Krista

I’m giving in to God… (An announcement to my readers)

This isn’t the first time God has asked me to do something a little crazy.

There was the time He asked me to give up my idyllic life in suburbia to move to NYC… Twice. There was the time my marriage imploded and God asked me to stay with husband, and another time, when God prompted me to give – literally every cent I had – to the church. Possibly even crazier, is that God had asked me to write through it all on this blog!

In the last three years, I have written through the darkest days of depression, and when divorce seemed inevitable. I’ve lost a baby on this blog, and have written about my tumultuous relationship with my father. I’ve even written extensively about porn! (joy.)

But now, God is asking me to do something that challenges me even further, and to my very core:

….To write a blog post every week for a year.

Continue reading I’m giving in to God… (An announcement to my readers)

Three hundred dollars, a giggle & a selfie

We’re starting a church in New York City and we’d like to start an account for all the money we have received, we told the bank teller.

“Of course, how much would you like to transfer?” the woman behind the desk, inquired of our ‘growing’ church plant fund.

To which we replied, Three hundred and thirty dollars…

I let out a giggle. (I giggle when I’m nervous.) And I was nervous for good reason: three hundred dollars is barely enough to start a successful lemonade stand, let alone a sustainable church!

But as we exited the bank that day (and while the kind lady who helped us was likely telling her colleagues about the couple, bless their hearts, with the measly ‘car payment and a half’ allotted to start a church in one of the most expensive cities in the country…) we stopped at the doors and did something surprising: we took a selfie.

Yes, a selfie… To chronicle all the fear and expectancy we are feeling, yet don’t have the words to describe. To document this moment in time; where we are stepping out to do what God has asked us to do, all while lacking pretty much everything we need to do it.

Yet it is in this season of lacking – when we in no way have what we need – that I have never been more certain this is exactly where God wants me to be (and it could be where God wants you as well!)

After all, it’s where God wanted Gideon.

Continue reading Three hundred dollars, a giggle & a selfie

I wanted a boring life (but God’s not listening)

I didn’t ask God for much. I wanted to get my Master’s degree in teaching, get married to a man who wasn’t a pastor, and have three kids by the time I was thirty. I wanted to live in suburbia till death do us part, and in close proximity to a Walmart. (I love a good Walmart.)

Might sound simple to you, maybe even boring, but it’s the life my heart desired to live.

…But God is (so obviously) not listening.

Continue reading I wanted a boring life (but God’s not listening)

The most meaningful lesson about God (And arguably, one of the most painful)

God has a tendency of uprooting my life. Just when I feel like I can take a breath, make a friend or two, or even try to do something exceptionally nutty and try to have a baby or something, God decides to throw my eggs in the creek.

Let me explain…

Continue reading The most meaningful lesson about God (And arguably, one of the most painful)

Lessons Learned From The People Who Failed Me

When my life fell to pieces everyone disappeared.

My 950 friends on Facebook, pointless. My blog, a mere platform for the curious. And the women I once regarded as ‘besties’ bolted, seemingly putting their priority elsewhere and not on helping me pick up the (broken) pieces of my life.

Looking back, I needed someone to see me; to bring me a meal, to show up at my door unannounced and drag me out of bed — and on an especially bad day, to a mental hospital!

Hear me when I say, I am in no way angry or bitter. (Far from it.) In fact, I am grateful; grateful to have survived that dark time, and even more grateful to have learned such valuable lessons, not in spite of the people who failed me, but because of them.

Continue reading Lessons Learned From The People Who Failed Me

Proclaiming God’s promises, anyway.

When I found out I was pregnant, they were sure I was having a miscarriage.

But we prayed. We desperately begged the Lord for a miracle and clung to His promises believing, that God’s way is perfect, and we can trust everything He does. (Psalm 18:30, Psalm 33:4)

I had written those two verses in the palm of my hand the day I went in for my ultrasound. I must have been repeating them so loudly in my head because the Ultrasound Technician nearly jolted me off the table when she took hold of my arm to point out the tiny little heartbeat, flickering away on the screen.

There was my baby, healthy as can be. (And that flickering heartbeat, is now my 5-year-old self-professed superhero whirling around me as I type.)

It was a miracle.

But this time though… this time, was different.

“Krista,” the nurse on the other line said pointedly upon me answering the phone, “You are pregnant.”

Continue reading Proclaiming God’s promises, anyway.

So your husband is addicted to porn…

“My husband has been hiding an addiction to pornography,” she said, barely finishing her sentence before she began to cry into her hands in the dark corner of a coffee shop.

I listened as my friend wrestled with the shock and the lies, the betrayal and the shame, while memories flooded back to when my own marriage resulted in lies.

“What could I possibly say to comfort her broken heart?” I thought to myself as she cried.

“Tell her what I told you when your heart broke,” God instructed.

That’s exactly what I did, and it’s what I will do again today. I believe they are the same words God speaks over you and the current state of your heart.

Read the rest of my article HERE

What happened to your courage?

To be entirely honest, I wasn’t going to write this week.

After traveling to England, Wales and the latest, Miami (…I know, random…) And after scrambling to finish an extreeeeemely vulnerable article for Newspring Church this week, I was certain I had ZERO energy or honesty left. But surprise, surprise… here I am.

But to clarify, this is more of a journal entry than a blog post. (Which is code for: I wrote this last night and didn’t edit it.)

Continue reading What happened to your courage?

The woman I want to be

Confession: It’s hard for me to let my daughter play in the driveway, or allow her to let go of my hand in the grocery store without so palpably, believing something is going to go terribly wrong.

I check the locks multiple times a night, and I can’t tell you the last time I spoke a dream out loud. Not because I don’t have dreams (…at least I think I still have dreams…) but because deep down a part of me believes God might shoot them down like a spiked volleyball, the moment I find the courage to speak them into existence.

— Why? Because I am jaded. I am fearful. And I am coming out of such a difficult season that was so bad for so long, that I find myself struggling to embrace the good, without looking over my shoulder anticipating the next ruthless reality, that may sneak its way in and devour everything I have worked so hard for.

And yet recently, I have felt God lovingly inviting me to do something so ludicrous that my jaded heart can barely comprehend it….

3 words that are equally terrific as they are terrifying — “Enjoy your life”

Continue reading The woman I want to be

The (most unlikely) way you can know you are doing exactly what God wants

I always assumed the people – most obviously – following God, were the ones overflowing with compassion like Mother Teresa. Who were likely teaching a Sunday school class (or three) and could correctly recite at least ⅓ of the Bible from memory — and in the King James Version, of course.

But following God isn’t always as simple as memorizing Bible verses and letting the cute old man cut you in line at the grocery store. (It hasn’t been for me at least…)

Continue reading The (most unlikely) way you can know you are doing exactly what God wants