Don’t let your actions be decided by your fears.

Act according to your conviction of who God is and what He’s called you to.

Your Master has promised you things. Your Master lived, died, and rose again to make those things available to you. Do you have earthly masters that will do the same? No? …Then make sure your daily decision-making process BEGINS with ‘What has my Master commanded?’, not ‘But what will happen if…?’

Don’t expect to have your view & actions welcomed and loved by the masses. In fact, if you aren’t being ridiculed by the masses maybe that should be a red flag? Christ was ridiculed and hated everywhere He went for not becoming part of everyone else’s norm.

Pray for grace to stand for truth & live out the gospel.

~Shannon

Are you able to willingly rest in the perfect sovereignty of God when all seems to be getting dark around you?

His sovereignty is actually the only light you need in the darkest & most confusing of times.

Let’s do our best to learn to rest in that truth, surrendering to the building of HIS kingdom, HIS way.

“Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory,” Psalm 115:1

~Shannon

I will never forget the moment my mother tested my teenage self in giving my honest opinion. She came out of her room in a ridiculous shoe choice for the outfit she was in and with a perfectly serious face asked if it looked okay. I didn’t want her to feel bad so I said, ‘Yeah, it’s good.’
She burst out laughing and declared she would never trust my opinion again. She thought it funny, but you know what? I have remembered the dishonesty of that moment for the rest of my life. It was a pivotal point in my walk with Christ to realize that in all my relationships I was often being dishonest. Lying. Not wanting people to feel bad I’d smooth over rough spots to not draw attention to the awkwardness of bad shoe choices… or worse, sinful life choices… and they were all doing the same for me!

You’re best friends are NOT the ones that affirm you and keep telling you you’re so smart & beautiful no matter what your life looks like. You’re best friends are the ones that call a spade a spade when it comes to your shoes & your sin.

The people in my life that called me out for what I did or said and stuck around for me to learn from it are the ones that I trust when I ask their opinion. I know they are pursuing truth, not the petting of my emotions.

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” Proverbs 27:6

~Shannon

Sooner or later what we’ve planted will start producing and all will know what we have been sowing in the seemingly inconspicuous parts of our fields.

What are you planting today? The pursuit of Christ, or self?

Rest assured, we will harvest more than we planted. One seed grows an abundance of its own kind. And the fruit never shows itself immediately, roots begin and it takes time to show its growth. And what comes up from that dirt won’t be anything different than what was stuck in the ground. You WILL reap what you sow.

Only God has the power to uproot our holds of sin & bitterness and exchange them for new seeds of the Spirit.

Beg Him to take over the sowing of your field. Beg Him for a harvest only He can produce!

~Shannon

Busy days? Rough last-of-the-winter days? Keep on choosing to serve. Us mommas have the ultimate job of teaching our kids what ‘my life for yours’ looks like on a practical level. It’s NEVER perfect and we will ALWAYS keep falling, messing up, and realizing more and more of our sin & shortcomings… it’s called being human. This being made from dust has deep effects, but life-breathed into that dust by Christ Himself has deeper effects that allow for a strengthening in that dust to continue to persevere and reach for the glory promised us to come.

Maybe you’ll make bread. Maybe you’ll go for a walk. Maybe you’ll model service by caring for the sick. Maybe you’ll sacrifice deeply in dark circumstances and your children won’t comprehend the lesson for many years to come…until they look back through their own story’s lense. Whatever your day is looking like today choose to react with 10 years from now in mind. Our choices impact years, not just moments.
This is not just our training ground as women, but our children’s, and their children’s. We can learn to pass on a legacy of Christ-centered service as much as depends on our dusty selves, and trust God to miraculously use it somehow.

There have been many days in the past few years that I’ve lost my breath, laying winded in a face plant of hard circumstance. Getting the wind knocked out if you has this deceiving feeling as if you’re dying. You lay there not able to draw a breath but look normal to all around you… they don’t know you can’t breath, and there’s nothing they could do essentially if they did realize. But after a few seconds your lungs remember to suck in some air and you get up and start moving again. Life returns. This is the life of a child of God at times. But we can’t take the few seconds of breathless position on the ground to define the whole race; that’s just a few steps of our journey.

We model to our people what it looks like, not to be flawless, but to be terribly flawed and persevere. We show them that Grace is what keeps us all moving forward.
Don’t pretend to have it all together. You don’t. No one does. You’re going to get winded at times. But thankfully you don’t have to be flawless to keep serving.

~Shannon