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7 Ways a Single Mom Can Fight Discouragement

Mommas, I know there are some of you out there – many of you – who are facing an immense amount of discouragement. The weight of it sits squarely on your chest, sometimes making it hard to get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes, this single parenting journey can seem like an impossible task, wrought with difficulty, obstacles, hardships, and criticism. Just when you seem you are getting a little bit ahead, another mountain presents itself for climbing. You run hard, putting out many fires along the way. You are often juggling several balls in the air, and inevitably, drop one – leaving guilt, and too often, discouragement. I know how difficult it can be. I know because I have been there too, more times than I can count. I’ve often felt that I’ve done all I could and it simply wasn’t good...

9 Tips to Tackling Difficulties in Parenting

Moms, I have been where some of you sit. I’ve been through the times of lacking techniques, realizing no one really taught me how to parent. I’ve been having a teenager failing classes, getting in trouble at school, smoking weed, sexual immorality, dishonoring our family, disrespect. I’ve been through wayward children.  I’ve been through it all. The following tips are truly everything I know and everything the Lord has laid on my heart about parenting in difficult times.  Watch what you are saying. What is coming from your mouth matters. It matters in the spirit and natural realm. The things we are saying to our children can often be bred from frustration and exhaustion and disappointment. We’re battling the demand of work and school demands and disobedience in the...

The Reason I Left My Career

Like many teenagers, I entered my senior year of high school with a list of big plans to be accomplished after graduation, not the least of which was to run as fast as I could from my small town, leaving it in the dust. I would get my degree, land a big-time job in an even bigger city, probably New York, and I would change the world with my loud, very passionate, never wrong, voice. I would live in a Manhattan apartment and wear a business jacket and high heels to work every day, as I stormed hurriedly down a busy street with a briefcase in tow. Somehow, things didn’t quite work out like I planned.   Although I graduated high school as valedictorian of my senior class with scholarships to attend colleges around the country, I was secretly pregnant, contemplating what my next moves wou...

Avoiding Life’s Burnout

I love this God-given opportunity He has placed in my life. I love being a mom of three very different children, two whom are adults now.  I love being a wife, a friend, and a coworker. I love working with churches, pastors, and anyone who has a heart to serve single mothers and their families. However, there have been too many times to count over the years, that I worked myself into complete exhaustion and burn-out. In that place of exhaustion, I found myself short-tempered, rude, bitter, angry and unwilling to share why.   Whether we answer to wife, mom, student, employee, pastor, or a hundred other roles, the common theme among us is wondering if we are making a difference in our world and how can we keep pushing through?  I am convinced this is most true of women. T...

Let the Water Hold You Now

Look up, my darling, look up. When I hear Him, this space I’m in, at this plain wooden table, this window with the cobwebs at the corner of the metal screen, this soft rumble of washing machine, this smell of wet dog near my feet, I study the room, looking for clues for what is different. All is different? No, all is the same. But in that place deep within me, what is different is that I am still. Not nervous or fearful. Not anxious or tired. My body, held in this temporal existence of space and time, feels my lungs filling with air, my mind captivated by my heart’s calling: Yes, you are here, and more than here. Where the water laps around me, my body floating, drifting with the rolls of the waves. Immersed in beauty, yes. Immersed in Me. When night falls, the ground wet with rain, I jump...

Blessing Others This Holiday Season

The holiday season is a time of thanksgiving and gratitude. It is a time to reflect. We gather around fires and giggle with family. We host parties, give gifts, and drink hot cocoa. We visit friends and tell old stories. We roast chestnuts on the open fire. (Has anyone ever actually done that?) We thank God for our blessings and often look for ways to bless others.   Sometimes, that blessing comes in the form of financial giving. It is a vital part of giving back to others. It is important that we understand that God often works through us to bless others. Maybe you think you don’t have much to give. It’s ironic how God uses what we deem to be insignificant to change the lives of others around us. I am sure that the little boy whose mom prepared his lunch of five loav...

The Single Mom’s Choice This Christmas

Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year. Those who know me will attest to that fact.  I begin my holiday planning in October. I’m singing Christmas carols at the first hint of a fallen leaf! I start thinking about Christmas décor and holiday gatherings mid-year. I make lists of friends and neighbors that I’d like to bake some goodies for. I relish the day it turns cold, so I can bring out a scarf or sweater. (We Southerners don’t get much cold weather here, so we take every advantage of being able to pull out our boots and sweaters when it crests below 60 degrees!) I love hot cocoa and apple cider and the smell of cinnamon and pumpkin pie and apple pie and… well…you get the point!  But I also fully recognize that the holiday season can conjure f...

Discerning the Voice of God

Have you ever wondered if you are in alignment with God’s instruction? Have you wondered if that little voice in your head was the devil or God? Have you heard something in your spirit man, then second-guessed whether or not it was God? Or maybe you’ve wondered whether or not you were in God’s will?   Some of us have even cried out to God in our journey with questions, like, “Where are you? Do you hear me? Do you even care?”   Today, I want to give you 9 principles of learning to truly hear the voice of God in your life.   Don’t be double minded // James 1:5-8 says “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a pers...

How to Overcome Fear as a Single Mom

By the time I was 21 years old, I had suffered a lifetime of disappointments. Both of my parents were dead, as well as all my grandparents and most of my aunts and uncles. I had seen more death than most do in a lifetime. I was pregnant multiple times outside of marriage, which carries its own shame and embarrassment. I had been homeless, lived on government assistance, and struggled to put food on the table as a single mom. I had already parented alone for several years and had no way of knowing that I would go on to parent even more years alone. And all of those things shaped me and molded me with fear.   But the journey I embarked upon a few years back was far worse than I could have even imagined. Ten years ago, I decided to walk away from my comfy job in Corporate America an...

The War No One Is Talking About

When I was four years old, my parents made me take a daily nap in the early part of the afternoon. I remember this quite vividly and I absolutely hated that nap, but not for the reason you may think. During that time, on a regular basis, I had a recurring dream. A faceless, tall man in a long trench coat and a dark fedora hat would walk slowly down my street and up my driveway. He would then, very intentionally, walk to the front door, into my home, down the hallway, and into my bedroom where he stood, towering over my bed. Each day, I awakened panting with the awareness that someone had just been in my room. Years later, when my husband and I married, I began having a recurring nightmare, where a similar dark figure would walk into my bedroom, lean down over my bed, and begin to choke me....

9 Things Single Mom Ministries Should Never Be

With over 22 million single parents in the United States today and numbers continuing to rise, many churches are launching or at least exploring the idea of single moms’ discipleship and evangelism in their ministry and outreach plans.   As the leader of a national nonprofit committed to working with churches to help them develop an effective single moms’ ministry plan and a former single mom myself, nothing delights me as much as the mobilized body of Christ looking for creative ways to serve the single mother-led family (and single dads, too)! While there are many churches hosting single moms’ ministries, Bible studies, home groups, or events, single moms’ ministry is still a fairly new ministry concept and there isn’t much on the market to assist churches with effective minist...

Establishing Boundaries With Your Children

Parents, what are the things you hold most valuable in your life? I would suspect that at the top of that list are your children. We are nurturers, boo-boo kissers, and wisdom-givers. We want to see our children thrive, grow, become successful at whatever vocation they choose. And if all of this is true, why is it that so many of us struggle to establish strong boundaries for our children?  Establishing boundaries with our children means we love them enough to do so. It means we want to give them every opportunity to succeed and that includes obeying and adhering to rules we’ve established in our homes. Boundaries protect our children and they need strong boundaries to thrive. Think about it. There will never be a time in your child’s life, when they won’t have to adhere to boundaries...