Day Seven: I’m Thankful For…Freedom.

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Preface: I thought it was fitting to express my thanks during the month of November for something new each day, as so many others have done before me. I’ve never taken the time to do this, and it will be a challenge to blog each day, but it’s so important to recognize the blessings God has given us! 🙂 These are in NO particular order…

Until I traveled to the Middle East/North Africa in 2005 (for a month), I admit that I took my freedom for granted. Despite spending the four years prior studying our nation’s history and political science (and gaining a huge appreciation for what our Founding Fathers established), I still didn’t fully grasp how wonderful our country really is in comparison to many countries around the world.

We have it good here.

Since that trip I have done extensive reading about the lives of women in the Middle East (specifically Saudi Arabia and Iran)…and it truly breaks my heart. Books like Reading Lolita in Tehran , Inside the Kingdom, and In the Land of Invisible Women ignited a passion within me for these women who are so oppressed by their governments and their culture…and even their own families. I cannot imagine living in a world where I am unable to live freely… 

I am thankful that I can walk around freely without fear of corrupt police trying to falsely accuse me so that I will pay them off.

I am thankful that I can wear what I would like to wear.

I am thankful that I can say what I want to say when I want to say it (using wisdom and discernment, of course 🙂 ).

I am thankful that I can worship God freely and without constraint.

I am thankful that I can travel freely, by myself if I choose.

I am thankful that I can blog freely without fearing repercussions from the government and without fear of censorship.

And the list goes on and on…

I know that our country is far from perfect, but the freedoms that were established by our Founding Fathers are remarkable and unique, and I believe that they are biblical in nature. God sent Jesus so that we could be set free!

I am SO thankful to have the privilege of living here.

Day Six: I’m Thankful For…My Husband.

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Preface: I thought it was fitting to express my thanks during the month of November for something new each day, as so many others have done before me. I’ve never taken the time to do this, and it will be a challenge to blog each day, but it’s so important to recognize the blessings God has given us! 🙂 These are in NO particular order…

I decided to wait to post about my husband on our anniversary (2 years!) instead of on “day 2” 🙂

I am so thankful that God brought me to Pennsylvania for many reasons…but I’m especially thankful that He allowed me the privilege of meeting Brennan on April 12, 2009. I was content where I was and wasn’t looking to get married…but God had other plans and I’m SO thankful that His ways are different/greater than ours!

Brennan has been such an amazing friend and life partner through the past three and a half years. He consistently encourages me by his example to be a better person and sharpens me in ways I didn’t expect.

Just some of the things I love about Brennan…

  • His smile
  • The way he rubs his hands together when he is excited
  • The way he looks when he’s dressed up (SO handsome!)
  • His scent
  • His selflessness
  • His simplicity
  • His gorgeous green eyes
  • His leadership with our MHS boys
  • The way he cuddles up to me in the morning
  • His affectionate nature
  • His love of showing his affection for me–publicly and privately
  • His willingness to eat anything that I prepare
  • The way he can read me in a second and know how I’m feeling
  • His tendency to become protective of me when I am hurting
  • His amazing work ethic and how hard he works to provide
  • The passion he displays when he prays out loud
  • His love of children (he will be an amazing father)
  • His never-ending support and encouragement
  • His patience
  • His goofiness 🙂

The joy that Brennan brings to my life is incredible. Life is so much richer with him by my side! I am so thankful for him and for the adventures we’ve had so far…and for those yet to come.

Thank you, Jesus, for answering my lifelong prayer for a husband by bringing me Brennan. He is more wonderful than I ever imagined.

Day Five: I’m Thankful For…Church Family.

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Preface: I thought it was fitting to express my thanks during the month of November for something new each day, as so many others have done before me. I’ve never taken the time to do this, and it will be a challenge to blog each day, but it’s so important to recognize the blessings God has given us! 🙂 These are in NO particular order…

I have made two major moves in my life: the first was from Northern to Southern California (523 miles) for college in 2001; the second was from Southern California to Pennsylvania (3,000 miles) in 2008. Both moves were significant landmarks in my life, and both placed me far from my family, friends and comfort zone.

However, God is eternally faithful and He has continually brought me “church family” to take care of me, befriend me, and love me.

Within my first month of college, I found the First Baptist Church of Glendora and the friendships made there still stand strong today. The bond that I have with so many people there will last forever and I am so thankful for God’s leading! I know that I still have “family” in Glendora. I was so blessed to be surrounded by like-minded musicians and we made some incredible music together. I was surrounded by friends my age who were seeking to know Jesus more and more and they sharpened me. They encouraged me. They were sad to see me move in 2008 but recognized God’s hand in the journey and supported me all the way. I love them dearly.

Within my first month of moving to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I found East Shore Baptist Church. From the first time I walked through those doors until now, I felt welcomed and loved. As soon as people discovered how far I had come and how far my family was from me, they stepped in and took care of me. They supported and encouraged me. They helped me find a husband 😉 (haha). When I lost my job, they ensured that I was fed and taken care of. One Sunday I found $200 in my Bible–which was exactly what I needed to finish paying my rent for the month. I have no idea who blessed me that day, but I am SO thankful.

The pastors allowed me to begin a ministry to the singles in the church (which is, ironically, where I became acquainted with Brennan) as this was a large people group within the church that was not being served. They encouraged me to use my gifts for the good of the body (even when it was uncomfortable–like playing guitar for worship…which I did every Sunday, two services, for two years and do all the time now) and never discouraged me from following God’s leading.

They allowed me to be on the leadership team for an amazing church plant called The Well at East Shore. I was the “Community Projects Coordinator” and was able to live out two of my passions: missions and serving. I planned community service projects for our church that we did the third Thursday of every month (that’s the night we met in order to reach those who can’t or won’t go to church on Sundays)…we chose to go BE the church on those nights instead of just sitting in church every week. It was a powerful way to be the hands and feet of Jesus to our community.

We eventually felt led to discontinue The Well, but God definitely had plans for our little church plant: It was through The Well that I met the Morrisons and the Shays. They came up from North Carolina to see Harrisburg in March 2010 as they were praying about where to plant a church. I helped show them around Harrisburg and we were able to show them where we were seeing God at work–EVERYWHERE! They felt led to come join God in the great work He is doing here and moved here in 2011. Brennan and I are now part of the church that they planted, Redeeming Grace Church, and they have become such a wonderful blessing to our lives. Redeeming Grace has brought us another wonderful church family and we are so blessed to call RGC our church home.

God has proven His love to me in so many ways, but this is one of the greatest: wherever He has called me to go, He has brought people alongside me who love and encourage me, and I love and encourage them as well. He is so faithful to care for us!

Thank you, Jesus, for providing amazing Christians who become family to me wherever I go…

Day Four: I’m Thankful For…My Talents.

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Preface: I thought it was fitting to express my thanks during the month of November for something new each day, as so many others have done before me. I’ve never taken the time to do this, and it will be a challenge to blog each day, but it’s so important to recognize the blessings God has given us! 🙂 These are in NO particular order…

I am so thankful for the talents with which the Lord has blessed me. They enrich my life greatly, bring immense joy, and they shape how I experience the world. I am thankful for the people the Lord has placed in my life to help me refine these talents and become even better in these areas. He gets all the credit!

I am especially thankful for my musical ability and my photography skills.

He blessed me with the ability to pick up any instrument and learn how to play it (often teaching myself)…I have nearly perfect pitch and that has proved to be a wonderful gift through the years. He has also given me a powerful voice to use for His glory…and that how I strive to use it. I love being able to lead others in the music portion of a worship service, knowing that I am pointing them to the Sovereign God who has created all things…truly, all of the glory and honor goes to Him. I can do nothing on my own!

I also love singing the National Anthem at sporting events–it is such a huge thrill and I love the feeling of having 10,000 people cheering 😉 (the link is from 3 years ago–it’s the most recent recording I have). This is my fourth season singing for the Hershey Bears and I am so honored to have the privilege of singing there.

God has given me an eye for photography that I am able to use to convey powerful messages and to inspire action (Haiti). He also has allowed me to use photography to capture His creation for others to enjoy. I love photography and I feel so alive when I’m able to capture events/places on “film” (saying “on a memory card” just doesn’t have the same ring ;)). He is such a great God and He can be seen in all of His creation…and I love bringing pieces of His creation back home for others to experience as well.

Thank you, Jesus, for giving me gifts through which you bless others.

Guest Post: Building Up the Men in Our Lives

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Building Up the Men in Our Lives
He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. (Proverbs 17:9, NIV)
 
By Sheri Rose Shepherd
Bestselling Author and Bible Life Coach
 
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When our husbands let us down, it’s hard not to voice our anger and disappointment. We don’t do it to hurt or embarrass our husbands. We are women, and we’re wired to share our hearts with another person. We definitely need one another to become the women we want to be, but we need to be careful not to cripple our men by uncovering their weaknesses to everyone.Obviously we all need someone to help us sort through our feelings. I think it is best to find one or two trustworthy people who are in favor of our marriages and won’t repeat our conversation to others. I have two best friends to whom I tell everything because they help me see things from my husband’s perspective and help me fight for my marriage by praying and sharing wisdom from the Word. I am careful, even with them, not to overshare in a way that would humiliate my husband, Steve.

Think about how we would feel if our husbands talked about our weaknesses at their workplaces. Let’s commit to covering our men and not exposing them, and let’s pray for them to grow as leaders.

Don’t Enable . . .

For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her. (Ephesians 5:25)

Because we women are so good at leading, many times we leave our men in the dust or allow them to become weak leaders. How are they ever supposed to learn to lead if we do everything for them? We are not their mothers; we are their wives. Christ asked them to love, lead, and take care of us the way He loves the church.

It’s important that we not try to do things that are our husbands’ responsibility unless they are absolutely necessary. Even if we can do their job better than they can, we’re not helping them become the men they long to be; we are enabling them. They will see us as their mothers and not their wives, which will make us bitter toward them and produce the fruit of self-hate in their lives.

Do What You Can to Empower Him . . .

Sarah obeyed her husband, Abraham, and called him her master. You are her daughters when you do what is right without fear of what your husbands might do. (1 Peter 3:6)

I used to think it was strange that Sarah called her husband “master.” I thought maybe she was even putting her husband before God. But today I realize she was a wise woman. She was empowering her husband to find his place as her leader. We can also help our husbands become godly leaders for us. Even if they do not rise up right away, we shouldn’t give up on them. We can keep praying and empowering them. Whatever they do, big or small, let’s encourage them. Let’s be like Sarah and do whatever it takes to empower our men to be great.

For more teaching from the Your Heart’s Desire book and Bible study, visit www.biblelifecoaching.com.

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Day Three: I’m Thankful For…My Family.

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Preface: I thought it was fitting to express my thanks during the month of November for something new each day, as so many others have done before me. I’ve never taken the time to do this, and it will be a challenge to blog each day, but it’s so important to recognize the blessings God has given us! 🙂 These are in NO particular order…

I have a unique and wonderful family…some I’ve known my whole life, some I’ve known for six years (my dad’s biological family), and some I’ve known for three years (Brennan’s family). I have been surrounded by love my entire life and I am so thankful for that.

The longer we serve as Relief Houseparents at the Milton Hershey School, the more thankful for my family and my childhood I become. Our boys long for the family stability from which I come, and it truly breaks my heart when they talk about not having (or not really knowing their) fathers. Many come from very broken homes…and these things have affected them deeply.

I am blessed to have a heritage of life-long marriages: my parents will celebrate 32 years on November 8th, my mom’s parents just celebrated 60 years, and my dad’s parents just celebrated 56 years. My great-grandparents were married over 60 years. We’ve been blessed to be a very tight-knit family. My mom’s side of the family just held their 51st annual family reunion this past summer. My family is loving, caring, compassionate, welcoming, and hilarious. 🙂

I’m very thankful for my parents and for the example they have provided for my brother and I. Their marriage has faced its trials as life has thrown them some interesting curves over the years…but, they chose to grow stronger together and to fight these trials together instead of allowing their marriage to fall apart. They chose to love each other through it all and their marriage is incredibly strong because of it. My parents are willing to do anything they can to help someone in need, and that is one of my favorite things about them.

I’m thankful that Brennan’s family has welcomed me with open arms and has made me feel welcome from day one. Since they live in the area, it’s really great to have family here since mine is so far away.

I’m so thankful that we have had the opportunity to meet my dad’s biological family and that through this experience we’ve learned so much about our genetics and our quirks. I’m so much like my dad, so meeting them has solved some mysteries for me as well (including where my green eyes came from). I’m thankful that they also (for the most part) opened their arms to us and have made us feel like we’ve always been part of the family.

Thank you, Lord, for your provision of family…

Our Budget Plan…

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I was asked by a friend how we do our budgeting, so I thought it would be a great blog post! I’ll try to keep it short and sweet.

First of all, we love the teachings of Dave Ramsey and Financial Peace University. We cannot recommend him enough! Because of his wisdom the only debt that we have left is our student loans.

We maintain two spreadsheets: Our budget, and our “Special Expenses by Month”…

The first one is our budget. Every other Wednesday, I (Lesa) enter the amounts that are due for this pay period. We always budget to “zero”–meaning that every dollar is accounted for. We use cash for food, necessities, clothing, date nights, etc. so we pull out the cash on pay-day. The line items below often change based upon our needs for that pay period (i.e. if we need clothes, we’ll add that line item).

We have our spreadsheet set up to automatically calculate things, so once we enter our income (we usually know by Thursday morning all of our income for that pay period) into the purple section it tells us how much we are over/under budget so that we can adjust accordingly.

When you are trying to get out of debt, it is important to use any extra money that you have to make extra payments. That is how we paid off our credit card debt so quickly–it requires sacrifices, but it’s so worth it.

(Click on the image to make it larger)

And our Special Expenses by Month looks like this:

This spreadsheet helps us to never be surprised by a bill that is coming up. It allows us to plan for them and be prepared! It would make it very easy to total up your special expenses to divide by the number of pay periods per year so that you could save little by little, as well.

Because we get paid twice a month, we do our budget twice a month. However, you have to do what works for you! This has been such a blessing to us because we always know exactly what we have to spend. We pay all of our bills on pay-day for that pay period which also reduces time and stress because we never forget to pay a bill.

If you have additional questions, please let me know! Budgets are not constraining–they are truly freeing!

Day Two: I’m Thankful For…Provision.

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Preface: I thought it was fitting to express my thanks during the month of November for something new each day, as so many others have done before me. I’ve never taken the time to do this, and it will be a challenge to blog each day, but it’s so important to recognize the blessings God has given us! 🙂 These are in NO particular order…

God richly and abundantly provides for the NEEDS of His children, and I am so thankful for that. I am so thankful for the jobs that He has provided for us that have allowed us to pay off all of our credit card debt this year! Even though my job may not be the career I’ve always dreamed of, it has enabled us to work diligently at becoming debt-free and it is one way through which God has provided for us.

Looking further back, I can see His hand in so many times of personal need before marriage. I was unemployed for so many months yet never went hungry or without shelter. Through those experiences He taught me to rely on Him FULLY for provision, as well as the importance of living frugally, and those are things we strive for in our marriage as well. We work hard to be good stewards and we trust that our needs will be met…and they always are! This is one reason why we love “budget day” (which is every other Wednesday): Budget Day is a huge testimony of God’s faithful provision!

I’m also thankful for the provision that He provides so that we can give back to others who are in need. He is so faithful to provide! So many people allowed themselves to be used by God during my time of need, and I love that we are now in the position to be His hands and feet to others during their time of need. I’m so thankful that He has created such a wonderful community among Christians…a community through which we can humbly admit our needs and allow others to step in and help us.

God is our Provider…

Day One: I’m Thankful For…Jesus.

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Preface: I thought it was fitting to express my thanks during the month of November for something new each day, as so many others have done before me. I’ve never taken the time to do this, and it will be a challenge to blog each day, but it’s so important to recognize the blessings God has given us! 🙂 With the exception of this first post, the rest are in no particular order.

I am so unbelievably thankful for Jesus and His unconditional love. I am so thankful for His grace, His provision, His guidance, and His mercy. He is truly the source of my joy and my strength! He has never failed me and has kept every promise without fail. He sustains me when I am weak and guides me when I am clueless (which is SO often). He is faithful and His wonders never cease.

I could write for hours about all that He has done, but I will leave it at that for now. 🙂 He is the source of every other post that will follow because He has given me everything that I have and has made me everything that I am. And I am thankful.

Guest Post: Receiving God’s Love

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Receiving God’s Love
 
By Sheri Rose Shepherd
Bestselling Author and Bible Life Coach
 
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Think how powerful it would be if we spoke the truth about how God feels about us at least as often as we silently said negative things about ourselves or replayed in our minds all the hurtful things that have been said about us. The truth is, we are not what others say about us, and if the men we love speak hurtful words to us that make us feel unworthy, we don’t need to repeat them any longer. Instead we can learn to rest in God’s unchanging love for us.

Even if no one has ever said anything kind to you, your Prince Jesus longs for you to breathe in the tender love, compassion, and kindness He feels for you. If you’re ready to have Jesus, the lover of your soul, become reality to you, I invite you to do the following . . .

Breathe In His Love . . .

For the Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (Job 33:4)

You know that feeling of exhilaration that sticks with you after you’ve spent time with a guy you know you’re falling in love with? As you part, you take a deep breath and feel waves of delight washing over you. Or you know the joy that wells up inside when your man unexpectedly says something so sweet that you feel treasured? You replay those words over and over in your mind because doing so gives you a lift.

Breathe His truth in; allow the words of your true prince Jesus to echo in your heart and soul.

After you consider God’s words to you—”I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3)—whisper toward heaven, “I love You, Lord.”

Sing about His Love . . .

Each day the LORD pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life. (Psalm 42:8)

When I was learning to let myself receive God’s love, I would actually sing love songs to Him. Though they had been written for a woman to sing to a man here on earth, I began to understand that if I would crave God’s love first, He would meet my needs. Only then would I be able to give and receive love.

Today I love worship songs that sing of God’s love for us. I blare them throughout my house in the mornings so Satan will not be able to whisper lies to me any longer. Consider doing the same.

Write Love Letters to Him in a Journal . . .

Connect your heart to heaven by writing love letters to your Lord. It is amazing what happens to your heart as you begin to express your love in writing to the only One who will never walk away from or reject you. Hang on to this treasure of truth: how you feel about yourself will never change God’s love for you.

Let Us Pray . . .

Dear God,
I confess I do not feel worthy of your love. It is hard for me to believe that You even love me. Help me, Lord, to look to You for my worth. Forgive me for not allowing myself to receive Your love. Forgive me for looking to others to make me feel like I have value when You are the only one who can validate me and love me the way I long to be loved. From this day forward, I choose to let You love me so I can love others. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I will sing to the LORD as long as I live.
I will praise my God to my last breath!
May all my thoughts be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the LORD. (Psalm 104:33-34)

For more teaching from the Your Heart’s Desire book and Bible study, visit www.biblelifecoaching.com.

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