illuminate

I have no words…

/ Kelly Bea / 1 Comment

I go outside to feel closer to God.  Why? I can’t tell you why. I only know when I am outside surrounded by His creation I feel Him more. I can hear Him in the birds singing their songs.  I see Him in the clouds dancing across the azure blue skies.  I see Him in sunrises & sunsets as he paints the sky. I can feel Him when the wind blows, the snow falls and rain sprinkles.

Backporch Jesus Time

Outside there are no distractions.  No hum of electricity coming from the things in your house.  No TV blaring.  No house that says “clean me”.  No dust bunnies hopping across the floor reminding you to dustmop. Outside it is just you and all of God’s creation.

I have become a bird watcher!

Today the words weren’t coming and I thought maybe if I go outside they would.  They did not!  I said out loud to God, “I can’t find the words today God.  I need you.  I am desperate, but the words aren’t coming.”

In that moment the tears began to flow as I felt Him all around me.  It was like the birds got louder, the sun got brighter and the wind tickled my face.  I just let it all out as I soaked up His embrace.

After a few minutes I said, “God that is all I got today, but I promise I am going to get up and go be your JOYFUL WARRIOR!”.  

My Happy Place

Lamentations 3: 21-24 says “Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this. The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore I will hope in Him.”

Those verses are so good and give me such hope! God’s love and faithfulness will NEVER end! He is faithful to bring judgement and faithful to bring restoration. He provides all we need.

My study Bible said the faithful love of the Lord is the basis for the poets recovery from deep depression. I can relate to this. It’s because of my faith I am able to live with joy during this difficult time.

It’s been 26 months and 26 days since I was betrayed by someone I loved my whole life.  Sadly, the hit that came that day was only the beginning.  It continued to get worse and worse.

Since that day my emotions have run the gamut from confusion & hurt to finding my joy again. I worked very hard to find and keep my joy.  Most days it is easy, but there are days when everything hits all at once.  That feeling of overwhelm takes over and tries its hardest to pull me into the darkness.  

That is why I am so grateful I have God.  I stay tethered tightly to him through prayer, conversation and His word.  He alone keeps me living fully and with a heart of joy.

Jumping for Joy!

I know God is working hard in all this.  He can take what the devil intends for harm and make it outstandingly wonderful.  

I know I have been changed because of this trail.  I am closer to God now than I ever have been.  Would that be the case if this didn’t happen? 

If you look back on our journey we are back in Kentucky because we trusted God and took a huge leap of faith.  Quitting our jobs, leaving our boys and the life we created in Alabama and relocating to our farm.  We had no clue what we would do when we got here.  We just listened to God.  

Looking back I see how I was overly excited about building our little farmhouse.  Did that distract me from the reason He brought us here? Did we steer off course? Is He using this to pull us back?  Is He using us to bring someone back to Him?  Is He teaching someone not to put things of this Earth above Him? Is He using this to show His mighty power? All could be a possibility!

I might not ever understand the why?  That is okay!  I can already see the good coming from it.  I see God changing my heart and molding me into the girl He created me to be.  He is showing me what is and is not important. He has given me a heart of service and shown me where I can serve.  He is showing me how to shine bright for him.  

I think He is working on the person who hurt us, too.  To be honest I get a lot of kickback when I mention this to some.  I always grin and say “our God is the God of the impossible”!

Luke 1:37 “With God nothing is impossible”.

Luke 18:27 “the things which are impossible with men, are possible with God”.

Get outside with God!

Back to having no words.  Just remember when we don’t have the words, God still knows because the Holy Spirit living in our hearts is a direct line to Him..

Romans 8:26-28 says “And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.  And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.  And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them”.

So when the words don’t come, go to Him anyway.  When you don’t understand, go to Him anyway.  Trust fully in Him.

Choose Your Life

/ Kelly Bea / Leave a comment

Picture it–Gatlinburg in January! A spectacular cabin in the stunning snowy mountains. A cabin full of God’s girls connecting, growing and loving on each other. This cabin, the coziness and the views only drew us closer to God.

That is where I meet this beautiful soul. Jill has this light about her. She was quiet, but also had this spark that was ready burst out of her. She reminded me of myself at my first retreat. We have to take a step back, take it all in and slowly come out of our shell.

I know for myself Big Life taught me how to live like a child again. Fearlessly stepping into each day and soaking up all God had available. Being grateful for the little things and living without fear of what others think of you.

Back to Jill, God was taking her story and blowing it up! It’s a redemption story that she was holding close to the vest, but God had other plans. He knew she was ready to illuminate the world with her spark. A spark that shines bright for living life with Jesus and free of addiction.

You see Jill has been sober for a year and she loves her some Jesus! Jesus nudged her into sharing her story. Last week she was telling us how God is showing off. Multiple people have reached out to her about how she inspired them and they are now on a journey to sobriety.

Jill living FREE!

There was this one little sentence she said that completely blew my mind! Seriously, I read it multiple times and wrote it on a sticky note. She said they decided to choose their life over alcohol! Such a simple statement yet it hit me so hard.

What are you choosing over your life?!?! That statement wouldn’t leave my mind. Its why I am writing this right now. What worldly things do we put above living our lives the way God intended. We have this one life that God has given us.

Are we living it wisely? Are we fully living? Are we walking with Him or are we distracted? Seriously consider where you spend most of your time. Are you scrolling social media? Are you addicted to working? Are you devoted to alcohol? Are you consumed with your next snack? Are you thinking about your next high? Are you glued to a TV or computer screen?

Take a moment to do a inventory of where you spend your time. Are you living life to the full or does something have a hold on you? Are you living little because of an addiction or are you walking in alignment with God fully living?

If am being totally honest I would say that my two biggest distractions from living are getting stuck binge watching a tv show or mindlessly scrolling. This tends to be worse during these cold and yucky winter months. Still its no excuse for wasting my life watching TV and scrolling on my phone. I checked myself and was shocked to see my screen time daily average. Have you checked that setting on your phone recently? Maybe you should. It might light a fire to stop wasting life and get out there and live life. Ask yourself do you want to watch other people live or get busy living your life!

I am choosing to end some TV subscriptions today. I am removing some apps from my phone as well. In their place I am going to be outside more. I am going to sit on my porch and soak up the sunshine and nature. I am going to date my husband. I am going to connect more with my family and friends. I am going to go for walks and talk to God more. I am going to sit with Him and my Bible. I am going to following His promptings to better living.

Ask yourself what you are choosing over living? Pay attention to the first thing(s) that pops in your head when you honestly ask yourself that question! Lets make some changes and get busy living this one life God has granted us.

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