Just last week I (Mandy) posted this on Facebook:

"My 4 year-old refuses to poop on the potty. He's done it before and knows how, so I think it's just plain laziness. Help! What has worked for you? At this rate, he will be walking to get his diploma with a Monster's University pull-up on."

I'd had it. I was ready to throw in the proverbial pull-up.

We had tried everything: praising, cajoling, rewarding...all only to be disappointed with accidents again.

So, I did what everyone does when they need quick, decisive, reliable answers: I posted on Facebook.

And I received some feedback which I tried to employ, but my little guy was having none of it. He was still pooping in his pants like it was nothing.

I was mad that we'd {I thought} passed the milestone. He peed! He pooped! We celebrated! We phoned all relatives within a 3 state radius and made the glorious announcement that M was potty trained!

We spent an excruciating 30 minutes in WalMart picking out the perfect Lego set for his reward.

And then one accident led to another which led to a complete backslide.

And then it hit me after I posted on Facebook; M was only 4 years old. For his whole, entire life (only slightly more than 48 months) had been spent in diapers. He's known nothing different.

He wasn't lazy...I was.

The next morning, I woke up with a new resolve. Instead of waiting for him to act outside of what he has always looked at as normal, I was going to be proactive.

So, I sat him on the potty and waited.

And he was successful!

And then after lunch, I sat him down again.

And he was successful again!

So here we are now....days later and no accidents!

We still praise and scream and woo hoo each and every time he chooses to go in the potty.

And you know what?

He's now doing it on his own without me having to direct him.

And if you thought this whole post was going to be about potty training you can rest assured that it isn't!

This scenario makes me think of other areas of parenting where I employ the same tactics only to have them fall flat.

How many times do I try to guide and teach my kids something using the "feeding with the fire hose" method? Too often I'm afraid.

I forget that I didn't learn that way and it is unreasonable to expect my kids to.

Instead, I need to be more patient. I need to be proactive and involved.

I need to cheer them on while offering guidance, but not throwing them into whatever life lesson they may be facing and just hoping for the best and then getting irked when they don't shine.

So, for now I'm wiping my brow that  2/3 of our littles are potty trained. I'm celebrating every victory and learning from the mistakes.

Limp with me across the finish, mamas. This job we have is hard.

But oh so worth it!

A child smoking marijuana by age 8.  By age 12, she is a high school drop out doing hard drugs who becomes a prostitute by age 14, trained and ushered in by her own mother.  By age 24, she was convicted of killing two people - with a pickax.  A young woman sentenced to live on death row and die of lethal injection administered by the state of Texas.

A young woman swallowed up by the pain of dysfunction and infidelity at home.  Lost in a world of disordered eating, obsessive exercise, and self harm.  

A teenage girl who lost her virginity to her boyfriend at 14 years old.  Scarred by the heartache of broken intimate relationships and misplaced self worth, she is thrown into a world of eating disorders, heavy drinking and egregious sexual choices into her early 20s.

These are real life stories.  A true story from a book I recently read.  A friend's story.  Stories of destruction and loss.  Stories of unhealthy relationships and dysfunctional families.  Stories that belong to someone you know - your mother, your best friend, or your spouse.  Because everyone has a story.

Any one of the stories could be your story too.  But perhaps your story has different details, ones that are painful even to tell.  Maybe your story includes sexual abuse from early childhood.  Maybe your story is one of physical violence at the hands of a parent, a boyfriend, or a stranger.  Maybe your story is one of the abuser, going too far with "physical discipline" with your children.  Maybe your story is one of forced abortion at the hands of a controlling boyfriend or an abortion that was your choice and your choice alone.  Maybe your story is one of alcoholism, abuse, and multiple failed marriages.  Maybe your story is one with details so awful and hurtful that I can't even begin to imagine the plot line.  Maybe you're living a story so dark that you can't even imagine how you got into this horrific story anyway. 

We all walk paths of hurt, destruction, pain and dysfunction.  Some of it happens because of our own sinful choices, while some of it happens because of someone else's sinful choices.  We all have a nature that is prone to sin, prone to missing the mark, prone to choose wrong and not right.

While one person's sin may be different from the next person's, we are all broken. 

But our history is not our destiny.  And the sins of our parents do not have to be our children's sins. 

Because Jesus.

Each of the stories at the beginning doesn't end in the mess.

Because Jesus.

The pickax murderer from Texas met Jesus between the arrest for her crime and her conviction and sentencing.  She confessed details of her crime with extreme remorse, and accepted the punishment that her horrific mistakes deserved.  She died by lethal injection on February 3, 1998, after a 14 year imprisonment for her crimes.  Before her death, she was a joyful example of the glorious redemption available in Christ to many women with sordid pasts inside - and outside - of the state prison system of Texas.  Her name was Karla Faye Tucker, and details of her redemption in Christ can be found in the book, "Set Free" by Linda Strom.

The young woman in the middle of the disordered eating and self harm met Jesus in the last year.  She knows that healing and wholeness can be found in Christ, even if she can't see it or feel it right now.  She is choosing a path to seek His face and find herself in Him, and I couldn't be more proud of her and excited to see the glorious redemption that I know Christ will bring in her life.  

The teenage girl met Jesus as a freshman in college.  After a few rough years and a lot of healing at the hands of her Savior, she lives out her glorious redemption as a wife, mother and blogger for Deliberate Women.  She is a wife to a wonderful, godly husband and a mother to two young children ages three and one.  She has led bible studies, served in youth ministry, and partnered with the Pregnancy Resource Center of the South Hills to reach women in crisis.  That girl is me (Alayna).

No matter how far gone you think you are.  No matter how dark the secrets are in your heart and life.  No matter how ghastly the details of your story are.  No matter what you have done or what has been done to you.

No matter what, Jesus will.

He will make you whole again.  He will give you eternal life (John 3:16).  He will give you the abundant life that He promised (John 10:10).  He will give you direct access to the Father God.  He will give you joy, despite your circumstances.  He will give you His Spirit.  He will give you love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and more (Galatians 5:22).  He will enable you to be called a friend of God.  He will bring His glorious redemption about in your life. 

So meet Jesus, just like we did.

Trust His sacrifice to cover your sin .  Forgive those who have wronged you and forgive yourself, because God forgave you.  Let Him be your healer.  Read His word and talk to Him daily.  Find a bible believing church and get into a Bible study.

And let his glorious redemption shine in your life!

If you trusted Christ today, please let us know.  You may follow our blog for encouragement and bible study resources!  We always want to hear from you!  If you have a story of Jesus' glorious redemption in your own life, we want to hear it.  Please share to encourage your sisters!!

So I (Lindsey) recently found out that yet another person I know may be facing divorce in the near future due to infidelity and other marital issues. It broke my heart. Though we may not be as close as we once were, it tears me up to see yet another family broken by yet another of society’s lies. The lie I’m talking about this time is that the marital problems you are facing are because of the person you are with and that someone new will be better for you and easier to get along with. This societal myth is the farthest thing from the truth.

We have learned to see divorce as being the easy way out. Its the quick fix all, solve all of my problems with the signing of one piece of paper, and finding our new “meant to be” is icing on the cake. Divorce, however, can never be the easy way out because it is not what God intended for spouses or families. While God is still fully capable of blessing a road that divorce has become a part of, things don't just magically get better and many of the problems that were had in a first marriage are sure to resurface in another.

In Matthew 19 the Pharisees tried to make Jesus stumble over his words and direct the people falsely, but Jesus being God, knew the intent of the marriage covenant and stated plainly the direction God has for marriage. The conversation went like this, Matthew 19: 3-9

Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question: “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason?”

“Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’” And he said, “‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”

“Then why did Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away?” they asked.

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery—unless his wife has been unfaithful.”

People often look at some of the rules of the old testament and believe that it was misdirected or that our believing in the bible is ludicrous because of the laws of a time generations ago, but Jesus plainly tells us that some of if not most of the levitical laws were created only as a concession to our hard hearts. Even then, we were a selfish people who wanted instant gratification and to step outside of God’s plan. While divorce may have been permitted by law one can assume that a law developed due to hardened hearts was not without its consequences. We can see many of them still today. Broken families, children who are left feeling abandoned, children who are left feeling like they have to choose one parent over another, custody battles, broken hearts, pieces of intimate lives that were intended for one person now being shared with another, the baggage that comes from having given yourself wholly to someone for many years and then trying to give the same gift to someone else, developing a parental relationship with children who already have two parents, displacing children and making them feel as if a new family is being chosen over the old family that they loved.

These conflicts are very real, and some form of them follows every person who has been a party in divorce. We rarely see this end of things when we are in the midst of it though, especially when we have already found ourselves in the honey moon stage of a new relationship with someone else. Life feels freer, easier. We get so caught up in thinking that the conflict in our marriage belongs only to us, that other people with “healthy” relationships, those that are with the one they are really supposed to be with don’t have to deal with this hard stuff. They don’t know what is like to be in constant conflict, to argue over every little thing when absolutely none of it is the real issue. This is the point where we start comparing everyone else’s highlights reel with our every day in the throws of it life, and this is the point where we become so self-focused that we get it all wrong.

Now my husband and I have never filed for divorce. We have never gone through any real battles with infidelity, but we have been in the trenches of battle and have felt like the only way out was divorce, going so far as to develop a custody agreement so that the divorce process would be as quick and inexpensive as possible. We have had arguments that even now if dwelt upon bring back anger and doubt that would still have its hold on me without the Lord’s guidance and example of grace, mercy, and forgiveness. So many times in the midst of these horribly hard periods I would look enviously at those around me with “perfect” relationships or at those who were getting to just begin a relationship in all its fresh and perfect newness, and I would think that I was alone. That something must obviously be so broken in our relationship if we can’t even go a day without an argument exploding. As the years have passed in my marriage, and we have made it through some pretty rough patches, as well as some pretty amazing highs, I have come to realize that this pattern of ups and downs is not something I was ever alone in. I don’t just mean God being with me either (though that is an important realization), I mean that “Love” is a battlefield. Every day we wake up next to our spouse, whether its a good day or a bad day, we have a choice to make. We can choose to stand next to our spouse, honoring not the “contract” that we signed when we got married, but the oath we made to our spouse and to our God that means forever. We can choose to face the battlefield of a lifelong commitment in this self-serving world holding the hand of our partner in crime or we can choose to believe the lie that says they weren’t ever really our “meant to be” and we must have gotten it wrong.

Unfortunately, the above choice takes two people and sometimes divorce does happen whether you want it to or not. Every divorce situation is different and as even Jesus stated, divorce was given as an option for hardened hearts. I truly believe that the hardened heart does not always refer to those who initiate a divorce or pursue one through to completion without their spouses agreement. Those with hardened hearts may be the spouse who wants to hang onto a relationship yet refuses to acknowledge wrong doing or to continue to pursue a relationship with another person. The hardened heart may belong to the spouse who sees no need for change in order to have reconciliation, but instead wants their wrong doings overlooked so that may have "the best of both worlds". No matter what the situation, divorce is hurtful to both parties in many deep and scarring ways even if in the midst of things they are unable to see it.

To those who may be facing a divorce that is not of their choosing (either because their spouse is choosing to leave or because their is a refusal to change and find reconciliation), I encourage you to pray diligently for your spouse. You may not ever see any results in your relationship with them, but prayer has never been detrimental in any situation. I also want to encourage you to realize that there is a huge difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness is an act that takes one person choosing to let things go and move on. Reconciliation requires the decision and dedication of both parties to change the situation and to face the battlefield together. Choose to forgive for yourself because no matter how justified you may be in your anger, we who are not without fault have no real claims to stone throwing. Instead we get to carry around the burden of those stone we picked up to throw. We carry around the hurt and the anger refusing to forgive as if somehow our anger will punish the other person when all it really does is weigh us down. So lay down your stones at the feet of the Just and Almighty God that He may relieve you of your burden and so that no matter what the outcome you may find peace. 

Today we will pray for families, those currently facing divorce, those who may see it as an option in the future. We will pray for them with expectation that their hearts will no longer be hardened and that they will allow God to do a mighty restoration in their marriages.

Father of healing and restoration, we come to you today with broken and aching hearts over the failing marriages in our country and others. So many people are buying into the lie that divorce is an easy and simple solution to problems that every married couple faces. We see children being torn apart by parents who allow their hearts to be hardened and who give up on the great task of facing the battle with their other half. Right now Father God, we pray with anticipation that we will begin to see a great healing in the family foundation. We will see husbands stepping up to the plate, taking their wives hand and getting down on their knees to pray for your healing, restoration, and guidance. We will see wives choosing to encourage and respect their husbands spiritual guidance. We will see families looking not to the world for their answers regarding marriage and divorce, but to your word and your original plan. We will see hearts softened and we will see determination grow stronger. We will see father’s showing their sons what it means to be a husband who follows the will of the Lord and sticks with his family no matter what. We will see mother’s who teach their daughters the value of commitment and the stamina it takes to stick things out even when times are tough. We will see marriages resurrected in your name Father God. 


We know that you alone are capable of convicting hearts and we believe that it is your desire to see this change occurring. We ask that you give us as fellow believers words of encouragement and spiritual soundness to address our friends and family when a marriage is facing destruction so that we might be a help and not a hinderance in your fight to win back families to you. We ask all of this in your precious and holy name, Jesus, Amen.