The 2011 Elf Run Giveaway

Well folks, the time has come.  It’s time to set your alarm, eat your Wheaties, pack your gloves, put on your running shoes and hit the stores with everyone else for the biggest shopping day of the year in hopes of pleasing the ones you love this Christmas season!  As you are getting ready to head out for a little retail therapy olympics, remember, there are some prizes you can win from the comforts of home WITHOUT getting caught in a Black Friday stampede!

I have teamed up with 15 other bloggers to offer my readers a chance at winning over 100 prizes in The 2011 Elf Run Giveaway!!!  Entries begin on Black Friday and end on December 14th.  Help spread the word by sharing with your family and friends.  And enjoy your Black Friday Christmas madness from the stores or from the sidelines entering giveaways from the comforts of home!

***See Terms and Conditions for entering.***



God, Give Me Your Love for ALL Others

I recently read a quote that said, “I’m a single mom.  What’s your super power?”  With a show of hands, how many of you resemble that remark?!?  It is the hardest thing I think I have ever done, in part because the weight of the task has such far reaching and long lasting implications for a completely innocent child.  A single parent has to fill every role in the home with their children, a job that was designed for two people to handle.  We have double the stress, double the worry, double the lack of time and lack of sleep, double the responsibility, half the amount of income-at best, no help with sick days or missing work because of the children and the list could go on and on.

But one of the most difficult things to deal with is an ex that is less than desirable to get along with, financially irresponsible and never puts their responsibility of being a dad first.  Unfortunately, most single parents do not have a good relationship with their ex or the extended family for various reasons.  In my case, I got along with all of the extended family because for the most part, they sided with me in the divorce.  But like most families and friends, because they were his family we still lost touch eventually out of loyalty to my ex.  But you can’t NOT deal with the dad if he’s there in any measure.

I have been divorced for almost 13 years now.  And communicating with my ex has only recently gotten better, within the past year or so.  We actually spoke for over an hour on the phone yesterday and I was able to witness to him and tell him about the love of God.  This has only been the second time in all these years I have been able to bring that up with him.  I was so grateful and humbled by the opportunity.  You see, I have problems just like everyone else, big ones sometimes.  The only difference between me and the next person is my faith in God.

My ex feels so bad about himself, lacking in confidence and esteem, from wrong choices he’s made his whole life.  He feels guilty and continually beats himself up with his thoughts and the things he speaks about himself.  I got the opportunity to share a little bit about how he is not the problem, his choices and actions are the problem.  I told him not to talk about himself that way and share about how the power of life and death is in the tongue.  At one point in the conversation he said something like I was a better person than him and he always knew it.  I was always nice, kind, giving and forgiving…

But the truth is, I’m not.  I am an imperfect mess!  I shared with him some of my imperfections, just like his, and that those traits were my natural inclinations.  The only difference between me and him was the love of God.  God makes the difference even when I don’t want to.  Because of His perfect gift of love I am able to make a better choice in a confrontation with him.  I am able to keep my tongue in check around my son and not say anything negative about his father to him.  Trust me when I say, it is only the love, grace and mercy of an Almighty God that would keep me in check with these types of issues.

There are many parents out there with much worse stories.  Families are still going through difficult times, divorces, court dates, visitation fights, financial struggles, the loss of jobs, and parenting hard times all around.  Each and every one of us are imperfect and need a safe harbor to return to.  I speak from experience when I say the greatest source of peace, love and patience is the Heavenly Father.

In 1 Corinthians Paul is addressing the church in Corinth.  The church is struggling with their outside environment and how corrupt it had become.  They were feeling immense peer pressure to succumb to this lifestyle.  Paul writes about issues in the church, how to treat people in the church that are in sin, how to unify the church body, proper worship in the church and other issues to teach Christians how to behave in their society and as Christ followers in their church.  It’s no coincidence that amongst all the issues of strife Paul deals with in Corinthians, one of the last things he teaches on is love.

“Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices  with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails……But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13-13

Before Paul talks about prophesying and using spiritual gifts to edify and reach others for Christ, he teaches them what love is and what love isn’t.  And at the close of the passage, he says, “and now these three remain:  faith, hope and love…”  Faith is the foundation or our relationship with Christ and of the message of Christ to the world.  Hope is the attitude and never wavering focus of setting our eyes on the prize of knowing what God has in store for those with faith.  But even after such a great thing as faith, Paul says love is even greater.  Love is UNSELFISH service to others.  Love shows you care regardless of opinion, absent of your own judgment of someone.  Love is faith in action.  The Great Commission gives Christians the charge to GO!  Love is the action of us reaching a hurting world.

I know it isn’t easy when you are dealing with someone who ignites such a strong stirring of emotion.  Our children are our hearts.  We want to protect them, nurture them, give them a better life and opportunities that what we had and how we feel we have failed them.  A parent’s love is immeasurable and irrational.  And it’s not even the greatest love.  Imagine how much more God loves us….ALL of us.  His action of love toward us was to give His son as a sacrifice so that we might come to know Him.

We may not ever put the broken family pieces back together on this Earth.  And in spite of the difficulty you may be having with an ex spouse or whoever it is that is causing such turmoil in your life, God loves them, too.  They are the same broken vessel you once were and deserve God’s mercy, grace and love just as much as you or I.  God can restore your family, if not here then in eternity.  Would you be willing to make the same sacrifice He did and lay down  your anger, bitterness, resentment, and hurt and show love and mercy toward them?  Show them God.


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Father’s Day

Today is a special day for most families, honoring the dad’s in their lives.  For some, it’s about honoring the male role models in their lives.  A lot of you have hopefully had the opportunity to grow up with your dad full time.  Some of us, me included, weren’t blessed in that way.  As I grow older I think about certain things in a whole new light.  You know the saying that goes something like, “The hard stuff you went through as a kid helped make you the person you are today.  So what’s to regret?”  I believe that more and more as time passes.

See, my dad was an alcoholic.  My step mom, brother and sister were around him all the time.  They bear the burden of living with alcoholism on a daily basis.  I will never know what that was like.  And I will probably never be able to truly sympathize with them when they are going through emotional times thinking about the past.  I only saw that side of my dad a few times.  And just those brief moments were almost more than the mind and soul can bear thinking about.

Even though it was hard growing up only getting to see my dad and my ‘other’ family on scheduled ‘visitations’, I can’t imagine how hard it was on them when I wasn’t around.  My step mom told me one time that he was usually on good behavior when I was around.  Not that he didn’t love and care for any of us any less than the other and didn’t care how he acted around them; it probably had more to do with the fear of what would happen to visitation rights retaliation than anything else.

I was going through other things growing up back home and my step mom must have known how awful it would be for me psychologically to deal with seeing dad that way, too.  In one way or another my step mom has always been one of the guardian angels in my life.  My dad told me one time that she was one of the best friends I would ever have, and he was exactly right.  This is one of the many blessings I can appreciate from my dad.  Other gifts from my dad are my stubbornness, my intelligence, my never give in and never give up attitude, my big heart and my generosity.  Those were characteristics of my father when he wasn’t drinking.  And those things I will always carry with me and am forever grateful for.

I pray for this generation of kids that are growing up without fathers or with fathers that aren’t the best role models.  Too many times people make selfish choices-whether they care what is right or wrong really doesn’t matter because the outcome of the decisions is the same.  Someone always gets hurt, usually someone innocent.  There is hope for these children and yourself if you have been in this position.

A friend of mine, Amy, another wonderful mom I know who recently got married again.  To me, Amy exemplified a truly godly woman going through a divorce, and I had been divorced for years when I met her!  Her attitude and spirit were one I could only pray to achieve.  And she has two beautiful little angels to care for.  A few years after her divorce she met Paul.  They dated a few years and everyone knew one day they would get married.  So we weren’t surprised when he FINALLY proposed :)   But we were surprised one day when she announced on Facebook that they were getting married THAT DAY by saying, “Today is a beautiful day for a wedding.”

Aside from the usual comments from friends about them keeping it a secret and wanting to be around just family for their blessed event, you would not believe the positive response and the hand of God that surrounds Paul & Amy’s union.  They give me hope.  Hope in marriage again.  Hope in knowing that God really does care about what I want/need as an individual and as a mom.  Hope in the form of a reminder that God is my Father and my son’s Father, always.  He will never fail us, forsake us or forget about us.  He loves us no matter what and will never leave.


I try my best to have good, male role models in and around my son to interact with as much as I can.  But I, nor any replacement, can ever fill the void he feels for a father.  The picture above of Paul holding his step son is such an emotional one for me.  Because of how Amy continues to handle being divorced from her children’s father, her son is completely trusting of the new male role model in his life.  Who but a child, untouched by the usual hurt accompanied by divorce, could have this much trust and love for someone that isn’t their parent?

I want to encourage you today if you are hurting on Father’s Day instead of celebrating with those you see all around you reminding you of what you don’t have:  you can be blessedly taken care of by Jehovah Jireh, the Almighty Provider, God.  He can take whatever situation you are in and give you a new heart about it if you let Him.  I cannot for the life of me see anything negative about my situation.  I am truly blessed.  I know the memories I have, I remember the stories, I can still hear the words and feel the pain….but I cannot dwell on that.  God has truly blessed me with the best attitude allowing me to be able to move on from hurt!  God can heal and fill your soul better than man ever could.

My dad passed away this past December.  And today I am sadder than I have been in several years.  We were never really close.  But he was still daddy, you know?  It’s hard to believe that larger than life man doesn’t physically exist anymore.  It’s too surreal…  Now, more than ever, I rely on my Heavenly Father to fill those shoes for me.  I pray today that myself and others like me who have either lost their fathers, their fathers are away, or for those who don’t know who their father is, will be comforted and Almighty God will reach down His huge, loving arms and cradle us in His love today.  Your Heavenly Father loves you today and always.  Use your prayer line and call on Him today!

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