This Week's Favorite Reads.

I love when other bloggers use this as a topic for a post. It's a great way to be encouraged by what another may see on their dashboard, blogs they may not know about. 

I have found many new blog friends through people highlighting what their favorite reads have been that week. 

So I think I am going to do a regular posting when I have a selection of encouraging posts to share.

I also need a place to document these so my poor bookmarks section doesn't explode. 

Cling By Nicole Neesby @ Today is My Favorite

What I'm Reading: Sacred Singleness By Kiki @ In Its Time 

Anybody Story: Lauren Casper By Lauren Casper over @ Gloriously Ruined

It Will Work Out By Gennean @ Loved, Not Lost

A Visit I'll Never Forget By Amanda @ My Love For Lyla 

Carrying Burdens By Carrie @ Waiting with Joy 

Because, if you really cared... By Rachel @ Chasing Kite Tails 

They tell me I need them to feel happy again.... By Caroline @ JCaro

A Long Season of Waiting By Amanda over @ Where My Soul Belongs

Marriage By Casey @ The Wiegands

Phew. That's a ton of food for thought right there.

Enjoy friends! Oh and if you've read something good this week or written something encouraging, leave me a comment, I'd love to check it out :)

Much Love!

L

Gloriously Ruined: A Heart for Adoption.

Ladies, I can't wait for you to meet a friend of mine. I came across her blog a few months ago and have been so encouraged and challenged by her story. I have not yet shared much of my heart for adoption and Africa. Although I touched on Africa a little here and here. 

But this awesome woman of God puts her heart for adoption into words beautifully and I don't think I could have shared it better myself! I am so thankful she agreed to share with you guys.

Much Love!

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Hey yall, my name is Wynne and I blog over at Gloriously Ruined.  

My husband & I just brought home our Ethiopian babes, Camp + Asher.  It was quite the adventure but now we are settling in as a family of 4 and loving every moment.  Our adoption process wasn't easy and it certainly wasn't our plan.  It was never ever on our radar until the summer of 2010 a young friend encouraged me to pray about adoption and God used her challenging question to wreck our plans and gloriously ruin our lives.  And we haven't looked back since!  

I'm excited to be here to share & encourage you gals today! 

Something that God has put heavy on my heart the past two weeks is women who are waiting.  In my season of life that means waiting for a baby (through adoption or natural birth) but it can really mean any season of waiting.  I just went through 3 really hard years of waiting and longing to be a mother.  There were months that were really dark.  Days that I weeped and cried out to the Lord, days I was mad and angry at Him, many days I didn't understand His timing.  Now, my arms are full and I can SEE what His perfect timing was.  I can see what part of His plan was.  You see, if we had gotten pregnant when I wanted to - I would never have gone & fallen in love with Africa, been involved with Noonday Collection, adopted and generally had my life gloriously ruined   My life looks nothing like it did 3 years ago.  My life has been ruined and wrecked for Him.  He has broken and changed my heart.  I never was one of those people that "had a heart for the nations" or always knew they "wanted to adopt".  I just wanted to live a normal american dream life - married, house, car, job and 3 kids.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, but my eyes have been opened to the orphan crisis, the water crisis, and the people I've met and fallen in love with along our adoption journey have changed the way I live my life and see the world.  

In the season of waiting I NEVER could have seen this.  God has now redeemed that part of my story & is using it for His glory.  Ever since I started openly sharing about our road to a family, it's opened up so many conversations with friends (real & bloggy) that are going through the same thing.  and I guess that's what I want to encourage you in - BE REAL.  in gods timing, for sure, but if you can - be real and be honest.  If you've been through something really difficult, find a way to help encourage someone that is still in the thick of it.  Pray and ask God to bring you those people.  Just last night at a small bible study Christmas ornament exchange  I got to have this conversation with 3 friends!  It's ok to talk about our struggle, it's ok to struggle.  It's ok to not be able to see Gods perfect timing in the middle of a hard season of wait.  When we are real with each other, we can relate to each other more and we can support and encourage each other on the journey.

So, be real.  be encouraging.  reach out.  let God use the difficult seasons of your life to reach others for your good & His glory.  if we don't have each other to walk with, then who do we have?

Gloriously Encouraged By Community.

Hey Lovely Ladies,

This week we are pausing together and reflecting on some of the encouraging words and challenging thoughts which have been shared so far. 

So if you haven't had a chance to read all the previous posts from this amazing group of ladies, this is the time to do it =) I am daily encouraged by them through their blogs as well as so many other ladies. So I wanted to link you back to the posts here and then share a few others I have been encouraged by this week.

Elise Cooper

Nicole Neesby

Brit Willard

Alesha 

Aren't they just awesome! I love their hearts and encouraging words.

I have also come across several lovely blogs and wonderful women this week.

Aimee wrote some challenging words on friendships here. 

Casey's beautiful thoughts on not comparing ourselves to others here.

Monica's convicting thoughts on taking control of emotions here.

Rae's raw post on the never ending battle of conforming vs creating here.

Amanda's post on being still before the Lord (including an MRI scanner) here.
Mackenzie on just stopping in the midst of the Craziness here.

I love being encouraged and inspired to think about things. Don't you?

Any thought-provoking encouraging posts you guys have read this week?

I would love for you to share them with me.

Much Love,

L

Gloriously Encouraged by Alesha.

Gloriously Encouraged is a series where I have asked several beautiful women to share their hearts with you guys. 
The purpose being to encourage you all.
I can't keep quiet about these ladies you guys, they are such gems!! 
Beautiful inside and out. 
I look forward to hearing what each of them shares on this topic. 

I have asked them to share with you guys every week leading up to Christmas, so you too can be encouraged by them during this season of thankfulness and grace. May their stories point you to the one each of them loves! 

I am so blessed to be able to call these ladies friends. 
I find such encouragement in hearing how the Lord is working in their lives and working through them. 
I hope you too will find their stories and hearts to be a blessing with where you find yourself on your journey with the Lord. 

 Much Love as always!
 L

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Hello lovelies! My name is Alesha. I blog at Blessed to be a Blessing and I am so excited to be here today to share some encouragement with you.

Almost 3 months ago, my husband and I packed up everything that we could manage to squeeze into on little station wagon and drove from Olympia, Washington to Delray Beach, Florida.

Why?

Well, a year before, our former youth pastor and his wife had moved there to start a church, and after much prayer, we decided to move down to help them.

I come from a big family, that I love dearly. I'm a bit of a homebody, the oldest of six kids, and definitely an A-type personality. Everyone in the family assumed that I would be the one to stay close to home. I'm not the world-traveling wanna be. I'm not the super-ambitious, career oriented one. I am not the sports-superstar.

I'm just the oldest child whose biggest ambition in life has been to be a mom and housewife.

Well, I'm no longer the closest to home; in fact, I'm the farthest. I could give you story after story about how God has completely wrecked my plans and replaced them with His plans.

But ladies (and gents), although it hasn't been easy, it has been so worth it!

Every single wrecked plan for my life has been rewritten by God into a beautiful manuscript that I couldn't have written on my own. The biggest example of  this is how I met and married my husband. The beauty that has been brought into my life through my husband Travis is more than I could have asked for.

Be sure to head over and say hi! Comments are turned off here.

Gloriously Encouraged By Brit Willard.

Gloriously Encouraged is a series where I have asked several beautiful women to share their hearts with you guys. 
The purpose being to encourage you all.
I can't keep quiet about these ladies you guys, they are such gems!! 
Beautiful inside and out. 
I look forward to hearing what each of them shares on this topic. 

I have asked them to share with you guys every week leading up to Christmas, so you too can be encouraged by them during this season of thankfulness and grace. May their stories point you to the one each of them loves! 

I am so blessed to be able to call these ladies friends. 
I find such encouragement in hearing how the Lord is working in their lives and working through them. 
I hope you too will find their stories and hearts to be a blessing with where you find yourself on your journey with the Lord. 

 Much Love as always!
 L

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Hello. I'm Brittany & I blog at These Happy Times. I just love L & I'm sure you do as well. I was so excited to meet her in real life at Influence and actually spend some time with her. Today she has asked me to share something from my heart. Before I continue, let me introduce my little family. My husband & our sweet little man.

About a month ago life kinda began to get crazy. By crazy I'm referring to busyness of life, commitments, emotions, way of thinking & feeling.  There were way too many things on my plate and I really wanted to do all of them & do them all well. At the same time my little world began to get hit after hit all at one time. Life hand delivered two devastating pieces of information to me within 24 hours. At the same time my car broke down & my little family was all very sick with the flu. It was really not a pretty time in life.

I will spare everyone from all the details of the news that I received (for it isn't my story to tell) but I will say that I was broken. Like, really broken.

That next week I just kept trying to process information.
Asking the Lord what he would have me to learn during this time.
What did he want me to hear from him?

As I was driving in my car listening to this song, the Lord clearly spoke to my heart telling me I must learn to give grace in these situations. I ignored the Lord. I was still wanting to wallow in the crazy & not let him work in my heart just yet. Later that night I had coffee with a sweet friend who prayed for me saying, "Lord show her how to give grace in new ways." That prayer shook me hard friends. I decided to stop living in the crazy of life & start working to show grace through Jesus to get life back on track. To get the chaos out of my life.

For me I always thought I had an understanding of grace. Life has thrown me many curveballs in the past that grace was the only way to make it through. However, this last month of daily applying the gift of grace in my life, God has shown me a deeper understanding of grace. This is what I want to share with you.

Grace is a choice. God made the choice to show me grace from sin through the gift of salvation in the form of Jesus on the cross. (John 3:16) Applying this to my life, I make the choice to show others grace in their errors.

Grace is an action. Did you know that God forgets my wrongs & doesn't hold them over my head? (Isaiah 43:25) In this same way I want to strive to give grace out when it hurts, when my flesh really doesn't want to, and when it takes everything inside of me to let something go & to not be ugly instead. I must remember that grace is a gift so I must learn how to freely give it. Big gulp, because its hard.

Grace is calling us to be more like Jesus. It is true. As hard as it is to show grace sometimes, it is easier when we remember that God calls us to be more like Jesus. The Lord prompts us in Eph. 4:32, "be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."

Some truth for you: Sometimes we can't control the things that come up in life. Others can sometimes make life crazy for us. However, if our response is grace, kindness, and love we can determine if we will live in the crazy or not. Grace doesn't remove the crazy in our life instead it just dissolves it enough for us to focus, breathe, and make it through as we rely on Jesus.

Sometimes it is a blessing to be broken. Broken means we are at a place to learn & receive. My question for you sweet new friends is, Are you showing true Grace? Are you living it out the way our God calls us to?

Be encouraged that if you aren't, you are for sure not alone & it is never to late to start. I am right there with ya & working to live it out with the help of the Lord. I would love to chat with you about Grace so be sure to come say hello.
Thanks again L for letting me share something from my heart.
~Brit

Be sure to head over and say hi! Comments are turned off here.

Gloriously Encouraged By Nicole Neesby.

Gloriously Encouraged is a series where I have asked several beautiful women to share their hearts with you guys. 

The purpose being to encourage you all.

I can't keep quiet about these ladies you guys, they are such gems!! 

Beautiful inside and out. 

I look forward to hearing what each of them shares on this topic. 

I have asked them to share with you guys every week leading up to Christmas, so you too can be encouraged by them during this season of thankfulness and grace. May their stories point you to the one each of them loves! 

I am so blessed to be able to call these ladies friends. 

I find such encouragement in hearing how the Lord is working in their lives and working through them. 

I hope you too will find their stories and hearts to be a blessing with where you find yourself on your journey with the Lord. 

 Much Love as always!

 L

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Morning lovelies!  I hope you are reaching for your favorite cup of tea.  Or cocoa.  Cuz we're about to get to know each other and I wanna get cozy!  I'm over here resisting the urge to consume 27 peppermint shakes.  {They're my favorite and are quite plentiful this time of year!}

My name is Nicole and I blog over at a little web place I call Nicoladee.
Nicoladee is my little spot to celebrate the beauty in the ordinary.  A little place where I choose to be real about life, even when it's not so perfect. . . because I believe that deep in our hearts we all crave to truly know each other in honest, real ways.

My real life is made up of being married to my very best friend who happens to be awful buff and dashing.  We feel in love several years ago while we were playing with orphans at a summer camp in China.  A year and a half ago, we kissed under a shower of confetti in a white country church and now we are counting down the days til our very own little person joins us for our adventures.

When we first found out this summer that our Little was on the way, a lot of things starting falling apart.    While we were excited to meet this tiny person we had made, there were so many overwhelming things.  The bills loomed bigger every week.  Our car that resembles something more like a bucket of bolts on wheels than a car, literally started falling apart and sucking the last pennies from our bank account.  The bedroom remodeling project we had started almost seven months before was still half done and we were sleeping in our living room.  And to top it off, I was sick and working full time chasing two little kids around.

A lot of these days were spent crying because of how unfair everything seemed.  It was just too much for this poor hormonal girl to handle.  Why did everything have to fall apart at once?!  Would it ever stop so we could have two seconds to breathe?!

And then one day in the thick of it all, it was like God whispered to my broken heart.  
Nicole, can you choose to thank me even when you aren't feeling thankful?

Thus began my quest to choose a thankful heart.  
Thank you God that we paid cash for this car and don't have monthly payments.  
Thank you God that it gets me to work and home each day.  
{That was about all I could find to be thankful for when it came to the car}  
Thank you God for a job that pays the bills even if I have to wake up before the sun.  
. . .     . . .

Then an amazing thing happened.  Things slowly began to lighten up.  Little by little we began to get ahead.  Husband fixed the car.  Some bills actually got paid off.  But the best part has been the way that God has been changing my heart.  Changing my heart to see that even in the middle of chaos, He is still good.  Even when it feels like my mind can't handle one more thing, that is when I get to watch Him come through.

So even though our life is still far from organized and perfect, I am slowly learning what it means to choose thankfulness.

So here's my challenge for you.  What things could you choose to be thankful for?!  How could this change your own life?  You really might be surprised!  And while you're at it, won't you stop over and say hey?!  I always love meeting a new friend.

xo

Comments are off so you can head over and say hi! =)

Gloriously Encouraged By Elise Cooper.

This week I started a new series, which will be every Thursday here on this space.
A series where I have asked several beautiful women to share their hearts with you guys.
The purpose being to encourage you all. 
I can't keep quiet about these ladies you guys, they are such gems!! Beautiful inside and out.
I look forward to hearing what each of them shares on this topic. I have asked them to share with you guys every week leading up to Christmas, so you too can be encouraged by them during this season of thankfulness and grace. May their stories point you to the one each of them loves!
I am so blessed to be able to call these ladies friends. I find such encouragement in hearing how the Lord is working in their lives and working through them.
I hope you too will find their stories and hearts to be a blessing with where you find yourself on your journey with the Lord.

Much Love as always!

L

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Hey there! 

My name is Elise and I blog over at Forever Changed. 

I’m a pretty ordinary girl, I have an amazing family, a best friend, a sweet dog, I run for fun (and yes, I rhymed on purpose), chocolate chip cookies are my weakness, I love Christmas, and I have a bucket list that I take pretty seriously. Despite all this ordinariness I have an extraordinary purpose, perfectly designed by God, that has led me to move to Rwanda to work in an orphanage with over 500 children that has forever changed my life.  Blogging is my way of documenting this crazy journey that is my life.

What is your favorite Bible Verse and why?

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and future.” Since making the leap to move to Rwanda this verse has appeared over and over again and every time has been a comfort. It was never my plan to leave my family, my friends, everything that was familiar to me, but it was always God’s plan for me to do just that, and His plans far exceed my own.

What is the biggest way you have seen the Lord at work in your life?

“God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” God is using me in big ways, not because I’m anything special, the opposite actually, He is using me so that his power can be revealed and obvious. I came to Rwanda with an idea of what I would be doing based on my gifts and now I am in the process of doing something completely different, something that I know absolutely nothing about and never expected to be doing. I realize that’s incredibly vague but I hope to reveal this “big thing” on my blog in the coming weeks when it's official. What I can say is that it is honor to be a servant of the most high God and see Him working in and through me everyday.

Where do you see the Lord taking you in the future?

Based on the crazy journey God is taking me on now I can honestly say I have no idea what my future is going to hold. I would like to come back to the states, move to New York and work with inner city kids. I would like to still come back to Rwanda a couple times a year. I would like to get married and adopt from Africa. I would like to do a lot of things but I don't know what my future will hold. I do know that as long as I am seeking after God and His will my future will be prosperous, even if non of the “I would like’s” become a reality.

Do you feel the Lord has placed anything on your heart to share with other girls to encourage them?

Don’t limit yourselves to societies standard of a successful woman, rather go to the word of God and search for His definition of a successful woman. Seek after God with your whole heart, not sharing yourself, and He will direct you, He will prosper you, He will use you, He will give you your hearts desires, He will comfort you, He will love you. Seek after Him and you will live a successful life. 

Be sure to head over and say hi! Comments are turned off here.