Challenge #5 June 30, 2010-July 6, 2010

Proverbs 31:13: She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands.

Okay how many of you goes out and buys their own wool and flax and weaves their own materials like they did back in the biblical days? ANYONE? Not me! I have a sewing machine that I got for Christmas three years ago sitting in my laundry room that has been turned on maybe one time! I don't even know how to use that, let alone weave the actual fabric for the clothing!!

So how can selecting wool and flax and working with eager hands apply to us in modern times, when we just run down to the nearest Walmart, Target, or Sears and buy some already made clothing? I'm glad you ask!

Back in biblical times a woman who could weave their own fabric was a very skilled woman. It took a lot of time, love and eagerness to accomplish something this detailed, and in my opinion still does! The process she had to go through in order to work with the wool, I can only imagine, was tough! Wool can be dense and curly making it hard to work with, so it takes a really patient, loving and determined person to do such a tedious skill.

While we in modern times might not do much weaving for ourselves or families with actual fabrics, we can do it spiritually with Christ. In the weaving process (from what I've researched) there are two different ways the yarn is used to keep the garment woven together. One of them is called "warp yarn" and the other which looks to be the foundation and what holds everything else together is called "Weft Yarn". Here is a photo of what it looks like:



I'm sure most of us have had a thread on a sweater or shirt come loose and what happens if we start to pull at that "Weft Yarn"? The entire shirt starts to unravel! If that foundation of the weaving is pulled out or disturbed, frayed, or snagged, it can destroy the entire garment!

Same with our foundation in Christ. We as the "heart" and weavers of Christ, have a job to do in our families, we are to be skilled and eager to pick the best things for our families, our husbands, and children. We want to weave Christ into every area of our children's lives as well as our own and our husbands. Our job as the heart of the home, is to guard the little hearts in our home. How can we do that? By choosing the best "yarn" to weave throughout their lives. Making good choices for their hearts by protecting them from damaged yarn, or frays, so that they wont unravel. One thing that a husband loves more than anything about a wife is knowing that she loves and cares for his children, and teaches them well.

Weaving Christ into our family starts at the heart, your heart. You have to be eager to do this and then start developing that skill to smooth out the dense curly wool that covers our children's hearts, our own hearts, and our husbands hearts, and weave it into something beautiful. When a fabric is woven together correctly it will not come apart, same with our families! When a family is woven together correctly, with Christ as our foundation, it will not unravel!

What do you really do every day to weave Christ into not only your life but into your relationship with your husband, into your children's lives? Do you spend time reading your bible with your children? Do you spend time in prayer with your children? What they see in you is what will end up in their hearts.

So our challenge this week is to make a firm foundation and weave Christ into our families in every area. If you are already doing this GREAT! But I'm sure there could be some improvement somewhere! So for our challenge this week, lets start making sure that you get some quiet time not only in reading your bible, but also in prayer and lets include our children in that time. Not just reading to them, or praying for them, or bedtime prayers, but actually setting aside "prayer time" and "bible time" to read out loud or even pray out loud so they can hear your heart, and start to build that foundation in their own hearts. You can do this with your husband as well, but however you choose to do it, make sure your children are included.

Sometimes I'll just pray in the car while driving and the girls are in the back, or while I'm doing dishes just start praying out loud. This will also help with their own prayer lives.

Now if you do not have children or are a expectant mommy, you can still work on yourself, pray for your future children, and also maybe ask your husband to join you in that prayer and even your devotion time this week. If your husband is not a believer or chooses not to participate with you, continue to include your children, and in your private prayers, pray that God will open his heart to what you are trying to do.

I'm so excited about this new challenge! With God as our foundation we can only become stronger women and better wives and mothers.

Make sure to head over the the discussion tab, on the facebook page and stay active. The more active you stay the easier it is to continue with the challenge because you will have support from other women who are going through the same thing.

Also After 10:00pm tonight we will start a new list of entries for the end of the month drawing for July, so make sure you help to grow this ministry by putting a link on your facebook status and then commenting on the wall of the facebook page to let me know you did it. You will also get an extra entry for participating in the discussion forum on the facebook page.

Praying for you all this week!

Challenge#4 June 23-June 29, 2010

Last week was a huge challenge for me! Well, they all have been really but, something about last week just really got to me. So after the week I had with last weeks challenge it was a little hard for me tonight to find the words to even post the next challenge. I pulled up the blog wrote a few things, and then walked away. Then did it again and walked away, but still didn't feel that the words or ideas were inspired by God. So I had to delete it all pray about it and start all over. And here we are!

Sticking with the same verse this month PROVERBS 31:12 "She brings him good not harm all the days of her life." We have one last challenge that goes with this verse!

After the week I had last week it took everything in me to continue with this challenge this week, but I'm going to push through those feelings and continue to strive to be the wife God intended for me to be. Just because something gets harder and harder, doesn't mean we just quit, in that case none of us would even be a Christian! That's the beauty of being a Christian, see, we know that the outcome will eventually be good because God is for us! We might go through a lot of valleys and have to pull ourselves through some quick-sand along the way, but how comforting to know that God is waiting at the end to celebrate our victory! That has been the ONLY thing that has kept me going some days. Going through trials and hard times should just make us want to run through them faster and harder just to get to the other side!

So going along with our other challenges this week I want us to work on "the way we speak to our husbands" trying to be "gentle not harsh."

This one again I can already tell you is going to be a hard one for me. I am a very strong person. I know what I want and when I put my mind to something I make sure I accomplish it! I also can be very aggressive at times, I have a strong personality, however, I'm also VERY sensitive. When I love someone, I REALLY LOVE THEM! When I'm friends with someone, I'm fully committed to that friendship for life, and when I hear someones problems, I don't just hear it with my ears I feel their pain and take on the situation as if it were my own. Sometimes it's hard for me to take that sensitive heart on the inside and let it match the outside.

When my husband and I first got married and I knew he was called into ministry, I would watch the Pastor's wives at the churches we'd go to. I would study them from their hair styles, to the way they prayed to their actions and the way they talked. The one thing I found in all of them, is that they are some of the strongest women on the outside, and the most sensitive loving women on the inside. The key was in the way they balanced it. See God doesn't want us to throw away that strong side in us, he wants us to just use it for the right reasons. We need to have that strong, aggressive side to us so we can be bold in our faith, and stand up for our family and children. When we allow that side to dominate and to tear down our husbands with harsh words, that is when having a strong, bold side becomes harmful.

The way we speak to our husbands is so important! It not only can harm him, but also our children. Those of us with little kids know that children hear and repeat EVERYTHING! We not only don't want them repeating harsh words but we don't want them to grow up thinking it's okay to marry someone who treats them harshly because their parents acted that way!

Proverbs 18:21 "The tongue has the power of life and death..." Your words have the power to give your husband life, or tear him apart! Your words also have the power to give your marriage life, or death! How many times can you think of when you've spoken to your husband badly, or torn him down with words? Again it could just be little things like for instance "Did you not fix your hair today?" or "can't you just ever pick up your clothes after your shower?" or anything that starts with "Why can't you ever....?"

We all have little things that we continue to do daily even though we know our spouse hates it. Mine is, I always take the plastic thing off the milk cap and leave it laying on the counter instead of putting it in the trash 2 feet away from me. My husband has mentioned it to me a handful of times, but he has realized this is something that might not be very important to me like it is to him especially when I'm trying to make three milk cups with three very thirsty babies, all screaming at me at the same time! And I have to say he now just picks it up and puts it in the trash without a word!

After my last video I posted about Ed & Rachelle, they really captivated my interest! So I started watching more and more of their videos! So check out this video I found of Ed and Rachelle.....



You can see how important this was to him, but maybe she had her mind on something else and forgot. A simple, "honey, I found this in the disposal it's really important to me that you put it in the compost pile" would do, but in the video he seemed a bit harsh, almost treating her like a child at some point by reminding her of the rules. This would have made me feel torn down, like I never do anything right, and belittled which for a man to feel this way can be very harmful!

Proverbs 15:1 " A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."

There have been so many times I could have answered my husband more gently than I did and avoided a huge blow up fight, or even just avoided hurting his feelings!

So this week lets be more aware of how we answer our husbands, are we being gentle or harsh? Can we avoid conflict this week by giving a gentle answer, or even turning away wrath and anger by avoiding the urge to pick out little things that aren't REALLY that important. Also, lets make sure to build our husbands up this week, encourage them! If you have something negative to address them with make sure you start out with two positives, then the negative after, this will soften the impact of the negative. Try to leave the past in the past, and work on a new gentle future.

Love you all, praying for you this week and hope you will pray for me as well! Don't forget to go over to the Facebook page and put your thoughts in the discussion forum. If you haven't commented on last weeks challenge do that as well I'd love to know how you did!! Be on the look out this week, for more chances to win an extra entry into the end of the month drawing for next Wednesday!

Challenge #3 Day 1 and Dr. Phill!

So I believe this might be a tough one for some of us this week so I'm going to do everything I can to encourage you and help you get through this week.

I'm not a Dr. Phill watcher AT ALL, however today I happened to turn it on and the subject of the show was "YOUR #1 COMPLAINT ABOUT YOUR SPOUSE." So with the challenge this week I couldnt help but be curious.

There were several couples on the show two in particular that really stuck out to me. There was a nagging spouse in both couples and both times it was the husband in my opinion. I sat there thinking "WOW, I could never live with a husband that nagged me to death about these things!" I was getting irritated just watching the show! So If I was that irritated, I can't imagine how irritated my husband gets when I do it to him over silly things!

The first couple had only been married for three months and their biggest problem was the wife bought two large drinks from Starbucks every day, and her husband thought it was a waste of money. She was so addicted to this Starbucks drink, she would call her husband at work and tell him she would bring his lunch to him so they can save money, then on the way stop and get a drink from the Starbucks around the corner!

The second couple is the couple from the Reality series "Living with Ed" I've never seen this show before but from what I saw I'm sure it is definately entertaining! I wanted to share with you a clip I found from the show. It was very humerous, however at the same time keeping our challenge in mind, I could also see the disrespect, nagging, talking badly to each other. In this clip I'm about to show you, Ed's wife Rachelle is suppose to be cleaning off the solar panels on the top of the roof. To Ed's surprise she had other plans! Check it out!




What do you think about this situation? Do you see yourself or your spouse in this video? If so how? If not how are you thankful for that?

The first 4 people to reply in the discussion forum on facebook will get 3 extra entries into the End of the month drawing!

Challenge #3: June 16-June 22, 2010

Proverbs 31:12 "She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life."

So last week was a little intense for me! Even though I felt as I posted I didn't have much to work on last week because I've been working on not being demanding and aggressive in that area for a while, God really showed me that even though I might be good at asking nicely for my husband to pass the salt or grab me a diaper, didn't mean I've fully mastered not being aggressive and demanding in other areas. And this week God totally ripped me apart in that area. Who knew that such a small thing could make such a HUGE difference!

So far the last few weeks we've worked on, Not talking badly about our husbands to others, and not being demanding and aggressive. This week, is going to be tough!! We are going to work on not "NAGGING and COMPLAINING!!

I am totally guilty of being the "nagging wife" at times. There are a few issues that I have with my husband that I tend to revert to nagging. One in particular I've prayed over for 5 entire years and still have to pray daily that I will let God take care of it instead of nagging my husband to do what I expect.

I really have an amazing husband, one who never complains when he comes home from a long day at work to a messy house and has to pick up dinner on the way home. One who is willing to go to the grocery store for me so I don't have to go myself. He is always ready and willing to accept my short comings and faults because he knows that I do the best that I can during the day, why can't I do that for him? Why can't I go through one week without saying "honey, I asked you to do this, you said you would and you haven't!"

Again here we are back to those little things again. Little things that add up and become something huge!! Out of curiosity, I looked up the word "NAGGING" in the bible and found this Judges 16:16 "With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death."

Nagging doesn't just cause aggravation to our husbands, or irritation. We can complain and nag about things so often and be so negative about things that it will wear on our husbands and maybe not cause them physical death, but mental and spiritual. Having someone constantly nag you with things can eventually wear away at you and cause a spiritual death, resulting in them not wanting to be intimate with you,or spend time with you, but feeling like they need to pull away from you in order to revive themselves.

Nagging and complaining can be very harmful to our husbands! Another verse I came across is Proverbs 24:15 "A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day" This made me think about something they do in the military. I've heard of where they have a constant drip of water on someone's head for a long period of time and they end up going crazy! I'm sure none of us ever have had the intention of making our husbands crazy or even being the cause of a spiritual death for them, so lets take up this challenge and really work hard on it this week!

A few weeks ago, I saw that our trash in our bathroom was overflowing into the floor. My girls like to get up in the mornings and take off their pull-ups and throw their pee filled diapers in there, so after time it becomes a nasty, overflowing, stinky mess! I remember standing in the bathroom thinking, "GOSH I wish he would take out the trash without me asking him once in a while!" So...I resisted the urge to say something, prayed and asked God to handle it, and later that evening I went in there to use the bathroom and all the trash was gone!! It saved me from being the nagging wife, and him from being angry and irritated at me for trying to tell him what to do, and everyone was happy!!

So instead of "nagging and complaining" this week to our husbands, get out that prayer journal and WRITE, WRITE, WRITE!! Write your nags and complaints in there, give them to God not your husband and watch what God does with them!! Remember he is better at handling our husband than we are! Also, if there is something that you need him to do...make a "Honey do" list for him and put it on the fridge, but also make one for yourself so that he isn't singled out. This will help with having to repeat yourself over and over, and will keep you from turning into a "nagging wife."

Make sure you praise your husband not just once this week, but once a day this week for something he has done for you! Lets increase the positive and decrease the negative.

Prayers for you this week, I know this is going to be a tough one for some of us. It seems for me the more I dive into this challenge the more challenging it becomes and the more satan has been at work in our marriage. But we can "overcome him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of our testimony" Rev 12:11. Hide this verse in your heart this week during the battle.

Don't forget to head over to the "discussion" tab this week and let us know how your doing! If you haven't done it for last week, do that too! And also remember to invite your friends to come join us, and help to grow this ministry, you never know whose marriage you could help just by inviting them to join us!

Prayers, and HUGS!!

Challenge #2: June 9th-June 15, 2010

So, we are going to continue this whole month with the same verse, but different challenges and ways of implementing these things into our daily lives. So just as a reminder, our verse for this month is still Proverbs 31:12 "She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life."

When my husband and I first got married, we went through our pre-marriage counseling. We took a test that asked us each a bunch of questions, like: "How many kids do you want? What would happen if the wife made more money than the husband?" We had a lot of the same answers, but some different. For example, his answer for "how many kids do you want" was 2. My answer was 8. My answer has changed since then, and since I had my first child, however so has his, since we now are about to have baby number 4.

We did have one issue we didn't see eye to eye on at first. It was mostly because I again, I thought it was something stupid, and small, that didn't make a lot of difference. Well, maybe it didn't to me but over time, again, these small things add up! We listened to a tape about respecting your husband. At first I was a little upset that we did that because what about respecting your wife?! And I also felt at the time a bit ganged up on. HOWEVER- it did teach me a lot, and helped out our marriage quite a bit!

The tape talked about how you should never DEMAND things from your husband. Now when I think about a "DEMAND", I think about bossing him around, being moody and telling him what to do. But this was talking about something different. This was talking about the small things; the little things that add up and cause something HUGE!

How many times have you been sitting at the table and said, "Babe, pass me the salt!" When have you been changing a diaper and said "Hon, go get me the wipes!" Or, sitting on the toilet and yelled "HONEY GET ME SOME TOILET PAPER!" I did that ALL THE TIME!! To me it was a simple request, but to him it was a demand! Why was it a demand? Because I wasn't actually asking him to do it, I was telling him! Over time, for men, these little tiny things add up and it starts to make them feel like they have no control. It's like, you have taken their rightful place as head of the household, and it starts to make them feel belittled and overpowered, and this is harmful to our husbands.

We want to ultimately be respectful to them, not demanding or aggressive with our requests. Lovingly ask for things, not demand them. When you take those little demands that add up negatively, and turn them into a loving request like, "Sweetie, could you please pass the salt?" "Babe, would you mind grabbing me the wipes?" or "HONEY, PLEASE WOULD YOU MIND BRINGING ME SOME TOILET PAPER?" Your requests become little things that add up to be positive, and cause your husband to adore you and start to even give you more respect than he did before.

So our challenge for this week is to be Respectful of our husbands, not demanding or aggressive towards them with our behavior. I want you to take note of every time you say, "HONEY GO DO THIS... or COULD YOU THAT", as a demand and not a loving request. If you have to, in mid-sentence after you have said it, correct yourself by saying, "oh I'm sorry I mean would you mind...." Then watch your husbands reaction. Also make sure to praise your husband in private this week, and let him know how much you love him and appreciate all these things he does for you.

Praying for you ladies this week!! Can't wait to hear your progress!!

Please make sure to share the FB link with other friends, so you can be entered into the end of the month drawing for a free prize ( prize to be announced soon). And find your way into the discussion tab on the facebook page to share what you think about the challenge, and how you are doing this week!

Love you and praying for you all as you start the new Challenge!!

At the end of Day 5

So here we are at the end of Day 5, I hope you are all still going strong!! So far, being able to hear and see what God has done in your lives has encouraged me so much!!

It's so awesome to have such amazing women to share this journey with.

So I hope so far you all are enjoying the challenge and I pray that everyone of you has seen something good come from it so far this week, and if you haven't yet you will before Day 7. From what people have been saying it seems like most of the week for everyone has been like falling into the valley and climbing back out. Seems like most people have had an uneventful start and then in the middle of the week was hit with a dilemma that caused them to be frustrated. But the dilemma isn't what is important it is that each of you have climbed up out of that valley and are standing on solid ground again! And I am SO proud of all of you for picking yourselves up and continuing on with your challenge even though, it would have been so much easier to just throw it out the window!

We have two days left on this challenge and then we will move onto the next challenge but same verse. Stay strong and in prayer and God is going to reward you tremendously for the commitment and changes you are trying to make for Him. It will be hard but totally worth it in the end!

Love all of you and praying for each of you daily!

Challenge Day 2

Today for me was easier than yesterday! Maybe it was cause I wasn't home all day and didn't have any temptations to complain, or maybe it was I didn't really have much to complain about today. Either way I could totally tell a huge difference today and could even see God working on me and my husband at the same time!

After my blog last night and confession of my slip up, I did go back and pray over it and ask God to change things before I talked to my husband about the cereal mess. Then this morning when I got up I walked into the living room and noticed there was no cereal under my toes!! He was even so excited about the fact that he did this for me he asked me if I noticed before I even did and I was very grateful!

The rest of my day with my husband today was spent with him being very loving towards me. It was such a hot day today and when we got to the car after a hour long soccer practice with our daughter, he started the car asked me to get in and he loaded all three kids, chairs, diaper bags, cups, and stroller so I did not have to be out in the heat!

It is just amazing to me how such a small thing and such a small prayer can make such a HUGE difference in both him and me!

I hope everyone is experiencing God working in their lives through this challenge as I have already over these last two days! I pray that God will continue to work our hearts and minds and mold us into the wives he wants us to be this week.

Please make sure you head over to the discussion tab on the facebook page and let us know how your week is going.

Looking forward to more transformation this week!! Keep at it Ladies your doing great!!