Make Your Next Event One That Transforms With Truths That Stick-- Invite Carol to Speak

An Encourager Extraordinaire, Carol weaves contagious enthusiasm, wit, and spiritual depth with a delightful complement of original music, to equip women for a life of hope that thrives--even amidst life's storms. 

"If God's in your boat, He will keep you afloat!"

A lively Bible teacher, trainer of winsome student speakers, and an award-winning speaker herself, Carol connects easily with women at the heart level, showcasing the inherent vibrancy of scripture so women can see how God's infinite power and unfailing love are more than enough for life's challenges.  As a singer/songwriter who has found by experience that songs of truth sustain the soul, her messages are enhanced and made even more memorable through the infusion of music.

"When Jesus starts a journey, He finishes it."

Carol brings the wisdom that comes from walking with her Lord for 51 years, as well as the rich transparency and fun relatability that come from being a wife of 36 years, mom to three (one adopted as a teen from Ukraine), a 16-year homeschooling parent, an admittedly addicted perennial gardener, and a survivor of lots of life's storms.  She is also an experienced worship leader and soloist.

She was recently seen on the community theatre stage playing Anne of Green Gables' nosy neighbor, Rachel Lynde.  Her engaging communication style and lively imagination make her an enduring favorite with both the young and the young at heart.  Familiar with both flying and thud, Carol definitely knows where to find a hope that thrives.

"Assess what you possess.

Then hand it over, and let Him be God with it!"

Carol started her career as a medical laboratory scientist, and though, in her earlier years, she was part of developing a treatment for Multiple Sclerosis (MS), she considers one of her most important discoveries to be that it's pretty much next to impossible to sing and worry simultaneously.

As a gifted teacher, certified in teaching thinking skills to build intelligence, she also has an empowering message of hope for all moms who want to maximize the impact of their time with their children for building stronger minds, including for their precious learners who might be currently struggling.

Pointing people to Jesus, so they can know and trust Him is her greatest joy!

Click here to Contact Carol about speaking to your group!

Carol is featured on the Christian Women Speakers website here.

A Very Short Song

I was reading in Jeremiah.  God is explaining that His promises to His people can't be broken.  He calls creation to witness to His dependability and faithfulness, and points out the daily rise and set of the sun.  The things we count on being constant every moment, the things we depend upon every day, the things we never even question, are actually fully sustained by His power.  All the things we depend upon for our very existence are totally out of our control, but they are totally in His control.

"Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is His name:
'If this fixed order departs from before me,' declares the LORD, 'then the offspring of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever.'"  Jeremiah 31:35-36

And from Jeremiah 33:20-21, "Thus says the LORD, 'If you can break My covenant for the day, and my covenant for the night, so that day and night will not be at their appointed time, then My covenant may also be broken with David my servant that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne. . .'"

We could no more stop His promises than we could keep the sun from rising!

And that's when the very short song came to me.

I wondered at what could be the use of such a very short song.  That is until I remembered how, when I was a girl, we used to have one of those very short songs at the start of our worship service each Sunday.  Do you know what we called it?  A 'Call to Worship'.

And here my heart smiled, and I had to say aloud, "Of course--how very appropriate a name!"

Here are the words.

Did the sun set last night?
Did it rise this morning from its place?
Okay, then, His promises stand.
I rest my case.

Dear friends, the next time you are tempted to be discouraged, call this to mind.  Ask yourself those very questions, and join me on my knees in worship.  He is so faithful!

"The LORD is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart exults, and with my song I shall thank Him." Psalm 28:7

"Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed."  Romans 10:11

News Flash: Read Carol At The IAHE Blog, Too

The Indiana Association of Home Educators (IAHE) has their new blog up and running, designed to equip and to serve.  I have been invited to be a contributor, and I hope you will be inspired when you read what I'm writing there, too.  I'll still be writing here at Unsmotherable Delight, but I thought you might like to know where else I'm writing.

As always, my aim is to uplift and encourage you to trust in our mighty God in whatever endeavor He has called you to, whether homeschooling or another passion of His heart.  So even if you're not homeschooling, I believe you'll be blessed by what you read at the IAHE's new blog, too.

I called today's post Jehovah's Morning Manna.

Here's a sampling. . .

O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! Psalm 34:8

“Daddy, what is it?”  That’s what the Israelites’ children must have been asking when they first saw manna—the tiny flake-like bread that appeared with the dew. They named it manna, meaning literally, “What is it?”  (See Exodus 16)

Can you just imagine the other questions they must have been asking?  How does God know where we are?  How does He know how much we need?  Why is it always just the right amount?  Why must we gather it every morning?

God’s people were in the wilderness, and they were hungry.  The Lord saw their need, and sent this mystery bread from heaven to feed each one of them.  They discovered it tasted like wafers with honey, and they found it there for them every single morning until the day after they first ate the produce of the Promised Land.  (See Joshua 5:12)  The only exception was Sabbaths, when they had tasty leftovers—which, too, was a miracle in itself.

Think of such a provision!  Wouldn’t it be great—to know the Lord would provide each day exactly what you need?!

Actually, He can, He will, and He does.  Okay, it’s not necessarily outside on your front lawn, and you can’t usually cook it in a pot, but He does.

To read the rest, you can follow this link.

A Musical Tool for Scripture Memory

You know how a song will get stuck in your head?  If it's a good song, that's a good thing.  If scripture comprises the lyrics, it's a great thing!  Lately, our church family has been selecting a scripture passage to memorize together each month.  For October, the passage was Psalm 63:1-8.  Our family had been blessed by someone else's tunes (The NIV Kid's Club) for learning a passage from Colossians 3 the previous month, and we found ourselves yearning for a song for Psalm 63.  Well. . .

Our God, who can do infinitely beyond what we ask, gave me a song.  After reading through Psalm 63 several times, I set my open Bible on the piano music stand, sat down at the keyboard, and He gave the song.

And so I share it with you, in case you're like us and you find it easier to memorize Scripture when it's attached to music.  The words, in English, aren't perfect poetry as our usual hymns are, but they fit quite well anyway.  I did repeat a couple lines to make the music come out right.  The words in brackets are the lines I repeated.  Otherwise, the words are all in order.  The verses are from the NASB.

I pray that it will be a blessing to you, as you seek to hide God's Word in your hearts.

Psalm 63:1-8

(NASB)

Music Unpublished © 2011 Carol Carpenter

O GOD, You are my God;

I shall seek You earnestly;

My soul thirsts for You,

My flesh yearns for You,

In a dry and weary land where there's no water.

Thus I have beheld You

In the sanctuary,

To see Your power and Your glory.

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,

my lips will praise You.

So I will bless You

As long as I live;

I will lift up my hands in Your name.

My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,

And my mouth offers

praises with joyful lips.

[As long as I live,

I will lift up my hands in Your name.]

When I remember You on my bed,

 I meditate on You in the night watches,

for You have been my help,

 And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.

My soul clings to You;

Your right hand upholds me.

[In the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.]

His Word in Our Hearts

God's been working on me about something for the last couple weeks.  I'm wondering if you can relate.


About ten years ago, we had just moved to a new community and were visiting churches, looking for a new church home.  I walked into the four-year-old class to pick up our son when I looked across the room to see him standing in the midst of some kind of dispute; I supposed it was over some toy.  I arrived just in time to hear him say to the other children, "Don't you know what the Bible says?  'Do everything without complaining or arguing!'"  Seriously, that's what he said.  I knew exactly where that came from, and, if any of you have had the pleasure of listening to or watching the Steve Green Hide 'Em in Your Heart Bible Memory songs on CD or DVD, you know, too.


Over the years, our family has certainly reaped blessings from memorizing Scripture, yet I am both firmly convinced and convicted that we still don't do it enough.  God tells us we should know His Word, and I'm sure He knows far more about the benefits for us than we've ever comprehended.  Looking back in our family, one result is that, even at a very early age, our children had an internal guide to godly behavior, based on memorized Scripture, even before they more fully understood the theological reasons.  Did it guide their behavior all the time?  No.  Of course, our children weren't perfect, but Scripture was being laid down as the authority and a foundation worthy of building a life upon.  Filling up their little heads and hearts with Biblical truth is the kind of start Deuteronomy 6 is talking about.


The words and the images we take in do leave permanent impressions.  They shape the way we will think and act for the rest of our lives.  From a human perspective, Scripture has an impact at least equal to anything else we internalize.  Far beyond that, it is the supernatural Word of God and has God's power behind it to transform lives.  It's one thing to read it, but it gets woven so much more deeply into the very fiber of who we are when we commit it to memory.  So, why do we memorize so little of God's Word, especially as adults?  Why is it that children have 'memory verse' assignments, but adults rarely do?  We can use busyness as an excuse, or the handy aging brain/declining memory line, but I seriously doubt God is buying it.


Recently I learned that someone we know has just finished memorizing the entire book of Romans.  Yes, the entire book.  I was absolutely flabbergasted.  Then I was sorely convicted.  I memorized the book of James once, but that was more than twenty years ago.  The more I thought about it, the more I, then, became inspired to seek Him even more earnestly through His Word, renewing my devotion to committing much more of it to memory.


But what if memorizing doesn't come as easily as we'd like, or as easily as it used to?  We are told by Jesus that if we pray according to His will, that we will have what we ask.  So how about praying for God's enabling to memorize His Word?  That's clearly His will.


When Vera, our adopted daughter, first came from the orphanage, she had trouble memorizing anything.  She confessed to us that, when she was at the orphanage school, she would feign illness and escape to the infirmary rather than attempt to give a presentation before her class of something she was to have memorized.  Maybe she just wasn't capable of memorizing anything?  One could make lots of excuses for an orphan who'd been the victim of less than optimal brain stimulating opportunities.


Instead, we decided to believe God.  Even though she had a terrible time memorizing anything in the past, we prayed for her to be able to memorize Bible verses.  We should not have been surprised at the result.  Yes, she can memorize Scripture, and lots of other things, too, now.


I'm not content with the way things have been.  Are you?  Will you believe God with me?  Let's ask Him to enable us to hide more of His Word in our hearts!


Next time, Lord willing...I'll pass along the song that I recently wrote to help our family memorize Psalm 63:1-8.

P.S.  If you're not familiar with the Bible memory songs I mentioned, you might want to check them out.  The blessing of the Hide 'Em in Your Heart series is that the songs were so easy to learn permanently and still remain favorites, musically, even for the adults in our house.  The added benefit to the videos is that they plant visual images of God's Word being lived out and applied that beautifully complement the flesh and blood examples we are trying to live before our children's eyes and ears.

Unexpected Storms III-- The Song He Knew We Needed

My dear readers,

I know only a little something of the storms just a few of you are going through right now, but our precious Heavenly Father indeed knows the details of every one of the storms in each of our lives.  He anticipates our needs and is perfectly able to meet them.  In a way, He did that for us when He gave us this song.

It wouldn't be right to keep this song to ourselves, when He intends that we pass on the comfort He gives.  So I share this song (just a living room recording), not to focus on me, but I earnestly pray that you can hear beyond my voice to the words and character of Jesus as He reveals Himself in the gospels.  If you haven't already had a chance to, I humbly encourage you to take a moment to read about the backdrop against which this song is set.  Truly, I think understanding the song's backstory will make it's meaning richer.  Unexpected Storms--Part One especially sets the stage with the Biblical context from Mark 4, and Unexpected Storms--Part Two (Ben's Storm) will give you a glimpse of how God, in His perfect timing, used this song to encourage our family.

May it be a blessing. . . and yes, of course, you may share it if you think it will encourage someone else.

Trust in Him at all times, O people;  Pour our your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.
Psalm 62:8

The words are on the video, but in case they are too small to read, I included them here as well.  You can also hear the song on Vimeo here.

Captain's Anthem
© 2011 Carol Carpenter
Inspired by Mark 4:35-5:1

V1
There will be days
When you think the waves
Will surely break over your boat.
Your knees are knocking,
And your boat is rocking,
And you're not sure you're staying afloat.

Chorus
But this storm was never meant to scare you;
Instead, my friend, it will prepare you.
This whirling storm was never meant to be a threat;
You belong to me, so please don't fret!
Storms will rise,
Dark clouds blind your eyes,
But your strength is not in what you see--
Your strength is found in depending on Me.
Your strength is found in Me!

V2
When courage may waver,
Know that I am your Savior--
Don't let fears run away with you!
When faith starts to slip,
Remember:  I planned this trip.
You're here to see what I can do!

Chorus

And this storm was never meant to scare you;

Instead, my friend, it will prepare you.

This whirling storm was never meant to be a threat;

You belong to me, so please don't fret!

Storms will rise,

Dark clouds blind your eyes,

But your strength is not in what you see--

Your strength is found in depending on Me.

Your strength is found in Me!

Bridge

Can't you see that fretting is a waste?

Surely by now you've had a taste

Of My power and majesty--

No storm ever gets the best of Me!

Chorus

And this storm was never meant to scare you;

Instead, my friend, it will prepare you.

This whirling storm was never meant to be a threat;

You belong to me, so please don't fret!

Storms will rise,

Dark clouds blind your eyes,

But your strength is not in what you see--

Your strength is found in depending on Me.

Your strength is found in Me!

V3

I'm here in your boat;

I will keep you afloat.

You've got to understand Who I am!