My New Ministry Focus

I’ve been working hard behind the scenes for months on my new ministry for Christian women, CandidlyChristian.com. My goal was to create a safe place where women could be honest about their faith, failures, and forgiveness. Let’s face it, life isn’t always neat and tidy, being a Christian doesn’t change that.

Those of you who know my testimony, know that God has used the honesty of other Christian women to grow my faith more than anything else. Knowing that other Christian women don’t have it all together is a huge blessing. Knowing it’s okay to be less than perfect, what a relief!

I will never forget the first time a Christian woman admitted to me that she didn’t have it all together. She wasn’t just any Christian woman, she was our pastor’s daughter-in-law, super fit, a stay-at-home, super mom who was part of the worship team and an international missionary. I’m telling you, she was everything a good Christian should be, and she knew her Bible inside and out.

And then she confessed that she struggled with depression. That she questioned her faith because of an overwhelming feeling of worthlessness. This was super woman, and she struggled with some of the same things I did.

Another time the woman who hosted our Bible study confessed that her house wasn’t always as clean as we saw it each week. In fact, she said if we showed up unannounced at any other time during the week, that it would be a wreck.

Again, a huge burden was lifted. Not because I rejoiced in their struggles, but because it made me realize that struggling was okay.

Who knew it was okay to be less than perfect?

Her candid confession was a balm to my soul.

Many other candid confessions have followed. Some of them speak to me, others make me hurt for the women who are going through them all alone.

When I’ve shared my own candid confessions with other christian women, I usually get one of two responses.

Encouraging Support or Utter Condemnation

Sometimes well-meaning christian women come across the wrong way. Most of them don’t mean to, but it happens from time to time. And it happens often enough to make us scared to be honest.

If you are a Christian woman, I would love to have you join me atCandidlyChristian.com: A safe place to be open and honest about faith, failure, and forgiveness.

Let’s Get Candid!

A Life of Gratitude: Free Kindle Book & Giveaway

By Shelley Hitz

About the Book:

A Life of Gratitude: How to Overcome Self-Pity and Negativity During a season of transition in my life, I found myself overwhelmed with negative emotions like self-pity and a complaining spirit. It was as if a dark cloud had descended over me. I prayed and asked God for wisdom on how to overcome these negative emotions. As I did, I sensed Him leading me to do a 21 day gratitude challenge. Over the course of the 21 days, God began to change me as I spent intentional time being grateful for all I had been given. I did this through writing in my journal each day and also sending a hand-written thank you note to someone different each day. This also led me to writing out 21 prayers of gratitude and compiling 21 stories of gratitude. I want to share what I learned with you in the pages of this book which includes:

• 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge
• 21 Prayers of Gratitude
• 21 Stories of Gratitude

What to Expect On Each Day:

• Read my personal stories, struggles and reflections.
• Read one scripture and one quote about gratitude.
• Apply one personal application step from the challenge.
• Read one prayer of gratitude
• Read one story of gratitude

Get Accountability and Encouragement Along with the 21 day challenge, I also started a private Facebook group to provide accountability and encouragement for myself but also for others who decide to join me in the challenge. You will get access to this group as well. It has been amazing to see God at work in each of our lives. Will you join me on this journey to gratitude?  

Download on Kindle

FREE on Kindle 2/27/13 & 2/28/13)

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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.

Follow Shelley Hitz  Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Life is Good

The past week has been simply amazing for me. I've been recovering from a pretty nasty virus, but I just keep being blessed!

Last Friday I found out that I won a copy of Jody Hedlund's newest book, Unending Devotion (and I LOVE Jody's books), AND that afternoon I found out that I had won Christian Womens Voice Magazine's Christmas Moments essay contest (my essay "Keeping Christmas about Christ" will be featured in their next issue).

Shelley Hitz and I started a new book marketing community for the website Self-Publishing-Coach.com that really took off over the weekend.

Our latest devotional book, "21 Teen Devotionals... for Girls!" was published on Sunday, AND that very same day we received a 5 star review of our first devotional book from Readers Favorite.

I guess that all of those amazing things happening in a row, especially when I've been over stressed and under the weather lately, have just really been showing me how blessed I really am.

Mr. Monday ~ Respect

Give everyone what you owe him: 

If you owe taxes, pay taxes; 

if revenue, then revenue; 

if respect, then respect; 

if honor, then honor.

~ Romans 13:7

Respect: To treat with special consideration and/or high regard.

source

I spent some time this past weekend looking into the quality of respect. We are instructed in Ephesians 5:33 that we, as wives, must respect our husbands. But that is probably one of the things that most wives struggle with the most. Even those of us who think we have mastered it, fall short. That was brought to my attention the other week when I was reading Elizabeth Georges book "A Woman After God's Own Heart", so that's where I wanted to start my new Mr. Monday series of looking at the various descriptions of wives in the Bible.

The very first thing that I was brought to when I was researching the word "respect" in reference to husbands and wives, was Queen Vashti. Do you remember her? The picture that the Bible paints of her is pretty small. In fact, she is only in a few short verses in the first chapter of the book of Esther. Do you know who she is now? She was King Xerxes' disrespectful wife. Her husband wanted her to do something, and she said no. Thankfully, we live in a very different culture now-a-days, because I must admit that I have told my husband no more than once.

King Xerxes' advisers were worried that if the King's own wife didn't respect him, that all of the women in the country would start disrespecting him as well. Can we apply that to our lives as well? If we disrespect our own husbands, how will others treat him? Have you ever been around a wife that disrespects her husband in public? All of her friends do the same thing - trust me, I've been there (on both sides of it). King Xerxes' had a right to be concerned. That doesn't mean that I agree with the actions that he took, God said that what He has brought together that no man should separate. When we get married, we don't have instantly perfect relationships. Our husbands are no more perfect then we are - and we are all far from perfect (Rom. 3:23).

Respect is a hard thing to learn. Especially when it's learning to respect someone who's life is laid open before you. We know our husbands better than anyone else on earth, that means that we see all of the faults that he has. We know all of his short comings. Yet, if we don't respect him, others will pick up on that. They will see that the person who knows him the best, doesn't think that he deserves respect, and they will follow our lead. But on the flip side, when we do respect our husbands, others will see that too and will be more likely to offer him that same respect.

Not only will others see it and implement it, our husbands will see it. Shaunti Feldhahn dedicated an entire chapter in her book, "For Women Only" about the impact that a wives respect has on her husband. The massive research that she put into that book showed that "Men would rather feel alone and unloved than inadequate and disrespected." The best way that we can show our husbands that we love them, is by respecting them. To quote Shaunti Feldhahn one more time "If a man feels disrespected, he is going to feel unloved."

So do you think that maybe we ought to put a little more effort into respecting our husbands?

As Elizabeth George would say: "Yes, but how?"

The answer to that is so massive that I couldn't possibly cover it here. But here are a few ways that we can respect our husbands:

• We can respect his decisions, opinions, knowledge and judgement. - To me that means not questioning his decisions and not always adding my own two cents worth when he has clearly already made a decision. That doesn't mean that I have to be silent and lose myself as a person, that would NOT make my husband happy. He didn't marry a doormat, and he didn't want to. But he also shouldn't have to listen to my "infinite wisdom" every time he wants to do something or tells me what is on his mind. 
• We can respect our husbands with our thoughts and words. - Respecting our husbands by choosing to assume the best from him instead of the worst. Choosing to only think and say positive things about him. Nancy Leigh DeMoss's 30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge was a HUGE help to me in this area. Quite honestly, that challenge changed my entire marriage, just by changing the way that I thought.
• We can respect his abilities. - When the girls were little, Mr. Amazing would try to help me out by getting them dressed, and I often didn't like the clothing that he picked out for one reason or another (it was too cold for short-sleeves, or maybe I had already set out clothes for the day), so I would change them. After a while, he stopped dressing them. When I inquired as to why, he said that I would just re-do it anyway, so why should he bother... and you know what? He was right. The same thing goes for re-folding clothes after he did the laundry, or re-doing anything that he has done. That does not show respect for his abilities in any way shape or form, and it tears our husbands down more than we will ever realize. 

What are some ways that you can choose to respect your husband this week?

Living in a Martha World

But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

~Luke 10:40

Tucked away in the book of Luke (at the end of chapter 10), is a short story of a family that welcomed Jesus into their home. It’s the story of Mary and Martha. In the story we find Martha hard at work, while Mary sits at the feet of our Savior. Reasonably, Martha is upset. She is being left to do all the work by herself, and she gets edgy. I can hardly blame her for that, I probably would to. However, when I was reading this story the other day, something completely different caught my attention.

Yes, Martha was busy working, and she thought that Mary should be too. Does that sound familiar? We live in a Martha world. We are told that we should be busy doing, not sitting at the feet of our Savior. Sure, Christians are suppose to read their Bible, but even the Christian world bombards us with the idea that if we aren’t busy serving, then we aren’t doing what we should be. If we aren’t cooking meals for families that need them, or cleaning the church building, or teaching Sunday school or Bible study, then we are looked down on.

Yet, in the story of Mary and Martha, Jesus chided Martha saying: “…but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” – Luke 10:42. Taking the time to sit quietly and pray or read God’s Word, that’s better than doing all the other things that Christians do. Yes, those things are good, and even required, but without the Word of God, they are all meaningless.  Why? Because “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” – Matthew 4:4. We need the Word of God, more than we need to teach Sunday school, more than we need to clean the church, and more than we need to sign up to bring food to a fellowship gathering. After all, we are saved by grace through faith—and this not from ourselves, but it is the gift of God— Ephesians 2:8.

Blogland Blues

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

~Psalm 134:14

Blogland can be a dangerous place.

Does that statement surprise you? It shouldn't. You see, Blogland is full of blogs by other people. Some of those people portrait themselves to be perfect, and give you instructions so that you can be perfect just like them. Other bloggers admit that they have faults, but have great ideas about how to improve themselves, and they invite you along on their journeys. Yet still other bloggers are just plain real - they own up to who they are, and if you don't like it, then you are not required to read their blog. There are bloggers that are super house cleaners and great cooks. Bloggers that are over involved in ministry, bloggers who homeschool their kids, or do nothing but spend their day coming up with fun games to play and learn with their little ones. Their are bloggers who have infants, bloggers who have teenagers, and bloggers who are grandmothers. There are bloggers who live in Germany, Africa, and America. The bottom line is that bloggers come in all different shapes and sizes.

Why does that make Blogland dangerous? Simply because you are not another blogger. All of those blogs can be fun to read, encouraging, challenging, or hold some other form of motivation for you, but the danger comes when we start to compare ourselves to another blogger. When we start to realize that we can never be just like them. That we fall short of being the wife, mother, hostess, servant, Christian, that they are.

 As I was contemplating on all of the above information today, it just resonated within me that God didn't create me to be just like anyone else. He made me to be His creation. The only person that I should try to imitate is Christ. I shouldn't try to be just like so and so over a her blog, because that's who God created her to be, not me. Sure, her husband might be thrilled that she is such a wonderful wife and homemaker, but I'm not married to him. My husband loves me for me. He married me, not her. My kids wouldn't know what to do if so and so over at such and such of blog took my place. They don't love her, they love me - faults and all.

God creates each of us to be the person that He wants us to be, and our lives are formed around that. Sure, we get stressed out some times, we long to be better at certain things, and that's okay. God is working on us. Maybe someday we will be a better gardener than the lady whose blog inspires us so much. If that happens, it will happen in God's timing, but for now, we are right where He wants us to be, to learn the lessons that we need to learn, to continue to grow into the person that He wants us to be. We might never have a house that looks like so and so's, or children that spout off Scripture like that other blogger does. And that's okay.

Instead of trying to be another blogger, we need - I need - to strive to be more like Christ, and Christ alone.

What about you?

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 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

~Colossians 2:6-12

Encouragement

I love being encouraged, don't you? I got an e-mail today that was just someone passing along something encouraging that someone else shared with them about something I wrote. They didn't have to pass that on to me, but they did. It was really encouraging to me! But it also made me stop to think how often do I go out of my way to encourage others? Not as often as I could. I am making a point of it today to encourage others in some way. So I would like to know what you do to encourage others?