Let me paint you a picture. Imagine you spent a hundred dollars every single week sending your child to a world class jujitsu dojo. You paid faithfully. You paid early. You tipped fifty dollars after every session because you believed in what was being built. And it worked. By four years old, FOUR....your child earned a black belt. They were sparring with adults in the dojo and holding their own. They had been given every tool, every technique, every skill they needed to fight. And then they got to second grade. And got beat up by kindergarteners. I know that sounds ridiculous. But that is exactly how a lot of us are walking around right now. We have the Word. We have the Holy Spirit. We have the anointing. We have the pastors, the Bible studies, the prayer warriors, the community, the books, the podcasts, the influencers, the prophetic words spoken over our lives. We were equipped when God called us. We are black belts in the spirit. And every time it is time to actually USE what we knoW, when the bill comes, when the child acts out, when the marriage gets hard, when the enemy shows up at the door..... we fumble. We fall into comparison. We fall into complacency. We fall into laziness. We fall into a pity party that lasts longer than it should. And I want to say something about that today. Somebody paid a HIGH price for you. Not a hundred dollars a week. A life. The life of the Son of God was the price of your investment. And every day you spend defeated, every day you spend operating below what you were equipped for, every day you choose the pity party over the purpose that is a poor return on the most expensive investment ever made. Now let me be clear. I am not talking about the hard days. Hard days are real. Grief is real. Depression is real. Trauma is real. There are seasons where all you can do is hold on and that is enough. I am talking about the hard days that became hard weeks that became hard months that became a hard identity. I am talking about the person who has made suffering their permanent address when God already paid for a different house.

I just would like to say I appreciate this group so much, and all of the content here that’s been so Holy Spirit led and timely. Today my kids are doing their added chore of wall washing as a consequence of not completing their chores yesterday (for no good reason at all). The scripture the Lord gave us was 1 Corinthians 14:40 “But let all things be done decently and in order.” And I taught them about chaos vs order, and how to worship God in our home by keeping order. Now they know that if God loves order, and mom is teaching order and I disobey… I’m not just disobeying mom, but I’m disobeying the Lord. And so seeing them take that lesson and start cleaning in such a way that my 19mo old wanted to join in… my heart is full. Not all the littles are pictured, but I want the other ladies to know that with the Lord truly all things are possible ❤️ and to say thank you Ashley for your obedience with this group.

I think this is where I struggle the most. During school days, having a routine feels much easier because we already have a schedule. But on Fridays and Saturdays, or whenever there’s no school, I honestly never know how our day should go. We usually don’t get up as early, so I find myself just kind of winging it. How do you apply “be consistent without exception” on weekends or days without a set schedule? Does consistency mean waking up at the exact same time every day, or is it more about keeping the same healthy habits in place even if the timing is different? @Ashley Lunnon

I walked for 10K+ steps everyday for 31 days because I wanted to be accountable for myself. It was definitely hard and I wanted to give up every single day! I prayed for strength and endurance. I will continue on thru the month of August! I pray you all have made your goals 🙏🏽

I want to talk about a name of God that most people only use when things are going well. El Shaddai. In Hebrew it means God Almighty. God of the mountain. The all-sufficient one. The one who is more than enough. We shout it in worship. We put it on shirts. We quote it when we get the promotion, when the prayer gets answered, when the breakthrough finally comes. But El Shaddai was first spoken in a valley. Abraham was old. Sarah was barren. The promise had been spoken years ago and nothing had happened. No child. No nation. No evidence that anything God said was going to come to pass. Just two aging people holding a promise that looked increasingly impossible. And that is exactly where God shows up and says I am El Shaddai. I am enough for this. Not enough for the easy part. Enough for the impossible part. I want to talk to the parent who is in a valley right now. Not a valley of their own making necessarily. Just a season where the gap between what God promised and what you can see feels impossibly wide. Where you are doing everything right and things are still hard. Where you are faithful and the breakthrough has not come yet. Where your child is struggling and you have prayed and prayed and the mountain has not moved. El Shaddai does not only show up on the mountain. He is the God of the valley too. The God of the in-between. The God of the not yet. The God who meets you in the middle of the waiting and says I am still more than enough for this moment even though it does not look like it yet. Your child is watching how you handle the valley. Not the mountain... the valley. They are watching whether your faith holds when the answer does not come quickly. Whether you still praise when it costs you something. Whether God is real to you only when things are good or whether He is real to you in the ordinary, hard, unglamorous middle. That lesson... faithfulness in the valley cannot be taught in a classroom or a Sunday school lesson. It can only be caught. From watching you.