part 2 - YOU HAVE INFLUENCE.

I'm blogging through my breakout session from last week's Chosen conference. 

Day One found here.

you know where I learn about influence? watching these two.

So I feel like I had a little bit of influence. 

Not by my own might or cuteness or wisdom and it wasn’t for my own glory, but it was there. Here are some things I want to share about influence.

(#1) We all have it.

If you have one husband or two kids or six girlfriends or a small group that you lead or a blog of 10,000 readers or 432 facebook friends – you have influence. He has given you people who care what you think and who you can affect.  I think it’s incredibly important before we think about doing anything online or speaking life in any way – to just stop and ask the Lord where He’s given influence. Who listens to you? Who would like to listen to you if you’d give them the time? Who needs to hear your story? If you think the answer is no one, ask Him.

For me, when I really asked the Lord who these women were and who I needed to be writing to, I feel like He gave me a name for them: Mothers of Extraordinary Circumstances. MEC’s is what we call them at our house. Maybe they’re not all moms, but they’re women who are living extraordinarily or who want to be living extraordinary or who wonder if the Lord will ever give them an ordinary life. They’re women with sick kids or husbands in ministry or not enough money or any number of issues. In short, they’re women who see life outside of the ordinary.

And I wanted to write to them. Give them a giggle or an encouragement, or just impart grace to them by telling them a nasty toddler poop story. Great if others read, but these were my women. My MEC's.  If you have influence, which we’ve established you do, and you know Jesus – 

(#2) then you have a very good gift to give the people who are listening to you.

You have the God of Abraham, Isaac, & Joseph. You have the Jesus of Isaiah 61, who comes to bring good news to the poor. Binds up the brokenhearted. Proclaim liberty to the captives. And who opens the prison to those who are bound.

I am not saying that if you’re a believer, you’re wasting time when you talk about anything other than the Lord. But I am saying that if you’re a believer, and the overwhelming bulk of what you’re sharing isn’t Jesus, I don’t know. It doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.

I don’t think there is ANYTHING wrong with recipes, outfit posts, or tips on how to get your baby to sleep. Just like if I’m hanging out with a friend in real life, we might spend time talking about things of our life – marriage, clothing, budgets, etc. But I can’t imagine if I spent a few hours with a good friend and never asked her about her heart. Never asked her what the Lord was teaching her. Never asked her how I could pray for her.

And like that – when we get to heaven and I get to talk to the Lord about this online life, this interesting influence He’s given me - I do NOT want Him to say, “Hey! Great buckwheat bake recipe, but what about Me? What about the hurting women, the confused women, the women who I gave you influence with? You could have pointed them to Me”.

So you’ve got influence. 

And you’ve got the greatest Gift of all to give to the people He’s given you influence with. Don’t compare your influence, don’t lament that it’s not more. Every second you spend doing that, you spend wasting time you could be praying for what He wants you to do with it.

So let’s ask Him:

     Who have you given me influence with? What do you want me to share with them?

easy as one, two, three

This is a sweet, sweet guest post by Jenna, the brains and beauty behind Truthcards. 

Read it, be blessed, and show her some love on twitter or her site. 

Thank you, Jenna! 

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I realize that the season that I’m in, having three beautiful, healthy girls that are 1, 2 and 3 is an incredible blessing from the Lord. I also realize that amidst the lovely combination of a husband in ministry (Global Missions, requiring travel at that), striving to raise Godly young women, building a house, having a part time ministry job and running a business from home, stress may abound. These are all gifts from God, so why the stress??

Running is a huge stress relief for me. Just me, my iPod and the road = FREEDOM! Today I signed up for the Cooper River Bridge Run, a 10k run held in Charleston every spring. I’ve done the race several times – the problem is that I’m in the worst shape of my life. With everything we have going on, I typically only have time to run once a week on my Sabbath (yes, running is rest for me!).

Two months is not exactly ideal training time so I decided that I better get my rear in gear. I made lunch for the girls, loaded them into the stroller and started off toward a local family fun park that the girls enjoy. Heading out, I knew that the tires on our stroller were low on air, but couldn’t waste precious time looking for the air pump. My plan was to run to the park, play with the girls for a while and run back. While we were there, a kind park attendant let me use his air compressor to fill my stroller tires. The run back was SO MUCH easier than the way there. I didn’t even realize how much extra weight I had been pushing until the tires were full and the stroller felt light and free.

Just like the stroller, most of us have no idea how much stress we are carrying around. Jesus says, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) There are some basic principles we can find in these verses will hopefully “put some air in your tires” and lighten your load.

1) Go to Jesus. 

If possible, first thing in the morning and continually throughout the day.

2) Continually ask Him 

if what you are doing lines up with His will (His yoke).

3) Learn from Him. Read His Word. 

Ask him to quicken your spirit if you stray from a gentle and humble heart. Don’t ever let pride take over and make you think that you can do more in your own flesh than the Lord wills.

Is having three children as easy as 1-2-3? 

No way! 

But, with Jesus’ help, 

the burden can be light. 

introducing....

Hello internet friends!

I wanted to introduce to new blogs to you for two important reasons. 

#1. They're great blogs written by precious women. 

#2. They just had their blog design done! 

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It was my joy to work with Brittany from Naturally Estes (and her shop Peas & Carrots) and Brittany from Art by Britt (and her shop, Art by Britt) on their recent blog design and shop rebranding! Now that both of their installs are done, I'm taking on a few more spots for February in my blog design queue and I'm TRYING to get my own blog in order so that you can easily find design info. I'm slowly building my design page with prices lists, design examples, and client reviews. Email me today if you'd like to get on the February list!

Also, another reason to email me today? 

If you have a blog/shop/small business and you'd like to sponsor Naptime Diaries in February. Check out my advertising page for more info and feel free to email me with any questions!

I'd love to have you! 

chosen, part 1.

some precious lady friends. 

Hey ladies!

So, last week – I had the huge, huge, huge honor of leading a breakout session at the Chosen Conference in Charleston, SC. Chosen was a conference for all women – to point them to Jesus and to celebrate the fact that He calls us to Himself, chooses us for His glory and His pleasure and His purposes. It was such a sweet time and I was really overjoyed to get a section of that time to breakaway with some women and discuss the idea of how our being Chosen relates to how we can speak life. And specifically, how we can speak life to other women online.

is there anything better than a group scripture doodle session ?

Through that little session, I shared my story of how the Lord has walked me through accepting some influence He’s given me, called me to speak life to women, and then how He’s teaching me to be quiet and say something. I am still seriously in the midst of figuring all this out, but I thought it might be good to share with some of ya’ll these pieces of the story – since I really think He wants us all to be walking in newness of life, speaking life as much as possible. Not for our own glory, or so that we’ll be known as women who speak life – but because if we’re in Christ, we know LIFE. And why in the world wouldn’t we want to share it?

just SOME of the hundreds of volunteers who put on Chosen

So here’s where I started sharing my story with the ladies:

I always knew I had a struggle with being dramatic. Drawing attention to myself. Talking too much. Over the years, the Lord has helped me – it’s still a struggle, it’s still very much something that you’ll notice when you meet me, but I’m believing that the Lord is healing, slowly:). Anyhow, it was that issue that kept me from blogging, inititally. I knew I had a problem with attention seeking and talking about myself, and blogging seemed like the fast track to feeding that problem. Until a met a woman who said she wrote a blog with the intention of ministering to other women. It didn’t really matter if my heart agreed, I saw an open window and an open excuse, so I started myself a blog.

your truly doing some VIGOROUS hand talking

I started (my old blog) Babes Having Babes in 2007 and wrote about um, I’m not sure what. My hair, outfits, my cute little baby. Sometimes I actually WROTE. I think about eight people read it and I don’t remember how they found it. And then some things started to happen. I got pregnant again really quickly after having a baby, that precious baby was diagnosed with a fatal genetic disorder and then cleared of having it, we decided to move to Seattle to run a maternity home, we moved cross country, we had that precious second baby, we told hilarious and wild and precious stories of working in the maternity home, we got pregnant with a third baby, the Lord called my husband to church planting, we had that handsome prince of a baby. And all along, more and more people kept reading. Maybe to keep up with the crazy things the Lord was bringing about in our life, or maybe just to see if the train was gonna wreck, or maybe to see if I’d ever lose the baby weight – but they kept reading.

one of the precious rest spaces in the "boutique" at Chosen. So fun! 

And in the fall of 2009, I realized that the Lord was giving me some influence with women. I was pretty much landlocked, at home with three babies under three, very little money, and sharing a car with my husband. I was thousands of miles away from my former community, and my real community – the women I was doing life with were just as busy as I was. But here were these women, online, who I could sit down with at naptime and interact with. Pray for, laugh with, be challenged by, and share what the Lord was doing with.  I had a voice with them and they were on my heart, and that was a God-given influence that I couldn’t create by any means of personal promotion and that was precious. 

But, what in the world did He want me to do with it? 

................................

I'll finish up talking about the rest of the breakout over the next week or so. 

I do want to say - just as soon as the dates are released, you're going to want to mark your calendars for the Chosen Conference 2013. 

I'll be there FOR CERTAIN. 

Seacoast Sisterhood, thank you for a wild and precious weekend. 

Father, thank you for pouring out your Spirit. 

a true story about being hidden.

Hi Naptime readers, I'm Annabelle and this is a true story from this week.

I have been reading in Colossians the past little bit and this week 3:1-4 hit home, especially this,

"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God" and this, "For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God."

Hidden.  Hidden?  That stuck out to me.  My life is hidden in Christ.  I work against this every. day.  Every day I want to exist.  I want praise.  I want to be seen outside of Christ.  I get so territorial about my life and my existence.   But the only thing waiting for me outside of Christ, is bondage to those things I so crave praise and adoration from.  Slavery to having it all together;  cooking great meals, encouraging and teaching Oliver, having a great shop, writing great posts, biblically disciplining ...Those things which can be good gifts from the Lord get skewed into being gods and then I'm just "dead in my sins."

Every day, life is to be found in dying to myself.  Every. Day. I must die.

And in dying, I can be "raised with Christ!"  With Christ, who conquered the grave!  Christ who rose to perfect, full, free LIFE!  I am raised with Him!  Isn't that wonderful?!  To know, that every day Christ reigns and in being hidden in Him, sin does not have authority over me.

It's wonderful.  But every day I struggle, stubbornly clinging to my ways and habits that fit, so nicely, in this world, giving in to "what if" fears and holding, no clinging to my dear loves.

And so, I am daily trying die and let Christ live.  And it is a battle.