A Message to My Childhood Self

When I look back through the lens of time, I had a pretty good childhood. My first 16 years were spent in Massachusetts as an upper middle class family. The rest of my life I have been in Florida. We are a strong family and we weathered most of what life threw at us pretty well.

Thinking back, the one piece of advice I wish I had known is…”Be flexible, don’t hold onto your plans too tightly.” I have always been a planner, a bit of a control freak and part dreamer. I enjoy change for change’s sake but I don’t like when change is forced upon me.

As a young girl I had my plans- finish high school, go to college, be a teacher/actress/singer, get married, have 4 children, live in a nice house and live happily ever after. A lot of those plans have come to fruition, but not at all how I had planned them. I was a teacher-I homeschooled my children for 16 years. I am an actress and a singer I have been in many community productions and even one professional one. I’ve sung on the worship team at church, and I have sung at countless weddings, funerals and special events. I have directed numerous plays and musicals in the church and homeschool community. This is not what I thought my life would look like but God has used my dreams and used them for His glory!

We live in a fallen world and things like illness, corruption, addictions and temptations befall us and those around us. These evils and others cause pot holes in the path of our lives. Often times they even cause sink holes which require detours-changes in the path, so we can move forward. Fortunately, “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” Psalm 37:23 NLT.

Turning your life, your hopes and your dreams over to Jesus when you accept Him as your Lord and Savior does NOT mean your life will be smooth sailing from there on out. It does mean that as you grow to be more like Jesus your hopes and dreams become the hopes and dreams He has for you. It also means you will never be alone again and that He will be with you when you come upon a pot hole or sink hole along the road of life. He will be there to give you wisdom in your decision making and if you listen to Him your path will be made clear.

I pray regularly for my Compassion child, Aderlin and I always pray that he will seek God’s wisdom and plans for his life. I pray that because of our help through Compassion International, he will rise above his circumstances and grow into an influential man of God.

About Compassion International Blog Month

The goal for Compassion blog month is for 3,160 more children to receive sponsors. It is easy to sponsor a child…the hard part for me was to pick which child to sponsor! It only costs $38 a month to change the life of a child. If I can do this so can you. Just click on the widget in my sidebar or the links in this post to meet some of the children waiting for you to make a difference in their lives.

The post A Message to My Childhood Self appeared first on The Mom Maven.

Earlier this week we were finally able to have our family meeting about choosing our Compassion child. We decided on 3 criteria as a family-location, gender and age. The location we chose was the Dominican Republic. We chose the DR because both my oldest son and I have been on mission trips to the DR and we have a connection to the country. We chose to sponsor a boy because we have two boys. We chose to sponsor a teenager because both of my boys are teens and I have read a lot about how the teens are harder to find sponsors for.

Aderlin Hernandez Ozuna-Our Compassion Child

Thursday I went to the Compassion Sponsorship website put in our parameters and 4 young men’s pictures and information popped up. I prayed as I read about each one, wishing I could sponsor them all. In the end I felt led to choose 17yo Aderlin. Aderlin’s birthday is next month and we are excited to begin corresponding with him!

This week’s blogging assignment is to write a letter, poem, or prayer from the perspective of a sponsored child. I chose to write a haiku.

Chosen

God answered my prayer
A Christian family chose
To love and help me

I hope and pray that you will click the link above and prayerfully choose a child to sponsor and join us in helping children who live in poverty.

The post Compassion Blog Month Coming to a Close appeared first on The Mom Maven.

This week Compassion is sponsoring a Pinterest Contest! There are 2 ways you can enter so read carefully.

1. Create a Pinterest board titled “My Sponsored Child.”

On the board you create…

a) Pin the above image to your “My Sponsored Child” board and associate the following link with the pin: compassion.com/my-sponsored-child.
b) Pin any one of the following and tag this second pin with #mysponsoredchild.

• A photo of you and your sponsored child together.
• A photo of you with a letter from your sponsored child.
• A photo of you holding a photo of your sponsored child.
• Pin anything else you want that is relevant to your sponsored child or Compassion.

Once you have created your board, share the URL with us, along with your contact information, using the form on this page.

You will receive one contest entry for every repin your “Pin It for My Sponsored Child” pin receives.

2. You can also enter the contest by sponsoring a child via compassion.com/my-sponsored-child during the contest period. You will receive 30 contest entries for each child you sponsor.

All winners will be chosen randomly. Ten separate sponsors will win a $25 gift for their sponsored child. Five separate sponsors will win a $100 gift for their sponsored child’s family.

The contest runs from Sept. 17 to 23, 2012. Courtesy of Compassion International: http://blog.compassion.com/my-sponsored-child-pinterest-contest/#ixzz26poXzv00

We will be sponsoring our child this week! I hope you will be too. I’d love to help you gain entries by repinning your pins so please leave your board’s URL in the comments so I can help you help kids.

The post Compassion International Pinterest Contest appeared first on The Mom Maven.

Lord, we have spent a lot of time together this week. As I have prayed for Sierra, Katelyn, Garrett, Alex, Aaron, Brandon and Tiffany, their families, and our entire church as we walk through this difficult trial, you have been faithful. You are always faithful, You never leave us. It is us who move away from you. Lord, as I lift up “my kids” after this accident I also think about the fact that they are Your kids and You love them even more than we do, which is a concept I sometimes have a hard time grasping. As each of these 7 are precious to you, so are the millions of kids around the world who have never heard about You. Kids living in poverty who need food, clothing, education and a relationship with you.

Lord, I’m amazed at your infinite love and mercy. Lord, as we as a family choose which child to sponsor, I pray for your direction and guidance. You have a specific child set aside for us and we want to make that connection.

Photo courtesy of Compassion International

I am grateful for the 837 children who were sponsored last week! Please bless every family who took this step of faith. There are 2,271 children left to reach the goal for Compassion Blogger Month. Please stir hearts, as you have stirred mine and send people to the Sponsor a Child page so they too can touch a life.

Thank you for the opportunity to share Your Message and the message of Compassion International.

-Cindy

The post A Letter to God-Compassion Bloggers appeared first on The Mom Maven.

We have been married 21 years and our finances have never been this unstable. We have 2 kids in college and we have taken in a teenage girl from church. My husband hasn’t been paid in over 3 months but guess what? This month we will be committing to sponsor a Compassion child. I know in my heart that now is the time. When Aaron gets back from working out of town this week we will get together as a family and discuss if we want to sponsor a boy or a girl and what country we want them to be from. We will also decide how old we would like the child to be. This is a family project, a mission, where we can all give financial support and prayer support to a child who has even less than we do. With God’s help, we will be able to help give a child a better life and a better future.

This month Compassion International has set a goal of having 3,108 children sponsored  through the work of the Compassion Bloggers Network. I am honored to be a part of that network and I have a 3 step call to action for you.

1.  Visit Compassion’s sponsor a child page and look around.
2. Pray. Ask God to show you if this is the right time for you to step out and change the life of a child. If His answer is, “Yes!” Have your own family meeting and then come back here and move on to step 3. If His answer is, “Not now.” Please pray regularly for the Compassion International organization and all of the families they touch.
3. Commit to sponsor  a child or two!

Disclosure: I ask you do do these things through my links because, as much as I whole-heartedly believe in this organization, I am also in a little competition with other Compassion Bloggers to see who drives the most traffic to the site AND who brings in the most new sponsors. I am receiving a gift for this post but I would have written it even if I didn’t receive a thing. All opinions are 100% mine.

The post No More Excuses appeared first on The Mom Maven.