Almost dying was good for me!

How does it really feel to be out of control? The events of the last week of my life, has reminded me in fine fashion, that I am not in control. Literally, figuratively, spiritually...I am but a player on the stage. 

In hospital, there is a machine...it's my nemesis. It's the blood pressure machine, the one activated by computer.   It grabs me in the most tender spot on my body. My upper arm has always been so tender, my brother used to poke me there...draw your own conclusion.  That blood pressure cuff would suddenly inflate, squeezing the heck out of my skin, causing me to curse the F word under my breath almost every time.  It would fill so completely with air, so pinching my skin, it was so bitingly painful to me.  Then with precision timing it would begin to release, ever so slowly, the air that was helping that cuff to pinion me to the bed.  It was like an evil computerized dragon had my arm in it's mouth, and helplessly I would listen to the sinister....sip, sip, sip, sound it made as it drained my lifeforce out. This event, this timed, round the clock event, is what became the definition of "out of control" to me as I lay in the hospital for seven days. 


Before, I felt out of control, because I was lonely. I'm living here in my old state, somehow without the old friends, and without new friends. I went in knowing the transition would be hard. I knew coming back to this old spiritual territory, the territorial spirits, the generational curses, I knew they would be stronger here.  They are. I knew intrinsically that my marriage would be attacked.  It certainly was before we left Michigan, it was in Arizona, and I just knew the dog would be back to bite at those heels. And it did.


 Disillusionment had begun creeping in like carbon monoxide...a silent, deadly killer.  People don't even know they are breathing in poison, it's odorless and clear and yet they start going to sleep. This is a perfect analogy for what I was going through, I was breathing in disillusionment.  Clearly God didn't know what he was doing. I was having a great life in AZ. Friends, church, daily life was great and full and exciting! Yet, he picked me up and sent me here.  I don't remember deciding he had made a mistake, I just breathed the poison in until it surpassed the spirit in me. Then, it must have been a mistake...don't you see? 


Couple my poison breathing with actual physical illness and then we've got a Molotov cocktail with some spunk. Being tired and very sick will mess with your mental faculties. I had been sick for months. Bronchitis, pink eye, more bronchitis, more pink eye. Pneumonia and then kidney infection. I was not firing mentally on all cylinders. I was getting ripe and the adversary was sniffing about me....whispering.  Unfortunately, I was totally listening too.  I started trying to wrestle my life back from God. Yeah, you know, the life that I laid before him as a living sacrifice? The one that said it's all yours God, have your way. Where you go I go, what you pray I pray...all that. That was me.  Now suddenly I'm telling my husband, you'll be better off without me and I'm telling God not to bother with me. 


A few weeks before I hit the hospital, I took a photo of myself and there on my head appeared the image of a demon. It was a dog/cat like creature, hissing, with his tail over one of my eyes. It was shockingly clear. In fact, I had seen something pass over my eye right before I had taken the shot. It so freaked me out, that I deleted it right away. But I knew, that something was hunting me and I had to get back on the God wagon or I was surely going to succumb. I felt fear and I knew I was out from under my covering and I wanted back into the secret place where fear and I would not parlay. 

Then suddenly, I was septic and in hospital. Every choice in my life was out of my hands, I couldn't even have a glass of water for at least a day. I tell you, it is a reckoning of sorts when you are bound up in a hospital bed, alone and demanding a glass of water, only to be denied. When you cannot go to the bathroom without dragging an IV tower with three active IV's running, when your oxygen tube has to come under the bathroom door. You can't be alone, or with someone. You can't choose quiet. You can't stop the lab personnel from coming in your room at 5 am and flipping on the largest florescent light and yelling, "Kristen I am here to take some blood." To that end, you cannot stop blood from being drawn every 6 hours for 7 days. That is "real" out of control. Can't have salt, can't have soda, can't have a fried egg, it must be scrambled. Can't cry alone, can't get up and walk the hell out! Can't stop interacting with a nurse I don't like, can't help it that my parents have to help so much with the kids, can't stop my husband form freaking out. Can't stop myself from freaking out. Can't stop getting a chest x-ray twice a day. Can't stop them from shooting that hot craziness into my artery for a CT scan. Can't help it that I have to use a bedpan because I am laying in a gurney waiting for an Ultrasound of my heart. Can't stop the male nurse from having to lift my breast to change my ekg tabs. Can't wash my hair. Can't stop anything! Can't do anything! Can't decide anything! 


My second day in the hospital was the worst one. The Dr. had advised me that the antibiotics were now breaking apart the "logs" of bacteria in my blood and now the toxin within would be released. He was right, even on the strongest anti-nausea medicine they could give me, I threw up for 24 hours. It was in the waning hours of that night, that my brain, even still riddled with opiates galore, thought to turn on my phone and worship God. 


It was in those few hours, that I began to see clearly all that had been transpiring. It is amazing how at first invitation, God's presence glowed over me like a beam of light. How we showed me what I had been thinking. Wow, it was ugly; how selfish I had become. Yes. Totally selfish. Thinking of myself first, not my kids, not my husband, and the worst of all, not God. It was easy to repent in his loving presence. It is easy to turn back to Him. He was always right there. It's easy to hear him again. It's easy to give and love and think of others first. 


Did I need to almost die to realize this? Did God let this happen? No, absolutely not. He walked with me the whole time and He allowed me to choose, as He always does. Very simply, will we choose life? or will we choose death? I choose Him. I choose Life, lived in a Zoe fashion...all out and abundant. I began choosing death in my heart and it brought death....but just as easily, I began choosing life and it brought Life. I have resolved to make my choice daily, every morning is a choice to LIVE.
  
It is understanding so acutely what it is to not be free, that I am so readily able to understand what freedom is. It is the freedom to live in Him, it is the freedom to choose to lay down my rights. I don't want rights, I just want his glorious, all-encompassing love, passionately pursuing me, taking me to highest heights! I want the intimacy I have with my friend God as he talks to me and loves me and helps me understand. And I want to touch others lives with this amazing, forgiving, graceful love that he has for me and for ALL PEOPLE!


Did God scold me? Did he take a tone, and explain where I had gone wrong? No.  He came running to meet me, arms wide open, and welcomed me back into his loving embrace. This is our God, a friend who knows all, and loves you completely anyway. 

It's in telling all my stuff, that I am truly free! ---Kristen
Isaiah 61:10 I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

The Blue of the Day

The blue of the day is a winter phenomenon. In fact, it is more set apart even than that. It must be winter and the ground must be snow laden. That is when the conditions are right for my favorite moments of light to appear. For me, it's right after the kids trudge into the dark, bitter cold morning; boots clomping to the bus. If I linger near the door just long enough to watch them crest the corner and arrive at the stop, if I stay and watch to see their demeanor, if I listen for that yellow bus to accelerate on the next street. For that, for that, I am rewarded with the blue light.
It's as morning has just begun to consider the waking of day. As I do, when the alarm first rings. I always just need a moment to at first consider and mull over the mere idea of pulling back warm covers and feeling the biting cold air of a house asleep and shrouded in darkness. So as the sun considers and night is already turning in, there are just a couple of sweet minutes of blue. It begins momentarily with a deep navy, and then lightens to a penetrating cadet blue in which it seems the whole neighborhood were glowing; as if painted by a child.
It is in that blue glow, that I become transfixed by my street, for it becomes somehow more magical and interesting colored in blue. I think of Michigan, my birthplace, which I have returned to after all this time. And I revel in the blessedness of my being here, in the bosom of the outdoors; enjoying this homeland where the woods and the water, the sky and snow reveal myself to me. It is a deep, abiding love I have for the outdoors. How it slept so long I wonder at times. But not in the blue. In the blue light, I can only think of the love. And if I listen closely, I will hear Lake Michigan beckoning through the dawn. And the blue snow fades to white, and my will isn't strong enough to keep it stayed.
The sun kisses the sky with peach and rose and dawn has begun. I thank God for the blue, I know he made it just for me. And in it, He speaks.

A Real Michigan New Years Eve!

Upfront, I admit my ignorance going in.  I had been calling the impending celebration, "Uncle Ron's Redneck New Years Jubilee" and laughing to myself. Figuring,since I was freshly back on Michigan soil after eleven years, and since we were headed into the country, that I was in store, for well, a camoflauge wearing, deer eating redneck party. I was only half right. 

Enter Uncle Ron, the hard working metalworker, who decided to show up sans teeth and his wife Beth. I would find out that they were exactly what I thought, salt of the earth, real, hard-working folks who do the best they can with what they have and enjoy life! I so enjoyed talking and laughing with Ron throughout the night. He's a rough talkin, sweet talker with a bent for fishing. His long, grey beard compliments his sparkly personality and gives him a "lovable crazy miner" look. Here they are half-way into the night and with a few shots under their belts. 

Aren't they cute?

What a riot! My face was sore from laughing so much at Ron's comical stylings. 

Anyway, Beth and Ron took us to their dear friends, Jim and Betty's place, a beautiful farm in Hastings, MI. . When we arrive, I am so impressed with their beautiful log cabin. It was georgously decorated in "Outdoor Chic" complete with stuffed animals, like wild turkeys perched in the stairwell and beautiful river rock fireplace. 

Betty mixes me a "Spicy Bloody Mary" with a homemade pickle as garnish. Betty cans her own pickles and "spicy" bread and butter concoction that is to die for!

Yummy!

Then Jim and Betty began cutting up some fresh vegetables for the saute pan...onions, mushrooms, peppers. 

After these are ready, they'll be wrapped in the center of venison backstrap. This is my first time eating venison...I'm excited to try something new. 

Now its going to be rolled and wrapped in bacon. (Everything's better with bacon...right?)

Ready to be cooked slowly on the grill.

Looking and smelling good!

Sliced thin and put on toasted and buttered french bread with Aus Jus. Absolutely delicious!

I admit, I was so pleasently surprised.  What was I thinking, that there would be racoon soup? Deer stew? Maybe. But instead I got a high end, farm fresh, hunted for meal. It was absolutely memorable and delicious. 

Jim and Betty were the most gracious hosts and kept thanking us for coming! I was so honored and blessed to have been invited. We had such a full night of laughter and fun! 

At midnight we all had some Jack shots. 

A little Jack Daniels will warm the cockles of your heart. 

Happy New Years! Welcome 2012!

Then the party really started rockin! A big thank you to Jim and Betty, who invited strangers into their home. Gladly, we left as friends.

Now, a couple people did show up wearing camo. But, I checked my ignorance at the door. (Plus this is Michigan, you can buy Camo panties and bras at the Wal-Mart!) 

It's a romantic throwback, don't you think? To have a man hunt and kill your food? It was new for me...and I liked it. In fact, it was the best party I have been to in a long time.  And the best New Years party for me, ever!