How to Welcome Others into Your Home Without Stressing Out with Sue Donaldson
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
Release Date: 03/05/2024
Ep. 127: Are You Weary? A Musical Duo's Story of Hope Through Life's Storms with Kenny and Claire Hilliard
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
Husband-and-wife music duo, Kenny and Claire Hilliard both grew up in the upstate of South Carolina before God took them the long way around to finally settle in Nashville, TN. In 2015, during Kenny’s tenure as a senior pastor and worship leader in Asheville, North Carolina, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Shortly after successful surgery to remove the tumor, Kenny received a second diagnosis, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome—a degenerative genetic disease that left him temporarily impaired. The couple embraced a return to music during Kenny’s recovery, founding a music teaching studio...
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Ep. 126: Is It Really That Bad for Christians to Cuss? with Carol Roper
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
When my kids were teens, I shared with both of them that I used to curse—a lot. You should have seen the expressions on their faces as their jaws dropped, and eyes grew wide with disbelief. “Not you Mom! I don’t believe it!” I was pleased that I had to convince them otherwise, glad that I’d decided when they were both very little that my speech needed to change. That, and the Holy Spirit got ahold of me. When I was thinking about this week’s kitchen table topic, I was surprised by some of the pushback I received. I had no idea that cursing for Christians was a...
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Ep. 125: Underestimated: From a Single-Wide Trailer in W. Va. to Yale Law School with Mary Marantz
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
Mary Marantz knows how fear can hold us back. Even though she was able to leave the musty single-wide trailer of her childhood in West Virginia and make her way to Yale Law School, she always carried the fear that she would be found out. Even though she had worked hard and earned every grade and scholarship she received she thought others saw her as an imposter. So, she strove to be the best at everything she did, and she was. But the life of perfection has a way of draining the joy out of you. Mary finally realized that fear was holding her hostage to a life that didn’t provide freedom and...
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Ep. 124 From Lonely to Loved: A Blueprint to Building Lasting Friendships
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
When I started this podcast, my two best friends, Frieda Younts and Julie Bagwell, graciously agreed to be my first interview. We wanted to help other women find and experience friendship like ours, because good, godly friends can have an amazing impact on your life, as we all can testify. One of the things Frieda said during that interview describes the foundation of our friendship. She said, “We started with [honoring God in our get-togethers]. When we started with that, God knit us together. That’s why we don’t have huge arguments because we’re knit together by God. He started...
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Ep. 123 Hope and Humor After Divorce: Thriving as a Single Mom in Christian Comedy with Kerri Pomarolli
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
Christian comedian Kerri Pomarolli knows what's it like to feel hopeless. After she and her comedian husband divorced, she didn’t think anyone would want to hire her for Christian events again, so she holed up in her bedroom and hid under the covers, binge-watching all five seasons of Friday Night Lights, drinking coke and eating a balanced diet of M&M’s and salt and vinegar potato chips. Becoming a member of the Single Moms’ Club wasn’t exactly on her bucket list, but God revealed a plan for her to reach a whole new group of people. That was the motivation for her to get out of...
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Ep. 122: The Bravest Thing I've Ever Done with Carol Roper
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
As I pondered the topic for this week’s kitchen table episode, the same thing kept coming to mind. An important question I’d like to ask you: What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done? When I first thought about that question several things immediately came to mind. Quitting my job as an architectural draftsman and buying a flower shop with my sister-in-law with neither of us having had any background in floral arranging. Buying a computer and learning AutoCAD so I could freelance drawing house plans while working from home--after we lost money in the floral business and had to sell...
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Ep. 121: Beauty from Ashes: How Grief, Loss and Caregiving Revealed God's Grace with Jessica Ronne
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
Jessica Ronne has endured more heartache than most can even fathom. She found out when she was pregnant with her second son that he’d had a stroke in utero and would be profoundly disabled if she carried him to term. She and her husband made the decision to carry him to full term and let God handle the details. Lucas does have those disabilities, but Jess and her husband never wished they’d made a different choice. Then, several years and two more children later, Jess’s husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor and passed away at the age of 33, leaving her to take care of their four small...
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Ep. 120: The Importance of the Family Table with Carol Roper
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
Hey listeners! I’m popping into you podcast feed with a surprise! Starting now, I’ll be releasing solo episodes every other week to share some of my life experiences and Jesus moments with you! I’ll still be doing interviews but thought it would be fun to be able to talk directly to you about my struggles and triumphs. And I’m calling these episodes The Kitchen Table. So why the kitchen table? I’m so glad you asked! I believe the dinner table is an important ingredient in the glue that helps us build strong families. My siblings and my children would agree. And so, these solo...
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Ep. 119: From Blackout to Blessing: Breaking the Cycle of Addiction for Good with Melissa Huray
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
Melissa Huray lived a life of hopelessness as a former alcoholic who struggled with addiction from the time she was a child. First it was sugar and junk food. Then, because her father was an alcoholic and she saw him go to alcohol to diffuse many situations, she believed alcohol was the magic cure for all of her troubles. But instead of finding healing in the bottle, she found herself in a hopeless cycle of addiction, believing she could stop at any time, but finding that she didn’t have the strength to overcome the hold alcohol had over her. Until she finally fully surrendered to Christ and...
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Ep.118: Simple Ways to Pursue a Powerful Prayer Life with Jane Glenchur
Building Strong Homes: Blueprints to Strengthen Your Faith and Family podcast
Does God care about the little decisions you have to make every day? The Bible is full of spiritual wisdom. But does God provide specific direction for real-world questions? Questions like Is this the right job? and Which college should my child attend? The answer is a resounding yes. And in this episode, you will discover how to access God's divine wisdom in any situation. Jane Glenchur had no concept of a loving heavenly Father who longed to interact with her daily through prayer. To her, God seemed light-years away, too busy running the planet to even notice her, let alone want a...
info_outlineIs hospitality something that doesn't come easy for you? Are you always worried about how clean (or messy!) your home is? Or that you can't cook? Or that you just don't know how to entertain? My guest today, Sue Donaldson, is the queen of hospitality and she's here to help. Yes, she grew up with a mother who loved welcoming people into their home, but Sue's grandmother, her mom's mom, never invited people in. In spite of that, she decided she wanted to learn how to be hospitable and did just that.
Now, because of her mother's influence, Sue's gift of hospitality is second nature for her. But she's learned that it's not about a clean house or even entertaining, it's about serving others. Pinterest and Instagram have skewed our ideas of hospitality, but Sue has so many practical and creative suggestions about how to make it easy for you.
She also talks about how being a mother of young children is like living on a desert island (amen!) and how important it is to have a community of other moms around you and one of the best ways to do that is by inviting those moms in. Yes, welcoming people past the threshold of your front door can be vulnerable, but it can also be very rewarding.
We also talk about mentoring and a secret to make it easier for both the mentor and the mentee. And Sue has some great free resources she'll share at the end of our interview. You'll be excited to start welcoming people into your home after you listen to this episode.