Guided By Grace Life Coaching

Living in the midst of tremendous blessings...yet still occasionally struggling with jealousy? Yep. I go there sometimes. It's almost comical to me that - at age 42 - I can still struggle with many of the same insecurities that plagued me as a child. You know that feeling? The frustrating part of it all is that I don't ever want to be ungrateful for the MANY blessings in my life. Yet sometimes...even though I'm loving being a homeschool Mom and having my days filled with all that entails - I still have those brief moments of wondering "When do I get to pursue MY dreams?". Yuck. That sounds so immature. I suppose this is what many of us feel when we get to be in our 40's. We remember all those dreams we had as a child and begin to feel badly for those left unfulfilled.  Here were my biggest childhood dreams:  Become a wife/mom (check!) Be famous :-) You'll notice that my "be famous" part was pretty non-specific. The mode to that ...

I'm feeling left out. Surprisingly, what I'm "left out" of is a huge church split. Just why I'm feeling left out doesn't make total sense to me - but I think I'm figuring it out. Let me share my heart... Three years ago, after God opened our eyes to many things (primarily the warning signs of a manipulative/controlling pastor) we left our church home of nearly 9 years. It was a hard decision. One that we've shed many tears over. In fact - one that my heart still isn't totally healed from. It hurt on many levels - not the least of which was the ostracizing we felt from the people we used to call friends. The way we were treated was nearly identical to every other member who had chosen to leave before us - as well as nearly everyone who has chosen to leave since.The long and short of it was that if you chose to leave the church body, you were no longer allowed to be friends with anyone who was still at the church (per the pastor). None of our chu...

"Extra! Extra! Hear all about it!" This feels like one of those kinds of moments. Partially because my posts on here have become so infrequent. And, partially because this might just be something you want to know too! Ready for it? (I'm sure you are waiting in eager anticipation.) Here it is: Our imperfect, stress-filled lives are what life's all about - and they're the perfect time to praise God to the utmost! Confused as to why I've just now come to this conclusion? Allow me to explain. I've been waking up every day with this foreboding feeling in the pit of my stomach. Nothing huge is causing it - just a whole bunch of smaller things (all adding up to one big mole-ish mountain). Well, I've been mistaking this feeling for something that I need to devote energy to "overcoming." Something that I needed to ponder over, pray over, allow my mood to become sullen over - you get the idea. All in all, it's been adding up to me being i...

I can't believe it's been this long since I've written on here! Well, really I can. I was waiting for life to slow down &/or for me to have something to say. Life has slowed down just enough this week that I can feel it's OK to take a few minutes to write. And God has been laying a few things on my heart lately that I wanted to share - with all 3 of you who actually read this blog! So here goes... I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about following our passions in life. I'm actually reading a new book by Jon Acuff called Start. . It's about: punching fear in the face, escaping average, and doing work that matters. He probably didn't expect a stay-at-home homeschooling Mom to be reading it, but I'm here to say it's a great read. It's about going from "average" to "awesome". About living your life with such passion, that you don't look back in a few years and wonder what ever happened to your dreams. It's ...

This parenting thing is not for the faint of heart. When my kids were little, all my friends with older children (e.g. older than mine were at the time) would always tell me how much harder parenting is as the kids get older. "Yeah, right", I thought. Raising twins was never a cake-walk from the moment I became an immediate mother of two! I thought that surely nothing could be harder than two newborns, or two toddlers, or two pre-schoolers. Well, here's what I think today: parenting the little ones is physically exhausting, while parenting the olders is emotionally exhausting. Want to know when parenting is REALLY hard? When you see your childhood struggles rearing their ugly heads in the lives of your children . Ugh. It stinks. Nothing can throw me back faster to my childhood hurts than when I see similar things happening with my kids. Talk about Momma Bear mode? This is like Momma Bear with a wounded paw mode. Not. Pretty. Right now I see my kids walking...

Over the weekend, I managed to squeeze out enough quiet time to be able to read the August digital edition of my favorite homeschool magazine. Note: "squeezing out quiet time" looks like this: me sitting in comfy chair with feet up; child #1: "Mom! I'm hungry!", me putting feet down, going to kitchen, making them food, returning to chair with feet up; child #2: "Mom! Will you move the truck out of the driveway so I can play basketball?!"; me putting feet down, moving truck, grabbing glass of water because I'm now thirsty, putting feet back up; phone rings; husband (on phone): "Whatcha doin'?"; me: "nothing". And THAT, my friends, is what I mean by "squeezing out quiet time." It's a miracle I did get it read. Anyway, back to my story... One of the articles had a quote from a book that really touched me: There is a time to treasure every fleeting minute of their childhood. Just eighteen precious years to in...

From one mom to another - guess what I got to have earlier this week...go ahead, guess! One. Entire. Hour... ...of floating in the pool... ALL      BY          MYSELF! Can you even believe it?! The only sound I heard was the neighbor dog barking to be let in. But seriously. No children. No splashing. No one to bump into my float. I went from: floating on my back in the sit-up raft, to floating on my stomach on the other one. (Very important not to get an uneven tan, you know.) Then, when the heat got too much to bear - because we ARE having a heat wave here in Michigan - I just got off and swam a bit. Seriously. Are you feeling it? I was actually ALONE for an HOUR IN the POOL! I know. I am still in disbelief as well. But, don't worry. In case you fear that I just lied there wasting away my brain cells or something, I actually did a lot of praying and pondering. Actually, I wish I didn't have one of those...