By His Grace
Abby McDonald: Shift Your Focus

Abby McDonald: Shift Your Focus

Sometimes it is difficult to see God in the midst of our struggle. My guest this week Abby McDonald thinks sometimes we need to change our focus to see the presence of God. We talk about some of the arduous struggles she faced like post-partum depression and how God was faithful to see her through. These trying times left her searching for God and ultimately led to her writing the book Shift: Changing Our Focus to See the Presence of God. 

“Shift explores the life-changing truth that when we adjust our lens to focus our eyes on God rather than on what we wish we were seeing in our lives, he reveals himself to us. In fact, those moments when he seems invisible to us are often when others see him the most in us.”

Abby McDonald is a blogger, speaker, wife, and mom whose work has been featured on (in)Courage, For Every Mom, iBelieve, Crosswalk, and more. Her passion is to empower women to grow in faith and hope, even when life is messy. Abby McDonald

Mother/Daughter Relationships: Helen McIntosh & Blythe Daniel

Mother/Daughter Relationships: Helen McIntosh & Blythe Daniel

The Mother and Daughter relationship isn’t always an easy one. I have experienced this first hand with my mother and from friends who are struggling with their daughters. Tensions can arise especially in the teen years that can make the mother/daughter relationship difficult. This week on By His Grace we talk about the mother-daughter relationship, challenges, and how it can be repaired by God’s grace.

My guests this week are the mother and daughter author team Helen McIntosh and Blythe Daniel that penned the book, Mended: Restoring the Hearts of Mothers and Daughters. They share wisdom and hope based on their own experiences as mothers and daughters.

Growing up, Dr. Helen McIntosh shared few loving moments with her mother. Her mother battled anxiety, anger, and alcoholism, while Helen struggled to fend off her verbal and emotional abuse. After Helen became a Doctor of Counseling Psychology, she helped other women scarred from toxic mother-daughter relationships. Once her own daughter Blythe grew up and left home, Helen longed to maintain a good relationship with her.  

Today, Helen and Blythe, who is a mother of two daughters, have a close and healthy mother-daughter bond achieved through effort and repairs. In Mended: Restoring the Hearts of Mothers and Daughters, they share how they’ve built, guarded, and renewed a relationship-centered around talking, respecting, and listening. “No mom or daughter wants to walk a dark path of uncertainty, a strained relationship, or a gulf between you that feels too difficult for you to cross,” says Blythe, knowing how common unstable and unfinished relationships are. Mended walks readers through the steps to reconciliation and includes specific conversations that guide mothers and daughters towards openness, grace-filled confrontation, and restoration. 

 Blythe Daniel is a literary agent and marketer with 20 plus years of experience in publishing. She has written for Christian Retailing and Focus on the Family, and she links bloggers with readers through BlogAbout. The daughter of Dr. Helen McIntosh, she lives in Colorado with her husband and three children.

Dr. Helen McIntosh (EdD, Counseling Psychology) is a counselor, speaker, educator, and author of Messages to Myself and Eric, Jose & The Peace Rug®. Her work has appeared in Guideposts, ParentLife, and HomeLife magazines. She resides in Georgia with her husband Jim. They have two children and five grandchildren.    

Marriage and the Enneagram: Beth & Jeff McCord

Marriage and the Enneagram: Beth & Jeff McCord

Welcome to Season Two of the By His Grace Podcast. We have an amazing line-up for this season!

This week we dive into the Enneagram as a tool to help you in your marriage relationship. Beth McCord, Your Enneagram Coach, and her Pastor, husband Jeff sit down with me to share how the Enneagram has helped them better understand the why behind their actions and reactions in the context of their marriage. The McCord’s do a great job of simplifying the Enneagram from a Biblical perspective.

We also discuss their recently published book Becoming Us: Using the Enneagram to Create a Thriving Gospel-Centered Marriage and the nine companion journals, one for each Enneagram type.

For more information about the McCords visit:

https://www.yourenneagramcoach.com

https://www.becomingus.com/book

https://www.yourenneagramcoach.com/journals

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of By His Grace! Share this episode with a friend and tag me @MistyPhillip. Then hit subscribe on Itunes or wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure to leave us a review.

 

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