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December 13, 2015

Advent – Day 15

We have just finished week 2 of Advent.

What has God been stirring up in your heart? What has He been revealing? Do you feel like there has been distraction upon distraction? Though this Christmas season is a special time of the year, have you felt like you might be missing out on what God wants to say to you?

I have a friend of mine who goes on “retreat”. She drives away from the city to Santa Cruz beach. She’ll stop at her favorite breakfast spot to fuel up before she heads to beach. Once she is there, she turns off her phone and opens up her bible to read and prayer. Though she only an hour and a half away from home, she knows she has to go on retreat to get away from distractions to focus on the Lord.

I love this idea because I know in my life I need to go on retreat. I get so distracted by my own house because I can’t even focus.

You might be thinking, “Sarah, I have kids. I can’t go away.” or “Sarah, I can’t afford driving away to step away from distractions.” I understand, completely.

Think of a place in your house or backyard where it can become your retreating place. My place is my bathroom. I know, it’s weird. I find no distractions in there. It has become a secret place because I can lock the door.

I love what Bob Sorge says about time spent with God in a secret place.

“Everything in the kingdom depends upon whether or not we hear the word of God. I will endure months of silence if He will but speak one creative word from His mouth to my spirit. Our devotional life with God is more like the planting of a garden. When we arise from sowing into the secret place, we will not usually be able to point to immediate results or benefits. What we sow today will require an entire season of growth before the results are manifest. The wisest thing you’ll ever do in this life is to draw close to God and to seek Him with all your heart. I never consider time invested in the secret place to be wasteful; and even if it is, I gladly waste it upon my Lord! When you neglect the secret place, He’s not disappointed in you, He’s disappointed for you. One day of exhilaration in the Holy Spirit is worth a thousand days of struggle! The greatest things in life—those things that carry eternal value—always come at the steepest price. The closer you get to God, the more you realize He’s in no hurry. No one can mentor you into an abiding relationship with Christ. We all have to find our own way to abiding in Christ. When all is said and done, we must shut the door, get into the secret place with God, and discover what an abiding relationship with Christ will look like for ourselves.”

Read this line again:
“I never consider time invested in the secret place to be wasteful; and even if it is, I gladly waste it upon my Lord!”

Going into these secret places is powerful. Even if we spend months in silence to hear just one word from Him, we should long for that. There is spiritual growth that comes with waiting.

Let’s pray.

Prayer One
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you:
I cannot do this alone.

In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;

I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me…
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before me.

Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.

Prayer Two
Lord,
We long for You. May we enter into Your courts with hands opened to receive whatever You may give. Prepare our hearts to wait. Press into our hearts that there is growth when we wait. Lord, help to become more like You. Slough off anything that doesn’t look like You. Help us to understand that You are not in a hurry. Help us to sit in silence with You. Lord, we want to draw close to You. Draw close to us. Restore us. Minister to us. Shape us. May we understand that being in Your presence we will experience the fullness of Your joy.
In Your Name, Amen.

Credit: First prayer by Dietrich Bonhoeffer // Photo by Sarah Simon; Instagram: @themintgardener

December 6, 2015

Advent – Day 8

Our first week of Advent has passed. How did it go?

Did the thought of Christmas and preparing for family already stress you out? Have you not purchased all your gifts yet? Are you wondering how you can stretch your days and find 3 more arms? Is reading all of this making you anxious?

Take a deep breath & let all that anxiety go.

Let’s meet the Lord in prayer.

Father,
Capture our hearts. Capture our minds.
May our minds rest on You. This season was not to bring stress upon us, but to celebrate You and Your arrival. Fill our homes, schedules, and bodies with peace. Daily, come for us. Take away anything that doesn’t look like You. Add to us. Nourish our minds with You – with Your love, grace, compassion, generosity. Lord, grow our desire for You. May we feel it in our bones that we need You and only You. We welcome You into our homes, our parties, our festivities. During this Advent season, unveil Yourself more into our lives. We wait for You.
In Your glorious Name, Amen.

As we enter into the second week of Advent, we pray that our desire as a community of women will be that wake up and think of Christ. When we rise in the morning, let’s celebrate Him. Advent is not a time to think about everything we are doing wrong and what we can be doing right. It’s a time to shift our focus. He wants us to love Him, think about Him…find joy in Him.

Credit: Photo by Meg // Instagram: @eastofseventh

October 13, 2015

Spirit of Worry

We are excited to share our first guest blogger on the site – Krystle Barrington. We want our site to be a platform for writers to use their gift. If you are a writer and would like to develop your gift, please click here for more information.

We all have things we struggle with, and for me, worrying is at the top of the list. I’m not sure exactly when I developed this habit but adulthood has been overwhelmed by anxiety, insomnia, and worry. Countless nights of tossing and turning have been an ongoing struggle for years. I’ve seen doctors and have taken medication, but the process of learning to give all my cares and worries to God, has been the hardest yet most effective cure for my problem.

I’m definitely not a doctor, but merely a woman who is learning to surrender all things to God, and in that I’ve found extreme peace. I’m still going through the process but with each day it becomes a little easier. The more time I spend with God, the more I understand that it isn’t my job to worry about the outcome of anything taking place in my life. I am learning to embrace that all things work together for God’s glory (Romans 8:28).

My God is an awesome God and the word reassures me that through Christ, there is always victory on the other side of uncertainty.

This idea that we should cast our problems on God is no easy task for the average Christian. For someone who naturally worries about things, it becomes an even bigger challenge. If you’ve struggled with anxiety, then you understand the heightened difficulty in putting complete trust in God. It is a learned practice that requires faith, discipline, and prayer.

One of the many lessons I’ve learned while trying to tackle the spirit of worry is that the more you pray, the less you worry, because worrying and praying cannot coexist. And once we are done praying, it doesn’t make sense to have prayed about something only to then worry some more. Rather, praying and exercising our faith is a means to trusting that no matter what we are facing, we are not alone.

So what does this mean for those who struggle with worrying? It means that we can surely replace worry with peace and hope. It means that we can overcome those stressors that cause us to be anxious. It means that things can and will get better.

I think there is a natural tendency to only pray for those major things happening in our lives, but we indeed can pray about anything, no matter how small or big. We have to get to a point where we don’t make a fuss about trivial things. Even when we don’t understand where our lives are going, God does, and that should be enough. We have to get to a point where we learn to depend on the Holy Spirit, especially in those moments when our palms get sweaty, our hearts begin to race, and we feel the most defeated.

God is so much bigger than any problem we will ever face. He is our strength and refuge, always an ever-present help (Psalm 46:1). No matter what you are facing, give it to God. Start believing today that whatever you are facing has an intended purpose. Don’t allow life’s struggles to keep you from being present in this beautiful thing called life. When you begin to feel anxious, I encourage you to pray for peace at that very moment.

Worry and fear steals our joy. It literally can keep us from being present wherever we are in life because we are so focused on the worst-case scenario. Worrying will make us complicate a situation that is far less complicated. We were not created to live walking on eggshells. You were created to live a joyful life, one where we give our problems to Jesus. We can find peace in knowing that God is always with us, and just a prayer away.

Remember, He said that He would never leave us nor forsake us. I am learning daily that things out of my control are really in God’s hands. I am learning that day-to-day frustrations are not merely tests but an opportunity for God to reveal himself in new ways. God is with you and He will never leave you. Know that there is hope and peace when we seek Him in all things.

August 27, 2015

Prayer Packages

If you’re friends with me, you know that I love sending cards or little gifts in the mail. Going to the Post Office is a favorite pastime of mine. You might agree with me that receiving fun mail is like Christmas morning! We want to share with you a cool company called Prayer Packages.

Prayer Packages is a great way to send love to family or friends. Their mission is to “deliver keepsake gifts and services that encourage and celebrate family and friends.” You can choose to send a box to someone who is going back to school, a sympathy box for person who has had a loss, a get well box to someone dear to your heart, a just because box (this would be a box I would send), or a celebration box.

Something very special about Prayer Packages is that when you purchase a box, they give 10% of the proceeds to a giving partner. So as you bless your friends and family, you bless an amazing charity.

When we received our box, we were blown away with what the box looked like. It was beautiful!

Imagine the look on your friends face as they saw this on their front porch!

When you open the box, you’ll find a beautiful card with a personalized message and two beautifully wrapped gifts. Yes, we used beautiful twice in a sentence. That’s just how we feel about the whole box in general – it’s beautiful.

One of the wrapped gifts was a prayer tin. In it there were with prayer cards with a marker. There was also a little ceramic dish. The other wrapped gift was put in a wooden box. The box was something that I’ve never seen before in my life. A prayer token and wristband were put into the box.

The whole experience of the Prayer Package is really neat. Right when it’s delivered, you know that it’s a very special package. There was a lot of thought and intention when it came to putting the box together. In my family, presentation of the gift is important. I felt that way with this.

The box we received was the “Prayer Box” package (link here —- Prayer Box). Check out their site at http://myprayerpackages.com to see the types of boxes you could send. They have a Starbucks package and SpaFinder package! We have been given a coupon for our readers to use – FREE10. Boxes range from $29.99 to $89.99.

Bless your friends with a Prayer Package. They will feel extremely loved by you.

August 24, 2015

A prayer for The Captivating Woman

There is so much on my heart and the words on my mind are all jumbled, but what I want to say first is:

Lord, let this website be used for Your glory. May my words and the words of The Captivating Woman team be pleasing to Your ear and may we increase the Kingdom as well as strengthen other sisters in Christ. May our mind not focus on numbers but on You and glorifying You with our gifts. Lord, I pray that this passion in our hearts to celebrate women and our Creator will become the passion for many others. Lord, we thank for being women. We thank for giving us the gift of femininity. We thank You for the talent You have placed on our lives and how that talent was created with purpose. Lord, may we understand that our lives have purpose through Your will. May we seek You daily and surrender our hearts to You. May we learn to walk confidently in You so that we may shine. Help us to reflect Your image to others. May we love others well and have more grace. Lord, impress on our hearts that we cannot do everything – we are not perfect women. God, we thank You that we are not perfect and do not have it all together. Because of that truth, it means we have to cling to You daily. Thank You Lord for life, abundant life. May Your glory shine through The Captivating Woman.

We are so thankful you are here. We hope that our site will bless and encourage you. Learn more about our site by checking our “About” page as well as learn about the team behind The Captivating Woman.

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