Alan said the bear looked like Cousin It, and Faith said it was a slug. As the night progressed, the icing ran all over the cake.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 3 John 1:4 NIV

I love planning birthday parties for my kids. I get into creating themed parties with decor and food to match. And I pride myself in making my children’s birthday cakes.

Over the years, I’ve made a 3 ft light saber, a 3-tiered Dora cake, a princess doll cake, a teapot cake with matching cupcake teacups, a half-pipe skateboard cake, a giant sheriff’s star, individual cakes with Twinkie girls in sleeping bags, a pirate ship… You get the idea. While I love to make fun cakes, they don’t always turn out as planned.

This year, Faith had a bear themed party, and I made a 3-D teddy bear to sit on top of a sheet cake. I was going for simple. Only I was in a rush to ice it before the guests arrived, and the icing ran – all down the back of the cake. It looked AWFUL! Faith said it looked like a slug.

Every time we looked at the cake, we burst into laughter. A week later, Faith suggested I write a devotion about it. I was impressed she was able to take a situation like that and turn it into a devotion. She loves to write, so I suggested she write the devotion. I promised I would publish it on my site.

So, she wrote it. But I submitted it, instead, to a devotional website for kids. And they accepted it!!

I never posted pictures of my cake for my friends on Facebook, because it looked so terrible. What good can come out of an ugly cake? Who would have thought that cake disaster would be the catalyst to my daughter getting published? God truly can use anything.

What messy situation are you looking at today? Give your slug cake to God and see what He can do with it. I promise you’ll be blessed!

I would love you to read Faith’s devotion and leave her a comment. Click HERE to read her devotion.

Carol

“Why is it not lighting up?”

My daughter Grace called through the dark to me.

“Honey, it IS lighting up,” I explained. “But glow in the dark things just glow. They don’t really project light,” I told her and waited for her to ask what project meant.

It’s hard to explain to a three-year-old the difference between a light-up unicorn pillow that puts stars on the ceiling and the glow-in-the-dark dinosaur from her kid’s meal.

I kept trying to explain it in different ways, but honestly, none of them made sense to her.

And as I explained, I realized something huge…

Join me today at the Internet Cafe. Click HERE to find out if you are a glow-in-the-dark Christian.

Carol

She woke me in the dead of night and spoke the words a mother dreads.

“Mama, I don’t feel good.”

“What’s wrong?” I croaked, throwing back the covers to slide my feet to the floor. I walked my nine-year-old back to her room and listened as she told me how her head throbbed, and she was hot and then cold and then hot again.

Eleven years of mothering told me she had a fever even before I touched her. I got a cool cloth for her head and gave her some Tylenol. Feeling tired and weary, I knelt down by her bed, smoothed her covers and rubbed her back.

She rolled back to search for my eyes in the dark. “Mama?” My daughter asked. “Last night I prayed and asked God to help me have a good night and a good day tomorrow. Why do you think He would let me get sick when I prayed that?”

I took a deep breath, throwing up quick prayers asking God to give me the wisdom to answer this one. I looked at her in the dark, the seconds ticked on the clock echoing in the room.

“Faith, just because we ask God for something doesn’t mean He automatically grants it…” I began to explain something to my daughter that sometimes I don’t even understand myself.

My nine-year-old hit on a question probably uttered by hundreds of thousands of people daily – WHY?

Why, Lord, would you let a crazy man with guns in a school full of innocent children? Why didn’t you let a cop pull him over for speeding before he got there?

Why didn’t you distract the Boston bombers as they were creating explosive devices so the bombs wouldn’t detonate? Lives would still be intact. Families unbroken.

Why would you allow a girl at the beginning of her journey, just three years into marriage, have incurable cancer? Why, Lord?

Why would you allow a child to be taken and kept for ten years? Why didn’t you draw the neighbor’s attention to the house sooner?

Friends, I don’t claim to have the answers to all of life’s questions. I just don’t. I told my daughter the same.

I did explain how God gave us free will to choose our lives, and sometimes we choose to touch the germs that make us sick. Adam and Eve chose so long ago to bring sin into the world and because of that sin, we have sickness and cancer and bad people.

God didn’t want it. He doesn’t relish in allowing it to happen. It hurts Him. It brings Him great grief. But ultimately, He knows that in this fallen world, He can use those things – those horrible, sometimes unspoken things – to draw others to Him.

Because when they find Him, they can have eternal life in Heaven. Life without cancer, without bombers, without hunger, without sex trafficking, without heartbreak, without loneliness, without abandonment, without addiction and without death.

And although, I don’t understand why or how God chooses to intervene sometimes with miracles and sometimes not, I’m okay with that. As hard as it is to say, I accept it, because God knows more than me.

He knows the big picture. He knows when a death and “perfect healing” in Heaven brings more people to know Him than a miracle on earth.

So I choose to have faith. Faith doesn’t mean you understand everything because you’ve worked it all out in your head and it makes sense. Faith believes without completely seeing. It’s trusting.

And while I don’t always know the answers to the why, I do know God. And I trust Him. I know He is always with me.

I explained to Faith, “Even though I can’t automatically make you better, I am here to be with you. Does my presence make you feel a little better?”

She nodded her fevered head.

It’s the same way with God. While He may not grant your request the way you wish, He will be with you. He won’t leave your side.

Lord, I thank you for a daughter who prays to you and thinks about the hard questions. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk to her about a real situation in a way she can understand. God, I know there are people reading these words who are hurting with situations I cannot even begin to understand. But You do. I ask that You bring healing and peace to their lives. Lord, I pray You wrap your loving arms around them and bring comfort. Let them know You will never leave them or forsake them. Amen.

*Photo credit

Carol

Many church groups and various denominations are guilty of thinking God only hears their specific prayers. If you think God only hears the prayers of the (insert your denomination here), then you might be acting like Apple computers.

Confused? Join me today at the Presidential Prayer Team. Click HERE to read my devotion.

*Reminder: This link is only direct for today, May 13. After today, you’ll have to select May 13 from the drop-down menu on the Presidential Prayer Team site. 

Carol

In honor of Mother’s Day, I bring you my favorite post about my mother. I could not have asked for a better role model and friend. Happy Mother’s day Mom!

I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Phillipians 4:13 NIV

My mother taught me how to swim. She taught my brother, all my cousins, and me. Where I grew up, my family all lived on the same road. Aunt Marilyn lived five houses down from us, and she had a pool. Many summer days were spent there. With swim suit clad bodies, we’d throw a towel around our shoulders and flip flop all the way to Marilyn’s.

When I was too young to swim, Mom put me in a galvanized tub of water beside the pool and let me watch. My cousins and brother would run and jump, slide and splash to my delightful squeals. As I grew, mom taught me to leap in the shallow end and slip down the slide. By the time I was four, I was flipping off the side.

I loved when my mom swam with me on her back. She told me to hold my breath and her neck. She would swim underwater to the deep end with my little body floating up behind her. Sometimes, I would pretend she was the Mama fish and I was the baby. And together we swam.

My mother was unsurpassed. She could do anything. Always athletic, she played basketball in high school. During softball season, she threw balls in the backyard. And basketball season found her coaching my team.

But in summer, Mom was diving. Most of my friends and family attribute their knowledge of diving to my mother. When other moms would sit on the side of the pool not wanting to get their hair wet, my mom would launch herself in with a beautiful swan dive. A few steps and a hop, then her arms flew gracefully through the air as her body floated up, up and with a tilt, she slipped in the water. It was an attitude. That swan dive was the way my mom has always approached life – with style and grace.

Many years have passed since our pool days at Marilyn’s. The diving board is long gone, and the pool closed for good.

That swan dive attitude stills lives within me. When I think of the insurmountable, I think of my mother floating through the air. The pool may be gone, but my mother can still swan dive. If you’re sitting by a pool this summer and an older lady approaches the diving board, don’t be surprised if she leaps into a swan dive.

It just might be my mother.

*Photo credit

Carol

Is your church a hotel or a hospital?

I’d love you to read my devotion today with the Presidential Prayer Team. Then come back to let me know what you think we, as Christians, can do to create a church where “non-church’y” people feel welcome.

Click HERE to read, but don’t forget to come back and weigh in your opinion.

*Reminder: The link to the devo is only direct today, May 6. After today,  you’ll have to select May 6 from the drop down menu on the Presidential Prayer Team site.

Carol

We’ve all seen their faces plastered on every news outlet – the Boston bombers. Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarvaev are the brothers responsible for the bomb explosions at the end of the everybody’s favorite race, the Boston marathon.

Tamerlan, the elder of the two, died in a gun-fight with police. But nineteen-year-old Dzhokhar ran and hid, only to be discovered later lying wounded in a backyard boat.

The younger brother’s face won’t leave me. He is a baby. Before, you go off on me about how nineteen is old enough to know better – I agree with you.

But still. I can’t help but think of my own son – my eleven-year-old who shoots airsoft guns in the backyard and hoops in the front.

Dzhokhar is somebody’s baby.

Yes, I’ve read the articles about his mother, and how it appears she was somewhat of an extremist herself. But it doesn’t change that she is a mother. And as a mother, I hurt for this woman.

My heart aches for the boy lying in a Boston hospital under police guard.

(Just as my heart aches for the mothers who lost their children in the bombing. I’d like to take a moment to mention the names of those innocent people who lost their lives that day: Martin Richard, Lu Lingzi, Krystle Campbell, and Sean Collier. My sincere condolences go out to each of their families.)

All over America today, there is hatred for this boy who caused loss of life and heartache for many. And trust me, it would be so easy for me to hate this kid.

But I can’t.

God doesn’t teach us to hate, but to love. He never said it would be easy, but He does command it.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Matthew 5:43-47 ESV

I’ve worked with kidnappers, thieves and murderers. And I’ve seen how God can change them.

So how far is too far?

How far is too much for God to forgive? How far is too far for me to forgive?

I’m not saying it’s easy, but I am saying it’s right. If we are to call ourselves sons and daughters of the One True God, then friends, it’s time we get on our knees and begin to pray.

Pray for the nineteen-year-old kid who lies in a hospital bed in Boston. Pray for the mother and father who refuse to accept the video footage of their children leaving backpack bombs. Pray for the families who are waking up without a son, a father, a wife, a best friend. Just pray.

The words may not come easy. That’s okay; the Holy Spirit knows what to pray when we don’t. But I’m asking you, imploring you, begging you to pray.

And let God do the rest. Because I believe that nothing is too far for God.

The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.” Numbers 11:23 NIV

Carol

When Francisco came to know Christ, he left home to study. From a farming family, Francisco was very poor. When asked to share his testimony, he looked down at the toes poking through his shoes and prayed, “Lord, how could I preach in these shoes?” Not wanting to dishonor God, he prayed all night for shoes…

More than anything, I love a good Ephesians 3:20 moment. Don’t know Ephesians 3:20? Join me at The Presidential Prayer Team today. Click HERE to read my devotion.

*Reminder: This link is only direct for today, April 13. After today, select April 13 from the drop-down menu. 

Carol

It was our honeymoon, and we weren’t speaking.

My mouth a firm line, I avoided all eye contact with my new husband. I tried staring at my plate but Alan’s shiny new ring kept catching my eye, taunting me. The ring represented everything I was trying to forget – Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor. 13:7 ESV)

After a few dreamy days at Walt Disney World, Alan and I had driven to the beach. And when you are at the beach and it’s time to eat, you want to eat seafood, of course.

Unless, you are me. Then you hate seafood.

So in an effort to find a restaurant agreeable to both of us, Alan and I used the following plan:

1. Drive to awesome sounding seafood place with “captain” or “shipwrecked” in the name.
2. I’d jump out and skim menu for a tasty chicken dish
3. Return to the car disappointed
4. Repeat

After doing this twenty-eleven times or so, Alan and I both got hungry. Really hungry.

To make a long story short, snippy words flew, we pulled into the local Red Lobster (yes, I know we could have eaten there at home) and found ourselves sitting across from each other angry – and hungry. We like to call that “hangry.”

After a few cheesy garlic biscuits, we were ready to talk. Some would be disheartened at a lover’s quarrel on their honeymoon. Alan and I decided we learned a valuable lesson – do not let the other one get hungry.

Trigger Factors
Here’s the thing. All of us – married or not – have what I like to call trigger factors. Trigger factors are those things that really annoy us. Some examples of trigger factors are clutter, too many noises at the same time (like all three children trying to talk to me over the sound of the TV) and heat. My mother’s pre-wedding advice to Alan? “Whatever you do, don’t let her vacuum without a ponytail!”

Okay, so those were really just mine. But here are some others:
-lack of sleep
-bad smells
-being interrupted
-heat
-hunger

You get the idea. There are many more. If you trigger one of these factors in your spouse, you may soon find yourself in quite a battle. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Let me offer some advice.

5 ways to stop an argument before it starts

1. Discover your spouse’s trigger factors (and make sure they know yours)
If you’ve been married for a while, you may already know these. But it never hurts to ask. Perhaps you’re aware of some, but may be surprised about others. Sometimes naming them helps both of you to be alert and recognize when either of you have been triggered.

2. Stop and look both ways
Next time your significant other explodes and you are scratching your head wondering why, pause and look for one of those trigger factors. One time Alan was working on the computer and I asked him a question. His response was clipped and snippy. I paused a second, put a hand on his back and asked, “Are you hungry?”

“YES!” was his quick reply. You better believe I hopped down to the kitchen and brought him a pack of crackers in a hurry. The same has happened when I’ve walked into the house when it needed cleaning. It made me irritable. Alan knew this and was great about straightening up when he saw my eyes cross and begin to spin.

3. Show grace
Does knowing trigger factors excuse bad behavior? No. It doesn’t. You still need to say I’m sorry for using a hateful tone of voice. But it does help to explain why your spouse is so upset. When you realize your honey’s irritability button has been triggered, show grace. Know it just as easily could have been you who fell into the grumpy pit.

If you are slow to anger and quick to understand, you may stop a full fight before it ever happens.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. James 1:9 NIV

4. Plan ahead
Some things you cannot help, but take control of the ones you can. If you know the smell of broccoli sends your loved one over the edge, then don’t cook it! Do what you can to prevent setting off a trigger factor. This applies to you, also.

If you know heat is your trigger factor, put your hair in a ponytail before you vacuum and turn on a ceiling fan or two. If you truly love your spouse (let’s hope you do or we have bigger issues here), then you want to make them happy. Do what you can to create a pleasing atmosphere.

If your spouse has lots of trigger factors, it may feel like you are constantly walking through a minefield. Take time to sit down with them when you aren’t in the middle of an argument and discuss some of these.

But whatever you do, don’t throw live grenades into your marriage or you will be guaranteed some casualties.

5. Forgive
In a loving, Christ-like commitment of two people, there will still be arguments. Toes will be stepped on. Feet will be inserted into mouths. You and your spouse will both have your trigger factors set off and will both fly off the handle from time to time.

Listen to me. This. Is. Normal.

It happens. Don’t throw in the towel. Don’t call a divorce lawyer. Don’t buy a voodoo doll and stick needles in your lover’s eyes.

The best thing you can learn to do for a long happy marriage is learn to forgive. Simple to say, sometimes it’s not so simple to do.

But forgive them anyway.

When you are in the heat of the moment, decide it then. Decide to forgive them before they say I’m sorry. Forgiveness will deflate a fight in a hurry.

When I am the angriest, I stop and ask myself, “Do I expect God to forgive me?” Tomorrow when I screw up, do I honestly want God to forgive me of my sins? And I realize I, too, must forgive.

Disagreements are normal in a marriage of two imperfect people. Hopefully, we can learn from them. Pay attention and take note of the things that upset your spouse. Then work to stop arguments before they happen.

Because, honestly, your spouse isn’t just your life partner or your lover, your spouse is your best friend.

And friends don’t let friends get hangry.

*Image Credits

Carol

I’m a girly girl.

I don’t leave home without lipstick or gloss. Accessories are a not an option, they are a necessity. I like pink, and if it sparkles I love it.

So you might find it strange I hate long nails…

Join me today at 5 Minutes for Faith. Click HERE to find out why I hate long nails and what I learned from clipping them.

This will be my last post at 5 Minutes for Faith. My writing position there was my first ever writing position, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity. But God is opening doors in other areas, and time restraints keep me from continuing. Don’t worry. I’ll still be writing here at Sheep to the Right. Thank you for reading.

Carol