Mighty Warrior

January 6, 2025January 6, 2025 / 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.

Treasured Year

December 3, 2024 / Kelly Bea / 1 Comment

What a year 2022 was! In world news there was a baby formula shortage, the Winter Olympics and Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. For us 2022 was a sweet year!

Waking up New Years day in our new home was the absolute best. We might of had to roll out of bed since we were sleeping on a air mattress in the guest bedroom, but we were in our little farmhouse. Our dogs could finally settle because we were in our forever home.

After a month we upgraded to a a real mattress (still on the floor)

January brought a new job for me. I was working as a Early Head Start teachers aide. By May I had changed positions and became a Family Advocate. Little did I know this job would help to me see the needs of our new little town. Kevin’s mom had her stomach surgery to remove her cancer, too. Thank you Jesus after chemo and surgery she was and remains cancer free.

January 6th we got our first snow. I was so excited! After 18 years in Alabama snow was not something we got to enjoy. It stayed cold so we got to enjoy this snow for a few days. We did some little projects around the house while we were stuck at the farm.

I also went to New Years Retreat again this year. It was something I really needed. I had no idea what our new life in Kentucky was going to look like. I just new God wanted us here. By the time I left I had goals, a word and mantra. With Pamela’s help we discovered my word for 2022 was TREASURE! It was time to treasure all that God has done in our lives.

February started with an ice storm. No thank you! Just snow please. Our kitchen cabinets finally arrived in the middle of the frozen mess. Kevin and I got them installed. Kevin started on our “custom” range hood Valentine’s day. And by custom I mean using the pallets the bricks came on to create what I pinned on Pinterest. 😎

Mid-February we experienced our first flood on the farm. Sadly, Kevin was stuck on the farm and I couldn’t get home. Luckily, the next time it flooded we were both home!

By the end of March we had the curtains hung, the island countertop was installed, we planted some trees, the master bath was finished and we got to move into our master suite. My uncle brought out an old barn post for our mantle and had his guys wrap up a couple odds and ends around the house. We also used leftover pallet wood to build our chicken coop.

April we started a garden and explored the farm. I treasured Sunday afternoon farm walks with Lollie. I found peace watching the chickens while sitting on the porch having some time with God. I could get lost in prayer while working in the garden. It was a great spring.

The house was slowly coming together. We went from a partially done home with boxes everywhere to rooms coming together and our house becoming a home. Middle of May we finally got our countertops and had a fully functioning kitchen. Kevin got the closets put together and we filled them full.

Seeing Nadya go to prom and graduate high school was a blessing, too. Our sweet Naddie Lou was all grown up and thriving. Considering all that she went through during her 19 years of life she had a great head on her shoulders and was ready to conquer the world.

The end of May Kevin turned the big 5-0! We celebrated his birthday on the farm with friends. He had a donut cake with the most amazing donuts made by the Amish.

June and July we tended to the garden, got settled in our home and explore our little town of Marion. We were starting to get some veggie from the garden and the chickens were beginning to lay eggs. Life was really great!

I drove up to St. Louis and met up with Stacey and we round tripped to Oklahoma City, OK to celebrate our friend, Kim turning 50. After that we road tripped to Table Rock Lake, MO to spent the week on a houseboat with our Big Life Sisters. What an amazing 7 days of life we had!

Next was a weekend of life with my 80’s ladies. We have been friends since the 1980’s and love our yearly get togethers. I treasure our time together. It truly is amazing when you can get together once a year and pick up right where you left off.

The garden was producing faster than we could keep up. Fortunately, we found a local church that has a food bank and started donating fresh veggies to them. We felt God saying this is why you are here. Grow more and give more. It filled us with joy to be able to do this. In October we were still filling buckets and boxes of veggies to donate to the food pantry. Thank you God we love it.

In the fall Kevin and I working on finishing the mudroom and the pantry. Finally, the house was close to being done. I was starting to make list of places I need to touch up paint and little things that needed a quick fix, but I would say the house was finally.

We finally got the piano moved to the house!

We got to celebrate Thanksgivings, but snow kept us stuck at the farm alone for Christmas. We loved it and made the most of it, but it was sad not having the boys with us. Thankfully we got to meet up with them in Nashville on the 29th. We had dinner and “parking lot Christmas”. We literally parked side by side and did a gift exchange. It will be a Christmas we will never forget.

2022 was truly a year that I treasured. Our lives had completely changed. We went from spending up to 2 hours a day commuting and working 40+ hours a week to a slower and much happier life. I was a Family Advocate at Chapel Hill working just 200 days a year from 7-3. Kevin was able to not work for a full 11 months and is now a bus driver for the head start program working just 200 days year. Life was so good and we were treasuring it.

Light Shine Bright

November 14, 2024 / 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!

Faith to the Farm

Our journey of trusting God

word

Mighty Warrior

Treasured Year

Light Shine Bright