5 Steps to Focus on Prayer, Rather than Letting Your Mind Wander

5 Steps to Focus on Prayer, Rather than Letting Your Mind Wander

I don’t know about you, but I have always done some of my very best thinking during prayer time or listening to a church sermon. It isn’t on purpose. It’s just that it can be frustratingly hard to focus.

Prayer is something I start with the best of intentions. Like this…read it…it’s funny…..

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My Brilliant Plan for How to Plan

**This post does contain affiliate links, which means that when you purchase through links on this page, April collects advertising fees from Amazon.** Was I always a little flaky? I don’t know. For years, I could get away with being very loosy-goosy with my planning because I was a stay-at-home mom of preschoolers. We moved all the time too, so by the time people developed expectations of me, we were off and away to the next town. Over the years, […]

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A Place to Write Out Answered Prayers

Yesterday we sang this song at church. I wish I could remember the name of it, but it was something like “Do you remember?” I could not stop my tears while singing this song. Sometimes, I have this problem that once my water works start it feels impossible to turn them off!! All of a sudden, I lose all ability to be tough or cool. I become total mush. Does that happen to you? It’s embarrassing, but it’s healing, and sometimes […]

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An Unexpected Blessing and Friend

Something special happened to me this week. We have been on such an emotional roller coaster this year, and we’ve had new obstacles to manage the past couple of weeks. When one member of a family meets a set-back, the whole family meets it too because we are each other’s support. I cannot write about it because it wasn’t mine to write about, but I felt it almost as much as he did. Don’t worry. Everyone is safe and sound, […]

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Deep Thoughts from Magic Kingdom 2016

Magic Kingdom

This was the best surprise I’ve ever pulled off. We are not typically adept at keeping exciting news to ourselves. We are the kind of people who announced we were pregnant the second we found out. But this time we played it cool. We DID tell the boys we were headed to Disney World. However, we did NOT tell them that I copied my friend Amy’s Disney itinerary as closely as I could, so our Disney vacation would be shared […]

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Why Cope When You Can Conquer?

I’ve been reading this book. It looks like this: Why Cope When You Can Conquer?  It’s an encouraging book. It asks an annoyingly high volume of questions. I never did enjoy answering questions. See, it’s a Bible study guide, but it’s not one of these where you have to watch a video or attend a class to go with it. You can totally just read the guide on your own. (But I did warn you about the questions.) Don’t worry. […]

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My New Year’s Resolution (Yes, I know what month it is.)

Did you make goals for 2016? Or “New Year’s Resolutions?” We’re over 3 months in now. How are you coming on those? I remember vividly saying something like, “I’d like to get rid of my hip pain. That’s my goal.” That was it. Even when I said it, I had mixed feelings about having such a simple, dull, and yet seemingly unachievable little goal. So I went to doctor appointment after doctor appointment. I surely took every blood test ever […]

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10 Things to Try When You’re Feeling Achy

    Have you ever felt old before your time or just achy all over the place?  I keep wondering. Is this just getting older? Or is this a problem that can be fixed? And how do you know which is which? Several of my readers liked the video with the stretching tips for hip pain, so today I’m including a stretching video for heel/foot pain and swelling. This is another nuisance that I deal with that I think is […]

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Learning to Suffer Well, or at Least Find the Balance

Learning how to suffer well looks like the theme of my life lately.  Have you ever been through something hard that you knew could not be walked around? Life is a muddy puddle for me right now, but there’s no way around it. It must be walked through. Do you know what I mean? We all have our things that we go through. My chosen theme for 2016 was to fix my SI/hip/back/leg pain. That’s the goal. Instead, 2016 has […]

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Summer Updates: Sunburn, Confessions, & Pictures. This is the rest of the story.

Sometimes I mention things on my blog, and then I never come back and tell you the rest of the story, so today I’m going to just do that. Here’s a little update on things I’ve mentioned, with lots of cute photos thrown in. I told you that we packed up and headed South, but did I mention that Daniel is my #1 packing assistant? He is a hard worker! He’d pack one suitcase with me, and I would want […]

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