This Grit & Grace Life Podcast

This Grit and Grace Life hosts, Darlene Brock and Julie (Graham) Bender cross generational lines and draw from life experience to discuss all things life—from the boardroom to the bedroom, car-lines to college, being single, married, or single again. Combining the two traits found in all women, grit and grace, they laugh, share insights and explore the road taken to find strength every day.

This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

Behind the Music With Colton and Annie Dixon – 137

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Have you ever heard it said, “Life imitates art?” American Idol’s Colton Dixon might tell you, “Life creates art.” He and his wife, Annie, join Darlene and Julie for a casual chat about how much of his new music was inspired by life, their experiences as a couple, and the challenges they have faced. You will hear how they met, how they rely on each other during changes in his career, and the most terrifying—being pregnant with twins during a pandemic. The couple shares the personal stories that inspired the music on his new self-titled EP Colton Dixon—including chart-topper, Miracles and why his first love song, […]

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

How We Can Stand With the Black Community With Dr. Zoe Shaw – 136

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Everything we do at This Grit and Grace Life is seeking to understand. It is our goal to humble ourselves and listen, to be able to view the world through others’ eyes, all eyes. We wanted to hear a voice from the black community and have a conversation allowing us to learn and understand what we may not. We feel we are in a land of emotional minefields; we want to know why and even more than that as women of faith, learn what we can do to become instruments of racial reconciliation. We are speaking to Dr. Zoe Shaw, a black woman, who

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

An Intimate Look at Your Sex Life With Dr. Miller OB-GYN – 135

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More It’s time to get “down and dirty,” or, in other words, have an honest discussion about sex! We’ve brought Dr. Holly Miller (board-certified OB-GYN) back to the show for a real conversation about sexual and reproductive health. Darlene and Julie ask questions you might secretly be wondering and are perhaps even afraid to ask your GYN. So, ladies, we’re “going there,” with questions like: -How do you know if you’re ready to have sex with your partner? -How do you talk about his (or your) STI? -Should intercourse have pain? What do you do if it does? -How do different contraceptives work? -Do you

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

Real Advice Any Grit and Grace Mom Can Use Now – 134

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Motherhood has all the feels: pride, joy, fear, accomplishment, worry, and overwhelm (often with a hefty side of mom-guilt). Juggling these terrifying and satisfying waters can be challenging, especially if you want to master motherhood with both Grit and Grace. Real-life moms, Darlene Brock (who’s raised two daughters, now upgraded to Nonie—her fancy title for grandmother) and Julie Graham (widowed boymom in the trenches of single motherhood like many of you) share practical tips to do this. Strong Mama, don’t worry that you’re messing up or that you’re alone. In this episode, Julie and Darlene share hands-on advice on parenting techniques that they learned

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

Battling Depression? Find the Gift in the Darkness With Melissa Maimone – 133

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Can you find light in the darkness of depression? The surprising answer is “yes,” as gained from the personal experience of Melissa Maimone, author of The Radiant Midnight: Depression, Grace, and the Gifts of a Dark Place. She joins co-hosts Darlene Brock and Julie Graham to share what she learned from the many years she spent battling cycles of depression. There are gifts within slowness, solitude, and even sadness. She relates to those who have felt shame over this misunderstood hopelessness, especially as a Christian. She also offers helpful insight on how to love someone who faces this darkness. As all of us are

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

Do You Feel Pressured to Be a Proverbs 31 Woman? – 132

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Christian women often aspire to live that Proverbs 31 life, or what we perceive it to be. But sometimes the expectations are unrealistic, the pressure gets to be too great, and the doubts set it. Are you doing the right things and avoiding the wrong things? Do you feel the need to be better, sweeter, and to live a more godly life? Are you living up to the biblical example found in that text. Is it even realistic? These questions and more are discussed by co-hosts Darlene Brock and Julie Graham as they willingly admit their failures and tendencies to compare. While becoming like

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

How to Thrive as a Blended Family With Dr. Zoe Shaw – 131

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Families are together a LOT these days, and this can be challenging! But blended families? They are facing unique struggles. With this in mind, we invited licensed therapist and relationship expert, Dr. Zoe Shaw, back to share some practical success strategies for blending families. Even if this isn’t your family dynamic, these are insights we all can use, especially now. Co-hosts Darlene Brock and Julie Graham ask a lot of questions but do even more listening as Dr. Zoe discusses jealousy, healthy boundaries, comparison, and house rules. Listen in and share these helpful tips with another grit and grace mama today! Viewing in an

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

When You Want to Break Free of Your Past – 130

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More There’s no escaping this truth: we all have a past. How we let it shape us, well, that’s up to us. Will we decide to take the drama, trauma, hurt, and heartache and allow it to harden us? Or, will we learn from our struggles and choose to face them with both grit and grace? It takes grit to face the hurt that may feel constant. It takes grace for ourselves (rejecting shame and guilt) and grace for others (extending forgiveness where we find freedom). In this episode, Darlene Brock probes into co-host Julie Graham’s difficult childhood, asking honest questions about the challenges she

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

How to Find Your Purpose When Plans Fall Apart With JJ Heller – 129

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Women love to plan. Some of us had our whole lives planned out as little girls, writing our stories down with brightly colored pens in flowery little journals. Our guest, singer/songwriter JJ Heller, understands this well and took it to heart. In light of our new reality due to COVID-19, she wrote a song reflecting on all the plans that have come undone. Traveling and trips canceled, Easter celebrations changed, and so many plans for the best summer ever—poured down the drain…vacations, parties, and simple joys like swimming in the local pools. Right? But in this grit and grace life, things are always subject

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

7 Lessons from Easter You Need All Year Long – 128

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Easter happens every April (whichever Sunday they spring it on us!), but the lessons we learn from Jesus’ life as he walked this earth should impact us every day! Whatever month you listen to this episode, these insights from the risen King will affect your right-here-right-now existence. Darlene and Julie shed light on seven incredible lessons from Jesus’ life that will not only inspire but encourage you this Easter and all year round. We learn countless things from Jesus, but the lessons we discuss in the episode are: 1. You may prepare a long time before you do what you are supposed to do.

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

Keeping Your Faith Under Pressure With Skillet’s Jen Ledger – 127

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More We’re looking to each other a lot these days, for hope, encouragement, and even advice, and we’re all experiencing life with some level of anxiety and mounting pressure. These days can challenge our faith or strengthen it, often a bit of both. Looking for inspiration, Darlene and Julie interview Jen Ledger, solo artist and drummer with the multi-platinum, world-touring rock band, Skillet. Jen shares honestly about how bouts of panic and anxiety almost kept her from pursuing her dreams and how she found the strength, grit, and grace to endure these setbacks and still accomplish her dreams. She even talks about how she has

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

Is the Coronavirus Pandemic Causing Fear? How to Find Hope – 126

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Are you feeling anxious, with heightened levels of fear as we all grapple with new concerns that we didn’t see coming? Everything that brings the feeling of security has become uncertain: our health, finances, jobs, even our daily routine. It’s normal to be affected by all of this! But, we know that what is certain in this life is uncertainty. We also realize that we have an opportunity to turn to and genuinely rely upon the One who is certain. In this episode of This Grit and Grace Life, hosts Darlene Brock and Julie Graham share real tips on how to handle the stress

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

Why Strong Women Can (and Should) Rebuild Their Lives with Molly Stillman – 125

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Women are so resilient. Even when we face challenges that could potentially take us out entirely, as is the case of our guest Molly Stillman, we tap into our deepest grit. With countless roles and seasons, we are continually reinventing and re-shifting. We give ourselves and others the necessary grace needed to gain strength and wisdom on the other side. Molly faced the death of her mother as a teen, found herself drowning in debilitating debt post-college, was a comedienne, weathered a toxic dating relationship, and then after marrying the true love of her life (and having two healthy kids) experienced the heartbreak of

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

Doubt Your Influence? We Don’t and Here’s Why – 124

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Women have incredible influence. Whether we realize it or not, embrace it or not, or even like it or not, we have the power to affect others’ lives for good or for bad. Our life impacts those closest to us, in our homes and our social circles. We even influence across the internet, which reaches all around the world. This fact shouldn’t scare us (although some healthy fear could be appropriate here). Instead, it should inspire us to live a life worthy of imitation in all things—from family to faith to what we do for fun. In this episode of This Grit and Grace Life, Co-Hosts

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

How to Embrace Love in Every Season With Debra Fileta – 123

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | MoreJust as nature cycles through seasons, so do our relationships. No matter what type of relationship you are in, there are four stages that it will cycle through that spiritually and psychologically mimic the four seasons we see in nature.  In This #GritandGraceLife podcast episode, hosts Darlene and Julie chat with Debra Fileta who dives into theses four stages and explains how each stage is vital for building a deeper relationship, how we can find hope in knowing we will never get stuck in one stage, or “season”, and how to successfully navigate through each one.  Debra Fileta is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

The Qualities That Make a Woman Strong – 122

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | MoreWe are a podcast for strong women and those who want to be, right? But what does it mean to be a strong woman? What defines a woman as powerful, secure, tenacious? What are practical things strong women do? Here’s what we think… A strong woman knows she can’t do it all. A strong woman asks for help.  A strong woman doesn’t play games.  A strong woman says what she means.  A strong woman can be trusted.   What else do strong women do?    The best way to become a woman of strength is to understand these qualities. That’s why, in this This Grit

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

Sex Trafficking: Why Kids are at Risk and What You Can Do to Protect Them with Christy Ivie – 121

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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More  We need to talk about sex trafficking. We assume it’s not a problem that is occurring in our backyard, or even in our country, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Whether you like it or not, it’s happening in every community across the United States—even in yours. It doesn’t always look the way we think it would. A victim could look like a middle-class teenager at your kids high school who is still living at home.  In this episode of This Grit and Grace Life podcast, hosts Darlene and Julie are joined by Christy Ivie, the founder of Christy’s Cause, a non-profit working

Sex Trafficking: Why Kids are at Risk and What You Can Do to Protect Them with Christy Ivie – 121 Read More »

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