Family

My family has become so precious to me being away from them this year. I have learned that being away from family brings you even closer to them. My parents and i have such a good relationship with each other. My mom and i especially always have such a good relationship because my mom and we like tickling each other and having biting wars. No, seriously we really do have biting wars. It's hilarious and my dad always yells at us because we always do it later at night when he is ready to relax. My dad and i have a good relationship too. He is quite funny too at times. He really makes me want to cry when i hear him speaking in tongues and really coming back to God. My sister and i are so different yet so much alike. We love hanging out and being with each other. We always have a good time and i love making her laugh. She is more laid back than me but we really enjoy each other! I love Dad too we just don't have any pics together haha!

                                                        Me and my momma, I love her!

                                                   Janelle and i! She is pretty cool and funny!

My poppa! I love him too and he loves his animals!

My Passion for Unreached People

God has given me a lot of passion for unreached people who have never heard the name of Jesus and for those who are hurting and feel like they have no hope. I also have a passion for people who are not in foreign countries, I would like to see all people be able to have a personal relationship with God but I know it doesn’t always work that way. God has placed a lot of compassion in me for other people. He has called me to do missions overseas wherever that may be. I see myself working with a team of evangelists, my husband, and many others where we go into villages and preach the gospel and see churches planted and doing whatever it is that is needed in the area I’m in. I’m honestly still not sure what God wants me to do in the mission field and where that is but I am sure of one thing. God has called me to live and work over in the mission field with missionaries for 6 months to a year where I will find out and know what it is that God wants me to do specifically within Missions. I know without a shadow of a doubt that that is what God is calling me to right now and the passion that I have now will begin to grow even more as I get to that spot. I am very anxious to see where God plans on sending me to live for a year and to work with people who are just hungering for God. I want to help them in any way possible and even more, show them the love of Christ. This is my God-given vision right now and I know that it truly is from God. I’m not sure when I plan on doing this but I know that God will reveal it to me in his timing just as he always does. So as of now, I will be waiting on God to reveal to me a time to go to the mission field and where that may be.

What God has been up to in my life lately...

     So i'm not going to lie to any of you. This year has been a rough year for me personally. I've gone through a lot this year and honestly its kind of felt like a touch of Hell in all honesty. I mean don't get me wrong, it's been an awesome year as well but it's been hard to make certain decisions to talk to people about things that i don't want to talk to them about. It hasn't been easy but i do know that God has truly brought me out of them and allowed me to lay them down at his feet.

     The other week i had found out that one of my friend's father had passed away and it really hit me. I think a lot of the reason that it hit me so hard was because i think everything from this year just decided to finally hit me all at once. Honestly, i didn't really know how to handle all of it. I don't know if i already talked about this, i don't think i did but if i did it just came back to my mind to talk about again i guess. Monday during prayer i was able to truly give it all up to God. God really has done some breaking in me the past week and half and i am so grateful for it. I find that the more time i give into my devotion time with Jesus, there is so much more that God is able to reveal to me.

    
     Monday we had a guest speaker for Coram Deo and his name was Asokun from India. He is the director for India with Mission SOS. He was talking about thanksgiving, praise, and worship. Seriously, this Coram Deo was the best i think that i've ever heard! We had some awesome prayer time too which was just amazing. In Sunday's service God was working in me. We were talking about fears and one of my fears is that i don't have the ability to have the spiritual gift of healing. Asokun also spoke to me about having the gift of prophecy which is something i honestly never really thought about. I guess in a way i have thought about it but i didn't. I don't know.
      God also spoke through Asokun to me about missions which is something that i've always wanted to do. Missions is the passion that i have had pretty much all of my life and that passion has grown even more. I know that i know that i know God has given me this and i am not letting go of it. I am running with it forever and I want to run after it with all that i have!

So that's what God has been doing in my life lately and i am so very grateful for all that God has been doing in my life and i cannot wait to see where God has me in missions.

"If we stop to see the world through the eyes of those who suffer" Mother Teresa

I never really knew who Mother Teresa was. Today i have learned so much about her and what her passion was in life. Mother Teresa was a woman who truly knew how to submit to God.

I know that i have submitted to God but how Mother Teresa reallly submitted to her is so amazing! She was a woman that was driven by passion and what God has callled her to do! This quote that is titled at the top hits me so hard but i don't know how to put it into words.

"If we stop to see the world through the eyes of those who suffer." It's not just seeing people through God's eyes, i mean we do need to learn to see people through God's eyes but we also need to learn to pretty much put ourselves into their shoes. That those who suffer, if we look at them through what they are going through it puts a whole new perspective into place.

Seeing people through God's eyes puts a whole new perspective into us but seeing people through their suffering has to be so much more different!

If we are truly willing to really give ourselves over to God and devote our whole lives to him, what could we really begin to do? I mean if we just say yes to God in everything we could be used so much! We could be difference makers in the world if that makes sense.

We need to learn to be in solitude with God. If we can find that special place where we can just get alone with God that is the place of solitude that we need to be in. Solitude comes before service as my awesome teacher Al Di Salvatore stated today and it's so true! We need to learn to be still before the Lord but not doing nothing. Being still before the Lord for me is when i'm out in the park or hiking and just admiring God's wonderful creation. I adore looking at the stars and that is when i truly really have some good moments looking and admiring God's beautiful creation. Those are my moments of solitude.

Mother Teresa has opened me up to so much more and i now i see how honored of a woman she was because of how she changed the world by just submitting to God and really being able to see people through their suffering and putting herself into their shoes.

What can you do to start changing the world? Where is your place for your moments of solitude?

Showing Mercy

Why is it so hard sometimes to show mercy to people? This is one thing that i have to work on and am trying to work on. It's so hard for me sometimes to not judge people when they have done something that they shouldn't have like stealing something and selling it, being pregnant before marriage...etc.

Let me just say one thing though before i go on though. I am not codemning anyone for what was done because God forgives and he has wiped that slate clean and it is NOT my place to judge anyone for anything. I love you whoever you may be and i do not want to offend anyone, this is just something that i struggle with.

I don't know why it's so hard for me to show mercy to people when i know that they aren't doing the right thing or whatever it may be. For example, my cousin has done some things  that he had no right to do and being involved with some things that shouldn't be. I have a really hard time trying to love him even though he is doing things that he shouldn't be. I struggle with loving the person and hating the sin.

Sometimes it makes it hard for me to be real with that person and love them like my cousin. I need to learn how to be able to love them and hate the sin. I'm not really sure i know how to do that. The things that people do sometimes make me so mad and i just want to yell at them and tell them that what they are doing is wrong and they need to stop, but see, it doesn't work that way. I think that's part of the reason that each of us go through certain situations so that we can others who have gone through the same thing.

I am asking God that he would help me to learn to love the person and hate the sin, as well as deal with it. I need to learn to let go of the anger that i feel sometimes towards people and let God handle it. It's hard. I'm really trying to not judge and to be loving, especially to my extended family sometimes. It gets hard but i know that if i can just start seeing them through God's eyes it will be easier.

Jesus i ask that you help me to see people through your eyes and not mine, that i would love them tenderly and not judge them. Amen.

Just take the time to LISTEN, i know sometimes that's hard to do

There are so many issues that are out there that have more complex truths to them than what we think. I learn so much and you know something? As Christians, we don't have to force the truth on people. If we are willing to just listen to them before we open our mouths and put our opinions in, just maybe would people begin to hear what we have to say and maybe we will get the opportunity to pour into other people's lives!

A lot of times as Christians we are so quick to judge and have a certain perception of people and then we wonder why non-Christians look at us and think that we are hypocrites and judgemental. We shouldn't have to be known as hypocrites and judgemental and etc., we should be known by what we stand for. Why aren't we looking at the potential that people have instead of their flaws. It's not our place to judge and we need to start seeing other people with potential.
Every person has potential and i think sometimes we tend to foget that and especially if you don't like that person it's easy to look at their flaws and all they do wrong instead of looking at their potential and what God has for them.

     I know there was this one guy that was in my class and we would always argue back and forth sometimes on religious views and i never liked him and i always looked at all the bad that he did and judged him for the things that he did and how he acted when i could have been looking at the potential that he had, the influence that he could have had if i just would have taken a little more time to listen to him and what his views were. We never got along in school and we were always in the same class because of our last names. This guy's name is Brian O'handley. The summer before my senior year, i had found out that he had passed away in a deadly car accident. At first, it didn't phase me and all i thought was, "wow, that doesn't surprise me." A few minutes later it hit me, i asked myself, "What are you thinking, your classmate just died in a car accident and you didn't do anything to see him saved!" I felt very guilty for a few days that all i did was absolutely nothing besides judge him and argue with him on certain religious issues. I then came to realize that maybe if i would have taken the time to just sit and listen to his view that maybe he would have listened to my view and just maybe i could have poured into his life. Just maybe there is a glimpse of hope that he is with Jesus and i don't know it.


Here is a challenge that i will take part in,

          When will we start just listening and not being so quick to put in our opinions on certain issues? Why don't we just start listening to what others have to say?

Maybe then, God will open up the door for us and people will be willing to listen to what we have to say.

STIR IT UP! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

This past Sunday my Pastor was talking about stirring it up. I really like how he put this and how he talked about it. He talked from the passage 2 Timothy 1:6-7 NKJV.....which says,
     "6 Therefore i remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

God wants us to start stirring up the gift that he has given us and he wants us to have a spirit of power, of love, and a sound mind. Three options of what God may be saying to you personally....

1. Maybe God is saying for you to stir it up and put into action what you believe God has imparted to you. There is a gift in you and you need to stir it up, so step out in Faith and do it!
2. Maybe God is saying that you know, you have exercised the gift i've given you for a little while, but now you just put it on the shelf and haven't touched it or tried exercising it. Now is your time to take it off the shelf and to start it up again! Start stirring it back up again!
3. Maybe God is saying i want you to take your gifting up a notch. You are doing well with the gifting i have given you and you are exercising it, but now i want you to take it a step up. Stir it up even more than what you have!

When you stir it up, you are able to have even more strength, more zeal, and you are able to set your mind to do something and do it without fear (being timid or cowardly). In this context that is what fear means and this is not how God created us to be. He did not create us to be timid or cowardly, he created us to stir it up and to step out in Faith and to start taking things up a notch and stirring it up even more!

     For me personally, number 3 is what i feel that God is saying to me. I feel like God is telling me that, "Kriston, you have the gifting that i have given you, speaking in tongues, but now i want you to take it up a notch and to start stirring it up even more. I have also given you the gifting of encouragement and i want you to start stirring that up even more and take it a step farther by encouraging everyone around you as much as you can even when you don't want to or don't feel like it." That was totally God that just said that, i just typed that....haha. So this is what God wants me to do.
    
     Now it's time for me to start looking for ways to stir up my gifts and how to use them more.

WHAT GIFT HAS GOD GIVEN YOU AND WHAT IS HE SAYING TO YOU PERSONALLY? HOW ARE YOU GOING TO STIR IT UP?!!!