Category: Uncategorized

As promised, though at the last moment, I am posting the final three giveaways for 2025. More are planned for 2026, so you may want to subscribe for notifications of new posts. There will hopefully be one each month.

As with all of our giveaways, this is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter.

This is your chance to receive a new copy of Becoming The Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination As A Woman’s Path To Ministry by Beth Allison Barr.

“As a pastor’s wife for twenty-five years, Beth Allison Barr has lived with assumptions about what she should do and who she should be.

“In Becoming the Pastor’s Wife, Barr draws on that experience and her academic expertise to trace the history of the role of the pastor’s wife, showing how it both helped and hurt women in conservative Protestant traditions. While they gained an important leadership role, it came at a deep cost: losing independent church leadership opportunities that existed throughout most of church history and strengthening a gender hierarchy that prioritized male careers.

“Barr examines the connection between the decline of female ordination and the rise of the role of pastor’s wife in the evangelical church, tracing its patterns in the larger history (ancient, medieval, Reformation, and modern) of Christian women’s leadership.”

Beth has a website, which is found here.

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on January 3, 2026 at 6pm (eastern time), after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

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Oh how I dislike those pesky resolutions that we all make, hoping that we can at least complete one from our lists. So…how many have you completed? If you are like me it’s probably none…zilch…nada…zero!

Of course this could be the year that I will complete at least one of my resolutions. So why is this year any different? Is it me? Are my resolutions easier? Are they as challenging as prior years? Maybe not, but this year I want to have the Courage To Be Myself.

I want to have the courage to embrace my strengths, get excited about life, and enjoy giving and receiving love.

I want to face and transform my fears. Ask for help and support when I need it. Spring free of the Superwoman trap. I need to trust myself to make my own decisions and choices. Befriend myself and complete unfinished business and realize that I have emotional and practical rights.

I want to talk as nicely to myself as I do my plants and flowers in my garden. Communicate lovingly while understanding my goals. Honor my own needs and give myself credit for my accomplishments.

I need to love that little United Pentecostal Church girl within me and overcome my addiction to approval. Grant myself permission to play and quit being a responsible sponge. I need to feel all of my feelings and act on them appropriately.

I want to nurture others because I want to, not because I have to. I need to choose what is right for me. I need to insist on being paid fairly for what I do. Limits and boundaries need to be set and I need to abide by them. Say “yes”only when I mean it.

I need to have realistic expectations, take some risks and accept change so I can grow through challenges. I want to be totally honest with myself and correct erroneous beliefs and assumptions. Respect my vulnerabilities and heal my old and current wounds.

I want to savor the mystery of the Spirit, wave good-bye to guilt and plant flowers instead of weed thoughts in my mind. Treat myself respect and teach others to do the same. I want to fill my cup first and then nourish others from the overflow.

It is time for me to own my own excellence, plan for my future but live in the present. I need to value my intuition and wisdom and know that I am lovable. It’s okay to celebrate the differences between man and women and develop deeply healthy, supportive relationships. It is very important to make forgiveness a priority!

I need to accept myself just as I am now and learn to take it one step at a time, one day at a time because change takes time.

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Having hope everyday is hard but when you can make it a believable and living hope, which is through Jesus, then it is real hope that we can have 365 days a year!

I volunteer with a group called Celebrate Recovery at my church and they like to use acronyms so I came up with one for hope:

H – He

O- Overcomes

P – Problems

E – Everyday

That my friends is the truth and a believable hope. “He Overcomes Problems Everyday”

Romans 15:3 says, “Now May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus is the power that can deliver us from anything today and all the tomorrows and for deliverance we must have a living and believable hope in Jesus Christ. I call it Hope365 because it is with me all the time 24/7 and 365 days a year.

Romans 12:12 says: …REJOICING IN HOPE, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer…

In our world today we find very little hope in God and most have a hard time believing in an invisible God and they put their trust and hope In those tangible things like money, houses, and cars.

But when they cannot find hope, their lives become hopeless and too often this hopelessness leads them to self defeating behaviors and habits which wreck havoc upon their lives. Before long, in desperation they may do something even more drastic, drink too much, overdose on drugs, run away, break the law and get sent to jail. Or it wrecks their families and again life ends in a divorce or worse, suicide.

Did you know that the word hope appears in the Bible 129 times in 121 verses? In the New Testament the majority of the verses link hope to salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

I Thessalonians 5:8: “But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.”

Real hope is a living, believable hope. It is HOPE365!! Simply stated when we trust the word of God, we trust Jesus because the word testifies of him, and a hope in Jesus is a sure thing that holds fast and protects us as a refuge from the worst of storms.

“For I know the thoughts that i think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not evil, To give you a FUTURE AND A HOPE!!

Jeremiah 29:11 has become my mantra because God spoke this to my heart when I was at the bottom, thinking my life was over, because I’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. My life was over and when I looked up to the heavens and asking God a lot of questions and a lot of Whys?? God used His word to reassure me all was well and to have hope.

God gave me a hope and a future, just like he’s given one to all of you….. it’s a Hope 365 and it is a believable and living hope that is ready for you to step in and accept.

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As with all of our giveaways, this is only open to those with a USA mailing address.

You’re beautiful, worthy, and you should be loved
Because of all that you are.
Different from anything else in the world,
You are precious beyond the stars. – Rachael Denhollander

This is your chance to receive a new copy of  How Much Is a Little Girl Worth? by Rachael Denhollander. One copy will be given away. The book does have some denting at the corners due to prior shipping to me. Set to release as a hardcover in September 2019, it’s available to pre-order from Amazon for $13.49. You may read my review of this beautifully done book here.

There are many voices competing to tell our daughters what they are worth, and most of them would teach our girls to define their value by something outside of themselves. By what they can do or what they wear or how they look or who their friends are.

This giveaway is a drawing and not a first come, first served giveaway. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on Tuesday August 27 at 8pm (eastern time), after which I will draw the winner. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it. There is absolutely no cost to enter. Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as they require approval when you are commenting for the first time.

We always provide these at no charge to our readers.

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