My Ministry

Hi friends! 

Last time we talked, I eluded to the fact that God has been laying my ministry on my heart. I left it that way because I love how mystical and amazing it sounds. I could just imagine so many avenues the Lord is leading me. He has shown me that He wants me to pursue writing, that I do have a voice in the war on addiction and I can help others who have faced the tragedies that I have, and trust me, He is preparing my heart for all of those things. But today, in this moment in time, those are not my ministries. Just as David was anointed King by God and then was sent back to be a shepherd, I need to be faithful where I am.

So where am I? I am a wife to an amazing husband who works incredibly hard for me to be home with my babies. He often works between 9 and 11 hours most days to provide for us. His love language is acts of service. He feels loved and cared for if I take an extra half hour and make sure the house is picked up before he comes home. He absolutely loves me cooking for him. The Lord wants me to serve my husband and do it with a happy heart. He also wants me serving my children and not just by doing their laundry or by feeding them, he wants me to get down on the floor and play or read a book to them or even have them help me make dinner. He doesn't want them starved for my attention, he wants them filled with love from an imperfect mommy so someday they will seek a perfect God.

The thing is, I have been serving in my home as a mom for over 5 years, as a wife for over 9 years, but I have never seen these as an act of service to the Lord. Recently, I was at church and they did a sermon on serving. I felt like a complete failure. I have never served in the church on the greeting staff or serving coffee or watching people's children and I felt ashamed of this. What am I teaching my children if I'm not serving? But I heard a small whisper to seek my Papa. I literally tormented myself with condemnation for weeks. Then, at a beautiful little boy's birthday party, God had a wonderful woman intervene. She told me that I serve God daily by being home with my children, I serve my husband by taking care of our home and I am serving my church by raising children who will hopefully be the future church. My little ones are 5 and 1 and they will only be this young for so long. God is calling me to just be with them and to teach them of His unending love.

So, friend, where are you now? Are you like me and at home with your babies? Are you a working mom or dad? Are you single? Are your babies grown adults now? Whatever your circumstances, can I encourage you to pray before signing up to serve in any capacity? God will lead you in where He wants you to serve. He may want you to serve the nonbelievers in your workplace. He may want you to reach out to a friend whom you haven't talked to for awhile. I think the biggest lesson I have learned is that serving may not look how your church presents it or how your Christian friend is doing it, it simply is following the simplest command from God and obeying it wholeheartedly.

Here are some recent pictures of my little ones and our adventures.

Love,

Chrissy

Defining Moment

I don't have to know you

To know that you will go through hard times

It's just part of life

Don't let that moment blind you

And don't let it define you

Take heart, that's not who you are

I'm in the shower the other day and singing along to MercyMe's latest album when these lyrics hit me. God has once again orchestrated a wonderful intervention in the middle of this beautiful mess we call life.

Do you have a moment in your life where the enemy reigned? Have you suffered a devastating loss that is constantly on your mind? What was it friend? A job, a dream, a loved one, a baby?

My devastating loss came on March 4th 2014. God prepared me for this in every way He could, but how do you prepare for the worst news you've ever received? My brother, Mikee, my one and only sibling, my friend and my confidant had committed suicide. To say this loss was a defining moment would be the understatement of the year. You see, I knew my brother had a drug addiction, but you hear about God healing that all the time. I knew that ever since our mom passed, he was struggling, but we all go through hard things and then God uses them for good. I knew God's promises and I prayed them over my brother consistently. I wrote my brother a text mid February with Romans 8:38-39 in it. He thanked me for sending it because he said it was exactly what he needed to hear that day. I believed that God would save my brother and then him and I could fight the war on addiction together. He knew what it was like to be an addict and we both knew what it was like to be raised by one. 

When I received the call that my brother who'd been missing for over a week had done the most unthinkable act, I was at first heartbroken. I didn't do anything for the first week. I literally just sat and cried heart wrenching tears. Slowly, I grew angry. I was angry with my brother because he took a really important person out of my life. But more than anything, I was mad at God. How could He let this happen? Why didn't He stop him? Didn't I pray all the right things? Why was this part of my story?

Fast forward a year and a half later and I'm still mourning. I still miss Mikee every single day. God has answered a lot of my questions. My brother (along with you and I) have free will. He can choose to make horrible decisions or good ones. I'll never know the ways God tried to stop my brother from taking his life. But, the truth is, whether it was God's original plan or not, my brother, of his own free will, decided to remove himself from not only my life, but from others who loved him dearly, his son, my dad, his best friend, his son's mom and so many others.

I finally made it out last week to see a bench my nephew's mom made for Mikee. The second I saw it, I sobbed. This bench is my brother. Between the font of his name, to the carving of his drawing, to the "I love you dad" from my nephew with tiny handprints. It was beautiful and amazing to see. 

But this song and it's lyrics of not letting my hard time define me were running through my mind. See, the thing is, I've been stuck for a year and a half. I'm not growing, if anything I'm shrinking. I struggle with friendships, with being open. I have even shut down to God. I've been completely consumed with this life-altering moment and God in all His Grace and all His mercy is calling me to step away. He's calling me to the next chapter of my life, my ministry.

No matter what you've done

Grace comes like a flood

There's hope to carry on

He'll finish what He started

No matter what you face

His mercy will not change

He's with you all the way

He'll finish what He started

Revival 2015

Hello Again!!

Every year since 2011, I have prayerfully chosen a word for the year. The word friendships was my first chosen and that year I connected with my best friend Corbin and started our most beautiful journey getting to know one another. Since then, I've had the words rise, second, surrender and finally this year's word revival. Each word has been multi-faceted and has caused me to look internally at what sin patterns and worldly desires that need to be removed from this life.

Revival was mostly chosen because I felt that after some hard things I'd been going through over the past few years that I would need a year of rebirth and of renewing my faith. I actually debated between choosing revival and humility. You see, God laid on my heart a few years ago that my deepest sin pattern, the one bad root that can completely ruin all of the good seeds He's planting, is my pride. So, what better way to overcome it than to focus on being humble for a year. As honorable as this sounds though, my heart was not in it. I felt like humility was a lot of work and I didn't even know where to start with it, but I would dutifully choose that word. Then, on December 31st, I was listening to Pandora and what came on, "Revive Me" by Jeremy Camp. I literally sat crying listening to this beautiful song and feeling overwhelmed that the creator of the universe knew my soul needed a revival.

So, I didn't choose humility, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to work on humbling myself. Oh no, God had plans of humility for me. One aspect of my pride is having a god complex. I feel that I can do everything by myself, no prayer needed. I can raise my kids without consulting God, I can be a great wife without prayer and I can even be an amazing friend without prayer, right??? Actually, I can't. Sometimes my kids completely overwhelm me with how much they need me or how much trouble they get into without supervision. If I don't approach my husband or my friend's with grace, I become one judgmental woman. It's funny though cause if I do something all on my own and it works, I worship myself. I think how much better I am than that mother over there who obviously doesn't have it all together.

Can I just tell you how embarrassed I am by all this? But, without sharing my sin and repenting of it, I can never be free from it. The more I keep it locked in the closet of my soul, the more it grows. I am telling you, I am desperate for a revival. I want what Pastor Chad called a revival of holiness. I want to grow in my faith and start learning and growing in God's grace.

What about you? Do you feel a revival happening right now in your faith? In your church? In the body of Christ? Can I just tell you where it all starts? On your knees faithfully seeking God's face. Talk to him about that deep-seeded sin pattern that is destroying you. Openly tell a safe friend about this sin. Declare war on the enemy! He does not win my friends. I know that it can feel like it, but God's Word, our beacon of hope and truth, says that is a lie.

Now picture this, the body of Christ as a whole, on our knees seeking our Lord in ways we never have before daily, asking Him to make us individually holy, asking Him to remove sin from our life. Please join me in this calling. God has so much promise and hope for us. Let's cling to it!

Will you join me in prayer?

Lord,
I am so incredibly grateful for you and your saving grace. Where would I be without you? I pray for a revival in my soul. Please remove this pride from every ounce of my body. I pray that every person reading this would feel the power of your revival. Please convict their hearts Lord. Help them to recklessly seek you in all they do. I pray that you would send people into our lives to help us to see our sin and completely remove it. I pray for a revival of holiness in your church. Help us to face the mirror and our own sinful ways before ever looking at the world's sins. Cleanse us Papa! We need you so desperately.

In Jesus name,
Amen