Great news, friends! Peacemaker Ministries is offering a $20 discount on their women’s study—so I get to, too! Click Here to Order (I have a contract with Peacemakers that requires me to match their price online—otherwise, I’m usually allowed to discount it only when I’m onsite at an event.) The sale price is for August only—so please do consider letting your friends know. Not only would they (hopefully!) be blessed by the study, but our family could truly use a little cashflow help this month. 🙂   Thanks and love to you all! Your friend, Tara B.  

I’m (slowly) moving back into the habit of listening to an ipod sermon while walking Lilikoi each morning. (My sanity and health require it.) And this one by Tim Keller was a real treat: Inside Out Living It’s actually been hanging out in my queue for awhile but I hadn’t listened to it for a few months because I found the title hokey. I’m glad I finally got over that and gave it a listen. Here’s the description:   “A commmon misconception about religion is that it is seeking approval and acceptance from God through our behavior, but this approach is self-centered and self-righteous, leading only to a rejection of…

Yesterday I enjoyed a great conversation with a friend. We talked about a zillion things, one of them being the need to “capture” all of our “to-do’s” in some way or another. For some people, this means CLUTTER. They get magazines and think “I need to read that”, catalogs (“I might want something in there”), bills (“Must pay that”), party invites (“Must respond”), gifts (“Don’t forget to send a thank you note”), random mailings (“I should really get off of that mailing list”) … and then they keep all of those items “OUT” because otherwise, they might forget to do XYZ. The problem, of course, being that once you have…

In a way I haven’t experienced since staying up ’til 4AM reading Ghost Soldiers in a hotel bathroom (so as to not inconvenience my co-instructor and hotel roommate way back when I was still on staff with Peacemaker Ministries and we were teaching at an Advanced Training Practicum) … I cannot put this book down! The Help The characters are absolutely FASCINATING. None of that annoying, stock-character, try to get us to believe a person is boring by using the word “boring” to describe them, horribly-written way. I not only feel like I can actually SEE and KNOW these people—I want to know them MORE. I wish I could chat…

I have the BEST sister in the WORLD! Well, tied with Ella—because SHE has the best sister in the whole world too: Many tears in saying goodbye—but we know that when it HURTS that’s actually GOOD because it means the we LOVE:   Until next time …  

What a generous and wonderful offering! “What is the  Gospel” by Greg Gilbert Available for FREE This Month Only  

Otherwise, not being a big sports fan, I never would have even known about this brother in Christ.  I’m looking forward to meeting him in Heaven one day: Manute Bol’s Radical Christianity (HT: TakeYourVitaminZ)  

I was visiting with a friend yesterday about my mullings on the topic of being busy beyond the scope of our calling, and how God might be calling some of us to make terribly hard decisions about important things that we care deeply about so that we can scale back from the overload. (Proverbs 23:4 says, ‘Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint.’ We may not be wearing yourself out to get rich—but are we wearing yourself out for other reasons; things that seem good and right, but are driving us into a workaholic, compulsive lifestyle?) And my friend mentioned a term that…

God has given me a great gift this summer—the gift of time with a friend. We are working on various projects together, and that is truly enjoyable in and of itself. But far beyond the pleasure of accomplishing something, I am mostly being blessed by our conversation and relationship. She’ll say something and my heart will be comforted. Encouraged. We’ll both talk about a shared weakness or temptation and somehow just normalizing it helps me to repent. (“I thought I was the only one!” Nope.) As is true of most of life, knowledge is interesting, even captivating, fascinating. But knowledge applied takes place in relationships. So as I am helping…

This morning I emailed a friend some of my “tips” for how to handle MAIL so that you don’t end up with piles everywhere, or miss paying an important bill or scheduling an important meeting. I thought that some of you might enjoy my little “system” too, so I’ll copy it below. BTW—I’d love to hear how YOU deal with your mail if you care to share any organizing/efficiency tips too. Happy Friday! — Tara B. Main thing? Most helpful? TOUCH IT ONCE: – Bring the mail inside and go immediately to a GARBAGE CAN (or recycle bin). – Throw away everything extraneous (catalogs, requests for money, flyers, advertisements)—they absolutely…