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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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

For those of you who don’t know my story, the abbreviated version is this. My mother was killed when I was 17 months old. My father was devastated and turned to alcohol and women to cope. He married a total of 6 times, not counting all the girlfriends. My home became very unsafe. I endured 10 years of sexual assault, physical abuse, and malnourishment during those years. At 19, I found myself pregnant with my second child, living on food stamps & welfare in the projects in an extremely abusive relationship. I have no money, no friends, and no hope. The end of that chapter is that God redeemed me. He restored all the locusts had eaten. I got married; my husband adopted my children. I became successful in Corporate America, but I never forgot the moments of huddling on a bathroom floor i...

The day my first-born got his driver’s license and pulled out of the driveway alone with my two younger daughters in tow, tears streamed down my face. One or two lone tears gently flowed down my face, but one or two quickly turned into a river, as I peered out the window.  “This is it. This is the beginning of the end.” Even then, with my son only sixteen, I was keenly aware that he would soon be leaving the nest and my daughter, only seventeen months his junior, would be following quickly behind. It was in that moment that I realized that I would somehow have to learn to live without my children in my home. I got pregnant with that son at only seventeen years old, and the thought did not escape me that I had never actually been an adult without him. I had never lived without the day-...

There are many roles that we, as single moms, answer to: mom, counselor, friend, sister, aunt, employee, homework consultant, soccer mom, dishwasher, clothes washer, chef, and fixer-of-all problems… and so many more. In order to really embrace who we are supposed to be, we must first understand how to live a balanced life! Here are a few tips we think can help you:  Know your role // When we understand that our role in life is not to be everything to everyone, we then understand that we do not have to fix the world or our kids or our co-workers. We are not in the business of fixing others. We enhance the lives of others. We aren’t called to fix everyone. When we fully embrace that, it relieves the guilt of having to be everything for everyone all the time. We are merely human. Ou...

I was recently asked to teach a two-hour workshop on navigating shame. As with any such invitation, I pray, read the Word, and reference other notes and materials I may have written or taught through the years. As I began to prepare for the workshop, I researched many binders of notes. I was surprised to find that even after fifteen years of teaching ministry, I had almost nothing in the way of content on shame. I was shocked. I began researching our ministry’s website and found that it, too, lacked in-depth teaching on shame. I have been teaching single mothers for over fifteen years and had written almost nothing on shame. Shame’s persistence in the lives of so many women and single mothers should’ve surely lent itself to hundreds of writings on the matter! So, today, alas, we begin the ...

Life is hard and the wounds left by its treacherous journey of valleys and mountaintops can be deep. Most of us have faced more battles than we know what to do with, as we swing against rejection, loneliness, financial ruin, loss, and pain. Family wounds, heartbreak, and financial challenges can leave us limping. Repeated broken hearts leave us mutilated, emaciated, and weak. The wounds left by those battles can sometimes leave a bitter root that, if left unattended, can develop a full-fledged tree of offense.   Some of us aren’t even aware of how deep or offensive our offense actually is. We aren’t aware that some cringe when they see us coming because we’ve carried the weight of offense for far too long and the stench of its odor leaves a lasting impression long after we’v...

Finding Hope in Wilderness Seasons When I was a little girl, I lived in rural Mississippi, down a long dirt road that was named after my family, that offered no cable television, few visitors, and long hours playing in the yard. My sister and I also learned to love to play in the wooded area directly behind my house. We loved being in the wilderness and playing house and school and grocery store, and the like. We put an old chair out there and dug around in the trash dump for old pots and pans. Hanging out in the wilderness proved to be great, all-day fun, and it left me with such wonderful, childhood memories of imaginative play.  But being in the wilderness isn’t always fun, is it? It can get dark. It can be lonely. One can get lost. The same can be true of wilderness seasons i...