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Beautifully Sweet & Saying Goodbye

Beautifully Sweet & Saying Goodbye

Embrace the journey! I knew I would not own Mezzo Coffee House until retirement, but I didn’t expect to sell this year. Then…Covid happened, the opportunity came up with a vibrant young couple, fast-forward 5 months, and they reopened it today as the new owners. Explaining it to our friends and customers, I have referred to it as “bittersweet.” I was sad, I was happy, I was a mixture of emotions. But, I never questioned whether it was the right thing to do, I knew it all came

What Now?

What Now?

Three Important Questions to Ask Ourselves We’ve had our lives tossed upside down like a trailer in a tornado. Which way is up, where is the exit? How do I get off this crazy ride? Disheveled and desperately craving carbs, we crawled out of the rubble to see what was left standing. As our country begins its long-awaited reopening, we dust ourselves off and look around at what the world has become. This feeling of displacement is unwelcome and uncomfortable. For those of us wh

Freestyle Faith

Freestyle Faith

Ronel and I met online over 10 years ago, she was one of the first subscribers to this blog of random thoughts on faith and family. Even with over 2,000 miles between us we became fast friends. We were both in a season of feasting on the busy-ness of church life and women’s ministry yet starving for authentic connection. Each of us have flown back and forth to catch up over a cup of coffee and even shared a few speaking events through the years. I love tag-team speaking with

Where Am I Going to Church?

Where Am I Going to Church?

I often get asked where I’m going to church, *smile* I’ll get to that. When we left the church in 2000 that we had helped plant in 1996 (let me be completely honest, we were kicked out for disagreeing with the pastor and “causing discord”), I was so hurt. I felt discouraged, displaced, and completely destroyed. I have to add here…there was a day when I couldn’t admit that we were kicked out, I was ashamed and I would feel the need to explain, but not anymore. I will explain i

Now Available In Print: Praise and Coffee to Go

Now Available In Print: Praise and Coffee to Go

Connect, encourage and inspire… Now available in print! Six Praise and Coffee Conversations to help you facilitate a Praise and Coffee group (or any small group or personal devotions) as you gather in coffee shops or around kitchen tables. No preparation required. Invite two to twelve friends to a coffee shop/restaurant or around your kitchen table. It’s that easy! Consider these six conversations a springboard. Do not hold rigidly to them, instead let the conversations serve

When the Journey Is Not What We Expected

When the Journey Is Not What We Expected

I look at my life and never could have imagined the journey that brought me to this place in my life. I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t love every twist and turn and re-route along the way. I took some detours and jumped right into a few ditches along the way. BUT I love that God has been with me through it all and when I look back on even the most confusing and painful times in my life, I see Him. I see His hand, I see where He was loving me and guiding me towards His plan. Ta

Get Out Of The Wake

Get Out Of The Wake

When our kids were teens we had a 17 foot speed boat and took them tubing every summer. It became quite an adventure. What began as a fun family time quickly turned into “combat tubing” which included four tubes behind the boat, high rates of speed and acrobatics involving jumping over each other as we cornered and landing on top of the other tubers. The wake was their friend and often used to launch them into the air and Mom into a nervous break down. Thankfully it only made

When You Think You’ve Gone Too Far

When You Think You’ve Gone Too Far

As long as you’re still taking breaths…you haven’t gone too far away from His love. No matter where you’ve gone or what you’ve done, He’s been pursuing you with His love. Stop running… Fierce: /fi(ə)rs/ Adjective: having or displaying an intense or ferocious aggressiveness. 1 John 4:9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. John 15:13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life

Loneliness Is Not About Being Alone

Loneliness Is Not About Being Alone

Loneliness is not about being alone, it’s about not feeling connected. Rest In Peace Robin…you will be missed Robin Williams death has set our thoughts again on the desperate truth of depression and our human need for connection. Connections are what make life worth living. God is all about connections. The Bible is overflowing with stories of connection. Connecting us to Him and then to each other. Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your

Take Your Stand

Take Your Stand

Freedom: the condition of being free, the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints. Does fear keep you restrained from stepping out with power to do the things that burn in your heart? If fear did not hold you back, what would you do? What would you say? What would you create? Freedom always costs something. Jesus came and paid for our freedom from the power of sin and death. I’m hoping you’ve experienced that freedom. But even after receiving s

Fear Sits At Empty Tombs

Fear Sits At Empty Tombs

Don’t let fear keep you sitting in front of an empty tomb, the joy came as they ran to be in His presence. Fear, apprehension and anxiety will keep us stuck in a stale, dead, hopeless place. Jesus promises a full life to those who will seek Him and rest in His presence. Are you sitting at a tomb that is keeping you from having the joy a relationship with Jesus can bring? Maybe you need to get up and run from the person, place, memory, fear or vice that keeps your life stagnan

When Prayers Are Not Answered

When Prayers Are Not Answered

We pray and plead and hope and trust, yet nothing happens. Or does it? We set our sights on the answer, and only the answer we desire. What if it’s not that simple? What if there is more going on than a transaction? Imagine a child-parent relationship based on transactions? The child says to the parent, “I will ask you for things. you take care of them and I will thank you.” I don’t want the parent or child side of that relationship. Sadly, I think we often approach our faith

Emotional Survival Isn’t Living

Emotional Survival Isn’t Living

Galatians 4: 4-7 4 But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. 5 God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. 6 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” 7 Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir. Orphanages have an ov

Earning God’s Love ~When Minstry Gets In The Way

Earning God’s Love ~When Minstry Gets In The Way

Whether or not she was trying to earn His approval, love or just impress everyone; she missed the point and I know that I have too. Anybody else? Mary knew that the most important thing happening was at His feet. Listening, learning and resting in His love. Shouldn’t this be easy?? Shouldn’t it come naturally?? Yes, I think it does, but many of us have forgotten how to live instinctively. We know in theory that we should put our family first, that God has given us the gift of

Don’t Give Up

Don’t Give Up

A piece of what I’ve been working on… It’s new life, a new day. It’s hope. Please don’t give up. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. Romans 4:18 The Message And be careful not to paint hope with one just color and brush, often new life looks different than we imagined it would. I have experienced this kind of hope, I’d love to hear your stories of new life if y

I’m Still a Recovering Pharisee

I’m Still a Recovering Pharisee

I’ve noticed something lately. I suppose it’s not a recent “thing” but it seems to be ramping up, or at least I’m just seeing it more. NickMom calls it “Other Mothering.” Jon Acuff calls it Jesus Juke. I refer to myself as a recovering Pharisee. It takes on many forms and has been around since the dawn of man but I think that social media has propelled it to a whole new level. It’s that attitude of needing to right all the wrongs (or in the Christian community-spiritualizing

Is God Your Hero Or Your Father?

Is God Your Hero Or Your Father?

Imagine a little girl, 8 yrs. old, swimming at the beach and suddenly she goes underwater. She’s drowning. A lifeguard runs to save her. He pulls her little body out of the water, rushes her back to shore and gives her CPR. She chokes and sputters and starts to breathe. He’s relieved and the crowd around him cheers. He’s done his job, he’s a hero. He hands her over to her family and after a little applause, high fives and fist pumps from the crowd he goes about his business.

F-A-I-T-H

F-A-I-T-H

The stories ranged from a single young lady who loved to knit to an “experienced” woman of 92 who had raised five children and also started an organization to spay and neuter feral cats in South Florida. This is what I love about Praise and Coffee. No agendas, just a springboard of questions to get the conversation going and see where it leads us. It was Dawn’s first Praise and Coffee and she did a fabulous job! She encouraged us with Phil. 4:13 “I can do all things through C

Introducing An Online Study

Introducing An Online Study

Do you ever struggle to know where you fit? Do you feel like your relationship with God is flat and you want more? Are you tired of religion as you know it and ready for a deeper walk with God? I want to invite you to join in an online study that I will be leading: “Becoming Me Through Him” Unashamedly waking up to the woman God created you to be. I’ve shared this message for about 5 years at retreats (and I’ll be sharing it again this weekend), it’s based on the story of Rah

Hold On To Hope, Even In The Deep Stuff

Hold On To Hope, Even In The Deep Stuff

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 Hold on to hope, even in the deep stuff. #womensministry #faith #encouragement #fear #SueCramer

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