I used to dread the thought of being home alone on a Saturday night but tonight is different. I feel God’s presence with me so strongly I can almost smell His breath, or maybe that’s my breath I smell!? “Everything bagels” are a treat but the aroma does linger. 🙂
Either way I am not alone. The Lord is with me. He is my closest friend, my Papa, my lover, my cheerleader, my companion, my soulmate, my protector, my provider, my guide, my… The list goes on and on. He has won my heart and my affection. I have learned to trust God in ways I never thought possible and through circumstances I never thought I could survive.
So tonight I celebrate the greatest love of my life. The love God has for me. Faithful. Constant. Unending. Patient. Enduring. Complete. Thank You God for loving me so intimately and personal. I am seen. I am loved. I am adored.

If you don’t ask, you won’t receive.
If you don’t seek, you won’t find it.
If you don’t knock, the door won’t be opened. Ask, seek, knock. Sounds simple but so many times I back away from doing these things. Why? Out of fear, pride, not wanting to appear selfish.
I have determined to ask God to give me every spiritual blessing that He has put aside for me. He has a whole warehouse with my name on it. I am taking everything out of storage and using it to build His kingdom. Why let potential go to waste??? Empty that storage space of gifts, abilities, and opportunities and leverage them ALL…for His glory. God’s not holding anything back. He just wants me to claim what is mine through His great generosity. I am taking everything out of lay away and using it while it is still good. What a shame it would be if I don’t ask, seek, or knock and end up wasting what God had for me that would have blessed my life and could have blessed countless others. Not today.
Father God, I ask for all the heavenly blessings you have for me to be taken out of storage and delivered to me so that I can have every gift from You possible.
I seek Your will for my life and I claim all the territory You have parceled out with my name on it. I want nothing left to be wasted. I want to use it all to proclaim Your kindness.
I knock at the doors of Your heart and ask you to open doors that only You can open. I trust Your wisdom to know which doors are good to open for me and which ones need to remain closed. I trust in Your timing, so I will keep knocking and know that You delight to open opportunities for me to display Your goodness.
I approach You boldly because Jesus opened the door for me to enter your house… not through the front door where guests have to ring the bell and wait to be allowed to enter… No, I swing in through the kitchen door where true friends and family can come completely unannounced and make ourselves at home in Your house.
God, thank YOU for ASKing me to climb up on Your lap and be Your child. Thank You for SEEKing me and pursuing me with Your great love!!! And thank You for KNOCKing on my heart door every day and asking to make Yourself at home with me. Your love blows me away!!! I am Yours and You are mine.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7 (NIV)

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6

I have trust issues.
I believe that God exists, but I struggle with believing that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
I have FAITH IN God, but wrestle to believe that God is FAITHFUL?
Confusing, I know!?
Hebrews 11 is the Hall of Faith… By faith, Abel… By faith, Enoch… By faith, Noah… You get the idea. (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses’ parents, Moses, Rahab the prostitute, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, etc.)
BY FAITH…they did what God asked them to do. I need that kind of faith.
Lord, give me Hebrews 11 faith.
Lord, help me to see you as faithful.
I have been through some real tragedies that have made me hesitant to trust. Trust makes me feel vulnerable. It’s risky. It can be downright scary.
I want to trust You, God, but I guess if I am honest, I don’t trust You to keep more hardships from coming into my life. In this world there will be struggles. You have not promised to be a forcefield to keep trials from me. You have not promised to make my life all rosy.
I need to trust that You are IN control even when everything looks and feels OUT of control.
You asked these Hall of Faith people to do some crazy things!!! I need to be thankful that you aren’t asking me to build a cruise boat when I live in the desert…or believe that my grandparents can make a baby… (Good thing because they are all dead and that would really make it hard!?)
Side note: But then years after the miracle baby came, God asked Abraham to take a 3 day father/son hiking trip. The mountain top experience was to be the proud papa laying his only son on an altar to kill him!!!
Who would do such a thing?! Oh, I guess God would kill His only son. He would make a human sacrifice. Wow!! I never thought of it that way.

Let’s just talk about this Abraham slay your son thing. Never before – and not ever since then has God asked anyone to make a human sacrifice!!! Never!!! It was not even consistent with God’s character to ask Abraham to do such a horrible thing.
What I love about Abraham is that…
EVEN WHEN GOD ASKED HIM TO DO SOMETHING COMPLETELY OUT OF HIS CHARACTER… ABRAHAM MAINTAINED HIS OWN CHARACTER AND TRUSTED IN GOD’S CHARACTER… AND OBEYED.
Well, he would have obeyed but God stopped him. UNBELIEVABLE!!!!
Read that part again:))). OK. Where were we?? Aw yes…my point is that God is not asking me personally to go up against the most powerful man in the world and tell him that he is not treating people fairly and then demand their immediate freedom OR ELSE!!! Or else what, Moses?
But Moses trusted God and after some persuasion Pharaoh released the slaves and God led them right into a dead end!? Yes, you read that right.
PROMISES are not PROBLEM free!! Remember that.

Moses was still trusting God even as he stood there… with this nation of people… at the Red Sea. (I am sure Mrs. Moses was giving him that look: “I knew we should have stopped for directions at that last camel stand!”) Oh, did i tell you it was flood season?! The sea was impassable. This situation was impossible.
If they tried to cross, the people would drown. There was no time to build a bridge. And the enemy was closing in from behind. It looked like a death trap. No wonder the people were in a panic.
What I learned from this faith building exercise is that GOD DOES NOT AVOID THE IMPASSABLE.
IN FACT, IN YOUR LIFE AND MINE, GOD WILL MANY TIMES LEAD US TO THE IMPASSABLE TO SHOW US THAT WITH HIM NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.
GOD SPECIALIZES IN MAKING THE IMPASSABLE POSSIBLE.
And, I guess that is where I can trust God. I have had to spend years building. Not a ship, but a business that looked like a financial black hole on paper. I have been the crazy one.
I have faced dead ends where I have had to sacrifice (in the loosest terms of the word) someone I love.
I have been enslaved (to fears and addictions) and freedom did not come easily.
Even in my old age (I am not quite 100) I have been asked to trust God and do things that seemed contrary to His character.
It helps to look back and remember God’s faithfulness to Abraham, Moses, and Noah.

RANDOM QUESTION… Did God ever ask people to trust Him to do the same thing twice? Seems to me these were not standard run of the mill requests from God. Think about it…Noah was the only one he asked to build an ark, Abraham’s the only one God asked to kill his own child, Daniel with the lions, the 3 dudes in the fiery furnace, Joshua marched around city walls till they fell, Gideon and his army of 300 were asked to go against unbelievable odds (without weapons!!).
So it wasn’t like these characters could say… Oh yeah, God will get us through building this ark just like he did for great grandpa Frank… Oh wait!!! NO ONE HAS EVER BUILT AN ARK BEFORE, let alone seen rain. Crucial ingredient was missing… Water!?
Daniel did not refuse to quit praying to God because he knew that even if he got thrown in the lion’s den he would survive like his uncle Denny did… No!!! NO ONE HAD EVER SURVIVED THE LION’S DEN BEFORE!!!
LET ALONE THE FIRST MAN GOD ASKED TO CIRCUMCISE HIMSELF!?? HELLO PEOPLE!!! UNHEARD OF!! This was not a routine procedure performed at a hospital on an unsuspecting week old baby. God had never asked anyone to… Well… You know. AND… he had to do it to himself!!!
This just goes to prove my point that these actions all took more than courage, they required faith. These people had to be sure they could trust God. Certain. Unquestionable.
An amazing fact is that none of these awe inspiring acts of obedience were performed by super stars. True trivia reveals that none of these people were heroes before they believed. They only became heroes long after they believed God!
These daring souls trusted God enough to risk the lion’s den, the fiery furnace, and human sacrifice. All of these were new challenges! Never before seen on TV! The first time anyone has ever attempted to ride a motorcycle across the Grand Canyon… Oh wait – that one’s not in the Bible!

But this helps build my faith, because I may not know anyone else who is facing exactly what I am facing.
Maybe I am the first in my family to trust God to become a believer.
Or I am praying for my son get off of drugs and alcohol while all the other male role models in the family remain addicts.
What I am saying is that typically it takes faith to do something you have never done before. You don’t know for sure that it can be done.
No one in your extended family has gone to college.
No one in your neighborhood has ever moved to a big city.
No one at your church has raised their hands in worship.
No one in your immediate family has ever been at a healthy weight, or had a godly marriage, or stayed debt free.
Just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
This may be a new challenge, but it helps to look back and remember God’s faithfulness in other areas.
You have never been able to successfully quit smoking before but God enabled you to cut back. Now you smoke half of what you used to.
You’ve never dated someone without having sex within the first two weeks, but you determined to wait till marriage. With God’s help you have been able to show restraint for several months and the relationship is thriving.
Bottom line: God is asking us to trust Him…to have faith in Him. God wants to know if we believe He is trustworthy.
Hebrews 11:1…”Now faith is being SURE of what we HOPE FOR and CERTAIN of what we do NOT see.”
Do I trust God’s CHARACTER even when the CIRCUMSTANCES scream otherwise?
Do I believe in the Possible even while standing on the edge of the Impassable?
Hebrews 10:39…”But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who BELIEVE and are saved.”
HEBREWS 11:11 “BY FAITH, Abraham… Because he considered Him FAITHFUL who had made the promise.”

Lord, You are faithful. I am the one struggling to believe. I BELIEVE that You exist, but I need my faith to grow. I am counting on Your promise that You will reward those who earnestly seek You. I am seeking you Lord. I am earnestly seeking You. Remind me of Your faithfulness. Make me faithful to You.
I want to be able to say… By faith Kristi, even though ‘such and such’ had happened was enabled to do ‘this and that’ because she considered Him faithful who had made the promise. I want to live by faith.

Let me be completely honest… The reason I wrote my book “DREAM…a guide to grieving gracefully” with 5 keys to unlock the grip of grief and why I continue to carry it’s message of hope is because the world desperately needs it. Grief not only robs love from us through disappointment, dysfunction and death, but I have seen people then allow grief to rob them of their own soul. Not because they want to surrender and allow grief to ruin their lives, but because they simply don’t know how to grieve effectively.
I have been championing this cause for 4 years and there really only seems to be a small percentage of people who get this. Most grievers are defeated and believe the lie that they will never get better. I do believe that grief is a hard demon to wrestle with, but there are winning strategies. There are heroes who are showing the way through loss and into love.
LOVE is stronger than LOSS!!!

On the days when you get tired and worn down from fighting this good fight I want you to know that there is a ‪#‎wildwidowwriter‬ in NC who stands with you in this battle. Together we are stronger!!

Have you ever noticed how we are the hardest on others where we are the hardest on ourselves? Judging myself makes me judgmental of others. What I don’t like in me, I see clearly in you. Self-hate, self-doubt, self-loathing…all lead to hating ourselves and others, doubting our worth we doubt their worth, and looking down on us makes us look down on them. Shame starts with me and is contagious. Shame is a spiritual chemical weapon. Silent but deadly. Killing everyone and everything in its path.
Shame condemns the person along with the sin, because of the sin. In contrast, guilt convicts us of sin but does not choose to leave us there. Godly guilt does not chain us to our sin, but separates the sin from us by lifting us out of the sin. Shame, in contrast, leaves us in our sin and in essence says that we are that sin. We are not sin. We do sin, in fact all of us have fallen short of God’s glory, but His grace washes away our sin and we become sinless because Jesus takes on our sin.
Jesus wore your addiction. Jesus took on your abortion. Jesus put on your secret struggle. Jesus chose to bear your shame so that you can be free. He does not want you to die in your sins. He doesn’t want you to go to your grave tied to your sin. He wants you to come clean so that His perfect love can cleanse you of all unrighteousness.
Jesus does not wait to condemn you. His mission is not to say, “A HA!!! I knew you were no good! I was just waiting here to catch you in your sin and make you a public disgrace.” NO!!! He takes on our DIS-grace and gives us HIS grace.
Conviction of sin does not have to be the final word on your life or mine. Jesus came into the world not to condemn us, but to free us from the consequences of our sins. Now, He won’t ignore our sin, because He loves us. But, He won’t damn us for our sins either.
Jesus comes to you and me in the most convicting way because He does not hate us. He loves us…in spite of our sins. I would even go as far to say that He loves us because of our sin. Sin is what brought Him here. Sin is what nailed Him to the cross. Sin is what keeps Him interceding for us to the Father even now.
Sin is what His grace covers, dissolves, eliminates, dismantles, destroys, eradicates, and defeats. So where there is sin, there is opportunity for grace. Where there is hate, there is a chance for love. Where there is doubt, there is room for surety.
Whatever evil you and I have done, whatever good you and I have refused to do – that is where HIS grace is applied. Let us not refuse His grace today. We all need it. Let this be the day that you and I allow the love of God to make peace with your soul and mind by admitting our sins and letting His love separate us from our sin forever.

We DOUSE God’s FIRE when we DOUBT His FAITHFULNESS. We DISMISS His POWER when we DIMINISH His PRESENCE.
Moses got cold feet when God gave him his mission. How could his feet be cold when he was right in front of a burning bush, a blazing fire? It doesn’t make sense but we do it every day.
God is a burning ball of energy and yet we hesitate, compromise, and douse His fire with our doubts. We operate out of limited power because we don’t spend enough time in His presence.
When God is with us we have all the power and authority we need.
We don’t need to feel strong enough, we aren’t.
We don’t need to be powerful enough, we aren’t.
We don’t need to feel prepared enough, we aren’t and never will be.
We just need to know that God has called our name, He has an assignment for us, and He will be with us.
Lord, set our hearts on fire and may we burn brightly for You.

My word for 2015 has been SPEAK…

When we speak, we push past the fence of fear.
When we speak, we release each other from loneliness.
When we speak, we tear down barriers to intimacy.
When we speak, we penetrate isolation.
When we speak, we dissolve discouragement.
When we speak, we destroy distrust.
When we speak, we break the deafening silence.

Our days are usually filled with a lot of distractions, but some days there seem to be more than normal – especially when the devil doesn’t want us to speak. He knows the power in our words. The Condemner prefers silence because no one is freed unless we speak. Recognize that distractions can be Satan’s way of keeping us from releasing love. Go ahead. Speak. I am praying that your voice will penetrate the darkness and someone will not feel so alone in their sorrow. SPEAK.

“He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.
And he went about among the villages teaching.”
– Mark 6:1-6 (ESV)

The sermon review started out well enough…On the Sabbath, Jesus “began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard Him were amazed. The people even said, ‘Where did this man get these things? What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles!”

But then the review turned into a critique… [Read more…]