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12 Pearls of Christmas: Life Beautiful

Life Beautiful
by Margaret McSweeney

During a quiet moment after Thanksgiving, I started reading my parents’ stack of love letters that I recently found in a storage box. As a Christmas gift to you, I would like to share my father’s words to my mother written to her during Christmas 1949. This incredible “hug from heaven” has been a tangible affirmation that Pearl Girls has true meaning and great worth for women throughout the world. I pray that God will continue to bless this ministry and outreach. May we all realize that the grit in our lives can be transformed into grace through the love of God.

This is what I found written on a tiny folded card inscribed with “Christmas Greetings” on the front:

Christmas 1949

My Dearest Carolyn,

Truly a jewel is a thing of beauty, but a life that is lived to serve others and to glorify our Christ, such as yours, is my dearest, a far surpassing gem in radiance and beauty.

Pearls to me, symbolize this “Life Beautiful” that you have achieved, Carolyn. Each pearl is a result of a great hurt to the oyster’s life. But the little mollusk builds an iridescent coat around this source of hurt, and as a result, the precious pearl comes into being. Life is like that too.

If we, like the pearl, can make of our hurts the basis of a thing of beauty, then we can bear witness to an on-looking world how Christians can overcome through Christ, blows that are seemingly insurmountable.

At this happiest season of the year, I give thanks to God for you, Carolyn – my Pearl of Great Price.

Your Claude

Isn’t this an amazing Christmas Pearl? I hope this message has touched your heart, too. Another Christmas gift I would like to share with you: My father’s lessons on leadership. These can be found on my guest blog post at Michael Hyatt’s website.

During this holiday season, decorate your life with Christmas Pearls — strands of God’s grace-reminders that nothing can separate us from his love, not even the grittiest of circumstances.

And please celebrate the “Pearls of Great Price” in your life through Post a Pearl. It’s a fun and free gift that you can share with special people who have been a blessing to you over the years.

Merry Christmas!

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Margaret McSweeney lives with her husband David and two teenage daughters in the Chicago suburbs. She’s the founder of Pearl Girls and a published author. Please visit www.pearlgirls.info for more info. You can also find Margaret at her writing blog, From Finance to Fiction or on Facebook and twitter.

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A three strand pearl necklace will be given away on New Year’s Day. All you need to do to have a chance of winning is leave a comment here. Come back on New Year’s Day to see if you won!
12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info

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IOW ~ When Frustration Hits


“Gentleness is part of being feminine – part of being a woman, and God made us distinctly different from men on purpose!”
~ Melanie Chitwood (Proverbs 31 Ministries)

I have mentioned before that we are restructuring our accounting department. We used to be several different departments to take care of only parts of our store’s accounting needs. I think it is a wonderful idea. Now our store managers have one person they can contact if there are issues at their store, instead of 3 different departments.

The training has been ‘brain-frying’…Last week I was totally burned out. Nothing else would fit into this old noggin 😀 . I am very blessed to be part of a team that cares for each other–personal and accounting wise. I just have one problem–the language…

Our team consists of 7 women and one man (poor guy). We are gentle to each other; pick up each other’s tasks so we meet all the deadlines each month. You see we still have to do our regular work, learn new stuff in order to transition fully into our new responsibilities. It gets frustrating at times since the work load is pretty heavy.

Last week we talked about the language that sometimes ‘flies’ around our training room. You would never think that women would swear like this…How do you react to women that are normally very gentle, but when frustration sits in, their mouth is just as bad as that of a sailor? For me, I put my headphones on…

Don’t get me wrong…I get frustrated too. How do I handle my frustration? I think of Him. I know that our Lord got frustrated too at times, but I don’t think that He ever used a swear-word. That thought alone keeps my mouths fairly ‘clean’.

Yes, we as women get frustrated, but if we keep our eyes fixed on our Lord, I think that we can imitate His gentleness in all situations; if at home or at work…

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” ~ Galatians 5:22-24 (ESV)

Lord of Heaven and Earth. Life can be frustrating at times. Lord, help us to keep our eyes focused on you. Let You gentle Spirit reign in us so that we may be a light to the world and can share the strength we receive from You with others. In the precious name of Jesus ~ Amen

Blessings on your day and as always…

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Thank you so much for stopping by today in order to share your thoughts on this week’s IOW quote. I am sorry, I am a little late tonight, but I had some good reasons…I’ll share with you on Thursday why the delay (hint – I got a new toy 😛 ). Please leave your link below. As time permits, please visit other participants.

In “Other” Words Participants

1. Amy Grant Bayliss
2. Loni
3. Miriam Pauline
4. Hopeful Spirit
5. lori@allyouhavetogive
6. Dirtyhands4Him
7. Melissa’s Merry Mayhem
8. Heather Cox		 9. Rachelle G.
10. Joyce
11. Shannon Payne
12. Karen Gillett
13. Lana G!
14. Laurel Wreath
15. Rosemarie
16. Elisa		 17. GP in Montana
18. Shera
19. Seasons of My Heart
20. To Know Him
21. Pam

Learn more about In “Other” Words here.

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Hosting IOW


This upcoming Tuesday I will be hosting “In Other Words”, a meme that originated on Christian Women Online.

I hope that you will join me to reflect on a quote I came across on Proverbs31 Ministry Daily Devotional Blog:

“Gentleness is part of being feminine – part of being a woman, and God made us distinctly different from men on purpose!”
~ Melanie Chitwood (Proverbs 31 Ministries)

Melanie reflected on Galatians 5:22-23. I hope that both, the Scripture passage and Melanie’s quote will give you some inspiration to join us on Tuesday.

Blessings on your Friday and as always…

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What a Privilege

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” ~ Colossians 3:12-14 (ESV)

You know, it is a huge privilege to be part of a ever growing Christian blogging community. When I started blogging over 2 1/2 years ago, this was not the case. You had a few women who shared their faith on-line. There were always men blogging about their faith…but not many women. I am not sure what has changed, but I am loving it. If you sit down and really think about of what we are doing, sharing so openly on the world-wide-web, it leaves me speechless.

What truly is amazing to me though, is that we, as women, truly are a community of believers. We are not ‘hanging out’ our labels of denomination, but we are sharing Him, who loved us so much that He even died for us. We share faith, not doctrine. How cool is that? Isn’t that want Jesus would like to see? I think so. His Spirit dwells richly in the Christian women community. I praise Him for that.

Now you are wondering what inspired this Sunday post. An award that was given out to Sting my Heart over the past couple of weeks. Laurel, Elisa, Sharon (SWAW),Sharon (Quit Reflections), and Christian Moms Alliance saw it fit to give Sting my Heart this award:

mathetes award

“Mathetes is the Greek word for disciple, and the role of the disciple (per the Great Commission) is to make more disciples. In the spirit of this award, the rules are simple. Winners of this award must pick five other “Disciples” to pass it on to. As you pass it on, I just ask that you mention and provide links for (1) this post as the originator of the award (Dan King of management by God), (2) the person that awarded it to you, and then (3) name and sites of the five that you believe are fulfilling the role of a disciple of Christ…”

I am very honored to receive this award. I am glad that God is using my writings to encourage, disciple, and hopefully have a closer walk with our Lord and Savior.

Now to giving this award to others. Many of you have already received this award, so let me think…

  • Carol at She Lives — she is for me the Titus women Paul speaks about in his Titus 2 passage. I am glad that Carol is back blogging. Maybe a little lighter than before, but I am happy with anything she shares with us 🙂

  • E-Mom at Chrysalis — she always shares wonderful articles with us. I am thrilled that she has taken over “Marriage Mondays” (created by Christine at Fruit in Season) that will be hosted once a month.

  • Cyndi at One Day More — she is so inspiring to me with home-schooling her children; going on mission trips to share His Word with people around the world.

  • Leigh at Speaking Thru Me — she is someone who always makes me smile when I visit. Her posts are like what cheerleaders do when they ‘fire on’ the team.

  • Ruth at It’s True, sighed roo — she has such a sweet spirit. Some of her post of faith and following Him just blow me away.

There are so many other women out there that inspire me when they share their walk with Him, so I could have kept going…but I guess I have to follow the rules.

Thank you for allowing me to be part of God’s community. Be blessed today and as always…

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