Word of the Year

Mighty Warrior

/ Kelly Bea / Leave a comment

The lord is with you mighty warrior! Judges 6:12

Do you know this story? Its a good one! The angle of the Lord appears to Gideon and tells him he is mighty warrior and that he will deliver Israel from the Midianites. Gideon replies back that his family is the weakest in the land. The Lord says BUT I am with you and you will strike down Midianites.

Gideon asked not once, but twice for a sign that he really is God. Our God, ever so patient gave him the two signs. Then he asked Gideon to drop his army to 300 men to take down the Midianites. He trusted God– did what he said and they defeated the Midianites.

I relate to this story so much right now. I was drawn into a battle I wasn’t expecting. I had to seek understanding from God. I had to ask Him if I was doing the right thing. And I have to trust Him completely with something I have no control over.

Over the past 25 months God has done a work in me. I learned to stay steadfast no matter what got thrown at us and I learned to flourish in difficult times. Now He is telling me, “stay strong mighty warrior I am preparing the way”.

My name is Kelly Beatrice, but most everyone knows me as Kelly Bea. A couple months ago I was looking up the meanings of my boys names. As I was doing this it reminded me of the Precious Moments bookmark I use to have with my name and meaning of my name on it. Showing my age mentioning Precious Moments. I remember something about being mighty, but couldn’t exactly remember the meanings so I looked up mine and Kevin’s, too.

Kelly is an Irish name that means bright-headed; war and one who frequents churches. I do work at a church! Biblically my name means solider or warrior. Beatrice means bringer of joy and blessings.

Mid-November my name meaning kept popping back up randomly. I told my friend, Pamela I believe God is giving me my word already. Soon as I told her she was in full agreement. Despite feeling I had it I still went through the steps of finding my word and mantra in December. That is when God said “Kelly Bea you are my JOYFUL WARRIOR, lets prepare for battle!”

JOYFUL WARRIOR

Today I start on my knees in prayer and rise up in the full armor of God. Faith is my shield and His love is my armor. I know who I am because I know who He is. I am full of spark and passionate praise for I know the battle is already won! I walk in alignment with God slaying my day like the JOYFUL WARRIOR he created me to be!

Golly Gee I am in love with my word and mantra this year! The emotion overflows when I say it to myself. When I get up in the morning, hit my knees in prayer and rise up to start my day I feel His armor coming over me! I walk in confidence knowing He has already prepared the way for me. I just need to keep my focus on Him and slaying that enemy who tries so hard to steal, kill and destroy.

While going through the process of finding my word and writing my mantra I found a lot of Bible verses and song lyrics that hit just right.

1 Thessalonians 5:16 reminds us to always be joyful. Zephaniah 3:17 tells us the Lord is a mighty warrior who is always with us. Proverbs 17:22 says a joyful heart is good medicine. Ephesians 6 of courses tells of us the armor of God. Psalms 28:7 in the passion translation blew me away, “God is my strength and my wraparound shield. When I fully trust in you, help is on the way. I jump for joy and burst forth with ecstatic passionate praise”.

Some of the songs that have made my Joyful Warrior playlist are The Truth Song by Megan Woods, Battle Belongs by Phil Whickham, Take it Back by Tauren Wells, Warrior by Hannah Kerr, Raise a Hallelujah by Bethel, The Joy of the Lord by Rend Collective, The Joy Song by Motion Worship, Desperate by Jamie MacDonald and Won’t Back Down by Fearless Soul.

Part of Big Life Mentoring is living a BIG BEAUTIFUL LIFE! Pamela has an amazing goal writing system that works when you do the work. After getting my word, mantra and doing my year end review I was ready to write goals for 2025. Our goals are broken down into six areas: Spiritual, Health, Relationships, Mind-Happiness, Home-Money-Career and Fun! Once you have your goals for the year you break them down into monthly, weekly and daily goals using the Big Life Digital Planner. At the end of the year if you work the system you have done some living and accomplished your goals.

As if getting your word, mantra and goals written weren’t enough fun next I got to make a vision board. A daily visible reminder of who I am, whose I am and the plans we have. Remember goals are just dreams until you do something. Having this visual daily reminder will keep me focused on living big! I don’t just want to have big dreams. I want a big life! I want to grab up all God has available for me. In 52 years when I get to heaven I want to be able to say I lived to the full and have nothing left. And yes that would make me 103! I have a goal of living a full, happy and healthy 100+ years! I want to still be out gardening and tending to my chickens when the good Lord takes me home.

My Vision Board
Word & Mantra
Mind/Happiness
Spiritual
Relationship
Fun
Home/Money/Career
Health

Light Shine Bright

/ Kelly Bea / Leave a comment

As we rolled into 2021 we were still learning to live in a covid world.  Here in the United States we were dealing with election fallout and a change of Presidents.  Despite all the chaos that 2020 brought I was overflowing with joy for all the good God was doing in my life.

Restoring my relationship with God had me centered and focused on living the life He has in store for me. I knew that in 2021 I wanted to shine bright for him.  I wanted to be a light in the darkness. Most importantly I wanted people to look at me, see my zest for life and know it’s all because of God. With all that in mind the word ILLUMINATE became my word for 2021.

The mantra I said to myself daily: “With a heart on fire for the Lord, I will live my life with so much zest that I ILLUMINATE Him in all I do!”

Why ILLUMINATE?  The definition is “make (something) visible or bright by shining light on it; light up”. I want to light up God and how amazing He is.

Toby Mac has a song called “Lights Shine Bright” that was my theme song for that year.  Here is the first verse: 

I wanna magnify your light
I wanna reflect the sun
Cut like precious diamonds
With the colors by the millions
This is the only world we know
And for now this rental's our home
If we gonna be a reflection
Gotta make this third rock glow
(Just so you know)
Lights shine bright everywhere we go
Music for the people to illuminate the soul

I went to New Year Retreat in January of 2021.  This is where it was confirmed that illuminate was my word.  During retreat I really was able to connect and open up about my dreams.  When I left retreat I had my word, mantra and goals for 2021.  I also left with some forever friends and sisters in Christ.

The end of January I ran my first marathon with my 6AM Hotties there to cheer me on.  These are the girls I connected with during the height of covid in 2020.  We worked out together every morning at 6AM.  The only goal for my first marathon was to finish. Based on my 22 mile training run I was thinking I could finish in 5 hours and 5 minutes. 

The marathon started off in the low 60’s and it was raining.  I was happy about this, because I run well when it’s raining.  Around mile 14 the rain stopped, the sun shined bright and the humidity of the south kicked in.  This wasn’t good for me.  I get migraines when I overheat and I was overheating big time.  My pace slowed down and I was struggling big when I hit mile 20. 

Just as my mind was telling me I couldn’t finish my phone rang. It was my friends, Pamela and Jessica calling to cheer me on.  During their pep talk I cried and laughed. They gave me what I needed to finish! 

Just before I hit mile 26 I heard my hotties cheering for me. A couple of them ran with me giving me that burst of energy to finish strong.  I crossed the finish line in 5 hours and 35 minutes.  

Things were going great at work.  I was an administrative assistant on a government contract and in training as a ACPSO (Assistant Corporate Program Security Officer). 

On the other hand, my husband was miserable at his job.  He had been staring at code since 1997 and just needed a break.  My goal was to get to a place in my career that Kevin could quit his job and go do something else.

God had other plans. He dropped the first little spark one night in May.  Kevin and I were looking at old pictures on TV and one of our family farm in Kentucky popped up.  I made some comment about how this is the spot I always wanted to build a hunting cabin and he agreed.  That little spark caught fire and burned bright in a matter of months.

Seriously, by September we were closing on our house in Alabama and moving in with my mother in law in Kentucky.  We had our spot picked and we were talking to my uncle about building our little farmhouse.  

We felt God’s guidance every step of the way.  He was lighting our path.  We knew He had big plans for us in Kentucky. 

This blog started because I felt like God was telling me to share our story.  It was another way to ILLUMINATE Him.  You can go back to the beginning of my blog for all the details of how 2021 unfolded.

As 2021 came to an end we were soaking up all that God was doing in our lives.  On New Year’s Eve we moved into the back bedroom and guest bathroom of our little farmhouse. Although we still had a ways to go to finish the house we sure were excited to kick off New Years 2022 waking up on the farm!

New Year’s Eve

Oh my WORD!

/ Kelly Bea / 1 Comment

I want to tell you a story about how a single word can change the trajectory of your life. 

2019 was the year of Hurricane Dorrian and Notre Dame burning.  For me, it was a year of change. 

My oldest son had moved out and my youngest son had one foot out the door. Those two amazing humans have been my purpose since I became a mama in 1998.  

For the first time in my life I had a career not just a job.  I went from working a job in the school system on my boys schedule to government contract work. Life was shifting, but it was good.  Still something just felt off and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

During my drive to work I had started listening to a podcast called, Big Life Daily Devotional and this peppy speaker seemed to be fueled by Jesus and caffeine.  

She had me taking notes and reaching for my Bible. That’s when I began to realize it was God that was missing from my life.  Being that we were between churches my Bible had gotten put down and that led to spending less and less time with God.

Pamela Crim, the Big Life Podcast Host, had begun talking about a mentoring program she offered. I laughed and said, “I don’t need a mentor,” but that voice in my head started giving me a nudge. Maybe I did. 

In February 2020 I joined Big Life Mentoring. One of the things we are encouraged to do is pick a word for the year. Pamela actually does a workshop to help us come up with our word. The first thing we do is pray! Next we ask ourselves a few questions.  One of them being what do you want for the year ahead.  From that you begin to look for words that stick out and so on.  

I went through the steps of finding my word. Through prayer and answering those questions it was clear to me that I needed to return to God.  My relationship with Him needed to be repaired.  In order to fully live the life He has for me I needed to bring him back to the forefront and keep him there.  Which is why I chose RESTORE!

1 Peter 5:10 says “In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation”

I wasn’t going to church like I should have. I wasn’t spending time in the word or in prayer. I was not my happy go lucky self and I couldn’t figure out why. I was lost and searching in 2019.

Through finding Big Life Daily Devotional, God was already restoring me, but it wasn’t until I dove into mentoring that I realized what was missing was my relationship with Him.

Throughout 2020 when the world was falling apart, I got my spark back.  I found a church online that I loved.  I was reading my Bible and spending time in prayer with Him. I was truly happy and living my best life.

I signed up for my first marathon and stuck to my training program.  Running became another way for me to spend time with God.  I would go to the greenway at the nature preserve, put in my Christian music and just go.  I loved being out in nature, soaking up the sun (or the rain) and just spending time with him. I was actually running faster than I ever had.

My husband and I found we enjoyed being empty nesters. We totally took advantage at working from home together and creating fun ways to date while the world was shutdown.

I joined an accountability group through Big Life.  These girls became my prayer partners, my workout sisters and cheer squad. 

I even got brave enough to go on a Big Life Retreat with 41 strangers.  One of the best decisions of my life.  I ended up going on a 2nd retreat a few months later. It took me to beautiful Northern California. My first time visiting the state. I absolutely loved the ocean, the giant trees and vineyards. Exploring Glass Beach was one of the coolest experiences. I have now been on 11 retreats and am signed up to do two more!  

God restored me in spite of all that was going wrong!  He helped me see my purpose.  He showed me that when I put Him first, life is just better, even in the hard.  

As 2020 was coming to end God was continuing His work in mine and my husband, Kevin’s life. Little did we know He was restoring us in preparation for something big!