Respond with GraceRespond with Grace
Love&BLoved with Lena Cebula
Christian leadership coach Lena Cebula shares her journey from addiction, human trafficking and survival mode into a more peaceful, faith-rooted life. The episode focuses on stressed Christian mums, offering simple, faith-based tools to manage stress and respond with more grace at home.
42:43•6 Aug 2026
Respond with Grace: Stress, Faith and Small Shifts for Christian Mums
Episode Overview
- Stress touches thoughts, emotions, body and behaviour, and can quietly damage family relationships if left unaddressed.
- Anchoring identity in Christ, rather than past experiences or performance, can change how mums respond on their hardest days.
- Practical tools like role mapping help identify which responsibilities cause the most stress in a given season.
- Transformation comes through small, consistent steps and support, not through perfection or simply trying harder.
- Information is useful, but real change starts when mums act on what they’ve learned and choose one concrete shift they can make now.
“Your past does not have to define your future.”
What emotional and inspiring tales of recovery are out there? This episode, titled "Respond with Grace", focuses on Christian mums who feel stuck in survival mode and are weighed down by stress, old wounds, and the pressure to be everything to everyone. Certified Christian leadership coach and host Lena Cebula speaks openly about her own journey, starting in the former USSR in a home shaped by poverty, alcoholism, abuse and neglect.
She talks about losing her first baby at 15, falling into addiction, becoming a victim of human trafficking at 18, escaping to Canada, and slowly rebuilding her life. Her story is shared not to dwell on pain but to show what, as she puts it, "Christ can do with a surrendered life".
You’ll hear how stress affected her marriage, her parenting and her health, and how she reached a turning point after a terrifying chest pain episode following an angry outburst at her children. From there she describes learning to anchor her identity in Christ, studying emotional intelligence and stress management, and creating what she now calls the "renewal method" – a faith-based coaching framework focused on renewing the mind, recognising unhealthy patterns and choosing a different response.
The episode walks through practical ideas like a "role mapping" exercise to spot which responsibilities are causing the most strain, naming how stress shows up in thoughts, emotions, body and behaviour, and choosing one small step this week – asking for help, saying no, or carving out a few minutes for prayer.
There’s regular reassurance that perfection isn’t the goal: "Information creates awareness, but action creates transformation." If you’re a Christian mum who feels overwhelmed, compares yourself to everyone else, or worries your past is parenting your children, this gentle, honest conversation might be a breath of fresh air. What one small shift could you make today to respond with a bit more grace?
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