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(Day 5) When 10 minutes Makes the Connection

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Day 5 30 Days of Green Hope

Ten minutes in person- royal connection!

Ten minutes in person- royal connection!

Every once in a while everything works out just right for a special connection. Driving from Ohio to Texas, we drove right by the office of the Woodward Oklahoma News office where one of my mastermind girlfriends work. Staff writer Dawnita Fogelman.

I joined this mastermind group of entreprenuerial women to help get support and encouragment as I grow GREEN HOPE COACHING. But due to the restrictions of the last couple of years, I have never met any of the beautiful women in person- only over zoom!

But today I got to give a real hug to one of the QUEENS - Dawnita. We only had 10 minutes together but it was so good to see her in person for the first time.

This was truly a life giving, green hope moment. Can't wait till the group can all join in-person together.

So who do you need to spend some face to face time with?

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(Day 3) When HOPE is a SOMEONE!

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Listen to the DAY 3 Video to hear how God used some SOMEONEs to show HOPE to me today. Then read below about a SOMEONE I’d like to introduce you to at an event August 28th.

I’d love to hear your comments below about how HOPE shows up for you today

When Ren and I got married, SOMEONE gave me a book called Creative Counterpart : Becoming the Woman, Wife, and Mother You Have Longed To Be. (Hmmm? I should probably go back and read that book again)

Anyway, the author was SOMEONE by the name of Linda Dillow and her writing connected deeply with me. So as her other books came out, I was quick to pick them up and share them with others.

Over the years, I had opportunities to meet Linda, then sit and chat with her after a speaking event, then correspond via email in a mentoring relationship. Our family even got to housesit for Linda and her husband, Jody while they were traveling for a season. Even though we only had a brief time with them directly, living in their home taught me much about this SOMEONE that I knew God had brought into my life for a reason.

Kathy and Linda at Kiev conference 2002

Kathy and Linda at Kiev conference 2002

In the fall of 2002, I was invited to lead a worship team from our Ohio church for a women’s conference in Kiev, Ukraine. Little did I know, the speaker for the event was SOMEONE named Linda Dillow. She was in the middle of writing her book “Satisfy My Thirsty Soul”. Our time together in preparations for the retreat turned out to be life-changing for me as a woman and a worshiper. I was and am eternally grateful for the role she has played in my life.

Linda and Kathy at Surprised by the Healer Conference 2015. She’s holding the manuscript of my book.

Linda and Kathy at Surprised by the Healer Conference 2015.
She’s holding the manuscript of my book.

It was no surprise when I was looking for SOMEONE to write the foreward for my book Lovely Traces of Hope, that Linda would be my first choice. (You can read what she wrote here.) As you read the pages of my book, there are many times when Linda’s words to me are being channeled to you- either from her books, her emails, our conversations. There are times when I give her credit. There are times when I didn’t even realize that Linda was the one that first introduced me to the thoughts or the scriptures. So here’s me saying ‘thank you’ publically once again for the amazing ways God has used this woman in my life.

The exciting thing for me is …that same SOMEONE, Linda Dillow is making another appearance. And we are inviting you to join us.

Linda and her daughter, Jessa Dillow Crisp will be speaking at the Community Bibile Church in Omaha, Nebraska

HOPE conf.jpg

on Saturday, AUGUST 28th.

The topic is HOPE!

Since not all of us can travel to Nebraska, the women of our church in Ottawa, Ohio and the GREEN HOPE COACHING community are co-sponsoring a live-streamed event locally for women in the area.

If you live nearby you can come too. If you live in Omaha- you can go there. OR you can even arrange to live stream the event to your own personal device.

You can find out more about all of that - and save your spot to join us -
by clicking here. <—

If you are reading this, you have to be amazed how God used SOMEONE

  • to buy me a book as a young bride

  • to write books that change lives

  • to plan the conferences

  • to invite the friends

  • to mentor women

  • to be a ‘bringer of HOPE’

Could you be that SOMEONE for SOMEONE?

Check out the details- Save your spot for the
FIND HOPE CONFERENCE
for women

www.ottawamissionarychurch.org/hope-a-conference-for-women

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(Day 1) Join me for 30 DAYS OF GREEN HOPE

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Day 1 of 30 DAYS OF GREEN HOPE series

Because sometimes you need to not do it alone. Join me for 30 Days of Green HOPE!

On August 16th, it will be 15 years since our daughter Leisha ran off to heaven. I have been ‘celedreading’ this year for 15 years. The anniversary that marks that she had lived as long as she has been gone.

From past experience, I know that anniversaries and birthdays can throw a grieving momma for a loop. I can go into the depths of the grief tunnel all over again if I’m not careful. Now I know that I will always be a greiving momma! I can’t NOT be a grieving momma just because she was my baby and I will always feel the loss of her different than anyone else in my life. It doesn’t make my loss more or ‘righter’ -
it is just my own.

This year, I really want…

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She would have been 30 on Thursday!

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She would have been 30 on Thursday!

I've dreaded this year - this birthday for nearly 15 years. In a few months Leisha will have lived as long as she has been gone.

I hesitated to share this with my GHC community. But the truth is, I haven't been doing well, emotionally, spiritually, mentally or physically. A huge part of that is that I have had some 'BIG" things going on in my life in a very short amount of time.

But that isn't all of it.

For the last 6 weeks I have been 'stopped" -

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Broken & Flawed... but Priceless!

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I am broken.

I don’t know if I ever truly felt broken before Leisha died.

I think perhaps in my pumping sunshine (Ren’s word for my positive outlook) way of looking at the world, I most often felt like whatever was wrong with the world God would find a way of making it right.

But since losing my child, I am very aware that God has not taken away the pain I have felt, nor would I want him too. It is part of the love relationship I had with my daughter. I miss her in my life because of my deep love for her.

Even if I will forever feel broken.

I'm flawed.

I take it back to Adam and Eve.

Here they were - the perfect couple in the perfect garden.

They had no baggage. They had no past life. They had no history that hurt them.

They were completely free of all of that.

And they still were flawed

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When Your Holiday Isn't Hallmark!

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This new year I am unexpectedly spending time with my parents, My 85 year old father spent the weekend in the hospital and we are struggling alongside him as he tries to gain some ground on the issues that are threatening his quality of life.

One year ago during the Christmas holiday,. Rennie was in the James Center recovering from a stroke. I’m thrilled to say he has made a full recovery. I reread a post I wrote one night sitting by my husband’s hospital bed. The events of last Christmas are speaking boldly into the emotions I have as I watch my father labor to do the ‘right stuff’ to cooperate with us and the health professionals.

My own words have challenged me to rethink this moment, just as I was challenged one year ago. I thought you might benefit from reading them again too.

I'd Do It ALL Over Again!

Ten years ago, the woman in this picture was just beginning this thing called GREEN HOPE COACHING. It was exciting, inspiring, and terrifying all at the same time.

Now almost ten tears later, I love what i get to do. Coming alongside the women of GHC and partnering with them as they wrestle through the hard stuff to break free to BE exactly who they were made to be. It's still exciting and so inspiring. And I've had good reason to be terrified.

But I'd do it all over again….

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A Modern Day Psalm

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You have heard the words “unprecedented’”, “uncertain” and pandemic more times than you care to count at this point. The signs of the times have been stirring up so many emotions within you, and you find yourself reacting to people and circumstances with an edge to say the least. Someone asks you how you are, you say I’m Fine!

But are you? Really?

When I find myself swirling with emotions about what is going on around me, and feeling unable to control what is going on in me, I go to …