PRAISE AND COFFEE

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

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

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

Taken from my “Real Moms of West Michigan” segment on Star 105.7 every Tuesday at 7:05 AM… We have never had more information about parenting available to us, but often we’re still baffled about how to deal with situations with our kids. I think that is because the more important part of parenting is not WHAT we do but WHO we are to our kids. All the parenting skills in the world can not compensate for a lack of connecting with them as a parent, as an authority and as the on

Taken from my weekly segment on Star 105.7 with Tommy and Brook… A key to our children’s security is showing them that they have value. Today I want to talk about a way that we might be DE-valuing our children without even realizing it. Time-outs. We all know that there are times our children need a minute or sixty to process and consider their actions, but how we give them a time out could make all the difference. We have to be careful that when we give a child a time-out we

In the world of winning ball games, honor roll and weather related Facebook status’s many moms are not letting on that there is a deep and painful struggle going on in their homes.  Children are dealing with anxiety at alarming rates and its affecting families, schools and the lives of good Moms everywhere. At some level all kids deal with anxiety, but when it hinders our families from functioning in a healthy manner, we need to pay attention and help our kids through it. I w

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

Taken from my segment with Tommy and Brook on Star 105.7. Tuesdays at 7:05 AM. First off let me say, I get it, I understand. I’m with you in the trenches of this one friend! We can all relate to being an angry mom at times and it doesn’t feel good to us or our kids. There is no doubt we have a tough job- I think it’s the toughest job there is. The kids are bickering, they’ve disobeyed or talked back and we’re yelling or worse…and then we feel awful. We feel like a failure. Fo

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

Excerpt from our online study: Becoming Me Through Him Perfectionism. I spent a lot of years wanting to look like I had it all together with the perfect little life. Wife and mom…bible study, worship leader….I was hiding from my past by being good. The enemy loves perfectionism because it halts our healing. A woman who struggles with shame will often use perfectionism to conceal her pain. It’s a giant wall that we hide behind, thinking it’s keeping us safe but it’s really jus

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed its’ the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead If there is one thing we are figuring out in the past ten years, it’s that systems and bullet point aren’t enough. We’ve been doctrined to death. We have access to more Bible studies, commentaries and guides than Justin Bieber has Twitter followers. But we’re still hungry and unfulfilled. So we go to conferences. We travel meeting t

From my segment on Star 105.7 with Tommy and Brook… Listen to segment here: Real Moms: Want Smart Kids? We know that the library needs to be our friend all summer, but did you know that the smart kids are doing more than reading? (Please library loving people, forgive me…you know I would never tell them to really put down books…but just take a deep breath and open your hearts 🙂 ) That’s right, they’re doing crafts! Creativity is just as important as reading. So, give them so

The Summer Praise and Coffee Magazine is here! Click here to read: Summer 2013 It’s filled with great articles by amazing women. The topic is freedom, and we tackle it from all angles. Freedom from our past, freedom to forgive, freedom from debt and more. Our last issue… It was a little harder to press “publish” on this magazine. As you will read, it is the last magazine for an undecided amount of time. I tell you about the decision on the last pages of the magazine. We’ve ha

Obviously an endless supply of Sourpatch kids candy, DS games, new bikes and a new iPhone would be top on their list, but apparently our kids want a few other things from us too. I’ve been talking with Tommy and Brook on Star 105.7 for the last several weeks about survey results of what else our kids want from us. You can listen to my segments on my Star 105.7 page or read about them here: Come into my bedroom at night, tuck me in. Come say goodnight. Another good idea is to

I watched this video this morning and just had to share it. I think this resonates with every one of us. If for no other reason, watch is for the laughs, he is so funny. But this is also for: All the moms who worry about their kids not doing well in school. All the students that feel they’ve been put in a box or they just don’t fit in. (And may I add, good for YOU!) All the parents of children and the kids wrongly labeled ADD or ADHD. What if. What if, God just has a differen

Thank you to so many amazing women (and one man) who grace the pages of this issue! We do not have print subsciptions available yet but you can order the magazines individually here: Praise and Coffee: Praise and Coffee Spring 2013 Connecting women to encourage each other and inspiring them to draw closer to God. And for all of you wonderful Pinners, here are some Pins for you to share! Also available on my Pinterest page: Sign up here to receive an email when each new magaz

Taken from my segment on Star 105.7 in West Michigan with Tommy and Brook… Last week as I spoke to a MOPS group I looked at the tired eyes of those moms who feel buried in laundry and overcome with planning dinners and driving to practices and doing homework (on the way to school because the night before they said “no, mom I don’t have ny homework”), and I just want so badly for them to grasp how important their roles are in their child’s life. I have 4 kids, three are grown

Taken from my segment on Star 105.7 with Tommy and Brook… Is publicly shaming our children an effective way to bring a positive change when they’ve made serious mistakes? Experts and this real mom say no. Kids need to be able to trust that their parents will watch out not only for their physical well- being but also care for their emotional health. Our job is to provide loving guidance not humiliation that demeans our children. It’s ok that our kids feel guilt over their bad

Taken from the Star 105.7 Real Moms of West Michigan segment: Photo by KarieMurrayPhotography.com It’s a new year and I know that many moms have made the traditional New Year’s resolutions to eat better, lose weight, quit the bad habits and all that, but NOW it’s time for the Mom resolutions. I have 3 mom resolutions that I think we all should commit to: Say yes more. Say ‘yes’ more to playing with your kids. I know what a challenge this can be with a busy life, but next time

Taken from my “Real Moms of West Michigan” segment with Tommy and Brook on Star 105.7… Listen here: Real Moms: Four Things to Talk to Kids About And as long as I had the attention of West Michigan, I had to share a little something for my hubby! You can listen to my ‘Real Moms of West Michigan’ segments on Star 105.7 with Tommy and Brook every Tuesday morning around 7:05 AM. If you are not in the West Michigan area you can listen on iHeart radio #parenting #RealMomsofWestMich