Truth & Dare: One Year of Dynamic Devotions for Girls is a new devotional for girls ages 9-11 by Ann-Margaret Hovsepian. When I saw this, I was intrigued. I’ve blogged a little bit about looking for good resources for raising girls as mine enter the pre-teen years, and that includes books for them to read on their own. I’ve also been impressed with the need to get our morning routine back on track and to give my kids the tools and training to create good bible study habits. I’m not the only one, either. I’ve read and heard other moms express the same desires. So when the opportunity to read and review this book came through my inbox I was, as I said, intrigued and very interested.

At first glance the Truth & Dare devotional is colorful and inviting, and I’m not the only one who thought so. Eleven-year-old Princess grabbed it up with bright eyes as she asked, “Is this for ME??” The cover and the description on the back compel you to open the book and read further. Inside, the pages (though black and white) are decorated with a doodled pencil look–fun and tween girly. Each devotion is divided into sections: a verse to look up, a summary thought, a paragraph to read and think about, a “dare” – a follow-up live-it-out-in-real-life challenge, and a place to journal your thoughts. You can see the inside preview on the Amazon website.

Princess has been reading Truth & Dare for several weeks now. She’s trying to develop a daily habit and even though she often forgets she’s self-initiating her devotion time when she does remember. She looks forward to it. On the occasion that she’s shared what she has learned and showed me what she journaled, I’ve been surprised and impressed with what she has written. It gives me an insight into the heart of my otherwise introverted little girl who finds it hard to share what she’s thinking and feeling.

Overall we’ve been fairly pleased with the book so far, but before I share my final thoughts I thought I’d share what Princess had to say about it. Princess’ final assessment: “I like it.”

Princess’ Likes:

~ That it gives things to do after each devotion.

~ That the devotions are “labeled” by the days of the week at the top. She says “It helps me keep track.”

~ That the lessons are short.

Princess’ Dislikes:

~ That it’s only in black and white on the inside and not color also. I think she got her hopes up by the colorful cover.

As you can see, Princess likes Truth & Dare despite the lack of color illustration on the inside. Her desire to grow as a person and Christian and her hopes for letting this book help her do that are evident by how she turned to me one day and asked, “Have I been a better person since I’ve started using this devotion book?”

For me, it’s become clear that I have high expectations for Christian literature, and that I have special issues with devotion books of most types. As a general rule, I have a dislike for teaching that operates on a one-verse method. “Here’s a verse, here’s something we can learn from it, let’s discuss that, and then pray a specific prayer about that.” Granted, every verse has truth and wisdom to be gained by studying it. On the other hand, perhaps we can learn more from a verse when we study it in context, when we read the whole paragraph or the whole chapter. Perhaps by doing that we can make sure that we keep the intent of the verse true. Maybe the message of a verse can be further proven and strengthened when we study other passages with the same recurring message. Perhaps there is value in learning to study the bible in this way. Obviously I’m using words like “maybe” and “perhaps” to encourage thought and discussion and it’s obvious that I feel definitively that “yes, these are good things.” I tend to find devotions like the above (verse, paragraph, prayer) usually lacking, sometimes superficial, often wrapped up in emotional or material matters and less-than-desirably pointed at Jesus and God,…. in other words, “low calorie.” It’s not that there’s no nutritional value to them, it’s that devotion books can still leave me hungry. Maybe devotionals give little nibbles on purpose, and I just need to read meatier books. Having said that, I wanted to approach this book objectively so I kept this in perspective as I flipped through and read the pages. I came to a few conclusions:

1.) This book is aimed at young girls, girls who are probably new or young in their faith, and they need small bites. And this book does that.

2.) The book is aimed at giving practical advice for living out their faith. The author wants to challenge girls to think about how they will live for God in the midst of various daily situations. This book does that.

3.) The author wants to enable young girls to develop a daily habit of meeting with God and thinking about living for Him throughout the day. The author does (of course, the rest is up to the girl.)

So, yes, this is one of “those” devotionals with one verse, a paragraph, a thought for the day. But all in all, it’s not so bad. It does, after all, take it a step farther with a daily challenge and there are valuable nuggets of wisdom for relating to family, friends and others and sharing/living your faith for all to see. My assessment: “I like it pretty well. I love that my daughter likes it wants to use it. But a devotional alone is obviously not enough and I want to encourage her to read her bible daily as well. It is, after all, THE source of truth and wisdom.”

Pros:

~ age appropriate

~ well written

~ thought-provoking

~ habit setting

Cons:

~ The verse to read isn’t typed on the page, just the reference. I presume this is so the girls have to look it up. But since the whole devotion is centered around the one verse, it would be nice if it was on the page.

~ I would have been even happier with the book if the girls were asked to read the whole passage and then focus on the one verse, obviously, and if there were passages listed for further reading.

On the whole, I think this will be a good book for my daughter to read. I think it’s helpful for her when she reads lessons from other women instructing them to treat her siblings, friends, parents, etc, the same way that I’ve been teaching her to treat her siblings, friends, parents, etc. It reinforces the fact that I’m not making it up or asking too much of her. It will hopefully encourage her as we try to develop a better daily morning habit. And it will hopefully encourage her in her walk as she navigates the ever perplexing road that is the pre-teen years. As her mother, I’m encouraged already by what I’ve seen of her desire to study and learn and grow in God. Over this past year we’ve worked on simply establishing a morning routine that includes individual bible study — which we fluxed in an out of throughout the year. My goal for the new upcoming year is to keep striving toward a regular morning routine but also to deepen our study in the word, together. This devotional is going to be Princess’ devotional for most of the year and I look forward to seeing the future discussions and growth that come out of it.

~

Book Title: Truth & Dare: One Year of Dynamic Devotions for Girls

Author: Ann-Margret Hovsepian

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

**Special thanks to Audra Jennings at  The B&B Media Group for sending me a copy to review.

A while back, my friend Michelle Pendergrass introduced me to Visual Prayer. Since then I’ve watched her talents and influence continue to grow. Incredibly, what started so small has now begun to blossom into Visual Prayer workshops and now a retreat! I’ve invited her to share more with us about the upcoming retreat in Colorado. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then keep reading!!

Creative Soul: Worship Outside The Lines

Amber humbled me when she wrote about buying journals and creating Visual Prayer as a part of their Morning Basket routine and I cried when she privately shared with me photos of some of her daughter’s prayers (with permission, of course!)  I’m again blessed to be able to guest post here and share with you the details of  a weekend retreat filled with art and prayer.

Creative Soul:  Worship Outside the Lines  is for women who have  longed for a way to connect to the Creator that is rooted in the expressive arts.  Iif you believe worship is something done with a pen or paintbrush in your hand; if you pray with paper, paste, scissors, and images that make your wild heart soar; if you sing, dance, laugh, or play your way to God, and have occasionally gotten in trouble for such joy-full communion; if you’ve always wanted to be part of a community of diverse, creation inspired seekers, join us in this weekend of worshipful abandon.

Attendance is limited to 30 participants; groups of 10 will meet on a rotating schedule with each of our 3 instructors providing for a soulful, intimate, art-filled worship experience.

Please know that you don’t have to believe that you are creative or artsy to attend. We will teach and provide everything you need.

As a homeschooling mom of many years (goodness, he’ll be starting 7th grade this year!! Where did the time go?) I have found typical art instruction a bit on the boring side, mostly because there was a disconnect from The Creator Himself. When I started to teach my son how to create Visual Prayer I realized that I didn’t have to teach him much, he prayed those childlike-faith prayers and his art flowed from his heart, from the Spirit.

If you’d like to learn how to pray artfully and learn how to come home and transfer that to your children, I’d love to see you at the retreat. Pull me aside and talk homeschooling…but be warned, I talk a LOT!!

* * *

Michelle Pendergrass has all of her fingers (and sometimes toes) in the mess of mixed media art or Visual Prayer. She and two other gifted women are leading women to artful prayer with the Creative Soul: Worship Outside the Lines retreat in September 2011.

Photo Credits: Michelle Pendergrass

Three nights ago I was trying to go to sleep when I got an idea.

A very appealing, wonderful, exciting idea. So exciting in fact that I had to get up out of bed at one o’clock in the morning to act on it.

I had lain there for a half hour with thoughts swirling in my head:

“I need to start getting up earlier so I can get the kids up earlier.. so they can help feed the chickens and water the plants, but I can still have time for quiet time and coffee before they wake up…”

“I need to start encouraging the kids to have their own quiet times, too, I need to do a better job of teaching them in that area and setting an example (and letting them see it..)…”

“I’ve got to put my foot down on our habit of getting up and going straight to the computer and the tv.. we had stopped doing that.. what happened? Oh yes.. I was covering the tv with a sheet before bed and I got out of that habit..”

And suddenly it came to me (it may have been Holy Spirit inspired I’m not taking all the credit!):

“A basket. I need a basket. With bibles and prayer journals and allegorical children’s stories. Books for all of us, and books for us to do together. I can cover the tv at night and encourage the children to use the Morning Basket to start off their day…”

And the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. I wanted to do it. I had to do it!

“I already have a spare basket, I know just the one. We have several story books and we all have bibles. I can pick up some inexpensive journals at the dollar store and I already want to get A Girl After God’s Own Heart and A Little Girl After God’s Own Heart for the girls.. I need to read A Mom After God’s Own Heart… we can do it together!”

And the more I thought about THAT.. the more I itched to get the books headed on their way to my house so we could begin as soon as possible! And knowing that I was just TOO excited to go to sleep at that point… I did! I got up out of bed and I ordered the two books for the girls to go with my book that I already had. And after ordering them and jotting down a few notes I was finally able to get to sleep — with a great big smile on my face!

The next day, Saturday, I told the kids about it. They started to scoff until I told them all the details and promised that I’m not going to be on the laptop, either. I’m going to spend the morning WITH them and we’re going to do it together. So Saturday we put together our Morning Box with the supplies that we already had and Sunday morning we started our new tradition. Drama Queen didn’t want to read but I didn’t push it. Princess slept in too late and I didn’t make her get up any earlier. This morning was even better. I got Drama Queen interested in a children’s devotional book we have and I got Princess up earlier than yesterday (and then she read the devotional book, too.) Later when we had to run to town we picked up journals at the Dollar store. I let them pick out one they wanted and when we came home, Princess immediately sat down with hers and her very first Visual Prayer. When our other two books arrive they will be going into the basket, too.

And it makes me happy. I’m so hopeful. =)

We haven’t been doing this long enough yet to say it’s a wonderful thing or that it’s working for us, but I certainly think that it *could* be. And my prayer is that it would become a wonderful family habit for us. Though I have to admit, I’m reconsidering the name “Morning Basket” because I don’t want to  limit it to only morning time! On the other hand, the kids have already pulled books out at other times of the day and I just made sure they put them back. So maybe it doesn’t matter. ; )

And ONE MORE THING:

The book I started reading two days ago? A Mom After God’s Own Heart? Guess what the very first thing it tells me to do is… any guesses?

Little Choices That Reap Big Blessings

1. Develop a Template For Your Weeks – She mentions fine tuning what is going on in our home to truly put first things first. To make sure that my children and I all have enough time for a daily bible (or bible story) time.

2. Analyze Your Tv Time – She says, “think about how you could use that time to grow in your knowledge of God, to put better things into your heart and mind, to pray for your family to follow God.” And she also applies this to our children.

3. Choose a Devotional Book – “Select a devotional book for yourself, and one that’s age-appropriate for each child. Then set aside a special time each day for enjoying these books.

4. Memorize One Verse – Memorizing one verse a week is something we already do (most weeks) during homeschool.. I’m tempted to move the memory verse box into the Morning Basket instead?

5. Pray for Your Heart – Give it to God, offer it each morning, and pray for the hearts of your little ones!

Oh my goodness!! Do you see how I’ve done all those things in the process of establishing our morning box? Each night since then I’ve prayed over our morning time and our hearts and each morning for the past three mornings my alarm has been going off 15 minutes earlier as I move up our morning schedule so I can have quiet time alone before I have quiet time with them. And then after I set up our basket I choose THIS book to start reading and it all lines up so well with what we’re trying to do here — coincidence? I think not.

I’m very excited and very hopeful and I cannot wait to see what our morning look like a week from now, a month from now, a year from now!

What about you — I want to know what your quiet time looks like and how you involve your children, how you encourage them in their devotions and which devotionals you recommend. What about the littles that can’t read and what about serious prayer and study for yourself? I’m always open for good book recommendations!

I don’t believe in coincidence. Not really.

I know, I’ve said that before but it bears repeating. Rather than some random lucky chance of the universe, I see coincidences as little blessings of God bestowing his favor and grace on your circumstance. When you break down on the side of the road and someone you know “just happens” to be driving past to stop and help you? Yeah, that’s God.

But sometimes, even when you know that God’s watching over you and He’s in control and that all these little blessings are from him.. sometimes even then you’re still amazed at how God worked it all out. I  mean, we shouldn’t be.. because He’s our all-powerful God. But sometimes the coincidences just really knock our socks off and we think, “WHOAH, that’s just AMAZING.”

1.) Like you know.. when my parents wanted to  move back to town into the house that never sold but they were taking their time to get around to it and neither one of them were looking for a job up here. And then THE VERY DAY my mom called to get a quote on putting in a new well, “just to see,” taking the first step towards moving back … my Dad got laid off from his job, freeing them up to make that move.

2.) Or like how when my mom went back to work and told her boss they’d be looking for jobs up here and moving back up here.. the regional manager “happens” to come to their office THAT WEEK and mentions they’ve got an office up here she might be able to transfer to and takes her number, paving the way for employment for my mom.

3.) Or how, in this tough economy and this tough job market, my dad was able to get a job interview and a job really fairly quickly. And that he got a job that didn’t start for a couple of weeks which gave them plenty of time for my mom to give notice at her job and pack.

4.) Or how about that in a freak freeze that month my mom lost nearly all her plants on her back porch… which was sad at the time but a blessing later because it meant she didn’t have to move/bring all those potted rosebushes, banana trees, ficus plants, etc. And that their car registration expired the month they moved which was convenient because they’d need to re-register it up here anyway. Little things…but convenient ones.

But it’s about to get even more amazing..

5.) Would you believe that when my dad went to the post office to get a P.O. Box… he came out with the very same box number they had before they moved four years ago??

6.) Or that when my mom called to get internet and phone for the house she got the very same phone number they had before they moved??

7.) And that during their first week back my mom’s old regional manager (whom she hadn’t talked to since their original conversation) called to ask if she was still interested in a position at their location up here. (And now my mom has already had an interview and has a start date.)

My mom laughed about their “new” address and phone number and said, “It’s almost like we never left!”
And then she called me the next day from her home phone and my cell phone showed my mom’s name — apparently I had never deleted their old number. HUH. It kind of IS like they never left.

God never ceases to amaze me! I especially love it when he proves “coincidence” to be a lot more than just a lucky chance of the universe. And also, “Welcome back, Mom!” We missed you. =)

Have you ever had a series of circumstances where God’s Providence just shined through??

Quiet.

I’ve been thinking.

A little over a week ago we had an “adventure” that really rocked our routine. And not just our daily routine…that quickly recovered. But our regular routine way of thinking, our tomorrow’s going to be another repeat of today way of thinking, our comfy and lazy way of routine thinking.

Weekend before last we thought we were going to lose our house, our things, everything but what we could pack into our car,… when a very, VERY, large wildfire came within 3/4 mile of our home.

THREE QUARTERS OF A MILE.

The fire began miles from us earlier in the day and it was just before sitting down to eat lunch that we heard the sirens and saw the smoke. When we were told to evacuate around 4 pm, we had already long packed our valuable things into backpacks and suitcases. Though the wind was in our favor, if it had shifted in our direction we would have been, well.. our things , would have been in serious danger.

Our THINGS.

I’m not boasting when I say that it was so easy for me to decide what to pack and what not to pack. The calm and peace that I felt MUST have come from God, and I would be remiss if I didn’t thank ALL THE PEOPLE on Twitter and Facebook who were praying for us. I felt it! I was so calm. I made a short list, I packed them, and though it would have been inconvenient and difficult I was ready to let go of the rest.

It wasn’t so easy for the kids. It was so, so, hard for the kids. It began to wear on me the umpteenth time I heard “what IF” but I took a breath and replied as calmly as I could because I KNEW that more than anything I could say, my actions and my attitude would be the thing that would help them the most. The thing that would demonstrate my faith the most.

“It will be okay.”

“God will protect us.”

“He can protect our house.”

“And even if He lets it burn down it will STILL be okay.”

It’s funny how I was so calm then but thinking about it now makes me teary-eyed…

But at that time, by God’s grace, I held it together. We evacuated, we had one car packed full and we had one car to carry us all and we went our neighbor’s house. No, really, our neighbor’s house. I know, that wasn’t very far away. Our neighbor-slash-landlord’s house is on the highest spot of the property and we could see all around us, we could see almost everything. We watched the firemen come and go and battle the fire for hours. We watched black hawk helicopters with big water buckets and a Texas forestry plane dumping red fire retardant. The wind was still in our favor but had the wind changed we had immediate access to the highway, immediate escape available, so we stayed and watched.

It might sound like we really WERE worried about our things, our house, that I really HADN’T let go, but the truth is I wanted to stay with my husband (who was GOING to stay and watch) and I really REALLY felt confident that it was all going to be okay. They were going to get the fire out. They were going to let us back into our house. Soon. Really.

And in the meantime, we talked. We ate pizza. And I assured the kids that it would all be okay. My oldest came to talk to me and ask me questions quite a bit and so we talked,..about how we were fortunate to have been able to pack up early and save so many of our things. About how we had family to go stay with if the fire did take our house. About the firefighters (including my uncle) who were fighting the fire to protect all the homes in our area. About how God is enough and if we did lose our stuff but still had each other we would still be so blessed.

This is deep stuff for a ten year old.

Finally we were given a tentative okay to return home, the fire was largely under control but the firefighters would continue to work throughout the night to keep it that way and put the rest of it out. There was concern, though, about the quickly settling darkness and the risk that the fire would regain it’s strength while returning families were sleeping. So we went back to our house but we left the car packed…just in case.

It should be no surprise that the kids didn’t want to go to sleep, but I told them that Daddy and I were going to guard over them. (And I’m getting all weepy again.) And we did. I stayed up as late as I could. Hubby even later. And finally we slept, after a very, very long day.

And I thought that would be the end. But that was not the end. We learned the next day just how large the fire had been — thousands of acres had burned. But the miraculous thing is that all of the land that burned was field and grass and trees and pastures. Not a single house had been lost. Someone lost a barn. So many houses had been in imminent, sometimes VERY serious danger, but God and the firefighters had protected every. single. one.

But though it seemed the danger had passed, because of the size there were several hotspots that continued to burn again and again over the next few days. FOUR, in fact. Four days of sirens blaring down the road past my house to the charred remains of fields a mile from my house. Four days of random plumes of smoke springing up in the sky. Four days of wondering, “when will it end?”

Four days to continue to show my children that I trust our God COMPLETELY.

After the initial conversations about how we can trust God no matter what happens, there were conversations about how mercifully and wonderfully God had spared the houses, and protected the firefighters from the dozen counties that came to fight the fire. We talked about how fire, though a danger to us, replenishes the land. We talked about how the rancher, who had started the fire inadvertently while trying to do a controlled burn, was not doing a bad thing by burning his brush, that it had just been a bad day to do it while the wind was so high and the land was so parched. There were so, so many things that we talked about. It consumed our conversation over the whole weekend and on into the early part of the week.

It wasn’t until five days after the fire began that I drove down our road and measured the distance from our house to where the scorched remainder of trees began. Three quarters of a mile. That number makes one shudder.

I am so, so completely grateful to have our home and our things and our routine back. But I’m hoping that we don’t quite so easily slip back into our routine way of thinking, taking everything that we have for granted. Everything, every bit of it, every piece of dirty laundry even, is a blessing. We’re so, so very blessed and I’m so, so very thankful.

Not just because we still have our things, because I still would have been blessed and thankful, but because of God’s peace, God’s provision, and for being able to see it all a little more clearly than I did two weeks ago.

In the end, God did protect us, all of us who were wondering if we’d have a home to return to. And as I said before, I am so very grateful for everyone who prayed for us that day. It is proof positive (as if we didn’t know already) that there is power in prayer. And let me just close with one of my favorite “mantras”..

God is good.

ALL THE TIME.

Walls. We erect them. They keep things in. They keep things out. Sometimes they’re good for us and sometimes we need to tear them down.

Reading about Jericho in the book of Joshua got me thinking about walls. I’m significantly behind in my Bible in 90 Days reading, but over the last week, particularly the last few days I’ve been catching up significantly. I’m now in Judges (I think I’m supposed to be in Nehemiah.) I’ll get there, I’ll catch up, but in the meantime, one of the things I kept thinking about while reading the book of Joshua is how the Israelites succeed EVERY SINGLE TIME they follow God’s directions and He goes with them. And how every single time they try to go on their own or follow their own directions… they fail big time. BIG TIME. Not that much unlike myself, making a go of B90Days and 3in30 in my own strength. A change in heart and a shift in thinking and I feel ever so much more like “If God is for us then who can be against us?!” Knock those Jericho walls down!

Speaking of 3 in 30…this month started off just like last month, and I nearly let it get me down. The first few days were great, then freezing cold weather moved in and our pipes were freezing and we were just trying to make it through the day without freezing to death. That’s how my house got behind in January and I spent the rest of the month, in a funk, recovering from it. I was afraid that was going to happen again. This was a DOOZY of a cold front; we’re talking record breaking. Four solid days of below freezing weather, nearly zero after the wind chill. It was crazy! But I didn’t let it get me. Not this time! We brought an extra space heater into my master bed/bath and we kept warm and cozy, huddled up as a family watching tv, reading, coloring. Four walls creating a sanctuary from the winter storm. But this time, I handed it over to God. This time I didn’t stress. And this time I kept washing a load of laundry and a load of dishes each day no matter how cold it was in the kitchen! (And they weren’t even my 3 in 30 goals!) But I knew it would get me down if I didn’t.

I did alter my 3 in 30 goals a little, while we were all huddled up together. I didn’t make my kids get up quite so early. So we didn’t have breakfast quite so early. And we only did minimal school. Overall I’ve been doing really well with my goals. Since the freeze I returned to my 7am wake time and I haven’t found it nearly as difficult as before, as last month. I’ve been reading my bible in the mornings, and then again later throughout the day to keep up with B90Days and I’ve been having breakfast on time. Several mornings I prepared something the night ahead and put it in to bake when I got up at 7. I’m LOVING that. I’m going to have to do more of THAT. I just keeping knocking those “I can’t” walls down and boy does it feel good.

As for school, like I said it didn’t look like “normal” school last week. Monday we did math & some language arts before my Mother-in-law picked up to take us shopping. The kids had several Christmas gift cards burning holes in their pockets. I didn’t realize how bad the winter storm was going to be so I figured we could take off half a school day for some practical application while the children tried to wisely choose what to spend their money on and added up their items to see how much they could purchase. But then the rest of the week hit us like a ton of ice bricks! We did math on Tuesday, and maybe Wednesday. Other than that we did a LOT of reading. Princess finished reading Book 5 of the Camp Club Girls and read books 6 and 7! They also played a few educational games on the laptop, colored, sketched in their sketch pads and we all made Valentine cards. Crafts, art and reading often fight for attention between math, language arts, science and history so I really didn’t mind getting a little extra of those things in last week. That said, the week before was really great, I could see definite improvements as we work on the structure of our day and good sleeping/waking habits. I’m looking forward to seeing that continue to improve!

Speaking of structure.. Routines, like walls, fence in the pieces of our day. We’ve been buckling down on structure and routine — all of it. Wake times, meal times, school times, chore times, sleep times. It’s like the instructions on the back of the shampoo bottle: Lather, rinse, repeat. We had a hiccup with the icy weather of course, but Saturday we started building those walls back up again. The structure brings a sense of security and I think we all can feel it. We’ve needed this for a very long time. It’s not a magic schedule, though. It’s the building of the habits. It’s the handing the day over to God and relying on him. It’s the choosing of the things things most important. It’s all of them. Carefully chosen bricks in the walls of our day.

I have many, many bad habits yet to knock down and many good ones to replace them with, but right now I feel a sense of hope as I see and feel the progress and changes being made. I feel like the wise woman building her house, and no longer the foolish one tearing it down. Which leads me to want to say, again, just for good measure…God is so good, isn’t he?

Linked to: Bible in 90 Days, and Hip Homeschool Hop.
It’s also my Weekly Wrap Up & 3 in 30 Check in post.