It was a Wednes­day after­noon. Noah and I were going about our day as nor­mal. He was fight­ing his nap, and I was try­ing to work and play with him at the same time (a skill I have yet to master).

James called and said words I wasn’t expecting:

“We just had an all-staff meet­ing. They are cut­ting 30% of our church’s min­istries, sup­port staff, and pas­toral staff.”

Wow.

As deci­sions were made by the senior staff, the next few weeks were high stress. Of course, every­one was tense at church with the poten­tial of their uncer­tain future.

But we tried to pro­tect our home from becom­ing the same envi­ron­ment. Of course, we talked about it some, but we tried for the “unknown” not to con­sume our house­hold. After all, Noah’s birth­day was com­ing up. My par­ents were com­ing in town to visit. We had a perk trip to the Bahamas with Beach­body in a few weeks. Grat­i­tude seemed to make more sense than anxiety.

About a week before the final deci­sions were made, I was pray­ing for James when God brought our son, Noah, to my mind.

Michelle, how has Noah behaved dif­fer­ently the last few weeks?

Dif­fer­ently? Hmmm. Well, he’s played. He’s smiled and laughed. He’s gone for walks in his stroller and played at the park. He’s yelled at Bauer and tried to throw every­thing he can in the toi­let. He’s hid my cell phone…and my keys…and the TV remote. I guess he hasn’t behaved any differently.

Exactly.

Umm, God? No offense…but I’m not fol­low­ing where You’re going with this.

Noah’s not behav­ing any dif­fer­ently because He’s not fear­ful for his future. You’ve always cared for him and pro­vided for him. What rea­son have you given him to think that would change?

That’s when it clicked.

If Noah doesn’t doubt his imper­fect par­ents, why would James and I doubt our per­fect God?

After all, we can’t for­get where we were this time last year. We were begin­ning our 3rd week in the NICU with Noah after he was born 8 weeks pre­ma­ture. At the time, we’d never gone through any­thing so dif­fi­cult… but God used that sit­u­a­tion to bring Him­self so much glory. Weekly, peo­ple still com­ment on Noah’s pic­tures and tell me how see­ing his face reminds them of God’s faithfulness.

After that, my anx­i­ety stopped. God gave me a peace in my heart that I can’t explain.

Let’s be real here. How does it make sense to real­ize my hus­band is going to lose his job and be okay with it?

Even more…how can I actu­ally be excited about it because I can’t wait to see how cre­atively God provides?

Two weeks ago, James did end up being one of 12 full-time staff mem­bers let go.

Instead of ask­ing a lot ques­tions, our hearts are full as we wait in antic­i­pa­tion for God to reveal Him­self and His plan. I know we’ll tell this story some­day, and the hand of God will be so evi­dent, we won’t even remem­ber the inse­cure moments.

God has already spo­ken and taught us sev­eral lessons over the last week. I’ll be shar­ing them on the blog so stay tuned.

It’s good. Trust me.

For my prayer war­riors, here’s how you can pray for us:

1) Please be pray­ing for the church we just left. Being down 12 staff mem­bers, every­one who remains has new roles and a heav­ier workload.

2) Please pray for our next place of min­istry. Pray that God will bring the next place we should serve to us quickly and that He will be shap­ing our hearts to best serve Him where He places us.

3) Pray for our house in Austin to sell & that we will find a great place to live in our TBD city.

4) Pray God will con­tinue to bless my Beach­body busi­ness and pro­vide for us finan­cially dur­ing this time of transition.

5) Pray for Noah to stay healthy and stay flex­i­ble as the next few weeks/months will prob­a­bly mean trav­els, pack­ing a house, unpack­ing a house, and get­ting adjusted to a new envi­ron­ment. He is resilient…but at the age of one, he is already a crea­ture of habit!

6) Pray for God to con­tinue to send us sources of encour­age­ment and reminders of His provision.

“Is not your fear of God your con­fi­dence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?” — Job 4:6

“Thou­sands of girls that think beauty is an outer issue, and really it’s a heart issue.” — Kylie Bisutti

I seri­ously stood up and began clap­ping when I heard the for­mer Vic­to­ria Secret model say the above quote on Good Morn­ing Amer­ica this week.

If you haven’t heard the news, 21-year-old Kylie quit one of the top pay­ing mod­el­ing gigs in the world because she felt increas­ingly con­victed about how her body is for her hus­band, and lin­gerie mod­el­ing wasn’t hon­or­ing the com­mit­ment she made to him.

But more impor­tantly, she knew her career wasn’t hon­or­ing the Lord. So she quit.

She could have taken the easy way out. She could have said she wanted to focus more on act­ing, or they were think­ing of start­ing a family…but she took the harder option:

The truth.

Kylie con­fessed her con­vic­tions, admit­ted where she felt she had failed, and at the same time, caused every other lin­gerie model to at least con­sider their own moral dilemma.

She has no inten­tions to quit mod­el­ing. But she will only be tak­ing whole­some jobs from now on.

Now, most of us will prob­a­bly never have to make the deci­sion Kylie did. But we all have to make the choice to choose modesty.

I haven’t done mod­esty per­fectly. I remem­ber one dress in par­tic­u­lar that I wore to watch the 2005 Miss Ten­nessee pageant. (Mind you, I com­peted in 2004 and had every inten­tion of com­ing back to com­pete in 2006.)

I knew I wasn’t going to be on the stage in the cen­ter of atten­tion, but I also wanted to make the pageant direc­tors want me to come back to com­pete again. I needed a way to stand out…while sit­ting in the audience.

Enter: shock­ing dress. It was far too short, too low cut, and hugged my body way too close.

But I wore it anyway.

It worked. I turned heads every place I went that night.

But I hated every sec­ond of it.

I felt so uncom­fort­able. Not only was I cold, but I hated the way I was being looked up and down. I felt cheap. I felt used.

But most of all…I felt like a total hypocrite.

I talked like I was God’s lit­tle princess…but I looked far from right­eous roy­alty that night.

Mov­ing for­ward, I made the deci­sion that “mod­est is hottest.” Not only does cov­er­ing myself up pro­tect me from ever hav­ing to go through the same emo­tions I had that one night, it pro­tects the males around me too.

For those of you who aren’t mar­ried yet, if you think like I used to, you may think, “Well, I don’t have a hus­band yet, so my body still belongs to me.”

Wrong.

Our bod­ies belong to God first.

“Do you not know that your bod­ies are tem­ples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. There­fore honor God with your bod­ies.” — 1 Corinthi­ans 6:19–20

Look­ing out for our husband’s good begins at birth, not when we meet him.

“She brings him [her hus­band] good, not harm, all the days of her life.” — Proverbs 31:12

I’ll con­clude with a plea to the young girls who may stum­ble upon this article:

Please remem­ber Kyle’s words that true beauty comes from the heart. God cre­ated you to be so spe­cial. You are the only you He put on this Earth. Please don’t make the mis­take I did and sell your­self short by try­ing to look like some­thing He didn’t cre­ate you to be.

Dress in such a way that when you meet your hus­band, he falls in love with your heart first. The kind of man you want to marry will be so thank­ful that you pro­tect his mind from wan­der­ing where it shouldn’t. And he will be even more thank­ful that you aren’t dis­play­ing your­self for every other man to see.

Mod­est IS hottest.

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” — Proverbs 22:6

I remem­ber recit­ing this verse to myself over and over again while hold­ing Noah in the NICU. Noah was hooked up to so many mon­i­tors. But when James and I would play wor­ship songs on our iPhones or sing softly as we rocked him, we got to wit­ness mini mir­a­cles as his vitals would instantly improve.

God does love lit­tle children.

So when I saw this prayer jar my friend Mea­gan made for her lit­tle boy, I instantly wanted one. After all, Noah can’t talk yet, so I saw this as an oppor­tu­nity to get him involved in our daily prayer time.

A few weeks later, Mea­gan blessed us with our own prayer jar for Noah. (She’s unbe­liev­ably tal­ented, so check out her blog where she details a lot of her crafts, fam­ily activ­i­ties & lessons God is teach­ing her.)

Accord­ing to Mea­gan, mak­ing your own prayer jar is “sim­ple.” Well, that may be…but it sure is a lot pret­tier than the one I could have made!

She begins with a mason jar, dec­o­rates it accord­ing to the theme of the nurs­ery. As you can see, she went along with our “brain­wash Noah into being an ath­lete” theme.

Then, she painted tongue depres­sors with acrylic paint. Boom — you have a prayer stick! I’ll admit, it does sound simple…but I doubt I would have been able to make tongue depres­sors look like foot­balls, bas­ket­balls and baseballs!

I took a Sharpie and wrote the names of our imme­di­ate fam­ily mem­bers and clos­est friends on each of the prayer sticks. We even added sticks for Noah’s future sibling(s) and his future wife.

Since Noah gets extra fussy at night, we do our prayer time before his after­noon nap. I sim­ply let him pick out one of the sticks from the jar, and we pray for whoever’s name he pulls.

I love my own prayer time, but pray­ing with my lit­tle boy is becom­ing one of my favorite times of the day.

“At that time the dis­ci­ples came to Jesus, say­ing, “Who is the great­est in the king­dom of heaven?” And call­ing to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like chil­dren, you will never enter the king­dom of heaven. Who­ever hum­bles him­self like this child is the great­est in the king­dom of heaven.” — Matthew 18:1–4

I’ve read this pas­sage dozens of time. But now that I’m a mom, not only do I see the world dif­fer­ently, but I read Scrip­ture with a new under­stand­ing too.

Noah is mak­ing new dis­cov­er­ies every day. He’s pulling up, grab­bing at any­thing he sees us hold (cell phone, TV remote, water bot­tles), bab­bling MaMa, DaDa and Baba (for Bauer, of course!)

And it finally hap­pened.…Check out my crawler!

Now that he’s mov­ing around pretty well, it’s inevitable that he will bump his head, get his foot stuck, or scratch his hand. Despite my best efforts, he’s too quick for me to res­cue him every time.

He doesn’t cry right away. After he gets hurt, he imme­di­ately looks up at me to see my reaction.

If I rush to him say­ing, “Oh, baby! Are you okay?” I can expect a melt­down. He sees my con­cern, and he mir­rors my reaction.

But if I gig­gle and say, “Silly boy! You are too big to fit under the couch! I’m sorry you got your hand stuck, but it’s okay. You’re such a big boy!” He snug­gles with me for a minute, dries his tears and goes back to playing.

Read­ing this pas­sage today made me wonder…

What if our first response to life’s hurts was to look up and mir­ror God’s reaction?

Isa­iah 55:8–9 says God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours.

God is not star­tled by the unex­pected (1 John 3:20).

God is not per­plexed when things don’t work out as we planned (Proverbs 16:9).

God doesn’t fear for our future (Jere­miah 29:11–12).

Today, I’m pray­ing to raise Noah in such a way that he never stops look­ing up when he gets hurt.

But instead of copy­ing the reac­tion of his imper­fect Mommy, he’ll be mir­ror­ing the response of his per­fect God.

One of my favorite parts of 2011 was com­ing up with my first prayer calendar.

Yes, I know it’s a bit obses­sive compulsive…but espe­cially now that I’m a mom, I have to be inten­tional to get in my time with my Heav­enly Father. Orga­ni­za­tion helps!

I have mod­i­fied and changed a few things from last year, so here is my revised 2012 Prayer Calendar:

Weekly:

Sun­day: Churches

In addi­tion to pray­ing for our church, I am com­mit­ting to pray for churches where our friends & fam­ilies serve. While I will pray for the tech­ni­cal sides of the ser­vices, as well as staff & lay lead­ers, I will focus on pray­ing for the preach­ing of God’s Word and that hearts will be opened to lis­ten to God’s mes­sage and lives to be changed.

Mon­day: My Church Staff & Families

If I’m aware of a spe­cific request, I’ll lift that up at this time. Other than that, I will pray for each staff pas­tor & their fam­i­lies by name. I pray for James’ rela­tion­ship with each of the pas­tors as they min­is­ter together and that the entire staff will sub­mit to God’s wis­dom rather than rely­ing on their own under­stand­ing. As a minister’s kid and a pastor’s wife, I know some of the dif­fi­cult dynam­ics that come with being a part of a staff fam­ily, so I will keep these in mind as I pray for their families.

Tues­day: Our Ministries

On this day, I’ll lift up the spe­cific min­istries God has entrusted to James and me — mainly the col­lege and sin­gles min­istry at Great Hills. This includes pray­ing for our stu­dents, our lay lead­ers, the off-campus small groups, and upcom­ing events. I’ll also lift up my speak­ing & writ­ing min­istry as well as my fit­ness business.

Wednes­day: My Husband

This day is ded­i­cated to pray­ing for James — our rela­tion­ship, his health, his spir­i­tual growth, his rela­tion­ship with Noah, etc.

Thurs­day: Noah

I get to spend today pray­ing for my lit­tle boy — his health & well being, his growth and devel­op­ment, his activ­i­ties, his friends…but also for his future — that Noah will trust Jesus at a young age and fol­low him closely his entire life and releas­ing him to the Lord to be used how­ever God desires. I’m also pray­ing for his future wife.

Fri­day: Close Friends & The Lost

In addi­tion to pray­ing for our close friends that are like fam­ily, this is the day I pray for those I know who don’t have a rela­tion­ship with Jesus Christ — pray­ing in gen­eral for those who don’t know him and for seeds to be planted in their lives, but also pray­ing specif­i­cally for unbe­liev­ers God has placed in our path by name.

Sat­ur­day: The Lost & My Monthly Prayer Focus

I com­mit this day to pray­ing for prayer requests that come my way through­out the week — whether in per­son or online. (So if you send me a con­tact form with a prayer request, I’ll be lift­ing you up on Sat­ur­days.) I’ll also have an area to pray for depend­ing on the month:

Jan­u­ary — Focus

Since James and I are involved in so many things, I will con­tinue to pray as we make com­mit­ments for 2012 that we will say yes to the right oppor­tu­ni­ties and say no to the wrong oppor­tu­ni­ties. Also, as we have deci­sions to make, I will pray for God’s guid­ance in those decisions.

Feb­ru­ary — James

The month of Valentine’s day, I’ll pray for my hus­band & our marriage.

March — Noah

The month of his birth­day, I’ll pray for my sweet son & his future family.

April — North Amer­i­can Mis­sion Field

I’ll pray for those who are plant­ing churches in the United States.

May — Polit­i­cal Leaders

I will be pray­ing for upcom­ing elec­tions, cur­rent lead­ers in office & their families.

June — Marriages

The most pop­u­lar month of the year to get mar­ried, I’ll spend June pray­ing for the mar­riages of our fam­ily mem­bers and friends, cou­ples we know who are engaged, as well as any­one we know who hav­ing mar­i­tal difficulties.

July — Balance

Dur­ing the most pop­u­lar vaca­tion month, I will pray that James & I are mak­ing the most of our time, finances, min­istries, abil­i­ties, respon­si­bil­i­ties, etc. Make sure that our lives are bal­anced with enough time for Christ, for each other, for oth­ers, as well as rest and restoration.

August — School

As teach­ers and school lead­ers head back to the class­room, I will be pray­ing for them, espe­cially for those who are teach­ers in a pub­lic school and have an oppor­tu­nity to share Christ with those they are around. A new addi­tion this year, I will begin pray­ing for the teach­ers who will have Noah in school some­day and that he will always be a strong wit­ness for Christ in his schools.

Sep­tem­ber — Cur­rent & For­mer Mentors

I have been so blessed to have women who have poured into my life and con­tinue to do so. Whether I’ve been able to sit down with them in per­son, meet them at a con­fer­ence, read one of their books or fol­low them on Twit­ter, I will lift them and their min­istries up to the Lord dur­ing this month.

Octo­ber — Myself

Dur­ing this month, I will pray for me and that my actions will directly align with what God wants from my life.

Novem­ber — Gratitude

The month of Thanks­giv­ing, I will pray for things I am thank­ful for and that God will be con­tin­u­ally cul­ti­vat­ing a grate­ful heart in me.

Decem­ber — Inter­na­tional Missions

Since this is the monthly empha­sis of our denom­i­na­tion with the Lot­tie Moon Christ­mas offer­ing, I will spend this month pray­ing for those who are serv­ing in other coun­tries, for unreached peo­ple groups, and for peo­ple my hus­band and I have met and min­is­tered with on inter­na­tional mis­sion trips.

One other thing I love to accom­pany my prayer time is writ­ing notes of encour­age­ment, which I will send each day to some­one I pray for…even if it’s just a quick email. The impact of know­ing some­one is pray­ing for you can be a game-changer.

**Note: While I love my Type A+ cal­en­dar, I will begin each prayer with an open heart and ask God for a sen­si­tive spirit and for Him to bring things to my mind that need prayer.**

I encour­age you to take this tem­plate and mod­ify it to fit your prayer needs and use it through­out 2012. Be pre­pared to be amazed by the power of prayer!

The most won­der­ful time of the year cer­tainly stirs up mem­o­ries in my heart from my child­hood. Here are a few favorites…

My dad would strate­gi­cally hide jin­gle bells around the house and jin­gle them with­out us see­ing it was him to get my sis­ter, Melody, and me excited. Though he’s never admit­ted to it, I’m also con­vinced that he braved the cold Ten­nessee weather on Christ­mas Eve to stomp on the roof after we went to sleep.

The Christ­mas Eve ser­vice at church was always spe­cial. My favorite part was singing “Silent Night” by can­dle­light. I would always close my eyes and pre­tend I was in Beth­le­hem singing over baby Jesus.

“Santa” would call us over my dad’s ham radio every year on Christ­mas Eve live from his sleigh. Of course, we would ask what snacks we could leave for him and the rein­deer, give last minute reminders of our most desired gift, and of course, be as polite as pos­si­ble to prove our place on the nice list.

I would always sleep in Melody’s room on Christ­mas Eve. Melody is NOT what you would call a “morn­ing per­son.” But the magic of Christ­mas some­how woke her up every year at exactly 5:50am. Since we weren’t allowed to wake our par­ents up until 6am, she would excit­edly wake me up, and we promptly made her bed. That way when we busted in my par­ents’ room a few min­utes early, they couldn’t send us back to bed. Sneaky, sneaky.

Christ­mas morn­ing took FOREVER. And my dad recorded the whole thing. Every­thing is dig­i­tal now, but when we were grow­ing up, it always took 2 VHS tapes to record our fam­ily Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tion. Why did it take so long? I know some fam­i­lies open presents all together. Not mine. We take turns, one at a time, even with stock­ings. Each year, I get as much joy from watch­ing other peo­ple get presents they want or need as I do from get­ting new things myself.

Speak­ing of those home videos, that’s also a fam­ily tra­di­tion. Each year, we have a few favorite videos from past Christ­mases we have to watch…like when Melody opened socks on Christ­mas Eve (she was NOT happy), and when I called my mom by her first name because I couldn’t get her atten­tion (I was 2.)

We watch ran­dom Christ­mas movies. Seri­ously. My favorite Christ­mas movies are ones no one has seen. Your It’s A Won­der­ful Life and White Christ­mas are my All I Want for Christ­mas and Meet Me In St. Louis.

Now, it’s time for my niece, Kate­lyn, and Noah to carry on these tra­di­tions and cre­ate some new ones too.

A favorite already from this year: Melody has started the “Elf on the Shelf” with Kate­lyn. Kate­lyn named it “Shawty” because that’s who Justin Bieber is wait­ing for “Under the Mistle­toe.” I won­der how she’ll feel about that when she gets a lit­tle older…

What’s your favorite fam­ily Christ­mas tradition?

Merry Christ­mas from James, Michelle & Noah!