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Passionate Mom

Parenting

Pray or Panic? What Do You Do?

Confession… My go-to answer is panic, not prayer. In a tough situation, I’ll have a good cry, but then, as the tears subside, my mind takes off as if it’s in a NASCAR race, around and around and around, but not in a good way. (click to tweet) Every circle around the track is a different scenario of the situation, in a thousand shades of depressing gray. I overreact in fear. Fear, worry, anxiety and panic are not the solution, but prayer is. Prayer is the only guaranteed panic prevention. It is OK to have a good cry, but we can’t allow that grief and concern to convert to fear. We must cap off the panic and download all our passion into fervent prayer. (click to tweet) It is not easy to choose to be still in prayer and resist spinning into action of some sort. It is still hard for me. My friend, Jodie Berndt’s books below really helped me to learn to pray proactively. These Passionate Mom printables (click on the printable) are less detailed than Jodie’s books but will get you started on your way to being …

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Parenting

The Parenting Roller Coaster

An excerpt from The Passionate Mom: Life comes with problems, and so do children. There will always be struggles and opposition to your efforts, days and even weeks when you just can’t seem to get ahead of the onslaught. Little children have little problems, and bigger children can have bigger problems. All five of my children are within six years of one another—I know it’s crazy, but I never planned to adopt two children the same ages as two of my biological children. Then they grew, and I had five teenagers all at one time…

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Parenting

What Is Your Real Passion?

An excerpt from The Passionate Mom Chapter 7 – Purpose Passion + Purpose = A Plan These three—passion, purpose, and planning—have a special relationship and, it starts with passion. Without passion you won’t have the drive to develop a purpose, and if you don’t ever find a purpose, you surely won’t see the need to have a plan. …

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Parenting

Passion Takes Action With Initiative

Passion Takes Action–an excerpt from The Passionate Mom Nehemiah’s people were in trouble, and it is clear he felt passionately about it. There is nothing amazing in that. When our children are in trouble, we can be just as passionate. What is amazing and an inspiration to me is what Nehemiah did with his passion. He did not allow himself to be permanently overwhelmed. He did not freeze in fear…

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Parenting

Loving Your Child Will Challenge You

If you choose to zero in on your child’s life—to really try to train your child “in the way he should go”—you will need passion (Prov. 22:6). It won’t be easy because passionate love does not allow us to back away from difficult tasks; it pushes us to take on challenges that are out of our comfort zones. And when that happens—when you have to do something beyond what you know you can do—that is when you learn to pray, believing that God can do the amazing task of raising children through you. An excerpt from The Passionate Mom

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Encouragement

The Parenting Problem: Fear, Worry, Anxiety, Panic

Do you ever have that nagging feeling in your gut that something is not right? Has it become a constant companion so familiar to you that you don’t know what life without it was like? Are you parenting in fear? Most of my worries follow a little pattern that includes the surprising ability to spiral out of control without me even noticing. The feeling springs up as a little pang of fear in my gut; it then grows, picking up speed, swirling into my brain and filling it with worry; then it sucks me into a funnel of anxiety, till I bottom out in a puddle of panic. When I land, I am a mess— depleted, confused, and useless. The circle of fear-worry-anxiety-panic is a circle that most moms have experience with. We love our children and it is natural to fear for them. But it is not healthy to make parenting in fear a habit. A mom must learn to leave the circle of fear and find peace in parenting. Accomplishing this requires awareness of how and when and why you fall into the circle.

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Passionate Mom

Yikes! Book Launch Approaching in…

It is finally time–yippee and yikes! I confess I am more than nervous. You see, I am not a writer and this book took me way out of my comfort zone. In fact, I cried my way through the whole process. It was really hard to reflect deeply on my parenting–I made a lot of mistakes. It was difficult to face those mistakes, grieve about my shortcomings as a mother and then share them in the book. It is my hope that you will learn from them and from the story of the unique individual who inspired my vision for parenting. For the next few weeks many of my blogs will be from The Passsionate Mom. You will get a taste and more! In honor of the book release on April, 16h the publisher, Thomas Nelson, is supporting the book with lots of give aways (think iPad, Kitchen Aid Mixer, Disney and more) and free with purchase items. I will be announcing those here on Friday, April 12th. So stay tuned and wait to buy The Passionate Mom with the bonuses!

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Passionate Mom

JOIN THE DELIVERY TEAM AND GET A FREE COPY OF MY NEW BOOK BEFORE IT’S RELEASED!

We are so excited about the delivery of our new baby, The Passionate Mom, Dare to Parent in Today’s World. The book was a daring journey for me–so much reflection about my own parenting and all that I have learned from reading and working with other moms at iMOM.com. I am deeply passionate about you and your desires as a mom and I am hoping and praying that this book will: inspire moms to passionately become the best mom they can be provide moms a plan on how to parent with confidence encourage moms with stories of ways that I have struggled to be the best mom I can be. I am inviting 150 moms to join me as members of our virtual “Delivery Team.” As the book’s release date gets closer, Delivery Team members will help “deliver” the exciting news about the book to other moms. Delivery Team members will be selected based on a simple form due by midnight on Wednesday, March 6, 2013. Everyone who joins the team will get a few perks in return. TEAM MEMBER BENEFITS Members of the Delivery Team will get: A free, electronic review copy of the book before it’s available to the …

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Lessons I Learned

Platform Prepping For The Passionate Mom Book Release

I am in the zone–the two months to book launch zone. The pressure is building to prepare a platform, build my home base, expand my social media reach, and create a WOW experience for moms. I am out of my comfort zone. Growing iMOM.com was much more comfortable than growing my platform for The Passionate MOM book release. So, I am at the Platform Conference to learn from the master, Michael Hyatt (above with Courtney Rohrdanz, our resident iMOM.com web and social media expert). I am not here to be comfortable but to take risks. It is risky to try to do something you never thought you could do or even wanted to do. I don’t really want a “platform.” I just want to help moms be the best they can be. But Michael says if you want them to see and hear you above the noise of the world you have to build your “platform.” I would do that for you, in the hopes that you will hear me. Because when the book releases I am hoping you will leave your comfort zone and read The Passionate Mom…Dare To Parent In Today’s World. And I am hoping that you will …

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Encouragement

Book Release Hair Drama

The drama began last Friday. I was up before dawn to hit the highway for a 25 minutes trek to fetch 36 different kinds of donuts from Nicola’s — they’re worth it. The purpose was to surprise the Family First team because iMOM hit 1,000,000 unique visitors in the month of January. As I drove, I was tuned into the JOY fm. I love Carmen the comedic radio host and soon became caught up in her dress drama. She was invited to a big wedding in Nashville and needed a dress. A dim bulb went on in my barely awake brain. I was going to Nashville in 10 days to film a video for The Passionate Mom book release. She said the problem was that she didn’t like dresses. I don’t have to wear a dress in the video, but I do need to look presentable and did a quick check in the review mirror. Note to self: Color hair and when was the last time you had it cut? Carmen said the other problem was that everyone in Nashville was like super hipster? I think she did say hipster. So she felt pressured to look really good. The bulb in my brain …

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