Prayers and a giveaway!

Yes, the movie War Room is getting a lot of press these days.  That is great.  But even more important is that prayer is getting a lot more press because of the movie!  I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have read these books and they are good!

Peter's Perfect Prayer Place, by Alex and Stephen Kendrick, is a sweet book geared for ages 4-8. This hardback book is about a little boy named Peter who is searching for a perfect place to pray. Written in a simple rhyming fashion, the story tells of a young child named Peter who goes from place to place looking for the right place to pray.  With the help of his parents, he eventually finds that ANYPLACE is a perfect place to pray to God.

We have already read this book more than several times and are thrilled to have added it to our library.  My 8 year old is at the top of the age range but still enjoys it.  The beautiful illustrations keep him engaged and it has been a good conversation starter for us about the ins and outs of prayer. As an extra bonus, a prayer poster can be found in the back.  This is a place for your child to record their prayer requests and God's answers to those prayers, with stickers included so you can note each time you pray for that request.  This is an especially great tool for visual learners to use to show them how God is working in their lives.

This Means War, written by Alex and Stephen Kendrick with Troy Schmidt is a "Strategic Prayer Journal" intended for preteens and teens.  This book is meant to be written in!  Each brief chapter hits upon a specific topic related to prayer, includes questions for your child to answer in short journal form, and ends with a section called Go To War, which gives them a specific thing to focus in payer on.  Chapters address why should I pray, who should I pray for, is God really listening and more. Also in the back of this book is a prayer list where your teen can record their prayer with the date, whether the answer is yes, no, or wait and date answered.  After looking through this myself, I have decided that my 13 year old will be using this beginning in January as part of his personal devotion time.  This 218 page paperback book would also make a great gift for the teens in your life.

The Battle Plan for Prayer has been on my bedside table for a few weeks now.  Also written by the Kendrick brothers, this book for adults focuses on the basics of prayer and then goes deeper into specific strategies for prayer.  Covering 35 chapters, this book covers a lot of ground.  While I have not agreed with everything that has been said, I am enjoying the book.  It has caused me to go back and look at what the Bible specifically says about prayer and examine what I believe to be true.  Let's just say there are a lot of notes in the margins these days!  One of the neat things about this book are the appendices.  There are several pages of scripture verses listed for praying for your wife, husband, children, pastors, government, non-believers, fellow believers, missionaries, and your city.  There are also verses for themes such as anger, depression, and worry as well as a wonderful section of the names of God.  At the very end are discussion questions listed by chapter if you wish to use this book in a group setting.

Other War Room related books published by B&H Publishing Group  include Prayer Works, for ages 8-12 and Fervent by Priscilla Shirer.

As with all books you read, especially ones regarding faith, I would encourage you to hold them up to God's Word.  Man can be fallible, but the word of God never is. Seek His will for your life, pray to Him and Him alone, and know that He will answer according to His will.  Prayer is communicating with God- may you be ready to hear His answers to your prayers!

To learn more about these resources and others, visit warroommovieresources.com.

Icon Media Group, together with B&H Publishing Group, is allowing me to give away a copy of each of these three books to one reader.  Just leave me a comment and a random name will be drawn next Friday!

Blessings,

How Sin Rocked Our Week

This was not the post I had planned for today.  Really, it wasn't.  Nor did much of this week go as I had planned.  Surprise, right?  My heart is heavy and I  just need to get a few things out there.  Be forewarned, it is heavy stuff.

It actually started two weeks ago.  I am sure many of you saw the announcement that Doug Phillips, the head of Vision Forum, was stepping down from his position due to inappropriate relations with someone other than his spouse.  Rocked. My. Week!  This man has spent countless years in the homeschooling and family-promoting-business.  We have spent countless hours listening to his teaching on how to raise our children and how to be better spouses. We shop his catalog and we watch his documentaries. We were shocked.  We were hurt and disappointed - and friends, we do not even know the man personally.


And then this week things got more personal.  We have been notified that one of our children's past youth pastors has been charged with indecent liberties with minors.  Rocked. My.Week! This is a man we know and loved.  Someone we trusted our girls with.  We were again hurt and disappointed, and left questioning a lot of things.  Praise The Lord, our girls were not directly affected, but there are at least several moms out there that can not say the same thing today.  It breaks my heart.  There have been several times this week when quite honestly all I wanted to do was hide in a closet and wait for Jesus to return.  Instead, I have prayed and cried and prayed some more and tried hard to dialogue all of this out as a family.

Where does one start to try to explain it all to your children?  How do you explain that we all are sinners and just one step away from doing something "just as bad"?  How do explain that we live in a fallen world?

"For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Rom 2:23)

Let's face it, those are hard things to talk about.  I tend to just want to teach my kid's about God's love and sing Jesus Loves Me.  But that is not all there is to the story.

This week we have been doing a lot of talking about sin and its effect on all of us.  How we all have to choose minute by minute to do the right thing.  How that slippery slope that I have mentioned before affects us all. How Satan can tempt us, but we can ALWAYS choose to do the right thing.  How we must cover ourselves and our family in prayer daily.  How our actions affect more people than we will ever realize.  How we must guard our eyes, ears, and hearts.  How our goal should be to stay as far away from the line as possible, not see how close we can get to it.

How we could easily be THAT person.

And then there is grace.  Yes, I want my kids to remember grace.  That through the tears and confusion and pain, God is still God and He extends grace.  To everyone.  Even, no, especially, sinners - just like us!

We are all just one step away from the line that divides right from wrong.  Lord, may we fight hard to stay on the right side and to help those that have stepped over come back.  May we learn to forgive and give grace as it has been given to us.

"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves; it is a gift from God..." (Eph. 2:8)

Blessings and prayers for you all, friends!




Linking up with Amy today at Raising Arrows!

Fun Friday- Read Aloud Edition and a Giveaway!

Happy Fun Friday!  Don't you just love the start of a weekend?  For me, the excitement starts on Thursday after lunch.  We are done with co-op then and I come home and breathe a sigh of relief.  No more things we have to do, just one more day of school (which is often a lighter schedule), and then time centered around family.  LOVE IT!

Anyway...

I am excited to share with you this week our newest read-aloud.  This one came to us by surprise, as I was asked to review it by an outside source.  So exciting!


The Reunion, written by Rachael McIntire, and published by Elisha Press, is a lovely little book written in response to the author's need to find good, quality books to read to her own children.  It's subtitled- "A story of redemption for the whole family to enjoy together."

Indeed it is.  The book begins with a four year old little girl desperately praying for a little sister and unfolds with how God hears and answers her prayers.  Throughout the book we see the faith of a little child grow steadily into the faith of a pre-teen in such a natural way, guided by the deep love of her family.  Dotted with good manners, moral situations and a sweet old-fashioned simpleness, we were delighted to be able to read this together.  Some of the chapters are quite short, making reading several at one time completely do-able.  That and the fact that the boys often wanted to know what would happen next!

Because this book is centered around the world of adoption, it is now dear to our hearts.   It is hard for us to finds books about adoption that are done well.  Often incorrect terms are used, families seem to be "saving" a child, or they are just downright hurtful. The one time I did have a concern was with the use of the term "real" parents in reference to biological parents.  This may just be a case of us being sensitive to politically correct wording because we are an adoptive family, but we encourage the use of "birth" parents as opposed to "real".  Real implies to me that I am fake.  Otherwise, the loving way that Rachael approached adoption as a gift warmed my heart and I think really pulled in our 5 year old adopted son.  More than once he said "just like me" with such excitement.

After each reading time we spent a few minutes talking about the characters and what they said or did that really stood out in our minds.  Some of my favorites were the kids noticing how naturally the family prayed together, that the parents were kind to their children and the children were well mannered, without seeming fake.  Because two families are highlighted, one Christian one not, it was an opportunity for us to discuss how each handled situations that arose and what our family would have done in a similar situation.  Our favorite line was, "Julie, you need Jesus in your heart!" (page 19)  We giggled at that response and had fun imagining how someone would react if that was our response to one who offended us. 

The other discussions we had were about the meaning of words.  Some were from public school references, so the usage was lost on my youngest especially.  Other times, we had to discuss meanings of some of the vocabulary used, therefore I would say that this book is written for slightly older elementary children and up if it is going to be read solely by the child.  For us, it provided a good opportunity to discuss some new words and ideas.

Good read alouds equal good conversations!  And The Reunion was  a book that sparked many conversations among our family.  I pray it will do the same for you!

As a bonus for Family, Faith and Friday readers, the publisher has offered a special code for $2.00 off your purchase of The Reunion through the end of February.  After that the code will be good for $1.00 off.  Please type in REVIEW-FRIDAYS when ordering to take advantage of this gift.

We were also given an extra copy of The Reunion to giveaway to one lucky reader.  Use the rafflecopter below for your chance to win.  This will close next Thursday!

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

THANK YOU McINTIRE FAMILY for the privilege of reviewing your book!

Surgery and Such

This time on Wednesday I will be in surgery.  My first. one. ever.  It is overdue and needed.  Since November, I have had "women's health" issues that landed me in the ER twice and resulted in severe anemia so the time has come- a hysterectomy is scheduled for Wednesday.  Anyway, it was not my first choice, nor my second for that matter, but after many consultations and much prayer we believe that it is the answer I need.  Can I just tell you I am scared?  I braved having two of our kiddos naturally because it seemed better than needles and associated hospital things.  I am not fond of hospitals.  I still have my wisdom teeth because I am a wimp.  Get the idea?

Funny thing is, about the same time that all this came about, we also got word that CP needed his elbow surgery. At the time I joked with him about getting in line, I was sick first.  But while sitting in the waiting room a few short weeks ago, I had an epiphany.

Maybe God was letting me conquer my fear of surgery by allowing me to walk though it first with my husband.  I got to see all the pre-op stuff.  I got to see all the post-op stuff.  And I, I mean, HE, survived.  I will too!

But, just to cover all of my bases- will you please add me to your prayers Wednesday morning?  For a successful surgery and healing, but especially for a peace that only the Lord can provide.  My nerves will thank you- SO DO I!

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

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ALP will post for me on Wednesday.   Look for me back by Friday!  See, I am being positive!  ;)

Before I Hit Send

I admit it, one of the reasons I like Facebook is that I like to keep up with friends' everyday lives.  I like reading about your kids, your hobbies, your days and even your errands.  It's like sitting down with a cup of tea (or a Diet Coke) and catching up on your life...abbreviated form.  (A huge blessing for a continually moving Air Force family who hasn't seen many of you in years!)  I also find it a privilege to pray for you when you request it.

I must admit I have not always thought of it as a privilege to pray for someone.  Let's face it, there are many needs out there and our list can grow long by the end of the day and overwhelm us.  It is a hurting world out there filled with hurting people.  But as the Lord draws me closer to Him each day, I have begun to see prayer as a privilege.  A way to bless so many who have blessed me.

Allow me to tell you about a situation that also helped change my prospective on prayer.  The short version...we lost friends a few years ago because they said we were too 'needy'.  Too hard to be friends with.  We met them during the last six months of bringing CJ home so yes, we were needy...and desperate, and tired, and hurting. (can you even imagine how they would have felt if they had known us the whole time?  ;)  Don't answer that!)  And so they walked out of our lives.  It hurt!  And it made me question my asking friends for prayer daily.  Understand, I fully believe in going to the Lord FIRST with prayer, but I also find comfort in knowing there are people out there pleading to the Lord in our behalf, but I wondered if we did that too much.

About that same time Amy Grant's song Better Than a Hallelujah came out.  I love what it says, "We pour out our miseries, God just hears a melody.  Beautiful the mess we are, the honest cries of breaking hearts...are better than a Hallelujah."

Every time I hear that song it is painful.  I mean, it hurts my heart!  But sometimes pain is good.  Sometimes it shows us a problem.  In this case it reminds me that while we can tire people with our prayer requests, shame on our human sinful nature, we can never tire the Lord.  He longs to hear from us.  Our hurts, our fears, our frustrations,...our everything!

"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.  With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people."  Ephesians 6:18

I tell you this story not so you can be angry with those people or feel sorry for us, but so that we can all reflect on whether or not WE have been those people at some time.  Have we been too busy to lift our friends in prayer?  Have we put our needs before others?  Are we missing out on our friends celebrations because we are not willing to walk through the dark times with them as well? I can honestly say yes, that has been me before.  And it grieves me.

So...
I now purpose to pray when asked.  Immediately!  (don't you love those people who when you ask them to pray bow their heads and immediately lift their voices to God?)  And I consider it a priviledge!  When I see a prayer request on Facebook now, I type what's on my heart to that person, close my eyes, and pray...THEN hit send!

I have found that if I wait until the end of the day or during our nightly devotions I often forget (hey, I am a busy, often distracted mom!).  But if I pray NOW, I am honoring my word, you, and the Lord.  You are not forgotten by me!  I desire to walk with you through the light as well the darkness in your life!

So this morning I challenge you to join me and the next time you type the words "I will pray for you" DO...before you hit send!

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."  James 5:16

How can we pray for you today?