Thoughts to live by...

I will wake up with gratitude in my heart and appreciate that the cup is half full.

 I will look into the sky and be thankful for the sun, the clouds, the birds, and the trees.

I will love people with the overflow of God's love for me.        I will smile at strangers and chat up the cashier at the store.

I will give people the benefit of the grace and mercy given to me.

I will do what God says to do when he says to do it. 

I will worship all the time,weather my mouth is smiling or frowning, because God really is good all the time.

I will show my children how to put others first. I will put others first. 

I will love my husband with a passionate love that reminds him he is a mighty warrior.           I will honor my parents.

I will pray for people when they need it, not say , "I'll pray for you."                 

I will be a teller of truth, first to myself, and then to others.   I will encourage others to walk in their destiny.   I will encourage myself to walk in my destiny.       I will not stay the same.        I will purposefully chase after wholeness. I will welcome people into my home that are not my family and make them feel like family. I will love radically.     I will live a zoe life.                                                          I will sing with a loud voice because by the time it get's to heaven it will sound great.                          I will make by body and soul submit to my spirit man. 

I'll be me and I'll let you be you. 

Simple Joys

Being back in Michigan affords me a lot of different enjoyments; the simple kind that you can't pay for. What a simple joy it is to walk barefoot in the grass.
I have always been a fan of bare feet. Even when I lived in Arizona for 11 years, I rebelliously walked barefoot outside a lot. I say I was a rebel, because bare feet in Arizona is at best ill-advised. But yet, just for the thrill, I would venture out onto hot pavement, rocky terrain and any number of pestilent perils. There were scorpions, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, and lots of black widows. I know someone who's scorpion bite lost them about six months of memory. Heck, my poor dog was bitten by a scorpion and suffered three days of paralysis in his back legs. Why would I continue to go outside barefoot?
Only now that I am back in my home territory can I realize why. Because this is how I always did it. In Michigan, we don't have to think about poisonous snakes and killer bugs. I spent my childhood sans shoes. Walking barefoot in the grass is a like a childhood blanket, or your mothers voice as she read you stories. It is an ingrained, deeply rooted memory. It encapsulates the freedom of childhood.
Maybe I so identify this as freedom, because even though I kept doing it in Arizona, it was never safe, nor terribly enjoyable. I never contemplated why I would risk heel and toe on my dark driveway or by the pool or to the mailbox. I just did it.
Now I realize I wasn't going to let that part of me die. The barefoot, back yard adventurer lives. Now I'm back in safe barefoot land and I love stepping out the door without a thought as to where my shoes might be. I get to water flowers in the pre-dawn cool, feet naked and unabashed; sinking slightly into the black dirt, wet blades tickling my toes.
It's these small things, when paid attention to, that increase our joy quotient. As humans, we tend to focus on the 'big' things that will bring us joy. How much more enjoyable could our days become if we were to focus on simple joys? The morning light shining through an open window, the breeze that smells of spring, the sound of children laughing and playing, riding a bike with the wind in your hair,  waves crashing on the beach or the feel of bare feet freely frolicking in the green, green grass. Take some time today to enjoy a simple moment of your own and in this way, spend some time really living.  

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.  ~Leonardo DaVinci 

Family Treasures

Do you ever come across something that you've had for a while, but you didn't really 'know' what you had?  I came across such a treasure the other day. I've had this small green recipe box since 2008. It's moved around to a few houses with me. But the other day, I finally began to discover what a rich fortune it is. 

The box itself is old, dating back to 1913. As I peruse the recipes inside, I realize based on the dates of magazine clippings that these recipes were probably mostly compiled in the 60's and 70's.  This was my grandmother Kathryn's recipe box, although everyone called her "Kay". She was married to my grandfather Glenn W. Eaton Jr. He was the mayor of Grand Haven, Michigan in the years 1960-1964. 


As I began to read through the various entries within the recipe box, I was delighted to find gems like good old Chop Suey, Mrs. Ericksons Chicken Casserole, and Holiday Ham. I found the Sweet Potato Casserole that I now make at every Thanskgiving. I was quite impressed when I came upon a recipe called "Poulet de Normande". This must quite something, I thought. In reality, it's a casserole. How many casserole recipes did a 60's broad need anyway? 


The cool thing about Grandma Kay is that she jotted the recipe giver's name at the corner of each card. What a gift to walk down memory lane remembering my grandmother's friends, each a contributor into the family meals. These are great names too; like Avis, Dottie, Pam, and Mrs. Sam Yorty. It says a lot about my grandmother I think, and maybe of her era, that she purposely sought to remember who gave each recipe. 

The pie section calls to me. I bake pies often. I'm pretty great at it too. Soon I'll be whipping up a Mile High Strawberry Pie or any of a dozen other strawberry, rhubarb, or blueberry varieties. Creme de Menthe or Pumpkin Chiffon sound fancy. Whatever I decide, I will throw it in "Elaine's Pie Crust" and I'm sure it will be divine! 


How about a drink? A Pink Squirrel? A Rusty Nail? There are many party sized recipes that call for a whole fifth of whiskey.  This is where the imagination goes wild. It's the early sixties. Grandma Kay would be dolled up in a floor length number, her 6 foot frame looking statuesque as she stood next to my charismatic grandfather. I'm sure they lounged on the davenport and chatted with their friends. Who might they have entertained? Is this where I got the gift of hospitality and how to throw a party? Are large sized drinks and hot appetizers in my genetic code? Pigs in a Blanket and Bloody Mary's? 


Then! the piece d' resistance! A Pina Colada recipe; not in Grandma's script, but in Grandpa's. He had an elegant hand I think!


Recipes like these are historical documents. They should be treated as such; tenderly and lovingly cared for. They trace the taste buds of my ancestry through one of the most important and honorable traditions - the family meal. They whisper about the kind of people they were, how they liked to entertain, in what esteem they held their friends. As I mix a drink or cook up a meal, I can share in a moment with the spirit of my loved ones. And if I get really frisky, I'll do what my sweet Grandma suggested to me in her 80th year; "Let's get a little wild, and split a beer!"


I'll leave you with a party drink recipe sure to please! What else? Here's how to make a....

 "Sneaky Pete"

1/2 Gallon Jug

3 pkgs. frozen Raspberries (strain the seeds out)

Dissolve 1 C. sugar and 1 C. water and pour over the berries

Add 1/2 a Fifth of "CHEAP BOOZE"

Let stand for three weeks. 

Oh. Yeah. 

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!