Dark to Light

Started "working" and feeling the darkness closing in...

"For He has rescued me from the dominion of darkness and brought me into the kingdom of light where Jesus rules and through whom I have purpose and freedom."  

Colossians 1:13 (my version)

So I revisited my personal rescuing...

"God heard my cry, parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under His feet...He made darkness His covering, His canopy around him-the dark rain clouds of the sky.  Out of the brightness of His presence clouds advanced."

Psalm 18:6-12

"He reached down from on high and drew me out of deep dark waters...and brought me out into a spacious bright place."

Psalm 18:16-19

Psalm 18:21-22 remind me that I just need to not turn from Him and He will

"...turn my darkness into light."

Psalm 18:28

Messy

I hate a mess yet it has become increasingly painful how messy I am.
I am prideful, and gossipy, and harsh, and quick tempered, and loving the drama.

It is also becoming increasingly painful when I realize how messy everyone is.  They have used us, and slandered Jon, and blamed Jon, and forgotten us, and are loving the drama.

"Though our hearts are filled with sins, you cover over them (kaphar) with Wite-Out."
Psalm 65

I love Wite-Out.

ESFP

ESFJ?!!!!

I am sitting in my kitchen in Williamsburg crying over my latest Myers Briggs test results.  I don't want to be a J.  I tell Jon in all seriousness that he and the kids have killed the P in me.  Nina calls and I cry to her and she lifts my head.  "Kristyn, this is what I think.  I think God is like 'Oh no, Kristyn has lost her P'ness.  I am going to send her to Europe so that she can get her P'ness back.'"  I love Nina

I am in Bruxelles crying over the death of my dream.  I don't want to sell my home.  I call out to God and He lifts my head at the Vleurgat tram platform on a sunny afternoon.  A feeling overwhelms me that I can only describe as sheer freedom.  I think "I can go anywhere.  I can be anything.  I am becoming THAT woman who is living a ton of different lives.  My P'ness is back and it is invigorating."

Stuff

Shannon has never owned a home and I tell her I never want to own a home again.

I have learned the burden of S T U F F.

I have an entire home full of S T U F F that fit that life.  

I have a new life and that old S T U F F may not fit. 

Will my living room S T U F F fit in my new living room?  

Will my bedroom S T U F F fit in my new bedroom?

What was the point of acquiring all that S T U F F?

As my friends build homes with multiple kitchens it's hard for me not to judge.  

We are Resurrectionists

He is beginning to doubt that God will ever raise him up again, but...

WE ARE RESURRECTIONISTS

Hosea 6:1-3

TORN to HEALED 
He has torn us to pieces

      The picture I kept getting in my mind to describe how I felt was that of a piece of paper ripped into  a million different pieces and scattered everywhere.  Not a coincidence.

But He will heal us

       He will gather all those pieces and put us back together like new.  He will heal parts we don't even know are broken.  We will see the rip lines and it will make us humble and approachable.  We will have been changed for the better.

INJURED to COMPLETE
He has injured us

       He has allowed pain on purpose.  We are not working at our full, best capacity.  We are limping 

       along.

But He will bind up our wounds

        He will set us right.  He will hold us together until we are healed.

DAMAGED to RESTORED
After 2 days He will revive us

On the 3rd He will restore us 

        We are resurrectionists.  He will breathe new life into us and there will be excitement again.  He can give back the years.  He can take this time that seems dead and redeem it for eternity.

That we may live in His presence

        This is a time of holiness  We want to be complete, perfect, lacking nothing, looking like Christ.

Let us acknowledge the Lord

        Choose to see.

Let us press on to acknowledge Him

        Phil 3: Forgetting what is behind.  It is a discipline.

FAR to NEAR
As surely as the sun rises He will appear
        He is here every day.

He will come to us like the winter rains, like spring rains that water the earth

        We live in Bruxelles and know the reality of rain.  

The Faith of Waiting

Wait for the Lord.
It takes bravery.
It takes good courage.
He will strengthen my heart.
Wait on the Lord

Psalm 27:14


"The miracle is that the merciful sovereignty of God is real."
"Can I accept I am now living a God directed life when I feel like I am floundering?"

John 15

"For knowing why won't really make a difference but growing close and knowing Jesus will." -Hoff

"I AM is the answer.  He doesn't want you to know more, he wants you to lean more."   -James MacDonald

I was laying on the floor during Body Balance meditation and looking out the window at the rare blue sky.  I look out this window every week on Wednesdays.  I had my picture that day of John 15.  The branches who were far away from the trunk were really swaying and bending every which way.  But the branches close to the trunk were secure and unmovable.  Lean in Kristyn.  Selah.

SEWN Together

Margaret is making dolls.  Margaret is teaching women who are victims of abuse to make dolls. Margaret decides that they could sell their dolls so women could experience freedom.

Addy is making bracelets.  Addy is teaching her Muslim friends to make bracelets.  Addy decides that they could sell their bracelets at school so under resourced children could go to Class Vert.

SEWN Together.

Gray Learning

Emma is teaching me
Abortion?
"I don't like labels.  I don't like the term pro-life.  As if everyone who is pro-choice is against life.  They value the life of the young girl who was brutally raped.  They define life at a different time."

Shannon is teaching me
Prophetic voice?
I doubted it until I read the prophets. "Proclaim good news to our friends on the street with Nino and proclaim freedom to those who seek asylum like Wayne, and Hammah and Milad (Isaiah 61). "  We need to speak truth about the new earth that is to come.  This is also redemption.

CA is teaching me
Women in leadership?
Moderate egalitarian?  Still learning this one or maybe I feel freedom to not have an opinion (see Emma and Jeremie).  The body of Christ is diverse.  Maybe we are putting our periods and commas in the wrong places or leaving out quotation marks.  Richard says the only mature believers in his Latin context congregation are women.  Married men and women working in close proximity?  Boundaries?

Andrew is teaching me
Consensus leadership?
It is European.  It can take a long time to reach a decision but then the implementation goes quicker because there is buy in.

Jeremie is teaching me
Opinions are exhausting?
Americans analyze what they think about everything.  We carefully construct opinions as if we will be called on and our ideas valued.  "Do you ever just look at something and not judge it?"  This is freeing.

Jodi is teaching me
Love your enemy?
I've never had an enemy.  Harmony is learning to sit in a mess.  Harmony can agree to disagree. Harmony and Woo are not failures.

Kate is teaching me
Gender is complicated?
Braden has Sam in his class.  "There are a lot more people born hermaphroditic than you think." Sexuality is biology and gender is objectified (what society says) and realized (what you feel/say).  Can we really start allowing truth to be based on feeling?

Rubens is teaching me
I am a work of art (Ephesians 2:10).  We have come so dangerously far from the once ideal body type. I'm starting to take the pressure off and be content.  Who says?