A peace of my heart: My story and Ephesians.

As the Lord began walking me through the process of healing He had me camp out in Ephesians for a long season and began to stir my heart for the truths in this book to become active and alive in my life. Since that time, He has asked me to share this, in discipleship, at a retreat, and now to the women of my church. Which has been such a blessing to me and I have to say stirred even more healing in me. I am grateful for the opportunities He has given me and honored that He would use me like this. So I am sharing here as well. Below is a small section of this first session with the link if you are stirred to listen. I will be posting them all here.

Ephesians 1:18 the eyes of our understanding being enlightened…that you may know the HOPE, HIS CALLING, YOUR IDENTITY. (paraphrased by me.)

A few months ago my husband was meeting with a very highly regarded Christian man in our community. And the truth was this man’s heart has grown somewhat calloused with the lies of the enemy. SO in the process of God speaking through my husband, Lionel began to share some of my story. How I was abandoned by my real father, how my mother had six husbands and went from one abusive relationship to an even worse one, how I was sexually abused at a young age and how I lived very much of my adolescent years over exposed to sexuality, drug abuse, and alcoholic lifestyles.

But Lionel was telling this man of the powerful work of healing God has been doing in my life over the past 12+ years. And how God has radically changed me. And this man made a very profound statement and asked one of the best questions I have ever heard.

He said most Christians run from that kind of healing. I want to let that seep in a little, most Christians run from that kind of healing. You know he is right, healing is hard and even painful work.

And then He asked, why didn’t Kristen? Good question. Why didn’t I run from it, stay shut down, closed off, defeated. Why?

My precious husband gave the best answer I have ever heard, as he had observed this process in me over the years. He said it was the pursuit of God that kept her pressing in for more healing, not the pursuit of healing itself. He shared that each time God would walk me through a layer of healing, God would reveal a little more about Himself in the process and I became desperate to know Him more and more, and in turn He helped me trust Him to work through the painful things that would allow my heart to heal.

CS Lewis wrote: Your real new self will not come as you are looking for it, it will come when you are looking for Him. By His love we escape from ourselves into Him, and then into one another!

We have an assignment, to actively pursuit God.

AW Tozer The Pursuit of God: TO have found God and still to pursuit Him is the soul’s paradox of love.

I believe who we are and how we live, react, respond, walk, thrive, or fail, is directly related to what and who we perceive God to be and what and how we believe about His words. We do not live by what we know, we live by what we believe. Yes there is a difference. We live by what is in our heart.

The Psalmist said it, guard the heart with all diligence for out of flow the issues of life, not out of our minds and thoughts, out of our hearts.

Romans 10:9-10 explains that it is the heart that believes unto salvation

TOZER: In speaking thus I have one fear, that I might convince the mind before God has won the heart.

No matter who you are, what your going through, how you’ve sinned, who has hurt you, what your financial circumstance, what your past, present, or future is, the active radical pursuit of HIM, God, to know Him alone, will dramatically change it all.

Here the full story and insite from the book of Ephesians here.

The BBQ-Healing Ministry?

When we came to Corvallis almost 12 years ago, Lionel and I were displaced Pastors.

We had been on staff full time at churches and were a little worn, burned out, chewed up, and bitter. I remember thinking when I moved here, I really do not want one single Christian friend. We started attending Calvary Corvallis our second Sunday in town and we liked the teaching and worship right away. But we had a goal every Sunday- get in and get out. As fast as we could. We would leave during the last song so we could quickly get through the children's ministry. We wanted to remain under the radar. So we did.

A little over a year attending Calvary we were healing, the good hearty Wordwas filling us and refreshing us and the worship was renewing our spirits little by little but something was missing. We did not know anyone and we were not serving. We actually discussed going to a smaller church.

One day our son Jeremiah with all his 9 year old wisdom said "Dad, we were closer to God when we were serving him."

Those words pierced out hearts.

We had been doing our parental "duty" keeping them in church regularly. But our children SO knew the difference. They had seen the passion in us as we ministered to teens, spoke at the nursing homes, evangelized our communities, planned with joy events, retreats, went to summer camps, they had lived it with us and they could tell, something was missing.
We were not ready to rush into the throws of full ministry however and no one knew us. So we joined the Barbeque ministry. This was the best thing for us. We could do it as a family. It was seasonal. It was not every week and we would get to meet a ton of people.

The very first meeting Gene Stokes was sharing his heart for the ministry and the laborers and he said "please feel free to let us know if you need a break or are getting burned out, we don't want anyone here serving and feeling that way." Lionel and I were shocked and encouraged by those words. It was so loving and so caring.

We left there pleased and dazed. We had just come from churches where you were back sliding if you stepped away from a ministry. We had recently been told we must not care about our kids souls if we were no longer in a particular denomination. And now we have permission to step away from flipping burgers? Really?

God began to unravel some things in us that day. He began to undo some of the hurts and poor into us His healthy heart for ministry and serving and fellowship and body life.

And the BBQ ministry was SO fun. We loved getting together with these people and going on Sundays and having people know our names and us theirs. It was a good beginning to build relationships, to begin serving again, and to heal.

Saturday Corporate Prayer=Family

A brisk cool Saturday evening, the sun is shining in Corvallis Oregon which is a gift. Dozens make their way down the gravel hill to the barn converted chapel. Greeted by familiar faces, chairs in circles, and the smell of carpet and wood. As seats are found the emotion of the place is overwhelming. This is a place where hearts are stirred, confession is made, God speaks to His people, decisions are confirmed, battles fought and won.

Photo by Bethany Canfield

This is prayer and we are no longer strangers that have clocked hours in this room, for amidst the petitions and tears and repentance and praise, bonds have been formed, we became family.

In this room we are all equal and we are seeking with a singular heart, we are His. In this room we share truth, we share suffering, we share Jesus.

In this room we attempt to tread on holy ground removing the shoes of our hearts and crying out for the Spirit to flood in.

In this room we hear the exhort-er plead for truth to be revealed and sin to be confessed. We here the merciful ask for grace and hearts to be restored and we hear the compassionate pray for love to be pored out and the wounded healed. We hear the worshiper remember our God giving thanks for His goodness and blessing His name. We hear the fullness of the heart of God through His people and it is good.

The bulletin reads: Church Prayer Meeting. Some call it the boiler room, some say it is the heart beat or pulse of the church, but on Saturday evenings in a crowded chapel on a wooded hill in tiny Corvallis, we come together to meet our loving heavenly Father as a family.