Please welcome writer Ellen Chauvin to the blog today!

Ellen pens her stories from the Bayou Country of South Louisiana, but her heart and birthplace are in Mississippi. She’s a Southern Belle through and through. When not writing, you can find Ellen digging in the flower beds, relaxing on her back porch, or traveling with hubby John. She is passionate about scripture and shares the truth of God’s word at www.ellenchauvin.com. It is there that she encourages ordinary women to walk in extraordinary faith.

Memorizing scripture is like a preparing a good juicy steak.

Yep, that was my thought a few days ago. I had purposed in my heart to memorize scripture this year. AGAIN. I’ve tried and given up a hundred times. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why it was so hard hard for me! Other than the fact that I’m, well, not getting any younger. And you know, at this season in my life, if I can remember anything, it’s miracle.

As I was pondering memorizing God’s word, I realized I had been approaching it all wrong. I had arbitrarily chosen a verse, and tried to remember it. I wrote it down several times over the course of a few days, then moved on to another one. That just wasn’t working for me. One day, a friend on Facebook posted about her life changing scripture memory experience. She was using the Beth Moore Siesta Scripture Memory plan, which is one verse every two weeks. Hallelujah! I think I can do that!

Choose a Method

I bought a set of spiral index cards (recommended by Beth Moore). It’s small enough to fit easily in my purse. I prop it on my desk at work. It literally keeps me going during the day. I glance at the cards often, close my eyes and recite the verse. Sometimes I will write it down several times. Making progress! Another suggestion was to begin with a verse that is meaningful to you. By starting with a scripture near and dear to your heart in this season - but one you haven’t memorized - you’ll feel like a rock star at the end of the first two weeks, because you know it up down and sideways!

Begin with a verse that is meaningful to you.

Next, I chose an arbitrary verse that I didn’t really know. Hmmm, getting a little harder! I realized if it isn’t a scripture that has personal meaning for me, I had to get to know it. I needed to marinate in it like a good steak, soaking in the seasoning. (Did you think I had forgotten about the steak analogy?) I needed to spend time with this verse.

How can you get to know a scripture? Read it in several different translations. Chose key words and look at their meaning in the original Hebrew or Greek. Check out the cross references. Do a little scripture mapping.

Ask questions. Psalm 61:2 says “From the end of the earth I call to You when my hear t is faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Where do I have to be when I call to Him? Anywhere, from the end of the earth. When do I call” When my heart is faint, and I’m feeling alone, afraid or abandoned. Who do I cry out to? God, my Rock and my Refuge.

Marinate in the verse.

Just like that wonderful juicy steak I devour, I also need to ingest the scripture.

Ezekiel 3:3 Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth. NIV

What happens when we eat good food? It provides nutrients and keeps us healthy. Food fuels our energy and keeps us going all day. When we add God’s word to our daily diet, it provides nutrients for spiritual growth. I don’t know about you, but it keeps me going all day long.

But you know what? Don’t get comfortable there. Dig into scriptures that challenge you (and possibly give you indigestion).

Perhaps you’ve eaten food that didn’t agree with you. Same with God’s word. Sometimes we find His revealed will in scripture hard to digest. How about that scripture that tells us to pray for our enemy? Oooh, heartburn. What about the one that says pray for those in authority. Anybody need some Tums?

Choose a scripture that challenges you.

One of the verses I memorized was 1 Corinthians 13:5

Love…”does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered”

As I memorized, chewed on, scripture mapped and got to know the verse, it began to make me uncomfortable. Because you see, I was failing at all things “love” each day at work. What an eye opener. By marinating in the verse, I realized I was blatantly ignoring what it said to do. I was rude, selfish and irritable.

Give yourself grace.

If you are having trouble persevering in your quest to memorize God’s word, please don’t give up! You can do it, and there are so many online resources to help you. My friend Jana over at Sweet to the Soul has a beautiful Scripture Memory Journal and Verse Mapping Pages.

Don’t give up!

The Holy Spirit will bring to mind the scriptures for you. But we have to do our part: we have to put the words in our minds!

As part of our For Real This Time series, special guest author Zohary Ross will be sharing with us on the blog today. Zohary has created the most fabulous resource! If you have children at home, you will love it. I know I do! I'm thankful to have her as our guest. Please welcome Zohary. You will be blessed by her words.

Have any of you ever woken up with a kink on your neck? Or turned the wrong way and felt a shooting pain in you back?

Yes? You know what I mean.

When I was in high school I experienced my first back spasm. It hurt so bad that I couldn’t move or breathe. Unfortunately it was only the beginning of my life long struggle with “back issues”; the spasms continued into my late teens and twenties and the pain eventually got worse.

I’ve had to live with the physical pain that comes from a misaligned body. When my hips and back are “off” or kiddywampus (as my MIL would say) and my body hurts, I go in for an adjustment to get realigned and I feel relief.

But I’ve realized the same thing happens when our lives get out of alignment.

Even worse than physical pain is the pain that comes from a life that is out of alignment.

Life hurts or at the very least can feel really uncomfortable or “off” when our time, habits, and actions do not align with our core values, passions and priorities. We just don’t feel “right” until we are truly living what we believe with purpose and passion.

There is a soul ache that comes from a misaligned life. And a misaligned life can become a misaligned family.

I had my first child when I was 18, and by the time I was 21 I was a single mom of two boys. During my early years of motherhood I rarely thought of the home culture that I wanted to create for my little family unit. Life then was about survival --I was going to college full-time, working full-time and being a mom. I thought I had to do it all and I thought I had to do all things at the same time.

This year my oldest child turned 19, and as I looked back I was saddened by what I consider to be the years of missed opportunity. Because we were in survival mode I was not intentional about what I wanted our family to be about. I only did what I thought I needed to do; I didn’t know at the time how to make motherhood my own.

Eventually, I decided there had to be another way. I was not a “victim” of motherhood, destined to go through the motions and raise my children according to what society deemed right. I was the designer of our home, and our values were its building blocks. .

Just like our bodies can ache when out of alignment, our families will suffer when our time, habits and actions are not aligned with our core values, passions and priorities. Yet I know from working with so many families that when life gets busy implementing a plan where our values are consistently implemented in our home culture can be tricky.

So I decided to create a resource that would help families get out of defense mode and instead get proactive about the home culture they wanted to live out.

Basically, I created what I wish I had had as a young mom. The Aligned Parenting Workbook is a product of my own journey to create a home culture where our actions, habits and family traditions are all aligned with our core values -- those things we believe to be most important but also as a result of the need for a guide to help families address the question “what do WE want to be about”?

It’s not a how-to book but more of a “what”?

· What do we value?

· What skills and practical experiences do we want our kids to one day leave home with?

· What meaningful traditions to we want to establish in our home?

· What boundaries need to be put into place in order to protect our family time?

It’s a practical tool that will help families get serious FOR REAL this time and move beyond good intentions and into action.

Because I truly believe there is a better way to lead your family: YOUR WAY. The Aligned Parenting Workbook will help you define what that looks like and design a plan to live it out.

Zohary Ross is a writer, speaker and life coach. She is passionate about living authentically and equipping and encouraging women to live “all in” with alignment of values, beliefs and actions and she tries to live out what she coaches. Her background is in counseling and education. She has a mild addiction to mint chocolate, office supplies (especially pens), and personality tests (she’s a Nine on the Enneagram and a ENFJ if you’re into that sort of thing). Zohary lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her awesome husband and four children.

Connect with her on her web site at zoharyross.com

or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.