Challenges Won't Stop Me

During the difficult days of Sara Cormany's journey, she developed a mindset of seeing God's grace in seemingly impossible situations. Sara believes God has done the impossible in her life. His grace allows her to understand the hard times were necessary in growing her faith and trust in Him. The years of living with a chronic illness, the neurological residuals she now has after a strok...

My guest, Sara Cormany, is a speaker and author of the newly released devotional, Even When: Experiencing God During Difficult Days. The daily fight with a chronic illness became too much to bear, forcing Sara to leave her role as a high school drama and speech teacher. In 2011, Sara’s life-impacting disease became life-threatening. Unaware of the seriousness of her symptoms, Sara continued living...

In this first video solocast of season six, I'm excited to share some insights I've gained through the hard challenges of my journey.  *Please note that this episode is a video solocast. Please visit my YouTube channel @MelonyBrown to watch it.  In 2005, the office supply company, Staples, launched a marketing campaign which introduced the 'easy button.' The easy button would s...

Cherie Denna joined me for episode 90: Didn’t Fit In. Didn’t Belong. A dysfunctional childhood didn’t stop her. Cherie is an author, speaker, and writing coach.  In episode 90, she shared about growing up with members of the mob and members of an outlaw biker gang as her family. She witnessed excessive violence, suffered abuse, and never felt like she belonged.  If you missed Cherie’s story episod...

Excited to kick off season 6 with Cherie Denna's story interview!  Cherie Denna is an author, speaker, and writing coach. In this interview, she describes her dysfunctional childhood, which was comprised of mob members from her mom's family and outlaw bikers from her dad's family.  Violence occurred daily. Additionally, Cherie and her sister were abused by her stepfather. At 17, she...

Excited to have author, speaker, podcaster, and personal trainer for your mind, Mimika Cooney, join me. While Mimika could have chatted about any of the numerous topics she's written about in her ten books, we focused on the topics covered in her soon to be released book, Unlock the Mind of a Champion: How Ordinary People Achieve the Extraordinary . This book can be pre-ordered on Amazon and...

I met today's guest, Maggie Rowe, at the 2023 Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. I enjoyed chatting with her between speakers and taking her class. I truly enjoyed reading Maggie's devotional, This Life We Share: 52 reflections on journeying well with God and others. I knew from the first sentence of the Introduction: "Let's take a road trip!" that Maggie a...

Whitney Ward is back to share a strategy that keeps her moving forward! In episode 86, Whitney described her rare disease named MAGIS Syndrome and how it has caused some limitations that could have stopped her. But be assured, this joy-filled woman isn't about to let challenges stop her. Long ago, Whitney decided she would choose to focus on what she can do instead of what she cannot do. This...

My guest is Whitney Ward. I've followed Whitney on social media for several years. because we have so much in common, especially our personal stories and our ministries. I was thrilled to meet her in person at this year's Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference. Just imagine two women standing outside the coffee house, excitedly talking about challenges, grit, and not giving up! Whitney...

THIS EPISODE IS A VIDEO SOLOCAST. TO APPRECIATE IT BEST, PLEASE VIEW IT ON MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL @MELONYBROWN. NOTE: This video solocast was recorded in Hawaii, which has a constant breeze blowing. My husband, Jeff, added noise reduction effects to lessen the wind noise, but it didn't remove all of it. Words are composed of letters in various combinations. A list of words will likely come to you...

Brenda Underwood, business life coach, joined me again to share some effective strategies she's learned to implement when she's feeling insecure. In episode 83, titled "Danced with the Devil," Brenda shared some experiences from her traumatic childhood that filled her with fear, rejection, and insecurity.  When she encountered God, she immersed herself in reading and studying t...

Growing up in a dysfunctional family with a father who drank hard liquor, a mother who smoked weed, and considerably older siblings exposed Brenda to destructive behaviors. She had access to things that weren't good for a young child. Additionally, Brenda felt overlooked and rejected, which led to hanging out with people who were not good influences. "I looked for a place to fit in, and...

Author Heidi McGill joins me for another episode to discuss her habit of choosing joy. She shares that she began reading the Psalms after her diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa. This progressive disease will cause her to be completely blind in the future. She discovered Psalm 27:13, which says, "I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living." No...

Imagine if you will - slowly losing your sight in your early thirties. Maybe you've never thought about the gift that eye sight is. I know I take it for granted. Today's guest, Heidi McGill, was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa when she was just 31 years old. As you can imagine, Heidi was angry with God about losing her sight. She grieved what she would miss seeing in the future with...

Grateful to Christine Trimpe for joining me for a habits interview! Habit: an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely voluntary because of repetition. It's easy to think of the bad habits that we need to stop when this topic comes up. But that's not where we are going in this episode. Instead, Christine shares about those times when it feels our emotional and spiri...

I'm excited to have author, speaker, health coach, and friend Christine Trimpe join me again.  She's known as the 'joy girl' as she's learned to seek joy no matter what challenge she's facing! And Christine's faced several challenges! You might remember Christine from episode 53: An Invitation to Sit at His Table. In that episode, she shared about her incredible...

Please listen to episode 77: Drew Her Out of Deep Waters before listening to this episode as Tiffany shares the story of when she was attacked by a shark.  Tiffany Johnson survived a shark attack while on vacation with her husband in 2017. Every year since then, she takes time to pause and remember God's faithfulness before, during, and after the shark attack.  Tiffany explains how this is an...

In 2017, Tiffany Johnson and her husband went on their yearly getaway to nurture their marriage: a cruise to the Bahamas and some adventures when the ship stopped at various ports. No kids. Lots of sun. Good food. What could go wrong? The parasailing adventure was fantastic, but the snorkeling adventure proved to be filled with one huge challenge followed by several other challenges. The huge chal...

My fight verse is Hebrews 2:18 from the Amplified Bible Classic Edition. It says, “My trust and assured reliance and confident hope shall be fixed in Him.”  I refer to the Jesus & Women Bible study by Kristi McLelland in this episode. I highly recommend this Bible study! El Shema – the unofficial name of God that means God hears us El Roi – the name of God that means God sees us Immanuel – the...

WARNING: This interview contains descriptions of violence and sex that are not suited for children below the age of 12. Please watch episode 74: "He Loves Me but He Hits Me: teen dating violence didn't stop her with Dee Dee Said" before watching this episode. In that episode, Dee Dee shared her story of being in a teen dating violent relationship.  This episode is a valuable resourc...

WARNING: This interview contains descriptions of violence and sex that are not suited for children below the age of 12.  February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month.  My guest, Dee Dee Said, was involved in an abusive teen dating relationship between the ages of 16 and 19; she shares about the raw details in her book, It Doesn’t Start with a Punch: My Journey through an Abusive Teen Dating Re...

Do the enemy’s attacks and lies drip, drip, drip throughout your day? What’s your response? Do you ignore them and hope they will go away? Or do you fight back? I invited Sandy Storm back to share the strategies she uses when she finds herself on the front line of a spiritual attack.  Sandy explains why we can’t be passive and let those drips accumulate. Instead, we must actively engage by using t...

WARNING: Today’s episode contains graphic content about human trafficking and could be a trigger for people who have experienced abuse or violence at the hands of another.  January is National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention month. It is difficult to hear the atrocities of human trafficking and its impact on human lives. My guest, Sandy Storm, shares the numerous challenges she faced th...

It's January. It seems everyone makes New Year's Resolutions that include trying a new diet, exercising more, and quitting a bad habit. By far, people resolve to get healthier. 64% of people who make New Year's resolutions fail after just one month. Why? They set unrealistic goals and didn't keep track of their progress. On today's episode, Susan Neal joins us again to sha...

Health challenges don’t only impact our physical bodies. Health challenges impact every area of our lives. When multiple challenges rudely intersected Susan’s path over the course of nine months … well, those challenges exponentially impacted her life. Having been very healthy up to that point made her feel like her life was spiraling out of control. Doctor after doctor. Test after test. Still no...