Are you ready to get your heart and home all sparkling clean? I know I am! This study is not for the faint of heart! We will be looking at the deepest darkest corners of our heart to see why we struggle to keep our homes in order. So be prepared for change!

Download Spring Cleaning for the Heart and Home: Day 1

I have a special gift for all of you! It’s this sweet “Home is Where the Heart Is” Art Print to Download:

You can download the Art Print here.

Join me on Instagram! I have fallen totally and utterly in love with Instagram this year. Very few days go by that I don’t post some random photo from my life. I just adore it.

If you are on Instagram, too, and you are participating in Spring Cleaning for the Heart and Home, share your photos with me using #cleanheartandhome and I’ll follow you!

Today’s giveaway is:

Good Morning Sunshine Bar of Soap

from the Pacific Paradise Soap Company.

About the soap: A sensational uplifting shea butter sudsy bar of soap! Pacific Paradise Soaps are handcrafted in small batches using the finest plant based natural ingredients. A saponified blend of Oils of Olive, Palm Kernel, Coconut, Shea butter, Grapefruit, Tangerine, and Orange essential oils were used in making this luxuriously cleansing bar. A very nice light essential oil blend for a morning shower, very refreshing.

In order to be entered into the drawing, you must comment below. Let’s discuss the lesson!

What does home mean to you? Have you been discouraged  with your home and/ or life in general?

I’ll get the discussion started…

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but the last year was difficult for me. Truthfully, the last few years, but whose counting right?

I don’t mean to suggest that my life has been bad or that things have been really awful, in fact a lot of really great – amazing – things happened in 2012.

But in the midst of all of the chaos… I found myself feeling out of sorts, completely exhausted. I had lost my joy. That’s why this year my ONE WORD for 2013 is JOY. I wanted to find my joy again. I wanted to feel connected to God and to my children and to my husband.

2012 ended with a bang… I was sick for over six weeks straight from November right into the new year. I mean really, really sick. I can’t take antibiotics, so when I mean really sick, I mean really sick.

And you know what? I laid in bed for most of that six weeks. I slept for most of that six weeks.

In January God gave me an extraordinary gift. He gave me a month long vacation. I left home and went to Florida for two weeks with my precious family. And then we spent the following two weeks with my mom and dad in Atlanta who I hadn’t been able to visit in almost three years.

And it was wonderful. My lungs dried up. My cough went away. I regained my mental, emotional, and physical strength. And I felt God’s hand on me in a way I hadn’t felt it in quite a while. I felt at peace for the first time in months, if not years.

I was able to realize that some of the frustrations I was dealing with were, after all, my own doing. I allowed God to straighten me out on more than one point.

And I’ve found my joy again.

God really is good.

I want to tell you how good He really is. Life isn’t perfect. I’m not perfect. You aren’t perfect. But HE is.

Not everyday is going to be great. Not everyday is going to go the way you plan. And there will be days or weeks or months when you think life will never get any better.

You may even wonder why God allows you to suffer continuously with no hope in sight.

I can’t tell you why. Because I don’t know.

But I do know that “all things work together for good for them who love the Lord,” and if you trust in him, there is a better day to come.

Don’t beat yourself up for your shortcomings today. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. Each new day is chance to start over. To be renewed in Him and try again.

So, what’s been going on in your life?

If you have found this devotional to be helpful and would like to support our ministry at A Virtuous Woman, you can donate! As always your prayers and gifts are appreciated!

Suggested Donation: $8.95

 You can purchase Spring Cleaning for the Heart and Home e-Book here.

Here’s another image you can use on your blog or pin to Pinterest or Facebook. I appreciate you sharing!

Today’s From Chaos to Calm devotion is about trust inside of marriage, so I thought today would be a great day for a giveaway!

Update: The winner is Jen Hug! Congratulations!

Healing Your Marriage When Trust is Broken by Cindy Beall

Update: The winner is… Jennifer Mill-Irving! Congratulations!

I am definitely hair-challenged. Most of the time, when I’m fixing my waist-length hair, I feel like I’m using my feet.

But, like for so many of you, life is easier without my hair in the way ~ little ones run underfoot, diapers need changed, dishes wait for washing, housekeeping is nonstop. And I still want to be attractive to my husband.

Enter the Lilla Rose flexi clip! I only had to work with the flexi clip a couple of times, and now I can put my hair up in just a few minutes.

No claws.

No bobby pins.

Just the one clip.

It’s a win-win because I like it up and not falling into…well, lots of things, and my husband likes the French twist secured by a pretty clip. My husband also likes the sturdiness of the clip. He’s confident that it won’t bend or break. (Just be careful of the toddler walking off with it….)

The Lilla Rose Flexi Hair Clip is available in six sizes to accommodate different hair types and styles. A simple ponytail might only use the medium, while a French Twist could require an extra-large. The website offers video tutorials for different hairstyles as well as sizes and suggestions.

Now, for the giveaway!

The winner gets to choose a flexi clip of her choice – up to a $16.00 value! You could choose the one above or your favorite from the website!