This post has been moved to BrendaHRodgers.com.
Category: Raising Girls
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Lullaby Confessions: Tropical Encouragement – A Review and Giveaway!
Our baby girl is about to celebrate her first birthday in only a few months. I cannot believe it! She is growing so fast, and it is amazing to watch the world unfold through her eyes. When she was a tiny infant I was introduced to the soothing music of Lullaby Confessions. And now that she is a “big” baby, she loves their music just as much! Especially their new album “Tropical Encouragement”.
I had the opportunity to review the Lullaby Confessions: Tropical Encouragement album with my baby girl. This time letting her hear a new album was a different experience because she can actually interact and respond to the music now. As soon as it started playing she started moving her shoulders back and forth swaying to the sound, and a big grin came upon her face.
What I like most about Lullaby Confessions is that it’s great for any time that you want your children to start slowing down or resting. We listen to it while I’m nursing her or when she’s eating in the high chair. Sometimes when she’s fussy I will turn in on too. I imagine myself even playing it for her when she’s older during homework time or before bed.
The new album “Tropical Encouragement” has a beachy, island sound which is very unique and fun. It also has uplifting and positive lyrics perfect for little ears, and includes several different musical instruments along with vocal.
Whether you have babies or toddlers or even preschool and young school-aged children, Lullaby Confessions is the perfect music for your children, and I am thrilled to be giving away one free download of Lullaby Confessions new album “Tropical Encouragement” this week!
Enter to win below, and be sure to share with your friends!
** I was given free music for this review. There was no monetary compensation, and all of the opinions are my own!
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Blog Planning Bootcamp {with Coupon Code}!
Hi everyone! This is way short notice, but it looks like a great way to jump start or re-jump start your blog! It’s the Blog Planning Bootcamp hosted by the wonderful ladies at How They Blog!
You can read all of the nitty-gritty details in this post, and here are few small ones to get you started!
It’s August 26-30.
It takes place at the How They Blog Facebook page.
You will have short assignments every day – about 15-20 minutes each – and a support group on the Facebook page to help you!
PLUS! Right now you can purchase the awesome Blog Planning Kit for 50% off! Just click here and use the coupon code BOOTCAMP!
Here’s a description of all you get in the Blog Planning Kit!
So what do you say bloggers? Will you join me?
*There are affiliate links used in this post.
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What’s Holding Me Back from God?
This past week I began a Proverbs 31 Ministries’ Online Bible Study. We’re reading Lysa Terkeurst’s book What Happens When Women Say Yes to God. I already had the Kindle version of the book but hadn’t read it yet, so this was the perfect opportunity to do so. I have never done a Proverbs 31 online Bible study or any online Bible study for that matter. So far it’s been very rewarding and a lot of fun. But most importantly it’s already stretching me to say “yes” to God starting with this question, “What’s holding me back from God?”
If you’ve been around here some you may know that I have an intense desire – I call it conviction – to stay-at-home full-time with our new baby girl. My husband has come to realize that’s it’s important, also, but he still feels the stress of carrying all of the finances. So he’s asked me to find a part-time, work-from-home job.
And I did. Actually I don’t even feel like I “found it”. I truly believe it was orchestrated by God.
However, it is completely – and I mean completely – out of my comfort zone! I’m on a team of wonderful, Godly women (one of which I met at the She Speaks writing conference over a year ago. She’s my partner.), but I am an independent owner of a business. Me! A business owner! An entrepreneur! I have a few degrees in teaching kids how to read. I know NOTHING about business!
So why would God bring me to a business where I have very little experience or knowledge? (more…)
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When You Don’t Know Who You Are at 36 Years Old
You know that feeling in junior high when you’re walking down the hall and the popular girl with all Gap clothes and blonde hair (my hair’s brown, so for me she has blonde hair) and a huge smile on her face talks to you, and you get all giddy and wonder, “Maybe I’ll be one of her now?”
Or you’re a freshman sitting around in your college dorm on a Friday night and your roommate, who has already checked out all the bars in town, asks you if you want to go out that night too. That’s sounds like different. And fun. And exciting. You’ve never been to a bar before. You think, “Maybe this is who I am.”
But then you’re conflicted because you didn’t party in high school at. all. You were a good girl. A really good girl. So two nights later at the Bible study only three doors down from the dorm room where you were asked out by your roommate, one of the girls asks you to pray out loud. And that feels good too. Maybe this is me. Maybe I’m Bible study girl and I should like lead the Bible study next semester. Or major in religion. Or go to seminary.
On the right – me, 28 years old-ish, Halloween party. Maybe I’m a kitten. Well, I’m 36 years old, and I’m still each of these girls.
I still don’t know who I am.
I recognized this pattern of somewhat delayed adolescence for the first time in my late 20’s. I was still good girl. I went to church. I led my small group. I served in the children’s ministry. I led the singles co-ed group. I checked all the boxes.
And then I went home.
At home I dated boys (yes, 35-year-old boys) who I shouldn’t have dated – who, I mind you, also went to church with me and served alongside me before we went to nightclubs and bars far more often than we got to know each other for real. I went to the tanning bed – for the very first time ever in my life – yes, at 28 years old. I bought clothes on credit. Learned to play tennis on credit. But still dreamed of a day when I wouldn’t have to do any of it anymore and could just go back to being me. Whoever that was.
30th birthday – in Las Vegas, but it was on a business trip – promise! Most recently blogging, of all things, has brought out this schizophrenic state of not really knowing who I am. The only thing about having this problem now is that I’m not protected by my age anymore. Thirty-six-year-olds know who they are.
I started out blogging just wanting to be known. If you don’t know, in the blogging world there are a few “cool groups”. One talks a lot about being writers and fearless and the importance of telling our stories and living our dreams. I so want to be one of them.
Then there are the Christian homemaker bloggers – the mommy bloggers if you will. I tried to get into this group, too, except that I was only a mama-wanna-be at the time. I knew nothing about daily docket printables or menu planning or cleaning schedules. And really it all seemed quite annoying to me. But my dream was to be a mommy. Since I was finally married, it was the perfect time to try to break into this group.
And there’s the theologian blogger types. The ones who are a little more cutting edge and say things that shock people and debate and are really, really smart. Of all the blogs, I like these the most. I learn the most from them. I see the world the most through them. I want to be them too.
Recently a friend said to me something that might seem just downright mean, but it was completely liberating when I heard it. She was referring to the cool group at our church. Yes, we have a cool group of thirty-something year old women at our church who don’t let you in pretty much unless you have a pass. Anyway, my friend said to me, “Brenda, you don’t have the personality to be in that group.”
It’s like the world just released me.
So I’m here to declare that I really don’t know who I am. At, yes, 36 years old. But I know a little more about who I’m not. And right now, that feels pretty good.
Do you feel like you know who you are – at any age?
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Beware of Becoming a Blog Follower
Has the term “blog groupie” been invented yet? If not, I’m inventing it because I am one! There are a few bloggers who I am total groupie about. Not only do a read their posts, but I like to know where they went to school, how many children they have, what’s their favorite ice-cream flavor. It’s a little embarrassing, but it’s the truth. I get star-struck easily. And if I happen to meet them in real life (which I have on occasion), I even get nervous!
Image courtesy of CoolDesign / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Recently a blog post was shared in my Facebook feed by one of the bloggers who I would probably get nervous meeting. The comment accompanying it said something to the effect that “if you don’t already read [the shared blog], then you should, it’s a must-read.”
Then, a few days later, another blogger – this time not just a blogger but an author, a speaker, a really famous Christian blogger/writer person – shared a post from [the same blog] recommended by the previous blogger.
Then another big-time Christian blogger guest posted on [this same blog] that I had seen mentioned previously by the two other bloggers.
Now three Christian bloggers had recommended [this blog]. I was familiar with [this blog] that all three of these bloggers recommended. Something a few weeks previous came across my newsfeed from her blog, and I checked it out. Like some of them, this blogger isn’t really just a blogger. She’s an author, speaker. She’s even been on T.V. She’s a famous person.
But what I read really disturbed me. It’s not just that controversial social issues were being discussed. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it was the way Truth was being represented. And even more so that these three Christians bloggers, who I would get nervous meeting, recommended me read her blog.
As I looked around in her big-ish corner of the world-wide-web, Jesus was talked about . . . along with Buddha, the Koran, and other eastern religions. And meditation. And hell. And other things that were not the Truth of the Gospel.
It was a light bulb moment for me.
It was like God pricked my heart right then. Watch your star-struckedness!
Just because someone writes about Jesus, doesn’t make her words Truth. (and that includes my words, too, my friends!)
Just because a big-blogger, writer, speaker, T.V. personality, recommends, guest posts, or says, “You have to check out this blog!”, doesn’t mean that it’s a recommendation I should trust.
I read lots and lots of stuff online. But am I holding what I read up to the Word of God to see how it stands against Truth? The Bible is very clear that false teachers and prophets abound all around us – possibly even in the Christian blogs we hang out in. With the internet we are susceptible to them more than ever.
But what about the young Christian, new in her faith and soaking up anything she can find about Jesus? Maybe she follows these three Christian bloggers who have just recommended, quoted, and guest posted for [this other blogger/writer]. Is she being led haphazardly by this recommendation?
So, this is my caution to blog followers:
1. Hold everything you read up to the Word of God. We will not agree on everything (Titus 3:9), but the Gospel shouldn’t be a place of discrepancy.
2. Be careful what you promote, endorse, and share. No, there’s no way to know everything about a person. I recommended Rob Bell’s DVDs to several people before he wrote Love Wins, so I’m just as guilty as the next person. But now I am mindful of it. That young Christian needs to know Truth, and if she’s looking up to you, then you’re the one who needs to point her to it.
I know you might be dying to know [the blogger/writer] I’m referring to in this post. I’m not sharing the name because the purpose is not to get an online Christian war started. It doesn’t matter who it is. The purpose of this post is to share with you a trend I’m seeing online in the Christians blogging world. A trend my heart’s been pricked by. It’s the ever so slight, innocent, bend towards a type of political correctness when it comes to the Gospel. I can try to be politically correct about many things but the Gospel of Jesus is not one of them.
We have to beware of becoming a blog follower and instead focus on being a Jesus follower.
And that includes myself.
“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.’ 1 Peter 5:8
What can you add to this conversation?
