Faith based living
Insights and anecdotes about living by faith in our role as women, wives, and mothers.
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Solving Family Conflict in a Christ Pleasing Way
Family conflict is especially hurtful. We know the world at large will hurt us, but expect our family to be a safe place. We hope our family loves, respects, values, treasures us. So when family conflict surfaces, we are often surprised and find ourselves deeply wounded. But when we are hurt, we usually don’t respond well. Our first instinct is to get defensive. Our second is to wound back or withdraw. Neither response strikes at the heart of the conflict or reflects Christ. And families often gather at already stressful times: weddings, funerals, holidays. Emotions are already running high. One careless word can ignite a firestorm if we don’t focus…
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The Importance of the Lost Art of Sacrificial Giving
Is sacrificial giving something that weighs on your heart like it does mine? I find myself torn because so many causes seem worthwhile, but giving sacrificially is so much more than just donating. It’s having the right heart in the process. Sacrificial giving is a lost art in our culture built on abundance and wealth. Too often, we’ll give out of the overflow of our closets rather than the overflow of our hearts. Or we pay all our bills and then see what’s left for the Lord and charity. Or give away items we’ve loved just a bit too long. (Heaven not Harvard is as a participant in affiliate programs…
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Ways You Can Support a Family with a Premature Baby
I wasn’t prepared for a premature baby when my daughter was born 6 weeks early. Since we were adopting, some of the normal concerns of pregnancy just weren’t on my radar. And because we were matched so late into the pregnancy, we’d only had a few weeks to prepare at all before being thrust into parenthood with the emergency of premature birth. Today, November 17 is National Prematurity Day. According to WHO, each year more than 15 million babies are born prematurely, that’s more than one in ten. And these numbers are increasing! Chances are someone you know will have a premature baby. They will need help & might not…
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Will you take the BOLD 30 days without complaining challenge?
30 Days Without Complaining??? Going without complaining is hard enough to do for five minutes much less 30 days, but I’ve learned that the secret to thankfulness is changing my heart from the inside out. Every fall, near the end of October thankfulness and gratitude challenges begin to dominate social media as we start to look ahead to the Thanksgiving holiday with a sense of how greatly we have been blessed. But after participating in several different Thankfulness/Gratitude Challenges, I noticed that being thankful in one social media post a day wasn’t the same thing as truly having an attitude of thankfulness. Was I truly focusing on the blessings that God has…
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Why and How to Celebrate Pastor Appreciation Month
October is Pastor Appreciation Month. Your pastor may get a lot of attention on Sunday morning, but what he really does is mostly behind the scenes. And this month is a great time to recognize how much he really does to care for your church family. Sometimes, people think pastors just preach on Sunday morning. Who wouldn’t like a one day a week job? (Heaven not Harvard is a participant in affiliate programs including the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.) However, in addition to sermon preparation (which takes…
