my two youngest girlies lit up in delight over “Thank You, God, for Puppies” AND “Thank You, God for Kittens.” Designed for ages 1-5, these two books will cultivate a heart of thankfulness for God’s creation in little ones.

Take a look at the puppy version:

Ok, we couldn’t leave the kitties out:

Through these two sweet books, children can learn to be thankful- whether for pets or anything else God provides in their lives.

I’m so excited to be giving away one of each of these books!

Just follow the Rafflecopter. Oh, but I know- you can’t wait to see if you win! lol
You can order “Thank You, God, for Kittens” HERE or “Thank You, God, for Puppies” HERE.

You won’t want to miss the awesomeness of tomorrow-see you then!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: Books provided by publisher. All opinions are my own. Post contains affiliate links.

The post Thank You God for Puppies (and Kittens) Book Review & Giveaway appeared first on .

International MPS Awareness Day is a special day close to the heart of the Wojo tribe. There are some days in life you never forget and one of them for me was the first night I read the word mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS). A pit formed in my stomach and tears flowed down my face as I recognized and matched all Taylor’s symptoms together in one explanation after searching for several years and visiting over 25 doctors.

MPS is a genetic lysosomal storage disease caused by the body’s inability to produce specific enzymes. In normal functioning, the body uses enzymes to break down and recycle materials in cells. In individuals with MPS, like my Taylor girl, the missing or insufficient enzyme prevents the proper recycling process, resulting in the storage of materials in virtually every cell of the body.

Currently there are treatments available for various types of MPS, but as of yet, there is no cure. For Taylor’s particular subtype, there is currently no cure or treatment.

In plain language, Taylor’s nerve connections have slowly been destroyed over time. For the first three years of her life, she functioned well, only slightly delayed. But while she was once a bubbly happy singing talkative child, now she requires assistance for all of her basic daily needs. She can walk with guidance. There is much to be thankful for.

God has graciously blessed me with Taylor. Her life shines as someone who never gives up, but keeps going on, day after day. She has taught me so much about joy and persistence.

Early diagnosis is key for many types of MPS, as certain types can be treated, and the earlier the better.

For more detailed information, please visit the National MPS Society.

And today, would you mind sharing this?  Another child’s functioning could be preserved for many years simply through your click, tweet, pin or share.

The post International MPS Awareness Day May 15 appeared first on .