It's Been Awhile!!!

Well, it goes without saying that I have not been a very consistent blogger...  I hope to remedy that soon.  I feel I have gotten off track a bit in my life and I am trying to realign everything.  After my marriage fell apart, and then the disaster that was Nashville (not to say I did not love the city because I did, but the circumstances were not right) I was feeling a little mixed-up.  So I kinda ran back to the place I was most comfortable, it helped that it was far away from certain situations, my home....  My family is wonderful, every single one of them.  I thank God for them every day.  It was my first time to live on my own and I loved every minute of it.  Then, out of the clear blue sky, I met a wonderful man.  To make the meet-cute story short, he asked to carry my laundry :-) .... and then took 3 days to ask me for a cup of sugar :-(...  soon after we were dating, then very quickly after that we were married :-))))...  I really, really and did I mention really LOVE this man!!!  He is so wonderful, loves me so much, and helps with every little thing I need!!   

Anyway, things are so good right now, and I know that most of the time I wait for the other shoe to drop, but hey I am trying to change a bit.  We are starting our life together, and it is so amazing!  We just moved into our new house in North Little Rock, AR.  It is right across from my mom, but it is still our own. 

So long for now, I will try to post soon!

A Letter to, well everyone....

How do we get past the way we feel?  How do we overcome our pasts, our memories, and most important the lies we tell ourselves?  Lately, I have had to do some serious soul searching.  I realized how much pressure I have put on others, namely Ady.  As a rule, I do not trust easily.  Trust is a risk I am most often not willing to take.  In my experience, everybody leaves you, everybody lets you down; especially the people who are supposed to love and care for you.  It saddens me to think of all of the good people  I have let slip out of my life because I was afraid they would hurt me.  We cannot live out our lives surrounded by a brick wall of solitude because of our pasts.  We must find a way to move past it and live, because, living is not living if you are all alone. 

Like I said, I do not trust easily, and when I feel like someone is going to hurt me, I hurt them first.  Just so I can say; see, I was right, they were no good.  But I realize now that in not trusting anyone, I have been blind to the people I can trust.  A lot of those people are people that have hurt me.  I know, why trust someone who has hurt you?  Simply put, everyone will hurt you if you stick around long enough.  Everybody will let you down at some point.  So, not trusting anyone is not an option.  You have to be able to let people in. 

Take my parents for example.  For a very long time, I had a low opinion of my parents.  In fact I still struggle with that at times.  But it seems that by distrusting my parents, and by not dealing with that like I should have, I have completely damaged my ability to trust Ady.  He may have hurt me, he may have done damage to our relationship, but no one else on Earth has been there for me more completely every step of the way.  Even after our divorce, he was and is there for me. 

What about my parents?  Sure they messed up, but no one is perfect and I am sure they did the very best they knew how.  I know that they love me and that they would do whatever they could to make me happy.  Now there are people that it was harder to forgive, whose walls it was harder to take down.  But even then; if I want to move on,  if I want to have a life worth living, I have to overcome those memories.  That’s what they are memories.  It is not the present, and it is definitely not the future.  It’s those memories that cause us the most pain.  They are so hard to let go of, that most of the time we just give in to them and let the cycle perpetuate.  When those memories try to overtake me and I feel myself slipping into old patterns, I have a bible verse that I quote in my head and out loud.  It is 1 Corinthians 10:13:

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” 

To me that verse says it all.  There is nothing that I could go through, nothing that will come against me, that someone hasn’t experienced before.  How precious is that thought.  Also, God is faithful,  in fact there are numerous times the Bible reminds us of that very fact. We must always remember the times he has helped us through. If we can’t trust anyone else, the bible tells us we can trust in the one true God.  If he tells us to trust someone, we better believe he is right.  If he tells us to run, we need to believe that too. God will always make a way out, he will always be there to help us through.  He will never leave us alone in a trial.  All he asks is that we let him take the pain and heartache we so often feel and turn it around. 

It is never easy to let go of past hurts and painful memories.  But when we hold on to them, it only festers and causes more pain and anger.  Pain and anger usually give way to bitterness. When we are bitter and angry we hurt no one but ourselves. We must let go, it is the only way for us to move on.  It doesn’t happen overnight, we don’t wake up one day and just feel better.  It is a lifelong process, a decision we must make every day of our lives sometimes  more than once a day. 

Self-doubt is another one of those emotions that will fester.  It is a feeling that you can never, I repeat NEVER trust.  It builds as we are constantly battered down by those same painful memories that make us angry.  The same ones that constantly tell us we are not good enough, smart enough, or that it is our fault.  It is the trump card that the Enemy likes to play.  When nothing else can get us down, we better know that self-doubt is always lurking in the shadows.  We can never doubt the skills and talents that God has given us, or what he has shown us to do with them.  If we do not step out and trust that God will catch us, we will never know how good it could have been.

In closing, I just want to encourage all of you to let go of the pain, let the One who will never let you down take the heartache.  Let Him have the memories that keep you awake at night.  Trust that his plan for you is good, and most of all, learn to trust, yourself and others.  It is something you will spend your whole life learning, but it is worth it in the end. 

Love always,

Kelli 

Nashville...

Whew.... 

It has been a while.  When last I posted, I was living with my Mom and Gram.  Now, I am with my Ady again, and we have moved from our small town in Arkansas to Nashville TN.  It was such a big decision to make.  Neither of us have ever been more than a couple hours away from family and all that we hold dear to us.  It kinda all happened very fast and let me just say, I am so very proud of him.  He is doing this to go to school, he wants to better himself and start a career.  Anyone who knows him knows what a big step that was.  He has come so far since we met.  Even farther than anyone knows.  

We are making our apartment our home, exploring Nashville and trying to meet new people.  It's not as easy as you might expect, especially for two loners!!!!  We have explored the Parthenon, which by the way, is not a good place to be if you have balance issues!  Beautiful as it was, I really couldn't enjoy it for tripping and almost falling numerous times.  But it was beautiful, inside and out.  Here is a photo of the outside.

We also caught a blues show at BB Kings Blues Club.  The Boy Wonder Blues Band was playing. They are awesome by the way!  The guitarist is all 15 years old.  Here is a link if you want to check them out. 

http://www.boywonderbluesband.com/Home_Page.php

  

Here is a photo of some of the art on their wall... I have had so much fun sightseeing and wandering my way around this great city!  Sometimes I still can't believe we did it, because it just does not seem real.  All in all it has been good and I will leave you with some photos of our journey so far....

 These two photos were taken at a shopping center.  Ady wanted pictures of the guitars and a nice woman walking by offered to take a picture of us. 

This one is the pyramid as you cross the bridge into Memphis... 

And last, but not least is my favorite, some grafitti done by the son of the great Townes Van Sant!  Isn't that cool?

I guess that concludes our little game of catch-up, I am going to try to get on here regularly from now on.  Gotta have a little something to occupy my free time!!!!!

America.....

I want to start by saying I am not very political, at all.  I know my beliefs, I know what I stand for and I'm not afraid to share them, but I do not believe in bullying or pressuring those who believe differently than I do.  I stand for God, liberty, and America, but this great Nation is under attack.  Not only by man, but by the very enemy of our souls.  He would like nothing more than to take this great nation and all it stood for and strip it bare until there was no resemblance to what it once was.

I am not shy in my belief that this great nation I am blessed to call home needs to return to God.  Now a lot of you may say that America was founded on religious freedom, and you would be right.  However, the thing you are forgetting is that they were fleeing to what would become America to worship God.  That's right, they believed so strongly that they set out for this new uncharted world.

I believe that if America has any hope, it is in God.  Just look to the Old Testament for example.  Time and again it shows us every time the Israelite people lost sight of God or turned their backs on God they suffered. There was famine, war, strife, and captivity and it was almost always caused by unbelief.  They refused to give God the respect and honor he deserved.  To concerned with self, they listened to the enemy instead of remembering the promises and commandments.  God is one of free will, he will not force someone or a nation to serve him.  We shouldn't either, however we shouldn't let others just push us over.  We should be able to stand firm in our beliefs while being pliable enough to listen and respect others.  Even if they don't respect us.

This nation needs God.  He blessed us for a very long time, then we much like OT Israel became too concerned with self and lost sight of God.  We took him out of our schools and courthouses and why?  So we wouldn't offend anyone?  How about the people who offend us?  It seems that now Christians are supposed to "stand still look pretty".  We are consistently abused, and stripped of our rights.  We aren't allowed to do that, but they are???  How is that even fair?  No it seems that Christians are never going to get "fair".  Just look at early Christianity, how they were persecuted.  They still stood firm in their beliefs and even died for them.  How long are we going to sit back and watch as they strip us of our rights and slowly set our beloved America at odds with God?  How long are we going to let ourselves be abused and often ridiculed for our beliefs?  It's time we stood up for God and put him back where he belongs!  In the drivers seat!

It is this simple, if we do not return to God as a country, we are going to continue to suffer.  We don't need a Democrat or Republican, the time for politics is over.  This is a cry to all believers to hit their knees and pray for God to move in a mighty way, pray for his leadership and wisdom to guide this election, and pray that he protects us and America as a whole....

Love is all you need....

So, it's been awhile since I posted, and even longer since I felt inspired.  It's sad to say, but my life has been less than inspiring lately.  I got down and wallowed in it for a while but now things are changing.  Someone recently asked me if I had ever thought about writing down my testimony and to tell you the truth, it has always seemed a little daunting.  I mean, how do you put into words what God has done for you and what pain he has brought you through. I don't even feel worthy to be here at all, everything I am is because of God's grace.  So for those of you who don't know, here goes.

I have known and loved the Lord from an early age, but looking back I know I didn't recognize his hands in my life.  My early life was not pretty, I have physical and emotional scars that have taken a long time to heal.  But through all the turmoil and abuse, my God was there.  He was there and I didn't know it.  I came to personally know the Lord at 9 years old, I was baptized and forgiven, but I had yet to forgive.  I went through those years with my Dad with hate.  Hate for the Mother who abandoned me, hate for the ex step-father who couldn't keep his hands off of me, hate for the Father who didn't know any other way of communication but yelling and violence.  I had plenty to go around and blamed everyone else for my problems but myself.  Little did I know that the Lord had a plan.  I spent my high school years trying to get the best grades and get myself out of that house.  When I finally did I found out just how unprepared I was.  I sulked back home with my tail between my legs.  The issues that I had never worked through finally broke to the surface as I did everything I could to rebel against the God I thought had forgotten about me.  I didn't manage my money at all, even worse I ran from guy to guy seeking the love I never got at home.  Eventually I ended up in Arkansas with my Mom and let's just say it wasn't easy at first.  We had issues we had never worked through and the walls I built to keep them buried started cracking.  Eventually I met and married a wonderful man, but we weren't ready for what lay ahead of us.  It was an uphill climb from the start.  I quickly realized that I knew nothing about the man I had promised my life to.  People always say that marriage is hard, they neglect to tell you just how hard.  I was prepared for hard, this was almost unbearable.  Sure we had good times, but more often than not, we were fighting.  He will be quick to say that the biggest problems were his, but that would be a lie.  My unresolved issues with ex Step-dad and Dad quickly snowballed into me not being able to trust or commit myself fully to our marriage.  We were living apart in 2009, I was going up there on the weekends, but for all intents and purposes, we were separated.  I wouldn't find this out until later, but he was going to file for divorce that next week.  I had just gotten to the house after driving all day, we had eaten and retired for the evening when I had the worst headache of my life.  I quickly became numb completely on my right side and my speech was starting to slur.  My husband quickly called 911 and his parents.  The aneurysm I never knew I had burst, causing a stroke.  I woke up a few weeks later with no other thought than for my husband.  I knew from the moment I came to that he and I were meant to be.  I also had a complete faith in God that had been absent before.  I cannot explain it any other way.  I realized how lucky I was and how God had been there all along.  That's not to say it has all been easy since I woke up.  I had to relearn everything, my husband and I divorced, I had to have a tubal because of the aneurysm.  But I have found a way to praise God for everything, and to see the bright side.  My husband and I are working things out and there are so many children that need homes.  There were and still are days when all I want to do is cry, but God is amazing and has led me to find peace in little victories.  Like when I first climbed up and down steps even though I was afraid, or when I got up in front of the church to sing although I was scared to death.

I guess if I had anything to say it would be this, don't ever think that there is nothing good for you, there is.  Don't ever believe that you cannot accomplish something, you can.  Never doubt yourself, you are amazing.  And to young girls and women, never settle for anything less than what God promises you.  You may come from a broken home or horrible background, but if God can make something beautiful from the mess I was he can do the same for you.  He loves you and I do too.  It will be alright, God is always there just waiting for you to ask for his help.  He has a plan, you were meant for greatness.

And as for all the hate and anger, It is amazing what God can do with it if you let him..  The enemy will to everything he can to keep you mired down in hate, but it doesn't do anything for you.  It doesn't accomplish anything good at all, love does.  Love is all that matters in the end.....

As humans, we come into this world wrecked, flawed and incomplete.  We are lacking something and we know it.  We were originally created to be holy, but something happened.  We fell, Adam and Eve were convinced that God did not know all, that they could do better.  Therefore we will never be what God intended for us to be until he returns.  On that glorious day we will be transformed into what we were meant to be.  Until then we have to learn to navigate this cruel world the way God would want us to. 


We always seem to get sidetracked.  We all seem to have a case of spiritual ADD.  We are always looking for the next big thing, what the world tells us will make us happy and complete.  The truth is only God can fulfill that need in us and only He can accomplish His great work in us.  Anything else is just a pitiful excuse.   


He formed us with a desire.  He made us to crave that is only met by him.  There is nothing in this world that will fulfill it but God.  At some point in everyone's life we are presented with a choice, come to Jesus and follow him or continue to try and make on our own.  It is sad but most of us will choose the latter, thinking that we can do it on our own.  We continue in our own selfish, self-destructing ways spiraling down farther towards the enlightenment that always seems to escape us.  When we turn from that and turn to Christ as our savior and accept what he did for us on the cross, we begin the process that takes us to what God intended us to be.  We are unable to attain such perfection on earth and we definitely cannot do it ourselves, but once we are saved we begin to see our destructive natures for what they are and begin to desire a change.  That is when Gods' Holy Spirit begins to move in us, we start to yearn for Him and what He can do in our lives. 


Once God moved in my life, I no longer desired what moved me before.  All I wanted was his will for my life.  Yet still in my sinful nature, I thought I knew what God would want for my life.  I was still listening to the worlds' view.  The world views God through human eyes, we cannot understand his ways.  Psalm 46:10 says:


" Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth." 


We must learn to listen for God.  His voice isn't always a roar, many times it is a whisper.  It also does not always come when we want it to, that is where patience comes in.  We live in a world that values speediness and instant gratification.  The God we serve does not move that way, He moves on his timetable, not ours.  He will move when everything is in place, not a moment before.  He will often wait for us to yield to his will before he moves in a situation, other times he has plans that supersede ours.  In those instances we must learn through prayer and study that Gods' will is always better than ours, and it will be done.  We must change our thoughts and actions to be more like His and less like the worlds....

Beauty for ashes....

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Romans 12:1-2


These verses mean so much to me.  I love them dearly.  They explain beautifully what we are called to do.  Just because we live on this earth, we do not have to bow to it or its dark prince.  The Bible states very clearly in many places that we are supposed to live like Christ.  He is to be our example.  Even though we can never be perfect, we have the opportunity to let the Holy Spirit renew, remake, and remodel our minds.  Listen closely to that.  Re means again, it indicates repetition.  Essentially meaning we, through Gods' spirit are able to make our minds new again!  That means that no matter who you are or what you have done, you have a chance at freedom in Christ.  You cannot do it yourself, but if you trust in God and put forth the effort, you will have something beautiful.  Isaiah called it beauty for ashes and that is a fitting description.  That is really all we are able to bring to God.  All the scraps of humanity and good deeds we do look like ashes next to the Holiness of God.  But then a miracle happened, God found beauty in those ashes.  Not because of anything we did or could do, but because of who he is.  Thats why he sent his Son, God made flesh, to walk this world and experience it.  He wants to grant us beauty, wholeness, and forgiveness.  It is free for us to recieve and there is nothing we can do to earn it.  It is by grace and faith that we recieve it.  When we begin to be renewed, all the other stuff that is so difficult for us comes.  Not immediately but gradually, as we invite Him into our lives daily and present our bodies a living sacrifice.  It is hard and we are going to stumble, but its at those times that we look up and see our redeemer waiting, with his outstreched hands.....

"To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified."  Isaiah 61:3