Kristen Blog

It’s a tale as old as time.   So...she rewrote the ending.   You can thank me after the dust settles a bit.  I’m getting used to waiting.  Some flavors, you must allow to acclimate, before you can fully savor... Let’s face it, predictable gets boring and you all need a little salt in your lives.  😉😬 "To weep savingly over not possessing God as your treasure, He must have become precious to you.  The gospel awakens sorrow for sin by awakening a savor for God' (108).   - John Piper   God Is the Gospel It's been a heavy, heavy week, my friends.  I have been muddied by the battle.  My emotions are heightened, and my body is wounded and weakened.  Oh, Matt.  Poor Matt.  So often do I bite the hand that seeks to hold my own.  (And I am not saying I don't get my share of grief from him...I have just been awakened to the sorrow of my own sin for so long now, it is my most common observation.) ANYWAY...I bit the hand REALLY ...

I have a new neighbor.  I'm trying not to ruin this with my over-enthusiasm.  However, I found out she works for the MO Department of Conservation, so I cut down a 15-foot invasive honeysuckle in our backyard that same weekend. Too much? I'm not really sure how to NOT be.  I don't do well trying to be anything but who I am, and it's just, "I'm not for everyone."  Right? To my credit, she was just the excuse I've been praying for.  Matt has been clinging to this bane of my existence for the last 10 years.  I couldn't take the affront to nature much longer.  I'm really just a rule follower at heart.  😉 Anyway...this one was a quiet weekend for little old your's, truly.  Saturday, the weather was lovely, and my mood followed accordingly.   I kicked back on the deck, caught up on some documentation, forced my animals to love one another (come on people, now 🎶), read and enjoyed a restful break after last weekend's back yard Kristen-maged...

I was just out there trying to get my life back to normal...AGAIN (it's a frequent occurrence)...but my heart wasn't in it.  I saw a couple of kids get out of the car in front of mine, but the mom wasn’t budging.  My interest piqued, until I saw the principal come around to the other side guiding a preschooler who was OBVIOUSLY ALSO NOT feeling it that day.  I thought to myself, "I hear ya kid."   This is why I am a counselor.  I FEEL your FEELS.  Seriously.   I do.  Jesse feels them, too. So, I asked for a sunny sabbatical, right?  I got as far as the planning phase, and then… "The weakness of his soul was in relying upon itself instead of trusting in you." -St. Augustine, Confessions [R.S. Pine-Coffin, 1961; p 122] I got snowed into the comforts of my own home with several days of sunshine to follow.  Who could have seen THAT coming??  I sat in a comfy chair in my dining room window for 3 days straight and soaked in every last bit...

Hey, so…it’s me.  Here I am.  Sitting on my throne, AND wearing my dog park shoes.  (Forgot to change.  It's the little things I tend to neglect.)  I do like to look GOOD when I rule, which borders somewhere between complete tyranny or total anarchy. So…Kristen for Queen!!    Fun!!   (I tried for the popular vote via write-in this year, but look where it got me...) If somber were a state of being...  😉😂 When Matt and I first started dating.  I looked at him one day and said (with full-on oblivious-Kristen serious intensity) “Let’s do something AMAZING!”  (You'll have to imagine the intense wild eyes.) I watched him crack into a million pieces right in front of me under that pressure.  (We have since learned to let ME bring the excitement.  He keeps our heads level.  Win-Win.  Ish.)  So…yeah, I tend to set my expectations a little 5 miles too high.  I prefer to keep my head above the clouds, anyway. ...

"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear . But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." 1 Corinthians 10:13 Ok, but...hear me out.  I FEEL like even Jesus can not identify with the agonizing depth of this relentless ache.  (Yes.  I am joking.) I am definitely, 100% sure the ONLY remedy for me right now (and that is putting all want aside, I assure you), is a new puppy.  (Here, not so much on the joking, but I will admit, I am currently having difficulty with the sorting out of ideas - good vs. bad.) But LOOOOOK at baby Jesse.  How could anyone say no to THAT face?? "When we are faced with some overmastering temptation, or some difficult task, we cannot conquer that temptation or shoulder that task in someone else's strength.  We must do so in our own.  It is then our plain duty to build up a faith which is our o...