30250 Fans   2000 Followers  
March 21, 2013

Preparing our kids’ hearts {and our own!} for Easter…

children-are-the-church

I was touched by this picture that Angela posted of her sweet girls this week.  And I was reminded that instead of waiting for tomorrow to tell my kids more about Jesus, I need to tell them more about Him today.

Anybody else still thinking about this?

It’s 20-something degrees here in Indiana today (on the second day of Spring, mind you), and I just got word that we may be getting another significant wave of snow over the weekend.  Aahhhhh!  With crazy weather like this, it’s a little hard to believe that Easter is just a little over a week away!  How did it sneak up on me so quickly?!

Spring is a busy time of year for our family.  Basketball and karate are in full swing for the boys, and when the snow melts, baseball season will be right around the corner.  School projects cover our kitchen table (waiting for us to find our motivation, which has been snatched up by our latest case of Spring Fever!), and I haven’t seen the bottom of my laundry pile all Winter long (please, oh please tell me I’m not the only one!).  While there is much joy that comes with the choices and responsibilities in this busy season of motherhood, there’s also one opportunity I don’t want to miss this week….

… choosing to intentionally point my children to Jesus this Easter.

If I’m not careful, in the midst of doing life, Easter Sunday will arrive, and we will have missed out in the honor of preparing our hearts to celebrate our risen Savior in the way that only He deserves.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to let that happen.

So here’s the challenge: to pick at least ONE intentional Easter activity that points to Jesus in the coming week.  It doesn’t have to be fancy, or centered around an expensive item purchased in a store.  But one thing’s for sure… life doesn’t slow down, and there’s no use in waiting for a more convenient day to arrive.  You and I both know that’s not going to happen any time soon.

We’re just going to have to do it.

There are so many kid-friendly activities out there, but something that is a favorite staple in our family are these Resurrection Eggs from Family Life (available for purchase in many local Christian bookstores).

 

untitled

{photo credit}

Resurrection Eggs have been an amazing tool in our home for quite a few years now. We’ve come to love the simple symbols found in each egg that are used to describe so vividly what Jesus did for us. They are a tradition that my kids get so excited about! For the twelve days leading up to Easter Sunday (you can always double up if you’re just getting started!), our Resurrection Eggs powerfully walk us through the humble story of how the Greatest Rescue ever came to be. I get chills just thinking about it.

 

Electronics are going to have to take a back seat these next few days.  We’re going to need to rearrange our schedule a bit too. But it’ll be worth it. Because the opportunity is now, and I don’t want to miss it.

 

2f31f66bef061cf5a277640171a6f83e{photo credit}

Oh, I’m so ready for this Winter season to be replaced with the crisp, fresh feeling of new life –  a warming not only in the forecast, but also in the spirit of our home.  But you’d better believe that no amount of flip flop weather or pastel decorations even comes close to comparing with the satisfaction of the warming that the Spirit brings, when we invite Jesus to invade our homes – and our hearts – in an intentional way this Easter.

Looking for new life this time of year?  Look to Jesus, friend.

 

What are you doing with your children to point their focus towards Jesus this Easter?  We’d love to hear your ideas!!

 

At His feet,

 

 

**Check out these links for more kid-friendly Easter activity and craft ideas!

Thriving Family (a Focus on the Family website):

http://www.thrivingfamily.com/Features/Magazine/2011/easter-activities-and-crafts.aspx

Courtney shares her ideas today at Women Living Well:

http://womenlivingwell.org/2013/03/3-meaningful-easter-activities-for-kids/

 

 

 

Filed Under: Being Intentional, Holidays, Intentional Parenting, Kids 5 Comments
January 2, 2013

A video to encourage you & a giveaway to enter!

 

Please take a few minutes to watch this powerful video from my dear friend, Sally Clarkson…..she made it with you in mind!

(Can’t see the video? Click here.)

I’m sharing this powerful video with you today because I believe those of us who are in the trenches of raising children need encouragement. We need women to speak words of life into us.

We need to hear we are wonderful mothers….even on the days when we know we’ve made mistakes. We need to hear that what we do inside are homes matters …..especially to God. He sees our long hours. He sees how we kiss booboos, generously give hugs and work on kindness, manners and self-discipline with our children.

He sees our hard work……and He smiles upon us.

Being a mom is not easy, it’s hard work, but every now and then I’ll walk into a room and see a card, a drawing, or something like this…..

And God gently reminds me that what I am doing inside my home matters.

What you, my sweet friend, do inside your home matters too!

You are amazing! God has blessed you with gifts, talents and a purpose that only you can fulfill! Remember that today!

God is with you, God is for you…..:)

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

With that in mind, I’d like to announce a special giveaway today!

My sweet friend, Ruth from The Better Mom and The Dig For Kids, has given me 2 pdf copies and 2 paperback copies of The Dig for Kids to give to my GMG readers!

To enter to win 1 of 4 copies I’m giving away – leave a comment in the comment section. 

For bonus entries share this giveaway on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest and then leave an extra comment letting me know where you shared it! 

This giveaway ends Thursday, January 10th at 11pm!

 

 

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Information about The Dig for Kids

The Dig,is a fun and easy way for YOU to get into the book of Luke 1-8 with your kids this session!!!

The Dig is offering a SPECIAL price to all the women participating in our Good Morning Girls winter Bible study!!!! Now you and your children can learn about the same chapters of the Bible together!

A typical Dig lesson consists of the following four components:

1.  The Map: The Map tells you and your child where you’ll be going in each lesson.  It is a short summary of the study ahead.

2.  The Dig: The Dig is the main passage you will be studying.  Following each passage will be several questions designed to help conversation and understanding.  They are meant to be a guide.  You can use them or tweak them to help you talk with your children.

3.  The Treasure: The Treasure is the big idea of each lesson.  In a short statement, it is what you want your child to remember from the passage you studied.

4. The Display: When an archaeologist finds a treasure, they will clean it up and put it on display for everyone to see.  This is the basic idea of the Display.  It is the application of the Treasure you have found!

You can purchase The Dig for a special price offered by Good Morning Girls and The Dig for Kids!!

Available on Kindle, Nook, or as a PDF for only $2.99 (regularly $4.99)!!!

and now for the FIRST time available as a paperback for only $7.99 (regularly $12.99)

 

 So join us this winter as we dig into Luke chapters 1-8 with our friends and our children!!!

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

For those interested in joining our {Free} online Bible study here are a few links you might find helpful!

1. Click here to enroll

2. Click here to subscribe

3. Click here and here to find out more information about Good Morning Girls.

 

Love God Greatly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Being Intentional, Giveaways, Luke, Passing On Our Faith Tagged With: , , , , 274 Comments
December 12, 2012

Jesus Birthday Party

 

For the past few Christmases, my Good Morning Girls group and I have gotten our kids together to have a “Happy Birthday Jesus” party. In the past I would decorate my house preparing for the upcoming celebration with red and green candy jars, streamers and a “Happy Birthday Jesus” sign strung across the fireplace. I would have Christmas treats for the moms and kids, a craft to do pertaining to Jesus’s birth, Christmas music playing and a special story read to the kids explaining why we celebrate Christmas. Previous years I had our kids each bring a gently used toy or a new toy with them to the party to donate to a local charity. This year since our kids are starting to get a little older, my friend and I decided to do it a little differently. Instead of having our kids bring a toy to the party, we wanted to use this opportunity to teach our kids the importance of meeting the needs of others.

We decided to combine the “Happy Birthday Jesus” party activity that I talk about on page 40 in the Advent ebook with the GMG Christmas Challenge……teaching our children that THEY can make a difference in our world by meeting the needs of others.

Heroes are not determined by their age or their size but by what they allow God to do through them.

We want our children to learn early in life that God can use them powerfully for His Kingdom……NOW.

This year my sweet friend, Kristi, hosted the party and did a FABULOUS job! THANK YOU SOOO MUCH Kristi!!! She invited a mutual friend’s son to come to our party and tell our children about The Last Well. We each had talked with our kids about The Last Well but we thought it would be more powerful hearing about it from someone their own age.

Today, I’ve decided to bring our party to YOU. Please note the video footage is well……the best I could do. You’ll hear my sweet little Brinnley occasionally in the background as she crawled around me, pulling on my leg and enjoying the festivities of the backyard….. hey, I’m a mom just like you!

A mom who is trying my best to encourage my girls to see the needs of others outside our little community.

A mom who safely wants to broaden their view of the world and help them learn how to be Jesus’s hands and feet to those who are hurting whether they are near or far.

A mom who is trying to teach her kids the importance of what it means to “be a neighbor.”

A mom who wants her children to learn to look at others with love…..just like Jesus.

I want my children to love others well. I believe that starts when we teach them to see the needs of others.

I love this quote by Katie Davis from the book Kisses from Katie (if you’ve never read the book I highly recommend it!)

“…I have one purpose, in Uganda and in life, and that is to love.
I could ask for no greater assignment.”- Katie Davis

 

Welcome to our Jesus Birthday Party

{Click here if you can’t see the video}

After a little time of playing together, we gathered our kids and had the wonderful opportunity to listen to Hayes, who’s heart and passion for The Last Well is so inspiring.

After Hayes’s informational and passionate speech we had a sweet devotional reading out of the Jesus Storybook (which I LOVE!!)

Then it was everyone’s favorite time……singing Happy Birthday to Jesus and eating some cake!

 

I’d like to take this time to thank my sweet friend Kristi for hosting the party and taking these beautiful pictures!!! You are a blessing to me! I’d also like to thank Hayes and his parents for allowing him to speak to our kids about The Last Well! We LOVED hearing you speak, Hayes……you did a WONDERFUL job! :)

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Click here to learn more about our Christmas Challenge with The Last Well.

How much does one well cost?

  • ONE dollar gives ONE Liberian clean water for ONE year.  How many people can you help?
  • Purchase a water well for a community in Liberia for $3000.  The average well serves 1000 people!
  • Purchase a bio-sand water filter for one family in rural Liberia for $102.  You can give an entire family clean water!

How Can You Get Involved?

  • Add The Last Well to your Christmas list.
  • Talk with your family about The Last Well and give a family gift.
  • Give up a Christmas gift(s) and instead donate the money to The Last Well.
  • Invite your children to give up a Christmas gift(s) and donate the money to The Last Well.
  • Have a “Happy Birthday Jesus” party with your friends and their kids. (I talk about this idea in our Advent eBook on page 40) Instead of having children bring gifts to donate, have them donate the money online and learn more about the need for clean water in Liberia, building awareness of how other children live around the world.
  • Tell friends about THE LAST Well by sharing this graphic on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, informing more people of this wonderful organization and the great need of physical water and the “Living Water” in Liberia!
  • PRAY! Pray God will use us mightily in this nation for HIS GLORY!

Please join us as we strive to make a difference in our generation for Christ by serving one of the poorest countries in the world. Imagine what 17,000 Good Morning Girls could do by giving just $10 each. We could provide clean water and the Gospel to thousands of Liberians, saving lives now and changing eternal destinies as well.

Please join us this Christmas and help change a nation in the name of Jesus, one water well at a time!

 

Click here to donate.

 

 

Love God Greatly!

-Angela

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Women around the world are IN THE WORD!

Every Wednesday we will have a link-up. If you are a blogger we invite you to link-up any blog posts that you have written about your quiet time that week. We ask that you put our button in the post or on your sidebar so we can find each other. We do not have code for this link up button. Just right click and save as. Then link it to http://www.goodmorninggirls.org

 

 

 

 



Filed Under: Advent, Being Intentional, Passing On Our Faith, Videos, Women In The Word Wednesdays Tagged With: , , , , , , 9 Comments
September 4, 2012

Getting real… in and out of church.

 {One of the sweetest ever Good Morning Girls groups from my church!}

Against my better judgement, I sometimes run errands after working out.  It’s all about incorporating some efficiency into my day, but I have to admit, it’s not my favorite thing ever to go into a store looking (and smelling) like a worked-over, sweaty mess.  And you and I both know that more times than not, it’s on these days – and definitely on no-make-up-days – that I inevitably run into a high school classmate that I haven’t seen in years, or my hairdresser who suddenly finds out I’m failing her miserably (isn’t that sooo true?!), or worse yet… someone from church.  Heh.  Please tell me I’m not the only lucky one.

If it were my neighbor turning the corner of the Target aisle, it might feel slightly more comfortable.  She’s at least seen me a time or two (or fifty!) in my pajama pants, retrieving the mail (or, say, a wandering toddler… ha).  Friends who take out their trash and pull weeds alongside each other have some kind of a mutual understanding that life sometimes gets messy.  But church people… woah.  For the most part, they’re pretty used to seeing me fairly put together.  Well, except for those Sunday mornings when getting four children out the door and to church on time really does cause me to break into a full-blown sweat…

Image.

I have a rocky relationship with that word.  As a Christ-follower, I want to be an encourager and an example-setter.  But too often I’m just a hot, sweaty mess, wishing I came across a little more put together than I actually am.

 

As a mom a few years into parenting, I love to sit and talk with brand new moms in our church.  After exchanging sleeping and feeding tips we’ve tried with our babes, it seems that the conversation will often times turn to our individual struggles in finding consistency in our daily quiet times with God.  Isn’t it amazing that we can find it surprising – and somewhat relieving – to know that someone else might struggle with that very thing too?

In our put-together church world, maybe even after years of knowing Christ, we hesitate to admit that we need help figuring out how to devote time to knowing God more daily through His Word.

 

What if we all got real in church, and admitted that we need a little help in our walks with God?  What if instead of remaining silent and pretending like we have it all together (or judging those who aren’t so silent…), we banded together for the cause of Christ, and spurred each other on in this area?

In and outside the church walls, that’s what Good Morning Girls is all about.

During this sign-up time before our Colossians study begins, can I challenge you to share Good Morning Girls with someone who might need to be encouraged that they are not alone in their journey of faith? 

Would you pray over and consider one or more of the following?

 

  • Determine to achieve an ever deeper level of intimacy and transparency in your GMG group this session.
  • Consider leading a group if you haven’t in the past.
  • Invite someone new into your GMG group who may not already be in your comfortable, neatly packaged group of church friends.
  • Invite a friend into your group who may be new to church or who is seeking in their relationship with God.
  • Invite a (wiser and often older) mentor into your group, who can challenge group members and be a great resource for indepth biblical knowledge and hard questions.
  • Invite a group of teen or college girls to study with you this session.
  • Share the Good Morning Girls concept with your church leadership in areas such as Women’s Ministry, Small Groups, Youth Groups, etc.
  • Talk up GMG on your facebook page, then link to goodmorninggirls.org for more information.

 

Together, with God’s help, we can continue to point women to the life-changing, soul-quenching Word of God!  Will you join us as we get real, and get busy for God?!

 

What other ideas do you have for stepping out-of-the-box and getting bold for God this session?

 

At His feet,

 

 

Filed Under: Being Intentional, Colossians 6 Comments
May 16, 2012

Disney, Sea Shells and Easy ways to be intentional with your kids {Link-Up}

My family and I recently had the opportunity to go to Disneyland in California and boy did we have a blast! Seriously one of the best vacations yet! I loved it!

When we got back home, I asked my girls what they wanted to show their friends from our trip…..their response surprised me.

“Our sea shells.”

Your sea shells……but we went to Disney!!! Don’t you want to bring one of the stuff animals you won or don’t you want to show your friends some of the pictures we took of you meeting the princesses and other Disney characters?


“No.”

They wanted to show the sea shells.

“Why the sea shells?” I asked.

“Because you helped us collect them.” Was their response.

We spent a few days at Disneyland…..and enjoyed EVERY minute of it but what really touched my girls hearts was the one day we took a break from Disney and traveled to the beach.

I wanted my girls to see the ocean. I wanted them to see God’s beauty, His power……experience what He created.

In Sally Clarkson’s book, Ministry of Motherhood, she talks about giving our children the Gift of Inspiration.  Her whole book is wonderful and I highly recommend it, but that particular section spoke directly to my heart and I wanted to open the eyes of my children to the awesomeness of their God.

“A child who does not have the opportunity to marvel at the bigness of God, the wonders of his creation, and the reality of his supernatural work will tend to measure the questions about “who God is” according to his or her finite, limited perspective…”

“When we take the opportunity to expose our children to the glory of God displayed in a rainbow or powerful ocean waves or a star-studded night sky, we are helping them understand that there is a Being much bigger than themselves who created the universe and holds it together with his power. “-Sally Clarkson

I wanted my girls to experience their God in a much bigger way.

Being at the ocean does that.

The beauty alone takes your breath away.

The sound of the ocean waves roaring to shore, the soft breeze touching your face and the birds singing above……all testify to God’s reality and greatness.

As we walked the beach picking up sea shells I talked to my girls about how wonderful and powerful our God is. We talked about how beautiful each sea shell was that they picked up. We talked about God’s creativity, about the size of the ocean and the power of the waves……I wanted them to see God in His creation.

I wanted to be intentional and give them an opportunity to experience God in a whole new way. To open their eyes to the bigness of their God.

This week we see from our verses (Proverbs 31:1-9) that King Lemuel’s mother was an intentional woman. She was a mother who was intentional in how she taught her son, teaching him the virtues of a noble wife as she taught him the alphabet,…connecting his learning to something valuable that he would later be able to easily recall.

Using her as an inspiration, here are a few ways we can be intentional with our kids……everyday

  • Write “I think you’re amazing because...” notes in their lunch boxes, their rooms, their cars.
  • Go out on a special date with them….
  • Send them encouraging text messages
  • Pray together
  • Read the bible together….and discuss what you read
  • Read books together
  • Serve together
  • Intentionally slow down……look them in the eyes and tell them how much you love them
  • Give them a hug
  • Talk with them and rub their backs as you do……my girls love that!
  • Laugh with them
  • Smile at them

Being intentional is about turning off the TV, not answering the phone or the emails, the tweets or the Facebook comments, and really seeing your family. Giving them undivided time and attention. It’s talking with them over a meal. It’s asking them questions, doing things together like coloring, drawing, tickling and laughing together. Not necessarily spending money, but spending time together………that’s what’s truly priceless.

Being intentional is about really seeing them and purposefully investing in their lives.

 

What are some ways that you are intentional with your kids? I believe we learn best from one another! I’d love to hear your ideas! What would you add to my list? Which ones are your favorite?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Women around the world are IN THE WORD! Every Wednesday we will have a link-up. If you are a blogger we invite you to link-up any blog posts that you have written about your quiet time that week. We ask that you put our button in the post or on your sidebar so we can find each other. We do not have code for this link up button. Just right click and save as. Then link it to http://www.goodmorninggirls.org

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Love God Greatly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Filed Under: Being Intentional, Proverbs31 Tagged With: , , , 24 Comments
«Older Posts
Hide me
Sign up below to receive free study materials!
Enter your email address:
Show me