Today, my forever friend, Jacqui and I speak of friend formation, and tell of our intentional and purpose driven fun times and how it has shaped us. Such fun. Hope it encourages you.

Nothing quite prepared me, as an untrained young woman, to know how to bear all of the stresses we would face by being a family. And yet, I had been taught to seek God’s word, to pray and to obey and live in wisdom.

This week, I am asking myself what I need to do to prepare my heart to be present to my people, ready to serve and to determine not to give into the weariness or demands.

In my life as a mom, there have been countless times, I felt like I was not accomplishing anything productive from day to day. Five scriptures have been especially helpful to me when I am overwhelmed.

To me, Thanksgiving is the entry way to preparing my heart to be filled and renewed with a love for Christ. I need child-like excitement and gratitude to fill my heart again, so that I might bring light into my year ahead.

Giving thanks starts with a humble heart, one that does not demand but receives the gifts of everyday moments with joy. A grateful heart sees the fingerprints of God in normal every day circumstances, a lens through which we see life, people, simple pleasures as a gift.

When we read in the Word, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” this is a call out of passivity to action, to engaging, to spreading the moral excellence through each aspect of our lives that God has called us to. Today, I discuss what that has meant to me lately. I hope it will encourage you.

Stories have the power to change and inspire us in ways nothing else does. I hope you'll join us in this journey of bringing a good story to life that just might be the thing to help a world in need.

I have come to realize that embracing God's call to the duties of motherhood doesn't diminish my abilities to use my gifts, strength, and training, but fulfills a part of God's design.

What if someone could read your thoughts—would you like what they see? Worship the Lord Your God with all of your mind, we are told. I call it “minding your mind” because thinking, learning, understanding, creating—so many things we do with our minds, are to be a focus of our worship of God. Worshipping God with our mind requires a focus, intentionality, effort, a plan.