The loss of my marriage was devastating. A double blow came the day after my dissolution was finalized and I knew it was time to share my truth here on-line. The fear of possible on-line rejection felt like it might be too much to bear. I thought about all the negative comments I had received over the years, over petty things and I thought – if ever I was going to get some hurtful emails…now was going to be the time. I wasn’t sure if I could emotionally handle it but I knew that I had to hold this ministry […]
Read More10 Verses for When You Are Worried
Worrying weighs us down. It can cause us to lose sleep, overeat (or under eat), give us headaches, stomach aches, and make us irritable. It can also make us feel distant from God and from others. Worrying accomplishes nothing – absolutely nothing and only harms you. Often we look for God in our devotional times and worship times – but strangely enough, many times we find God’s presence most real, in the midst of a storm. I remember a time when I would go to bed worried and wake up worried. I printed off verses and put them beside my bed […]
Read More10 Verses For When You Can’t Sleep At Night
Have you ever spent the night – staring at the clock – calculating how many more hours until you get up and panicking about how little sleep you are getting? Sometimes I fall asleep, but can’t stay asleep. I wake up and my mind starts working too soon and I want to desperately fall back asleep, but I just can’t. I’m in my bed for 7 to 8 hours but not actually sleeping! One thing that has worked – instead of counting sheep – is meditating on God’s Word and repeating certain verses over and over in my head to stop […]
Read MoreFor the Leader Who Feels Weak: A Call to Courage
I was in 3rd grade when I realized I had a real problem. I knew I had a speech impediment because kids on the school bus had pointed it out – but it hadn’t really bothered me much…until the day speech therapy began. I had trouble with the letters “s” and “z”. For some reason, I said them out the side of my mouth. Once a week in my public school, I left my class and friends and headed to the speech therapy room where I wore headphones and repeated over and over…and over… the “s” and “z” sound correctly. […]
Read MoreWhen the Wicked Prosper and God Seems Far Away {Psalm 10}
Do you find yourself troubled by the direction of our world? Turning on the news these days is a painful experience. Watching the oppression of women, children, the poor, racial tensions, and persecution of Christians around the world, is enough to make us all sit back and say: “God, where are you?” The corruption I see in our government mixed with the required political correctness in the media, suppresses truth and makes my heart hurt. A reader wrote me and asked, “How do we live with joy when all this is in our face and growing? How do we not […]
Read MoreWhen Your Story Doesn’t End Like Esther…or Cinderella
Not all stories end like Esther…or Cinderella. Sometimes when we do what is right – in the midst of a bad situation – things get worse. Then what? That’s what today’s video is all about… (if you can’t see this video – click here) One final observation… Esther was a woman of courage – she risked her life to save the lives of her people. But her courage goes further than just going to the king and asking for him to save her and her people. Esther did this IN the presence of the guilty man who orchestrated all of […]
Read MoreHow to Respond to the Labels – Intolerant, Judgmental, Hater
Some might think I live in a bubble because I’ve homeschooled my kids for the last 5 years…they’d be wrong. For the first 18 years of my life, I attended public schools. I also worked in the “real world” as a waitress for many years and later as a receptionist, Administrative Assistant and Business Sales Rep. During those years, I made friends with all sorts – gay and straight, Mormon, Jehovah Witness, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist and every denomination from Charismatic to Fundamentalist to Methodist and Presbyterian. I sincerely enjoy people and anyone who is kind to me, I quickly adopt […]
Read MoreWhat I’ve Feared All My Life
This is a really random post that has no spiritual implications but I have a confession…something I’ve feared for 38 years… Dogs. Yep – it’s lame I know. It’s been a problem that has hounded me (no pun intended) since I was a child. I LOVE people. And when you are afraid of a family’s dog – let’s just say – that family…does not love my fear of dogs. I’m a huge inconvenience to have over because these poor dog owners ie. my real life friends – have to put their dog in the basement or their bedroom or laundry […]
Read More5 Ways to Defend Truth
Before we get started with the #TruthInLove series, we need to define some terms. Truth is reality…what really is. Subjectivism is where truth and reality are determined by the subject or person. Relativism is the theory that there is no objective standard by which truth may be determined. There is no absolute truth. As Bible believers we believe in absolute truth which means we stand opposed to relativism and subjectivism. Truth is not relative to time, location, and people groups. Truth is not subject to peoples opinions or culture. God’s Word defines truth. Whew – that was a lot of […]
Read MoreWhen You Are Embarrassed
A friend asks “What’s the book about?” and I swallow hard. Almost embarrassed that I would even think of writing a book. I mean really – what could I possibly say that I have not already said on my blog? And why would I sell something. For 5 years, everything with my ministry has been free…then all of a sudden I’m holding a conference and selling a book. This is new behavior for me. And I get a negative email from someone who says they’ve followed my blog for years and I’ve changed and she is not pleased I am selling […]
Read MoreA Big Flop, Overcoming & the WLW Conference
4 years ago, the Outreach Pastor at my church organized a Health Expo as an outreach to our community. He invited me and Clare from Peak313.com to speak at this Expo (this is us 4 years ago). She and I went out on a snowy January day and delivered flyers at local businesses, restaurants, and Dr. Offices inviting those in the community to join us. The big day arrived and I went to the room where I was scheduled to speak and got organized. I put a pink Women Living Well pen on each chair along with my fill-in-the-blank hand out. I had […]
Read MoreWhen the Bottom Falls Out
Last summer, my husband was walking down our deck stairs holding my daughters hand… they stepped on one stair (these are higher up than they appear in the picture) and it gave out – then they stepped to the next stair and it gave out too! Thankfully my husband had my daughter by the hand and she did not fall through. He strong armed her onto the 3rd step down but he got injured from gripping the railing – the wood punctured his hand and later developed an infection – it was just a mess! The bottom fell out literally for him that day. But I think […]
Read MoreThe Biggest Disappointment of Relevant
Me with Ann right before we spoke on a panel about “Upside Down Blogging”. There was one HUGE lesson God revealed to me during the Relevant Conference… I’m a huge disappoinment and it’s time I embrace disappointing others – to the glory of God! Let me explain. The closing speaker for the Relevant Conference was my #1 favorite blog writer – Ann Voskamp of A Holy Experience. Her writing takes me to the throne of God each time I read it. I simply can’t get enough of her writing. Previous to her closing session, I had shared the platform with Ann in a session titled […]
Read MoreMy Battles With Loneliness
After posting the picture of my Good Morning Girls Group, I received a few comments and emails from sisters in Christ who are lonely and long for Christian friendships. My heart broke, as I can recall the seasons in life where I was caught in the dark cloud of loneliness. I remember weekends in college in Chicago, when most of the girls either went home or out on dates with their boyfriends – I was homesick. I would sit in my dorm room alone eating popcorn and listening to George Winston’s Pachabel’s Canon play on repeat for hours(I still do […]
Read MoreThis Is What I Do When Life Hurts
The Making Your Home a Haven Challenge is over and I miss reading all of your link-ups already!!! Thank you for helping me make October special in my home – your accountability truly helped me! I have the most amazing readers ever! Keep it up! Today I’m thinking about the reader who is frustrated with her home and feels that it is anything BUT a haven. I turn to Psalm 23 and I think about the inner dialogue of a woman who is hurting… 1 – The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. (want. want. want. […]
Read MoreOur Family Went To New York City Last Weekend
Last weekend, I took the kids to see their daddy on a business trip 7 hours away in PA (really it was more like 10 with all the stops for the kids). Can I just say for the record – traveling alone with kids is hard. Even with the DVD player going and bags stuffed with toys, it’s hard. We weren’t able to leave our sin natures at home – so it wasn’t long before there was bickering in the back seat (I was wishing I had a candle to light in the car lol!). So we arrived in far […]
Read MoreTrusting God When We Don’t Understand Why
9/11 brings back a lot of painful memories – shock, horror, sadness, fear. Heroes arose on this horrific day. Firemen sacrificed their lives to save many. God Bless their families. I am also reminded of the amazing story of the widow of Todd Beamer. Todd, a man of faith, courageously led other passengers to overpower their hijackers on flight 93 to thwart the plans of their hijackers. Their plane crashed in a vacant field in Pennsylvania and all on board died that day. Todd is a hero. “I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and […]
Read MoreFailure
Who likes failure? Not me!!! Back in June I shared with you the planting of our very first garden. It truly was a joy to plant and the hope of juicy fresh veggies was on everyone’s minds. Well…let me be honest…I failed. We had very heavy rainfalls for 10 days straight after our planting – and moss began to grow in our garden! Uh oh – I knew that couldn’t be a good sign. Then weeds began to grow and I couldn’t tell a weed from a seedling – uh oh! That can’t be good either. So I let the […]
Read MoreFinding Peace in the Midst of Chaos
On Thursday my video blog was about how God helps us in times of need. An Anonymous commenter said “But practically speaking… what does that mean? HOW does He help us when the baby is sick and the floors are filthy and we haven’t slept in 48 hours and we don’t have help to cook meals. It’s one “theme” I haven’t understood as a Christian.” I repsonded back to her in the comments section and shared with her how our outside circumstances may not change when we cry out to God in prayer – but our inner self – our […]
Read MoreWhy Me?
Wednesdays in the Word: Ecclesiastes 8I hold my 6 week old baby in the rocking chair. He is restless and crying so I cuddle him in and begin to nurse. He drinks for a moment and then cries. What is wrong – why is he doing this? He latches on again for a couple minutes and then stops to cry…we do this for 45 minutes and now I am sweating, unsure of myself and uneasy with how nursing is going. We stop and I just rock him. He is peaceful. We rock. He sleeps. I go to my computer and […]
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