To My Sisters - I Carry Your Heart...

I Carry Your Heart With Me
E. E. Cummings


I carry your heart with me(I carry it in
my heart) I am never without it(anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

I fear no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet) I want
no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

A Difficult Movie To Watch.....

Preview of Movie Below

Today I watched a movie with my daughters... It was probably the most difficult movie I have ever watched... it was called 'The Stoning of Soraya M".... It was based on the true story of an Iranian woman whose husband wanted another woman... a child bride really.. He was a vile man who decided that he wanted his current wife dead so he would not have to support her and could marry another... He tried to convince the village where they lived that his wife was unfaithful.... The village knew better but they chose to act on the husband's accusations.. In Iran - adultery is punishable by death....

This wife.... mother.... friend... niece was stoned to death... Her name was Soraya M... This story was told by Soraya's aunt - who met with a French reporter secretly and told him the story... There is so much more to the story that I highly recommend it as a must watch movie... It's heartbreaking and eye opening....

I have shared many times on this blog that my dream is to go out into the missionary field.... This movie helped to solidify my want... my dream... I have a strong feeling it helped to open my daughters eyes.... My oldest watched as tears ran down her face... not understanding the evil in the world... She has such a heart for service... I can picture her by my side one day.... Talking to and loving others in the field.... Going to meet the unreached and telling them the Good News of Jesus Christ...

2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the word of God. Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or not. Even if attitudes or circumstances are not favorable, speak out anyway, and tell about Christ's work..

A Prayer Request

"Whether we win or lose this game.. we will praise Him" This is a quote from one of my favorite movies - "Facing The Giants" This is a quote that I have been telling myself everyday since last week...

You see - my husband will be interviewing for a position in the South this coming Thursday.. This can be a huge change for this Southern California family.... Going from the Pacific Ocean to Memphis, Tennessee... Can you say "WOW!"? This is something that I believe will be wonderful for my family.. for my husband... for myself on so many different levels...

I have been praying every day... all day for God to bless us with this change... I have been praying that My want would be His will... I know - God's plan for me.. for my family is perfect... And many times - when something I thought I wanted did not happen - I could look back on it and have an "aha" moment.... I do have to say that this possibility of a new life feels right.....

My prayer request is this: I pray that God will bless us with this incredible opportunity but if it's His Will not to go..... I will continue to be faithful and I will continue to praise Him.... All Good Things Come From Him.....

Thank you. Kelly

I Hope He Says "Yes" | I've Become My Mother!

I Hope He Says "Yes" | I've Become My Mother!

My WOW Moment On Television

When this song was sang on American Idol - I cried.... I don't know why.... It was one of the those WOW moments on television.. What do you think? Is it a WOW for you too?

Shout To The Lord


My Jesus, My Savior
Lord there is none like You
All of my days
I want to praise
The wonders of Your mighty love

My Comfort, My Shelter
Tower of refuge and strength
Let every breath
And all that I am
Never cease to worship You

Shout to the Lord
All the earth
Let us sing
Power and majesty
Praise to the King
Mountains bow down
And the seas will roar
At the sound of Your Name

I sing for joy at the work of Your hands
Forever I'll love you
Forever I'll stand
Nothing compares to the promise I have in You

My Jesus, My Saviour
Lord there is none like You
All of my days
I want to praise
The wonders of Your mighty love

My comfort
My Shelter
Tower of refuge and strength
let every breath
All that I am
Never cease to worship you

Shout to the Lord
All the earth
Let us sing
Power and majesty
Praise to the King
Mountains bow down
And the seas will roar
At the sound of Your Name

I sing for joy at the work of Your hands
Forever I'll love you
Forever I'll stand
Nothing compares to the promise I have in You

Shout to the Lord
All the earth
Let us sing
Power and majesty
Praise to the King
Mountains bow down
And the seas will roar
At the sound of Your Name

I sing for joy at the work of Your hands
Forever I'll love you
Forever I'll stand
Nothing compares to the promise I have
Nothing compares to the promise I have
Nothing compares to the promise I have in You

I Just Want To Be Happy

How many times have you heard someone say - "I just want to be happy."? This statement will often follow a divorce... a separation... It will many times follow an action that may have been a huge and life changing event. I remember the day I filed for divorce... I left the attorney's office and got into my car... I called my sister on the phone and I was crying hysterically ... I remember telling her that all I wanted was to be happy... and my husband wasn't doing it.... I canceled the divorce proceedings two years later and it took a lot of soul searching and praying to learn that Dusty (my husband) was not responsible for my happiness.... I punished him for twenty years for not living up to my unrealistic expectations... and I am truly sorry for that....

I recently found a journal that I had kept when Dusty and I were dating... I had forgotten the pure joy I had with him.. The constant laughter.. I had forgotten what made me fall in love with him... Dusty could make me laugh like no other.... He would tell these stories that were so outrageous and the way he told them would keep my complete attention... He drew me in like a fly to honey..... Even to this day - Dusty is the most funny and smartest man I have ever known... and somewhere over the past 21 years - I had forgotten that...

As I have matured in my age and in my faith and in my marriage - I have learned that happiness is ever changing... My expectations are changing.... My wants and needs and the way I love have changed.... Dusty and I are no longer the very young twenty somethings from years and years ago.... thank goodness - I like who we are today... and the last few weeks - We have spent an abnormal amount of time together... and it's fun to rediscover the laughter we once had... He's a funny guy, my man....

Romans 12:10 Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.

Struggling With Intimacy

For the last few months I have been struggling with my relationships... My relationship with my husband... with my friends... and with My God... I have found myself backing away... Wanting to be alone... Many of those who don't know me intimately probably would not notice the change... I can be subtle... But my closest friends.. Those who help to hold me accountable - see it... feel it...

I have been finding reasons not to go to church... not to journal.. not to pray.. I have been making excuses to my family... my friends.. and my God... Excuses for not being completely there... In many ways - I have been completely absent... Today - I had obligations and made myself get up and go to church and quite honestly I did not want to be there... I was going through the motions...

Today - I opened up to a friend... something I rarely do.... I shared what I have been going through... I am not angry at God... but I have been bored... I wasn't allowing Him to fill my needs any longer.. I have been seeking worldly desires... Worldly intimacies... Today - I noticed that the more I was avoiding Him... the more my joy was fleeing... The joy that I found in His word... in His presence... was just a memory.... I was not allowing myself to be intimate with Him.... Today - my friend shared that she was going through some of the same emotions..... Isn't it funny how He puts others in our path that can share and empathize with us.. Women who are also struggling in their relationships.. I think God loves us so much that He doesn't want us to be alone.. He wants us to find Him through and with others...

We are still studying Crazy Love by Francis Chan... To be perfectly honest - I had not read the chapter we were going to discuss tonight... The title of this week's chapter is 'When You're In - Love'..... The basic premise of the chapter was how to create that intimacy with our Father...I had not prepared myself for tonight's lesson - and leave it to Him to open the book to exactly what He wanted me to see....

Excerpt from Crazy Love - Chapter Six

SomeOne I Can Be Real With

If you merely pretend to enjoy God or love Him, He knows. You can't fool Him; don't even try. Instead, tell Him how you feel. Tell Him that He isn't the most important thing in this life to you, and that you're sorry for that. Tell Him that you've been lukewarm, that you've chosen (whatever it is) over Him time and again. Tell Him that you want Him to change you, that you long to genuinely enjoy Him. Tell Him how you want to experience true satisfaction and pleasure and joy in your relationship with Him. Tell Him you want to love Him more than anything on this Earth. Tell Him you want to treasure the kingdom of heaven so much that you'd willingly sell everything in order to get it. Tell Him what you like about Him, what you appreciate, and what brings you joy...

Jesus: God, Lunatic, or Evil Man...

By C.S. Lewis

When we come to the Incarnation itself, I usually find that some form of aut Deus aut malus hom (either God or a bad man) can be used. The majority of them start with the idea of the "great human teacher" who was deified by his superstitious followers. It must be pointed out how very improbable this is among the Jews and how different to anything that happened with Plato, Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed. The Lord's own words and claims (of which many are quite ignorant) must be forced home..

On the one side clear, definite moral teaching. On the other, which, if not true, are those of a megalomaniac, compared with whom Hitler was the most sane and humble of men. There is no half-way house and there is no parallel in other religions. If you had gone to Buddha and asked him "Are you the son of Brahman?" he would have said, "My son, you are sill in the vale of illusion." If you had gone to Socrates and asked, "Are you Zeus?" he would have laughed at you. If you had gone to Mohamed and asked, "Are you Allah?? he would first have rent his clothes and then cut your head off. If you had asked Confucius, "Are you Heaven?" I think he would have probably replied, "Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste." The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of this is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man. If you think you are a poached egg, when you are looking for a piece of toast to suit you, you may be sane, but if you think you are God, there is no chance for you. We may note in passing that He was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. He did not produce that effect on any of the people who actually met Him. he produced mainly three effects - Hatred - Terror - Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.

Jesus told people that their sins were forgiven... This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. H would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Excerpts from God in the Dock, "what are we to make of Jesus Christ?" 1950 and Mere Christianity

A Slow Path In The Wrong Direction

Today - I spoke with a friend - About three (3) months ago she had found out her husband was having an affair.... He swore that it was over... He swore that it only lasted a week or so.... Today - my friend found out the affair had been going on for six (6) years and it's NOT OVER... Six YEARS!!!! How do you overcome this? How do you heal? How do you forgive? How do you go on? What do you say to your three (3) children - ages 7, 9 and 14 - who think their daddy is a hero? How do you NOT shatter into a thousand pieces?

I once heard that things like this don't happen all of a sudden... It's a slow path... in the wrong direction... My Sunday school teacher had said once that he doesn't have any women friends - unless they are with him AND his wife... He would never go to a casual lunch/dinner... he would never call a woman on the phone to chat.... He has ONE woman in his life and that is his wife... He said he believed that casual can move in the wrong direction... I tend to believe that is true.... I have always had many platonic male friends growing up - my best friend growing up was a boy - All through junior high and all the way through to college and beyond he was the best - always platonic... never thought about anything else friend... I remember my husband (my boyfriend) at the time getting jealous that I would spend the weekend with by best friend... I did not understand why... now I do... Looking through the eyes of a much older and wiser woman...

Infidelity is a very easy trap to fall into - if you allow yourself to play with fire... My friend will be going through some very tough times in the coming days... months.. years.. Her family will suffer for it... her faith .. her love... her strength... her beliefs will all be tested... Her ability to trust again won't come easily.... it is sad to me how much damage can occur by slowing following the wrong path towards something other than what is right.....



**picture from google pictures

Forgiveness Is Not An Option

The other night I watched a little bit of a movie called Amish Grace... It was based on the true story of a gunman who walked into an Amish school and shot ten (10) Amish girls and then turned the gun on himself... Several of the girls died... The father of one of the girls who had died went to go visit the widow of the gunman along with a couple of the elders. He went to tell the widow that he has forgiven her husband and that he and his family were there for her - he offered her comfort... Because God has commanded him to forgive...

I remember many years ago listening to a Priest talk about his visits to different state prisons... He told the story of a woman who's daughter was raped and killed by an inmate.. After about a year into his incarceration the mother went to go see him... and through her tears she forgave him... She and the inmate kept in touch for several years...

I don't know if I would be capable of that kind of forgiveness... How difficult it must be... In one's sorrow it would be much easier to hold onto the anger... the hatred... at least I think it would be... I pray that I never have to test that thought...

Colossians 3:12-13 "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you"

Luke 17:3-4 So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, "I repent," forgive him.

Micah 7:18-19 Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea..

Today Is Good Friday

Today is Good Friday - A day that represents the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ... Although Jesus was completely innocent of all sin, Jesus suffered the most horrible, disgraceful punishment known. But His agonizing death was not an ordinary death, for it was not the final chapter. Jesus turned this apparent defeat into the most glorious victory the world has ever known. At the Cross, He suffered for the sins of the world. Then after His resurrection from the dead three days later, Jesus empowered His disciples with a new message, the Good News that He had finally defeated the power of sin and death. Through the Cross, Jesus offers salvation to All who will believe in Him.

Today - I was thinking of when I was a little girl - I can remember my mom singing along to this song... On a hill faraway...