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.

Note to self...

I just read a book review of this same title and it so stirred me that I deiced to borrow its theme.

As I write I am often so stirred to share what God has been teaching me or some intense story or impression of the heart I forget that I mainly am writing for myself. Really. So here goes.

Dear Self,

You are about to embark on a new season. Picking up a desire you thought you had long left in the past.

Dusting off the ideas and habits and skills of studious learning. Picking up sharpened pencils and fresh notebooks you set forth to walk the halls again of academia. Yet what are your new desires mixed with these revived ones?

To learn? No. That has been an ever present process of daily life. You love to learn and do that purposefully. To learn alone is not enough to set side time and money and thought and creativity.

To achieve? Possibly. Accomplishment is in and of itself so satisfying. And yet there is not an underlying sense of underachievement accelerating this journey.

What is driving this new endeavor? What has after 18 years, raising four children, finding success in the business world, knowing purpose through ministry, what brings this to the front and foremost of priority now?

Obedience. To walk worthy of the calling for which God has prepared for you. Simply doing the next thing He has for you. This is what drives, presses, this is the foremost desire to please and serve Jesus.

Self, you do not know what tomorrow will hold but you do have the hope and faith to follow after Him. You do not have to prove yourself to anyone, thing, the world namely, only represent God in the best way you know how, a life fully surrendered to Him living out His plans for you.

People are more important then papers. A's do not make you smart. And teachers do not rule the world God does.

So enjoy this. It will pass quickly. Take it all in every morsel and do not allow it to swallow you whole.

Blessings. K

Be at peace.

Enjoy this.

DO not let the tasks at hand consume you rather, be consumed by Him and trust Him to work out through you the tasks before you.

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.