Ministry Month: CPP

Today, I wanted to introduce you to Christian PenPals.

CPP is a wonderful ministry that connects Christians with people in prison that sign up with their program. Some of these prisoners are Christians, others are curious about Christainity, and others just want to hear from someone. It is such a great opportunity to share Christ, and offer encouragement to our sisters in Christ (I say sisters because they match women with other women and men with other men, and 99.9% of those who read my blog are women).

I have volunteered with CPP for a few years now. I have had 3 different pen pals, each one was very unique and completely different from the others! The one that I am still in contact with is now out of prison and starting her own women's prision ministry.

To volunteer for this ministry, you just have to be willing to write to one or two inmates once or twice a month. It only costs you time and the money for postage. If you prefer to just donate money, they do accept donations to help buy stamps for prisoners and a few other supplies. You can find out more by visiting: Christian-penpals.com

Find Your True Beauty... In Christ!

I am amazingly thankful for FindYourTrueBeauty.com! When I started volunteering for Shelley several years ago, I never dreamed of where it would take me or how much fun I would have along the way! I have shared my personal testimony of my work there several times, so I'm going to keep this post strictly about the ministry itself.

FindYourTrueBeauty.com is a website designed to help today's teen girls discover that their true beauty doesn't come from the outside appearance. It also offers support for girls that are struggling with eating disorders, cutting, have suicidal thoughts, sex, dating and modesty. It is such an amazing ministry, I can't tell you enough good things about it.

Besides the website, Shelley also travels around speaking to teen girls. She has been ranked up there with Leslie Ludy as far as making a positive impact on teen girls.

If you visit her website there are a number of free tools available for download. You can get a free PDF copy of her book "Mirror Mirror... Am I Beautiful?" when you sign up for her newsletter, and of course our "Teen Devotionals... For Girls!" are available for free there as well.

Ministry Month: Mom's In Touch

I cannot tell you how thankful I am for Mom's In Touch International (And for the mom who told me about it a few weeks back!).

The goal of Mom's In Touch is to have a group of mothers praying for every school around the world. Groups of women get together for 1 hour each week, just to pray for the schools that their children go to. There are groups for individual schools, community groups, and groups for homeschooler's. I am just extremely impressed by this ministry!

When praying with MITI(Mom's In Touch International-pronounced Mighty), moms follow the four steps of prayer: Praising God for who He is, Confessing our sins, Thanking God for what He has done (or is doing), and then Interceding for children, schools and MITI.

There isn't a group for the school that the boys go to yet, I am considering starting one if God brings me another mom to pray with. However, for the time being I am praying by myself. So, while it is a rule that what is prayed in a MITI prayer group stays in the prayer group, since I don't have a group yet, I did blog about my first prayer time, you can read that post here. Or if you would like to watch a short video that outlines the group prayer time, here is the one featured on their website:


If you have a child in public school, I cannot recommend this ministry enough! Even if you don't have a child in public school, our kids need all the prayer they can get!

Ministry Month!

Each December bring tons of new support for ministries. Some people are trying to donate before the end of the year so that they can write it off on their taxes, others are just in the charity mood. People donate money, food, time, and energy to all kinds of ministries during this month. For others, on December 31st when they are making their New Year's resolutions, they decide to be more giving in the coming year. For all of these reasons I have decided to feature some of my favorite ministries here on my blog during this month. I do hope you will join me, as I am involved in each one of these ministries in someway, and totally believe in their causes.

The first ministry that I want to mention is Thankful Thursday! While this isn't your donate money, serve the community ministry, it is still a ministry. It is a ministry of encouragement, a ministry of hope, and a ministry of community. It's so wonderful to come together with other believers and just be thankful, to praise God for what He has done. The ministry of Thankful Thursday has been so encouraging to me, and I am so thankful for it. I'm thankful for Iris at Grace Alone and Laurie at Women Taking a Stand who both volunteer to host this link-up. And I am thankful for each one of you who take part as well, giving your time to write a post about thankfulness, or to visit a blog and leave an encouraging comment. I am just so thankful that we can come together each week, and be thankful together!



Obviously, this Thursday I am thankful for ministries. I'm thankful for the people that volunteer their time and resources, just to help others. I'm thankful that in the self-centered age that we live, there are people who still know how to give without recieving. I'm thankful that there is the opportunity to help people that we may never meet, or even know that we are helping.

If you have a ministry that you would like me to mention, please e-mail me at heatherhart84@gmail.com

Oh! And don't forget to hop on over to Iris's blog and check out the other Thankful Thursday posts :D

One time only

I mentioned last Thursday that I was hired on to do some more work from home, and I knew before I signed up that I couldn't use this blog for anything related to that. I promise that I will not fill my posts full of work from home ads, or push the products that I promote on you. However, I feel that it would be wrong to not at least fill you in on what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it. I know that there are many other moms out there just like me, that would love to be able to have another income without leaving the home, but are afraid of getting scammed. So, here is my one time only post about working from home.

I have been volunteering for Shelley Hitz for years. I started out volunteering as a prayer partner and mentor for teen girls on her website FindYourTrueBeauty.com, then I started writing and editing devotions for that site. When she started up her new website (Self-publishing-coach.com) earlier this year, she asked me to do some freelance work for her, so I did. She recently asked me to come on as the affiliate manager for that website. I spent a lot time in prayer over this decision. I spoke with my husband and analyzed our finances, and rearranged my schedule. You see, I already have a ton of things I'm doing (I'm sure you can imagine as a homeschooling mom with 4 children, that I am very busy!). I didn't want to commit to the hourly requirement that she asked of me without making sure that it was doable, and that it was what God wanted. After much prayer, God lead me to accept on the condition that I step down from one of the other websites that I have been volunteering for for 3 1/2 years. It was a hard decision to make, but it's what was right for our family. God provided the right replacement for me and really just worked every aspect of me stepping down in a way that made me (and the others involved) know it was from God.

To tell you a little about Shelley's website, she started it because she has self-published several books for her and her husbands ministry (including our devotional book), and she wanted to help others do the same thing. On her website she provides tons of free information, videos, and even free resources. However, she has also published several fabulous products to help authors succeed. The income from this website has allowed her to quit her job as a physical therapist and go into ministry full time. Her and her husband actually just bought an RV that they are planning on living in while they travel around the country for speaking engagements. For me, helping Shelley with this website is just another way to support her ministry.

So this is why I am telling you. If you would like to help support Shelley and her husband C.J., and earn money at the same time, you can check out the affiliate page at her website here.

As I said, I will not be using this blog to promote products, or working from home, but if you are interested in following me on this journey, I will be posting more about it at my other blog:

Forgiveness Formula by C.J. and Shelley Hitz

This was probably the most heartfelt book I have ever read. Through the unfolding of this book C.J. and Shelley Hitz take you on a journey with them to discover how Jesus is the greatest mathematician of all time, and only His math can add up to a full life. While reading this book they shared their humor with me to the point of laughter and through sharing their sorrow I cried with them.

I highly recommend this book. There are some editing errors and they quoted from some questionable sources, but they didn’t write this book for personal gain. They aren’t trying to commercialize their faith, this is a book from the heart and discrediting it or judging it for the little things will take away from what they are trying to get across. It isn’t perfection that this book strived for, but to share the heart of the two broken and frail humans that have came to find their hope and place their trust in Jesus Christ.

I had the privilege of meeting C.J. and Shelly last fall. I have been volunteering for Shelley’s website for teen girls (FindYourTrueBeauty.com) for several years now, so when they came through Colorado on a speaking trip we were able to get together briefly and meet for the first time. They are both wonderful people and very devoted to Christ. While I knew that then, it is even more evident through their writing. They don’t try to glorify themselves but to share their lives in the most open and honest way possible, by sharing their hardships, falls, pain, sorrow, and joy.

Breakdown:

Worldview: Biblical

Target Audience: Anyone willing to read it.

Positive Elements: This is just a really great book in every way, but to say something positive about it that I haven’t already mentioned, I would add that it offers amazing descriptions to relate God’s love and forgiveness to us in ways that are easy to understand.

Inappropriate Language: None

Unbiblical Content: None

Other Negative Elements: While they quoted from some questionable sources all of the quotes they use I found to be biblically sound.

C.J. and Shelley Hitz are Christian speakers. To learn more about them, or to have them speak at an event please visit their website.

Writing! Wait, what?

I got lots of writing done today! I edited one devotion for FindYourTrueBeauty.com and I wrote 2 (well, almost, I have a few finishing touches to put on the last one).

I also was inspired to compile a list of Scriptures for homeschooling. I am about 75% done with this (I will post it when it is complete). I am so thankful that I took the time to do this. It is something that I have needed to do for sometime and I know it will be oh so helpful in the days to come.

NaNoWriMo? Oh, yeah... Nope, not one word! I have thought about it off and on, but these other things have to take priority over it. So for today, the half way point for NaNo I will have a big RED square on my calendar. It won't be something that bothers me though, because I will know that I prioritized my time, and got things done that needed to be. I will see it as knowing that NaNo does not control my life and is not an obsession. My life belongs to God, and the things I did today will help others grow in their relationship with Him and will help me in my own walk with Him as well. The red square will be remind me that I was wise with my time and that is more precious than red rubies (Proverbs 8:11).

Meeting Shelley

I have mentioned before that I volunteer writing devotions for teen girls for the website FindYourTrueBeauty.com. The author of this website is Shelley Hitz, she is an amazing Christian woman, and today I was blessed with the opportunity to meet her. Her and her husband, C.J. are on a speaking trip, and happened to be near my home! We didn't realize this until this morning, but we went ahead and spontaneously got together. The kids were a little boisterous,but otherwise it couldn't have been better. We met at Panera bread, which was only 9 miles from my house. The kids all enjoyed drinking orange juice while Shelley and I had a chance to talk. It was wonderful to finally meet her. I'm glad we had the opportunity to get together!

Shelley and C.J. speak to teens around the country about the negative influences the media can have. Besides their speaking ministry and her website, Shelley is the author of the book "Mirror, Mirror Am I Beautiful?", as well as our devotional book "Teen Devotionals... For Girls!", and her and C.J. co-authored the book "The Mathematics of Jesus".





You can learn more about Shelley and C.J. Hitz by visiting their speaking website at: christian-speakers.org.

My Writing: Then and Now

This post comes just as most of mine do, my mind has been focused on my writing. As I mentioned in a previous post I volunteer writing devotions for teen girls for FindYourTrueBeauty.com, and the first edition of the devotional book was recently published. These devotions have been available for free online for sometime now, and I love that I am able to help these teen girls and I really just enjoy writing them.

I originally started writing them because I volunteer with another website Circle of Moms, more specifically their Christian Mommies community, and a mom had asked for recommendations for devotions for their teen daughter. Well, after an internet search I found nothing that was really suitable for a teen girl! I found tons of sites saying they were devotions for teen girls, but after reading a few I thought back to my high school years and they really would have been boring and not relative to me at all. I was already volunteering for Shelley's ministry, and suggested to her that she added a devotional segment to her website. I never dreamed that she would ask me to head it up! I have been working with her on this project for about 6 months now, and it has been wonderful. I haven't been able to put nearly the amount of time into that I want to, but I am hoping that with homeschooling I will be able to schedule time for writing into my day.

That's where my writing has been, now where is it going? I have this growing desire to write devotions for moms. The more I write for teens, the more my desire to write for moms grows. Much like my search for teen devotions, I have been searching online, and in book stores for devotions for moms that I can refer other moms to who have been asking me, and I am coming up short. I have found a few that are okay. I have a book that I am enjoying that came with my homeschooling curriculum, but it would only work for homeschooling moms. I get several devotions e-mailed to me, and they are all wonderful and different days, however I rarely have time to read through all of them to find the one that speaks to me. I guess that is the problem with devotions. You have to find one that is a match to you, and I haven't found one that works for me. So my solution is to write my own. I haven't started yet, but I am seriously thinking about it. My husband is encouraging this idea. He thinks that I am an amazing writer (though I'm not sure if he has ever read anything I have written, lol). It's wonderful to have his support.

I would love to hear your thoughts... Do you know of any good devotional books or sites for moms?

To read a sample of a devotion for teen girls that I wrote click here and scroll down.

Author of humility

Yesterday I officially became a real published author. (I had a few poems published back when I was in school, but I really think they published all of them that were sent in, so I don’t think they count…) I volunteer writing devotions for teen girls for FindYourTrueBeauty.com and yesterday the first edition of the devotional book was published. I have mixed emotions about this. Part of me wants to jump for joy and shout from the roof tops… and part of me knows that I don’t write these devotions for me, but because I enjoy writing, and I want to share about what God has taught me with others. The mixed emotions come in because of the fact that I could want to take any credit for this at all. All the glory for this should go to God. It is for Him that I write these devotions, but at what point are we allowed to take pride in our earthly accomplishments for Him? Then again, it is not me that is truly accomplishing anything good, but Christ in me. Do you see where I am?

This great accomplishment for Christ is being overshadowed by a battle of the flesh. My flesh wants to take credit for something that it doesn’t deserve. Christ deserves all of the credit and it is so humbling to step back and realize that I could write a million books, and become a top selling author, and the credit would still belong to God. So I must admit that I pray that never, ever happens. I never imagined that having the devotions published would be such a humbling experience for me, but it has been. However, it has also been rather freeing, now that I know where the mixed emotions are coming from, and to know that it isn’t something crazy going on in my head. The world may think so, but we are not to be of the world, just in it.

God is truly the author of humility. I can write anything, but He can use anything to teach us what He wants us to learn. Today my lesson was humility. This isn't a new lesson for me. It's something that I have struggled with over the years. Each time I think I have it mastered it seems to come up again... It's funny how that works isn't it?

He leads the humble in justice,And He teaches the humble His way.
Psalm 25:9

You can see a sample of my devotions online by clicking here or click here to purchase a copy of the book.