The Obedient

I think at this point of following my blog you have recognized that my biggest struggle in life is fear. I have always been a fraidy cat but only in the past 10 years has it really tried to reign in my life.  You may have also read about the Lord trying to break me from that fear here and maybe here. But this weekend the Lord gave me a really cool picture about it. And I feel more broken from the chains of fear than I have ever felt.

At the beginning of the Created for Care retreat they asked us to ask the Lord what he would show us that weekend. And when we closed our eyes to pray the two things that popped in my head right away was 1) fears and then 2) the breakup of my family. Well fears made sense its what I am always praying about. Break my fears. Break my fear of flying. Take away my anxiety Lord.

But the family breakup thing... Gosh. My parents divorced like 12 years ago when I was 19. Why would that come up now? Yes it is a constant struggle in my life to feel torn between them, but its been a while and I thought I had handled this. So as soon as it came in my head I remember thinking "really?" and then as quick as it came it left and I focused on dealing with my fears.

After the Friday night talk my friends and I went to talk to the speaker Dr Susan Hillis about some things she had said and because my russian born biffle wanted to compliment her russian fluency. Dr Hillis at some point was explaining something to my other biffle and at one point said something that echoed in my ears like someone had bullhorned it. If I am being honest it is still bouncing around the walls of my ears. Dr Hillis said "its not about courage. its about obedience." Whoaaa. My whole world stopped at that sentence and I started playing it around over and over and over. More on this later....

Well one thing you should know about me is that certain things are not comfortable to me. I was raised in a Roman Catholic family and church. Since becoming a follower of Christ I have experienced many things and my eyes have been open in many ways to the reality of a present living Christ. But I am an introvert and a conservative in many ways. So with the exception of an intervening peace from Christ I am rarely comfortable with the more charismatic side of the faith. Also with praying with strangers. I can pray unceasing in my heart, in my room, with my family and friends. But it is such an intimate thing to me that praying with a perfect stranger tends to be awkward to me. Its as if having a stranger cuddle with my husband and I. Awkward right? I do it when I have to but always avoid it. Also, forced quiet time in the company of others equally awkward for me. Real creative things like painting and crafty things as a communication with God also not natural to me. I can sit in front of a computer and program a web application feeling that the Lord is guiding my fingers and that is natural to me, but thats because that is my gift and its naturally how He made me to be. I am an awkward person in general so most things with strangers are not easy for me. Stranger danger you know? hehe

Anyhow - knowing that about me would explain why when they said we were going to have a "date with God" at the retreat I was less than ecstatic. I figured it would be some highly charismatic group prayer time that would make me feel on the spot and awkward and forced. When my biffles and I walked into the room (late to make it worse when they were already talking) it was very much the case. About 50+ women crammed in sitting on the floor and stations around the room for quiet prayer, prayer with someone (stranger danger), painting, clay, drawing, etc. My heart raced in anxiety of what we would need to do and how uncomfortable it would be for me. But that was only for a moment.

They explained the stations and rotations and encouraged us each to visit each station. So my first plan was to quickly make my way through the room and maybe even duck out early if that wasnt awkward. Both of my biffles headed to where their heart led them and I started at what I considered the least awkward - quiet time. There was a tent set up with soft worship music playing meant for quiet time. I sat down and started praying.

Immediately the Lord grabbed my heart and drew me in. He started to explain things in my heart that I had never put together before. It was like a story unraveling in my heart. When you are young you aren't afraid. You have loving parents that you trust and you do what they say. If you trust your parents you are obedient to them. And when they tell you to get on a plane you just do it knowing that they will protect you and wouldn't have you do anything dangerous. The Lord showed me that as a child I had been obedient to my parents and didn't need to be brave, just obedient. Then He showed me that when my parents divorced and the family split I felt like I had no home, no family, no stability, and noone to lean on. I felt like an orphan. My parents hadn't gone anywhere but things were different. I saw broken hurting people that I felt needed my support not my burdens. This was the year that I developed panic disorder, high anxiety, and stopped doing things that scared me. This was also the last year I got on a plane.

The Lord showed me this and how I had trouble submitting to my parents that I now saw in a new light. Not that I was disobedient to them (I lived on my own at this point) but that I no longer looked to them for where to step next because I did not agree with decisions they had made. Then it was like I was jerked awake and had trouble getting back to this place with Him to see how I fix it. But knowing how Jesus Christ taught in the gospels I know that sometimes the obvious answers are the obvious answers. The night before Dr Hillis had proclaimed that I don't actually need to be brave I just need to be obedient to the Lord. And here the Lord has showed me where that disconnect between obedience and fear happened before. So I am praying the prayer for obedience instead of courage now. And I am hoping this leads me to where the Lord would have me.

Keep my struggles with fear (apparently obedience) in your prayers and they will carry me across the oceans. thank you.

I am putting my retreat nametag into my memorial box :)

The Rain

I have to say one of my favorite things is walking in the rain. In fact, rain was a struggle my husband and I had to get through early in our relationship.

When he sees rain he either goes inside or gets an umbrella. When I see rain I want to run outside and stomp in puddles. He would exclaim that rain is dirty and gross, and I would say it was refreshing and clean. Needless to say, my husband will now walk in the rain with me and even enjoy it, though he does still think it is dirty.

Rain to me used to signify cold ugly weather where you couldn't do fun things. Rain has a completely different meaning to me now and I find it beautiful, cleansing, refreshing, renewing, happy, and even loving. When did this transition happen? On a hot sticky humid grey day in Sarasota Florida about 8 years ago.

On this particular day I was sitting in church, that was at that time renting a classroom at the local red cross. I felt like I should go outside and pray. I had been feeling lackluster in my faith for some time and felt like I was going through the motions, and though I was continuously learning and reading my bible I wasn't feeling a real connection with the Lord. So as I walked the parking lot praying aloud to the Lord. I prayed specifically for renewal. I prayed the Lord would wash me of the burdens that I carried and that I would be refreshed with a passionate relationship with Christ.

When all of a sudden I became aware of an intense feeling of love and then boom it happened. It poured rain down over me. And I started to laugh out loud to myself. I had been asking the Lord specifically to wash me and renew me and pour his love on me and boom rain pouring all over me. I continued to laugh and pray and walk around for a few minutes more enjoying the cold rain falling down my face, drenching me. Coincidence? That would be naive to believe it was a coincidence. And trust me, my burdens were lifted that day, my passion was renewed, and I felt the Lord's love in a very real way. This was one of those times in my life that pushed me into a deeper love and relationship with Christ.

Since that day I think back to those moments often. Yes, I was always a puddle splasher but I never ever appreciated rain like I do now. Now when I see rain, I notice things. I see the sun-cracked dry light brown earth filling with moisture and life-source. I see the withered green leaves puff up with energy. I see the dirt pour off my driveway down into the gutters. I see my car shining a little more (well when its waxed real good). I feel the appreciative exhale of a Floridian about to explode from heat and humidity when the rain starts coming and we get a few brief moments of coldness, well when the rain isn't near boiling temperature and scalding our scalps. I see the birds huddled up together on power lines waiting for it to pass.

I really do love the refreshing rejuvenating effect that rain has on us. And I think living in Florida in the summer has an exaggerated vision of what rain does. Not even considering the droughts and water restrictions that we've had in recent years... When I leave for work in the morning I go out and drench the soil in my plants. When I come home the soil is so dry that there are cracks in the soil and it looks like someone literally took a food dehydrator to it. And the leaves on my plants are curled in and browning. So when it rains just then and the soil expands and turns a darker brown and the leaves puff back up, I can just see how the rain gives new life to things.

The Lord has a similar effect on us. The Lord can bring us life when our bodies and souls are light brown and cracked dry. When the scorching heat of life has made us feel like we can't breath or move, the Lord can fill our spirits with himself and rejuvenate us. Without rain a plant can only live a very limited life. Without the Lord we are only breathing and following the motions. So if you see a silly young woman drenched and laughing splashing through puddles in central Florida - shoot me a wave :)

I pray for you today that you ask the Lord to rain his spirit on you. Maybe it won't be in a literal way, maybe it will. I pray you ask him to take up greater residence in your heart and that you would love him in even a small portion of the manner that He loves you. I pray that you know today that you have a father in heaven who is watching and waiting for the tiniest of times with you, and is deserving of so much more.

Psalm 42
1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

The Smoke-Out

"Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world"

I am not sure what it was that started me smoking cigarettes. When I was young my grandparents smoked and I hated it. I knew smoking could give diseases and I would beg my granny to quit smoking. [prepare yourself for a big admission] I sucked my thumb much longer than most kids. I am pretty sure I was almost 10 before I completely stopped. As I aged it came out only when I was scared but well... anyhow... I recall asking my granny when she encouraged me to quit sucking my thumb if she would consider a deal. I offered to quit sucking my thumb if she would quit smoking. Well she took the deal, I quit sucking my thumb, but she didn't quit smoking until she came down with leukemia when I was about 13.

But somehow - I have vague memories of sneaking cigarettes we found at the beach with my sister as teens and trying them out. Then I started working at a local grocery store as a bagger and all my coworkers seemed to smoke. I wasn't a full out smoker until after 18, but in my teen years I would smoke a cigarette when they were available to me. I smoked in my late teens to my early twenties and it was not long before I wanted to quit. Between watching smokers drop like flies in my life, watching my nephew struggle with childhood cancer, and coughing until my lungs hurt - I feared a painful disease and what smoking was doing to me. I began to despise smoking and the hold it had on me. But all my friends smoked, and every time I quit I was smoking again before long.

Early in my twenties I also found the Lord. I didn't feel a huge conflict of interest with smoking cigarettes and my faith, though it did change the way I drank alcohol and my desire to participate in other activities. But the best part about my new faith, and then my new church, was that I did find some friends who didn't smoke. And instead of being part of a crowd who goes outside every five minutes for a smoke I became the one outside rushing through a cigarette before I could go back in to everyone. I also found my friend Anna who also expressed a strong desire to quit smoking.

So anyhow, my friends had come to find my continuous smoking quitting humorous. I saw their raised eyebrows and smirks every time I claimed that I had just finished my last cigarette. February 13, 2003 I was sitting with my friends Erin, Kyle, Clayton, Julie, and Richie in Erin and Kyle's house. I told them that I had decided right then that I was going to quit smoking. Clayton started laughing and said "sure you are Kim", and the rest laughed. Recalling the line on the back of my tshirt I snapped back "greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world".

Whoa - I just brought God into the equation. Whether the almighty creator of the universe wanted to be drawn into my battle with Nicotene or not here it was. When I told my friend Anna that night she said she would also quit that night. I am not going to tell you that God instantly quenched my desire for a cigarette and that it magically was no longer an addiction. But I am going to tell you that the Lord quit smoking for me. After time and time and time of declaring and attempting a quit I finally quit for real. My friends helped me. We kept my hands busy with video games and my mouth busy with cough drops (from the inevitable ick we all get from quitting smoking). But we did it. The Lord literally carried me through. I recall hiding a couple cigarettes in my drawer just in case, and eventually threw them out.

Anna and I quit smoking on February 13 and our bodies began to heal. When it was all said and done I no longer had a taste or even slight desire for cigarettes (which I am told is rare). Very soon after quitting the smell became disgusting and unbearable to me. I guess thats what happens when you get what you ask for. Years later I can honestly say the Lord healed me of that and I will never again smoke another cigarette. And though Anna has struggled quite a bit more than me (still dealing with the desire for smoking and even having dreams about it) she is currently in smoking remission. So join me in praying for her that God would grant her the freedom that He granted me from nicotene and all that goes with it.

I will be putting a pack of matches into my memorial box to remind me of what the Lord took away.

  

The Thick and Thin Friend

Memorial Box Monday Edition

When I first became a Christian I was missing a big piece of my walk. I was missing friends. I had a couple friends. At that time, not too many real friends, but I had friends. What I was missing were real friends. Friends who understood my faith. Friends who supported, encouraged, and challenged me. Friends like I read about in books. I have two sisters who didn't live near me at the time, and though one knew my faith, only had so much time for me via the phone. I was struggling with panic disorder at the time and there were many things I prayed about. The thing I prayed the most about at the time was friends. I prayed long and hard for friends that I could experience this life as a Christian with.

At the time I had nothing in sight. I was going to a church with an awesome teaching pastor but where no one seemed to notice I was there. I would linger a little before and after service but after a year and a half not a single person acknowledged me there or invited me to anything. I wanted a Christian friend more than anything, but it didn't seem like it was going to happen to me, and as shy as I was it was even more distant. Those days were tough for me, trying to teach myself and encourage myself. Lets just say my understandings and decisions weren't always the best. I would lay and pray and ask the Lord "Lord please could I have a friend who was a Christian".

Through a series of events, about 4 years later I started going to a particular church, and after a series of events started spending time with a woman named Arlene. Arlene was a tad older than me but we always had so much fun that I loved spending time with her.

I can't begin to explain how important she is to me. How she has encouraged me. How she has sharpened me, like iron on iron. How she has challenged me. How she has loved me. How she has taught me. How she has encouraged me. How she has supported me. How she has helped me in my walk.

At different times we have talked about wondering if our friends were the type that stick through hard times, through thick and thin. She always told me she would expect me to leave her in tough times. And I too had never had a friend who would go through the really tough times with me. Arlene and I have been through THE RINGER. Going through numerous people drama, church breakups, deaths, fights, attacks, accusations, and all kinds of hell she has stuck by me. When people have attacked her and when people have attacked me and when we fought even with each other, we always got through it together.

There were plenty of times it would be easy for her to walk away from me. But she didn't. She is the type of friend that tells me when I am wrong. She is the type of friend that protects me when people come against me. She is the type of friend that I can know will go through the fires with me in this life.

When I prayed for a friend - I was really praying for Arlene. I am amazed that the Lord had something so special in mind for me. Someone to teach me to be a friend, to teach me to be a wife, to teach me to be a child of God and sit at the foot of Christ. I have some very special and amazing people in my life, but I would not be who I am and where I am without Arlene - that is for sure. Paul said "follow me as I follow Christ". In the meantime I have been following Arlajean as she follows Christ. She is my real life Linny.

Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel.? - Proverbs 27:9

This week I am putting a picture of Arl and I in my memorial box.

  

The Tip

Memorial Box Monday Edition

So for a period of time I was working for a cable provider as a field technician and really struggling to pay my way. It seemed as if every single week I would run out of money a couple days before pay day and really have to get creative. I would find ways to make groceries stretch, I would find ways to make the bills get paid a month early so that when I was late I was never really late, but could go a couple extra days since I was in actuality a month ahead. I would do things like this because I was in a situation where that was my only choice. Perhaps my eyes were bigger than my wallet as far as choosing housing and all, but for whatever the reason I was low on dough in those days.

So, God used these times to show me in mighty ways how tangible and real He was. I remember many times where I did not have money for gas to get home from work and God would just bring it out of thin air. I would be in my truck driving around and praying. "Please God - help me make my gas last for just one more day". Then I would moments later walk into a client who would hand me just enough money to put gas in my car as a tip. Now, tips were not the norm in my job. Sometimes you would go months without a tip. And I have to say I have never thought to tip the cable man when he came to my house. But every now again, without rhyme or reason, a client would shove money in my hand/pocket/toolbag and insist that I take it. The part that made it so very beautiful to me was when I hadn't had a tip in months, and not necessarily asking for it, just praying God would find a way to provide, and out of nowhere a tip of $10 or $20 to go into my gas tank and get me home and back to work the next day.

God made sure He did this in very obvious ways to me. And often now people think I am insensitive and careless about money. And perhaps sometimes I am (thank the Lord I have a husband who is the exact opposite with money), but it is just something the Lord has taught me not to worry about. The God of the universe has the ability to provide more money than I need, and He has proven to me that he will always take care of me much more than I deserve. So on this memorial box monday I want to make sure that I remember all those times God took care of the little things for me.

²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^[b]? - Matthew 6

This week I am putting a bean in my memorial box. Because God was my provider of gas!

  

The Boy

Memorial Box Monday Edition

So while I spent my late teen years with my high school boyfriend, my early twenties found me broken-hearted and alone. My high school boyfriend and I had parted ways. My friends had all gone off to their own lives. My parents had completed a divorce and were involved in their new lives with their new significant others. I had a newfound faith in Christ, and while I finally felt like I was home (because of my faith), I was also experiencing my first alone time as a single "adult".

Initially it was very lonely and I was pretty sad. But then the Lord started to call me. He drew me to His word. I started reading it for the first time in my life and really seeing it as something real and applicable and the living word of God. I made some mistakes as an early Christian, as we all do. Saying the wrong thing out of zeal. Doing the wrong thing out of ignorance and rebellion. But from early on I had a desire to not just read the scriptures but to understand them.

But to be honest I often wondered about my husband. I wondered when I would meet him. I wondered what he would be like. Even in my most spectacular moments with Christ I had in the back of my mind earthly love. I prayed and asked God why everyone around me was marrying off and He had left me alone. I asked what was unworthy about me that I couldn't have a man to start a family with. I knew I wasnt ready, but I wanted it anyhow, and I guess I thought if I was persistent enough the Lord would eventually answer the prayer.

At some point my older sister told me to get my prayer journal and start making a list of the things I wanted the Lord to grow in my husband, things that were important to me. She reminded me how special it was to pray for a man I did not yet know. I did this, and continued this, though I often lamented and felt like it was something that would never happen. I often felt I would end up an old maid... silly I know but going through my twenties and being the only one in the room without even a boyfriend was difficult. I asked that the Lord not bring me a man until my husband, and He certainly fulfilled that, much to my chagrin.

So what were the things I was asking the Lord to prepare my husband with? What were the things most important to me? Here are a few I recall:

a deep love for Christ

a deep love for me

sillyness

humbleness

tenderness

the ability to make me laugh

passionate about youth ministry

someone to make me feel safe

laid back/easy going

So, I spent some time praying for this, but also for God to form my husband to be the perfect fit for me, and what I didn't even know that I would need in life. I often felt these were promises that would never be fulfilled. I knew that the Lord wants us all to feel the love of a spouse, especially when that is a reflection of His love for us. But I know there are still people in this world who don't get that, and I often felt that that would one day be me.

During this time I focused on my walk. I learned to appreciate my friendships. I grew in my faith. I learned more about who Christ is and what He wanted for my life. I have had the most amazing friends who have gotten me through that time in my life. I have had the most amazing and awesome moments with the Lord. I have experienced things some never get to. And in the end.....

So it was spring when we first met online. It was a website like myspace but for Christians. I initially signed up while I was researching for my online ministry and had surfed around it looking for ideas for new features. We started talking on the site, then it switched to text. Then we started playing Lord of the Rings Online together with some of my friends, until one day when his computer crashed and he called me. Then we started spending time on the phone. Until one day in late November when we set up our first date. I wasn't about to meet someone new on my own, so I made sure my friend Anna and her husband could come and that we would go somewhere public.

Well, after our date Bry and I went to Starbucks alone. We sat outside and talked. Before we knew it it was dark, the place had closed up around us and everyone was gone. I recall freezing but didn't want to go get a jacket for fear the magic I felt would end. He was even smart enough to leave the night with just a friendly hug. Our first kiss would come later. We both felt that connection, that magic, like nothing before. 

We both started to realize very quickly that this was it. At some point we had a talk about how we had been praying for a spouse. It was not long before we noticed that the very specific things that we had been asking God for were very specifically part of each other's character. Bry is the man I had been praying for (to the tee), and even more that I didn't even know I needed yet. Where I am weak he is strong, where he falls short I succeed. We are the perfect fit, and who would have known?

Since we have met we have encouraged each other in our faiths. Early on (when we lived 2 hours away from each other) we would spend hours upon hours on the phone. We would take turns reading through the new testament together. He would drive down for youth group on the weekends, where I was a volunteer. He became a friend not just to me but to my friends as well. I soon saw that all the things I had admired in husbands I had seen in my life were all compiled in Bryans very being. The night he knelt on the beach and proposed to me I told him I felt like I won the husband lottery. And I still feel that way even more than I could imagine. We are not perfect, but we are certainly perfect for each other. I pray for many many many years with Bryan. He is a daily reminder of not only God's fulfillment of a hope, but of the intense love that God has for us. He is my matching puzzle piece.

I am putting a candle from our wedding into our memorial box today. :Because our love is God's greatest gift to date.

  

The Hearing

Memorial Box Monday Edition

It was a few years ago that my grandpa had a stroke. He had been falling at home, but refused to let us move him to a facility where he could have some assistance. It had gotten to the point, though that he would fall often and was often in the hospital, and often not telling us about it. A couple weeks before the stroke he called me for a ride from the hospital. As I drove him home we talked. I told him how much I missed granny and how losing her had such a profound impact on my life ( a story for another day). He told me about his parents who had married despite their family's aversion to the mixing of religions. He told me that his mother always told him that being different didn't make someone better than another and that people should love and respect each other despite their differences. It was as if he knew we didn't have forever to talk. I had a similar conversation with my granny when she was getting real sick. Its as if they knew.

A couple days after that I went and picked up my grandpa for easter dinner. I brought him to my house and we had dinner with my roommates. He had some cuts from the recent falls and my friend later confided in me that he didn't look good and I should make the most of the time we had left with him. Only days later I got the call from my mom that he had had a stroke and that the neighbor found him and that he was in the hospital. I didn't know what to do but my bosses told me to go so I went. When we got to the hospital we saw this time it was worse.

Now something you should know about my grandfather is that he was a soldier. He fought in World War II and also in the Korean War. I don't know exactly what he did other than he was in the army before there was an air force and worked on planes. My grandpa would share stories only here and there and seemed sad when he did. I know that he lost much of his hearing from being around planes in the military and as long as I was alive had hearing aids to hear. Even with his hearing aids it was annoying for him to hear because it amplified all sounds equally. Music and background noises greatly bothered him so often he would turn them off and just pretend to listen. With three daughters and his wife this was an advantage for him. He would often chuckle when someone caught him and turn them back on.

So back to more recent past..... we spent a week in the hospital with my grandpa before he passed. My mom, my sister, me. We would sit and hold his hand. Sometimes I would sit at the end of the bed and keep my hand on his foot so he would know I was there. During that week we knew most of the time that it was truly the end.

But something very interesting happened. My grandpa who had often had trouble hearing with a hearing aid didn't wear the hearing aid the whole week. He couldn't hear or even see the doctors most of the time, but he could hear us perfectly. We would sign and speak super loud to try and get his attention, and he would say "theres no need to yell I can hear you just fine". One time when my mom was trying to get his attention for the doctor, grandpa said "I can hear you, youve got a big mouth, like your mother did". Chuckling.

Grandpa was a trip right up to the end. He kept telling us all week long... "getting old is not for sissys... but it sure beats the alternative." I am not so sure about that. I believe that because of the cross when we die we go to heaven and spend eternity with Christ and our loved ones, if we believe. And when my grandpa took his last breaths later that week my mom, sister, and I were holding onto him so he knew we were there with him. He relaxed for the first time. There was a peace on his face. It seemed the alternative was suiting him just fine. He had said earlier that week that he wanted to go see granny and that he was ready. As much as it hurt my heart to lose my grandpa, I truly know that he is in a better place.

While I have spent time with people shortly before their deaths my grandfather was the first death of a person that I was in the room to experience. It was sad. It tore my heart out. I can't begin to tell you how important my grandpa was to me. How he was our hero. In war and at home. He fought for our country from the age of 17. And when my Granny spent years fighting leukemia he once again showed heroism in how he stood by her side and loved her and took care of her. He was never the same after she left. I would have to say none of us were though.

When you go through something like that there are many things that you don't notice til its over. At some point we realized that he hadn't had his hearing aid in all week but that he could hear us. And he could see us with his big old baby blue eyes. He couldn't hear or see the doctor, but he could hear us and he could see us. It felt to me like a gift from God to make that week a little extra special.

This week I am putting a picture of my grandpa, mom, sister, and myself into my memorial box, since we all experienced this. The funny thing is my grandpa is pointing up in the picture. Not sure why, but fitting I suppose, as its where he went.

The Purple Lion

Memorial Box Monday Edition

The summer of 2008 before we were married, Bryan and I took our youth on a missions trip to Matamoros, Mexico with Adventures in Missions. It was an amazing missions trip and I will always remember some of the things that happened down there. The heat of the summer in Mexico was brutal, but every afternoon when we would start our worship session - the winds that were absent every other moment would pick up and a sweet breeze would flow through the tent on the gateway. There was the craziness of what happened after a drama our team put on... but the purple lion will always be my favorite story.

One of the things that AIM does is on the last day of a missions week they let your group have a prayer time and you can break out of the standard projects if you feel the Lord leading you to something. Bryan and I were with the same group, along with about 10 youth and we were very excited for this day. After a time of prayer our AIM crew chief asked us to one by one explain what God showed us during the prayer time.

We went around sharing what we saw and when they got to Bryan he nervously said that he saw a purple lion. Well of course we all chuckled at Bryan and probably joked about what an imagination the boy has. He nervously laughed and I am sure he was embarrassed that the rest of us seemed to be hearing from God and he didn't. Well,  we came to a consensus that we wanted to help a particular dog that we had all come across that week.

The dog in question was a chow-mix that seemed to have gangrene or something on its leg. The leg had been swollen and smelled bad enough that we could tell it was pretty bad. We wanted to find the owner and see if we could take the dog to a veterinarian and see what we could do to save the leg.

We had been working the street this dog lived on all week. We had been picking up trash, rebuilding a wall on a house on the street, helping out at the church on the street, doing vbs on that street, serving food to people and walking around the neighborhood talking to people. We hesitated once we found out that the dog owner was a woman who had turned our group away and wouldnt have anything to do with us, but we pushed forward with our plan.

When we told her that we wanted to take her dog to the vet and see what we could do for the leg she said yes and she would go too. So we loaded up the dog (Fify) into the back of our van, and the woman wanted to sit back there with him. Our guide brought us to a local vet and he examined Fify. He quickly told us there was nothing he could do and even if he tried to heal the infection the dog would likely die and suffer much more. So he asked if we wanted him to put her down.

  

After conversing with Fify's mom she agreed it was the best to do. They put Fify down and we loaded him back into our van to bring him home to bury. We also picked up a chihuahua that the woman named Taquito to replace her Fify. All of us were very sad that we were not able to help Fify and there were many tears the whole way back.

Once we returned Bryan and some of the boys dug a grave for Fify and made a cross to mark the spot. While they were digging we chatted with the woman, who for the life of me I can't remember her name right now. Where she had before not wanted to speak a word to us foreigners, she now spoke, cried, and entrusted us with her story. She told us about being married to someone who was wrapped up in a drug cartel and living a scary life. She told us her children had all gotten wrapped into drugs and she had lost them. She told us about ancient aztec relatives who had buried treasure in some mountain and she wanted to go look one day for it. She told us about her faith and we told her about ours. She told us about the things that kept her from believing in Christ and we tried to help her with those issues. In the end we left her with a bible and she said she wanted to read it.

The best part of the day though came after Fify was buried and we were playing with Taquito and chatting with her. Bryan looked down at some point and noticed something that caught his eye. He showed me and we both started laughing. There on the side of an old paint can outside the woman's house was a purple lion. Bryan had been teased for seeing such a funny thing in his prayer time but here it was clear as day, and certainly much more clear than anything the rest of us saw during prayer time. I hurried to take a picture of the purple lion so that Bryan would always remember the day the Lord showed him the lion. And how fitting that the image was the Lion. It is times like this that God reminds us that He is God and we are not - and that as crazy as things might sound when he tells them to us - if we follow His will it will all turn out the way He wanted.

I am putting a picture of the purple lion to remind us of the time God showed us a purple lion. And to remind us that when God leads us it might sound crazy to some but if we follow it will all turn out. Kind of like our adoption story - everyone may think we are crazy to adopt a child when we could more easily biologically birth one - but when God leads - we will follow.

Matthew 8:18-20
When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

The Mountain

Memorial Box Monday Edition

I have always struggled with irrational fears. One of my fears has been of heights. When I heard my first mission trip working with our youth ministry would be in the mountains fear started to take root in me. I pushed it down and ignored it and continued planning. Driving up in one of the two vans, with Arlene behind the wheel, I knitted furiously, chugged chamomile, and tried to ignore my surroundings by watching movies on my laptop. At one point Arlene and the other leaders prayed for me at a gas station, asking for the peace that transcends all understanding.

After arriving we got busy and my fear started to subside a little as I got used to my surroundings. The next day after we finished our day's activities we were told we would be taken up to the top of the mountain to go swim in the waterfalls for bathing. I instantly pictured scary narrow roads almost completely vertical. We stopped at a local museum on the way and while we walked around my fear started to build. I remember walking up to a youth (my friend's son, who knew about my fears) and saying "pray for me im so scared" and he said "you dont have to be afraid, we'll protect you" and gave me a hug. This was enough to get me back in the car and head up the mountain.

While it wasn't quite the scary road I had pictured, the roads were indeed narrow, drastically curvy, and when you looked out the outside window it was straight down into rapids. We were also told stories of multiple cars going over the side, as the local missions director (G) raced around the corners. Then when we got there we had to climb down this cliff to get to the waterfalls where we would bathe. I am sure it took me like 10 times as long as anyone else to climb down and I was probably a mess by the time we left that day.

I struggled through the week but spent much time in prayer that kept me going. A couple days later we were driving back with the missions director from somewhere. He said to me "Kim - I don't know why but everytime I see you I picture a short bus." I chuckled thinking it was a joke and then immediately lost my breath and tears instantly came to my eyes. It was as if I had been sucker punched. I covered it well and no one seemed to notice the flood of emotion that came to me.

When G said that to me I got a picture in my head of the short bus I used to ride. Now before you start making jokes at my expense, I went to a private school, and they purchased old buses no longer used by public schools. They had purchased a short bus to pick up those of us kids who lived on the islands and called it the island bus. That was the bus of my nightmares. I asked G what he meant by that, and his response was somewhere around "do you think God is trying to tell you something about it? If so pray and ask Him to show you" I didn't need to ask though, I knew what it was about.

When we got back I went off to a quiet place on the property and prayed. I knew God was trying to tell me something about that time in my life. I was not a Christian on that bus, and I was very unhappy. I had struggles of my own in those years and the kids on that bus seemed to pick up on that and would tease me. This one boy in particular, Jamie, would pick and pick and pick until I started to cry and then they would ignore me. No one protected me. No one stuck up for me. I tried everything. I tried ignoring him. I tried giving it back to him. I tried joking it off. I eventually gave up and would just sit there until I cried. Every day for an hour there and an hour home and many many tears. I don't even remember all that he would make fun of me about. Whether it was my name, my height, or made up things. I remember at one time he started saying I was homosexual, and teased me for that. It was a very very sad time in my life. I started to hate my life, and school, and those around me who didn't stand up for me. 

My poor little sister probably got most of my aggression because I think I blamed her in some ways for not sticking up for me, or because I was jealous of her having friends. I seem to recall going home after that bus ride and picking on her, teasing her for her weight problem or anything I could think of. Like I said - I wasn't a very nice person back then. It makes me cry now to even think that I could do that. It was certainly not her fault that someone picked on me. She was younger, and as her older sister who wasnt very nice to her I can't imagine her putting herself at risk with Jamie to stick up for me. Anyhow... back to the story.

When I prayed on the side of this mountain in Tennessee asking God to show me what it is about this short bus experience that He was trying to share with me. I heard God speaking into my heart very clearly that he was there with me even then and that it broke his heart for me to hurt like I did then. That was perhaps the most alone I had ever felt in my life. The idea that I was possibly not alone hit me like a train. The fact that I didn't acknowledge him as God at that time, but he was there loving me and waiting for me and caring about me when I felt no one cared for me, yep it hit me like a train. That kind of love that I didn't feel like I was getting - in the hardest time in my life, was there and being offered by the king of the universe, even then. This intense feeling of how much the Lord loved me even before I loved him overwhelmed me on a mountaintop in eastern Tennessee.

The love was so overpowering that the fear that had crippled me the first couple of days of this 10 day missions trip to Appalachia was immeasurable. I remember practically flying the rest of the week, and even for months afterwards. I remember running down that cliff to the waterfall the very next day, the same cliff that had paralyzed me before. I remember actually driving one of the vans down those curvy roads laughing and singing along with the radio. I remember jumping off the rocks by the waterfalls and sliding down the natural slides with my friend, Arlene. The love that the Lord showed me that He had for me was so intense it took over every bit of fear.

this is actually a picture of me jumping into the water that week - graceful I am not

I had long heard the scriptures about the love that conquers all fear, and the peace that transcends all understanding, but never experienced it in such an intense way. I had grabbed a couple of the rocks on that mountain in TN and stuck them in my pocket. I have kept them to remember that Christ is my rock, and His love conquers my fear. That Christ will stand up for me, love me, and protect me, even when no one else will. So today I am putting one of these rocks into my memorial box!

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

2 Timothy 1:7

The Best Day Ever

Memorial Box Monday Edition

So I used to have a ringtone on my phone that was spongebob's rendition of "best day everrrrrrrrrrrrr". And  on January 6 of 2006, Anna and I decided to take the day off and do something fun together. I told her I would plan something fun and not tell her til the day of. We kept calling it "the best day everrrrr". And everytime my phone rang that day wed sing along "best day everrrrrrr". She showed at my house early and I was so excited to tell her that I had planned for us to go to Tampa and the Lowry Park Zoo (which we both LOVE). On the way we dropped my puppy Chrissy at the vet for her annual checkup and shots. Here is a picture of her holding the directions to the zoo in my room on that morning before the BEST DAY EVER!

Well we were giddy with excitement to be playing hooky from work and hanging with the animals all day. We loved the meerkats, the llamas, the monkeys, and were so excited to be there for the initial viewing of the new baby elephant (Tumani -which means hope). We oogled the tapirs, manatees, and were slightly offended by some chimps. It truly was the best day ever. Here is a pic of us at the end of the day getting ready to go home.

Well, so we drove home giggly and excited about the day at the zoo and talking about how we both wanted to be marine scientists for a time but both got distracted from it. On the way back to my house I stopped in to pick up Chrissy at the vet. The next hour or so was a haze for me, but I will retell it the best I could. Instead of the normal "oh we just loved her and she'll be right out" I got a nervous "sit for a minute, the doctor wants to talk to you". At which point of course my heart exploded out of my chest and I got dizzy.

The doctor came out and told me that my Chrissy had heartworms and that without treatment she would die in a matter of months, and with a very very expensive treatment she would have a chance but it was still going to be quite risky. I begged for retests and she told me that they had already done three and were completely positive that she was sick with heartworms. My heart was broken. The best day ever had quickly turned into my worst day ever.

Chrissy, my chow/sheperd mix had been given to me for Christmas by my highschool boyfriend when we were engaged and living at Fort Bragg when I was 19. When he and I broke up, my parents were in the middle of a divorce, and my granny had just passed away. At the most emotion-filled time in my life, where I had days without hope, not a friend in sight, and all around me was loss, Chrissy was there with me licking my tears and cuddling me every step of the way. It was those days that I learned about the devotion of a pet. It was those days that I started to explore my relationship with God. It was those days that completely changed me as a person and pushed me to who I am now. And Chrissy, my sweet pup, was there through it all. To hear that I could lose her crushed me.

  

So I spent that weekend doing two things. The first thing was to figure out how to pay for the treatments Chrissy would need. I certainly didn't have the thousands of dollars it would take to heal her, and I was trying to fix my credit at the time and so had no credit cards. Both momma-mandy (my moms best friend and part of our family) and my mom offered to help me foot the bill and split it three ways with me. They both love Chrissy probably as much as I do. In fact, most people who meet Chrissy have told me - "I would get a dog if I knew it would be like Chrissy". Unfortunately Chrissy is fixed so no more babies for her. Anyhow this was a huge gift and brought even more tears that weekend knowing that not only could I help Chrissy but that they loved me and Chrissy enough to sacrifice for her.

The second thing I did that weekend was pray for Chrissy over Chrissy Under Chrissy and about Chrissy. My friends and I spent the whole weekend praying and holding and kissing Chrissy begging the Lord for healing. I had never seen God heal someone miraculously like that first hand before but I knew the God I served could certainly hack it. I promised God that if He healed my little girl I would know it was Him who did it and proclaim it to others.

I found the most recommended vet with a reasonable price to perform the treatments and brought Chrissy in the following Monday, as they said time was of the essence. Before we walked into the vet, Arlene and I placed our hands on Chrissy and prayed that God would perform a miracle and heal her. When we went into the room with the vet tech we confirmed that before treatments they would perform another test. She said yes but that they also had the tests from the other vet which showed she was positive. Arlene and I told her "Well we are expecting God to perform a miracle - so we just want to make sure you will test before you do anything". We left with tears in our eyes hoping and praying God would see this as a reasonable request.

I remember I was in the bank parking lot when my phone started ringing "best day everrrrrrrrrrrrr". I thought it was ironic and picked up the phone. It was the vet telling me that they were confused, and not very sure how this happened, but Chrissy is now testing negative for heartworms and I could come pick her up at any time. 

My first instinct (I am more than ashamed to say) was to think "the other stupid vet was probably wrong" and in that moment I was reminded of my words "if you heal her Lord I will know it is you" and was immediately convicted of my sin instinct. I started laughing and crying all at the same time. My heart leaped. I started singing "best day everrrrrr" and called Arlene and Anna to tell them the good news.

Below is a picture of Chrissy from last year's camping trip with Bryan and I, and our boxer pup Trigger. 

 

Chrissy is getting older, going blind, and even getting a bit more cuddly in her old age. Though she adores Bryan she will always be my little girl. When Bryan goes to bed at night and I am still working Trigger plods after him while Chrissy does not budge until I am ready. 

We love her so much and the fact that God loves us so much and cares about the "little" things in our life blesses me beyond words. I pray that I never forget what He did for Chrissy and the best day everrrrr!