Gift Ideas for Christian Women

I can’t believe I’m even writing this post already, honestly. Where has the year gone?!

Regardless, I am happy with all of the fall leaves and cooler weather, and also getting to buy fun presents for everyone! The longer I live, though, the more I’m realizing just how much STUFF we all have, and that I really only want things that are meaningful and that I really want to own and use. Christmas makes this hard, truthfully, but I LOVE giving gifts to people, so finding just the right ones is a fun challenge. I do think we can all focus on buying thoughtful and special gifts, and one way I love to do this is to incorporate pieces of faith into them.

Gifts with scripture or uplifting sayings are one of my favorite things because whenever I see or read them it helps me to re-focus and be energized by what I know is true rather than what I’m currently stressing about. Because of this, I wanted to put together a list of faith based gifts for any Christian women in your life, whether it’s your daughter, mother, grandma, or even just yourself!

I hope this list gives you a little inspiration and some fun ideas for what you can get a loved one or important person in your life this year!

Devotional Planner

Who still likes a good ol’ pen and paper planner? Me! I love being able to write out my schedule, and this planner is even cooler because it has devotionals and scripture throughout the book and is so beautiful. Get your daily dose of Jesus while looking over your daily to-do’s—it couldn’t be more perfect! Check out The Grace Abounds Co to see more designs and other awesome gift ideas!

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Scripture Enamel Pin

How cute is this pin?! I am obsessed and I think it’s so much fun to add to your denim jacket, back, or anywhere you want to add a fun piece that is filled with truth! It’s so perfect for a good friend or even a little girl, and this seller has other color and quote options as well! Check out Prince of pins on Etsy to see this pin and the other items they have!

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Custom Painted Bible

If you need a new Bible or would like one for a special person or event, a custom Bible is perfect! I may be a little biased, but getting to create your own design and make the Bible truly your own is the perfect reflection of your personal relationship with Christ, and if you use it as a guest book for something it makes the perfect keepsake! It has lined margins on every page, so you can easily take notes or have people sign it! Reach out over at Ross Paint Shop to personalize your Bible!

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Gold Cross Layered Necklace

I love the dainty gold necklace trend right now because I think it’s so much more than that! It’s a classic look and perfect for any outfit as well as layering with other gold chains! This one is so cute and dainty. You or your girlfriends could wear this with literally any outfit, and versatile pieces are the best!

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His Life Saved My Life Tote Bag

Isn’t this bag so cool! I think it’s awesome for a couple of reasons. First, I’ve never seen a tote bag so beautiful and truthful, and second, we are all trying to use less plastic and find more reusable products, and I think this is perfect for that! The tote comes in several different sizes so that you could use it to put your laptop or notebooks in, or you could get the bigger size and carry groceries in it! It’s useful for so many things, and I think any lady in your life would love such a pretty and useable product! Check out The Artistic Life Co to see more of her beautiful items!

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You Are Loved Phone Case

I am a suck for minimal black and white designs, so this phone case is perfect. Everyone loves getting fun new cases and having options to switch between so I think this John 3:16 case is perfect! Not only a pretty accessory for your phone, but also the best reminder of our God and His great love for us. I’m obsessed! Keep in mind, the case is actually clear, so you or the person you get the case for can’t have a white phone for the design to show up very well. Otherwise any color will work!

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Personalized Engraved Leather Bibles

Grab a Bible that she can take everywhere with her, has a soft, flexible cover, and can be personalized with her name! Head to the shop to check out all of the different design and Bible version options and find one that’s just right for her!

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Psalm 118 Wall Art (and others!)

Sometimes the smallest pieces can make the biggest difference, like prints in your office or used in a little girl’s room. I painted this Psalm 118 artwork as a sweet reminder that we can rejoice every single day because it’s the Lord’s day and He has such good in store for us! The print is the perfect way to add a fun botanical print to any room and be such a special reminder of the joy we have each day.

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Camo Raise a Hallelujah Tee

Just behind leopard, camo is my favorite print! It’s so fun and can be dressed up or down with a pair of jeans or a cute skirt! I think this tee is so fun and beautiful and looks incredibly comfortable as well. It’s just girly enough and I love the phrase. It would be a fun addition to any little girl’s or woman’s closet!

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Give Me Jesus Coffee Mug

Last but definitely not least, maybe the most used gift will be this “Give Me Jesus” mug. I mean, can you ever have too many coffee mugs? This sweet cup is so pretty and sturdy and sure to be a favorite for any Christian woman. Beholden Life on Etsy has several different phrases and mug colors you can get, so there’s definitely something for the lady on your list, and it’s just under $20 as well!

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I hope this list was helpful for you! I had so much fun perusing through things on my wish list as well as some pieces that I already have, and I tried adding pieces in all price ranges to give you lots of options! Happy shopping!

I’d love to see your favorite items this year as well! Share them in the comments! I’d love to support other small businesses and share their work as well!

The Tool We Use To Strengthen Our Marriage Every Single Week

Do you ever sit down with your husband or boyfriend and just feel like you have absolutely nothing to talk about? It’s the same old same old and you’ve already had all of those intriguing, fun conversations that you had when you first started dating and could flirt and have fun for hours at a time.

Yep, been there. For how quiet I generally am, I’m pretty much a chatterbox with my husband and can talk his ear off, but sometimes it’s been a long week, we’ve both been busy with work and barely had time for anything fun or different than any other week, and it just seems like there isn’t any spark left in the relationship.

To be honest that is one of my biggest fears. I have this nightmare thought of going out on a cute date night and getting to the restaurant and starting at each other because we just don’t have anything to say to one another. I don’t want to get 20 years down the road in our marriage and be so routine and complacent that my husband starts to find me boring and not what he remembered.

And on top of that, I want to feel connection, to understand my husbands joys and sorrows, to grow together spiritually, to dream big together and make an impact with our marriage. Maybe that’s a lot to expect, but I think it’s totally possible and something God desires for us too.

Sometimes, though, life is busy and both my husband and I are going in our own directions and it’s hard to know what our path as a couple should look like. There’s no guide book or set of checkpoints to have a great marriage, and even though that’s no different than our own lives or having children, marriage is a little different ballgame because it’s two independent thinking people who can very easily grow a part if they don’t make a conscious effort to move in the same direction.

I want to guess that other than specific issues, that lack of planning together is probably one of the biggest reasons couples start to drift and lose that special connection that they once felt, and, unfortunately, just a little drifting can cause huge unhappiness and ultimately a more serious separation.

I have seen it with so many couples, some that are close and special to me, and althought they are still together and living life, something is just off. They don’t have that sparkle in their eyes for one another or share how they are really feeling to each other, and I so understand that. Even just being married a short time I understand how easy it is to have days when marriage is completely un-glamorous and you just feel like you live with a roommate, or you just want to do your own thing and resent having someone else to plan around.

BUT, I have also seen some incredible marriages and seen proof that you can still be head over heels for one another and do some really cool things together as a couple for your life, family, and God. It’s inspiring! And I want that! I want my husband to feel loved and understood and supported today and just the same 25 years from now. I want to have goals and dreams together and to stay on the same page about what is important to our family, and to be honest I wasn’t really sure how to make that happen or even just make an effort towards it until this summer.

I never thought I would be someone who would need a tool or some kind of support in order to know how to love my husband well and grow a strong marriage together, but I’m here to say that adding one in has been incredibly helpful and amazing.

Enter—The Marriage Journal—a physical journal created by Audrey and Jeremy Roloff that gives couples a way to have weekly communication prompts, devotionals, pencil in activities, and also set pillars for their marriage.

This is not sponsored at all, but I just happened to come across the journal this summer and it has been such a good tool for my husband and I. Basically the beginning of the book has you sit down together, answer some questions about your marriage and what is important to both of you, and then every week there is a devotional and 6 questions that guide you through what brought each of you joy, what was hard, something you can do for one another, and more.

It sounds so simple, but honestly I didn’t think to have a weekly check in before or know really what we should be talking about during that time. I know I want my husband and I to dream together and make plans for our life and make smart financial decisions, etc., but what does that actually look like? How do we get to that bigger picture?

The journal has been really helpful because it gives us a specific time to check in on what went well and what didn’t each week, what we have been excited about lately, what we can be praying for, and just time to really sit down and listen to each other and what’s been on our hearts.

While we could do that on our own, the journal gives us a reason to make it happen every week, a place we can look back on next year or years down the road, and leaves no excuse for us not to know how the other person is doing. It even helps us approach our conflicts in a healthy way rather than waiting for a blow up or disregarding one of our hurt feelings.

I think the other benefit of this regular meeting time is that we learn what things hurt and bring joy to one another and can use that information to love each other better throughout the week and also be more helpful to each other. We are always trying to support and encourage and have fun, but the journal adds one more way for us to connect and make sure we aren’t letting weeks go by without really talking (cause let’s be real, that can totally happen if we’re not careful!)

Oh, and I forgot to mention that once a month the journal also has you check in about how you are doing intimately and financially. As if it wasn’t already awesome enough!

So far I think this is the only tool we have went out and bought to help us build and grow our marriage (other than Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, another awesome and hugely impactful financial tool!), but I have a feeling I will find more to add over the years because I’m all for anything that helps guide us toward being better and not becoming complacent, ya know?

What traditions/tools/practices have you started that you really like? I would truly love to know your experiences and what has helped you so we can build a network of support and encouragement for couple’s everywhere!

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Exchanging Expectations for Gratitude

I have been married just over a year, and I am blown away each day by the incredible husband that God gave me. At the same time, though, I am also overwhelmed by how hard life really can be and how much work it takes to make a relationship great and to live a joyful, fulfilled life.

Life is pretty uncertain and requires so much faith, and if you’re anything like me then you may not fully know what direction your life is taking yet, but one thing I do know within all of the changing pieces is that I want to be a dang good wife and I know God wants that for me too.

If he allowed marriage into my life and yours, or has that in the cards for someday, then he has great plans for the love we show to our husbands and the love that comes out of our marriage into the world.

Relationships are just plain hard, though, especially when you have to figure out how to live with the same person day in and day out. My husband is my best friend and we’ve never had a strenuous relationship or rarely even fight, but we still struggle, often because we are more passive and sensitive people that don’t confront immediately.

I don’t know why God didn’t just program us to understand and respond to other people well (because that would make life SO DANG much easier!!), but honestly, I think it’s because it causes us to learn about his love and care for us even when we mess up, how to lean on him when we need help, and how it’s okay to not have life figured out because HE DOES!!

Since getting married, I have become way more aware of the way I think and react to things that other people do, especially my husband, and to be honest it’s not always so pretty. There’s so many aspects to marriage, and when two people have different personalities (different enneagram numbers, anyone?) it can be so tough to figure out the individual needs and how to meet them.

Enter in my biggest struggle so far…

Expectations.

I am the queen of believing a situation or person (i.e. my husband) should act a certain way and then being disappointed and pouting when it doesn’t happen that way. Immature, I know!

Expectations are NOT real. They are one-sided perceptions of an outcome—what I want to happen or think is going to happen.

My husband doesn’t know what I want, he doesn’t think like I do, he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do in certain situations, and that in no way gives me the right to be upset when he doesn’t act how I see fit.

It can be as simple as he got us pizza and it ‘s not what I wanted, or I was expecting a real conversation at dinner and he is distracted or not responding much. Or it can be things like he not giving much empathy when I tell him a struggle, or not thanking me or noticing when I clean the house. There are bigger issues, obviously, but truthfully I think it’s the smaller everyday situations that really build up over the months and years and then turn into the husband or wife resenting those things that they had expectations for that were never met.

If you think about it, every little thing that your husband does that ticks you off lingers with you, so that’s what I realized in myself and I wanted to nip in the butt, so to speak. I’m going to use a really personal example here because I want to share something real and relevant and maybe even something that you or other wives might be able to relate to.

My husband desires physical touch a lot more than I do and has a higher sex drive as well. I wish I did, but I just don’t, and it’s honestly become an insecurity and struggle because I feel so lacking in that area. I love connecting with my husband, but being physically intimate every single day is just a little much for me. Some days I just want to kiss and cuddle and be close to him without the expectation for more. For a while, though, when he kissed me it usually only meant one thing—sex. I struggled with it because while I want that kind of intimacy to be really great between us, I don’t want it to be the only way we can connect physically, especially when it’s not always an easy thing for me. Like, what happened to those hot makeout sessions in high school?!

Anyway, I was getting annoyed and honestly started to hate every time we started kissing. Maybe that seems a little harsh or petty, but it was real for me and important = I needed to say something!

Guess what? One day I bucked up and just simply told my husband what I needed, and he didn’t get angry or annoyed or anything. He said okay, I will remember that. Simple, done. You have no idea how nervous I was to say something or how long I let it bother and eat at me. I wasted my own time!

In that moment, I also realized that I was taking my husband and his form of loving me for granted.

While that’s not always easy for me, I want to be grateful that he cares about me and seeks out time to connect and love on me. I want to be grateful that he is pursuing me and he cares enough to keep trying even when I am not always in the mood or when I am just difficult (LOL).

And another huge thing, I need to be incredibly grateful that he was so willing and understanding when I shared my needs and thoughts with him! That is huge, and if I overlooked that and just expected him to “get it” and understand how I was feeling—then I was in the wrong.

It is a huge blessing to have a husband who is thoughtful about our needs and really listens when we say things that need to be resolved or will help us out. Let me repeat again, for myself especially—that is HUGE, and I am truly grateful for his graciousness and also patience with me.

So, long story short, and a lesson I am working on learning is that instead of having expectations and getting disappointed when they are not met or understood, I need to instead communicate my needs and practice gratitude for what my husband is already doing positively and lovingly, and also for how kindly he responds to that communication.

I understand that it will not be so easy for everyone, and if your husband is not as patient or understanding, I challenge you to talk to him about your needs anyway (from the smallest ones to the biggest). I want to challenge us as wives to start as the gracious ones. To assume the best, communicate well (instead of pouting or punishing, in my case), and love as dang much as we can.

If you’ve ever read The 5 Love Languages then you understand the concept of showing love first even if it is not returned right away. I see our needs and expectations in the same way. Let’s be super communicative and understanding about our’s and our husband’s needs and set a precedent of safe and loving conversation around the expectations that we have, and work on talking about them before reacting negatively.

I am honestly not the greatest at that, but I am working on it because I know practice makes perfect, and also that every time I do speak up and give my marriage a chance, I am making an intentional investment into making it better—an investment that will pay off in years down the road and make our marriage a rich place to be.

My Favorite Christian Podcasts

Podcasts are life. I LOVE them!

I think I got hooked back in community college when I had a 40 minute drive to school and back (or, tbh it was Harry Potter audio books most of the time), and these days I hang out with them daily—on walks, while I’m cleaning or cooking, while I’m doing business tasks, when I need some inspiration, when I want to learn something new.

There are SO many options, and I am obsessed with all of them. Business tips, Christian lifestyle, female topics, motivational, funny, dramatic—literally anything that you like, there is a podcast for you.

Continually learning and growing is one of the keys to moving our lives in a positive direction, so it’s not just about entertainment for me, it’s also a priority to keep my mind fresh and focused on things that will help me make better decisions, lead a healthier life, and driven to be my best (and ultimately the best for God!). And, to be completely honest, it’s so stinking easy and feels like I’m not doing any work at all to gain valuable knowledge and insight.

Here we go, my FAVES of last year:

Focus on the Family

This podcast is AMAZING. I adore Jim Daily and John Fuller, and you can find hope and Biblical inspiration on marriage, raising kids, depression, loss, how to live well as a Christian. There’s so many topics and none of them fail to inspire me, even if they aren’t topics that directly relate to me. The marriage and family-specific broadcast is awesome too!

My favorite episode: This podcast is pulled from their radio station, so there are 100s of episodes. Honestly all of them are so good. I’d recommend finding a topic that speaks to you or your situation, and then also expand your knowledge base and listen to a topic that isn’t something you know about, but one that could help you better understand or relate to others. One I loved and found very interesting was Understanding Sexual Trends In the Dating Culture

She Podcast

I mean, who doesn’t love Jordan Dooley. That’s not even a question. She’s awesome. This podcast is fairly new, but there is some incredible Christian content in here—business tips, buying a home, anxiety and fear, acne, dreams, relationships. I mean, literally every girl needs to listen to this podcast.

My favorite episode: Navigating the Awkward Post Grad Years and the Tension of Transition. No explanation needed for why this one is so good.

The Porch

This podcast is a series of sermons from Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas, and it’s specifically catered to young adults. The pastor talks about everything from dating, to doubting our faith, to what happens if you get pregnant, to if you can be a gay Christian. There are definitely some hard topics in here, but I think that’s the value of it and I have learned SO much already

My favorite episode: To be honest I just started this podcast, but one that really spoke to me so far was called Finding Freedom From Anxiety. I deal a lot with stressing out and having minor anxiety, and this episode gave me so much peace and motivation to overcome with God’s love and promises.

Rise Podcast

Rachel Hollis is so comical and fun to listen to, and she’s also a business boss and incredible motivator. It’s not specifically Christian content, but Rachel is a believer, and that motivates and molds how she runs her life and business. If you want to become a kick ass person, awesome mom, killer business owner, or just receive some incredible motivation—listen to this podcast. And, because I’m just being honest here, you know how some podcasts have hit and miss episodes? This one doesn’t. They’re all so good simply because Rachel is a great speaker, fun to listen to, and has so many great things to say.

My favorite episode: I haven’t listened to all of them, and seriously every one is good, but I will give you one that really moved and inspired me- This Daily Practice Changed My Life and My Business

The Hope Podcast

Lina Abujamra spoke at the college I attended several years ago and I was hooked. She is such an inspiration and has the biggest heart for God. This podcast deals with some tough issues, but it is so inspiring and truth giving. If you need to hear from God and be encouraged with stories of his love and transformation—I highly recommend you take a listen.

My favorite episode: With Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. Loss, purpose, daily life, singleness—just listen to it.

The Ed Mylett Show

Ed Mylett is an incredible leader in shaping your life into what you want it to be and living your absolute best. Honestly, his tenacity intimidates me sometimes, but it gives me a kick in the butt to give my all and really use the skills God has given me. If you want someone with a Godly perspective on improving your body, mind, business or family, Ed is the guy.

My favorite episode: Eric Thomas - The Hip-Hop Preacher. So inspiring and energetic. This episode will inspire you in so many ways.

Okay, I’ve given you enough for a lifetime of Jesus and inspiration, so I think that’s a good place to stop for the day. Drop me your favorite podcasts! I love finding new ones!

P.S. I have a few other favorites that aren’t necessarily Christian, and I will forewarn that I don’t agree with all of the opinions/beliefs in some of them, but they are full of so much knowledge and valuable content, and are just fun to listen to!

The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast: This podcast is honestly just fun. It’s a lot of girly stuff—skincare, business tips, hair, makeup, health, food, fitness, and some deeper ones on mental health and other interesting topics. I love it and listen almost every week.

The Grind and Be Grateful Podcast: Marie Wold is such an inspiring and sweet person. She is in her early 20s and runs an awesome influencer business focused around healthy, balanced, and confident living. I found her on Instagram and have never looked back. She talks with people about mental health surrounding food and fitness, business topics, women’s health, and loads more. And she’s a fanatic about practicing gratitude. It’s awesome.

The Goal Digger Podcast: Jenna Kutcher is the master behind this podcast and she is one of the sweetest and most grounded women alive. She is a business boss, but is also just freaking real about body image and life, and she brings to much value to the table. She is an Instagram, Pinterest, and email marketing boss, and she has the best tips and tricks out there for anyone wanting to run a killer business or just have some great tips for life.

Okay, that’s all for now. Until next time! Happy listening!