What’s on your shelves?

What's-On-Your-Shelf
As mothers and wives, we spend our lives taking inventory. We could quite possibly do inventory for a multi-billion dollar business with all the knowledge we have acquired! Every year and several times during the year, we are restocking the proverbial shelves of our lives and homes. We each have our very own Esty store. Actually, it is more like a super Walmart. We stock everything; food, clothes, furniture, bathroom supplies, bedding, cleaning supplies, and you should check out our huge inventory on toys, not to mention, our Christmas Store. At our companies we aim to please our, ever so little and some not so little, clients.

You want it? We’ve got it!

She is like a merchant’s ship, bringing her food from afar. She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household and plan the day’s work for her servant girls. She goes to inspect a field and buys it; with her earnings she plants a vineyard. She is energetic and strong, a hard worker. She makes sure her dealings are profitable; her lamp burns late into the night. Her hands are busy spinning thread, her fingers twisting fiber. She extends a helping hand to the poor and opens her arms to the needy. She has no fear of winter for her household, for everyone has warm clothes. She makes her own bedspreads. She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns. – Proverbs 31:14-22

We are constantly refilling orders every day, but who is taking a spiritual inventory?

Read More

Put Back Together

Put-Back-Together

 

As a kid I had attended a Catholic church but never knew Jesus. I had been baptized, and had gone through the ceremonies of my first communion and confession but never knew that I could have a relationship with God. When I turned 18 I stopped going to church, but my mind had tuned out long before that. Up until this last summer I was living as any other person in the world and running away from God.

Read More

The Top 10 Ways To Bolster Your Prayer Life

“Don’t pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees.” -Corrie ten Boom

10. Pray habitually. Pray at the same time every day so that your time of conversation with the Lord becomes engrained in your daily routine.

9. Pray specifically. Rather than spouting off overly generalized prayers such as, “Lord, please heal the sick,” specify exactly who and what you are praying for. For instance, you might pray that God would eradicate the lymphoma your work colleague was recently diagnosed with.

8. Pray thankfully. Are you tempted to spend most of your prayer time voicing an endless stream of complaints about the problems in your life? Make it a point to silence your grumbling; instead identifying the aspects of your life you are thankful for. Embrace a grateful attitude for the blessings He has given you.

7. Pray audibly. When in the appropriate environment, praying aloud can drastically eliminate the distractions that appropriate your mind, enabling you to concentrate entirely on your time with God.

6. Pray in writing. Recording your prayers in a journal allows you to tangibly track your prayer requests and the manner in which God has answered them.

5. Pray collectively. Joining in unified prayer with other believers can be incredibly powerful. Furthermore, if your group opts to meet regularly, your prayer life gains an avenue of accountability.

4. Pray in repentance. The Lord is a forgiving God who loves unconditionally. Repent from sin, which separates you from Him. Seek the redemption of Jesus and realign yourself with God’s will.

3. Pray quietly. Be still and know that He is God. Pursue moments of silence before the Lord, listening intently to what He may say.

2. Pray honestly. Whether or not you voice them, God already knows all your struggles, temptations, doubts, and insecurities. Be authentic. Open your heart to the One who made you.

1. Pray humbly. Before the King of Kings and the Ancient of Days, acknowledge His supremacy. Renounce your pride. Kneel before the Creator of the universe and recognize your smallness.