To Walk or Stay Book Club: Chapter 6

It's time for the "To Walk or Stay" Book Club, Chapter 6! We are more than half way through the book, can you believe it?

Click here to learn more & RSVP: http://tooverflowing.com/to-walk-or-stay-book-club/
Click here to join the Facebook groups: https://www.facebook.com/groups/524510720929514/

The book club will work as a blog hop, so be sure to visit these bloggers each week to keep up! 

May 23, Chapter 6 :: Tracie Stier-Johnson

May 30, Chapter 7 :: Francie Winslow at “Up, In, and Out”

June 6, Chapter 8 :: Joyce Moy

June 13, Chapter 9 :: Erika Dawson

June 20, Chapter 10 :: Stacey Thacker at “29 Lincoln Avenue”

Sometimes My Ugly Side Shows

There are days when I look around at what's going on in this new smaller world of online community and my eyes well up with tears. The groups that are forming, the opportunities shared, the excitement of a new venture. The tears? They're not because it's so beautiful, though it is that. Not because God is moving and doing great things, though He is.

It's because I look around and wonder "why NOT me?"

I'm over at Allume today sharing how God walked me through a season of envy as a writer. Join me?

God Sized Dreams: The Risk

Today's prompt from Holley Gerth: What part of your dream feels the riskiest? Have you ever had people misunderstand or disagree with your dream? What do you do when your dream is scary or when others don’t support you?

Pursuing my God Sized Dream would be simple a few things in my life were different. 
If I lived alone.
If I weren't married.
If I didn't have a toddler. 
I could throw caution to the wind, move halfway across the country for a job, spend all my money on blogging conferences, travel for speaking engagements, and go on retreats with my girlfriends to refresh and recharge. I could stay up until all hours building community, connecting, doing, dreaming, pouring into, and not worry about who or what I was neglecting. 

That's not my life. I don't want that to be my life. The riskiest part of pursuing my God Sized Dream? Making sure that MY dream doesn't cause harm to my family. Missing important events in my husbands life or significant milestones for my daughter. Putting strain on our marriage or our finances because I've decided that pursuing MY dream is more important than providing stability, or supporting my husband or daughter in their God Sized Dreams.

There are risks I have to take to obey the call God has put on my heart. Putting myself out there, planning, sharing my dream with others who might not understand. Spending time working, building community, learning, and searching for opportunities when I could be sleeping. In pursuit of my dream I risk traveling an unknown road and I take my family with me. 

I am blessed to have a husband that supports me and believes in me, when I don't believe in myself. He has spoken wisdom and truth over me, encouraged me, and helped me to be brave. But right now? Not much has happened with my dream that has changed our lives significantly. It's all been benefits and blessings, so it's easy to be supported. Will everyone in my life understand my decision if God opens doors that cause me to put the stability of my current situation aside to follow His will? Maybe not. 

But I'm going to choose that road anyway. Because the road that follows God will always be risky, but I would rather walk beside a God who has good plans for me than choose the safe road the worlds puts before me. Let's keep walking forward, sisters, with courage that comes from the One who poured these dreams into our hearts in the first place. 

I'm linking up with Holley Gerth today - will you join me in reading the other God Size Dream team posts?

A Site Launch, A Retreat, and a Giveaway

I have a confession to make. I had a list of people I wanted to meet when I went to Allume last year, and Kris? Well. She wasn't on it. I know...I know...it kind of makes me laugh now because God very clearly had other plans about who He intended to bring in my life. I never expected my life to change so much since Allume, for God to take my introverted blogger self from where I was to where I am now. It's all and only Him. Kris? She's one of those friends, sisters, really, who teaches, inspires, listens, encourages, and pours into my life. When the enemy tries to convince me that I'm not good enough to do what I'm doing, that I should forget about community, she has been there to check in, pray, push me forward, hold my hand through the refiners fire, point me to Jesus and not give up on me. She hasn't walked away. 

I cherish this beautiful friend, and am beyond blessed to introduce you to a few new things she has going on. Like an amazingly stunning new website! Y'all. It makes me happy sigh. If I were an artist who could do things like web design, it is exactly what I would have picked for her. It captures her perfectly - welcoming, beautiful, inspiring. Simple in the best of ways. Open space to breathe and listen with splashes of color and sparkle. The only thing missing are the sequins :)

To kick of the launch of her new site, Kris is hosting an AMAZING giveaway. Including a ticket to ...get this..her very own retreat! That's right. She's a blogger. A Compassion advocate. An incredible friend. A writer. A speaker. And she is inviting about 40 of her closest girlfriends to come hang out at "Refine {the retreat}"- not a conference - a retreat, to get away, to worship, to focus, to be refined. Oh and that worship? You know. Just being done by Christa Wells & Nicole Witt of More than Rubies. 

So take a few seconds to enter the giveaway with this super easy peasy Rafflecopter, then pop over to Kris's new site to say "hi" & let her know I sent you ;) It's party time!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Five Minute Friday: Song

Today's prompt: Song

GO:

Do you believe it? You know it as Truth, don't you? God rejoices over you with singing. Not just a golf clap when things go well. Not a little rehearsed number out of obligation. The God of the universe delights in you so much that he sings. Mighty warrior God, Creator, Father, the One Who Sees - he sings over you, his daughter.

Because you are absolutely worth it. Do you know what that song sounds like? To me, it's probably like the song my mom sang over me when I was little..the song I now sing to Madison. "I love you, a bushel and a peck..a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck." Does it sound like that to you? Do you hear a song of love, a song of a Father's pride in his very beautiful creation?

From the very first moment I gave my heart to Jesus he has pursued me through song. I have been overcome by the presence of the Holy Spirit in moments of stunning worship to the point of breathlessness. He has worked refinement over me through lyrics. I have written worship songs to him because he is the one who gives me words. He sings over me and there is nothing more I love doing more than singing back to him.

And the times the enemy is able to sneak a little foothold into my mind, to attempt to pull me out of community? It's when my heart isn't worshipping. When I'm too caught up in fighting my own battles, opening my own doors, and thinking about myself, I'm singing my song and leaving nothing to give back to the Father.

These words? They're his. And I give them back again and again because I know he sings new ones over me every morning.

STOP

Want to join or just want to know what Five Minute Friday is all about? Head over to Lisa Jo's blog and find out :) And while you're there, be sure to visit & leave some comment love (no lurking!) for the other bloggers who linked up! 



And the winner of the Dayspring Giveaway is.....


a Rafflecopter giveaway

To Walk or Stay Book Club: Chapter 5

It's time for the "To Walk or Stay" Book Club, Chapter 5! We're off to visit one of my dear friends today, Michele-Lyn. We met at Allume and she has become one of the most inspirational, prophetic, truth telling sisters God has ever put in my life. This girl has sent me text messages that bring me to my knees in prayer. We might be states apart, but I hold her dear to my heart. She shines Jesus, and I know you are going to LOVE her. Go give her some love & tell her I sent you :)

Click here to learn more & RSVP: http://tooverflowing.com/to-walk-or-stay-book-club/
Click here to join the Facebook groups: https://www.facebook.com/groups/524510720929514/

The book club will work as a blog hop, so be sure to visit these bloggers each week to keep up! 

May 16, Chapter 5 :: Michele-Lyn Ault at “A Life Surrendered”

May 23, Chapter 6 :: Tracie Stier-Johnson

May 30, Chapter 7 :: Francie Winslow at “Up, In, and Out”

June 6, Chapter 8 :: Joyce Moy

June 13, Chapter 9 :: Erika Dawson

June 20, Chapter 10 :: Stacey Thacker at “29 Lincoln Avenue”

God Sized Dreams: Compassion

Today's prompt from Holley Gerth: Share about your favorite nonprofit organization. They are all God-sized dream in action. How have they inspired you?

Do you see it? The little button on the side of my blog, the one that spins and says "Sponsor a Child?" It's not just there because I thought it was pretty, though it is fun. I am humbled to be part of the Compassion Blogging Network, to have seen how they changes the lives of children through the simple combination of giving and letter writing.

Letter writing, y'all. It changes lives. It changes mine, when I receive a handwritten note in the mail from a friend. And I've seen the reaction from our sweet Compassion children when they receive letters from us. I sponsored my first Compassion child in college after a Jars of Clay concert. I've helped support Compassion children sponsored through church youth groups. And now my family sponsors Mizraim, our little brother in Mexico who loves soccer and prays for Madison. It's enough to make me cry. He lives in poverty and is just  a little boy, but he prays for us. We also have a correspondence child, someone who is sponsored financially through someone else who doesn't have the time or ability to write, so we write to him as well. Did you know that was even an option? It's wonderful.

The work Compassion does is true. It's authentic. It's the hands and feet of Jesus walking daily in poverty to release these sweet children so they, too, can go live God Sized Dreams. They have them, you know. Dreams to be doctors, professional soccer players, teachers, lawyers, politicians. Dreams to be a generation that does the impossible, because they believe with their whole hearts nothing is impossible with God. 

I'm a Compassion Advocate who doesn't do nearly enough to promote this amazing organization. As a mom, my heart breaks for every one of these children. I want to go and hug Mizraim one day. To visit his home and watch him play soccer with his friends at his Compassion Project. I want to hear how God is working in their lives. Not because of what we're doing. All we do is allow our card to be automatically charged each month and write a few letters. The rest? It's God.

Do you know why I love Compassion so much? It fits my God Sized Dreams. There are thousands of amazing organizations that do seriously good work in the name of God. But this one, for me? It's a way to use my dream of encouraging others through the written word. It's a way to let a mama on the other side of the world know "You're doing a great job. I'm so thankful to walk beside you as you raise your son. Stand firm, sister - God goes before you." As a mother, to know that someone else had chosen my child to support? To take time to write to them, to do the things that maybe I wasn't able to do? I support Compassion because God has given me the ability and the desire to do those things, to be that friend.

If you're interested in learning more about Compassion, you can click on the rotating button in the sidebar, on the image below, or simply click here.

Save Children

I'm linking up with Holley Gerth today - will you join me in reading the other God Size Dream team posts?