Kristin’s Clean Slate

Ah, I have so much to write, yet once again, no time… sigh…. 

There will be a LONG update soon… but for now, I’ll just say this: 

Jesus ROCKS!!! 

He has been SO FAITHFUL and I’m literally watching months and months’ (and years and years) worth of fervent prayers being answered, one after another, and it’s completely blowing my mind!

I know the Lord promises that nothing returns void… but when I see it happen with my own two eyes… well, it’s just something that will never cease to leave me standing in awestruck wonder. Oh, how I love Him!!! 

Anyway, I will fill you in soon. 

My love to all who read here. May the Lord richly bless you!! 

I took a pretty big step of faith today. Not sure yet what the outcome will be, although of course, I know what I hope it will be! But, I took the step, and now I find myself sort of suspended in the air, not sure where or how I’ll land, but God does, so I rest in that. I’m now in the Waiting Place. If you’re not sure what that means, read Oh, The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss. I’ve never heard such wisdom come from a children’s book!

It’s still so odd to be on this side of life, starting over and making decisions for the future… it’s really difficult in one aspect, yet sort of liberating in another. Anyway, I’m babbling… so I’ll sign off for now. I’ll keep you posted (no pun intended!) 

Love, joy and peace to all. Thanks to all who keep us in your prayers; you’re in ours, too!

This is a prophetic word that was spoken over me this past Thursday. I’ve never met these people and they knew nothing of my situation/life/circumstances. Most of you have walked this out with me so I wanted to share this with you. It’s so special to me! Excuse my bawling in some parts - you’ll understand! Just click here: kristin2

Wow. What an amazing day. 

Started off hearing from a dear old friend from high school, with whom I lost contact about twelve years ago. Out of the blue, I heard from her this morning. We both lived in a small mountain community in California, and as we started our own lives and I moved across the country, we just fell out of touch. Anyway, we spent this morning trading emails while working, catching each other up on our lives. I was about to send her another email asking how her family was, namely her younger sister, Cassie, whom I haven’t seen since dirt was new. However, I was swamped at work so I decided to wait until I got home to send another email. 

On my way home from work (I usually work at home, but once a month I work in an office to do the books for the business), I had to stop at the store to get ingredients for dinner, as we were having a dinner guest tonight. I have lived here for 12 years respectively, and I’ve always wanted to stop at this neighborhood market where I’ve never been. So I’m in the store, doing my thing, and someone in a store uniform comes walking up to me. She has a huge smile on her face. I’m taken aback at first, and then the shock sets in: it was Cassie, the sister of my friend mentioned above!!!! We hugged and I told her about her sister contacting me just this morning! Unreal. She asked me where I go to church, I told her, and she started cracking up. “I just visited that church YESTERDAY!!!!”, she said. This is also unbelievable, because 1) we live in the Bible Belt where there’s literally a church at least every mile, and 2) because our church is meeting at a temporary location, and there really are no signs leading to it. It’s a fairly small congregation of about 150 people, but growing rapidly. She was sitting right next to my pastor’s wife, who’s one of my best friends, yet I didn’t see Cassie. Turns out my pastor’s wife introduced Resolute to her, we discovered while talking about it tonight. Anyway, it’s amazing. We’re having her over soon. 

Then tonight, our dinner guest, a dear sister who’s new in our lives but someone the kids and I have instantly connected with, came over for the first time and we all hung out and had a blast. She adores my kids, and she asked if I could adopt her, too - I would’ve had to have had to given birth at 13 to be old enough to be her mom, but I told her I’d adopt her anyway - always fun to get people talking, especially in the Bible Belt. We were hanging out and Diligent was telling her about her love of singing. I asked my daughter to play/sing the song she recently wrote about one of her friends (AMAZING SONG). She sang it and our friend was absolutely blown away. She sat in shock for several seconds after Diligent finished the song, unable to even talk! She told my daughter she worked for Warner Music for a long time (we had no idea) and a LOT of demos came across her desk, but no one ever came close to the voice & talent of Diligent! She said she’s friends with one of the biggest music producers in the business, and she wants us to get a demo cut as soon as possible so that she can get it to this guy. My daughter and I just sat there staring at each other. We had no idea our new friend was tied to the music business. This is what Diligent has dreamed about, but we never knew how to get her ‘out there’ to producers and the like. Diligent doesn’t want to be famous - she just wants to use the gift God’s given her to glorify Him. 

So we open our home to this dear sister and she opens a door for my daughter, and none of us even knew. We didn’t know she was in the music industry and she didn’t know Diligent could sing. 

Overall, I’d say this was quite the day for Divine Appointments!! 

Amazing. 

God rocks. 

So lately the Lord has been requiring me to show Him, moreover, myself, how much I trust Him with my children. I always tell Him I trust Him with their lives, and now He’s taking me to another level by asking me to show Him. 

First, it was in allowing Diligent* to travel alone to Oregon. For a MONTH. (She only travelled alone; she stayed with several friends while there!) I was scared, but I allowed her to go.

Then, it was allowing Resolute* to travel to Arizona, Hawaii, and L.A. for three weeks with aunt/uncle/cousins, and then friends. I was scared, but I allowed her to go. 

Today, it’s allowing Stalwart* to fly with a friend, a licensed pilot, on their private plane. I’m scared to death because I don’t like planes myself, but I’m again entrusting my child to the Lord, trusting Him to keep this precious child safe. He is excited beyond measure, walking around with a HUGE grin this morning. 

I’m the kind of mom who’s very, very rarely without her kids. Especially with all we’ve been through the past six months, I’ve become even more protective of them. I’m a Mama Bear to the core. I will guard them fiercely. But, in all that we’ve been through recently, I believe the Lord is wanting me to keep a balance - yes, to protect them wisely, but not guard them so heavily that they become afraid or unable to be free to enjoy all that God wants to do with them/bless them with. I could easily become a mother who shelters TOO much. I know I have that tendency so I’m always trying to be aware of that. Hence my reason for allowing them to do things that truly frighten me. But I want to show Jesus that I really, truly trust Him with my kids, all the time, not just when I can be there to protect them. This is not to say that I’ll ever just let them run amuck, doing whatever they want ‘because I trust God’. That’s not what I mean. I’ll guard them with my life, all my life, but when an amazing opportunity comes along for them, I won’t allow my personal fears to win out. I trust that God brings forth these opportunities to bless them. If there are three kids worthy of being showered with abundant blessings, it’s these. They’ve been through so much, yet they have not grown bitter; only more gracious. They don’t blame God for what happened; they drew nearer to Him. 

So, to my Lord: I trust You. 

To my kids: enjoy this life God has given you. Receive His love and His blessings whole-heartedly, without fear. 

P.S. To those who might be wondering, their dad, of course is an equal part of all these decisions too - but I was just speaking as a mom here… :) 

* For those who don’t know, I refer to my kids by these names for internet security reasons since this is a public blog, but also because, the day after their dad left, my friend was praying for them, and the Lord gave her those ‘names’ for them. My eldest is Diligent: having or showing care and conscientiousness in one’s duties; my middle child is Resolute: admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering; and the youngest is Stalwart: loyal, reliable, and hard working.  My friend also noticed how God showed Himself, not only to be absolutely accurate in these definitions of these three awesome kids, but also that He is, in fact, such a God of order that the names are even in alphabetical order, from oldest to youngest. I love that. 

The other night, I was having dinner with my pastor, his wife and some friends. My pastor had just returned from a pastors’ conference. He was telling us about some topics that were discussed there, one of which being a particular sect of people who believe Jesus already returned (I believe he said in 70 A.D.), and that this world in which we live now is actually Heaven. My friend sat there silent for about 5 seconds, looked around, and said, “well, if this is Heaven, I’m going back to doing drugs!!” Hilarious. 

Really, though, it got my mind gears cranking (even more than usual). It truly baffles me, the way people create these incredible belief systems that cannot in any way be backed with proof of any kind, and, in fact, can be completely disproved. Which leads me to wonder: do they do it solely to create controversy? Do people just get together and discuss how they can stir the pot, so to speak, and out come these bizarre ideas? Do you think they actually believe this stuff, or do you think that maybe they don’t know what to believe so they just go along with what’s new or popular, or maybe they just want to be set apart to grab attention? 

I’m not trying to put down any group or scoff them. It’s just something that has my wheels spinning. I would love to sit and talk with them. 

What are your thoughts? 

I just wanted to thank all of you, my dear and wonderful friends, for all the love, support, encouragement, and most of all, prayers, you’ve offered my family and I during this time. I just want you to know that each of you have touched my life in indescribable ways and I am so grateful to God for placing each of you in my life. 

You mean so much to me, and I only hope I can be the blessing to you that you’ve been to me. 

I love you, and God bless you all!! 

I’m almost finished reading Blue Like Jazz. I am loving it. I’m getting down to the last couple of chapters and I find myself reading slower and slower, intentionally, because I don’t want it to end! Anyway, I had a “WHOA!!” moment while reading the book .. well, actually I’ve had many “WHOA!!” moments throughout this book, but this excerpt I found especially thought-provoking:

“The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me. God brought me [here] to rid me of this deception, to scrub it out of the gray matter of my mind. It was a frustrating and painful experience.  I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of resisting their habit, and to some degree I understand them because I have had habits of my own, but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all the people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.” 

Later, the author has a conversation with a very giving, patient man, despite being completely unappreciated for what he does. The author asks him how he kept such a good attitude, despite all the people who abused his kindness. His answer:

“If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus.” 

Whoa. I really like that. Good stuff. 

Thanks to all of you for praying. I’m having a much better day today. I was up a lot during the night last night due to severe thunderstorms, so when my alarm went off this morning, I was very tempted to just stay cozy in my bed rather than get up for church. I’m home alone this week so I knew I could get away with playing hooky. But, I knew I needed to go, especially after the week I’ve had, so I forced myself outta bed and went to church. I almost started laughing when the message title for today’s sermon came up: Spiritual Warfare. I just looked up and smiled, saying, to God,  ”I knew You wanted me here this morning!” It was very challenging and VERY much what I needed to hear. Pastor even went into the subject of spiritual warfare in regards to relationships and what a very powerful weapon against Satan we have in imparting forgiveness to those who have offended or hurt us. Never thought of forgiveness as a ‘weapon’ in the spiritual sense. Interesting. But really, it’s true. Forgiveness thwarts the enemy’s plans to harm us and bring us to ruin. He then went on to talk about strongholds - what they are, where they can manifest, etc. Very powerful. We then started praying, releasing our own strongholds. It was truly incredible and certainly worth getting out of bed for! My pastor and his wife who also happen to be two of my closest friends knew I was alone this week so they brought me home with them, fed me yummy food, encouraged me in the Lord, reminding me of His promises and how He sees me and how incredibly He’s going to bless my obedience. They also made me laugh until my stomach hurt! It was truly a blessing and such an encouragement. My pastor’s wife was encouraging me in areas where my heart hurts most lately that I hadn’t shared with anyone but the Lord. So again, He spoke to me through someone and let me know He hears me, He loves me, and He cares so much for the condition of my heart. I love that. I am so grateful.

So, I’m glad to finally have a happy report to throw out there - I’ve had far too many sad entries of late! 

I hope all of you are enjoying a blessed Sunday - rest and enjoy being with those you love. 

Okay, so… not sure if this pain is EVER gonna subside or at least get easier. It’s been almost half a year already (in 27 days), yet the agony only gets more intense with each passing day. 

Take today, for example:

Even though it’s Saturday, I’ve been awake since 6:30 a.m. after being tormented with nightmares of betrayal all night long; reliving what caused this whole real-life nightmare in which I find myself, over and over, only with more pain added to it. Even in sleep, I can’t get a reprieve from the sorrow. I awakened at least ten times during the night, but each time I’d fall back asleep, the nightmare would just continue. Ugh! I finally gave up trying to sleep when I woke myself up because I was crying aloud. So now I’m awake, living the real thing, and totally exhausted in every way. 

 I know this is a personal attack because I’ve chosen not to lie down and take this - I’ve chosen to fight the good fight for my family. The Enemy doesn’t like me when I fight because “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.” He knows I already claim and have victory in the name of Jesus, therefore, in the end, I’ll win this battle with the Hater of my soul. But he’s sure doing his best to try and keep me down, out of commission. Without Jesus, I’d stay down, ’cause I just don’t have it in me to keep fighting this battle alone. Yet even when I feel alone in this, I am not; my feelings are not reality. I do not give up. Ever. Especially when it comes to fighting for those I love more than anything on this earth. So, although I’m broken, beaten, bloody, wounded and totally spent… I will not stay down. I will stand up. I press on. I will not give up. 

Greater is He. 

I just hope I come out in one piece! :)