Mother's Day

For me all holiday's are usually hit and miss. Example? On my birthday this year my entire family was sick - thus my children think I'm still a year younger than I really am. We've actually had mock arguments about whether or not I had a birthday this year. I really did - it just passed with no notice.  It's a trend in my life. Once when I was still in elementary school I had a sleep over on my birthday and my sister somehow convinced all of my friends to go sleep in her room - and I wasn't invited. Another year she did makeover's for all of my friends during my Superbowl party - knowing full well that I was allergic to make-up.

So I've come to expect little from holidays. Mother's Day is no different. It started out with me over-sleeping. We had planned to go to church with my in-laws, but their service starts 20 minutes before ours and I can't stand walking in late - which we always do anyway. So at 10:37  when we were finally all ready to go (7 minutes after the service started), I declared that it was too late to go to their church and we detoured to ours. I felt guilty all the way through service about making that selfish decision. 

After church was over we stopped by the store to pick up my Mother-in-law's flowers and cake. While we were there we ran into one of the ladies from my in-laws church. She asked us how my Father-in-law was doing. Mr. Amazing said we were on our way to their house, but when we talked to them earlier in the week they were doing well. So she suggested that we detour to the hospital. He had fallen down the steps at the church that morning after Sunday school and had to go to the ER. Thankfully, other than the concussion, and gash on his head, he is doing well and they were just leaving when we got there. However, he wasn't allowed to eat for 24 hours, so the cake that we bought went un-touched. We had also hoped to take them out to eat, and well... that didn't happen either. All-in-all, I think it would be fair to say that my Mother's Day was 100 times better than my Mother-in-law's. 

We ended up going out to eat without the in-laws. I would have loved to have them there, but we still had a pretty good time. Despite the fact that the restaurant burnt my chicken.

The best part of my day? After we ate Mr. Amazing and the kids took me to the bookstore. They know how nerdy I am :) I got 4 books and a membership card to Books-A-Million - he spoils me. I can't say that it was a great day, but I got new books so it wasn't all bad :)

It's very possible that you might see a post on bookstores vs. shopping online from me sometime soon - but I haven't decided where to post that yet...

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• Are you insecure about your looks?
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Throughout this book, Christian women share their stories of how they have struggled with body image lies and a distorted view of themselves. However, each of their stories also contains hope - the hope of replacing these lies with God's truth. Our prayer for you is that you find encouragement within these pages and allow Christ to transform you with His truth.

We Are Each Created Unique

God has created each one of us with unique abilities, unique talents and a unique personality. As women we are influencers and God has given us that role and our beauty to share with others. Yet so often we settle for a counterfeit. The enemy has counterfeited our idea of beauty, convincing us to share our beauty with the world in a distorted way. Today that often means that we see our beauty as what we look like on the outside.

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 Shelley Hitz

Shelley Hitz is an award-winning and international best-selling author. Her openness and vulnerability as she shares her own story of hope and healing through her books will inspire and encourage you. Shelley has been ministering alongside her husband, CJ, since 1998. They currently travel and speak to teens and adults around the country. Shelley's main passion is to share God's truth and the freedom in Christ she has found with others. She does this through her books, websites and speaking engagements.


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What's In Your Heart?

Well, we are finally moved into our new home - and loving it! We are still surrounded by boxes, but we have the necessities taken care of and room to unpack the rest. However, while I've been MIA from the online world, God has been teaching me a lot. We had a women's event at church on Saturday and while I didn't overly relate or become inspired by the speaker, she did say one thing that really stuck with me. She referenced the many failures of David - the one the Bible refers to as the man after God's own heart.

Most of us know that David was an adulterous murderer, but she didn't stop there, she brought up the point that his children were... well, we'll say less than perfect as well. So many times as Christian women, we feel like our children are a direct reflection of us as Christians. When they mess up, or repeat something that we said or did that we know is wrong, we feel like failures. David's son raped his sister - I can't imagine how I would feel if one of my boys did that (to anyone, but even more so to their sister!). I would feel like a wretched failure and blame myself in some way - I'm pretty sure of that much. But look at David. God said about him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’ (Acts 13:22) - God saw David for what was in his heart - not for his failures and the failures of his children. That's a message that I needed.

I've been too focused on my failures - so much so that I've been hiding the light that God has given me for fear of messing up. That's not what He wants for me, and it's not what He wants for you either. It's not about  us. It's not about our imperfections or successes. It's not about our motives. It's not about us at all. It's about what Christ has already done. God just wants us to come as we are.