Guided By Grace Life Coaching

Are you enjoying this long Thanksgiving weekend? I pray you are. It's sure been an unusual one around our house. Mom had her 2nd hip replacement surgery on Monday, so we celebrated our family Thanksgiving last Saturday night. Thanksgiving Day we brought Mom home in the morning and then hung out at their house most of the day. Our Thanksgiving Day meat of choice was beef roast instead of turkey. Pretty reminiscent of the day Hannah was born. Six years ago on Thanksgiving Day, we welcomed our little Hannah Banana into the world. Dave and I ate beef roast that day too before we headed to the hospital. This year Hannah's birthday was on Thanksgiving Day again. And we had beef roast again. Maybe that will be our tradition every year her birthday falls on Thanksgiving Day? Probably not. But it was worth thinking about for a second. Would you like to hear my weight loss total? Up to 16 pounds. I should feel great about that. But instead I am feeling guilty that I haven't gotten ...

I have to preface this post by saying I have no time to be writing this. My to-do list is growing by the minute. My day is off to a slow start. Yet all I want to do is take a few minutes to sort out my thoughts. It has been a bit since I last blogged. All those pent up words just HAVE to come out! Since I last wrote, Dave and I got to FINALLY have our mini-getaway. We were originally supposed to do this in May, but my Mom's first hip replacement surgery got re-scheduled (a familiar problem) and then everything happened with my Dad in July and suddenly it's November. I won't say much about the getaway, but just that it was so wonderful to be alone together and have the chance to re-connect. Can I get an Amen from other parents of young children? Who knew 10 years ago that time alone would be such a treasure?! We don't get it very often, but it was just what the doctor ordered. I came home thanking God all the more for the wonderful man He's blessed me with and for ...

I just had to share my awestruck-ness with you today. (Yes, I'm sure I just made up that word.) God is knocking my socks off right now! I really shouldn't be in awe, I mean not in a surprised kind of way. But certainly a reverential awe would be perfectly acceptable. Well, you get the idea. God is awesome! And today I'm basking in His greatness. I don't know if it's the catalyst of the "Made to Crave" experience, or the fact that I turned 39. But the fact is, my attitude towards: food, exercise, my body, my failures & struggles...has done a complete 180! God is freeing me from strongholds that I've held onto for so long I thought they were destined to stick around forever. For one thing (and, hold onto your hats here my bloggy friends), I actually ENJOY working out now! I look forward to it! Whoa. Did I just say that?! I went from having my husband occasionally remind me how much better I'd feel if I'd just get on the treadmill for a few ...

Yesterday afternoon I had the most amazing luxury...time alone! For 20+ minutes I was all alone in the van. As a busy homeschooling mom of 3 that doesn't happen very often! I was so thankful to be able to use most of the time praying out loud to my Abba Father. What incredible peace and joy comes from those moments! I love how God is teaching me right now. What I came to realize yesterday, is that God is requiring something of me that He's been teaching me my whole life. Something that applies to almost every area of my life! He wanted it when I was a sad & lonely high schooler, He wanted it when I was trying to find my place in life those long & lonely years after college, He wants it every time I start to question who my friends really are. God wants me to want Him. To want Him more than I want anything else in life. To care about what He thinks of me, and not what anyone else does. He wants to be enough. Wow! In a current situation we're walking through as a ...

This has been a really good week. For many reasons, it's been good, but want to know the biggest reason? My thought life. God has been showering me with such grace and love and teaching me how to shower myself with the same. For me...that's HUGE! I don't normally do this on here, but I just have to make a short list of some of my biggest blessings this week: worked out on the treadmill five days in a row and actually looked forward to it each time! lost enough weight that I'm down to the next 10's bracket on the scale! (YEAH!!) I'm finally (after over two years of this hanging on the wall in my bedroom) within 4 pounds of being able to start marking my progress on a chart! (I'm motivated by such silly things) God has been helping me to change my internal dialogue (a short statement for a VERY BIG deal!) got to enjoy coffee and great conversation with two different friends on two different nights this week (and had a husband who was excited for me to b...

So, this is going to be brief (LOTS to do this morning), but I just had to give a quick shout-out to the complete awesome-ness of God. (Yes, I really said that.) In my last post I was sharing the difficulty of some changes God sometimes asks us to make. Well, He knew I was having a few minor doubts on whether our family's new path was indeed God-directed. Thankfully, He gave me 100% reassurance out of the clear blue yesterday morning. Thank you Lord! I sure needed that. Boy, did I ever. Isn't it awesome when you feel God that closely? It makes me fall in love with Him all the more. Makes me want to shout His greatness from the tallest rooftop! We serve an incredible God. There aren't enough words to describe Him. I think I'll ponder all His majesty while I get busy with the morning's to-do list. As you go through your Wednesday, I pray you're constantly reminded and reassured of Who God is. May your love for Him grow immeasurably this week. Blessings frien...

Oh, change is hard. Isn't it? Some changes, like the ones made on the road to getting healthy, are hard but they produce exciting results. Not immediately, of course, but at some point. Other change, however, is downright stinky. I mean, I'm sure God has a perfectly wonderful plan in all of it...but at first it just seems 100% lacking in any amount of fun or even good reason.  But...sometimes God doesn't ask us to do the fun or reasonable thing. He asks us to do His will. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8) In the midst of hard things, it's easy to get caught up in emotions. Feelings. Let our hearts rule us. But, my friends, our feelings often deceive us. In fact, more often than not, that's the case. I'm walking through one of those times right now where my feelings are having a rough go. My feelings, if I allowed them to, could totally get me off the path God is leading our f...