Cultivating Summer Peace | Golden Summer Blog Post #5 This week on the podcast, I talked about one of the first truths every believer must learn: God is our Source. People, jobs, money, doctors, churches, opportunities, and relationships may become resources God uses in our lives, but none of them can take His place. I believe that. I can teach it, support it with Scripture, and encourage someone else to build their life upon it. Living as though I believe it every day is ano

My first solo painting at the park with Ben one day. "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way—things I had no words for."— Georgia O'Keeffe There have been seasons of my life when journaling came as naturally as breathing. I could fill pages with prayers, questions, gratitude, and the slow work God was doing in my heart. Then there were seasons when the words simply wouldn't come. Not because there wasn't anything to say. Because the

Learning to Live the Day God Actually Gave You "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." — Psalm 90:12 (ESV) Have you ever gotten into bed at night and wondered where the day went? I have. Lately, it seems as though the weeks are moving faster than I can live them. I look at the calendar and another month has slipped by. Summer, my favorite season of the year, somehow reaches the Fourth of July before I feel like I've settled into it. That realization

Before I Ever Knew His Name, He Knew Mine Golden Summer Gratitude Series | Week Three A few mornings ago, I was listening to He Knows My Name by Tasha Cobbs. I've heard that song for years. I've cried through it more than once. This time, though, a different thought stopped me. Why does God know my name? Not how. I understand the theology behind that. God is omniscient. He knows everything. What struck me was why He would care enough to know mine. That question sent me back t

If someone had told me three years ago that I would start my own podcast, stay on the air for three straight years, make several FeedSpot Top Podcast lists, and be nominated twice for a Podcast of the Year award, I would have said they were out of their mind. The truth is, I'm actually a fairly shy and introverted person. I had no broadcasting experience, no production team, and no idea how to start a podcast. My journey began in 2023 after the encouragement of a man from my

Last week, early one morning, I watched Josh floating on his back in the swimming pool. The water beneath him never stopped moving. Small ripples drifted across the surface, and sunlight danced in shifting patterns around him. Yet from where I stood, he looked completely at rest. He wasn't trying to get anywhere. He wasn't checking his phone, tackling a project, or thinking about the next item on a to-do list. He was simply there. The longer I watched, the more I realized how

want this summer to help us become more aware of the goodness of God surrounding us, covering us, filling us, and leading us forward.

We Thought We Knew What Marriage Would Be When I married Josh almost twenty-five years ago, I truly believed I was marrying the kind of man you stay married to forever. He loved God, came from a strong church family, worked hard, and had this quiet steadiness that made me feel safe. Back then, I thought marriage was mostly about love, compatibility, building a home together, and growing old side by side. I didn’t yet understand how much grit real love sometimes requires. In t

Some moments in life never really leave your body. I remember the day, at 16 years old, that I went from thinking my daughter had something as minor as simple jaundice to being told: “If your daughter doesn’t get a liver transplant, she will die.” Everything changed after that. The surgery was terrifying. Cara was only 8 months old, and we became the fourth family in the state of Texas to undergo a living-related liver transplant. We were in Houston, five hours away from home

Usually, we think of anger as emotional, situational, maybe even justified, but we do not tend to think of it as a spiritual issue. Over the last week, I found myself losing my temper more than once. I honestly felt right about it. In fact, I felt like people needed to understand what they had done wrong to me, and that was why I was getting angry. I told myself it was anxiety, that I was overwhelmed, or that I just needed people to understand me better. However, as I sat on

What do you do when your heart is ready for love, but God hasn't opened the door? This post explores trusting God's timing, surrender, and fining peace in the waiting.

At some point, you start noticing that certain things in your life just aren’t working anymore. Not just habits—but patterns. Relationships. Ways of coping. Things you’ve leaned on for a long time, whether that’s substances, distractions, or even people. For me, some of those things felt normal for so long that I didn’t question them. I just learned how to function around them. I learned how to manage how I felt, how to get through the day, how to keep going. But managing isn

I believe we all want to please God… …but I also know we can get comfortable in seasons where we’re not really growing. Life is full of hills and valleys… and sometimes deserts. There are dry seasons where it may seem like God isn’t really active in our lives the way we expect Him to be. Not because He isn’t working—but because we don’t always recognize what He’s doing in those seasons. I’ve had to wrestle with what to do in those times… not just to get through them, but to u

Three years ago, I wasn’t ready. Not polished. Not confident. Not healed. But someone saw something in me that I couldn’t yet see in myself. And because of that… everything changed. This blog isn’t just a recap. It’s a reflection of what happens when God uses imperfect obedience to build something meaningful. Because Grit & Grace was never really mine to begin with. The Beginning: A Man Who Opened the Door Before there was a podcast… there was a man who believed in one. Char

There are some conversations that just stay with you. This was one of them. This week on Grit & Grace, I sat down with Alex Mann—a sheriff’s sergeant, stand-up comedian, and someone doing something I had honestly never heard of before… He’s helping people in recovery—many with records, many coming out of incarceration—work through their pain using stand-up comedy. And y’all… it’s working. Not What You Expect… But Exactly What’s Needed When we think about recovery, we usually

This week on the Grit and Grace Podcast, I’m sharing a conversation that feels especially meaningful. A fellow podcaster and former guest on the show, Bambi Lynn, passed away this month. While we weren’t extremely close, we supported one another over the years through the small but meaningful connections that happen in the podcasting world—encouraging each other’s work, interacting online, and cheering one another on. About a year ago, I recorded an interview with Bambi that,

Grit & Grace Podcast – Part 1 with Jerry Woodbridge Grief rarely arrives politely. It doesn’t knock gently. It doesn’t wait for you to prepare. It doesn’t consult your calendar or ask whether your children are ready. It simply comes. And when it does, everything changes. In Part 1 of my conversation with author and grief educator Jerry Woodbridge, we talk about what it really looks like to survive the loss of a spouse — not in theory, but in the raw, everyday reality of widow

And sometimes the deepest freedom doesn’t come from a dramatic breakthrough moment. It comes from quietly identifying the lie and replacing it with truth — over and over and over again.

When was the last time you truly rested— without guilt ? Not the kind of rest where your body collapses because it has no other choice. Not the kind where you’re lying down but your mind is still racing. I mean real rest. Intentional rest. And here’s the second question that matters just as much: When was the last time you rested long enough to actually hear from God—or your higher power? For many of us, rest feels uncomfortable. Even unsafe. We’ve been conditioned—by culture

January can be a heavy season. This January Mental Health Survival Kit offers practical, compassionate tools for mental health, recovery, and spiritual grounding during winter months.