believing for more – Krista Ortiz

On the Day Before Your Deliverance

Confession: This week I almost gave up – literally, the day before – God was about to provide exactly what I’ve been so desperately praying for.

I’ve probably written about a million different things that I’ve needed God to do on this blog, but this week we desperately needed God to give us a New York City Apartment.

I don’t say this lightly, finding an apartment in Manhattan is among the Top 5 Most Stressful Things We’ve Done, to date. And for those of you who’ve followed my blog for a while, you know we ain’t weak sauce around here — We’ve survived marital dysfunction, mental illness, and a mice infestation to name a few! And yet, finding a Manhattan apartment cripples me and makes me cry every single time.

But I’m not the only one who has needed something specific from God this week. Maybe for you, finding an apartment in the heart of NYC would be a cakewalk considering what you’re up against today, and that desperate need of yours has been at the forefront of your mind all week.

Understand, that no matter how big or small what we need from God is: 1. God will do what He promised (He always does!) but, 2. Randomly awful and chaotic things will happen while we wait (they always do!)

— and the closer you get to the pay off, the more crazy it will be!

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You’re not asking enough from God

30 days ago, I was on the other side of the world traveling with my family through five different countries for five weeks.

In France, we ate our body weight in meat and cheese. In Belgium, we did the same with beer and chocolate, and in England we ate the traditional Sunday roast dinner, complete with Yorkshire pudding.

But without a doubt, most enjoyable was: everywhere we went, and no matter who we were with and what we were eating, we were exchanging stories between bites, of all the amazing things we had seen God do in our lives.

There wasn’t a night we went to bed before 1 am, or where we laid our heads down to sleep without thinking to ourselves, Woah, God… you are amazing, after all the stories we heard and shared each night.

And God’s response… (well, to be honest, it surprised me)

He said, “…You haven’t seen anything yet.”

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I pray your heart breaks like THIS in 2017

My heart has broken a handful of different ways in the last five years, each one rocking my world and transforming my heart in its own uniquely difficult way. But this year, my heart broke in a way unlike any other.

It all started when God asked me to have another child.

Continue reading I pray your heart breaks like THIS in 2017

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.

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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