Introducing Denise!

I have someone that I want you to meet, it is my girlfriend Denise. She and I have been friends for several years now. I remember back when she just had one little boy and now she has 4! My husband says that they are not just four boys, they are four boooys! This household is overflowing with testosterone!! However, Denise takes it all in stride and is one of the funnest moms I know.


Denise is also a great writer, she and I put together a rockin' church newsletter years ago. Plus, she sends the best notes you've ever read!

She doesn't have her own blog (yet), so I asked her to start writing some articles for a guest spot here on Praise and Coffee. Not sure how often I will be posting her articles, so stay tuned, I guarantee you will fall in love with Denise and her family as you read!

Make sure to leave her a comment welcoming her!

Here is a little more about Denise:

Denise Dykstra has been married to her handsome husband Jason for eleven years now. They are blessed with four boys ages nine, six, four and three. Denise has been writing since she was old enough to write stories on orange construction paper. She worked on her highschool newspaper, her local town paper for a short time as a stringer, her church newsletter and enjoys jotting notes and journaling. When not wrangling her boys together or cooking up enough food to feed them all, she enjoys gardening with her husband, camping and beach days. She and her family make their home on their hobby farm in West Michigan where they grow vegetables and always have the coffee on.

And now, on to her article:

I know little to nothing about any sport. My husband doesn’t really follow sports, we all enjoy watching most of them but really know little about them. We are too busy farming…ask us about farming and we know a little something about that!

In Michigan right now, there is a ton of snow. And it is very very very very very very cold (recently 22 below zero). The boys are cooped up in the house quite a lot of the time, and we have a small farmhouse with no basement so every game played is in the main part of our house and I am the ref, no matter what else I am doing or what else is going on.

This month the boys favorite game is hockey. Using socks for skates and brooms or old wrapping paper rolls or boards (I am not sure where they find those from) for sticks they try to get the hockey puck into the bathroom door or the living room door. It’s insane.

The other night my husband and I were watching a movie and our youngest was still awake. A commercial for a fast food chain came on and it says ‘hockey’ in it about ten times. Since even my youngest seems to know I know not much about sports, he figured he would inform me how to play. “You take the basketball” (keep in mind, he’s talking about hockey) “and throw it or kick it to make a touchdown”.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yup, I’m sure,” he replied.

One of my other sons, the one who is REALLY into hockey right now, tells me he lost the pock the other day. He thinks the puck is called a pock and no one can convince him otherwise.

It makes for some interesting conversations around here.

And I’m not sure why, but this whole hockey thing this month got me thinking about how much do we really know about what God says to us versus how much do we think we know. I am pretty sure we think we know a lot. But maybe we sound just as ridiculous as my boys do about hockey right now. They think they have the game figured out – just ask them! – and I think we think we have things all figured out, we have God in our orderly filed box in our brain, until we get asked something we don’t know or put in a situation we don’t understand. What will we do about it then, study up to know why we believe it or if it’s true, or continue in our ignorance? One day my boys will know more about hockey, they will study the game and know all that technical stuff and maybe play on a real team. It’ll take them a few more years, but I’m sure they’ll get it if they care about it. But what about you? Are you going to study up and get to know more about God, or don’t you really care about it?

I struggle with this. Our oldest really thinks things thru. He mulls it over in his head and then springs some deep theological question on us when we very least expect it. I so often am stumped and sadly, I often snap “why would you ask that? I’m busy, ask me later!” At which time, I feel as if I have just been punched in the gut. My husband and I usually end up talking to him together after the others have gone to bed, and it always leads to more conversations on the same subject for a few more days. But always, always we have to look it up, call a trusted friend or parent, bring it up in a Bible study and then get back to him. Kids are great at having you look at something thru new eyes, and they are great for making you realize how little you really know.

It’s a new year and I hear that most the country is in below normal temps with above normal precipitation…like snow. Why not take a little time in this cold weather to get to know your Heavenly Father better? Read some commentaries, do a Bible study, something to get you knowing your God better and knowing why you believe what you believe. I plan to do the same. Thursday I start a Bible study, because like I told you before, I struggle with this. And if I struggle with it, I am sure someone else out there is too.

And in the meantime, I have to continue to figure out how to give a time out in a penalty box to a hockey player who threw the basketball over the dining room table, where his brother caught it and ran it for a touchdown to score a goal. Apparently they were supposed to use sticks to get the touchdown. Guess I had better study up!