My Home Sweet Home » prayer requests

(in)courage-related links

Dawn — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:30:56 +0000

A Card Basket for Heather

Heather, from Especially Heather’s, sweet little Emma passed away on Friday. My heart aches for the family. DaySpring is sponsoring a card basket for them and you can create and send a card for free. Details can be found here.

Book Review Posts on the Bloom (in)courage Book Club Page

This week a few of the (in)courage gals are sharing about some of our favorite books. Here is my post. Affiliate commissions earned from books purchased using the Amazon links will go towards buying books for the next Bloom (in)courage book club selection for readers who can’t afford them.

31 Days to Clean

Sarah Mae has written a new ebook, 31 Days to Clean: Having a Martha House the Mary Way, currently the #1 bestseller in Amazon’s Home Cleaning, Caretaking, and Relocating category. It’s more of a “why to clean” than a “how to clean” book:

“The heart of our homes is not in the ability to keep it perfect at all costs; the heart of a home is love. We live in a thing, a non-eternal structure that needs to be maintained. The thing is worthless without the life we bring to it and through it. This book is about bringing life to the mundane in order to love well.” ~Sarah Mae

A busy school year of homeschooling has left our house a mess! I can’t wait to dive into this book and enjoy my home again.

(in)courage Community Video

I love this new video about the community that has grown at (in)courage!

(in)courage-related links is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

31 Days of Encouragement: Bearing One Another’s Burdens {Day 5}

Dawn — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:30:06 +0000

[Do you need community in your life? Read my family's story today at (in)courage about Building Community in an Unexpected Place!]

Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
~Galatians 6:2

The Lord tells us that when we serve one another, we serve Him. Bearing someone else’s burdens can take many forms: preparing a meal for a new mother; picking up the mail for a friend or neighbor when they’re out-of-town; picking up a prescription or groceries for someone who’s ill.

Writing a card, making a phone call, or praying for those who need it can be another way to bless them, and that has the power to lighten burdens and encourage, too.

How does this work online?

Can we bear burdens for online friends? Yes! Here are two women whom you could particularly bless with a card or comment:

Edie, whose house just burned down. Some people posted on her blog about her birthday this week. You can leave a comment or mail her a card at the address provided there.
Dana, whose little boy recently passed away in an accident. Stop by her blog to leave a word of encouragement or send a card through the address you can find here.

Please visit the other ladies participating in 31 Days of Ministry Online at A Woman Inspired:

Amy Bayliss – 31 Days of Heart Matters
Karin – 31 Days of Intentional Parenting
Jen – 31 Days of Social Media
Lisa Boyd – 31 Days of WordPress
Karen Lewis – 31 Days of Praise
A Martha Heart – 31 Days of Prayer

Links to all posts in this series, by topic, can be found here.

31 Days of Encouragement: Bearing One Another’s Burdens {Day 5} is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Tomorrow is the 2nd Annual Help-Portrait Event: December 4, 2010

Dawn — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 02:18:58 +0000

Confession: I’ve had a minor Help-Portrait personal crisis this year. I’m assigned to shoot instead of edit. Shooting at H-P means lighting, that nebulous thing that dangles off the edge of my comfort zone. With the help of two dear and generous friends, my perspective has cleared: Annie, who reminds me that the real disaster would be if families left feeling unloved, and Alan, who is an endless source of comfort, advice, and inspiration and believes that I actually know what I’m doing.

The main thing is that it isn’t about me, my gear, or whether I look like I’ve never seen a trigger or a strobe before tomorrow. It’s about them, the people we shoot. Their happiness. Serving.

“Poverty steals a lot of things, like your home and car and food, but it also steals something on the inside. Help-Portrait feeds that something on the inside.” ~ Annie Downs

How can you help? If you’re not already signed up to participate, I would suggest contacting a local group to see if they need help with lunch, drinks, or snacks for the workers. There might be a local restaurant willing to donate, but no one working at the location free to pick it up. Pray for those working and those being served.

I am just so happy to be part of this event.

Tomorrow is the 2nd Annual Help-Portrait Event: December 4, 2010 is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Share Compassion, Sponsor a Child

Dawn — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:11:52 +0000

The bloggers from Compassion International’s March 4-10 trip to Kenya are preparing for the long trip home now. The experiences that have been shared have brought me both tears and smiles.

Our family has sponsored Guadalupe (Lupita), a five year old girl living in Honduras, for the past two years. On the surface, our sponsorship is a $38 a month donation to help provide for Guadalupe’s physical and spiritual needs.

In reality, it touches my family much deeper.

My kids pray for Guadalupe on a daily basis. Three of them have taken her picture and shared about her for their weekly presentations in our one-day-per-week homeschool classes. We mail her drawings and small gifts. When a new letter from Honduras arrives, we can’t wait to read it and see what pictures she has drawn for us.

Guadalupe looks like a Hispanic version of my own six-year-old daughter, which I think is one of the things that drew me to her when I first saw her picture on the Compassion website. I encourage you to visit their site. You may have an experience like mine, where you see a face and just know that he or she was meant to be your family’s sponsored child.

Our $38 monthly donation not only blessed Guadalupe, it blesses our family.

What does Compassion sponsorship include? Your tax-deductible contribution of $38 a month connects your child with a loving, church-based child sponsorship program that provides:

Food and clean water
Medical care
Educational opportunities
Important life-skills training
Most important of all, your sponsored child will hear about Jesus Christ and be encouraged to develop a lifelong relationship with God.

For more about the Kenya trip, read Kristen from We are THAT Family’s Compassion Story (so far):

Day 1: Moved with Compasion
Day 2: True Religion
Day 3: Why I’m in Keyna
Day 4: My Rescue (beautiful post)
Day 5: Today, I Went to Hell (tough, but a must-read)
Day 6: Maureen
Touched by an Angel

Share Compassion, Sponsor a Child is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Please Pray for Baby Gavin

Dawn — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:26:14 +0000

Natalie Norton is a portrait photographer in Hawaii whom I first discovered several months ago through a post she had written at Digital Photography School. Her eight-week-old son is in grave condition in Pediatric Intensive Care. You can visit her blog, Pics and Kicks, for more information. I know your prayers will be deeply appreciated.

Please Pray for Baby Gavin is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Putting She Speaks in Perspective

Dawn — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:40:46 +0000

Somewhere during the past 48 hours my excitement about the She Speaks conference next week has morphed into panic. It is settling in that I am speaking in two sessions—three if you count Saturday’s Ultimate Blogging Q&A—in a conference where most of the sessions are conducted by professional speakers.

The only two things helping me are the fact that there are other bloggers speaking (who most likely feel the same as I do), and that I have managed to speak at two online conferences—Heart of the Matter and A Woman Inspired—basically in the same format: one session on my own and one with a co-speaker. When I see Amy Bayliss at She Speaks I’m going to give her a big hug for giving me that opportunity.

Reading some She Speaks blog post links last night really helped put it in perspective: most of us are nervous. For some it’s because they’re speaking in a session; for others it’s because they have an interview with a book publisher and are hoping for their big break; still more will stress because they’re in the speaker evaluation group; and of course everyone’s trying to figure out what to wear.

Conferences can stir up so much anxiety, especially this one which forces us to peel back the outside layers and examine our hearts. Although we’re attending She Speaks, the real focus is on how HE speaks through us.

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. ~ Philippians 4:13

Putting She Speaks in Perspective is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Our Prayers are with the Drews Family

Dawn — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:02:33 +0000

Marsha Drews and her husband David lost their youngest son tonight.

Christian, whom Marsha adoringly referred to as Dozer, is now in the arms of our Father.

Marsha is the Assistant Director of Operations for Heart of the Matter Online. Christian was one of her three sons, a sweet little boy who was excited about starting pre-school this year and had been dealing with losing his blankie.

The HSBA ladies had a business meeting/chat scheduled last night. I logged into iChat a little early, and started chatting with Amy S., one of the co-founders of Heart of the Matter. I remembered that the HSBA chat was supposed to be through Yahoo Messenger, so I logged in there, but kept my Google chat window with Amy open.

The HSBA ladies were just getting organized when Amy asked me if we were all together in the chat. I said yes, and she sent me the urgent prayer request for little Christian.

Although we gathered to chat about HSBA business, I think God brought us together at that time for a different purpose. We immediately began to pray, and then sent messages to our church and homeschool support groups, and via Twitter. One of the ladies commented that she didn’t think it was accidental that I logged into the “wrong” chat.

The news of Christian’s passing is difficult to bear. Throughout the evening I kept thinking of my own three year old, my daughter, Lily. I went to my girls’ room, and held Lily while I prayed and ached for a mother who would never hold her son again. I needed to feel her weight, her warmth, her breath. To smell her hair. To wrap myself around her as a shield to protect her from harm, while praying to God to shelter her, and me from such pain.

A memory came to me from last week: I took the kids to the pool one morning. I wear the pool keycard around my neck so that the kids can’t get into the pool area before having sunscreen applied and floaties for the two youngest girls. While unloading our pool stuff, I turned and saw Lily jump into the pool. She sank, bobbed to the top, and then went under again. My 17-year-old-son jumped in, t-shirt and all, and grabbed her.

It was quite a scare, but fortunately we were all standing there and saw her. She’s only three, so she didn’t notice any difference between jumping into the pool with or without her swim sweater (floatation device).

Please pray for this family. Today’s post at Heart of the Matter gives additional details, as well as an address for sending cards or correspondence.

Please Pray for Hannah

Dawn — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:15:12 +0000

I covet your prayers for a sweet little neighbor of ours. Five-year-old Hannah suffered trauma at birth that has left her unable to walk and play. She goes into the hospital at four thirty a.m. Thursday for hip surgery, which should last for four hours. This surgery is necessary for Hannah to ever be able to walk on her own.

I wrote about my children’s special bond with her here.

I believe in the power of prayer. Please take a moment to pray for Hannah and the medical staff that will treat her. Thank you so much.

Praying for baby Nathan

Dawn — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:31:31 +0000

Amber at Life with the Ferrells is both a fellow blogger and a real-life friend, although we live in different states. She has two daughters and is now expecting a son, Nathan. Recent ultrasounds indicate the possibility that Nathan could have Down Syndrome. Please lift up this sweet family and their unborn son in your prayers.

Prayer Request

Dawn — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:04:37 +0000

Please add my cousin, Lynn (Queen Shenaynay), at The Beehive to your prayer list. She was diagnosed with breast cancer Friday. In her words, “God is sovereign over every cell of my body, and for this I am grateful.” Please pray for healing, strength, and courage for her in the days and months to come. Thank you.