Barb’s Favorite Personal Development Books

Barb’s Favorite Personal Development Books

by | Mar 31, 2025 | Christian Living/Discipleship

It's taken me forever to share one of these lists. I've always hesistated because there are so many great books out there on spiritual growth, leadership, and writing - but I haven't read them all. But, I have read a lot - so I'm sharing a list of the ones that have helped me.

Feel free to add your favorites in the comments!

  • When God Doesn't Fix It by Laura Story (spiritual journey)
  • Where is God When It Hurts by Philip Yancey (spiritual journey)
  • God is Able by Priscilla Shirer (spiritual journey)
  • Rising Strong by Brene Brown (personal development)
  • Prayer by Tim Keller (spiritual journey)
  • Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud (personal development)
  • Abba's Child by Brennan Manning (spiritual journey)
  • The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith (spiritual journey)
  • How to Listen to God by Charles Stanley (spiritual journey)
  • Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (creatives and writers)
  • A Thousand Gifts by Ann Voscamp (spiritual journey)
  • Celebration of the Disciplines by Richard Foster (spiritual journey)
  • Soulkeeping John Ortberg (spiritual journey)
  • Storybrand by Matthew Dicks (for writers and creatives)
  • Managing Transition by William Bridge (leadership)
  • All My Knotted Up Life by Beth Moore (leadership/spiritual journey)
  • Working Genius by Patrick Lencoini (leadership)
  • Right Color, Wrong Culture by Bryan Loritts (leadership)
  • The Power of Moments by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (leadership)

Again, drop your favorites in the comments!

Why You Should Choose a Word-of-the-Year!

Why You Should Choose a Word-of-the-Year!

by | Dec 29, 2024 | Christian Living/Discipleship

Did you know that January 12th is National Quit Day?

Apparently, it only takes 12 days for people to give up on their New Year's Resolutions. Less than two weeks. Why do we give up on what we really want so quickly?

It's not because we're lazy or we don't really want to lose weight, read our Bibles, or finally pay off our debt.

The suprising news is that even though we have a plan or hire a life coach, we're still missing the most important ingredient for success: VISION.

Vision is seeing the big picture beyond what you're trying to achieve.  It's more than your goal. Vision is seeing your resolution or goal as part of  your purpose.

Here's ancient wisdom:

"Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." -Proverbs 29:18 KJV

Without vision, people waffle and wander. Lacking vision means that you'll make the same resolutions each year. But if your goals aren't anchored to something bigger than you, it will be hard to persevere.

Willpower is never enough for our goals, but vision wins over willpower everytime.

When you have vision, you may tire, stumble or even fail, but you'll keep going. And if you fall off track, having vision motivates you to get back up again!

Are you unclear about your life vision? Here it is:

God's vision for you is to know Him, and make a lasting, positive, eternal impact in the world. You've been created to be a difference maker in the world around you.

This is why Word-of-the-Year is a great first step to living with vision:

Word-of-the-Year is a simple, intentional tool that can remind you to focus on God's vision for your life.

There's nothing supernatural or magical about your WOTY, but it can be a positive trigger when you're feeling lost, confused or help you get back on track. 

Here's my step-by-step instructions for choosing a WOTY:

1. Check out the potential Word-of-the-Year options. Pick four or five words that resonate with you. Write them down.

Here's a list of options:

Feeling overwhelmed? DaySpring offers a digital tool to help you choose your WOTY. You can click this link and answer a few questions. You'll receive a suggestion for your WOTY. You can keep that word or choose a different word. 

2. Look at the possibilities you've chose, consider the following questions:

a. Which word(s) inspire or motivate you?

b. Is there a dream, goal, or desire that seems to match on or more of those possibilities?

3. Narrow your list down to one or two. Then, pray over the words or ask a few trusted friends for their input.

YOUR WORD OF THE YEAR: _________

Optional bonus! I like to choose a verse that goes with my WOTY.

How to Use Your Word-of-the-Year Effectively

  1. Write your WOTY (and verse) on a postcard and tape it to your bathroom mirror. This is a low-tech, daily way to remind yourself. The more often you remind yourself, the more you'll prioritize living into this word.
  2. Share your WOTY with friends and tell them why. Trust me, telling others about your word solidifies it in YOUR mind and makes it more likely that it will surface in your mind again.
  3. Set up a monthly reminder in your phone for the first day of the month with your WOTY and your verse of the year.
  4. Use Canva to create a beautiful cellphone screensaver. I've made up some templates that you can customize with your word. Just click here.

DO YOU HAVE A WORD-OF-THE-YEAR? If so, hit "reply" and tell me. Also, if you've chosen a verse of the year, I'd love to hear that, too.

 

“KISS”-ing 2022: Six Mental Mindsets for an Peaceful Life

“KISS”-ing 2022: Six Mental Mindsets for an Peaceful Life

by | Jan 1, 2022 | Christian Living/Discipleship, Joshua & Winning the Worry Battle, Reflections, Surrendered: Letting Go and Living Like Jesus, Women's Topics

Happy New Years!

It’s a new year and I’m wearing my fairly new favorite hat. So far, so good here in 2022.

This isn’t a post about goals or resolutions. I just can’t with personal goals right now. (I’ve got business goals - that’s all good.)

But I do want to be intentional.

What’s a girl to do? I need to keep it simple if I want to be successful at being intentional.

Last year, my Word Of The Year (WOTY) was KISS or”Keep It Simple, Sweetheart” and I’m keeping it again for 2022.

(I figured that if the pandemic can stick around another year, so can  my WOTY because it’s still working for me. ALSO, I kissed absolutely no one at midnight last night because #omicron 😑. Kinda bummed about that.)

Here’s my thing:  Rather than goals, I focus on mindset habits that will position me for what I want to experience in life, which is to live beautifully strong and courageous in Christ.

It’s KISS that gets me there. So here is my KISS mindset for 2022:

  1. On my worst days, I will treat myself the best.
  2. I will faithful in the small things and trust that God will take care of all things.
  3. I will keep showing up and taking risks, even when I fail.
  4. I am not in control of others or outcomes, so Surrender is my path to God’s peace. *
  5. I will err on the side of choosing love, kindness and generosity.
  6. I will live from the truth that I am God’s beautiful, lovable, capable daughter. I am confident in Christ and worthy of God’s best.**

SHARE YOUR COMMENT BELOW: What’s your New Year’s habits, prayer, resolution, goal or intention for the upcoming year?

*from my Surrendered Bible study

**from my Breakthrough Bible study 

Why You Should Choose a Word-of-the-Year!

My Word of the Year!

by | Jan 10, 2020 | Christian Living/Discipleship

In last week’s newsletter and Focus 2020 video (that you can watch by clicking here) was all about helping you focus on what’s most important in your life. I want you to have an amazing 2020! I know that you have hopes and dreams, but you also have to deal with life! When life feels like a blur, we can feel lost, stuck, and even discouraged.

Is that how you’re feeling these days? If so, keep reading because I want to share something powerful with you that helps me create powerful spiritual clarity in my life each year!

For me, one of the best things I do each January is choose a word of the year. The word that I choose captures an inner quality that I want to be intentional about in the coming year.

What’s my word for 2020? My word is FOCUS. I feel pretty good about this because the year is 2020 and having 20/20 vision is considered to be in focus, meaning that someone can see with clarity.

In order for me to find my word of the year, I opened up my Bible. I asked myself this question: What word captures who I want to be this year in order for me to do my best?

As I read through some of my favorite Bible verses, I came across one verse that has been a special verse for many decades: “Seek the kingdom above all else and live righteously and He will give you everything that you need.” (Matthew 6:33 NLT)

Seek means to crave in the original language. If you’ve ever craved something, you know that you are focused on getting it into your belly, even if you’ve got to drive all the way across town to get it!

As I read that verse and thought about my current spiritual temperature, my hopes and dreams, as well as my current circumstances, I realized that I would need to be ruthlessly intentional about staying focused on God.

For me, clarity is so important. Life can get fuzzy when we’ve got too many “yeses” on our calendar. Life gets fuzzy when we don’t have solid spiritual anchors to ground us or the urgent in our lives always gets the attention over the important.

I’ve spent many fuzzy years in the past running around like a chicken with my head cut off while doing a lot of good things. Guess what? I was always tired. I got sick often. I felt stressed out all of the time.

I don’t want to live that way in more. I don’t think that God wants me to live that way anymore.

So, for me, the word is FOCUS. And I’ve even created an acryonym:

F- Five Verses (Repeat five Bible verses each morning when I awake)

O – Optimistic (Living with hope in God)

C – Commitments (Be aware of my “yeses”)

U – Ubuntu (African word for community – maintain life-giving connections)

S – Simplicity (Follow the KISS rule for my life, Keep It Simple, Sister!)

To help me stay connected to my word of the year, I will do three things:

  1. Repeat Matthew 6:33 as much as possible. When I say the verse, it will trigger me to think about my word of the year.
  2. Journal about my word of the year and how I am applying it to my life.
  3. Pray about it because ultimately, I will need God’s help to stay focused this year.

 

QUESTION: Do you have a word of the year or verse for this year? Share it with us in the comments below.

When Helping Your Adult Kids is Actually Hurting Them

When Helping Your Adult Kids is Actually Hurting Them

by | Feb 9, 2019 | Christian Living/Discipleship, Women's Topics

How can we love our kids without robbing them of the important life lessons they need to learn?

I heard the long sigh in her voice.

Leah called me on a quiet Sunday afternoon because I saw her message on Facebook. It was something like “I’m so stressed I can’t stand it.” While I see those messages pretty frequently on social media, Leah wasn’t one to post something like that. So, I sent her an inbox and instead of writing me back, she gave me a call.

Turns out, Leah’s adult children were in the middle of crisis and Leah was overwhelmed with worry- among other things. Her 20-something daughter was pregnant and her son’s youthful irresponsibility turned into legal trouble, including a warrant for his arrest.

As a single mom, Leah spent her life working hard to provide a good life for her kids. She admitted that single-mom guilt propelled her to jump in and help her kids out whenever they asked. While she’d been an amazing single mom, Leah felt like she let her kids down by not having a dad in their lives. So, even though they were adults, Leah would slip them money to cover funding gaps in car payments, to keep cell phones from getting shut off or allow the kids to live with her when they were between jobs.

But all of that stress of caring for adults who should be caring for themselves exacted a toll on Leah. She felt stressed because they were desperate for her money, but not to correct the behaviors that created the situation. Leah would help them, hoping that it would be “just this time” and then feel crushed when the same situation would repeat itself later.

If you’ve been worn out by worrying about your adult kids, I’d like to introduce you to the Sort-It-Out tool from my Winning the Worry Battle book. This tool offers four questions to help you determine how you can show love and concern for your adult kids without letting their problems or worries wear YOU out.

So, when an adult child comes and asks for financial help, a place to stay, or for you to get involved with a conflict with another person, ask yourself these questions:

SORT-IT-OUT TOOL:

  1. Am I legally responsible? (Legal status)
  2. Is my adult child asking for support in an improving situation or for rescue from a self-inflicted AND declining situation. (improving)
  3. Does my adult child have a track record of irresponsible decisions? (track record)
  4. Will my assistance build my child’s self-reliance or make him or her more dependent in the future? (enabling)

I know that your situation is likely complex. For years, I’ve had to use this tool to deal with an addiction issue in my household. It’s tough! There are no easy answers and it’s not my role to tell you what to do. My hope is to help you see where your helping has the potential to hurt you both. It’s hurting your adult child because instead of allowing the consequences of his or her circumstances to push them toward God, you might be the one getting in the way of them asking God for help.

If you determine that it would not be healthy or helpful to bail your adult child out, here are some things that you can say:

  • I’m so sorry that you are going through this, but I am unable to help you.
  • This is so hard! Can I help you put together a plan that you can use to deal with this problem? (Only if you can plan without taking over responsibility!)
  • I know that you can figure this out. Keep me posted on how you are doing.

 Yes, it feels bad saying no to helping someone, but remember, you aren’t saying that the individual isn’t worthy of help, only that you choose not to get in the way of God doing His work in their lives.

 

Comments: Has there been a  time when you have been able to say "no" to someone when you really wanted to help them?

When God Allows More Than You Can Handle

When God Allows More Than You Can Handle

by | Nov 27, 2018 | Christian Living/Discipleship, Women's Topics

For years, my former pastor and boss encouraged our staff team to participate in an overseas missions trip. Not only would we receive our regular pay while we were gone, but we’d also receive an additional day off to rest when we returned. Sweet deal, right?! But, there was no amount of incentive that could convince me to leave the safety and security of my home for the unknown of a third-world country where I was afraid of the heat, bugs, strange food, and that I didn’t know the language. 

For years, I said no when even God nudged me to say yes to that missions trip. My pastor would announce it at staff meetings and the guilt would be unbearable because I couldn’t believe that I was actually saying no to the God that I loved and wanted to serve with all my heart.

Finally, my life verse pushed back against my many fears: Seek the kingdom above all else and live righteously, and he will give you everything that you need. –Matthew 6:33 NLT

If I loved God, then I realized that I needed to say yes to going on a missions trip.

But what about everything that I was afraid of? One of my biggest fears was running into a giant spider. I had nightmares of spiders crawling over me at night and that I was unable to get away.

But, when I thought about the words in Matthew 6:33, God’s promise was that if I trust Him and followed where He led me, then God would help me handle my fears.

Whenever people say to me, “Well, God never gives us more than we can handle,” I gently push back and say to them,

“I believe that God allows more than we can handle so that we’ll realize that there are situations that ONLY God can handle.”

On that first missions trip, I realized that my fears were more than I could handle. In fact, I barely got any sleep at night because I was so worried about a spider crawling on me or biting me. Each night, I’d wrap up inside of my comforter like a burrito. I was wrapped up so tight that I could barely breathe. Guess what? God did take care of me because even though I was in humid, tropical conditions, my beautiful host family had fantastic air conditioning. Even though I slept only a little each night, at least I didn’t suffocate!

In the midst of my great fear, I saw God do even greater work while on that trip. We carried rocks to fill a new home foundation for a hard-working mother with seven kids. I taught Jesus’ love through Bible lessons and face-painted dozens of kids. I worked in the clinic pharmacy and saw the life-changing effects of simple medicines that we took for granted here in the US.

My fears were more than I could handle, but God still took good care of me. Even though I didn’t handle my fears well, I experienced God in a great way that changed the trajectory of my life.

In fact, I’ve taken almost ten missions trips over the years. Get this: I’m still afraid of spiders. But, I’m more afraid of missing out on how God wants to use me. 

If what you’re facing today is bigger than what you can handle, that means that your situation is perfect for God’s power and might. Seek God first in your situation. He will give you the power and strength to handle whatever comes your way.

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