Category: Krista

It’s been exactly 16 months since I have written on this blog. An eternity really, when for so many years and through so many circumstances, this was the place I retreated to. My little corner of the world where I could cry and vent, document my life, and occasionally, have it out with God.

I don’t miss writing if I’m honest. I don’t miss straining over words or the placement of commas, nor do I have time for it these days. I don’t miss masses of people correcting my grammar, or the uproar that ensues every time a friend or family member’s ego takes a hit because of something I wrote. Not to mention, I’m uninterested in building a platform for myself or in joining the likes of those dishing out tweetable wisdom to the watching world. The older I get the less value I see in any wisdom I could offer, especially if it’s tweetable, and the more value I see in things like a solid under eye concealer.

But the reason I’ve chosen to pick back up writing on this blog is this (and only this): when I write I feel near to God.

And if I’m honest, I need Him now, just as much as ever.

 

Writing has always been where I go when there is nowhere else to turn.

I remember the first time my perfect little life was jolted upside down. (Not to be confused with the third time…the hundredth time…or the quadruple millionth time.) It was a month before my 12th birthday, and it had just come out that my father had been having an affair — an affair with not just anyone, but a woman my twelve-year-old self truly loved and admired. A woman I would’ve no doubt turned to had she not been an active participant in my heartache.

Making matters even more confusing, and because my father was a pastor at the time, my family and I literally and physically could no longer go to our church anymore. Amid such a hopeless time for my family, there was no place to retreat to, no community to link arms with, no pew to sit in Sunday morning to hear things like God is still God and God is still good. 

It begged the question: where was a preteen girl to go amid the chaos and heartache?  Where should she turn when her father, her tribe, and even her church, are no longer a safe place? I retreated to the only place left to go to — a blank sheet of paper.

I retreated to the only place left to go to — a blank sheet of paper.

Dear God… I wrote for the first time on December 11, 1998, in a flower-laden journal.

Dear God… I wrote. And wrote. And wrote. (For years I wrote.)

The truth is, I never stopped.

Whether clicking away from behind my laptop; publicly wrestling with my rawest feelings on this blog, or writing alone in the stillness of my apartment crying over what looks like scribbles in a college-ruled notebook, I realize I’m still the same preteen girl looking for a place to escape the chaos and heartache. It’s who I’ve always been and what I’ve always done.

In the past, on this blog, I have written through the cross-country moves & the miscarriage that changed me. The betrayals I never thought I’d bounce back from & the vows I was certain were broken beyond repair. I wrote through unanswered prayers and things that didn’t go as planned, times where I was terrifying close to letting go of it all, and the year I was bordering on coming unhinged. — And through it all, God has never failed me. Not once. Not even close. And He’s not about to start now!

Through it all, God has never failed me. Not once. Not even close. And He’s not about to start now!

That’s a welcomed reminder for me today because while my life has never felt more meaningful, it’s also never felt more uncertain. (I’ve often described this season of my life as ‘walking on a field of land mines with Jesus’ — a more twisted & sinister version of the sweet ‘walking in the sand’ poem every Baptist grandmother knows and loves and has hung on her bathroom wall.)

In my life today – and as I seek to do everything God is asking me to do – the stakes are high. Impossibly high. And the truth is, because of it, I could lose everything (yet again.) The magnitude of that reality often sweeps over me, leaving me rattled for days, even, weeks on end.

As for who I am today and how I’ve changed since I last wrote nearly a year and a half ago? Well …I curse and cry more than I used to, and am bolder and more firey than I was taught is ever acceptable. (Especially, for a woman. A woman in ministry, nonetheless.) And yet, I’ve never felt God more proud of who I’m becoming.

Oh, and I’m still not pregnant…  still… exactly 7 years after we first began this journey to have our second child. Only further proving said: uncertainty, and that you can be closer to God than they’ve ever been in your life, more in-tuned with His heart and His voice and just how deeply He loves you, all while being downright DUMBFOUNDED when it comes to what God is doing in your life (or what He’s NOT doing for that matter.)

Yet, if writing is how I’ve always found Him in the past, then it’s through writing that I’m determined to find Him again. (And He’s promising I will.)

“Write yourself out of this season…” I can feel God inviting, “Kick and scream your way through the uncertainty and cling tightly to Me as you have done before until you come face-to-face with My goodness once again.”

He then comes in a little closer, speaking more tenderly this time as if to reassure me, “…You will see My goodness again, I promise.”

So that’s what I’m going to do. With everything in me I’m going to seek to find Him in this mess, and as I do my hope is that maybe, just maybe, you will find a little of Him as well. I pray that as I write myself out of this season of my life, that you might feel lighter and less alone, more purposed and expectant in yours. (And at the very least, that you might be mildly entertained by my inevitably-exhausting- and- always-unruly life in New York City.)

There’s so much for us to catch up on, so many things I can’t wait to share with you, but we’ll get there…

Because I’m back.

God has done real-life miracles in my life. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know, I have seen God’s power with my own eyes and could tell story-upon-story of all the miracles I have seen God do for me and my family. (So many of them I’ve shared on this blog.)

But today I want to share with you why I believe we’ve been able to experience God moving in such incredible, awe-inspiring ways… It’s a topic I’ve never talked about on this blog, but here it is: We are lavishly, uncomfortably, generous with our money.

(It’s not who we’ve always been, but it’s who we’ve become — And it’s changed everything.)

Warning: this post won’t be for everyone. Some people are so protective, so combative about their money, they can’t even have a conversation, much less read a blog post with an open mind. So if that’s the category you fall under, no offense… I’m sure you are wonderful, but to clarify this blog post is NOT for you. I’m also equally sorry, because your refusal to be generous is also your stamp of approval to live a life with a cap on all the miraculous things you will see God do… (or won’t do, for that matter.) 

Because I don’t say this lightly or flippantly: Generosity can change your life! (As a fact, it has changed mine!)

Generosity has unlocked God’s blessing in our lives. It’s let loose a favor that is untamed and a story that is unrivaled. And hear me say this, God desires to do the same in your life in 2018.

The question I will pose to you today is: Have you given God enough space to move?

 

I don’t know what you are praying for in 2018. What miracle you are believing for, what areas of your life you need God to change His stance in, take up your cause, and come to your rescue in. Maybe there are bank accounts, pregnancy tests, and relationships around your family table, where you are desperate to see God’s redemptive power with your own eyes.

The degree in which God is capable of moving in our lives is directly dependent on how much room we give Him to do so. And that’s what generosity does, it makes space for God to move miraculously.

Making space for God to move is much like giving someone space to move in a game of kickball. You can kick a propelling ball, no matter how tight the space you have to work with, but if you give a person enough room to get a running start? Without a doubt, the further and more impressive the resulting kick.

I don’t know about you, but I need God to move impressively in my life in 2018. I need God to show up and move some M O U N T A I N S!

This year specifically, I’m asking God to move miraculously in my little family.

It’s been six years since we started trying for another child. (So long, that even complete strangers have given up on me ever having another kid. Inquiring at the grocery store… the school yard…heck, even while waiting for the bus…. why I “only wanted one”?)

The only thing worse than how wrong they are (I have desperately wanted another baby) is how impossibly far away it feels from that reality ever changing. Yet, here I am, believing for the miracle it would be that maybe, just maybe, 2018 is the year that it will. 

Maybe like me, you feel foolish believing 2018 is the year it could change. But understand, God is inviting us right now to grab hold of the hope that, with Him, it could.

God wants to get a running start and kick it out of the park in your life…to show you — maybe for the first time — what your God is capable of doing (and to the full extent He is capable of doing it).

It’s what happened for David.

In 2 Samuel 24, we see David desperate for God to move B I G.

And God would…

…David just had to make a space big enough for God to move. 

David knew, the greater you want to see God move, the greater the space you have to make. So when a huge epidemic swept through Jerusalem killing 70,000 people in one day, David did something surprising, He brought an offering to God… a generous one. Saying, these words that have wrecked me all week, “I’m not going to offer God, my God, sacrifices that are no sacrifice.” (vs.24)

Don’t miss this: because David needed God to move significantly, he gave sacrificially!

A sacrifice isn’t a special number, nor does it have to be a high one. But to be sure, a sacrifice is felt. Giving sacrificially is the act of letting go and emptying ourselves of something significantly valuable, and with it, making room for God to do something show-stoppingly miraculous.

The greater the space we make, the more miraculously and powerfully our God can move — David understood that. And move miraculously is exactly what God did!

Verse 25 says after seeing the sacrifice David had made, “God was moved by the prayers and that was the end of the disaster.”

Maybe like David, you’re not only praying for God to move in 2018, you’re praying for some things to come to an end in 2018. You’re praying for the end of what feels like God’s silence, the end of this brutally dry and lifeless season. You need this cloud to lift, your most desperate prayers to stop reverberating to the heavens, you need the direction of your life to change and for God to WAKE THE HECK UP and come to your defense. (If something doesn’t change soon, you don’t know how much longer you can hold on.) I get it. I’ve been there. On so many days, I am there…

I don’t know what it is that you need from God in 2018, nor do I know how big or small a sacrifice looks for you, all I know is when we are in need of something and we give generously, it captures God’s attention the same way a person praising Him, hands outstretched to the heavens in the middle of their storm, catches His eye and moves Him to tears in a crowded sanctuary.

Our generosity is an act of worship.

Our generosity compels our God to move impressively.

I’ve seen it time and time again.

So this week, my husband and I made space for God to move impressively in our lives in 2018, and we did so by giving to Meta’s very first Christmas offering (the church we are planting in NYC).

And can I tell you something? We gave so much, it took my breath away… (the greater the space we make, the more miraculously and powerfully our God can move, right?) Like, for real, we prayed out loud to God afterwards and multiple times I had to stop and gather myself, because I just couldn’t muster up enough air in my lungs to get the words out.

Yet, as we raised our humble and sacrificial gift to Him, I know with certainty that we caught His eye, even if only for a moment. It may have even moved Him to tears. But my continued prayer is that it moves my God to  A C T I O N. (We’ve given Him the space to.)

And while, some might go as far to call a generous offering to God manipulation (in an attempt to coax away their own guilt for not having the courage to do the same) …I call it, making room for the miracle.

…Making room for the miracle it would be for God to meet us here in this space we’ve made, and blaze miraculously through all of the financial, medical, and logistical reasons why the miracle we are believing for will never happen, let alone in the next year.

The bigger the sacrifice we make, the more it will be missed. But the more it is missed, the greater the space for our God to move!

We’ve decided to give God enough space to get a running head start and hit it out of the park in our lives in 2018…

||   Have you?   ||

 

 

He was wearing a snow suit on an 84 degree summer day, that was the first sign he wasn’t mentally sound. The second, was the eerily slow pace in which he walked.

Come on, pee faster… my inner dialogue begged of my 65 lb boxer. Watching, out of the corner of my eye as the strange man crossed closer to my side of the street. Taking note also, of how nearly every inch of his body was covered in layers upon layers of clothing.

I hurried into the safety of my apartment building, stopping briefly at the entrance to say my usual hello’s with Carlos the doorman. Asking, as I always do, if anything noteworthy happened for the day ( P.s. NYC doorman have the best stories, and Carlos’ exuberance to tell them and to exaggerate every detail and make subtle jabs at Trump, make them all the more fun to listen to.)

But that’s when I heard it… a booming voice behind me. I knew instantly it was the man I had been watching. He was yelling in my direction.

I never did make out the words he was barking, but it was clear he was angry. More than that, he was unstable.

Looking back, there was so much to be afraid of in that moment, so many reasons to cower down and recoil in fear. Yet interestingly, at the moment, the maniac wasn’t the one I was taking note of the most… it was Carlos the doorman.

Continue reading What a doorman & a maniac taught me about a fiercely protective God

I remember the first time I heard honest, unguarded words.

Growing up as a pastor’s kid in a conservative Baptist church, I heard (a lot) of words over the course of my life. Lots of good, well-behaved, and in their ‘Sunday’s best’ kinds of words. But the first time I was on the receiving end of vulnerable and honest words? It stunned me.

The first time I heard someone bare their soul and share their raw, most painfully human truths, let me tell you… it was almost a spiritual experience.

Honesty awakened something in me that I didn’t even know existed.

And the only thing that has roused me more?

Dishonest words… 

Continue reading Whatever you’ve given up on, pick it back up & march on.

Exactly one year ago, we stepped out to do what God had asked us to do, all while lacking – pretty much everything – we needed to do it. (Maybe you can relate.)

“We’d like to start a business account for the church we’re starting in New York City,” we told the bank teller, one year ago in Anderson SC (where we were living at the time.)

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

Three hundred and thirty dollars… my husband replied. I held back a giggle. (I giggle when I’m nervous.)

And I was nervous for good reason… $330 is all we had to start a church in NYC.

Yep. God had asked us to start a church in one of the most expensive zip codes in the country, with absolutely no team and no funding. Not only that, we didn’t even have any income coming in or jobs lined up in NYC!

All we had was the two of us, three hundred dollars from a failed GoFundMe, and this selfie.

This selfie… taken upon exiting the bank that day, to chronicle all the fear and expectancy we were feeling yet didn’t have the words to describe. To forever document this moment in time, when we were stepping out to do what God had asked us to do, all while lacking flipping everything we needed to do it.

Maybe you can relate.

Maybe you too, have been asked by God to step into the unknown, with no back up plans or safety nets (when like me, backup plans and safety nets are your LOVE LANGUAGE.) And you too, receive glazed-over, we’re-concerned-for-your-mental-health looks of confusion anytime you share with others what God is asking you to do.

And with every uncertain step you take, in spite of every answer you don’t have, you’re left feeling painfully ill-equipped and pathetically ordinary… and because of it, up against the impossible. (Been there.)

— But what if that’s exactly how God planned it?

What if every reason you’re coming up short today was predestined by a God, who not only knows what He’s doing, but whose inviting you to see His power with your own eyes? His power that can miraculously multiply the little you have beyond your comprehension.

What if God is creating a deficit so unnerving in your life, so that maybe – for the first time – His deliverance can be so undeniable in your life?

That’s exactly how it was for a man named Gideon in the Bible (and it’s exactly how its been for me and my family this last year.)

In Judges 7, we find the nation of Israel in shambles. An army so massive had come in droves and stripped the nation of everything they had. It seemed no one could stand up to an enemy of this magnitude, but God had a plan and He hand-selected an ordinary man named Gideon to defy the impossible.

And if that wasn’t already hopeless enough, God then sent nearly all of Gideon’s soldiers home — reducing his army from 32,000 men to a measly three hundred! (Coincidently, the exact amount we started our church planting fund with last year.)

“You have too many soldiers,” God said, “…that would be too easy of a victory.”

I want all the credit for the miracle that is about to unfold in your life, God is saying.

I’ve often wondered how Gideon felt that day, if he felt the same way we do when stepping out in faith. Expectant. Foolish. Terrified… So terrified. I wonder if while sending the thousands of soldiers – God said He didn’t need – home, if Gideon worried, even for just a fleeting moment, what might happen if God didn’t come through like He promised?

It’s not enough, God…

I wonder if he took a selfie.

But then scripture says Gideon did something profound, and it’s the same thing God is asking you and I to do today, no matter how much we are coming up short.

In Judges 7:8 MSG, it says, ‘[Gideon] took up his position with the three hundred.’

Don’t miss this, Gideon took up his position with the little he had and declared, maybe only in the faintest whisper, I believe you, God.

I believe You will use me…

I believe You will go to great lengths to provide for me…

I believe that You will miraculously multiply the little I have and provide for everything You have planned…

…and that’s exactly what my husband and I did upon leaving the bank, a year ago.

We acknowledged how scared we were, foolish even. We told God, I don’t know how on earth You’re going to do this. It’s impossible really, but…We believe You.

…And we took a blurry selfie in the middle of a Wells Fargo to prove it.

I look back at that selfie taken on that day, exactly one year ago, when we were jobless and teamless, and with only $330 and no fathomable way to NYC… and I smile to myself.

In just a year, God has not only provided a way to NYC…

But that $330 we started with? Yeah, about that…

Since taking that selfie just over a year ago, God has allowed us to give over SIX TIMES that amount to other local church plants and organizations in the NYC area, in just the last three months!

(Yeah, you heard that right…a church plant that hasn’t even planted yet, is giving money to other church plants in the exact same area… God writes the coolest stories, doesn’t He?)

Not only that, since the day we had only $330 and literally ZERO job prospects or income coming in, God has provided $159, 850 to date!!!! (God even provided a free 5 week trip to 5 different countries for me and my family, but that’s another story for another time.)

Nearly $160,000 — not made up of thousands upon thousands of dollars given by important people with two names, or shnazzy and shiny mega churches or church planting networks. (Like Gideon, that would be too easy.) But instead, often in tiny, almost unnoticeable increments given by families, small church plants, even by some of you, my most amazing blog readers and friends. Some, we’ve never had the honor to meet in person!

We haven’t applied for a single job we’ve received. We haven’t asked anyone for a cent. We haven’t even needed to take – one dollar – out of our church planting money to live off of — THIS IS A MIRACLE!  (And all the pastor’s around the world said, amennnnnn.)

God has provided for every. single. thing. He has planned. Even down to the smallest and silliest of things.

…like a computer.

This is a side-story but a good one, I promise…When we were leaving South Carolina to move to NYC we had to turn in the laptop that had been provided by my husband’s job. Knowing (at the very least) we’d need a computer as we went on to plant a church, we had looked into buying one that was being sold at a discounted price by a church in the area.

This church would go on to, rather unkindly, refuse to sell us any of the laptops they were selling at a discounted price. And to be honest, as silly and small as that was in the scheme of things, I clearly remember it being a breaking point for me. I mean, reeeeeeally God? YOU CANT EVEN GIVE US A DISCOUNT ON A LAPTOP? Wth?

But God... Guys… HE DOESN’T MISS A DETAIL!! Looking back on the last year, not only has God provided us with $160,000 (and counting) He has given us not one, but two of the exact same laptops we were trying to buy that day — and not for a discounted price like we were originally hoping for, but FOR FREE! You can’t make this stuff up.

Believe it, friends. God will provide for everything He has planned in your life. And when He does,  He doesn’t need anything you’ve lost to bless you — That job, those relationships… the damn laptop. He doesn’t need your money or that connection, He doesn’t need your best back up plans or your strongest warriors. God only needs your obedience — your borderline foolish obedience, to step up to the plate in spite of how ordinary you feel, and to take up your position with the ‘not enough’ and wait for God to do what (only) He can do.

God promises to do incomprehensibly big things with the little we have.

And when He does, I speak from experience when I say, we’ll have more than just three hundred dollars, a selfie, and a secondhand lap top to prove it.

More Posts on church: My Father Had an Affair with the Church: You Call Him Pastor

T.D. Jakes*

I know, I know… God’s timing is perfect and He will give us the desires of our hearts. I’m both familiar with these truths and believe they hold true.

But that being said, REALLLLLY, tho… God is ignoring me.

…and the two pregnancy tests in my hand are proof.

Continue reading If you feel like God is ignoring you, you’re probably right.

I’ve spent 29 years of my life asking God why I was put on this earth, and the last few, telling Him all the reasons why I couldn’t possibly do it.

I’ve contemplated making a run from God’s call on my life, too many times to count. Much like all the times I hid in the bathroom to escape gym class in Elementary School.

I just couldn’t do it. I missed kickball tournaments, field days, and square dancing. All because I was too afraid of what my peers would say, of how athletically incompetent I might prove myself to be, when inevitably, some sphere of death would be hurled unmercifully in my direction. (I’m also, legit, afraid of balls. But that’s another story for another time.)

So there I stayed, in the bathroom, nearly every day, studying the barely legible choice words that were littering the lavatory walls I had locked myself in, while the shouts of my classmates echoed from the gym.

Though I rarely hide in bathroom stalls anymore (praise!) I realized this week, the reason I most often feel like running from what God is asking me to do, is still the same as it was while cowering on the commode all those years ago:

I was, and still am, debilitating afraid of the critic.

 

 

Continue reading In the face of everything that is threatening to tear you down — keep standing

There are two types of people in this world: those who believe there is greatness to be unlocked in them and that there is significant purpose as to why they have been put on this earth. And those, who don’t.

Both, have had the same God who breathed the stars, breathe life into their lunges for an incredible, if not astounding reason, but only one set of people believe it. Worse, only one set of people will ever step into it.

By default, I fall into the latter category, and because of it, I don’t know if I will ever find the courage to step into what I am put on this earth to do (the jury’s still out on that one.)

But the harsh truth is, you might not either.

…And God’s hoping that will scare us, today. (And He will attempt to do so, with just one word — IF.)

Continue reading The one word that should scare you ( IF )

Last week, I wrote a bold and unapologetic post to the man or woman who wants their perfectly restored marriage handed to them. And for the record, I stand by what I said, and I’m (still) not the least bit sorry about it.

But today, oh weary one, these words of compassion are for you.

You are not entitled like the person described last week, you are shattered. You’re not waiting on perfection, you’re waking up every morning, staring at the same spot on the wall, and begging God for a miracle. (You can’t hold on much longer if it doesn’t happen soon.)

For those of you whose heart is breaking today, I know if there was a base you could run to where you’d finally be safe, where you could escape for just a moment to catch your breath from the waves of heartache that keep you up all night, you’d run there no matter the distance.

For those – still waiting – on a spouse to get their act together, I know from experience if you could tie them to a chair and spoon feed them the-right-thing-to-do, you would. (but unfortunately, it isn’t logistical, or legal for that matter.)

But God told me to tell you something, heartbroken one: Your pain is seen, heard, and understood by a God who knows what He’s doing.

And you do not cry alone, today.

Continue reading For: the person whose heart is breaking right now…

True Story: I loathe the sound of my voice and the way my nose looks on camera so I can’t believe we are really doing this, but… TOMORROW NIGHT (Tuesday, 6/27) at 8:30pm EST, my husband and I will be on Facebook Live, and we’d love for you to join us!

We will be talking about “What do you do when life doesn’t go as planned?” and will go from 8:30-9:15pm and it’ll be a mix of talking, sharing our life experiences & lessons, and fielding some Q&A.

Find me on Facebook either by searching for Krista Ortiz (or by clicking here)

I look forward to meeting you!

(To note: My husband will be the handsome one with all the right answers. I’ll be the one rocking back and forth in fetal position and trying not to have a panic attack. #RealTalk)