The Beauty Detox

Hope you all are enjoying your weekend! I wanted to share a wonderful book I've been reading. I am not finished with it but I have just been blown away by the wealth of knowledge written here so far!

I absolutely love to read and try to squeeze in as much as possible even in the midst of taking care of so many young children. I read at red lights:)

I found my copy at Target and have underlined and highlighted it to pieces. I feel that it is an answer to prayer for me personally as I have really struggled with my weight , skin and so on a lot in life.
Especially over the last ten years.  Thanks to having lots of babies in a short amount of time!

Needless to say, I do not look or feel the way I wanted to look and feel at forty!

I hate to say this but I am not a gym person. I am most uncomfortable in a gym or fitness facility.  I absolutely cannot stand it. The smell alone is enough to send me right out the door. One look at all of those folks dripping sweat all over those machines....no thank you.

I am ultra feminine. Ultra girly girl. I don't do gyms.

I admire all of you who are so disciplined and get up every single day and work out!

Here's hoping I can overcome my issues!

I do love a good dance class though. I LOVE to dance. And I can wear pink lip gloss and pearls to my dance class. So I am thinking about attempting a class as well as trying some of the suggestions in this wonderful new book.

I'll let you know how it's going.

I'll let you know if I survive cutting out all dairy. Have mercy.


Hope you all have a beautiful and blessed weekend!

Where Honor Is Due

It is hard to put into words how grateful I am for this precious man.

How honored I am to partner with him in life and in the raising of our six children.

How blessed I am to walk beside him as his wife.

I absolutely adore him.

My life has been made richer because of him.

My joy magnified and multiplied over and over again because of him.

Eleven years ago today, after ten years of parenting solo as a single Mother, God saw fit to bless me with an incredible gift of a Husband and a beautiful Father for my baby girl.  I finally had a family of my very own...

My Beautiful Husband,

You are the most incredible demonstration of the love of the Father that I have ever experienced.
Thank you for loving me and partnering with me in life. Thank you for never, ever giving up on me through the years of inner healing and through my process with the Lord. Thank you for being the only person in my entire life who has ever consistently stood beside me. The only person who could not be moved. The only person whom I could not push away. The only person who has ever loved me unconditionally. I honor you today......

Beautiful, genuine, incredible you.

I am rejoicing with you today and with our sweet babies.

How big is our God? How wonderful and magnificent is He who has blessed us six times over with the gift of a child. Unmerited grace.

How we longed and prayed for these children.  Today my heart remembers our wedding day and our Pastor praying over us to be blessed with children during the ceremony.  I remember when we lost three precious ones how our hearts where so broken and full of despair. And then because He is so faithful, how we experienced a supernatural joy through the years as He blessed us again and again with children.

He truly knows the desire of our hearts.

Three precious baby girls.....

And three delightful baby boys.

After all we have been through, walked through, persevered through the last decade, I am so incredibly grateful that God saw fit 13 years ago to allow our paths to cross.

(Thank you to the beautiful Suzy Thompson for the photography last April.)

I am still awestruck to this very day at how through your love for me and from the sweetest nickname in the world, a beautiful and very special ministry came forth. Thank you for calling me your Pearl so many years ago. Thank you for seeing in me what I could not see in myself. Thank you for supporting me and encouraging me and loving me through the oyster shell of my circumstances until I could fully walk in my calling and truly see myself as His pearl.....


The best is yet to come......

He says so in His word.

Spring Things

Image: Martha Stewart

Good Morning! Hope this finds you all doing well! I wanted to pop in for just a minute and let you know that I am still here! We have had some celebrations here lately...My husbands birthday, Bennett's birthday, Easter, my birthday, Mother's Day and this weekend we will be celebrating our 11 year anniversary! I cannot believe it! We also have all of the end of the year school stuff going on like many of you and of course this delicious little newborn who has just absolutely stolen our hearts!!

Oh the sounds and the smell alone of a newborn is enough to send me right over the edge!

In addition I was so blessed to travel to New York City for a speaking engagement at a women's conference recently! I can't tell you how much it blessed me. I will say that for me personally it was just a really incredible experience. Each time I share pieces of my story publicly I am amazed at what the Father does. Really amazed at the way God will use those broken pieces and places of my life to bring Glory to Himself and also to bring healing and restoration to the broken places in others.

I love women's ministry and spend a lot of my time away from the computer in real life on a daily basis ministering to the hearts of women.

Without a title. Without a position. Without a paycheck.

After motherhood it is my greatest passion.

To become an instrument in the hands of the Father. To share what He has done in my life. To offer encouragement and hope and healing in some small way. It is a tremendous honor.....

I don't know if twenty years ago, with a baby in my arms and the lights cut off again in my little trailer, if I could have dreamed that one day I would be standing on a stage somewhere, sharing with the hearts of other women, some of whom have a baby in their arms and the lights cut off in their homes ....that God is God all by Himself. That if He did it for me then He will do it for them. That no matter how painful their circumstances are. He can turn it around and make things better. And better than they ever imagined. That He sees the end from the beginning and that He has incredible plans for their life.

I just don't know if I ever could have dreamed that something like that was even possible for me.

So as you can imagine, each time I stand on a stage or minister in a bible study or a women's group, it is equal parts overwhelming joy that the Father would see fit to offer the opportunity and also it is just incredibly humbling.

The girl who thought she wasn't supposed to be here.

God just has a beautiful way of bringing about a recompense that one can hardly put into words.

And I am still going through things. Some of which are really painful. My testimony is growing on a daily basis and there are some days that I say "ENOUGH already!" "I'm just one person!" "I can only take so much!"

But I try to remember that no matter how painful things are right now, God has a purpose and a plan and one day He may need to use these "light afflictions" to benefit another heart who is struggling. And hopefully I will be able to offer hope and encouragement out of real experience and heart knowledge and not just head knowledge.

I count it as one of life's greatest gifts.......


May you experience Him in the most beautiful ways this week sweet friends. I will be back soon to share tons of pictures.

Rose Petals

If you know me in real life you know that I have a very big thing for flowers and especially rose petals.

Oh the rose petals!!!!

Years ago I used to have a small party planning/floral design business where I created small, intimate and detailed events for my clients. One of my favorite parts of my job was the chance to sprinkle and scatter rose petals everywhere.

I was like a child. Giddy with excitement!! I could hardly contain myself!

On my wedding day our sweet friends threw rose petals as we left the reception. No rice, birdseed or bubbles for me! Then once we arrived in Paris for part of our honeymoon I was beside myself to open the door and see rose petals all over the entire room, a special gift from my new groom!

A few years later once our baby girl was born I covered her with pink rose petals in her little hospital bassinet!  All of the nurses shook their heads and rolled their eyes and could not believe someone would do such a thing! But I just scattered and covered her even more and loved every second of it.

She was the only baby in the nursery covered in rose petals, wearing a beautiful gown, wrapped in a pink blanket and wearing a monogrammed hat!!! I loved making such a fuss over her and had waited 13 years for another baby!!! It was a long awaited blessing for me and I relished in it.

Big Sigh.

Almost five years later we were blessed with another baby girl and this time rose petals came delivered to my hospital room in the most gorgeous packaging along with the most beautiful arrangement I have ever received!

This time when I scattered the petals on my newborn baby I had the help of her big sister! We covered her with petals , dressed her in a beautiful gown, wrapped her in a beautiful pink blanket and fitted her little monogrammed hat on her tiny head!

We did the same thing for all three of the boys minus the petals!!

I love to make a fuss over my children....

And every year on the birthdays of my baby girls they wake up to a bed of rose petals!!

And every year I celebrate my children in the most beautiful, glorious and creative ways I can imagine on the day of their birth. I cherish that day. I am beside myself on their birthdays. And I do everything I can to shower, scatter, cover, bless, sprinkle and love them in ways that minister to the deepest parts of their hearts.

One of the most amazing gifts in parenting is when the love you have given over the years comes full circle and suddenly it's you.....being showered, covered, loved and sprinkled.......



Today I woke up on the morning of my 40th birthday to this.........

Please excuse our messy hair and pajamas..... We are doing a little celebrating!

I'll be back tomorrow with more pictures. Today I am eating birthday cake and kissing babies!!