Great & Convicting Weekend!

I haven't posted in 8 days! That is an incredibly long time! The summer is supposed to be a time that gives me more time to post not less! lol...but oh well. I'm here now.

We got back on Monday night from a great weekend! My Husband, Father-in-law, and two sisters-in-law went to a conference this weekend in Palm Springs.

The conference is called The Resolved Conference and is hosted by Grace Community Church (John MacArthur's church). It's designed for people ages 18-30ish. But people of all ages were there and it was an amazing and refreshing conference.

Many of my heroes of the faith were there:

John MacArthur

Rick Holland

Steve Lawson

Al Mohler

C.J. Mahaney

The weekend was so wonderful and so convicting in many many ways!! 

One thing that particularly struck home with my family and I was what Rick Holland said. He said that him and his wife were talking about how there are only so many more books in your life that you will be able to read. 

This got me to thinking how many books I still want to read like the complete works of Johnathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, and soo many more. It convicted me that so often I waste so much time reading fiction. Now there is nothing wrong with fiction but there are so many edifying and wonderful books to read that I have been feeling convicted to really focus more time on those.

So I have decided to come up with a master list of books to read before I die. I'm sure I will be posting this list soon. But in the meantime do you have any suggestions of great books to read? What are your favorite Christian books classic or modern that you love?

This has also strengthened my resolve to start memorizing scripture more! Read my post HERE about that conviction. And I also mentioned in that post having you all join me! I've been lugging on this for a while and decided I need to just start!

 So come back tomorrow (July 1st) for the launch of my two month scripture memorizing plan! I'll have buttons of the scripture each week to help you remember and spread the word. 

Don't forget to stop back by tomorrow :)

Here is one picture from this weekend. The only one I have!! Haha I forgot to get the pictures from my sisters. Woops! So for now here is us three sisters at the conference waiting to hear Rick Holland.

*Update: Unforunitly a few things have come up and I've been sick/busy. So the start of the Scripture Memorizing will be delayed a bit. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for the launch.

Also stay tuned for the launch of our new Etsy shop :) I know I keep talking about it but it really is coming soon :)

Happy Anniversary!

Today is my in-laws 25th Wedding Anniversary!!

They have been married 25 years today! They are such a great example to us and we hope that we will be just as in love when we hit our big 25! We look forward to another 25 years celebrating and living life with you :) We love you both! You are such an inspiration to us and truly teach what it means to have a Biblical God-honoring marriage. Thank you from all of your kids for being such a godly example.

So this weekend we were all sneaky and threw them a surprise party! It turned out great but at times was really hard keeping it a surprise.

We had the party on Saturday. It was great! Our parents live about 500 miles from us so I flew up on Thursday morning and my mom and my sisters in law spent Thursday and Friday shopping and cooking. The my hubby drove up Friday night after work and we surprised them on Saturday! My in-laws didn't even know we were in town!

It was a great surprise and a terrific weekend ♥

Here are a few pictures from the wonderful party!







The Balmet Family

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad ♥

Join me in Memorizing Scripture!?

One area that I have been feeling so convicted in lately is my Scripture memorization.

Anyone with me?

I intend to do it...really I do! I would love to do it...really I do! Okay I'm busy now so I'll do it later...really I will!

Does this sound like you?

So often I am in a conversation with someone and I'm like "oh yeah...that one verse that talks about the thing with the thing? I think it might be in James? Or maybe Deuteronomy...?"

1 Peter 3:14 says,

"Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you."

2 Timothy 4:2 says,

"Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching".

Read those two verses again {or for the first time if you are like me and skip scripture in blogs sometimes...yeah I do it to!} Isn't that convicting. God calls us to know his word!

And what saddens me is that as a society we have become so used to having a Bible readily available to us at all times. I have countless Bibles at my house and if one is not within arm's reach I can just go to Biblegateway.com and it's right there!!!

Now don't get me wrong. I think this is a wonderful thing. It is truly remarkable the access to the Bible that we have today! But it also makes us complacent. We no longer feel the need to memorize scripture since it's always right in arm's reach.

But it is vital to us that we always be memorizing scripture.

{Credit}

Did you know that in the times of the Old Testament many people had large portions of the Bible memorized including entire books. They did not each have their own Bible and most household didn't even have one to share among the family. Scribes would even memorize the entire Old Testament that they could summon up at a moment's notice!

And yet we struggle to know 20 or 50 verses!!! I don't know about you but this is very convicting!!

John MacArthur writes,

"Repetition expands our capability of recall. Recovering spiritual truth demands repetition and use. The more you hear, think through, and apply spiritual truth the more it begins to dominate your thinking. Eventually you will react involuntarily in the proper spiritual manner to any situation because a particular spiritual principle has become so much a part of you."

He then goes on to say,

"God has designed our physical structure to accommodate our spiritual needs. We have a marvelous capacity for memory. Scriptures is full of reports of how God's prophets were called to tell His people to remember. If I can serve no other purpose than that, I serve the highest purpose of God.First, I want to establish you in the present truth. But second, I need to constantly jog your memory so that you never forget those truths. The more they come to the front of your mind, the more you will find your spiritual responses becoming involuntary because you have become so dominated by the truth of God."


This has been on my heart a lot lately and I have been slow to respond. But I feel the need to memorize scripture growing and I hope you will join me.
 
Look for a post soon about my scripture memorizing plan. I will be doing one new scripture a week this summer and hope that you will join me! I will be making a cute button each week with the scripture on it to post on your blog {or even on your desktop} so you won't forget to meditate on and memorize God's word and hopefully will encourage others to do the same! :) 
 
I am putting together the scripture list now. Let me know if you have any ideas for some good verses or passages that would be beneficial to start memorizing. Check back soon for the start of this!

Great Resources for Being a Godly Wife/Mother

If you can't tell from my last post, Being a godly wife and mother has been on my heart a lot lately. A lot.

I am so excited that I feel God calling me to be a homeschooling stay at home mother and wife.

My husband and I have always felt this calling for our family and are excited to see God leading us there.

During my studies lately I have come across a lot of great resources that I thought I would share with you.

# 1: My hands down favorite book of all time on being a godly women is The Excellent Wife! I think it is a must have book! I will be buying it and the counter part {The Exemplary Husband} for every newlywed couple I know!

If you are only going to buy one book during your life time on being a women. This.is.it!!!!
Go to my post HERE to read a little more about why I love this book. Then GO BUY IT! :)




#2: I love blogging so much and love all the wonderful ladies I have met. These are just a few of the great blogs and website I have found on being a godly women!

1. Wendy @Faith's Firm Foundations {Wendy has become a dear blogging friend of mine! Please go check out her blog. She is a homeschooling SAHM of two grown children and is the epitome of the older Titus 2 women! She has so much wisdom to share and is always ready to follow God's calling in her life. I whole heartedly recommend Wendy's site}

2. Amy Bayliss {She is a wife and mother and has so many great links and words of wisdom on her site! She is also the lovely lady behind A Women Inspired...my next blog to highlight}

3. A Women Inspired {A great site that does online conferences throughout the year! I attended their One Marriage conference and feel so blessed to have found this online ministry}

4. At the Well...In Pursuit of Titus 2 {The name speaks for itself}.

5. Melinda @Coming Clean: Confessions of an Imperfect Parent. {I found her blog through A Women Inspired. She was one of the amazing speakers and her site is packed full of fun and thoughtful posts and resources}.

6. Extravagant Grace {This is also a wonderful site packed full of great resources. I never fail to calm my spirit and bring it back to God when I am over there. She also has really cute buttons with scripture on them for anyone to enjoy on their site!!}

7. Grace to You Blog {John MacArthur's blog. Enough Said :) If you are not familiar with this amazing Pastor, Please go check out this site today. He has a TON of free resources on his website}

8.  Sarah Mae @ Like a Warm Cup of Coffee {Sarah Mae's blog has been such a blessing to me and I enjoy stopping by and hearing her sweet wisdom every day. She is also the lady behind Raising Homemakers...a wonderful new website! See below}.

9. And last but definitely not least is Raising Homemakers {Oh how joy filled I am that Sarah Mae and others have stepped out in faith and have decided to start this blog. It is a baby blog...just launched last week...but already it is one of my favorite! Go check it out right now! It is all about Raising our daughters in how to be godly women, wives, and mothers.}

There are many more that I want to share with you but this is good for now!
*Disclosure: While I love each and every one of those blogs there may be things on some that I do not 100% and totally agree with! Comment or send me an email if you have any questions about those sites or what I believe! I would be happy to talk to you! jamibalmet(at)hotmail(.)com

# 3: Now on to a resource that I am oh so happy to share with you and have just recently discovered!!!
I have a commute to work now...one which I have not had in a few years. So to stay awake on the road and because I enjoy it so much I have been listening to many sermons in the car! I pretty much listen to two sermons a day now on a normal day and have been loving it!!

A GREAT place to find fantastic conservative sermons is
http://www.shepherdsfellowship.org/
Go to the website scroll down and go to Media Vault. You can then search by books of the Bible, Topics, Ministries {such as college ministry or women's ministry}, and by speaker.

Most of the sermons on Shepherd's Fellowship are free! You may have to make a log in but that is also free and you have access to hundreds of sermons by some really fantastic pastors and women's ministry leaders such as:
John MacArthur
Rick Holland
John Piper
Al Mohler
Phil Johnston
Elyse Fitzpatrick
Steve Lawson
Martha Peace
And so many more!!!

Access to these great sermons has been such a blessing in my life!
Thank you to the ministries and faithful givers at Grace Community Church who have made this happen :)

What other books/blogs/websites have you found? Please share with us! I always love learning about great new resources!!!

Where your Treasure is...

Can I share with you something that has been on my heart lately?

My husband and I got married a little over a year ago. When we got married we always said that (Lord willing) our plan would be to have children in 5 years. This would put me at 24 for having our first child. Good plan, Good timing.

But what I recently realized is that it is no longer 5 years...it's now 4! Wow!!!

And while I am so excited and our timing is right on track...it also hit me that it is getting closer. For so long it was always 5 years and that wasn't moving. Before getting married we always said our plan was 5 years, 5 years, 5 years. But now...it's 4 years away!!!

 My Hubby and I have always been very firm on the idea that I will stay home with out children. Once we have our first child I will not go back to work until they are grown. I am so excited for this! I dream of the day I get to stay home with my kids!

I was listening to a message by Rick Holland {College Pastor at Grace Community Church. John MacArthur's church} and he was talking about Titus 2. Titus 2 talks about older women instructing younger women to love their husbands and children and to be diligent workers at home. He was saying that him and his wife had also decided that once they had children that she too would stay home until they were raised.

He then went into finances. About how many women would love to stay home with their children and raise them but for one reason or another they can't.

Now let me say that I do really understand the desire to want to stay home when you truly can't. As in the case of your husband dying and being left as the only source of income. I understand their are extenuating circumstances.

But

Can I just say...if your desire is to stay home, what are you doing to make that happen?!

So many women work to put their kids in daycare so they can work but the reality of it is that their income pretty much just covers day care and maybe a few luxuries. Many women desire to stay home but are not willing to actually make the leap to live off of one income.

I felt so convicted listening to Rick Holland's messages! I had never thought of it that way.

Staying home to raise our children is not just a path we will cross when we get to it. We cannot just live off one two incomes for years and then one day just drop half our income! We must be proactive in this decision!

God has placed the desire in my heart to stay home and raise our children. So what am I doing about it?!

Of course we are trying to save our money. We try to be frugal. But this doesn't help the fact that we are currently living off of two incomes and will one day have to live off of one income!

God has also placed it on my heart that while 5 (now 4) years has always been our plan...God doesn't work according to our plans but his! We could very well have a baby before our "all knowing" plan of 5 years. Where will we be if all of a sudden we have to go to one income and we weren't prepared for it for another 2 years?!

This is where the real conviction part comes in.

I have been feeling very convited to move towards living off of my husband's income solely.

And to make that move now! Not wait until I'm pregnant to make the move!

Rick Holland said, "Your money is the best determiner of your values". And how true is that! I'm spending money now on making my house look "perfect" and other non essentials. When really I should be focused on the amazing calling of being a stay at home mother and homeschooler.

Matthew 6:21 says,

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also".

I want my heart and my treasure to reflect the high calling that God has given me.

I want to pay off our student loans.

I want to buy a starter home for our family.

I want to have our first child knowing that our financial situation reflects God's calling to my husband and I.

So our challenge for my husband and I this summer is to situate our finances so that we are living off one income. Completely.

I am starting to make that move towards one income today! But I'll post more about what I am going to do to make God's calling for my life a reality later.

All the Bugs are Worked Out!

Whew! I have been having trouble today with my commenting system!

I wasn't sure for a little while how to figure it out! 

Buuuut I think I finally got it all figured out :) I am back to the regular blogger commenting system fomr Disqus. It was a hassle but I think it's finally back on and I didn't lose any of my comments!! :) {I don't think ;)}

Let me know if you can leave a comment :) It should be all worked out now!! Thanks for being patient!

Deleted DISQUS!

So I love the look and everything of Disqus but it just hasn't been working on my blog :(

It will work fine for a while and then for like two days I won't get any updates that I have comments. And lately a LOT of people have been having trouble commenting which is no good!

Also I think people forget or don't know to put their blog address in the form since it always said "optional". So I coulnd't get to my commenters blogs half the time :( Again...NO GOOD!

I am hoping that all of my old comments will still be here! They should be!!

And it could take up to 48 hours to finally change back to the default commenting system.

I loved Disqus but it just wans't working! If your reading this then let me know if you can leave a comment :) Hopefully this will all be resolved shortly!!

Thanks for reading :)

*Update! My commenting form has disappeared alltogether...disliking Disqus more and more. Hopefully Disqus will resolve this soon.... Please email me if you want to contact me :) jamibalmet(at)hotmail(.)com*

Get Books for FREE!

Did you know that you can get books for free?!?

All you have to do is read the book and then write a review about the book {usually about 200 words}. That's it. Then the book is yours!

Okay this sounds like a paid ad but it's NOT! This is just how excited I am about this. I have recently discovered the wonderful world of book reviewing.

I have signed up with a few book review sites recently. Sign up is usually VERY easy. You fill out a little form and then wait for approval. After that they YOU pick the book that you want to review.

The biggest thing about this whole thing is that I didn't want to review books I didn't want to read because that is just boring and a waste of time! But you get to choose which ones you want to read and which you don't. Even if you don't like any of them for three months..no problem! Then as soon as your doen they will ship you another one.

Seriously I am SO excited about this! I love love love reading and this is a perfect way to fuel my book hunger without breaking the bank.

{This is the first book I recieved to review. It is by Erin Healy who has previously co authored two books with one of my favorite authors! She co-authored Kiss and Burn with Ted Dekker. Now I get to read her firt solo book for free!!}

I have recieved three of my books already with many many more on the way. And one of the books was one I would have headed to the bookstore to buy as soon as it was released. And the other two are great ones I would caught my eye in a bookstore!

Anway here are a few great sites to check out. All of them are Christian publishers or websites:

 




I have also contacted a publisher once and told them I would like to review one of their new books and they shipped it out to me the next day! This is really an exciting thing to me!

Let me know if you have any questions about this...I know I did when I first started!
And do you know of any other great sites such as the ones above?

Etsy Shop Opening Soon!

I am so excited to announce this: My sister's I are going to open Etsy and an Artfire shops!

But don't get too excited yet...we have a lot of work to do and are hoping to open it at the end of June. But we'll see ;)

Our main focus will be on headbands of all kinds but hope to move to all kinds of accessories such as belts and necklaces and whatever else we come up with! My sisters are sooo creative and I can't wait to see what they come up with! 

I will of course let you know when we finally open our doors and look out for some great giveaways at that time :)

Check out some of our creations so far. Which are your favorite? 

Our colorful ones!

Stephani {Youngest Sister} designed this one all by herself! She is creative like her sisters :)

This is my favorite one! I love the black and red! So classic! 

I hope you all stop by our Etsy and Artfire shops when we open :) And don't forget to look out for our some awesome giveaways! 

Great Weekend!

Okay I know it's Tuesday and I'm just now posting about the weekend..but I've been busy! haha

This weekend we got the change to go home for the weekend! Our family lives about 500 miles away from us and we can't make that trip too often. We havn't been home since Christmas so we were very excited!

It was a short trip but we had so much fun!

Here are just a couple pictures of our amazing families!!! I can't wait until we can move back home near them :)

Yeah...that's right..my LITTLE brothers are ALL taller than me now :)

Notice our fancy headbands in the picture above? YEAH we made them :)

Look out later today or tomorrow for some more fun pictures of our headbands!