"IT IS FINISHED!"

I am VERY VERY pleased to announce that I am OFFICIALLY on Christmas break! (And for those of you keeping up with the posts, it means I finished Spanish! With a full attempt not to complain! Including putting that sign up I was talking about) You know, I entitled this blog "It is finished" for a lot of reasons... One of them was DEFINITLY because hey, I really wanted to be done with finals and school and etc... But I think the biggest reason for it was the thought of where those words come from, and that would be the Bible (The B-I-B-L-E yes thats the book for me... HA HA! it is the truth!) As i thought about I thought more about how those words were the reason for Christmas, With the "Big Day" approaching (Evidenced especially by the lack of parking at malls, screaming children not quite patient as they wait for Santa, and loud bells outside of Wal-Marts everywhere...) people sooo often forget that there is soooooooo much more... and even if they do acknowledge Jesus' birth as told by the excellent movie in theaters now The Nativity Story they often leave Jesus as "a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger..." and forget that the whole reason he came didn't come about for another 33 years! and wasn't in a manger, but was on "an old rugged cross" after constant beatings that left him unrecognizable as a human, after mock trials, and so many other forms of torture we cannot even comprehend... People like to accept the beginning and dismiss the grown up-baby's full purpose... and that was to restore a close relationship with the Father... And to "seek and save the lost..."The salvation story all begins with the Christmas story and that is only the beginning leading up to the "it is finished" part... I love Christmas even with the lines at the mall, the screaming children in them, the chiming bells, and even the frustrated people because it is the time of year that reminds me of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the Savior of the world! And it gives the perfect lead in to share the message of Hope this year... I praise the Father in heaven because He came as a Baby in a way that no other human has (a virgin birth)... I praise the fact that he made Himself nothing, that He did NOT lose his power but instead limited it to become the most helpless man He could be... I praise that he knows exactly what we go through because He has been there, and I seek to praise Him in all that I do... And I definitly praise Him for me finishing school for the semester! AMEN!

Brain OVERLOAD! Heart needs to RELOAD...

So this past week or two I have been trying to start wrapping school up for the semester and what ended up happening was doing one subject at a time till it all got done... so after finishing History, Math, and English I was left with Chemistry and Spanish and twenty lessons of each... (Now for those of you who seem to forget how many hours that should be, multiply lessons by one...) so at first i was all excited about getting in there and working hard but well by the 15th lesson of Chemistry I was a little bit not so, whats the word, EXCITED but I kept working and today I finished my Chem. Exam and was left with only 21 lessons of Spanish... as I was looking at all the work I needed to do i began to get discouraged (imagine that! LOL) and soon began to complain... and even get a little frustrated and maybe began to feel a little bit like if a heard another "Hola" my head would explode!!! The war in my head was getting quite intense and even a little painful and then it hit, like a huge cannonball aimed straight at a castle, my conscience told me that the attitude i was emitting stunk and I mean BAD... And as I am writing this I am still working on figuring out my battle plan for kicking the complaints and frustration out of the running... But I think possibly I should make a HUGE sign with this verse printed in both Spanish and English and tape it to the wall in front of my desk...
Philippians 2:14-15a
"Do everything without complaining or argueing so that you may become blameless and pure..."
So that and a whole lot of prayer and perseverence and choosing JOY and I will be ready to get in there and finish a LOT of Spanish... God sure does use odd things to teach us awesome lessons! I like that, Odd things to teach Awesome lessons... Well, Adios and if you need me, you can probably guess where you'd find me for the next couple days!

P.S. The weirdest thing is that I actually like my Spanish class! LOL

So much to say... So why didn't I say it?

Have you ever had that feeling after a conversation where you cannot stop thinking about what you should have said? Well, yesterday I answered the door and two ladies were standing there with books and pamphlets... and as some may have guessed they were Jehovah's witness'... They asked if my parents were around and while my parents were in the other room they wanted ME to handle it alone. And I was left there dumfounded... they asked there questions and made there statements and yet, me--a girl who has been a Christian for 9 years, someone who has been in deep Bible classes since kindergarten, a Pastor's daughter, someone who always imagined defending the faith for some great cause--I didn't say a word to challenge their beliefs to stand up for the faith i cling to... After accepting a flyer to try to get them to leave and closing the door i felt guilty. more guilty then I can ever remember feeling because i saw my oppurtunity and ignored it... for soo long i have prayed that God would send me an oppurtunity to witness to someone and when He did, I in my selfishness chose not to respond... All day long verses i had memorized came to my head about Christ being God and how the Trinity is equal and the same yet different and I continually thought "Why didn't i say that?" or "Wow i should have showed them that..." immediatly after closing that door i walked to the back room where my mom was and responded with "Thanks for the help it was greatly appreciated..." and though at the time it was pure sarcasm, i see now that it truly was help because I learned that Faith is one thing and APPLICATION with FAITH is another thing entirely...
James 2:14-19
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
I Know now that God has changed the way I look at witnessing... because now I have seen first hand what a missed oppurtunity looks like, and it is not pleasant... I challenge you to be willing to put feet on faith!!! And hey, the next time your doorbell rings, why don't you be the one with YOUR Bible in hand?
I am ready to be a light now even if that means a little but of work and even resistence or persecution because Jesus Christ went though soooo much for me.... Life is not about me, when I look at my feelings at that doorway i was thinking about me and because of that all words of God that i knew were gone because I didn't ask for His help... So I decide to take a stand the next time I answer that door and find myself getting the oppurtunity to stand up for the God that died for me...

Intro...

Hey... I am Kristi and this is my fist blog entry... As stated in the title, I am a Follower of Christ and that is literally the translation of my name... but more then a name, it is who i am.... Without Christ I am nothing and without His sacrifice i would be as a good as dead...
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave His one only son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."
I love life because it is such a gift and it is such a miracle! recently I had the oppurtunity of Babysitting twins only a month old and it just reminded me of how much God truly did love the world by becoming a helpless baby in order to bring us life. The true King of kings made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant to be the way to forgiviness of sins and the way to eternal life for us. and that is what i base my life on. my desire is to grow more and more like him on a daily basis even as i go about in the mundain tasks of a teenage life... (And that means trying to do chemistry without complaining... hmmm, I'll start working on that one... lol)
So this is me and what I am about and in the blogs to come i will expound the experiences that God sees me through and the lessons He takes the time to teach even a girl like me.

Kristi Joy