Happy Birthday my beautiful baby sister squared

The story of my sister and I goes like this.  Our parents met when I was 14 and she was 5.  I fell in love with my baby sister from the very first time we met and she fell asleep on me in the car.
We grew up in separate houses (her mom married my dad) but when we did see each other I don't really remember anything but joy and wanting to hug and protect her.
When my dad adopted her at 6 years old, I made sure that I was at the courthouse because she was going to be my family too.
I was the big sister that took her to the big city when I was in my twenties and she was a teenager.  We always had lunch at least for her birthday when she was younger.
When she went away to college and became a disciple of Christ, I believed her when she said that she had found her place with God and I saw how mature her decision was even if I didn't understand it.
Melissa met her husband to be and she got married and has two amazing children.  She celebrated her 10 year anniversary this year and I can't tell her how proud I am of her and her role as God's child, wife, mother, sister, and friend.
I have learned so much from my baby sister who grew up in the important ways long before I did.
She showed me God's love, she showed me her commitment to the life that God had chosen for her, and she saw things in me that God revealed to her that I didn't see in myself.
Melissa and I have been through sin and saved together.  We have been through sickness (lots of that) and health together.  We have always loved each other and God has always allowed us to do it as unconditionally as possible.
Biologically we aren't related, by law she is my sister, in my heart, she is the baby girl that I still want to love and protect and grow with.
In Christ we are inseparable.
Melissa
I want you and everyone else in the world to know that we were always meant to be best friends.  That God's plan was that we would forever and always love each other.  That my life would be so different if you had not been stragetically placed in it.
I love you with all of my heart and I praise God that I get to spend another year with you here in this world and forever with you in heaven.
Happy Birthday honey.

K

Grateful

Today is Thanksgiving.  It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  This year I feel incredibly blessed just to have been able to be at home with my family to spend the day with them.  I just got out of the hospital, again, on Monday.
This day is a day every year where people list what they are thankful for. Who they are grateful for and list the wonderful things that have happened to them.
My list this year is a little bit different than in years past for me.
I am grateful for my illness.  As I sit here and write this, I am surviving Type 1 diabetes, a double organ transplant, infections from a compromised immune system,  surgery after surgery, procedure after procedure and I know for sure that in this lifetime my body will need to go through so much more before it finally rests.  I'm in pain right now.
I see this illness as something to be grateful for because God doesn't give me more than I can handle and he has always given me the strength to handle whatever comes my way for the last 40 years.  I also think that in this life God gives us a choice on how to deal with the struggles of this life.
Many times I have relied on myself and I was strong enough at the time to get through, God built me strong to begin with.  But now, I rely on God and his wisdom. Now I don't know how else to make it through.
I don't know why these things happen to me.  I don't know what else is to come.  But I do know that I will survive in the arms and the love of my God.
My illness has humbled me.  It has filled me with love.  It has grown my compassion.  It has allowed me to be hurt over and over again by my own sin and other's sin and still keep going.
It has made me so incredibly weak so that God's amazing strength can be seen.
Person after person has said to me how do you do it?  How can you possibly see this as a postive thing?  How do you smile and laugh and continue the joy that you have in your life when you are going through so much?  When you may have to face worse?
That answer is easy. It glorifies God every time I say that it's not me healing myself over and over.  It's not me that has the strength to face whatever comes.  It's not me that smiles at the nurses and doctors every time there is bad news, even if through tears.
It is God.  It is Christ.  It is the Holy Spirit that resides inside me that laughs, that makes jokes about my illness, that continues to face the world with joy.  Through me and every person that God touches with the Holy Spirit there is a strength, a love, a beautiful thing that happens where God takes tragic circumstances and pours love into them.
A woman at the hospital this time came to talk to me before they discharged me and told me that sick as I was I had a smile on my face and a light in my eyes.  I told her it was God.
She looked me straight in the face and told me that she knew that just by talking to me.
That is why this illness is something that I am grateful for.  It allows God to shine, even if people don't realize that it's him, it gives me the opportunity to tell them what he has done for me and keeps doing for me.
And because I will not be here forever, there is an urgency to me talking to people about God that I just wouldn't have if I didn't know that my time here is not guaranteed and could be taken at any moment.
I have freedom to love my God openly and unashamed without worrying about what others will think because of this illness.
And I praise God for that freedom and all the other freedoms that he has given to me.  I praise him for this illness.  Thank you God for allowing my weakness so that I can see my need for you and rejoice in it.

K

The poetry of illness

It started as a disease

Something that I refused to let define me even as a child.

I was different but I thrived on being different.

I was young and didn’t know any better

I would survive

I was smart, and funny, and sweet and 8 years old.

In my innocence I believed that I would always have a handle on it

 

When I got older I realized freedom that I didn’t know would hurt me

I did things to and with my body because I thought that I was invincible

That I would blow past it and keep going

I would survive

I was fun, and free, and wild and 22 years old

However genetics were not on my side

 

Years later I would come to find out that the disease had produced a side effect

Another disease that would be the beginning of many others

That would be a reality check for a while

I would survive

I was strong, and determined, and a fighter and 31 years old

This would be the true beginning of the pain

 

I refused, as usual to let it change me into what I didn’t want to be

Life changes with or without your consent and mine did exactly that

Time and time again

I wasn’t sure that I would survive

I was sick, and abandoned, and scared and 35 years old

The fighter kept going and fought

 

Major surgery taught me about true weakness

 Something that I don’t think that I had ever truly understood

I sat and cried as others cleaned my house and gave so much of themselves for me

I almost didn’t survive

I was weak, and humbled, and changed at 37 years old

With the love of my friends and family

 

I finally believed it was the year of new beginnings

A new body, husband, son, house, and relationship with God

I was blessed, and loved, and new and 38 years old.

I knew for sure that I was going to survive

Now I look at the differences along the way

And realize that all along there was a plan

 

I started out young and hopeful

I got older and became free

I got even older and found the strength of humanity

As I matured I grew from pain, heartache, and weakness

 

Now I look back at it all

And laugh

I understand now, that I was never really whole.  Until now.

I never really felt love, Until now.

I never knew pain that hurt enough to force me to grow, Until now.

And this is my life until I leave this earth.

To grow in weakness, show faith in love, show mercy in sorrow, and grace in pain.

This is the life that was planned for me and as painful as it still might be sometimes

It is joyful, and amazing, and blessed, and mine to live

 

Though my smiles are sometimes filled with tears and my heart sometimes aches in the breaking

I know now that I don’t need to question why, I just need to trust what comes, good or bad, to make me into who I am meant to be.

Forgiven, and humbled, and loved.

 

 

 

The greatest of these.......

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Even if you aren't a Christian or ever picked up a Bible you know at least part of this scripture from a sign in Hallmark, words spoken at a wedding, or some part of it in a greeting card for a loved one.
Every time I read this, it touches me.  I like to think of myself as a loving person, that for so long that my personality has been based in love and that each day my love for God and other people grows.  My faith and this scripture tell me that God is a loving, amazing God, that I am loved and that without love that I am nothing.  But like a lot of things, I think that human beings tend to read something so many times that it becomes rote, that they start to lose meaning.  I words I love you even get used so often that they start to lose their meaning when it's something that we say because we know that we are supposed to, a habit that we have created for the people that we love.  When is the last time that I looked at my husband  or my child for no reason other than their existance and told them with my whole heart and with tears in my eyes that they are loved?  Even more so, when was the last time that I looked at them when I was angry or upset with them and genuinely looked at them with love and said those words?  So here is the Kris interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13 that makes it a little bit more personal to me and makes me really think about it instead of just reading it I want to keep using it as the amazing example of love that Christ has already given me.

"If I tell you how beautiful and intelligent and brave and amazing you are, but do not have love, I am only saying what I have said before with empty words that have been said by many others to many others over and over again. ² If I have the gift of knowing you so well that I usually can predict how you will react and can figure out situations and learn from everything that goes on around me, and if I have a faith that shows how Godly and blessed I am, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I emptied my bank account and sold my house and everything in it and gave it all away to people who needed it way more than I ever did, and talk like my body isn't that big of a deal when it's a ridiculous mess of pain and illness, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love doesn't snap at it's husband or child, love doesn't need a reason to help someone. It does not want a better job with more money so that it can have nicer things, it does not brag about how talented it is, it does not hold others to standards other than God's. ⁵ It does not bring down others to feel better about itself, it is not so selfish that it wants to be better than the person next to it, it is not easily angered, it doesn't list every thing that every person has ever done to them as an excuse to distance itself from them. ⁶ Love does not delight in hurting others with words and actions, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects others and not itself, always trusts God and not itself, always hopes in the promises of the Word, always perseveres because it has been given the blessing of the presence of God.

⁸ Love never fails. But where I think I know better than others, this will cease; where I talk like I know what I'm talking about , I will be stopped; where I think that I am so smart, it will fade away. ⁹ For we know from our experiences and we can see our future in part, ¹⁰ but when God's completeness comes, what I think I know will mean nothing. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, in God's eyes I am still a child. And only when I became a part of God's kingdom did I even start to become the person that God had planned me to be. ¹² For now we see only what we choose to and what God reveals to us; then we will see all of God's truth. Now I know myself in part; then God will show me myself fully, God created me and has always known who I am and who I will become..

¹³ And now these three remain: faith in Christ, hope in His promises through his Word and the love that I couldn't have without my God. But the greatest of these is love that comes from God that he allows me to share with others."

K

Let me think about it.......

How many times in a day do you hear someone say the words, "I'm not sure, let me think about it"?  I personally have many examples in my life where I've either said those words or I have just avoided the subject completely by promising something that never comes to be.  There are people on both sides of this subject, those that really and truly need to think about what you are asking of them so that they can make an informed decision.  There are also those that say that so that they don't have to tell you that they don't have time, or they really honestly want to but never really get around to doing what you've asked.  I've fallen into both of these categories.....very rarely do I give a distinct yes or a distinct no when someone asks me to do something, because my life is so demanding already.
In our society today it's absolutely wonderful when someone goes and just does something for someone else when they are asked to do it, let alone when they aren't.
There was an amazing story of a man who heard about the lack of kidneys available for transplant for the 3 year waiting list who just walked into a hospital one day and offered his kidney to whomever it matched.  I'm a transplant patient and if I were healthy I don't know if I would even do that.
I'm not saying walk into your local hospital and save someone's life, but it seems to me that we've lost the art of charity.
We write a check and send it to a charity when we are moved by something that someone else is doing, and there is nothing wrong with that, but when was the last time one of us got our hands dirty in an act of charity?
When did we go and pray at a hospital with strangers that didn't have friends or family to be there for their surgery?
When did we offer to work the line in a soup kitchen EVERY Saturday, not just 2 times a year?
When was the last time that we went to a third world country and lived in a cement hut for just a week to help orphans?
Let's get a little bit more personal here,  when was the last time that a friend had a health issue or needed babysitting, or needed money, and you just assumed that someone else would help them take a shower, or watch their kids, or give them twenty dollars? 
When was the last time that you just spent time with someone without having something else planned an hour later so that they have your full attention for as long as they need it?
When is the last time that you stayed at work longer so that someone else could leave early to go and see their family before you did?
You see, my belief is that charity is sacrifice, and if it isn't, then it's not really something that you are giving for the right reason.  Don't get me wrong, we all do what we can, but do we?
When it's inconvenient for us to drive across town to take dinner to a friend, do we still do it?
When we have to look at the ugliness of sick children do we still go and read them stories in the hospital?
When our parents start to get older, because we have kids and our lives are so much busier than theirs, do we still expect them in their 60s and 70s and 80s expect them to come and visit us?
I'm as guilty as the rest.  But I try not to be.  I try very hard to be committed to the things that I devote myself to, and these days I try very hard to not devote myself to everything, but to make the important things count.
We spread ourselves too thin, and then truly we are not useful to anyone.  When was the last time that you sat down and thought about how you were going to spend your free time and it wasn't about you? When was the last time you didn't plan it but you had some free time and went to help someone else?  Unexpected grace is always an amazing thing.  One of my favorite scriptures says it best,  Matthew 5:34-37:³⁴ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. ³⁶ And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. ³⁷ All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. 
So I for one want to cut back on my "let me think about it" statements and leave more free time in my schedule so that my yes is a yes and my no is a no.  I want to truly give and not just phone it in.  I truly hope that I can.

K

Two years in Christ and I still have so much to learn

Today is what I call my spirithday.  Two years ago today I made the decision to live my life for Christ and to consider heaven my home, not the world that I currently live in.
The last two years on my spirithday I look back and remember what it was like on the day that I decided to devote my entire life to the love and pursuit of God's word and the life of a disciple of Christ.
I remember waking up that monring and reading the entirety of 1 Peter (still one of my favorite parts of the Bible to read), I remember that my sister Melissa and her husband had come all the way from South Carolina to watch my life change as I came out of my baptism with the holy spirit now guiding me instead of my own internal thoughts.
I remember my husband, and my son being there and watching.
But most of all, what I remember, more than anything is coming up out of the water sobbing.  There are no words to describe it, there is no way that I can tell you the relief, the joy, the weight that was lifted within 3 seconds of baptism.
It's impossible to explain to someone who has never studied God's word and then decided that whatever life God has for them is better than any life they could have planned for themselves.  It's hard to explain the love and compassion that are in my heart that weren't there before.  It's impossible to tell someone that you were made a new creation by Christ in the 3 seconds that you were in the water.
But it's true.  Believers will tell you it's the holy spirit and I'm filled with it, I will tell you that.
Others will say that I needed something to believe in after all of the struggles that my health and the rest of my life threw at me, and that's not necessarily untrue, but it's not why I chose what I did.
Some will say that I've been brainwashed and that I can't think for myself.  That isn't true either. (Especially if you know how head strong and willful I can be).
People who haven't experienced God's love in it's purest form cannot understand.  In a world that demands that we give in to our own needs and wants, a life of sacrifice in the name of God isn't understood or validated.  Being kind to people without expecting something in return, especially credit, is almost frowned upon.
Living your life for Christ and being open and honest about it regardless of who you are talking to is offensive to some people.
Not because they are bad people but because they don't understand it. I didn't understand it for 38 years and then I decided to look into it for myself.  I asked questions, I wanted proof, I demanded answers, and then I believed.  I am sure that the women who were in my bible studies wondered where some of these questions came from.
I wanted reassurance, I wanted promises, I wanted a better life here. But biblically I'm not entitled to that.  Honestly, I wasn't created for that purpose.
Once I took a solid look at where I had been and where I could be, I was convicted.  At that moment I couldn't imagine a life without God leading it.
So two years ago today I committed myself to living in God's way and God's truth.  I have never regretted it and I grow closer to him and closer to the person that I was meant to be every day.  What freedom I have experienced in the last 2 years!  What grace and love have been put into my eyes for me to see.
The fact that my life is still hard is ok, the fact that I still don't always get my way is also ok, because what matters now is so different than what mattered before.  I hope that people no longer see me, I hope that they see Christ.  Everything good in me came from him. My gifts, my love, my heart, my soul, my joy, my happiness, and my personality.  All him, working through me to better love and touch those around me.  I pray that I continue to let him do it until the day I die.
Two years later, I am still excited to be a disciple of Christ and I can't wait to see what he has planned for me next.

K

What Standards do I believe in?

All people think differently, feel differently, handle things differently.  There is no one way for things to go, there are always choices.
We as people believe in our choices, fight for our freedom to make them, and ultimately desire to make the right choices.  Other than ourselves who is there to tell us we made the right choice?
Our parents, our friends, the people we work with, highly intelligent people that we don't know but see credentials to show that they know what they are talking about.  Work leaders, political leaders, even religious leaders can all be trusted and when they can't be trusted then we can just count on ourselves, right?  Because we are a highly intelligent, highly adaptable, and highly intuitive race.
Thinking that we are right has gotten us where?
Look around you.
People are starving, there is illness everywhere, corruption is rampant in our world and not just in politics.  We find it good when others fail and make us look good by comparision, we find it interesting to watch other peoples lives unravel on the television.  We are continuously saved from being the bottom of the barrel of humanity by setting standards for ourselves that we know that we can meet and then thinking ourselves better than others because we can do them.
We take credit for our own gifts and talents and when something in our life is wrong then we find someone or something (if my parents were more supportive, if only such and such situation didn't happen) to blame for our failures.
We aren't comfortable showing people our real selves.  When I say real selves I mean that deep inner part of you that only you and God know exists.  That part that cries alone in your room because you don't want others to perceive you as weak, that part of you that is so strong that people are impressed, except it's not really strength, it's bravado or arrogance.  That part of you that is afraid that God is real and is very disappointed in you.
Why is there this ingrained thought in ourselves that we think that we know not just what's best for ourselves but for everyone else?  Let me tell you, I spent most of my life living by my own standards and for a long, long time that worked.  There wasn't anything wrong with it because I knew what was best for me.  Except that I didn't.
Answer this question, when was the last time that you made a decision about your own life that didn't hurt someone?  You see we live our lives thinking that we live in a bubble," well, if I do this then it won't affect anyone else, I'm just going to do it."  And that's on the generous days when we don't just skip to the decision without thinking about someone else's feelings.
I hate to tell you this, but that isn't true.  I am a disciple of Christ and I make no secret of that, and I do my absolute best to allow God to dictate what choices I should make in my life because he gave me the Bible to tell me how to do it and the Holy Spirit inside me to give me his strength, energy, and compassion to be a better person.  There is this crazy idea out there that Christians are just mindless drones that do whatever they are told.  And although that can be true for some Christians, I refuse to believe it for one reason and one reason alone.  God's plan always, every single time, works out better than mine.
The bible says put God first and make choices according to his word and when I'm smart enough to choose that, it's true.  Here's the tricky part.  I don't always know right away that the choice that I made is the right one.   I may not know until the day that I die whether some were right or wrong.  But I can give you example after example of things that I didn't want to do God's way that benefited me and those around me.  My marriage is stronger because I allow my husband to lead our household (feminist friends feel free to gasp)  because I trust Eric?  Yes.  But more so because I trust God.  I am a better friend now than I used to be, because I respect my friends opinon, even if they don't agree with mine, but if they are doing something that could hurt them I talk to them about it.  Biblically speaking the life of a true disciple of Christ is filled with sacrifice, pain, and suffering.  So who willingly signs up for that?  All of us that believe that the standard of God is the only one to live by.
Those of us that see that we are blessed and not cursed on a daily basis regardless of the obstacles in our path and the pain that life and the world has dealt us.  Those of us who have been alone, prayed and realized that alone is no longer a word that is necessary in our vocabulary.
Don't get me wrong, occaisionally I slip back into thinking that my standards are better and I stomp my feet and demand my way is better.  Then I see myself and reconsider.  My life devoted to me is short-sighted, and narrow, and selfish and provides no solice, no safety, and no peace.  My life devoted to Christ gives me all of those things and much more.
God's standards are meant for all mankind to follow.  If you don't believe me, then try it and find out.  It's always so easy to say that those standards don't work for you if you've never picked up a Bible, learned about Jesus and chosen to walk in the ways of God.  I've done both and I would pick God's way every time.

K