love for uganda [a guest post and donation giveaway]

i had to tell you guys about my friend Jami. she's someone that i've been fortunate enough to meet through blogging. i mean, the fact that it's possible to have friends you never would have met otherwise, just because you write a blog and they write a blog and you happen to be going to the same conference two years ago? pretty mind-blowing. and she's amazing, you guys. hilarious and kind and so easy going. and now i'll let her tell you about the rest... all of the below is from Jami:

today is the day! the day you get to see all the goodies up for grabs.
aaaand, i'm nervous. there i said it. i feel better already.

if you read my post from last week you know that hubby is part of a mission team going to uganda this summer.

we are thrilled to be able to participate and can not wait to see what the Lord does.

the team will be traveling with children of the nations spending time teaching and loving on children in group homes. they will also be visiting refugee camps, building a laundry facility and planting fruit trees.

the children they will be spending time with have been displaced by AIDS and war.

just the thought of it is heartbreaking to me. so many children with no parents and without a home. i long to look into their little faces. to tell them Jesus loves them. to tell them i love them.

for the time being, however,  i feel called to send my hubby off with as much support and prayer as possible.

will you pray for him and the entire team? pray that everyone they come in contact with will see and feel the love they have come to bring.

we are also in need of financial support. some wonderful friends have rallied behind me to make this fun giveaway possible. i am beyond grateful for and humbled by their support.

please give what you can. a little. a lot. every dollar is appreciated.

here are all the entry details:

*all of these items were donated by the shops and persons listed. this giveaway is open to US residents only. anyone of course, is free to give, however the gift sets will be shipped to US winners only. everyone can enter this giveaway once by leaving a comment with your name here and telling me that you shared this giveaway via twitter/facebook/instagram.

after that? $10 per comment/entry. click the "donate" button at the bottom of this post to donate through paypal. donate $20 leave 2 comments. donate $100 leave 10 comments. easy peasy right?

**please leave your email address with at least one of your donation comments so i can contact you if you win. the winners will be chosen using random.org and announced on monday, may 20th.

ok! let's get to the good good stuff.

there are 2 sets of prizes. so 2 winners! holla!

set #1

set #1 includes:
- color pop necklace, feather necklace & aqua vintage inspired earrings from happy days
- gray and white polka dot infinity scarf form lovelylittlewhimsy
- 1 necklace from heathers happys, winner's choice
- 2 prints from blossom&vine, winner's choice
- 10" teal wreath with fabric flowers from small town joy
- $20 target gift card


set #2

set #2 includes:

-2 necklaces & 1 needlepoint from hope homemade, winner's choice 

- 1 print from blossom&vine, winner's choice

-1 7" twig & flower wreath from florero

-1 necklace from heathers happys, winner's choice

-1 print from katygirl designs, winner's choice
- key necklace from salvage517

-$20 target gift card

bonus set
ok, a little bonus for you. because we are so grateful for everyone's support there will also be a winner of these fabulous items!

-a custom designed blog header from danielle burkleo worth $35.


  - a custom made clutch from jenni carlisle{@ragamuffinbeauties on instagram}

one more thing...

my dear friend carina has come up with another way you can support us.
for every arrow necklace purchased from her shop she will donate $10 to our uganda fund.
you can't really beat that.

well there you have it!

please visit all of these shops. these are some truly wonderful women.

and will you spread the word? tweet, facebook, instagram, blog about it? we would be super grateful.

TO DONATE AND TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY, HEAD OVER TO JAMI'S BLOG

a few quick updates

i can't believe it's been almost a month since i've posted anything on this here blog... i guess i've been busy? here are some of the things i've been up to though, that i wanted to share with you:

first of all, i added some prints to the shop as instant downloads. so you can buy and download right away, to print it yourself from home. the great thing about this option is
a) you don't have to pay for shipping
b) you don't have to wait for shipping
c) you can print as many as you want! if you have three gifts to give... 
like maybe a last minute mother's day gift? you can print out four for the price of one download (one for yourself of course)!

find the instant downloads here

second, i've been busy making some announcements and invitations for my zazzle store. with zazzle.com, you get to personalize and customize everything yourself, right on the website, and then order straight from them! i make a little royalty from every sale, and you get amazing quality products shipped to your door (really quickly, by the way!)

here are some of my latest designs. i guess you could say i was on a chalkboard kick of sorts?

basic "you're invited" chalkboard invitation

it's a girl chalkboard announcement

it's a boy chalkboard announcement

bridal shower chalkboard invitation [my best seller]

** also available in burlap and in pink linen

baby shower chalkboard invitation

burlap birth announcement

zazzle is almost always running a sale, so make sure you sign up for their emails to stay informed of what's going on. you can get some really great deals, and i'm telling you- the quality of their invitations & announcements is excellent and their printing/shipping is super fast! can't go wrong.

a mother's day sale

mother's day is always tricky in our family. both my mom and mother-in-law's birthdays are within one day of each other, and always within a few days of mother's day (if not actually falling ON mother's day some years). that's a lot of gifting and sometimes it's hard to come up with new ideas each year, you know? we usually do photos of the kids, a photo book, or something else meaningful. my mom always told me growing up that she'd rather have a gift i made her (no matter how lame) than something i bought. so i'm going with that. i usually always tuck a little print into their gifts, too. because that's sort of like a gift that keeps on giving, i think. plus it falls into the category of something i made.

so i thought a 25% off sale would be fun, because maybe you want to gift a lovely print for mother's day too?

use MAMA25 at checkout

 from now through May 1st to guarantee delivery before mother's day.

click here to shop

overcome the lie | He just loves me

i remember it so vividly, like it was yesterday. i was about 22, in the shower [i know] where all the best thinking and praying happens, and trying to figure out what i could do to feel like God really loved me. i knew He loved me because i had heard it all my life but i just couldn't shake this feeling that there was something more i could do to make sure. really, i was searching for something that could help me feel like i was worthy of His love.

i'm not sure why God chose that day in the shower to finally let it sink in like it did, but this little thought flickered through my scattered brain:

there is nothing i could do [or not do] to make God love me any less.

He loves me because HE.IS.LOVE. it's just that simple. there's nothing in me that changed His mind or recommended me to Him. He just loves because that's Who He is.

and then this second part hit me even harder, because i've always been the good girl who thought i had to earn God's Grace and thought there was something i could do to really make myself worth His love.

there is nothing i could do [or not do] to convince God to love me any MORE than He already does.

for goodness sake, while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me [Romans 5:8]. it doesn't get any MORE than that. it's already a mind-blowing, infinite, radical Love. how could i dare think it should ever be more than all of that?

my life began to change that day. i could finally [slowly-but-surely] let go of my own boxed up view of God and i could finally just bask in the freedom that i'm loved. the same today and the same yesterday and the same since before i was born and the same tomorrow. no matter what i did to mess it up or to feel more worthy of it, He just loves me infinitely.

there's such a lightness and freshness about that Truth for me. i can't say that every single day since then i abide in that Truth and that i never waiver back to my old ways of thinking. it takes work to break down a belief system you've held your whole life. but i'll tell you when it starts to become second nature: when i'm in the Word constantly and i allow the Truth to drown out the lies in my head. 

i'll go through dry seasons every so often, sometimes longer than others, it's an ebb and flow. i'm not prefect and my view of God isn't perfect and really it's all okay because it just draws me back in to Him, to learn it all over again.

i'm convinced that the only way to have victory, even if it's only temporary, is to mind-over-matter believe the Truth of God's Word. there are so many millions of lies that come at us every single day. we make up some of them, the enemy plants others, and the world just spews them everywhere. the Truth really does set us free. and for some things, we need a constant filling and re-filling of the Truth or we'll wander back into captivity.

some verses that i have committed to memory and always come back to for refreshing:

Romans 5:8 | But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. friends, when we were at our worst, our lowest, in the very pit? that's when He died for us. nothing in us could have convinced Him to do it. it was all His Love. His unchanging and unwavering, lavish Love.

Psalm 103:11 | For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him. it doesn't say that it can get bigger or smaller, it's just infinite. incomprehensible to us, it's that much.

** feel free to print this guy out if you want. it's one of my all-time favorite passages for this reason **

in light of all this lies vs. truth talk today, i wanted to tell you about a movement that i believe is changing lives. it's called Overcome the Lie and it's all about encouraging and challenging women to believe the Truth instead of the lies. i love how they said it here, so i'll just quote them instead of paraphrasing:

Positive thinking is not the Gospel and the Gospel is not positive thinking. It is not positive thinking that gives us the authority to overcome and it is not positive messaging that transforms lives. It simply is not. 

Every day, we start with Jesus and we end with Jesus. Any authority we have to overcome is because Jesus overcame. The Cross changed everything; the Cross made it possible for us to be daughters, the Cross made healing and wholeness available to us, and the Cross cancelled the power of death and disease and sin.

this is hard work, you know. since there are so many channels that bring us lies and only One avenue for the Truth. it takes discernment and prayer, but most of all a knowledge of the Truth itself. if you don't know what the Truth is, how can you believe it? and how can you recognize when a lie masquerades itself as the Truth? get in the Word, friends. and start committing it to memory. that's where the heart change and belief-change and mind-change start to happen for real.

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i hope you'll head over to overcomethelie.org and check it out. you can follow along on Twitter with #overcomethelie and like them on Facebook too.

oh, and they also have a cute shop with lots of inspiring prints. [i even designed one of them!]

sometimes it looks a little different than i imagined

my to-do list looks like most of yours:

laundry [fold & actually put away]
groceries
pick up living room
print orders
dance class
write?
make dinner
pick up dry cleaning
design?
bathtime
hang out with husband

lots of chores and errands and little tasks, with the occasional is-there-time-to-create? thrown in there. i'm a wife and a mom and a home-keeper-together-er and i have a couple part-time-from-home jobs for income, too. i mean, it's pretty much a crap-shoot whether there will be time to create. and lately i've been discouraged over that.

i like to design. i like to write. i like to take in beauty and give out my interpretation of it. i want to write music. i want to practice my non-existent keyboard because the piano still isn't tuned. i want to have a life full of margin and free-time to just do what my brain feels most at-home and my heart feels most at-peace doing.

but that's just not reality. i don't think it's reality for any of us. but that doesn't cancel out the desire, and it doesn't mean that we don't have anything beautiful to offer the world. it just means that we have to steal the moments, or we have to allow it to look a little different than we'd hoped or imagined. we have to settle for a few lines here, a little melody there. half a print started and another one barely finished.

[new print here]

but then when it's time and it can all come together, it's this spiritual experience of meeting with God in His secret place to create something lasting. and when it happens? it's always worth the wait and the struggle and what emerges is a treasure that we get to contribute to a world starving for Truth and art and beauty. i think it's one of God's ways of reminding us that He has called us by name, even though it doesn't always look how we thought it might.

i'm trying to be grateful for those times, even if they're few-and-far-between. but i'm also trying to be grateful for the times when there's no creating. because the things that i am doing are of utmost importance and i'll never get these years back.

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i hope you'll take time to read through these:

by Sarah Bessey | In which art is like manna

by Christa Wells | This one's for the mothers

by Cassidy Robinson | Bloom where you're planted

then watch this video of Christy Knockels.

they've been instrumental in shaping my attitude and perspective here. just knowing that i'm not the only one, you know? if you struggle with what i've shared, you'll be so glad to know that real authors and artists and songwriters and mothers struggle the same way.