2012 at 10:16 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood 52home
6:20 p.m.
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2012 at 4:50 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Spiritual Growth
While walking the church basement halls last Sunday with a loud little boy who wasn’t able to attend nursery due to sickness, I ran into another mom doing the same with her (not so loud) little girl. We chatted for a minute, laughing about the challenges of Sunday mornings with little ones and the many missed sermons and times of worship. Then she marveled at the day and age we live in—that the very sermon we were missing would only be a click away on our computer the next morning. I was reminded afresh of the wealth of biblical resources at our fingertips.
Over the past couple of years, as I have found it more challenging to find long stretches of time to read (for 3 little sweet obvious reasons), so I have begun to incorporate sermon listening into my daily routine. The options are endless. For starters just check out the Sovereign Grace store, Gospel Coalition, and Desiring God websites and you will find hundreds of sermons just waiting for your mp3 player.
This morning, while attacking my bedroom floor with the vacuum and mop, I listened to Kevin DeYoung’s sermon from T4G entitled “Spirit-Powered, Gospel-Driven, Faith-Feuled Effort.” It was the perfect message for the job, since my floor was greatly in need of some effort driven by the Spirit’s power. Me (and my floor) were greatly blessed and challenged by his message and I’m so grateful that technology allows me to bring T4G right into my home—and I didn’t even have to get out of my pjs!
So consider adding sermon listening to your daily routine and begin with Kevin’s message. Your floor will thank you.
2012 at 9:07 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood 52home
4:37 p.m. Nourishment for the soul.
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2012 at 3:59 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood The Gospel
I won’t admit to you how many years it has been since I attended the Next conference. It makes me feel my age and I have intentionally forgotten how old I am. But I will tell you that I am still reaping the blessings of that conference in my life today. And there are people all over the country and the world that could say the same. I know them.
There is the girl who came as a non-Christian and left regenerated. She wrote me after the conference to tell me that she had joined a wonderful, gospel-preaching church.
There is the girl who was convicted of lying to her parents and went home and told them the truth.
There is the young man who was ignited with a fire for the local church and the gospel. And I know all about him because I have been happily married to him for the past eleven years.
What is most unique about this conference is that it is more about what happens the other 362 days of the year. The Next conference isn’t about three days of spiritual high but about year round, faithful, grace-enabled service in the local church. And it is this message that continues to shape and inspire my life today.
I don’t want anyone who is still young enough to attend to miss out on this conference. This year more than ever! The conference is being led by Dad and Bob Kauflin and speakers include Kevin DeYoung and Matt Chandler. The theme is You + The Church.
So today, thanks to the kind folks at Next, we have FIVE free registrations (for a single or a married couple) to give away! To win you need to do at leat one of the following:
1. Facebook - like the Next page on fb and post a link to the Next website on your fb page.
2. Twitter - tweet about the Next conference.
3. Blog - write a blog post about the Next conference.
Then simply email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and send us a link to your blog or tell us that you have posted on fb or twitter (we’ll just use the honor system here). You must email us by midnight on Thursday evening and on Friday morning we will choose five random winners.
I can’t wait to hear the life changing stories that will be written this year!
2012 at 9:37 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood 52home
5:43 p.m. Breakfast for dinner.
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2012 at 6:35 am | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood The Gospel
In our greatest troubles, it often seems as if God has turned His face away. As if He doesn’t see, as if He doesn’t care to see.
And so we cry out as David did, “Turn, O Lord, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love” (Ps. 6:4). And we ask for the faith that concludes before it sees: “The Lord has heard my pleas; the LORD accepts my prayer. All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled; they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment” (Ps. 6:9-10).
Turn, O Lord and deliver us. And cause our enemies to turn back.
But no answer do we hear. No turning do we see. Or so it seems.
Until we return to the cross.
At the cross, our Heavenly Father turned away from His beloved Son. He did not hear His Son’s pleas. He did not turn back His Son’s enemies. He crushed His Son to fulfill the promise He gave to us through the prophets: “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jer. 32:40).
God has not turned away from us in our trouble. He will not turn away. We deserve to have Him turn away from us forever, but He turned away from His Son instead—so that He might not turn away from doing good to us.
And what is that good? It is the fear of God. It is the grace that keeps us from turning away from Him.
This turning, our turning away from God is the greatest tragedy, our greatest trial. And in all our trials, it is this turning that God is working to prevent. He is turning back our greatest enemy of all: sin. He is making sure we do not turn from Him, that we might always bask in the light of His face.
Truly, the Lord has heard my pleas.
2012 at 7:04 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood 52home
10:11 a.m. At least he changed them!
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2012 at 6:53 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Joy
“That’s how God works. He gets at our most fundamental idolatry and He ruthlessly crushes it in His unfathomable love and fatherly kindness and inscrutable wisdom and He goes after our greatest treasures and He leaves us with nothing but himself so that we go limping on our way for the rest of our lives having learned: ‘My grace is sufficient for you for my power is perfected in weakness.’ Don’t underestimate God. Don’t underestimate His ruthless compassionate gracious commitment to His glory or His commitment to your everlasting joy and good. He will pursue you graciously and ruthlessly and rip out the idols of your soul that would otherwise consume you. He is working for your joy and your good even when you cannot perceive it and have ceased to be able to feel anything anymore.” ~Ligon Duncan, The Underestimated God, T4G 2012
2012 at 9:05 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood 52home
3:49 p.m. Mommy, come play with us!
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2012 at 8:51 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Fun Stuff
It’s that time of year again for the Pick One Spot Contest. Actually, we keep changing the time of year we do this contest, but this year it is that time of year.
Same prize: $100 to your favorite home store (Target, Home Goods, World Market, Pottery Barn etc.)
Same instructions:
1. PICK ONE SPOT in your house that is in dire need of some TLC
2. Take a “before” picture
3. Proceed to give said spot some TLC
4. Take an “after” picture, and
5. Send your pics to us for a chance to win some prizes.
Same time to complete: 2 weeks, so you must submit your entry by Friday April 27
Same email: send entries to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Same judges: yours truly, and you can check out past winners to get an idea of what it might take to win (2011, 2010, 2007)
Looking forward to some great entries again this year!
2012 at 8:35 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood 52home
5:28 p.m. Ever feel like you’re losing your mind? Yup.
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2012 at 3:13 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood
Like many of you, the four of us are at home and feeling very together with the children during this T4G week. Between the eleven kids we’ve had eye infections and bathroom accidents and nap boycotts and broken birthday presents and for some reason the days just seem longer when Daddy doesn’t come home for dinner. But even though we can’t be there we are thrilled that our husbands are receiving amazing teaching and encouragement. And I’m excited we can listen to the audio here. First up on my ipod: Dad and Kevin DeYoung.
This morning my husband sent me a message from the conference that he knew I would be excited to hear: Apparently Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ grandson took the platform to announce that they are now making all of Dr. Lloyd-Jones’ sermons available online for free. Spiritual Depression, Studies on the Sermon on the Mount, and Faith on Trial—all MLJ sermon transcripts turned books—have been some of the most influential teachings of my Christian life. You can bet I’m going to get started right away on listening to all 1600 of these free sermons. That’s a lot of scrubbed toilets and emptied dishwashers.
And a few great articles for moms popped up this week by Rachel Jankovic and Gloria Furman , so be encouraged all of you who are laboring with little ones for the gospel.
2012 at 10:17 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood 52home
3:14 p.m. Afternoon Tea
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2012 at 2:46 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Motherhood
I too have been thinking a lot about Grandma lately, whenever I make egg salad sandwiches. They are Jude’s favorite. He asks me every day around 11:35 a.m.—“Egg, Mom?” It is very hard to resist those beautiful brown eyes too many days in a row, so we’ve been eating a lot of egg salad.
I didn’t know how to make egg salad until a few weeks ago. I never cared for it as a kid, so I wasn’t inspired to include it in Jack and Tori’s regular lunch menu. But in an effort to find something Jude and Sophie like besides plain peanut butter sandwiches, I’ve been trying all kinds of things. (By the way, tuna fish was a winner yesterday—further evidence that a spoonful of ritz cracker helps the medicine go down. Maybe if my mom had made me meatloaf sandwiches on ritz crackers instead of whole wheat bread I would have liked those too.)
So I asked Mom how to make egg salad. “Mayonnaise to hold it together,” she told me, “and as my mom always used to say, ‘a little mustard for color.’” I can hear Grandma now, instructing my mom on how to make egg salad, telling her the same thing she had told her a hundred times before, as if it was the first time. A little mustard for color.
My grandma never met Jude and Sophie. She passed away only weeks before they came home. But before she died, my aunt added their picture to the collection of grandkids and great-grandkids by Grandma’s bed and she repeatedly said how happy she was that we were adopting them.
Jude won’t meet Grandma until heaven, but her life has shaped his. Because in God’s providence, the only reason I’m in the kitchen making egg salad sandwiches instead of chasing my own elusive glory is because I had a mother who taught me the value, dignity, and glory of motherhood. And she first learned it from Grandma.
A little mustard for color. It may seem an inconsequential lesson. After all, we only have to click on Pinterest these days to find out how to make gourmet egg salad cut in special shapes for kids. But this little tip holds a wealth of meaning for me—meaning about faithfulness in motherhood and the enduring effect of a mother’s teaching. Thanks, Grandma. Oh, and Jude thanks you too.
2012 at 9:03 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood 52home
9:46 a.m. Why my kids like the UPS man.
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