I made a rule for myself; I won’t tell anyone I am praying for them until I have actually prayed for them. I can have the best intentions to actually pray for someone after quickly responding and then get distracted and never pray.
.
For today’s inTENtional Thursday I want to encourage to take ten minutes to pray for other people. Maybe it’s for those you said you would pray for. Maybe it’s for our country. Maybe it’s for someone you are in a difficult friendship with.

#inTENtionalthursday

Does anyone else feel like the start of 2020 was as hopeful as buying fresh fruit? We had good intentions to live life well and before we knew it the bananas were brown. Ugh!
.
July 1, halfway through the year and I’m deciding to use those rotten bananas. Adding some sugar, vanilla, eggs, butter and flour. I’m going to make the most of it.
.
I’m not going to sugar coat it or pretend it never happened. There are still rotten bananas in my recipe. But, I refuse to watch them continue to rot on my counter.
.
So when life hands me rotten bananas, I’m gonna make banana bread.

Do you ever intentionally pause during your day? So many days I can find myself going, going, going or literally spinning in circles wondering where to start next.
.
I downloaded The One Minute Pause app created by John Eldridge. It is a guided time to pause for one, three, five or ten minutes. There are options to be guided or to do it on your own.
.
I found myself in the middle of productivity today when the app notified me. I didn’t want to pause. Afraid I would get off track. But it did the exact opposite. It allowed me time to give my task over. It allowed me time to take deep breaths. It allowed me to become even more focused. Sometimes we just need an app to remind us to be still.

I rarely hear women claim that they love being a mom. Or they love being a homemaker. It seems we’re all claiming to be a hot mess, kicking our kids out of the house, wishing we had other jobs/hobbies or hating our homes. Yes, parenting can be TOUGH! Yes, being a stay at home mom can be weary. But what if we changed the conversation?
.
What if instead of needing alcohol to get us through we called a friend? What if instead of calling the dreaded 3-6pm hours the worst part of the day we saved that time for actually being with our kids? What if instead of hating how much screen time our kids have we put crafts, books, puzzles and baking in front of them?
.
I’m right there with you. I can easily continue the conversation of overwhelm and frustration. But instead of staying in the lament what if we encouraged each other as well?

There is so much to process, yet social media is not where I want to do that. It seems here I only show half of myself. You see the flowers, garden, kids playing, things I’m baking and some of the books I’m reading. But there are questions, frustrations, conversations, joys and accomplishments that aren’t shared.
.
As a writer I feel a responsibility to process publicly. Also as a writer I feel the pressure to stick to a niche. Hospitality and home. And so it’s getting muddled. I feel flaky here. I feel like I’m trying to hard to show up. I feel authentically inauthentic.
.
This space holds a special place in my heart. The people I’ve “met”, the inspiration, the encouragement and the humor. Thanks for hanging with me. Thanks for showing up too as I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way.

Unsubscribe: With so much information coming at us from all angles, extra emails we have to sort through to get to what we need is unnecessary. It takes time away from our day and can overwhelm us before we even reply to the important ones.
.
Take ten minutes today to unsubscribe from emails. Try to not get distracted by checking out the latest sales or best offers from companies as you go.
.
#inTENtionalthursday

I believe in home. I believe how we make a home affects how we live our days. I believe home should be a safe place to process the world. I believe we should fill our days with intention rather than mindless following. I believe in the slow pace. I believe in sharing our homes, no matter what they look like or the size. I believe we should work in our home when alone so when others are around we can be with the people. I believe in home cooking and pizza delivery. I believe in dwelling longer around the table, phones off and heads up. I believe home can be wherever you take it. I believe in order to not be alone we must not wait for an invitation, but rather be the invitation.

Last week I mentioned I’d be sharing ideas each Thursday as to ways we can take ten minutes to be intentional about the way we live. It can be so easy to get caught on the Merry Go Round of life, never thinking we can hop off at any point and live with intention.

Today I want to start with a brain dump.  Have you ever done this? When life feels overwhelming or stressful, when I feel myself frazzled or anxiety creeping in I do a brain dump.

All you have to do is get out a pen and paper. You can use your phone or notes app, but I believe writing is more cathartic. Write down everything on your mind. No rhyme or reason. No sentence structuring is needed here. Just write words. I try to start with what needs to get done. Most often it’s not a much as I think. Then I write out all of the extras, usually the heavy stuff.

Mine often looks like:What’s for dinner tonight? Pay bills. Switch laundry. Empty dishwasher. Email Sarah back. House is a mess. Kids are whinier than normal. I haven’t eaten well. The news. Who do I trust? Why is God silent right now?

Then I pray over it. Give it over to God and then I do the first thing on my list.

Life can feel overwhelming because, well, it is. But also because we can’t make what’s going on in our head tangible, attainable. By writing it out and giving it over clears room for the actual doing and facing.

Have you ever thought of your home as Holy Ground? I never had until Donna Otta from Modern Homemakers proposed the question..When I think of it two things happen: Inspiration and shame.

1. I get inspired. It makes me want to jump and get going. I want to create more spaces of rest and fun. I want to bring scripture back to the dinner table. It makes me fall in love with my home all over again and reminds me to use it well.

2. And, honestly, it makes me uncomfortable. I think, No, this is the place I want to feel safe to screw up. Safe to be lazy. I immediately feel shame for the way I have snapped at my kids or have let things go. If I don’t see it as a Holy Space then I don’t have to try.

But the latter is no way to live, whether I see my space as Holy or not. I don’t feel I have the right to declare something as Holy or not. But when I stop and think if my home is honoring God it changes things for me. So I go out my front door, I turn around and walk back in. What do I see? Rest or Chaos? Welcome or run away? I will kick off my shoes and pray that I do my best to honor this home, this gift.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing..Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love..

Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly..1 Corinthians 13 (NLT and Message)