Faith. Family. Country.
If you're looking for stodgy credentials, click here. If you're looking for the story behind the certificates, read on! 🙂
There is no doubt the world is changing at a rapid pace. Many question whether that change is for the better. Most are not happy with the answers they come up with.
Our nation is in trouble. Our churches are in trouble. Our families are in trouble.
We are in trouble.
But America was not built on a spirit of defeat. We were built on the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
All is not lost!
You were created in this place at this moment for a reason, and now is your time to shine!
You are gifted with personal struggle to teach you what you need to know to be more of who God had in mind when He created you. I believe He is calling you now to use your struggle to help others rise in theirs.
Our time is now and positive change begins within ourselves and our own circles of influence.
To that end, I am opening all I have learned over my years of struggle and the education I obtained in graduate level courses, training I learned from Green Berets, Navy SEALS, and America's elite Warriors, and my own 10+ years of research to help ordinary Americans discover the courage and Grace to Live Not Ordinary through training them to utilize the skills of resilience, optimism, and opportunity for body, mind, and soul.
My Story...
Want to know more about my background and what brought me to where I am scarred enough to understand woundedness, strong enough to stand in the wind, and positive enough to know their is hope in all circumstances? Read on...
Faith, Country, Family...This is what I treasure and with good reason.
I was five months pregnant with our fifth little boy on Mother's Day 2009 when my husband suddenly announced he was leaving. He'd reconnected with a former girlfriend on social media. He said he was going to be 40 and life wasn't turning out as he'd planned. A week later he was gone, and I, a stay at home mom and newly appointed part time youth minister of our local church, was left alone to fend for five little boys and myself.
In a week, I'd been fired as wife and full time mother. So quickly, all I knew and counted on, all I thought I could trust, all I thought believed in me and who I believed in was gone. Shattered...my life, my children, my hopes, my dreams, me. We lost our home to foreclosure, and I could not find housing for an unemployed, single mom of five little boys with wrecked credit. I tried to get my elementary teaching certification updated, but NYS said it would take 60 college credits because it had "learned so much more about child development since (I) graduated." I looked at my five little boys and thought, "I know so much more about child development than a 22 year old with a piece of paper in her hand," but NYS did not want to hear that.
I was terrified of facing pregnancy alone, parenting alone, handling finances with no income, finding a job, a new home, daycare, so many things... I was desperate and shook for months. I slept maybe two to three hours a night for years after.
But good also came from that time. I thought back to an interview I'd gone on many years before. It was my second round of interviews in the district, and I'd had a very nice conversation with the administrator, a middle aged, African American gentleman. I was feeling good when he smiled, stood, shook my hand, and said, "I like everything you have to say, but we are looking for men and minorities at the elementary level, and you will never get a job in my district."
Many said I should sue, but it was a one-on-one interview and would be my word against his. I had only one legitimate choice: to assume he was a racist #$% and let myself get angry and bitter over it or hope he really did like what I had to say and was being kind explaining why I was never going to work in his district.
Choosing hope is always the better option, and God rewards us when we do so.
Many years later, I found myself a desperate single mom remembering so clearly that interview and knew I had another decision to make that, when simplified. left me with just three choices.
- I could go on welfare and become reliant on other people's money to support my children and me. I believed situations like mine were what welfare was intended for, but I also knew that you can never be free relying on the income of someone, or something in the case of the government, that had no moral compass.
- I could get that elementary teaching license back and become another dime a dozen middle aged white woman looking for an elementary teaching position.
- I could try something different!
I thought hard about what it was I really loved about teaching and learned a lot about myself. I discovered I loved the little children, but it was not just little children I loved. I loved all people! I loved the interaction, the playfulness, and the sense of humor. I loved helping them break through tough barriers to succeed at something new, something they didn't think they could do or were afraid to try! I learned I did not just love elementary school, I loved challenge, teaching and learning new skills, and helping people learn and apply skills and talents to rise in adversity!
I also discovered it would take 60 college credits to get my 7-12 math certification and that I could teach myself the material and test out of classes saving both time and money. So, despite not being a "math person," that is just what I did.
But God had bigger plans for me too! I was still shaking when I got the knock on my front door. I opened it to see a woman I did not know sobbing on my doorstep. I welcomed her in and heard her story or deception, betrayal, and heartbreak. She had heard my story, as it was such a public humiliation, and thought I could help her recover from her husband's recently divulged affair. At the time, I could not, but I vowed I would learn the skills to help, not just my students, but all God's children rise in whatever situations they found themselves in.
I received my life coaching certification from the Professional Christian Coaching Institute and went on to be trained by the leaders in overcoming adversity - the US Military. I was taught by retired Green Berets, Navy SEALS, EOD techs, and other elite military personnel and learned to not only be more resilient, but to also always find reasons to be grateful even for hardship. I learned to laugh at life's difficulties (most of the time!) and search for the hidden opportunity God plants in every challenge.
I grew physically stronger, but I also grew intellectually, socially, emotionally, and spiritually stronger, more competent, more confident, and unafraid of failure, risk taking, and hard, sometimes miserable work.
I can talk for decades about the abuse and trauma that followed my husband's abandonment, but I know now only the groans of the Holy Spirit suffice. After crying out to (and at) God and having major crises in faith, I've learned to detach and hand both Justice and Mercy over to Him, but that does not mean I will back down from a righteous fight.
Too many men and women and families have sacrificed too much for me to back down from a righteous fight for America
That righteous fight is where I see us now. Facing a battle for our country, our souls, and the souls of our children. I hear things I never thought I would hear in this country...rioting, war, supply chain issues, looming famine, infrastructure destruction, a culture of death, and corruption in our churches, our governments, our health care systems, our schools, and sometimes even within our own homes, on levels not seen before.
There is talk of End Times.
Are we there yet? I don't know. What I do know is that America has faced hard times before, and we have always emerged victorious. I know there is good on both "sides." I know too many are giving up the fight or jumping to thoughts or armed conflict before we get our hands dirty and keep our mouths clean. I know our time is limited, but God is still in control.
So you now have a choice, like I did many years ago and like we all do in every second of each and every day.
You can choose to ignore problems and hope they go away. You can hope someone else handles things, but you know you can never be free relying on the decisions of someone or something outside of your control.
Or you could do something different. You can train yourself to be stronger physically, intellectually, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. You can learn about what makes America great and how God has Blessed us for centuries. You can learn how God always Blesses His people when they turn back to Him. You can choose to live like everyone else and be caught unprepared or you can choose to Live Not Ordinary.
I know I hope you choose to Live Not Ordinary.
As a mom, as a teacher, as a citizen, as a child of the KING, I cannot sit by and idly watch this great nation go down. I hope you focus on what you can control and influence what is directly in front of you and that, together, we can grow a more grateful, more Blessed self, family, community, state, country, and world.
This battle is just beginning. The time to train body, mind, and soul is now.
God Bless You & God Bless America!
When my husband left, Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American" got me through many rough days. I sang a little differently..."If tomorrow all the things were gone, I worked for all my life and I had to start again with just my children and my Life..."