MHR Inspiration #15

I was blog-hopping earlier this week, and I found this post:

Tour de Vie

Mike is one of the coolest people I know. I have known him all of my life, and I absolutely adore his family! He is a published author whose books I have read multiple times. He is also in the mist of a battle with Lymphoma, and his blog OPEN Mike is always full of his passionate, and often poignant, musings on writing, cancer, and life in general.

The Tour de Vie post really struck me, and I decided to use it as our MHR inspiration this week :)

Especially to the last portion that says:

If you had to name your Team, the one group with which you most identify, would it be family, friends, schoolmates, work associates, church members, ministry partners? When was the last time you served them as a domestique?

If you can’t recall, do something tactical and supporting for a teammate by the time the Tour de France concludes on Sunday.

This is our prompt and our challenge for this week. What are some practical ways we can "do something tactical and supporting" for our most important teamemate - our husbands? (That's the prompt.) Do it! (That's the challenge.)

<3,

She Speaks Conference

I was excited to learn about The She Speaks Speaking, Writing, and Leadership Conference via Drawing Closer to Him.

Although I have neither written nor spoken professionally at any time, both are pursuits to which I aspire. The more I read about the conference the more I think that this could be a tremendous opportunity! For awhile now I have had a very strong desire to develop ministry in these areas, especially with respect to the ~ My Husband Rocks ~ concept, and this conference seems like an ideal situation in which to do that!

Amazingly, Lysa TerKeurst is offering the chance to win a full scholarship! So you can understand my excitement, here's some more info:

For Speakers:

Whether you are ready to take the main stage and start speaking at conferences and retreats or whether you want to learn how to more effectively teach a ladies’ Bible Study- this track is for you. After attending this conference you will be equipped to:

* Know how to develop a message from start to finish

* Understand what keeps an audience engaged and how to make your message memorable

* Deliver your message in such a way that not only inspires your audience but motivates them to make life changes

* Increase your number of booked speaking engagements by using proven marketing strategies.

For Writers:

You have had a passion for writing and have even had people encourage you to write a book, but have never known how to get started on the pathway to publication. You will have the chance to attend sessions taught by some of the top Christian publishers and make appointments to pitch your book proposal.

Or maybe you are a blogger and just want to learn how to more effectively connect with your readers and increase the impact of your blog. What better way than to sit in sessions taught by three of the most widely read blog authors. Whatever the case may be, after attending this conference you will:

* Discover your unique writing voice and the mechanics of effective writing

* Understand what publishers are looking for and how to write proposals that get their attention
* Better understand how to build your writing portfolio by getting published in magazines

* Know how to write a book that will impact your reader from start to finish

And as though that was not incredible enough:

We will get to learn from Big Mama, Boo Mama, Chatting at the Sky, Barefoot Blogs, the Nester, and Musings of a Housewife.

So, even if writing/speaking professionally, or in public at all, is not what God has for my future, I will at the very least, learn how to make my blog far more effective in whatever ministry he leads me through in blogland :)

With the growing list of "competitors" for the scholarship, the chances seem pretty slim, so I'll know that I'm really supposed to be there if I'm selected :)



Thanks for reading!

MHR Inspiration #3

Christmas Gifts



Holy Moly, another week has come and gone, and next week this time will be Christmas Day! Can you believe it??!?!

Sarah Mae, one of my sweet blog friends and the founder of the 5:16 Club, has recently written a 4-part series entitled "Marriage is Hard."
~ * ~ Part One: Pursuing Godliness ~ * ~
~ * ~ Part Two: Advice From Wise Women ~ * ~
~ * ~Part Three: A Challenge ~ * ~
~ * ~ Part Four: A Refuge ~ * ~
She is a very talented writer, and a great example of a woman who loves the Lord and her husband and strives to be more like Jesus every day. I would encourage you to take the time to read each of these posts; however, our prompt this week comes directly from Part 3.

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Prompt/Theme for Friday, December 19, 2008

"This Christmas, give your spouse something eternal - a gift of affirmation:
Write your husband a letter that details (very specifically and genuinely) why you respect him."

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I know that in the state of our economy, we are all looking for inexpensive ways to show our friends and family that we love them during this Christmas season - here is a gift that will cost you nothing but the time it takes you to write it! (That and the paper upon which you write it, and the ink from the pen, or the lead from the pencil, lol!) And Sarah Mae is absolutely correct when she calls it "eternal." I am positive that this will be a gift that your husband will treasure forever. If you want to go all out and print it on fancy paper, or even mount it or frame it, that would be a nice touch, too :)

There are probably parts of the letter that you will not want to share with anyone other than your spouse, so if you would rather post some of your reasons in list form, that would be awesome as well!

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By way of reminder:

1) Writing to the prompt is not required. We are not really all about adding more rules and regulations, lol!

2) Writing to the prompt is not a reflection of trouble in your marriage. Anyone who is honest with themselves would agree that marriage is not always easy, and as such, creating a weekly post about the object of your affection, and sometimes frustration, can be difficult as well. The purpose of having the prompts, articles, and quotes in these posts is to help us to think about our spouses from a positive perspective - even when we don't feel like it.


Have a great day!

NaNoWriMo is Devouring My Brain!

. . . but that's a good thing, I think!

Aside from the slackerish blogging for the last few days.

For those of you who don't know anything about the wonderful-ness that is National Novel Writer's Month, it is a 30 day period (the month of November) in which thoroughly insane lunatics creative geniuses attempt to do the impossible write an entire novel (at least 50,000 words)!



To back up just a little bit, I have been thinking about writing a novel for a long, long time. There has always been a part of me that has believed that I am supposed to be a writer. Maybe I watched Little Women and the Anne of Green Gables movies a few too many times, maybe it's the fact that I'm completely addicted to reading everything that doesn't read me first (lol), but I've just always thought that I was meant to do it. About 6 months ago I began pursuing it pretty seriously - I read everything I could get my hands on about how to write a novel, how to plan to write a novel, how to think about planning to write a novel. But that's all the farther I got. I dabbled with a story idea and wrote a couple of scenes that didn't fit together, but I chickened out.

I think there was some kind of deep-seated fear that if I didn't do it perfectly the first time, there would be no second time and I would have utterly failed at my life's "purpose." Then along came NaNoWriMo - I don't even remember how I first heard of it, but I went to the website and started reading about it, and I knew that I had to do it. Because, if I can accomplish this I will learn three things: 1) I will know that I am capable of writing a lot of words in a short amount of time, 2) I will know if I enjoy writing any words in any amount of time, 3) I will know if anything I can write is coherent and/or interesting enough to be read by anyone else. If I learn these three things I will know for certain whether or not I am truly meant to do this!

That, and I'm always up for a challenge!

All of this to say, I may be a little scarce during the month of November, but I'll still be around! I'll also be twittering my daily word count, and I may post excerpts from time to time (if they're at all presentable). (Word Count Goal Calendar)

If any of you are joining in the madness fun, let me know so we can cheer each other on!

Thanks for reading!