Today, I’d like to introduce my amazing friend, Julie Thomas. Julie is the Director of  Women’s Ministries at my church, Foothills Community Church in Arvada, CO.  Julie is also mother to four amazing kiddos. Her walk with God is deep and her heart is gentle. Julie also has her own blog which I invite you to check out It’s www.womenwhobelieve.me.  I think your going to enjoy Julie’s thoughts and like always, I’m giving prizes!   I’ll be giving away two copies of The 30 Day Praise Challenge.   But, you can only win if you leave a comment. Here’s Julie:

Life is so daily, isn’t it?

I’m a mom in the middle of raising four kids, and while the idea of praising God comes quite naturally on a Sunday morning, it gets a little tricky in the messiness of everyday life. In the heat of the moment, in the middle of a crisis, how do I then decide to praise Him?

The Lord brought this question front and center in my life a few weeks ago. My entire family was in our backyard pruning dead flowers.

On this day, for whatever reason, I put my eight-year-old daughter in charge of the garden shears…yes, the big metal hedge shears used to trim tree branches (no, I don’t know why…).

As I held up the end of a huge flower for her to cut, my girl lined up the blades and accidentally cut into my right index finger. I painfully yelled for her to stop, and while she hadn’t taken my finger off, I knew it was bad. Fast forward to the kitchen sink. Picture me holding my finger under the water, my husband rushing to prep items to stop the bleeding, and my poor daughter weeping and completely mortified that she’d done this to her mama. Total mayhem. As my husband wrapped my finger, he knew I needed stitches.

Why do things like this always happen on the weekend during emergency care hours/rates?

So my options were 1) drive myself to urgent care, or 2) have my husband drive me, with the inclusion of all four children. Six of us. In an urgent care room. On a weekend. Yes, actually, I will drive myself. So I jumped in the car, along with my daughter (she was determined to see this one through on behalf of the pain she’d inflicted).

I was pretty freaked out. Blood, needles, it’s the worst in my book. As I drove, my mind swirled between the accident that had just happened and the stitches awaiting me. All the while trying desperately to reassure my sweet girl that I loved her, I needed her, and that I completely forgave her. It was all beginning to spin.

As I drove, I knew I needed to refocus.

I was in the middle of Becky’s book, The Thirty Day Praise Challenge. And in that crazy moment, I started to praise God. I praised Him that I still had my finger. I praised Him that it was not worse than it surely could have been. I praised Him for health insurance. I praised Him for the ability to get myself to a clinic. I praised Him for my daughter, for her incredible heart of compassion, and that we were together.  I praised Him for my husband who had the stomach to be my much-needed provider and wrap my finger.

As I began to praise God, everything changed.

In the middle of praising Him, He began to stabilize me from the inside out:

• He replaced my panic with strength.
• He renewed my mind with peace.
• He assured me of His presence.
• He replaced my fear with joy. Yes, joy.

When I began to praise God, everything changed. Everything.

What’s swirling in your life right now? Where do you need a “refocus”? Maybe you find yourself in the middle of a crisis. Or maybe just the messiness of life. Let me encourage you to praise God right where you are. Don’t wait until it all works out.  Take time today and praise God in the middle of it all.

Try it. It will change everything.