I hope the weather is as nice where you are than what it has been here.  Spring has arrived..PTL!!  I love hearing the birds in the early morning.  The beauty of God’s creation is breathtaking! 

I wanted to share with you a wonderful learning opportunity.  Proverbs 31 Ministries offers “She Speaks.”  This is a writers, speakers, and women’s ministry conference.  I read about it last year and began praying about going.  Well, now I really desire to go.  Let me explain why. 

Ever since Natalie’s injury I have had a few consistent people tell me that I need to speak.  Not because I am eloquent with words or have amazing bible knowledge but because they see something in me.  Well, I wasn’t sure what they saw  until recently.  They saw a hope in Jesus even when life handed me devastation and terrible heartache.  When my daughter suffered and life as my family knew it radically changed,  I  praised Jesus!!  I turned to Christ and his word to lead and guide me.  Choices…we all have them, it is what we do with them that matters.  I choose to praise God! 

God has done incredible things in my life the past 3-4 months.  He is so faithful and I adore HIM.  I have come to know truths that are so incredible I am still in awe over it.  I am learning to be BOLD IN Christ a whole new way.  I am learning to realize who I am IN Christ. 

I recently spoke at our morning bible study.  The topic was “adjusting your life to God.”  When I accepted, within days, I decided that I was going to back out. I am not equipped to prepare a lesson.   I prayed and talked with friends about it.  I spoke to our women’s ministry leader and she said that she was glad to hear that I was so nervous and felt ill-equipped.  That means that it will all be Christ!  That spoke volumes to me…I was going about this the wrong way, my way.  So I set out on my journey.  I came up with one outline after another.  I felt God telling my soul that they were good, but not the one.  Until…I had a huge personal breakthrough.  One that is too deep to go into here on the blog but can I just say that it was BIG, HUGE and provided tons of growth in the Lord.  So God gave me the words for the lesson, I walked up on that platform, and spoke truth and hopefully shined for Jesus.  I made it through with minimal tears, which was a God thing because our families story was woven throughout the entire lesson.  

So now this conference has been placed before me again.  I want to go to learn how to be prepared, how to form outlines for speaking,  how to come up with topics that move individuals into a deeper relationship with Jesus and the do’s and don’ts.   Lysa Terkeurst is giving away a scholarship for the conference.  If you don’t follow her blog, link up to it.  She is fun, witty and loves Jesus.  Her newest book was such a  fun read and very real.

Here is a link to the She Speaks Conference.  It is July 31-Aug. 1 2010.   Check it out, maybe you will want to go.  I am praying that if I am meant to go, God will make a way.   He is faithful!! 

Have a great weekend and many spring blessings!!

Well, I had a fantastic weekend.  I attended the Hearts at Home conference.  It was a blast.  There in nothing like getting together with girlfriends for a fun filled weekend of food, fellowship, prayer, worship and praising to our awesome Jesus!  Hearts at Home puts on a great, reasonably priced conference.  The thing I love most is that you get the opportunity to meet Christian authors and musicians.  We always go up and chat with Jill Savage, the founder of Hearts at Home.  She is so sweet and loves women in all stages of life.  In the past we have met, Crimson Bridge, Go Fish, Julie Barnhill, Sandy Buake, Lysa TerKeurst, Mary Beth Whalen, and T. Susie Eller to name a few.  We stay at the same hotel, I think this is our 3rd year there.  Every year we have  eaten  dinner on the way home at good old Cracker Barrel, ah down home cooking, great traditions!

This year’s theme was “MOMS THE WORD”   It was about the words we say to our children and how they impact them.  Very deep, very real, spoke truth.  The worship was awesome this year.  Christy Nockels was the worship leader.  First, she is adorable, second, when you watch her worship you can tell that it is totally between her and God.  She was fun! 

I took great classes but my favorite speaker was Susie Larson.  Whoa, you talk about a passion for Christ.  This gal has it.  She was enthusiastic, fun, real and spoke TRUTH!  I bought two of her books and had some time to chat with her.  She shines for Jesus and is such a wonderful gal.    Nicole Johnson was also there with her comedic take on motherhood and her insight on having a “Fresh Brewed Life.” 

Needless to say we laughed, praised, laughed some more, cried and just has plain old good time fun!  We go a long time not seeing Carol, she moved to Indiana.  We communicate through emails or phone calls and when we get together it seems like we pick up where we left off.  Blessed!!  I am so thankful for the friends that I have and the realness of our relationships.  We always come away growing deeper in love with Jesus and desiring to know Him more. I know that I am itching to look over my notes, dig into some of the books I bought and pray about things God spoke to my heart this weekend.   Here are some pictures from the weekend.  If you can plan to attend next year’s Hearts at Home conference, you’ll be glad you did! 

Karla and Carol

Jennifer and Tricia

Jill Savage and Tricia

Christy Nockels and Tricia

Christy Nockels and Jennifer

L to R, Carol, Karla, Tricia and Jennifer

Carol, Tricia, Jill Savage, Karla and Jennifer

Susie Larson and Tricia

This week has been so much fun.  If you didn’t know, it was Read America week.  Many schools celebrated with Dr. Seuss activities.  Phoebe’s kindergarten teachers are so much fun.  They have such a heart for the kids and make learning special!  The entire week was Suess themed and they ended the week with a Dr. Seuss breakfast.  The kids got to dress up as Dr. Seuss characters, have a special breakfast and themed treats.  Parents volunteered to get supplies and go in to cook the food.  I went in to help with the festivities and can I just say that it was a grand time. 

Phoebe as a Whoville charater

The special for the day, whocakes, green eggs and hasbrowns

 

Seuss friends

 

Dr. Seuss Day 2010

 Can you tell they had fun.  Yes the whocakes had strawberry and blueberry glaze drizzled over them, with mini M&M’s sprinkled over top and a Dum-Dum sucker stuck in the middle.  We added green food coloring to the eggs and I have to say that the kids loved them.  The drink of the day was lemon lime flavored soft drink with cherry and blueberry jello cubes that had been frozen, dropped into it to make it fizzle.  I didn’t know that when you make jello and freeze it instead of refrigerating it, it turns into slush.  COOL!! 

 Thank you Mrs. Webster and Mrs. Ferguson for the great day!  The kids will remember it for many years to come. 

Have a blessed Monday!

Today I’d like to welcome Jill and Mark Savage. Jill and Mark’s newest book Living with Less so your Family has More just released and I’ve invited them to share a little bit about this great resource!

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family.

We have been married for 27 years…17 of them happily. After finding ourselves in a marriage counselor’s office around year 8 or so, we realized that we really didn’t know how to be married. We worked hard to turn things around and now we like to share that hope with other couples.

We have five children ranging from 13 to 25. Our oldest three are married. Anne (25) and her husband, Matt, live in Zion, IL, and are expecting our first grandchild in April. (We are very excited!) Evan (22) and his wife, Julie, have been married a year and a half and they live just a few miles from us. Erica (19) married her husband Kendall last September. They live in Augusta, GA, and wherever else the Army takes them.

We have two teenagers still at home. Kolya just turned 16. He’s learning to drive and we’ve nearly worn a hole in the carpet on the floor in the passenger seat trying to find that non-existent brake pedal. Kolya is the newest member of the Savage family. We adopted him at the age of nine from Russia.

Austin is 13 and in the 8th grade. He wants us to make sure and tell the world that this “living with less” life is a real bummer because he’s the ONLY kid in 8th grade who doesn’t have a cell phone.

Tell us about your newest book Living With Less So Your Family Has More?

The world screams the message that bigger is always better, but we have found that is not often true. When it comes to raising a family, less materially can actually result in more relationally. Children don’t need the best houses, the best lessons, the best cars, or the best clothes. What they really need is the best home life and the best family relationships we can give them.

Why did you want to write this book?

We didn’t start out with the “less is more” mindset. We started as a double income family wanting to have the “best” of everything. Then Mark decided to pursue ministry. We went from the “high life” to the “frugal life” very quickly as we moved to another state for him to go to Bible College full-time.

That experience introduced us to the concept that less is more. We definitely had less money, but we had more time. We had less stress and more peace. We had less activities and more fun.

Since that experience, we’ve continued to live primarily on one income for the past twenty years. We’ve had to battle cultural peer pressure and make different decisions for our family than many other families in our neighborhood have made. But we’ve never felt that we were materially depriving ourselves or our kids…instead we’ve focused on what we’ve actually been able to provide for them emotionally and relationally.

What do you hope your readers will gain from this book?

We hope the reader is encouraged to evaluate how they are living their life, spending their money, and thinking about family matters. Our goal is to introduce families to the “less is more” concept and then equip them with the attitudes and actions to actually make that happen.

For families that are already committed to less is more, we hope to bolster their resolve and help them stay focused on the long-term goal of providing relationally for their kids.

In today’s economy, there are many families being forced to live with less. We want to help them see the opportunity they have with this unexpected downsizing they’ve been forced to do.

And for those who have just been a little discontent with their life and saying things like, “I’m tired of the rat race of life,” or “Is there more to life than drive-thru meals for dinner?” we hope to help them see other choices they have and how they can lead their family in a different direction.

What unique elements will the reader find in Living With Less So Your Family Has More?

For couples who want to read the book together, we’ve included discussion questions at the end of every chapter. This helps move the readers to discussion and eventually actions. Even a single parent can use the discussion questions for personal evaluation.

Readers will find this book a practical guide to changing your attitude and your actions to live a successful “less is more” life. They’ll find our writing style to be a warm, casual, honest discussion where we not only share our victories but our mistakes along the way. We are an average couple living successfully on an average income who want to help others to see the possibilities before them.

This is a Hearts at Home book. What is Hearts at Home?

Hearts at Home is an organization that encourages, educates, and equips women in the profession of motherhood. Hearts at Home encourages moms through annual conferences, our extensive website (www.hearts-at-home.org), a free electronic newsletter, a radio program, and an entire line of books designed to meet the needs of moms all over the world!

Any closing thoughts?

It’s healthy for parents to occasionally pause and evaluate their vision for their family and the choices they are making. We hope this resource will help them do that together and that it will lead them to live a life of little regret.

Thank you to Mark and Jill!  I have had the privilege of meeting Jill and she  has a  passion for women in all stages of life to know Jesus.  Check out her blog. 

Have a blessed weekend,