My brother sent me and my sister a link to this article today, Having a Sister Makes You Happier and More Optimistic, thanking us for being his sisters. aw, sweet.

After I read it, I thought some of YOU might enjoy it too, especially if you have a house full of brothers and sisters who might be experiencing some sibling rivalry. Tell your kids they need each other! It’s good for their long-term health!

The new January 2008 issue of Spirit-Led Writer is posted online now, and there are some great encouraging articles for Christian writers.

If you have an article or review that would appeal to Christian writers, this publication is a paying market and is always looking for submissions.

Ever since I wrote my September Parent Muse column on internet privacy, I’ve had a hard time feeling motivated to write about myself or my family online. What do you think?

Here’s the opening of my column:

As a parent writer, you don’t have to look far to find great story material. The people around your own kitchen table provide you with an endless source of ideas and quotes. Yet where do you draw the line when it comes to protecting your family’s privacy?

Some authors prefer to use pen names and shield their children completely from the public. J.K. Rowling recently went so far as to sue a photo agency for trying to publish a picture of her son. Though the judge ruled against her, she plans to appeal, stating she takes the privacy and safety of her children “very seriously.”

How do you feel about your family’s privacy? Most Christian writers today use their full names in all marketing materials, including websites. Publishers and agents encourage authors and speakers to build a platform of name recognition, which will encourage a fan base (and sales). Yet is it safe to publish your children’s real names? And what about online images of your family?

You can read the rest of the column here.

I was reading through my new issue of No Greater Joy the other day, and once again, Michael Pearl wrote something so profound, it took my breath away.

I found the article in its entirety online, so you can read it here in context.

If you find yourself at your wit’s end at some point in your parenting journey, I’ve found much wisdom passed along in this magazine. My favorite quote from this issue is below, one I’m clipping out to put in my file of inspirational writings that I want to keep and ponder:

The world is a giant, confidence-eating cud chewer. It seeks our defeat. Whatever path we choose in life will be littered with signs that say, “Closed to you; you can’t do it; this is for people more talented or advantaged; you can’t make a difference.” And when you believe the signs and stop to ponder, you will hear voices that say, “You are not important; no one cares; it is not worth it; quit now.” The weak go no further. They settle down and accept the lot that is handed to them and spend the rest of their lives unhappy and unfulfilled.

The tough don’t believe the signs and never slow down to listen to the voices. They are the doers, the precedent setters, the pioneers. Their accomplishments may never win Nobel prizes or be recognized with applause at a banquet; but they will know in their hearts that they have run the course and overcome the hardships to conquer, even in the little areas that may only matter to a quiet few. But they were not quitters, slackers, or buck passers. At the end of life, they will have tasted of the sweetness, heard the music, and worn the crown of victory, even if it is simply a paper crown given by a thankful grandchild or an appreciative spouse. The tough will earn the admiration and appreciation of the few or the many. But, in the end, they will be able to say, “I have lived, and it was good…very, very good.”

— Michael Pearl
Jan/Feb 2008 issue of No Greater Joy magazine

Thank you so much to Tina who commented in my Advent post that Arnold Ytreeide’s Advent books are coming back in print, thanks to the great folks at Kregel!

Tina gave me Arnold Ytreeide’s website, Jotham’s Journey, which I visited and read this wonderful news:

In October 2007, author Arnold Ytreeide signed a contract with Kregel Publications of Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the re-printing of Jotham’s Journey. It is Kregel’s intention to have the books available for the 2008 Christmas season.

Depending on sales of Jotham, the other books may also be re-printed in subsequent years. But if Kregel decides to end their involvement after Jotham, another publisher is already interested, so there’s still hope that Bartholomew, Tabitha and other books will follow.

In the meantime, watch for Jotham beginning in the summer of 2008 at major on-line booksellers as well as most Christian distributors. You can also watch for it on Kregel’s site.

We’d like to say a huge “Thanks!” to the thousands of people who have written, called, and even visited over the last several years as Jotham was looking for a new home. We appreciate so much the suggestions, praise, and encouragement. Finding a publisher for a book is not an easy task — every book is a huge risk for a publisher, so they’re very careful in selecting books for publication. Your letters and emails helped keep Jotham alive!

When these books are back in print, everybody go out and buy them so they’ll STAY in print! It is so awesome to have Advent stories like these that draw families together. As a mom with five children ranging in age from 2 to 11, we love having these books to help teach our kids about the true meaning of Christmas in new and interesting ways.

This year, we’re going to be reading Tabitha’s Travels, and I can’t WAIT to get started. I’m being honest here and telling you that we haven’t begun our 2007 Advent storytime yet. Our weeknights have been so busy and exhausting that we’re going to wait until this weekend.

But I DID go to Hobby Lobby a few days ago to pick up pink, purple, and white Advent candles, and I’ve got the Advent wreath set up. I’m looking forward to starting this new journey with Tabitha. I would love to hear what materials you’re using to help celebrate the joy of Christmas with your family this year.

I would never have heard of Jotham’s Journey if another mom in my hometown hadn’t shared it with me.

We had a blast this week discussing the homework. We all cracked up about Beth’s “gnat in the lip gloss” story.

She said she was leaving her house one day with serious ministry matters on her mind when a gnat landed smack dab on her lip gloss. “For a minute I thought I’d have to go back in the house for a spoon to dig it out,” she writes.

It’s true that trivial things can distract us from what’s important — and sometimes we just need to stop and pray! For us moms in the study, we talked about how the little distractions of daily life can get in the way of our main purpose of teaching and training our children to become more like Christ.

This week’s lesson focused on Daniel’s prayer in the 9th chapter of the book of Daniel. Wow — reading through that chapter several times reminded me what urgency there is to Daniel’s praying. He ends with, “O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name” (Daniel 9:19 NIV).

After studying and discussing this, I realized that in my own life, prayer often comes as a last resort, after I’ve mulled over a problem, worried for days about it, written in my journal, whined and complained to others about it — THEN I remember, “Oh yeah! I think I’ll pray about it!”

This lesson showed me brilliantly how I must pray FIRST.

How incredible that in the midst of Daniel’s prayer, the angel Gabriel appears to him and says, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed” (Daniel 9:22,23).

Wouldn’t you love it if a messenger from heaven would come tell you right away the insight you’re longing for in your prayers? Sometimes, when we pray, we can almost instantly feel in our hearts the answer is “yes” or “no,” yet other times, we can do nothing but wait. It may seem like God isn’t listening, and that our prayers are merely bouncing off the ceiling.

But God is listening! He chose to answer Daniel’s prayer right away through a direct message from Gabriel. And He’ll speak to our hearts too, if we do not give up.

Do you write your prayers down? Sometimes we pray so hard about something, but if it’s not written down, we can quickly forget the anguish our souls went through as we waited for God’s answer. I’ve kept journals for years, and it’s amusing to look back and see how hard I prayed for certain things (like a husband!). If my prayers weren’t written down, it would be easy for me to forget how God is the True Giver of all Good Gifts.

What are your prayers today? If you’re not going through this study with us, I encourage you to read through the 9th chapter of the book of Daniel and see how this earthly man who was “highly esteemed” in heaven prayed — and how God chose to answer his prayers.

Dear Lord, teach us how to pray! Our faith is so small at times, yet you’re always there, waiting patiently for us to come to you and share our concerns. Thank you that you listen to us. You know what’s best for us, even though we may not like what we’re suffering through at the moment. Thank you for the example Daniel gives us, in showing us how to pray with power and conviction. Amen.

Yesterday at church, our pastor reminded us that next Sunday begins the new Advent season in the Christian calendar. Are you prepared for celebrating Advent in your home?

This is the week to try to get an Advent wreath set up so you can start your family devotions on the first Sunday of Advent. I found this picture online, and you can see how simple it is.

You probably already have a wreath you can use — so just add pink and purple candles to your grocery list, as well as a big white candle to go in the center. You can also pick up a special-made Advent wreath at a Christian bookstore, which would help support those hard-working bookstore owners.

I’m not sure what we’ll use for our devotional this year. I may look around online, or we may use one of Arnold Ytreeides’s Advent books for families. The trilogy includes Jotham’s Journey, Bartholemew’s Passage and Tabitha’s Travels. We haven’t read Tabitha’s Travels yet, and it looks like a good one — it contains a story that continues each night, and you can supplement your devotional time by including songs, Scripture readings, or other activities appropriate for your kids’ age levels.

We’ve also started the tradition of praying over the families whose Christmas cards we receive. [Sidenote: It is getting SO expensive to mail out Christmas cards! I seriously thought about not doing it this year because the price of stamps has gone up again. But I’m just not ready to give up this traditional Christmas greeting, despite the cost.]

Does anyone know if Arnold Ytreeide has a website? When I did a search, I couldn’t find one — I just see other bloggers chatting about his books — and lots of people searching for used copies, since they’re out of print. Here are a few sites that mention recommended books to help celebrate Advent. Feel free to add your own:

Prattling Pastor’s Wife
LaCelle Family Ministries (focus on Jotham’s Journey)
Teaching Mom.com’s Advent Read-Aloud List
Library Thing
Victory Coaching’s newsletter contains reviews of all three Ytreeide Advent books

I want to thank all of you who’ve emailed me with your encouragement. So many things are up in the air about where my “home on the web” will be, or if I’ll even have one.

Yesterday was both a happy and sad day for me. I attended the “Thanksgiving Feast” at the preschool where my children have all attended. This was the 8th year in a row for me. In many ways, nothing has changed — the food is always the same, the songs haven’t changed much, there is an energetic joy in the room filled with happy preschoolers, parents, grandparents, and teachers.

Yet for me, I knew this would be my last — next year, we won’t have any children at this preschool. What sustained me was the thought that I can always write about these happy times, when the kids are older and I have a quiet place to sit and reflect. Which I don’t have now.

A chapter ends … a new one begins.

I feel the same way about this blog. So much is up in the air. I want to eagerly press forward with some things in my writing world — yet the little people in my home need me more than anyone else right now.

I want to thank you for your friendship, prayers — and patience! As I’ve thought about losing my blog, I’ve been sad thinking that it’s the only link I have with many of you who have become personal friends over the past two years, scattered though we are.

More than anything, I want to finish up writing about my Beth Moore Bible study journey. That will be four more posts, I hope.

Meanwhile, I’m thankful to have family Thanksgiving celebrations to look forward to.

I wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Before she adopted her sons, she made several trips to Russia, walking the halls of the overcrowded orphanages and seeing the beautiful children in desperate need of “forever families.”

She recently sent me a letter from the director of TEAR, which stands for The Evangelistic Association of Russia. I was shocked to learn that there are over 2,000 orphanages in Russia, accommodating over 1.5 million children! “Sadly, current statistics suggest that 97% of all Russian orphans have no place to go upon graduation from the orphanage. Despite their efforts to avoid it, many orphans are recruited by the Russian mafia and enslaved in prostitution and drug trafficking.”

Why are there so many orphans? According to TEAR, the population in Russia is “declining at an alarming rate because working age adults are dying from alcoholism and a failed health care system.”

What TEAR hopes to do is to find 2,000 churches who would be willing to “adopt” an entire orphanage. The arm of this ministry is called ROCK, which stands for Reaching Orphan Children for the Kingdom. What will this require?

“The partnering church or (TEAR’s ROCK Partner), will then send short-term mission teams into the orphanage to minister to the children and adults that so desperately need God’s love and our help. The TEAR ministry will enable these teams by providing governmental approval, translation resources, visas, and logistics support.”

I went to Moscow on a short-term mission trip with my church in the early 90s. It was in January, and the weather was frigid, but the warmth of the people was unlike anything I have ever experienced.

We ate dinner one night in the home of a Russian family, who were so generous, they gave me a hardback poetry book right off their bookshelf. Even now, I still own that book, and it reminds me to pray for the Russians. When my mother visited Russia several years ago, she had a similar experience. A family gave her a painting right off their wall, which now hangs in her kitchen!

I don’t use my blog as a place to make general public service announcements, but I feel compelled to share this with you all, since I’ve seen first-hand TEAR at work through my personal, real-life friend. God even allowed our family the privilege of watching her eldest Russian son be baptized, after he shared that he wanted to invite Jesus to live in his heart.

Here is my question for you today: what are you doing to build up God’s kingdom that will last into the next generation? If you’re not directly influencing the life of a child, what are you DOING with your time that is of lasting importance?

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14).

I didn’t get all my homework done before this last session. This always happens to me — I start out with a bang, then I get distracted by family life, and it gets harder to stay motivated.

Thank you so much for your comments — they mean a lot! Particularly, this from Tina, who wrote:

As I had my quiet time with the Lord this morning, He is placing on my heart the need for a Beth Moore Bible Study in our church. I have both Believing God and Daniel as I have continued them on my own.

I just googled “Beth Moore Bible Study” and it led me to your site! Praise God, I am ENCOURAGED as I read your blog and the comments from others!!

I truly feel like I am so NOT the one to do this, but I can’t get away from it! LOL! Please pray the Lord will show me … I have tried this before and was very discouraged because of lack of commitment from the ladies. They feel it is too much homework and they don’t have time for once a week meetings. God Bless You!

Tina, and anyone else who feels this way, if God is nudging your heart to start some kind of study like this, please go for it! Even if you have a VERY small group, or you have women who come once or twice but can’t commit, you just never know what a difference that one time might make in their lives. And the word will spread. (or I should say THE WORD will spread!)

It also helps to have a convenient meeting place that provides childcare (like our church does). And food! Hey, we gotta eat breakfast — why not eat with friends, free for an hour or two from childcare responsibilities?

You could also hold the group meeting in the evening and hire a teenager to watch everyone’s kids in a playroom or other area. I was in a group once that met from 8-10 pm! These were mostly homeschooling moms who couldn’t get out during the day — yet our husbands could babysit at night.

Our group’s discussion leaders always tell us please don’t let the homework commitment hold us back from showing up — we really just need to get together. I’m sure there are many of us in the room who come to the group with blank homework pages — but that’s OK! In a different season of life, we may have more time to commit to learning.

I am praying for you!!

OK — back to our group…

Our discussion this week focused on how we could raise children who don’t get caught up in our materialistic culture. There is one woman in our group who I absolutely admire. She is a mentor to me because she is just a little bit older and MUCH wiser, as her daughters are now college age, and they’re both wonderful godly young women.

She said she and her husband started taking their girls on mission trips (overseas) when they were as young as ten! Her husband has a medical ministry in a certain third-world country, and their whole family has participated in his work over the past decade. She said nothing has impacted her children more than seeing how impoverished people really live.

When our children complain about how they wish they had this or that, one woman says she tells her kids, “There will ALWAYS be some people who have more than you do and some who have less than you do. Just be thankful for what you have.”

In the video, Beth focused on the 4th chapter of Daniel. This is when Nebuchadnezzar has this dream about a tree, and he’s once again so disturbed by it, only Daniel can interpret it for him. We learned about the absolute splendor of ancient Babylon, and how Nebuchadnezzar’s prosperity kept him from acknowledging the one true God (even though just the chapter before he was amazed at the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego).

After the dream is interpreted, a year passes, and the king becomes insane for a period of seven years. You can read about all this in Daniel 4:28-37. During this time, he lived like an animal out in the wild, eating grass, and “his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird” (v. 33).

Beth opened up about the difficulties she went through in her personal life during a dark time in her early 30s. I would really like to read her book, Get Out of That Pit, to know more specifically what she’s talking about. I think many of us could relate — being a mom with young kids can be a struggle mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Yet God is working in our lives during those years to make us more dependent on Him to meet our every need.

At one point, Beth reminded us what a privilege it is that we have enough money to be able to buy a book, and enough education to know how to read it. Wow. How often I forget what a privilege it is to be able to read! One of my favorite quotes is attributed to Horace Mann, who said, “A house without books is like a room without windows.”

I think each of us in the group left with a sense of awe, wondering how we might be able to be used by God to help those who live in poverty.

Lord, please make us aware of ways we can reach out to help others in need. You have a unique purpose for each of us. Help us to become more aware of our gifts and our passions — so that we can follow the calling you have placed on our hearts. Put people in our path who remind us what a big world we live in and what we (and our children!) can do to make a difference. Amen.

I can’t believe this is my first time posting in three months. How are you? Is anyone there? I’ve missed this place — and you people.

I hope you had a great summer.

Our schools started back last Friday — so we’re slowly adjusting to our new schedule. But preschool here doesn’t begin until after Labor Day (early September), so my posting will still be light for a while.

Although I don’t have kids swinging from the chandeliers, I do have them jumping on my back while I write … which can be hazardous to my productivity.

Yesterday, I actually found myself belting this command: “Stop it! You may NOT swing on the pantry doorknob!” Several times throughout the day, I had to reassure my four-year-old that he’s from earth — not Mars (as his older sister told him.) And yes, he can wear his dinosaur costume when we pick up his brother at football practice, but he can’t wear his Storm Trooper mask in the grocery store — because he KNOWS it makes his baby sister cry. (And no light sabers in the car!)

I do have so much I want to tell you about our summer — but it’s not over yet!

My current most exciting piece of news is that I SAW and HEARD Beth Moore speak in person at Women of Faith last weekend. WOW!!

I really considered quitting blogging until I heard Beth Moore — but she got me so fired up again.

A group of moms at my church will be starting her Daniel study in three weeks — and how in the world can I dig that much into the Word without sharing it here? Every single person who has done that study has told me the same thing: “It changed my life.”

Well! I do miss writing here — but blogging is like eating chocolate for me. I can only indulge in small bites, or it becomes an addiction. My plan is to try to limit myself to posting twice a week, and only when my children are at school.

For now, I hope you’ll check out the new August issue of Christian Women Online — especially if you’re a fan of Mandisa! My last Book Buzz column is here — I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my stint as a reviewer and wish I could do it forever, but someone new will be taking this over — and I pray she’ll be as blessed as I have been. (My shelves overflow!)

For all of you writing parents out there, I hope you’ll check out my “Parent Muse” column at Spirit-Led Writer on how to find time to write while surrounded by kids. I’ve also been posting monthly over at Writer … Interrupted, and my latest tip encourages parent writers to pen a letter to someone who needs a bit of a boost. You can read it here.

I’m off …

(And in case you see a woman in the grocery store followed by a light saber-wielding dinosaur in a Storm Trooper mask asking if he’s from Mars … um, that would be me.)