Quiet Times

Solution For Keeping Little Ones In Bed {so you can have your quiet time}

July 5, 2012 by Courtney 7 Comments

Lately, I have seen a lot of status updates on Facebook from parents that mention their small children – toddlers and preschoolers – waking up WAY too early in the morning. And I know that when the children wake before mommy wakes – a quiet time is sure to not happen. Children need our full attention so having our eyes on the Bible is not best when our eyes need to be watching them!

I know there are mothers desperate to get their quiet time in, in the morning. So this post is for you! I have two solutions – we will start with #1!

1. My sisters taught me a trick that they both used. I tried their trick and it worked!! Cover the last two numbers of the clock with a piece of paper. Then write on the paper the hour that you would like your child to come out of their room in the morning. In our home, it has always been 7. Then teach your child to match the two numbers! When the two numbers match they can come out of their room. At bedtime, I would show them how the 7′s were matching (they usually went to bed around 7:30pm) and I’d remind them to not come out of their room until there was a matching 7.

I’d lay books beside their bed and they had permission to get up and read or play quietly in their rooms – just not come out until there was a matching 7. Sometimes there were rewards for obeying. If they mistakenly came out, I gently took them back to the room – showed them that the numbers were not matching and encouraged them to read and play until they saw matching numbers. This took time and training to get them to this point – but once they got it, it was so worth the training time! This is still the “rule” in our home to this day.

(If you have tried other solutions to no avail AND you have tried #1 – go to solution #2!)

2. Do not try to have a morning quiet time alone…oh I know it’s painful to not have that time that you dream of having – but some seasons of life do not permit this possibility. Either you have to get up very very very early (which may make you sleep deprived and not such a nice mommy or wife) – OR simply give yourself grace during this season of life. Read the Bible with your children during breakfast or lunch or wait until after they are down for afternoon naps or bedtime, and then spend quality time with Lord.

Please remember, this season of life is NOT forever. Add ten years to your children’s lives. If you have a 1, 3 and 5 year old in ten years they will be 10, 13, and 15. You will not be bathing them, cutting up their food, and dressing them forever. In ten years, the opposite will be happening. Perhaps they will be preparing the food for you and doing the laundry to help you!

So persevere during this season of life. Remember Philippians 3:14 – “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Press on sweet sisters and mommies! Strain toward the prize. We are not home to heaven yet. These days may be hard – but we have great hope in knowing that one day all the pain and trials we face will be over and we will step onto the shores of heaven!!! Oh what a glorious day it will be!!!

Walk with the King!

Filed Under: Quiet Times

Summer Bible Reading Plan & Book Club

April 23, 2012 by Courtney 28 Comments

So yesterday’s challenge was...“Purpose to not read ANYTHING else before you have read God’s word for at least 1 minute in the morning. Do not read the newspaper, facebook, a spiritual devotional or check your email. Go straight to God’s word first.”

Do you need some help as to where to read in God’s word or some accountability? Then keep reading!

I’m excited to announce the Good Morning Girls summer session! GMG will be using my FREE eBook “The Proverbs 31 Woman ~ One Virtue at a Time!” If you haven’t downloaded it yet – now’s the time – here’s how to get it for Free!

To download and print the reading plan click here.

This summer session will include:

Weekly videos from Courtney & Angela
Practical and realistic tips on HOW to be a Proverbs 31 Woman
Fun weekly challenges
Memory verses
And special guests!!!

Our study is going to be light, practical and GREAT for the busyness of our summers!

Do you have to be in a Good Morning Girls group to join? NO but we recommend you create one!!! !

What is Good Morning Girls? (GMG)
If you have never heard of Good Morning Girls before here’s what we are… “Good Morning Girls” is a title for a group of women who use email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype or text messaging to keep each other accountable for their quiet times. My group emails each other each daily after we have our quiet time. We say “Good Morning” and then share what we read in our quiet time. Some of us have our quiet time first thing in the morning, while others squeeze it in during children’s naps or at bedtime. The time of day doesn’t matter…..our focus is just being in God’s Word daily!

Here is a video about Good Morning Girls and a few testimonials from my own personal GMG friends!

For those of you viewing this in your email, click here.

Summer sign-ups run from: April 16th-May 14th
Summer session dates: May 14th-August 17th

Who can join?
Young, old, single, married – any woman who wants to pursue walking with Jesus. (This is our belief statement- scroll to bottom of page).

Joining GMG is as simple as 1-2-3!

1- Find a group of friends to form an online accountability group.

Women in your Sunday school class or church
Friends from your women’s bible study
Past college roommates,
Relatives,
Neighbors,
Co-workers,
Other moms that you do life with…

Still not sure who to invite? Then visit our online message board and find a group there to join! GMG groups are forming based on location, age of children, pastor wives, homeschool moms, public school moms, working moms, stay-at-home moms, special needs moms…etc. If you don’t see a group that interests you then form your own online!

2- Once you know who is in your group, decide how you want to daily communicate to each other.

Facebook -setup a secret group. (Not sure how? Here are the steps)
Twitter- our hastag is #GoodMorningGirls
Email
Text messaging
Skype

3- Sign-Up HERE!

After you have joined our summer session, please make sure to subscribe to our blog for blog post updates and join our Facebook community by “Liking” us!

We are so excited to start this next session with you!

Walk with the King,

Filed Under: Good Morning Girls, Quiet Times

5 Disciplines – Week 3 ~ Spirit

April 22, 2012 by Courtney 60 Comments

Week 1 & 2 Update: My week 1 personal goal was to lose 5 pounds in 5 weeks and so far I’m at 2 pounds lost…right on target. My week 2 personal goal was to pray over my to-do list each day. I made some really long to-do lists…I’m not sure what I was thinking lol! I fell really short at getting everything done that I wanted to get done…old habits die hard…I’m still learning to pray “thy will be done” and not “my list be done.” I’m using the “Plan of Attack” from Saturday’s post this week – we’ll see if I do a little better? How are you doing with the first 2 week’s challenges? Let me know in the comment section – this is your accountability !

Onward into week 3! The Discipline of the week is – Spirit.

My son just took his Karate test to earn his second degree orange belt last Thursday evening. One lesson he is learning through his training is discipline. He is always to address those over him as sir or mam. He must always obey completely or he hits the deck for one push up. The three lessons they repeat each week are in respect, discipline and tenacity.

Tenacity – I like that word! Tenacious means: persistent in maintaining, adhering to, or seeking something valued or desired.

As disciples of Jesus, we must persistently seek after God.

How tenacious are we in our walk with God?

It’s hard in this fast paced, fast food, facebook type of culture to simply turn off all the distracting dings and just sit at the feet of Jesus. Let’s be honest, we have 10 times more distractions than our grandparents ever had. And that means we are going to have to be 10 times more tenacious to maintain our walk with God.

“Life Management is really spiritual life management”. ~ Elizabeth George

I know that we may be tempted to say we don’t have time to read God’s word but let me suggest that reading God’s word does not have to take time. Let me explain. If you want to do an indepth study or read through the Bible in a year or journal long passages – it’s going to take time… lots of time and truthfully it’s going to be the best time of your life!!!

But grace reminds us that in some seasons of life we truly are up to our ears in bottles, binkies, babies and blankies. Others of us have plates so full they look like platters! Clearly – just from our first two challenges – many of us are overwhelmed by the daunting task of trying to get organized and take care of our own health…and so if you think I’m about to pour on *guilt* because you are not reading your Bible daily…breathe a sigh of relief.

The Bible does not command us to have a daily quiet time!

The Bible gives us examples to follow:

~Jesus got alone early in the morning with God to pray. (Mark 1:35)

~Daniel – a tenacious man of discipline – prayed three times a day – morning, noon and night. (Daniel 6:10)

~David – the writer of the Psalms – poured out his heart to God in all seasons of life – morning, noon, night, in times of fear, weakness, sadness, joy and delight.

David’s Psalm 63

1 You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
(see his tenacity!)

⁶ On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
⁷ Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ I cling to you;
your right hand upholds me.

Cling tenaciously to God. Circumstances are going to stand in the way! Don’t let your grip slip!

Week 3′s Challenge:
Purpose to not read ANYTHING else before you have read God’s word for at least 1 minute in the morning. Do not read the newspaper, facebook, a spiritual devotional or check your email. Go straight to God’s word first. And in case you think 1 minute seems a bit stingy with our time – I want to suggest – that once you get started most likely you will go for much longer than 1 minute. But I want this to be doable. After reading your Bible, I encourage you to leave your Bible in the kitchen open and everytime you walk past it, pause to read it for 15 seconds and then go on. Squeeze all the nourishment you can out of the scriptures you are reading.

If you feel like you have NO clue where to start reading in God’s word, I recommend you go to I John or the Gospel of John. I currently am having my quiet times in the book of Mark – the shortest gospel. Come back tomorrow when I share my personal reading plan for the summer. You can print it and read along with me!

Alright my tenacious friends! Who’s in?

Who is willing to commit the first minute of everyday to time in God’s Word? Leave a comment letting me know your commitment and if you are a blogger, write about this challenge or the past 2 week’s challenges and link-up below!

Walk with the King,

Filed Under: 5 Weeks 5 Disciplines Mind-Body-Spirit, Quiet Times, Self-Discipline

When You Are Hungy For God

February 27, 2012 by Courtney 26 Comments

When our soul aches, our daily to-do list is a mile long and we can’t hear God over the noise of our technology then what?

Maybe it’s time we fast.

Fasting is a spiritual discipline that feeds our soul while we starve our body. Every time our mind signals “I want food” it’s a signal to pray.

As Americans, to give up our beloved food from sun down to sun down is not an easy task. When it comes to fasting, my friend Diet Coke is hands down the hardest thing to deny myself for 24 hours! But how hungry for God are we?

John Piper writes in A Hunger For God: “When midmorning comes and you want food so badly that the thought of lunch becomes as sweet as summer vacation, then suddenly you realize, “Oh, I forgot, I made a commitment. I can’t have that pleasure. I’m fasting for lunch too.” Then what are you going to do with all the unhappiness inside? Formerly, you blocked it out with the hope of a tasty lunch. The hope of food gave you the good feelings to balance out the bad feelings. But now the balance is off. You must find another way to deal with it.”(pg.20)

Fasting is a servant. In its quiet moments, it brings out your soul’s struggles. The hope of a bag of chips or a gallon of ice cream to drown your sorrows out is stripped away and you find yourself raw before God’s throne.

On days of fasting for me, I do not watch any television and have minimal computer time or texting. Sometimes I do it with friends, so we will text and email each other encouragement. But otherwise, it’s a quiet day. There is nothing and no one to conceal my dark feelings and it is there, before God’s throne, that I find time and time again, indeed God is enough.

In the Bible, we see many great men and women of God participating in fasting and prayer. There’s David (2 Sam. 12:16), All the Jews for Esther (Esther 4:16), Ezra (Ezra 8:21-23), Nehemiah (Nehemiah 1:4) and of course Jesus, our ultimate example, in the wilderness for 40 days (Matt. 4:2).

Have you ever gone on a fast?

Here’s a few of my tips.

1. Start with a 24 hour period. (do not fast if you are pregnant or have a medical condition that requires a special diet)

2. Look at your calendar and pick a day where you are home most of the day.

3. I like to go from sundown to sundown, which means an early supper in the winter time on day 1 but the next evening it is such a joy to break the fast with family!

4. Fasting is not to impress God or others. Fasting was created by God as a tool to bring us into a closer relationship with him.

5. Without prayer, fasting is simply a diet. You must commit to praying and meditating.

6. As a homeschooler, I usually lighten our class load and have the kids join me in some of my prayers. I also try to line up quiet activities for them to do so I can break away for pockets of prayer times. I will admit, lunch time and afternoon snack time can be a beast but you can do it!

Are you hungry for God?