Come Have a Peace is Moving!

When I was in high school, we lived in a little red brick cape cod style house with a screened in porch. My room was upstairs where the roof slanted in, making a hideaway for a girl who loved to sketch and write and dream about the future. The day we moved from that house, I felt like I was leaving an old friend behind, and I prayed that the next occupant would come to love and appreciate the angular cove like I did.

So I did what expressed my heart best ... I wrote a letter. The letter shared my own memories of how my life grew in that place, and it passed on hopes for the next person who would journey there. I folded it and carefully left it on the closet shelf to be discovered.

AND IT WAS DISCOVERED! Before the U haul truck was even down the street or the tape on the boxes even cut. My mom found my gut wrenching letter when she did her final walk through of the house, and she did what any self-respecting mother would do. SHE TOOK IT! :)

I've been at this blog home for almost 3 1/2 years. Today I feel a little like I'm leaving my comfortable room where so much life unfolded and blossomed. Today I'm leaving my first Come Have a Peace home, and I'm moving to www.juliesanders.org where Come Have a Peace will keep the same name and vision, but it will grow up in new ways. Be patient on this "moving day," as it takes a little time ... I should be "in the new house" by this afternoon.

Oh I really do hope you'll join me there! If you've subscribed via feedburner, your subscription should come along. I don't want to lose you, sweet readers, as I move to a new home on the blogosphere, so please do one or more of these, and encourage a friend to come to, while you're at it:

• subscribe to www.juliesanders.org via email or feedburner
• like the Come Have a Peace Facebook page
• follow JulieSanders_ on Twitter
• follow me on Pinterest where I occasionally pin a thing or two

I hope you'll join me at my new blog home! It would be so lonely there without you. That's why I left this letter here, to be sure you know that it's been a sweet season here, and I look forward to a new and wonderful place in the journey. Fortunately, my mom doesn't know my password and can't reach the blog shelf. ;)

Come Have a Peace at www.juliesanders.org !

Marriage Mondays: Making Marriage FREE!

EXCITING NEWS COMING TOMORROW! Be sure to stop back in to Come Have a Peace!

Do you feel like a prisoner in your marriage? There's the "prisoner of love" kind of captivity, and then there's the "trapped in shackles" kind of bondage. What has a hold on you? Maybe you feel like a prisoner because you are.

Today at Do Not Depart I'm sharing about finding freedom and staying in it. What better place in life to apply this than in MARRIAGE? If we're looking to break away from things that enslave and defeat us, the answer is found in Christ. Read my post about DO. GO. STAND.  So how about finding and keeping freedom in marriage?

DO. GO. STAND.  in the wonderful world of marriage.

Photo by David Castillo Dominici

Why would anyone want to be married, but feel empty and imprisoned? That kind of relationship is on a slow slide down the hill of corrosion. In a marriage like that, the relationships and life around them fall apart. God doesn't want us to live that life either; He purchased our freedom from what would enslave our marriages. He broke the shackles of bitterness, unfaithfulness, pornography, unforgiveness, laziness, lying, and every other sin that robs a marriage of its freedom. "You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men" (1 Cor. 7:23). If you want to stay together ... be free.

Freedom is in God's presence. You GO girl!  Go to God's presence daily to find the freedom from sin and hang ups that threaten to keep your marriage from being all it can be!

To have a free marriage, we have to live in God's Spirit and walk out that fruit daily. "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor. 3:17). Our flesh battles God's Spirit in us. If you want to be free .... stay in the Spirit. (Galatians 5:16-25)

Once we experience freedom, the challenge is to stand firm in it and not use it as an excuse for our own selfishness, dysfunction, or stubbornness. "Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God" (1 Peter 2:16).  Our marriages miss out on freedom when we return to our evil habits. "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1). Prisoners don't willingly go back to their chains.  If you've got freedom ... don't use it to cover up evil.  

Pray about DO. GO. STAY. in your marriage .... Would you be willing to ask God to show you if there are areas you're covering up?  Areas where you're not living by the Spirit? Ways that He wants to grow the freedom in your marriage? Freedom is found in His presence .... Go there. 

If you want to be stay together ... be free!
If you want to be free ... stay in the Spirit!
If you've got freedom ... don't use it to cover up evil!

Week #3 - Ready Set REACH!

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Download Week #3 of Ready Set REACH!

7 Ways to create a climate of sharing

When was the last time you borrowed something from a Neighbor? When my Neighbor was "Beth," I felt very comfortable to call or go over to borrow things all the time. But I don't have a "Beth" now, or I haven't found her yet, if I do. Maybe she's next door, and I don't even know it!


Convenience stores are neighbor killers.  Instead of putting aside our pride and putting down our guard to ask a neighbor to borrow something like a punch ladle or a cup of flour or an egg or a sled, we just run to the corner store (they're on EVERY corner in some places) or Wal-mart. Blessed are you and your Neighbor if you don't have access to convenience stores everywhere.

Proverbs 3:28
Do not say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it”—when you have it with you.

O that we would be generous Neighbors. Maybe we're reluctant to borrow, because we don't want the Neighbor to get the wrong idea and start draining us dry by asking for things they need. If WE don't ask, THEY won't ask. Right?

Right.  And so if they don't even feel like they can ask for a cup of sugar, they certainly aren't ever going to say something like, "Things at our house have been really hard lately.  How do deal with life when you feel hurt and discouraged?" 

Maybe sharing our faith starts with sharing our sugar. 

7 Ways to create a climate of sharing:

1. Take something "extra" to your neighbor (fruit, baked goods, potting soil)
2. Tell your neighbor what you have that they are welcome to borrow
3. Ask your neighbor to borrow something you could get at Wal-mart
4. Return what you borrow asap
5. When you borrow and/or return, use the chance to chat
6. Bring up "the borrow" the next time you talk and say thanks again
7. Run out of sugar