A Cup of Gratitude

September is NICU awareness month which makes a commitment to inspire hope and to honor families experiencing a stay in the neonatal intensive care unit and the health professionals who care for them. In line with this effort this week I am sharing Sarah Ward’s incredible story! Sarah has three children all of whom had a stay in the NICU. Her first birth of her twins found her being rushed to the...

This week I speak with Laura Mendenhall, an author, coach, wife, and mother. You won’t want to miss this amazing heartfelt conversation about so many aspects of her life. We talk candidly about how the church needs to find ways to help families with special needs children, about laying down what you thought life would be like to help your child live the life they deserve, about choosing perseveran...

This week I speak with Mary. Mary is a wife, a mom, a grandmother, but there was a time when she wrote books and spoke on stages sharing her deep struggles with Anorexia and her victory through Christ to become a personal trainer who experienced the gift to not only keep her body healthy but to help others to do the same. As life went on she had to work a regular job at Wawa to help support her fa...

Meet Candice Reyes a new upcoming Speaker, Podcast Host, Author, and Educator. In our interview, she shares some of the difficult struggles in her life in order to share the beautiful ways in which God redeemed them! Candice wrote two books both highlighting 3 Biblical Practices to ignite our relationship with God. Her first book, A 15 minute "Date" with God: Strengthen Your Relationship...

Hannah Schaefer is a compelling Contemporary Christian Music artist. She is a passionate speaker & a multi-international award-winning singer/songwriter who has opened for Christian artists such as Matt Maher, Matthew West, Fr. Rob Galea, Mac Powell, Building 429, and more touring internationally and playing over 500 shows across the United States. She has also accumulated over half a million...

Meet Tania. Statistics show us that one in every four women suffers alone in the chaos of domestic violence. Tania found her way out of that dark place and into a healthy life for herself and her children. She is currently married and a mother of 5. Tania serves on 2 boards, as a co-chair for the Violence Injury Trauma Action Team, and as a member of the Coordinating Council Board for Family Domes...

M eet Danielle McAlpine Johnson who lives by the words: “Where passion meets pain, we find purpose”. Having been a model, TV show creator, cast member, film director, and producer, Danielle knows the industry from both sides of the lens. She and her husband (singer-songwriter) Chico Johnson formed CheekyMac Productions together. Recently they produced the series, “Beyond the fire” which is a docum...

Meet Christie Browning. She is an award-winning author, a TEDx speaker, an inspiring coach, a motivational speaker, and a podcast host. If you’re reading this, this brave and vulnerable interview is meant for you!! When Christie found her life spiraling away from her lovely Christian upbringing it took her by surprise and when she one day found herself in jail it was beyond anything she could have...

Meet Emily Rogers. Emily is an artist in the Philly area. Four years after graduating from studying fine arts in college, she is now balancing a photography business, a 9-5 job, serving at her church, and finding time to have community. Throughout the past few years, Emily has struggled with anxiety and depression, but through putting her trust in God, has been able to manage it and use God's...

Meet Natalie Hixson. She is a wife, mother, and certified professional life coach who helps discouraged Christian moms overcome destructive anger and burnout. After learning to thrive in motherhood and process anger in a healthy way, Natalie became convicted to help other moms process their anger, learn to identify their triggers, and ultimately control their reactions to those triggering situatio...

This week I speak with Nalini. She shares her story because she believes everyone is born with dreams for the future then reality strikes its hurdles and before you know it, the dream is a distant childhood fantasy, not suitable for adults. You have to go on a journey of self-discovery that leads to molding and shaping like you never expected to then come out years later still holding on to the ve...

You won’t want to miss this week's episode! We end Season One of “A Cup of Gratitude” talking with Jasman Rolle. He is an encourager and a catalyst in the lives and careers of so many. Everyone I have ever met that knows him has stories to tell about how he has blessed them (myself included). Jasman is a Christian creative coach with a heart to see others excel in their areas of giftedness. J...

This week I speak with Stephanie L. Jones. She is an author, a keynote speaker, a TEDx speaker, a life coach, a podcast host, a wife, and always a giver. Her life’s work challenges us all to serve others and to live a life of gratitude in everyday moments. You won’t want to miss this amazing story of how God took an introverted young girl with a big heart and placed her on the stage, in people’s l...

Meet Viktoria Taylor-Richardson. She has served our country in the military, planted churches in both America and Africa, started a business, published books, received a Masters of Divinity in global studies alongside her existing Masters of religious education. She is CEO of Precious Jewels Mentoring Program for girls in Kenya and is building a school for orphans in Africa. The list goes on! But,...

This week we speak with Vita Panico. You won’t want to miss this honest and inspiring story.  Have you ever had to push forward through times you didn’t understand? Have you been knocked over when you were blindsided because you expected everyone to be like you? I think we have all been through such things, but we are called to keep on keeping on, to rise above our circumstances, and to rise up in...

This week we talk with Jackie Wrede. You won’t want to miss this heartfelt and candid look at her family’s journey navigating adoption and the foster care system. There are unforeseen twists and turns and a system that sometimes fails to prepare one for reality. Jackie felt a strong calling to adopt children from a very young age, but she never could have imagined the journey God would take her on...

It isn’t often you meet someone like Ronald Morrell Jr. - Ronald is a husband, a father, a Jesus follower, an entrepreneur and so much more! It would have been easy to keep his eye on the prize in business as he naturally excels there, but when Ronald saw the needs and the struggles of impoverished youth it moved his heart to help and he turned his focus, his business knowledge, and his faith towa...

This week we speak with Eric McMahon. Eric has been in vocational ministry for 16 years as a missionary, youth pastor, and church planter. He is currently serving as pastor of a church plant called Watershed Church. Having fought for Racial Reconciliation within the church his entire career, he is a charter member of the Culture Ethic and Justice Coalition which seeks to be a prophetic voice to th...

This week we speak with Jenna. Jenna candidly shares her journey of navigating life with a child on the spectrum. She gives an honest and vulnerable voice to the experience of seeking a diagnosis for her child and finds herself always advocating for her son Isaac. This beautiful story allows us to see God’s presence and loving provision all through Jenna’s life. She shares a number of valuable res...

Today we talk with Tischa van de Reep. You won't want to miss this episode. Have you been through painful loss and trauma? Have you felt restless? Have you tried filling your emptiness with anything you can find (and everything you can think of), and yet, you’re still feeling unfulfilled? Have you struggled under the weight of it all? I think we can all relate to these difficult times, these...

When running away from everything brought Billy face to face with a grim reality, God met him in that desolate place. Billy Ballenger is a Christian Music Artist with a story that leads him to jail and to Jesus! He emerges a new man and shares his story to help others. He will be in the “Light The Way Music Festival” this summer, and his new single “The Tree and The Nails” is playing on the radio...

This week I am talking with Karen Stacy, an author, Jesus follower, wife, mother, and grandmother. She is an indie author of a children's book.  We talk about real life, our struggles, messy moments, beautiful surprises, living purposefully with the fruit of the Spirit, loving those around us well, and the gift of having gratitude for all that we have even when we “don’t feel like it." ...

In this episode, we talk with Nancy Martin. You won't want to miss this vulnerable and down-to-earth conversation.  Nancy shares with us some of the ways that she sees the Lord working in a season colored with disappointment, waiting, and hope in God's purpose. If you want to hear how God is so present in the midst of our disappointments, seasons of waiting, and times of tearing down to...

You won't want to miss this amazing transformative story! This week we talk with Sara Broyhill Anderson. Sara is a wife and a mother of five, a Christian apologist with her Juris Doctorate and Masters of Divinity in Apologetics as of May 2021. She founded Fruits of Faith Ministries in 2016. She is a speaker with Women of the Well Communicators and a member of the MOPS speaker network. Sara is...

I spend so much time sharing other people’s stories that I thought I’d share some of my own. Episode 12 is a solo episode celebrating my 20 years of being born again. I share with you candidly from one of my books “Crumbled A Place for Broken People”. I talk honestly about the skeletons in my closet as I begin to realize that they are actually a valley of dry bones in my heart. I discover that the...