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. 

(You may want a cup of coffee before reading through these words of wisdom, in my case a Pumpkin Spice Latte....or tea if you like)

'How I Long to Be More Like You' By Emily @ Defined By Grace

'How A Seagull Humbled Me' By Charity @ Clarity With Charity

'On Being A Young Mom' By Arielle @ Arielle Elise

'Tired, Sick, and A Little Pitiful - But nonetheless A Daughter' By Mackenzie @ Pint-Sized Mama 

'When You Feel Like A Nobody' By Nicole @ Today Is My Favorite

'How to Go on An Actual Date' By Relevant Magazine

'Til We're Ready, Til it's Right' By Erin @ Sweetness Itself

'The Applause' By Nicole @ Bloom The Blog

'Church' By Amy @ Sweet Home Santa Barbara

'The Blog & The Boundaries' By Erin @ Blue-Eyed Bride

'A Letter to My Ten Year Old Self' By Amanda @ A Royal Daughter 

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

Girl Behind the Blog: Encouragement.

The Girl Behind The Blog- Encouragement 

Time limit: Vlogs should be 2-3 minutes long 

Introduce yourself and your blog 

What is something that encourages you in the blog world? 

What is something that always encourages you in real life? 

How do you go about encouraging the people you love?

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 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.

[Letters on the Power of Words: Part I] Being an Encouragement.

Dear Younger Version of Myself,

I feel the need to share with you things I wish you knew already....things that I had hoped wouldn't take you so long to learn. 

Things that even at an older age, you feel you havn't grasped well-enough & can't learn fast enough.

I decided to organise my thoughts into a little mini-series of letters as there was too much content for one letter....

'Did you know that, on average, each of us speaks about twenty-five thousand words daily?' 

~ C.J. Mahaney, Humility

That is quite an interesting, thought-provoking quote. The Lord has been drawing my attention lately to how important my words are. He has really been working in my heart showing me how my words are capable of doing so much good when I encourage. But equally so harmful when I use them carelessly.

As you can probably tell from the quote, I have been reading through the book Humility by C.J.Mahaney again. I read it once before quite a while ago, however I picked it up again recently and since have read it another three times. There is just so much to take in, anyone else do that with good books?

One of his chapters is all about the power of words, conversation skills....whether our speech is really in line with God's intended purpose for it or reflecting pride within ourselves.

I have found this super challenging! I've been really thinking about how my words affect those around me.

You know that old English Nursery Rhyme you've known since you were little, L:

'Sticks and stones
May break my bones
But words will never hurt me.''

 

 Whoever wrote that phrase....totally got it wrong.

Because words totally hurt. They damage.

Some of the worst hurts in life so far have been the unkind words of another person.

'The tongue has the power of life and death,
    and those who love it will eat its fruit.' 

{Proverbs 18:21}

'Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear..'

{Ephesians 4:29}  

Isn't that challenging!!! 'Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth'

....no specific time and place mentioned. 

It doesn't say except when people frustrate you....

or except when the person you are talking about is not around! 

The Lord has been nudging me to really be careful with my words even in these situations.

Even when I am frustrated.

If I am talking with a friend about someone else (when an offense has happened),

 I have begun to ask myself how I would feel if that person could hear what I am saying.

Tearing someone down, even when they aren't there is far from edifying (encouraging)...

it shows my heart toward them is far from loving and could even taint my friend's opinion of the person. 

 

The Lord has just graciously been showing me that negative speech, which is so easy for all of us, is not in line with Ephesians 4:29. 

It is not edifying to the friend listening either to tear another person down.

This does not mean that the only words to ever come out of your mouth will be always polite or flattery. But also truth. 

I am learning you can talk truth without tearing someone down.

It requires a lot of heart checks and grace dispensing. 

(See later letter for further thoughts on this topic.)

 

As I drove to meet a dear friend last week for a lunch date

 (you havn't yet met this precious girl, L). 

I started to pray that the Lord would use me in our conversation. 

That He would show me what He longed for me to say or how to respond while talking. 

There was no previous conflict or anything.

 I just prayed that He would use that conversation to edify her and encourage her in her walk with Him. 

I have been learning to seek wisdom from the Lord in conversations on what the other person needs to hear.

 Do they need to be encouraged? 

Do they need me to just listen? (a skill I am desperately trying to be better at)  

Do they need to be helped practically? 

How would I best be able to do that? 

Do they need to be reminded of forgiveness?

I am still a novice at this. But I am so thankful the Lord has been teaching me how to be encouraging.

I have no idea if I was an encouragement in that situation with my precious friend over lunch. 

But I hope I allowed the Lord to work in some way.

Being an encouragement is something so close to my heart.

I long to encourage you with my words here also. 

My prayer for you is that these words would do just that.

Much Love,

L

P.S. Letter to come on venting next....