After three and a half years, and prayerful consideration I’ve come to the place where it’s time for me to step down from online ministry to better serve my family. Since it was also a good time for many of our writers to put down their pens, we decided to make this, July issue, our final.

I have been incredibly blessed with a team of faith-focussed writers who I pray will continue to minister to you as they walk on new paths.

I’ll leave our archived devotions online so that readers can continue to visit and dig through our articles for continual blessing and growth.

Along with our final farewell, I leave you this verse from Ecclesiastes:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1

Blessings,

Founder and Editor,
Christian Women Online Magazine
“Uniting Women of Faith”

Read my column—Live Well!
My blog: Darlene Schacht.com

We are blessed to be joined this month by Anna Jackson, owner of the online store, “Evangelism Stuff.” Anna and her husband Dale have a unique way of encouraging the world to consider their faith, and to see that life here on earth is temporal, while life in Christ is eternal.

Ann is also a Lady Mentor for the Ambassador’s Academy, with a passion for preaching the gospel. This month, Sunny Shell sits down for a blessed chat with this mother of two, to… Read More

Ten thousand hours is a good benchmark—that’s one hour a day, five days a week, for forty years (with two weeks of vacation each year!). If every Christian decided to spend 10,000 hours developing their capacity in a single cultural domain (painting, stress fracture analysis, genomic sequencing, you name it) and also 10,000 hours on the spiritual disciplines that embody dependence on God (solitude, silence, fasting, study, prayer), in forty years we’d have a completely different world. How are you spending your 10,000 hours?”

How Faithfulness Makes a Genius

Dormant geniuses lie sleeping… Read More

Dear Sandy:  Our family life can be so helter-skelter.  Is there anything you do to help keep your family “together” not just physically, but also mentally and spiritually?

On Sunday our family gathered in the living room to talk about business.

Not work-related business but family business.

We came to do business with our leader. Yes, my husband led the discussion but the One who led the spirit of the half-hour discussion was God.

I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer …

I looked… Read More

Have you ever felt like God was speaking to you? Maybe it wasn’t in an audible voice, but in a still small whisper to your heart, an insistent urgency that won’t go away and is confirmed in things people say, verses you read and other “coincidences” that happen.  When my husband Curt and I determined to get out of debt, we knew it was because God was telling us to. This was confirmed in our circumstances and in the unified attitude we both had about this huge… Read More

I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn’t met me yet.
- Rodney Dangerfield

I usually feel pretty good about myself when I wake up—for the five minutes I refrain from looking in the mirror. That’s when the voices start: “your thighs have more dimples than a Shirley Temple look-a-like convention!” they say, or “what kind of ’80’s- wannabe haircut is that?”

Then I take my older son to school, and notice that the work-outside-the-home moms look… Read More

Do you have too much stuff? I can relate! For some reason we seem to end up with a lot of excess things that we just might be able to use “someday.” We get nice “hand me downs” from relatives who are downsizing, we plan a move to a new house and hang on to extra things because aren’t sure what we will need, or our children head off to college and suddenly we have more in our house than we really use regularly.

Life… Read More

It is with sadness that I write these words.  It is time for me to end writing this column.  As most of you are aware, I have had a very difficult year or so, and right now my heart is not into writing anymore.  So, after much prayer and thinking things through, I have decided to “retire” this column.

I want to thank Darlene for giving me this wonderful opportunity to minister to others.  Darlene and I “met” several years ago via our blogs, and it was… Read More

Summer’s here and so are the high temperatures! It’s time to lighten up… on our skin care and makeup. Most likely you will be spending more time outside at the pool, beach and in the sun–all the more reason to take care of your skin suit and keep it healthy and glowing (not greasy).

Summer skin tends to get oilier and you need to adjust your skin care to suit your skin type. First and foremost drink plenty of water to hydrate your entire body, replenish sweat and to… Read More

Like many aspiring writers, I have a blog. I wasn’t contributing to it regularly for several months until recently when I was inspired by the idea of freedom. I started thinking how a blog is the perfect place to explore things. It’s like a journal of your thoughts that you open up and say, “Here. Have a look.” I’ve said before it’s like taking your shirt off in front of the class. It’s not natural. Bloggers are all closet exhibitionists.

Some people do it because they’ve caught the fame… Read More

As you read this I will be on my way up north. The boys look forward with great anticipation to our yearly bass fishing trip.  I am not much for slimy worms and hooks, but I love the great outdoors.  The eagles are breath taking and I enjoy listening to the sounds of Loons.  I pray you are having a wonderful summer and have had a chance to get away from daily routine, even if it is for a weekend.  While the boys are fishing I am sitting… Read More

I have chosen these frozen drinks for my recipes this month because besides being cool and refreshing – which is what we thirst for in July - the very name of them reminds us of how awesome our God is!

You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me!  I sing for joy because of what you have done. (Psalm 92:4, NLT)

When I was a child, there were Saturday night movies called “Chiller Thriller.”  Rarely was I allowed to stay up until the midnight hour and… Read More

Terri Blackstock hasn’t always written for the Lord. Just over a decade ago she was an award-winning secular novelist writing for publishers such as HarperCollins, Harlequin, and Silhouette. With thirty-two titles published and 3.5 million books in print, she found that she was miserable. The compromises she had made in her career had taken their toll on her spiritual life, and she yearned to renew her relationship with Christ.

Tune in to hear about her journey, what it’s like to write Godly fiction, and the story

What first attracted me to Rena’s blog was the text on her header which reads:

“Falling on my face is still forward motion and it helps me to remember that 3 steps forward with 2 steps back is still one step closer to where I want to be.”  I really liked the way she worded this on her header because even when we fall forwards we are indeed still closer to the finish line.  Rena has a 21 year old daughter and 19 year old son and has been married for 24… Read More