A Well-Tended Heart

 Hello sweet Friends!  I am sooo excited to share with you a change that will impact my podcast/blog/social media content.  Over the past six months or so, I've stepped back a bit to reflect on and refine the direction of the content I was creating. The previous content I had been creating focused on scripture memory , and for those who have been following me for a while this change is not going to be drastic because Scripture memory will still be a main focus.  

So this decision that I made will shape the  future content you'll see here on the blog and across all of my social media content.  I love the title " A Well Tended Heart", because a couple of months ago, I read a book called "Respectable Sins" by Jerry Bridges and it really impacted me.  As I read this book, I could see so many of these "respectable sins" popping up in my life and it was evident to my soul that I needed to work on cultivating my heart by pulling out the weeds of sin.  I want to be content, I want to be thankful,  I want to be a loving wife, mother and friend.  I want to be more like Christ.  I don’t want to envy, I don’t want to be self righteous, but I do find myself at times forgetting who I am in Christ and what I have now because I have the Holy Spirit living inside of me.  

All of that to say, is that you can expect, if you decide to continue to follow my content that you will hear or read my struggles, you will see how God’s word impacts my life and what I learn about God as I study scripture and I will encourage you as I always do to memorize and meditate on scripture because seriously that is how the battle of the mind is won.  Remember in Ephesians 6:17 "And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."

I can keep going about how important it is to know the word of God and to meditate on it but Ill keep that for another time. 

 I can relate to Paul's words in his first letter to the Corinthians chapter 2 when He says that He did not come with eloquence or wisdom as he proclaimed to them the testimony about God.  For he resolved to know nothing while he was with them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He came to them in weakness and fear and with much trembling.  His message and his preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power that their faith would not rest on men's wisdom but on God's power"

It is not my desire to impress with eloquence or theological expertise.   I am simply a woman who loves the Lord and wants to faithfully share what He is teaching me as I seek to become more like Christ and if perhaps my difficulties inspire you or encourage your heart to tend to your own heart then I would call that a win-win.   

I would love it if you would pop in from time to time.  Who knows, maybe you will relate to some of my struggles and can glean from what the Lord is teaching me.I f you decide to continue to follow my content,  Every month, you can look forward to one new blog post and a companion podcast episode on the same subject. Read, listen, or enjoy both!  Its my hope that this content will encourage your hearts and that you too will want to tend to your heart so that you are able to show the love of Christ in your home, among your friends and family, within your churches and in every season of your life.     If learning about how to cultivate a well-tended heart sounds appealing, click the subscribe like or follow button because we'll soon begin some gardening work together.  

My Memorization routine is ALWAYS changing!! Does yours?

Have you ever started a project and then later decided to change things up because the project was becoming stagnant?

You might be asking, “Why would you want to add something new into a scripture memory routine if things seems to be going well with the normal routine? Well, I love change especially if its practical and will help me in the long run. My scripture memory journey is always changing. I may add or stop doing something that I found to be helpful for me a couple of years ago.

I am currently memorizing Romans. When I first started Chapter 1, I remembered the importance of being prepared before beginning the actual memorization process. In the past, I would start a new book thinking I was prepared, but by the time I got into chapters 4 or 5, my desire to keep going would begin to fade. I simply did not have enough fuel in the tank, and the process I had originally put in place would slowly spiral downward.

I am determined that the book of Romans will be different! I know it is a long book, and with that in mind, I took the time to make sure I was prepared by doing a little more work ahead of time. My goal is that when I reach the middle chapters, I won’t spiral again and rely solely on rote memory. I want to be able to find a chapter and verse quickly if I get lost, and while rote memory is very helpful, I knew I needed a bit more support.

So, I decided to create a mind palace for each chapter. In the past, when I worked on Ephesians, I did very well with my Chapter 1 mind palace, but after that things became a little wonky. Looking back, that was because I was rushing the process and not planning ahead. Creating a mind palace does take time, but so far I have two chapters mapped out, and those locations are becoming very helpful whenever I go back to review.

For instance, my guest bathroom represents Romans 1:18–20. I can go right to that passage because I remember the visual image associated with it. This approach definitely takes time, but that is not what I am sharing with you today.

Today, the tools I am sharing with you are the FIrst letters of Romans and also Romans in phrase format.  The amount of time these tools will take depends on your computer and printing skills. I found this process surprisingly challenging because all I wanted to do was create a booklet! I researched several different methods and still couldn’t figure it out. In the end, I took the easy route and sent everything to OfficeMax for printing.

If you know how to create a booklet yourself, please leave a comment! I would love to hear what worked for you.

The first tool is the book of Romans in a phrase-style format. I used Thomas Meyer’s book, The Memorization Study Bible, to help create the phrasing. This was a little difficult because the book uses the KJV, while I am memorizing from the BSB.

I posted earlier about structuring Scripture, and while I like the idea of sentence diagramming and structure, I am definitely an “I have to do it perfectly” type of person. Unfortunately, that approach did not work well for me because:

• I’m not a grammar student.
• When I structured the text, I would constantly second-guess myself, revise it, and then revise it again. It created far more stress than I wanted in my Scripture memory journey.

The phrase format works much better for me. It helps with memorization because each line contains fewer than eight words, and many lines begin with a conjunction, making the flow of thought easier to see. I can also visually recognize repeated words, lists, and patterns within the text, which helps reinforce memory.

As I memorize, I begin noticing these connections and will often color-code them. I also add my memory palace locations next to the verses so everything is connected and easy to review.

  So, what are you memorizing? Do you do anything specific to prepare before you begin memorizing?

I hope that this post gave you some new ideas and that these tools will be helpful for you as well. If you plan to try to implement some of these new ideas, post a comment, drop a line etc. I would love to hear about it!

Here are the links. You should be able to click the link and print the resource as a PDF.

 First Letters Romans 1-16

Romans Written in Phrases for Easy Memorization

9 Scripture Memory Templates to help you as you memorize scripture!!! Not verse specific!

Hey yall!  Listen, there are days when I do not have a lot of time to sit down to work on scripture memory.  I know I'm not the only person that struggles with this which is why I am releasing 9 podcasts solely for anyone who just needs a little bit of nudging to get going.  You can use these podcasts for anything that you are memorizing and I thought that this might be a good location to have all of them in a location that can be found easily.

They are  doable for anyone who has limited time because they range from 3-10 min. You have several options to choose from: verse prep, three different ways to learn a new verse, three options for reviewing all your verses together, plus one for prayer and one for “move and review.” You can pick just one—or combine a few—depending on how much time you have that day!

I would love to know your thoughts on these templates and if they are helpful in any way!

Verse Prep

Learn the New Verse -Write it out 3 times

Learn the New Verse with movement 

Learn the New Verse -Say the verse outloud

Review all verses -Writing it out

Review all verse Saying it outloud

Review all verses using First Letter Method

Praying your verses

Move and Review