"The Wink! Eves' Rip Off - Part 2" by Debra Courtney

Normal or Not Normal?  That is the Question.

There is another thing that I would like to touch on now.  That being how Satan works so hard with a never ending ruthless energy of perseverance to twist my thinking.  Does Satan ever take a day off?  NO!  That being said, that the world (those following the god of this world) is the normal people and that I am the one of the many not normal persons of the world.  

The enemy uses many strategies against people close to me who try to get me into confrontation with them. “And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” Matt. 10:36.”  

It is called mind game playing. I have to remember this when I feel like hitting them over the head with a pan pizza. They tell me I am not a normal person.  Well, I am okay with not being a normal person as the world defines normal.  Who can be normal and live in this crazy world?  They do not come out and tell me, “You’re not a normal person, Debra.”  Their very actions tell me by how they love this world and the things in this world and the god of this world.  They live this way completely ignorant of the schemes that the enemy is using against them and they are not living.  They are dead men walking. 

It seems the closer that the time for Jesus to return to earth the more intense warfare becomes. Warfare is a very strategic game plan for the hearts and minds of believers today. Warfare is his attempt to break my and your focus and abort my and your interest in the miracles God has planned for us.  

Then I got to thinking about it.  Am I a normal person? My conclusion was: I am not a normal person according to this world, because I am not of this world. I am only interested in what Heaven knows and thinks about me. I have decided to think along the lines that Jesus thought when he was here on this earth. I hear what my Father says, and I do what I see my Father do. I say what my Father says.  

Even though Jesus came to this earth and he loved people and cared for people he still was killed by the world. He left us in the world to share the Gospel. I do love people, however I don’t like the way they live their life. I pray they find the light of the Bible.  I am a covenant person. I am in blood covenant with God through the blood of Jesus. I set boundaries with people when it comes to things that I stand for. It is the people(s) who don’t like the boundaries I set that are not normal.

#AWAKEN2013 HAPPENS TODAY! #Quotes & Info here

Shelley here. Hi!

As we Kick-Off the 6th Annual, Sold-Out, 

AWAKEN 1-Day Conference,

we wanted to pass along to you some freebie extras for you whether you're able to attend or not.

Who loves you?

Team C4C Loves You!!

With this in mind, I wanted to give you the link to my personal website that has notes and quotes from my sessions. In the near future, we'll add some notes and quotes here from the other speakers' sessions as well. 

Please go to www.ShelleyHendrix.com and Click 'Shelley's Blog'

Three different posts will go live during the day today that I am confident will speak to you.

Stay in touch with me there as I will also have other resources available soon from today's incredible conference!

Also: Please connect with C4C on Facebook and Twitter if you haven't done so yet. We'll be updating with live posts/tweets throughout the day. 

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Have you subscribed to our blog here yet? If not, you may be missing out on the great resource we've provided for you right here in this space from authors, business leaders, ministry leaders, speakers, and women in various walks of life from all over the USA.

It's Reigning Grace!

Shelley

6 Types of Friends Every Woman Should Have ~ Guest post from Best-Selling Author @ValorieBurton

Property of C4C 

6 Types of Friends Every Woman Should Have 

By

Valorie Burton

Do you rely on just one good friend? What would it take to nurture a few more close friendships? Why do you think some women are competitive with other women, but not the men? What can you do to put other women at ease and facilitate more authentic connections with women in your circle of influence?  

I want to share a special conversation starter with you from my latest book Happy Women Live Better: 13 Ways to Trigger Your Happiness Every Day. See the six specific types of friends every woman should have and spark up a conversation with your closest girlfriends this week to discuss what type of friend you may be.  

Points to Ponder

·         Studies show that it is a good idea to have several types of friends rather than relying on one or two to meet all of your needs.

·         Statistically speaking, your relationship with your girlfriends will likely outlast your marriage, your parents and your co-workers.  

• One study showed that when fewer than 15% of the women in a firm were in positions of power, the women were competitive and backstabbing with each other. But when women represented more than 15% of the powerful positions, women were collaborative. 

Do you have the right mix of friends?

Not every friend can meet every need. Some will meet more than one need, but few can do it all! Here are six types of friends every woman needs:

The Wise Friend.

You can count on them to talk you out of doing something you'd regret, help you solve your latest dilemma, and give all-around sound advice about just about anything.

The Fun Friend.

Want to have a good time, be adventurous, or laugh 'til your stomach hurts? You can always count on this one.

The Travel Buddy.

Drama-free, this friend is adaptable, maybe even adventurous, and loves to see the world.

The Relationship Coach.

Transparent, real and willing to listen, this friend has figured a few things out in the love department and genuinely wants to see you happy when it comes to romance.

The Career Comrade.

You share a similar background and goals in your work life, and encourage each other to higher professional success.

The Accountability Partner.

To maximize your potential, this is your go-to pal to help keep you on track.

Now, let's turn the tables. Think of your four closest friends. Which type of friend are you to each of them?

This post is an excerpt from my latest book, Happy Women Live Better: 13 Ways to Trigger Your Happiness Every Day. Discover your happiness triggers for FREE at www.happywomantest.com and order your copy of Happy Women Live Better at: www.bn.com/happywomenlivebetter

"The Wink! Eves' Rip Off - Part 1" by Debra Courtney

“What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of [earthborn] man that You care for him?” Psalm 8:4 AMP

I am amazed at the extent and tenacity of how badly the enemy wants to violate and destroy especially the female gender.  He has been planning and plotting our destruction sense the day we were born.  He has watched our every move, mood, and conversation with wanton eyes and straining ears.  

He has great passion and unlimited perseverance to each detail of mine and your life, so that he knows what buttons to push, buttons of anger, desire, betrayal, lies, contempt, and deception.  Satan lusts after us.  He uses others to fulfill his plans to deceive us and trap us to exploit us. 

Desire can be a tool used in the form of manipulation.  The power of suggestion is a very powerful manipulative force.  Suggestion has so many faces, such as desire, jealousy, and envy. 

I grew up seeing a woman trying to complete her husband.  A lot of us think that we need men to complete us; they cannot and never will.  Only God can complete us. 

God saw that Adam was incomplete.  He needed a help mate.  Woman was created to complete man’s purpose, not to complete his person.  Adam was already created as far as a man could be created.  When God finished forming the dust of the earth to form Adam, the creation of Adam was complete.  God was done with Adam.   

However, there is a special enmity, a special conflict between the woman and the enemy.  There is a special warfare.  The enemy is especially attracted to woman.  Every soul birthed comes through us.  We birth the very thing that is to bring Glory to God, and the enemy wants it with every fiber of his being.  He knows that we were designed to bring forth humanity that is God's special creation of all creation.  

If we understand how very, very important this is to God, then we especially need to be on guard against the enemies seeking whom he may desire.  Yes, it is man who plants the seed, but it is the woman who is designed to bring forth the seed, the baby, the human soul to praise and glorify God.  As we grow older through adolescence and teen years, the enemy cleverly watches us, being so “nosey” in everything we do and say. 

Discern your words.  They are a powerful force that calls forth your future!  Whether you know it or not, you are calling things that are not as though they were.  

Our eternal enemy patiently stalks us.  He is very patient.  We have to learn how to outlast the enemy.  How we do that is to be more patient than he is.  At the right time, he can subtly sabotage us to meet his vision instead of God's vision.  If we allow him to do that, we have a great problem. 

Jesus talked about the cares of this world in Matthew 13:22 says, “As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the Word, but the cares of the world and the pleasure and delight and glamour and deceitfulness of riches choke and suffocate the Word, and it yields no fruit."

Be a good fruit bearer!  Watch out for the wink!

"When You Have Every Reason to be Unkind" by Rebecca Halton



Photo by Amelia Grace Photography

I was at the grocery store today, when I noticed a stoic gentleman next to me.  We were browsing the same section of soups.  I was examining a can of chicken and wild rice, when it occurred to me that I might be in his way.  I offered for him to just tell me if he needed me to move.  He plainly and sort of gruffly replied that I was not in the way. 

A short while later, I went to pay for my items.  Ahead of me in the checkout line was the same man.  The cashier was visibly talkative and friendly, yet the man was as quiet and concrete as before.  When it was my turn, I moved to the card swipe and waited for my total, in the meantime smiling and making friendly small talk with the same cashier.  

“Do you have any coupons?” she asked me.  I shook my head that I did not. 

That is when she reached into her register’s drawer and pulled out a reel of coupons, scanning relevant ones.  As she did this, she smiled, I thanked her, and then she commented on how unfriendly that guy had been.  That is when this friendly, warm woman said something I wasn’t expecting:  “If they’re not nice to me, I am not going to help them.”

We concluded the conversation by agreeing that maybe he had just been having a bad day, but I still left repeating that sentence in my mind, not wanting to forget it so I could share it with you.  The truth is that I wonder how many of us think that on any given day.  How many of us quietly qualify or disqualify people to be recipients of our kindness?  

She was simply saying aloud what many of us think.  I know there have been times that I’ve thought that – and acted on it (with a smile still on my face) - That if So-and-So isn’t nice to me, I won’t be nice to him or her.  Why should I?  After all, isn’t that how the world works?  There it is:  When I find myself operating in more of the world’s way, that’s when I act the least like Christ.  

I thank God that is not how He works or how Jesus acted.  Could you imagine?  Romans 5:8 says that while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us, and sinners aren’t exactly the nicest kids on the block.  Still, God kindly and mercifully sent Jesus, and Jesus still died for us.  Later, in Romans 12:20, it says that if your enemy is hungry or thirsty, give him (or her) food or drink.  In doing so, you’ll heap burning coals on his or her head.  Now, the burning coals part aside, the point I want to focus on here is the call to action, not the outcome.  The way in which God calls us to extend kindness and forgiveness baffles the world.  It baffles the world, and confounds our enemy the devil, and it gives God room to do what He does best, being good, gracious, merciful, glorious, and as Romans 8:28 says, to work all things for the good of those who love Him. 

Finally, there’s another reason for us to be kind, despite the other person.  Now, I know it feels like a tall order sometimes to be nice to some of the people in our lives, but consider Proverbs 11:17, which says, “Those who are kind benefit themselves, but the cruel bring ruin on themselves.”  That’s right, we think kindness is about the other person, but Proverbs is clear that it’s for our benefit that we should be kind.  

Would you take a moment and thank the Lord with me?  Thank Him for being so good to us, even when we’re not good to Him or each other.  Thank Him for not waiting for us to be nice to Him before helping us.  Thank Him for how He can and will empower us to be kind, even when we have every worldly reason not to be. 

Westbow Press bestsellers list.  Now, I want to help you tell your story!  Join my mailing list, and I’ll send you exclusive information about a brand-new coaching program I’ll be launching this fall!

If you have ever considered telling your testimony through a book of your own — but didn’t know where to start or how to finish your manuscript — you won’t want to miss this exclusive opportunity to work with me directly!  Whether you need help polishing a manuscript for consideration by a literary agent or publisher – or you’re exploring the idea of self-publishing (like I did) — I’d be honored if you’d me to help you reach that goal of getting your story out there!

If you’ve dreamed of being an author — getting paid to write — and you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, open your heart, and hear my honest feedback, I’d love to work with you towards making that dream a reality.

  

Looking for God's Blessing - by @Lori_Kennedy

Photo by Amelia Grace Photography

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

(Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)

I recently went to the poorest county in West Virginia on a mission trip with my church.  We were planning to work in the clothes closet and the food pantry.  We were also planning to have a women’s retreat, including dinner, while we were there.  Several of us were also scheduled to do some neighborhood visits with a local missionary.  There were fifteen of us, and most of the women were between ten and twenty years older than I am. 

Four of us headed out with the local missionary to the mountain hollers to visit some of the poorest families in the county.  As we drove the curvy roads up into the mountains, the surroundings looked familiar, and my stomach began to turn as old feelings of pain and shame invaded my heart.  My dad’s second wife was from the mountain hollers of Virginia.  We would visit her parents often and had spent many a holiday during my childhood years driving roads that looked eerily similar to these.  Memories of molestation by a step-uncle during the Christmas that I was eleven assaulted my brain and threw me into a melancholy mood. 

We arrived back at the camp, and I went to the dorm and just let the tears flow.  I truly didn’t realize I would be affected this way, but I also recognized that I needed to get this poison out.  I trusted God’s character and acknowledged that this was another layer of healing and that I would have to peel this layer back in order to reveal a new tender layer and move forward in my healing and relationship with God. 

Now here’s the amazing part.  Since I lived with my dad and more than one stepmother from the age of seven, and since my biological mother was not very present in my upbringing, I have always struggled with an empty “mommy love” place in my heart.  These precious women came around me.  They prayed with me; they loved me; they hugged on me; they treasured me; they celebrated me.  They allowed me the opportunity to heal in their safe and soothing presence.  It was a beautiful and precious picture of God’s love and redemption.  It was such a secure way to walk through those moments of grief that I was facing in order to take that big leap forward in healing. 

These precious moments reminded me that God’s plans for me are good and that God’s character is good….always.

Click here for a video of Kari Jobe's "Steady My Heart"

What God Thinks about YOU! ~ by Debra Courtney ~ #Encouragement from God's Word

Photo By Amelia Grace photography

What God Thinks about YOU! 

By Debra Courtney

You are BOUGHT

“Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for?  The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you.  God owns the whole works.  So let people see God in and through your body.”  

1 Corinthians 6:20 

You are Forever FREE

“With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved.  Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-fore-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.  A new power is in operation.  The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.”  Romans 8:1-2 

You are God’s WORKMANSHIP

“God does both the making and saving, He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work He does, the good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”  Ephesians 2:10 

You are BEAUTIFUL

“You’ll be a stunning crown in the palm of God’s hand, a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God.”  

Isaiah 62:3 

You are a CHOSEN & ROYAL PRIESTHOOD

“But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you – from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.  

1 Peter 2:9 

You are LOVED

“That’s how much you mean to me!  That’s show much I love you!  I’d sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.”  Isaiah 43:4

You are COMPLETE

“Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly.  You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him.  When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too.  His power extends over everything.”  Colossians 2:9-10 

You are NEVER ALONE

“Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things.  Be relaxed with what you have.  Since God assured us, 'I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you.'”  

Hebrews 13:5 

You are CALLED

“In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do.  While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk – better yet, run!  – on the road God called you to travel.”  Ephesians 4:1 

You are a NEW CREATION

“Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new.  The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!”  2 Corinthians 5:17 

You are FEARFULLY & MARVELOUSLY made

“I thank you, High God – you’re breathtaking!  Body and soul, I am marvelously made!”  Psalm 139:14 

You are FORGIVEN

         “On the other hand, if we admit our sins – make a clean breast of them – He won’t let us down; He’ll be true to himself.”  1 John 1:9 

**All verses are from The Message Bible

Click here to view the video of "Beautiful" by MercyMe

MercyMe - Beautiful [Official Music Video] from mercymemusic on GodTube.