Frumps to Pumps: Getting Dressed With Purpose

My friend, Sarah Mae, has written a delightfully inspiring eBook called Frumps to Pumps (Your One-Month Motivotional to Getting Dressed and
Staying That Way!) and I have just loved being recharged by her passion and insight about the importance of being prepared and dressing with purpose!

After the storm, getting dressed became what seemed like a monumental task for me and I felt (and still do!) like I was in a perpetual state of frantically working, which I thought excused my typical pattern of getting dressed in something besides “lazy” clothes.

Sarah Mae’s book was the motivation I needed and I think you will be so glad you read it! It’s a warm, light-hearted book filled with important thoughts for the aspiring Proverbs 31 woman to ponder as we seek to glorify God in everything!

Excerpt:

“It is fitting to end our challenge with the beautiful picture of dressing in strength and dignity…

With beauty, honor, and splendor. We are leaving a legacy every day whether we care to think about it or not. We are leaving memory trails in the minds of our children and those we love and those we meet. Are we dressing with splendor (another word for “dignity” in the Greek)? Are we dressing in the Light of the One who made us beautiful because of Him? What do we reflect?

We all face different seasons of life which lend to limitations in dress or time or energy. God loves us so much. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter in the space of Heaven and earth what we wear and yet there is something about the splendor.

There is something to being well-ordered and strong and dignified. Think about your legacy and think about how you can glorify God in how you dress.

Be strong in your heart for the Lord. Be honorable and faithful, and dress yourself  in these characteristics.”

My Husband’s Helper

“But for Adam no suitable helper was found.”

And then God made him one.

Beautiful story.  Convicting.  Controversial.

I was created to be my husband’s helper.

Together.

We became one flesh of two and consequently incomplete without each other.

Though we are two people, we are “one” in spirit and mission. Helping him is not a diminishing of my value; it is a fulfillment. We are better as one couple because our unique roles make us complete in our union.

Do I help him?

Am I motivated to be a suitable helper to him as we fulfill our dominion calling?

Too often I am centered on myself and even expect him to help me!  Which he does in the details of life.

But in the big picture, am I delighted to obey my Creator as his helper? Do I find contentment there?

Do you?

Sometimes I need to revisit the simplicity of my role as a wife.

And then be better at it.

“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, But she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones.”  Proverbs 12:4

Marriage: When the Heart’s Not in it

Some truths are so obvious we miss them.

“Why doesn’t anyone stay together anymore?” I asked my husband this morning as we heard of another Christian friend who recently divorced. We have been walking through a messy marriage situation with a young, Christian couple we know, and so we have talked a lot lately about the “how’s” and “why’s” of marriage, trying to figure out why so many are falling apart.

I read something this morning and the familiar truth of it seemed so new, so profound but so often missed.

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Common translation: “The things (people, activities) in which you invest your time, money, energy and thoughts will be the things you care about the most.”

And while I think this Scripture is referring to “heavenly treasures”, based on the verse before it, the concept remains true in our earthly relationships.

Could we be more distracted, as a culture, more neglectful of that truth?

The television, the I-gadget, the computer, the sports team, the careers, the hobbies–what’s left to invest into the person with whom we are meant to be ONE? How much of our time, energy and money goes into our husband or wife? Our thoughts? Our attention?

Investment is deliberate. Relationships–especially marital ones–don’t just happen and flourish left alone. If I scattered some seeds over the ground and left them, chances are unlikely my garden will flourish. It takes tending–investment of time and energy–to grow healthy, thriving plants.

How does the garden of my marriage grow? Do I spend time there? Do I work there? Do I cultivate positive thoughts there?

Make no mistake–my heart will be where my time, thoughts and energy are spent.

Are you investing your earthly treasures in your spouse? If not, your heart will not be there either.

Our marriages are worth fighting for. Let’s begin investing.

A Letter to My Children…Join Me @ Raising Homemakers

One of my most responded-to posts–”A Letter to My Children About Marriage” revisited today at Raising Homemakers…

“Should the Lord give you the good gift of a husband or wife, and I hope He does, there are a few things I want you to know. Things that you may not hear from anyone else, and certainly not on TV or other media. Sadly, your church may not even tell you.”  Read the rest.

How to Have a Happier Marriage

Real Living Only Happens On Purpose

(Photo by Bria, courtesy of Robin @ Celebrating Motherhood)

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” (John Lennon)

Is it possible, in this noisiest-of-ever-century, that we hardly ever hear, hardly ever see anything much?

Have you ever noticed your world when the power goes off? It’s not just that you can’t check you  email…it’s a deafening silence that might drive some crazy if it lasted long enough. All the hums and quiet roars are dead, and we are left with much less–or is it more?

I think if we don’t live on purpose, we won’t live at all. If we don’t see through the daily whir, and hear through the daily buzz, we might just miss the life we were intended to live.

If you’ve lived very long, you know that life isn’t that long. Can we say as someone did,

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”

It’s not hard, really. It’s not “sky-diving and Rocky-mountain climbing”…

It’s another warm hug today.

It’s stopping, looking up, smiling, listening, being in the moment fully.

It’s choosing to cast a gentle glance in the direction of one you love, rather than a day-worn scowl.

A walk outside, closing your eyes, and raising your face to the warmth of an autumn sky.

Saying out loud to your children…”Isn’t this world glorious–the one our Lord created?”

Curling up to read Dr. Seuss again, ending with a tickle.

Noticing the forlorn look in your daughter’s eye and being willing to stop your day to draw it out.

Speaking words of life into someone’s heart, taking time to really hear what they are saying, instead of what you are going to say when they’re done.

All these smallish things, woven together over a lifetime…that makes a life well-lived.

Live deliberately if at all.