Can vs Should...

Recently a friend was retelling a story where he quoted his wife saying "can and should are two different things." That statement has so resonated with me.

Especially in the area of taking liberties and personal rights.

I'll explain using "desserts" for my example, though you can insert anything into the equation.

I can have desserts any time all the time if I like. But I am walking a journey, a path that really I mostly should not partake of desserts. I don't desire the calories or the sugar. My body does not need it and I am also walking through this by the Lords leading, so you could say at times dessert might even be sin to me. If when I partake I feel I am compromising something in my heart, then yes it is me sinning.

Now that may seem silly to some I mean seriously Kristen it's only chocolate cake. True.

But many days of chocolate cake have lead me to become something I do not want to be, in the past chocolate cake was my way of comfort, was self medicating. Chocolate cake in and of itself has no power at all over me, it is the reason I need or want the chocolate cake I must be absolutely aware of.

So I must ask the Lord what is the truth in my heart about cake? Do I love it that much? No. Do I need it? No. Is it a stumbler for others around me? Maybe, at times yes. Does it taste awesome amazing? yes. Does the Lord desire me to enjoy food? Yes, of course or He would have made us with out taste buds. Haha.

So my conclusion to all these questions, thoughts, heart stirrings: I can have cake but I should not always have cake.

Now personal rights...

Here is where God has landed my heart concerning personal rights. It is not even an issue of liberal verses conservative. It is an issue of laying down our personal rights. As Paul spoke of so many times. If we can take liberties we also don't always have to.

If the Lord has said to me that He has called me to minister and serve in a certain area then with that He has asked me to surrender some personal rights. It is simple. I lay it down not for law sake, but for serving sake. I have the right to make these choices absolutely, but If I feel I need control over those personal rights above the Lord having control over them, the issue is not about "cake" it is something more all together.

What is my great need to exercise this right? What about laying this right down makes me feel threatened or challenged. Shouldn't it be simple? I love the Lord more. He has asked, that settles it correct?

What if someone else asks? My husband? My Pastor? Another I am in ministry with or respect? Are they as important, are they less important than my personal right? These are the thoughts I ponder with the Lord and in the end between the Lord and my heart, He has settled me on this: the relationship is more important than exercising my personal right.

That settles it for me.

When we can get to a place in our hearts, and please know I am still working to get there, but a place where we truly know it is all the Lords anyways? Then it is easier to let go of things like, our time, our money, our sleep(yes that is a huge one for me), our food, our comforts, our style, our preferences, our gifts etc. None of these things are bad, please hear my heart in this- God certainly does bless us with all of these things and more. But keep them in His perspective and lay them down before Him and you will not feel robbed of any personal right, because you know in surrendering it-

God has our back.

He has our hearts in mind always, always.

He may be asking us to lay something down to assure our hearts, we love Him more.

It's good for me to know. He is better. He is way better than chocolate cake! Haha.

No more time lost

I had a moment of grief the other day.
A wave come over me and swallowed my joy, my peace.
Tears welled up.
Why had I lost so my much time?!
I felt the anger too.
Truth is I know I am healed today.
I am strong and vibrant and loving and full of life.
I am a better version of myself.
And I felt indignation over the contrast of my former self.
What had been stolen from me, robbed, destroyed was not only my innocence but for many years the person I would have become had been taken too.
I cried.
I wept over the loss of that person.
And I let myself grieve for the moment.
I let the fullness of the pain seep deep into my soul.
Stillness.
I look up.
A posture to force my inner eyes to look up as well.
He is there, of course he is there waiting.
And my heart lifts as I search the face of Jesus.
And I don't feel but I know somehow that He caresses me.
I know that He takes my heart in His hands and says it is ok.
I know that His dying love for me has let me see what He has done for me today.
And I know it is enough.
I am enough.
I am who He has made me to be today.
I let my heart turn to gratefulness.
I let my grief be shifted by His grace.
I let Him love me.
I love Him.
I am the miracle.
No more time lost.

Visions of Jesus: My Story and Ephesians

Here is a part of my teaching from Ephesians chapter 2.

V4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

But God. I love that. Because He loves you so much, His entire motive is love. In my heart this is the theme God has revealed possibly for my life. BUT GOD….Because of His love for which He loved me.

The amplified says because of His great and intense love that God has for you.

The message says: in order that He could satisfy His great and intense love…

Can you just think on that for a minute with me. It is satisfying to God to love on us with such a lavish gift of Jesus. We think about the cross and the sacrifice and the great extent to which the Father gave up His only son, but do we dream about that it brought great satisfaction to His heart because of His great need to pour out His love on us? Do you feel the warm anointing oil of the Spirit just pouring those truths over you?

V5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) While you were filthy and unredeemed not marked by Christ, in darkness, the message says He embraced you! Scooped you up into the loving arms of Jesus. He brought you from death to life in Christ Jesus! From death to life. You are made ALIVE? Do you believe that? DO you feel alive?

I love the visual there, being scooped up, embraced by the Father. God stirred on my heart a few times this week about my visions of Him. About our visions of Him. If you have not had a vision of Jesus I encourage you to ask Him for one. As I shared with Lionel and then a friend this week, I was seeing how the changes of my vision of Him paralleled my path of healing. At first I only ever saw the cross and it stirred and even broke my heart, but my heart was broken. Then I would always see myself as a pile under the cross and Him still on it. And I always thought that is fitting, I am a wounded pile on the floor in my heart. But as I walked through healing He gave me a new vision of Him bending town to kiss the top of my head grabbing my face sweetly like a Father to a little child, Showing me His great fathers love and this brought break through! Much healing as I did not know the loving touch of an earthly father. Then He gave me a vision of Him standing proud hands on His hips, smirking at me and laughing delighted at the time we were having together, and then He gave me a vision of Himself sitting on a throne, and He is even bigger than the throne and He’s leaning over looking at me expectantly, listening to me, leaning in to me. My really big God that can handle all that is in my heart He listens to me and He speaks back. My experience with Him was never meant to stay on the cross, you know because He did not stay at the cross, that is where I met Him, but I am being transformed into the likeness of His resurrection to walk in newness of life.

V6-7 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Don’t stay at the cross, raised to walk in newness of life, Jesus didn’t stay on the cross and He didn’t stay in the grave, be raised up with Him that is the transformed life, that is a life redeemed, renewed, restored,

rescued now He seats you at a place of Honor in heaven with Jesus. Can you just imagine that for a second, the arms of the Loving Father pulling you up into a warm loving embrace like a mother of father scooping up a child and sitting them next to Jesus, next to your loving care taker, life giver, brother, friend.

(7) this He did to show the unlimit-less measure of His free grace (amplified)

Listen to the full message here.

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.

No scheme of man...

This line is stuck in my head for a few reasons.

Yesterday I was sinking in disappointment. Not good. The thing is I know how to battle the enemy. I am practiced at isolating thoughts, taking them captive and spitting them out while at the same time flooding my mind with truth. I am very disciplined in careful self dialogue and inner chatter. I really am.

But yesterday there were layers of disappointment. It was a mound. I felt grief for my kids, rejection and disappointment over scenarios in their life, I felt disappointment from my husband which was not his fault but still very present. I felt disappointment from the Lord, ultimately that is where it all stemmed from. Did you let me down God?
And my usual efforts were not enough. Maybe I was tired, drained, emotional, etc. I soaked in the word, worshiped, listened to messages, read my books, journaled, prayed. Nothing was breaking through.

About 10:45 last night I had a conversation with a dear friend and told her she needed rest. Wait, what? I needed rest. It was late. I was tired and my heart had been feeling hurt all day. At this point the only thing that was going to set my heart straight was rest.

I went to bed and prayed then slept.

This morning I woke refreshed with a heart at peace. Not sure that any thing had changed, but I had changed. My heart was well and as my body and mind had rested, my spirit was renewed by God. Yeah, He does that, while we sleep sometimes especially when we ask Him too.

None of my own plans or schemes were working. None of my families either as their circumstance are all in Gods control.

And today God intervened in some mighty ways on LJ's behalf, getting him through some difficult things. Once again showing him that only He God can put him LJ in the places he is going.

Thank you Lord that you can bear my disappointments, refresh my hurting heart, and you still work and move even when I do not believe you are.

Joy. Comes. Full. Circle.

The sand on my feet. The breeze off the water. The smell of wet clothes, hair and sand wafting. The sounds of God's children singing, praying, crying, and rejoicing. The stirring of Jesus in hearts. Tears streaming down my face. This is the flavor of baptism.Hand and hand believers rush to the waterside with obedience in their hearts and a yes on their face. Loved one bringing loved one to the place of not just knowing Jesus but following Jesus. Ministers there greet, hug, shake hands, strengthen, and serve the brethren in this first step of faith.

I look on as I am overwhelmed by the number of Gods people in full surrender. Yet my heart is full for another reason, a mother's heart spilling over. God is faithful. And He has come thru yet again.

The sight of inexpressible and yet uncontainable joy beaming from my sons face. In the rays of the sunlight reflecting off the water LJ shines brighter for the purity and freedom of the love of Jesus that flows from him.

Ft. Lauderdale, FL Calvary Baptism 4/30/11

Redeemed, restored, renewed.

LJ ministers baptism over and over as the waves break over his knees and the wind carries the sent of salt, he prays and cries and loves strangers now turned friends, brethren, family.

A vision of a few years previous. Much the same circumstance, middle school-ers coming forward, one at a time, LJ's face beaming with joy, the last time I saw him that happy. The last time I saw joy in his eyes and sincere love flowing easily from his face.

Lake Bradley Middle School Camp 8/2008

Now he stands, not stained, not burdened, not shamed, not bitter, but free. In Joy, that has come as God promised on this morning as light has dawned in this end of a darkened sason for him and joy has come on this baptism morning. Full. Circle.

Jesus, thank you.

Better than wine...

Sometimes I do not know how to tell my story because it is still unfolding.

I think of my life as not having a beginning or an end but as a constant and ever changing circle. Like the earth spinning round and round, some times in the brightness of the sun, other times in the darkness of night, that is me and that is what healing is like.

So much has happened in my heart, to tell it all would mean that I understood it all, and I don’t and there is still so much to be discovered. But as I move through each day there are these glimpses, you know these tiny moments when I am on the outside looking in getting a God size perspective of what He is doing in me and I am so undone. Because He loves me, oh how he loves me, can you hear that song playing in your head...I can.

I am journal-ing Song of Solomon, as a prayer to God. A friend recommended it to me. As I am His beloved and He is mine. I am on verse two and this is my response back to my Lord, my Love today:

Nothing is more valuable than Your love. Nothing is more precious, more costly, more fragrant and more tasty. You grow this love in me that is You. You planted Your love in my heart like a seed that is planted and grows to a vine. Your love blossoms in my heart and bears fruit like luscious grapes in the vineyard full of juice and ripe from the sun. Your love brings the fullness of satisfaction to my soul like the fullness of flavor in a timely opened luxurious wine, pleasant, earthy, warm, delicate, and fragrant.

Your love is better than wine.

He loves you too, tell Him today, that you love Him back,

the Art of healing...

Hi.

There is so much I could say about this, I will have to do this in segments. As I am sharing about art in life I have pondered the areas, aside from the performing arts that have had profound effect on me.

Healing is definitely art in life.

Just the word itself rings through my heart and soul with perfect harmonious sound. I have read about, prayed about, talked about, asked for, sought after, cried, prayed over, and received healing so much over the past several years that the very word warms my entire being, it is a part of me.

Most importantly because to me healing is personified in the person of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. His word says, He is Healer and His work has proven that to me time and again.

To get to know Him, to draw close to Jesus, to wrap ones self and life around Him is to most undoubtedly surrender life and soul to the fine work of healing that is part of His very existence and presence in our life. From the moment we receive Him the work has begun in the most eternal sense of transcending from death to life. And for much of my Christian life that is all the healing I could really engage in, as I had no real understanding there was so much more.

At four years of age, for whatever reason I was made very aware of my need for Jesus. But it was not until about the age of 24 that I would begin to realize my even greater need for Him to save me from myself.

Lionel was recently asked "why is it that Kristen continued to pursue healing in her life, as most people run from it?" This man was very serious. Lionel answered what I believe to one of the most insightful things he has ever said about me, he said "I believe because each time God would reveal something to her about herself, He would also give her the slightest greater glimpse of Him, that is what kept her pressing for more."

Incredible. I don't even know if I could have said that myself until Lionel spoke the words, I had not even thought it, but it is exactly true, each time God would uncover a layer in me that he was doing a work in, He showed me more and more about Himself, and it was the actual pursuit of more of Him, not the pursuit of self, that led me to be healed in such powerful ways.

The beauty in all of this is that He is the artist that takes the black, dark, ugly brush strokes of our soul and brings new life, color, texture, and shape to make us whole.

I am so excited to share with you the journey this has been, of course that will possibly take several blogs, even a lifetime, all of which I am happy to share in hopes that the healing He has done in me will perpetuate healing in others.

"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound" Isaiah 61:1

I was captive, and brokenhearted, I have been liberated and made whole.

Thank you Jesus!