About Katie Orr

Jesus-lover. Pastor's wife. Mommy of three. Grace-clinger. Truth-speaker. Auburn fan.
Longing to equip others to walk with the Lord for a lifetime.
Co-author of Savoring Living Water: How to have an effective quiet time.
Blogs at Living Devotionally. Creator of Do Not Depart where you can receive encouragement and tools to abide in God's Word.

Go ahead and let your boys write on the wall!

March 23, 2013 by Katie Orr 1 Comment

Easter is right around the corner, are you ready?

If you are a busy mom like me, it is all-too-easy to let good opportunities to teach our boys about Jesus pass us by. Unfortunately, the busyness seems to be worse around the holidays—the very ones that have their roots in celebrating Christ!

If I am not careful, my children will grow up experiencing Easter as a sugar-filled day with fun activities and family dinner; they will get a new dress or pastel tie, a pretty basket, and probably a few cavities.

But no Jesus.

— Find More Jesus

So in my efforts to keep the gospel at the center of our family traditions, I created Find More Jesus: How to Make Easter All About Jesus. This e-guide is an easy — yet incredibly meaningful — Easter plan sure to point your children to real meaning of Easter.

Each day includes:

Short daily Bible reading.
Corresponding simple egg-activity.
Suggested prayer time.
Personal focus point for you to chat about with your family.

A supplies list (items you probably already have around the house) and thoughts on the Easter bunny from a Christian worldview are also included.

AND, one of these activities includes letting our kids COLOR ON THE WALL!! (Gasp!)

It’s super-fun.

And reversible.

While this e-guide is structured to be done in an 8 day span, if you don’t grab it “in time,” it can honestly be completed in a shorter amount or extended over the Easter holiday. Some are even choosing to work through the entire piece on Easter Day itself!

Hop on over to get your own e-copy today, and be sure to check out our Facebook page, where the Find More Jesus community will be sharing their Easter celebrations along the way.

My hope is that Find More Jesus will make your Easter season intentionally Christ-centered AND easy.

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katie

Jesus-lover. Pastor’s wife. Mommy of three. Grace-clinger. Truth-speaker. Auburn fan. Katie Orr loves to equip women with the tools they need to walk with God for a lifetime.

You can learn more about Katie and her projects at KatieOrr.me.

Filed Under: a little fun, a mother's heart, book review, guest post, Prayer, the heart, worship Tagged With: being a mom, books, Easter, faith, moms

Last minute ideas for a Christ-Centered Christmas

December 17, 2011 by Katie Orr 5 Comments

Christmas Eve is a week from today.

OH MY GOSH, CHRISTMAS EVE IS A WEEK FROM TODAY!

I’m not ready…are you?

Though Christmas is right around the corner, it’s not too late to incorporate a few Christ-centered traditions into this next week.

Read the Christmas Story

Read Luke 2 at bed-time, or during the day and have the kids draw their own picture to re-tell the Christmas story. If your boys can read, give them turns at reading. Some might have fun re-enacting the Christmas scenes, while you narrate. (Be ready to video tape it!)

Embrace St. Nick

Whether you “do” or don’t do Santa, you can still incorporate the true story of good ol’ St. Nick. There is a fun Christmas movie by Veggie Tales called Saint Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving, which tells about how a little boy named Nicholas came to spend his life’s work helping others and telling them about Jesus.

You can name your stockings “St. Nick Stockings” and encourage everyone to give gifts of words (or drawings, from little ones) and needed items. Throughout the week, have them drop their small gifts into the stockings until they are filled on Christmas morning!

Multi-task with Crafts

This is going to be a busy week. Why not give your boys some fun activities to do, and accomplish something else at the same time?! Little hands will need to be busy this week. Kids are out of school and the excitement of Christmas is spilling out.

Enter: crafts.

The e-book Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands is a great resource. It is a 24-day-guide with Scripture readings, a two-minute teaching time, AND directions for an ornament for each day! There are alternate schedules provided, and the “Just the Basics” plan is perfect for this week.

OK, so here is where the multi-tasking comes into play. Maybe you’re like me, and you planned to have some cute home-made gifts from the kids, but it didn’t quite happen. Have the kids make some ornaments to give to grandma! She’ll love it!

For those of you who run whenever the word “crafts” comes in the picture, have a look at Brooke’s Kid’s Christmas Crafts {For the Non-Crafty Mom} post. An easy-peasy, super-cute idea to give your boys something to do this week, while pointing them to Biblical virtues.

Happy Birthday Jesus Party

This is a fun and easy one! Plan a birthday party for Jesus. My kids had so much fun with this last year. (We decided to put every candle we had on the cake…) Get them involved in the baking and planning. The party reinforces the truth of why we celebrate Christmas.

The King’s Christmas List is a great book to use leading up to the party. It talks about the real reason for Christmas, and what Jesus wants for Christmas.

Give a Gift to Jesus

Even if you already have your Christmas shopping done, consider adding a gift to Jesus. We give our kids three gifts for Christmas, one of which is money for them to give a gift to Jesus. If your kids are older, you can give them opportunities to earn money this week—all to give back to Jesus! Let them pick what they want to give through World Vision (you can give fun things like goats, chickens, and rabbits) or OneVerse (to help end Bible Poverty.)

Another way to give a gift is to look for ways to serve the needs of those around you, and take steps towards sharing the love of Jesus with others. Melanie shares in her book Christ-Centered Christmas that they invite several families over to go caroling with them through the neighborhood.

Share the Love

What traditions does your family do, to keep Christ the center of Christmas? Leave a comment and share your ideas with us!

Written a post with Christ-centric Christmas ideas in it? Link it up below!

Filed Under: Christmas

For when I forget my children are a blessing.

November 19, 2011 by Katie Orr 15 Comments

The house is a colossal mess. The floors are sticky with juice-laden footprints. The laundry seems to be multiplying by the hour (and I wonder why these children have so many pairs of pajamas?!) And, whatever you do, PLEASE DON’T LOOK AT MY TOILETS

Bedtime TOOK FOREVER as little ones kept getting up for a drink, then to go potty, then they were hungry (and now they are thirsty again.) Just when I settle in to actually get something done, I hear little footsteps yet again; this time they are scared.

I’m exhausted from being woken up again and again by a teething babe, and getting to bed late after trying to accomplish something in the quiet hours while they sleep.

‘Round and ’round I go, each day seeming to be a repeat of managing chaos, constant discipline, and I wonder what the heck we were thinking by having three kids in under five years?

Children are a blessing. Right, right; I know, I know. But so often I struggle with connecting what I know to what I feel. So what must I cling to in the moments when the last word I would use to describe my experience in motherhood is blessed?

My only rock, the sole constant in my life is God’s Word. So I claim scripture, and as I do I ask God to transform my heart and mind to believe what it promises.

Lord, help me to remember that the the fruit of the womb is a reward. —Psalm 127:3 ESV

I thank you that each of my children are fearfully and wonderfully made. Each of their personalities are hand-crafted by you. —Psalm 139:13 ESV

Give me strength, wisdom and great patience to train up these children in the way they should go. —Proverbs 22:6 ESV

I am thankful that ultimately, all my children are taught by You. —Isaiah 54:13 ESV

Lord, each of my children are good and perfect gifts from above, coming down from You, the Father of lights. —James 1:17 ESV

Give me grace, that I would not provoke my children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. —Ephesians 6:4 ESV

Never let me be a hindrance to my children coming to Jesus. —Mark 10:14 ESV

Amen.

What do you do when the demands of motherhood overwhelm? What scriptures do you cling to in the messiness of everyday life?

Photo credit

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Find the next post in our Hope for the Weary Mom series at the MOD Squad blog today!

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Are you a weary mom? Check out this comforting book co-written by our very own Brooke McGlothlin. It will be a balm to your weary mommy soul, we promise.

Filed Under: a mother's heart, hope for the weary mom, Prayer, The Word Tagged With: Bible, biblical, encouragement, faith, moms, Mother's Heart, Prayer, the heart

Savoring Living Water

October 17, 2011 by Katie Orr Leave a Comment

As a mom of two boys and a girl, all 6 and under, it is a constant battle to make the best use of my time. I especially want the precious, quiet moments when I sit to connect with the Lord to be time that is spent well.

Whether it be in the early morning hours or minutes tucked away here and there throughout the week, my time alone with God is a must. There is no telling what might be ahead for me in this day, so when I sit down to read my Bible and fix my eyes on Jesus I need each moment to be fruitful.

What about you? What is your time with God like? Do you have a structure for your time, whether it be 10 minutes or an hour? Would you like to be able to read and study the Bible and discover life-changing truths on your own?

Are your “quiet times” well-spent?

We may know that His Word is “living water” meant to quench our soul thirst. But many of us struggle with how to drink deeply of it. We may want His Word to affect our daily living, yet it could feel as if the truths lay flat on the pages of Scripture.

In Savoring Living Water we hope to equip you with tools that can help you connect with God in a meaningful way through His Word.

We present a framework for what to do in your “quiet time.” Along with stories and encouragement from each of our own journeys, we offer a road map for you to use in your times with the Lord: how to journal, study the Bible, memorize Scripture, and apply His truths to your days…

-Introduction, Savoring Living Water

My dear friend Lara Williams and I have written this book to teach you how to have an effective time in God’s word. Through the pages of this book, you will discover:

A practical how-to method for studying the Bible on your own.
Tips on connecting with God in a meaningful way through journaling and scripture memory.
Ways to deal with the distractions that inevitably arise during a quiet time.
How to apply God’s word to the moments of daily living.
…and much more.

With every copy of Savoring Living Water sold, $2 will be donated to OneVerse, and for every 13 copies purchased we will be able to fund the translation of one verse into the native language of the Vidunda people who presently have no Bible in their own tongue!

So, if you are looking for a better way to spend those invaluable moments you have to study your Bible, Savoring Living Water can help equip you make the most of that time.