moving, ER trips and upcoming surgery...

I haven't updated my blog since May and my life is dramatically different from then. Most of the time it feels as thought my life shifts within a week so you can imagine the changes in five months. To start I moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan in July. Lauren and I found this apartment in Comstock Park and it's been great. Seriously, there are few people that I can live with. I don't do drama and have little patience for petty behaviors or catty girls. This is EXACTLY why we work so well.

So about a month and a half ago I went to the ER due to what at the time felt like a heart attack or something maybe not as bad but pretty serious. It turned out that it was gallstones and the diagnosis was to have my gallbladder removed. I was put on a strict diet and told that if that went well that I could move to a bland diet. That is literally what it is. It is literally the most boring eating experience: no tomato based sauces, no spices, all dairy has to be low-fat and water and juice only to drink. I found a olive oil based butter substitute, switched to Coconut Milk and add avacadoes to nearly everything. I've gotten a lot of questions about why I stick to such a strict diet..the answer is quite simple: pain is my motiviation. Say you're favorite food in the world is pizza and your doctor says not to eat it. Not imagine if you do eat that your body will feel like it is literally having a heart attack and then the pain will travel to your back and then to your stomach and could last an hour to a day and there is nothing to do but wait it out. How appealing is your favorite food now? I am always in pain but the for the most part it's a dull pain and when it's not I take my pain medicine. After my first weekend of a few ER trips I made an appointment to meet with the surgeon and had to wait a month to see her. The meeting came and went and she told me about the surgery and scheduled it for a month from then. Not too happy I asked if there was any way to move it and they put me on a 'cancellation list' and prayed for a cancellation. Two weeks ago I was so much pain one night that I asked Lauren to take me to the hospital and he said that I was having spasms and that it would progressively getting worse. He suggested I call the surgeon back and request an earlier surgery since at this time I still have a little less than a month til the surgery. I called and they scheduled me for this Friday the 4th. I am anxious, nervous and optimistic about it. I've never had a surgery in my life and although it's considered an 'easy surgery' I'm still having surgery and an organ taken out of my body. Jesus and I have been chatting about it for a long time.

In other news I love my job. It's such a wonderful thing to truly enjoy what you do. I work at a childcare facility which is through the YMCA. At the moment I am a floater/sub and it's only part time. I am still praying about the possibility of it moving to a consistent full time job. We will see what happens after the surgery since I'm out of work for a week.

Church wise I have been attending Frontline. I absolutely love the church and am plugging in where I see a good fit. Twice a month I teach Sunday school for the second and third grade class and am a small group leader in both the junior and senior high youth groups. I also am starting a small group soon. I am very excited to see what relationships God cultivates through my experiences here.

That's me. If you think about it on Friday send a prayer for me. Never too many people praying.
Kris

who are you?

Recently I have been asked by a few family members, "who are you?" This to me is a compliment and proof that I am evolving and changing for the better. The past two years I have had the worst problems with my health. I often feel sick and beyond tired. I have been leaning more toward healthy lifestyle choices. I started working out and taking more walks. I noticed that I felt the most horrible after I would eat. This made me do some research. As someone who has a food allergy, food can be a struggle. I've had to adjust my menu and I added vegetables as a source of protein that I was not gaining from eggs. In the last few months I have been watching what I have. One of things is that I have been trying to avoid is high fructose corn syrup. It took a few stores but I did find a ketchup without it, I have yet to find a BBQ sauce and I now drink water. I was drinking tea to try to be healthier and found that even that had it unless I make tea by dropping a bag in some water. This was shocking to find the first ingredient in my tea was a corn syrup.

I cut out sugary and corn syrup type drinks and added more vegetables to my diet but I still felt sick. I started to journal when and what I was feeling sick. I started to notice that I always felt the worse after each meal. I started to look at when I felt the worse and it was at dinner when we had a large amount of meat, usually mostly red meat and started looking into a 'plant-based diet'. I read articles online, watched documentaries about it and of course prayed about it. I stopped by a local farmers market and stocked up on vegetables and fruits. I started only eating meat at dinner. After two days of feeling great all day and then feeling sick after dinner I decided that the choice to stop eating meat was for me. I want to be very very clear. I am not an animal activist. Although I do believe that life is precious and animal cruelty is a problem. However I am not choosing the vegetarian/plant-based diet because of animals. It is a personal choice...a health choice.

To be honest I thought it was going to be really difficult to do. It has been a challenge but not as difficult. I think having a food allergy helps. It's not uncommon for me to eat something different than those in my family or to buy separate food. I just added more greens and grains that I would normally eat. This is the new me at least for the next year. I committed to doing this for a year. I have been only doing this for a week (and two days with absolutely no meat) and I have never felt better and it's only been a week. For the past year I have been challenging myself to do things to improve my life. Thanks for reading.

Who Am I?

Taking it personal...

As much as you try (and you is meaning me) things feel personal. Even if not meaning to. I just got out of a meeting that discussed the future program that I am currently in charge of. They made a very long list of things to be improved and changed. It was hard to not feel like I was being dumped on. For a ministry that is "part time" there is a limit to what I could do. Most people were future focused but there were a few that seemed to focus on the here and now and what "is currently wrong" which makes it very difficult to not take personally. There will always be those who think you're not doing something well enough and will nit pick you and nothing will ever be good enough. There is one in every congregations and the one at mine is very vocal about the "youth program" and how I run it. I wish I knew how to not take it personally. It's something I am working on and learning as I go. I am glad they are continuing the program and not leaving it to parent volunteers, which i believe is a terrible idea, and they are even looking at making it a full time position. GREAT IDEA. I'm  glad they are looking to the future but I have never been more nervous and uncomfortable in a meeting. I am looking forward to doing ministry in Grand Rapids and being where God wants me to be. I have learned a great deal about myself, ministry and working together through this opportunity of working at this church. I think God blessed me to be sitting around encouragers today in the meeting and not the few negative people there. They went out of their way to encourage me.

Today was difficult but God is still faithful and loves me very much!

Season of Singleness

Well its Valentine's day... we single people have had 365 days to find someone and for some reason there was no one on this miserable planet who would take us. We have failed 365 times and, in true honesty, the next 365 days arent exactly looking like the beginning of a crappy romantic comedy. heres to us! The supporting characters in someone elses love story. The Fat Amys, Luigis, Eponines, and anyone else who can sing their little broken hearts to a sad love song on the spot. Heres to another 365 days still being ready to mingle lol HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!!!

I stole the above statement from a facebook status. This status is in fact what is wrong with the world's view of singleness. I believe that being single is a season in life. I do NOT believe it's a disease as much of our society would let you think. It can be a beautiful time in your life when God can teach you the lessons you need to know. The bible doesn't ever say that those who are single should stop whatever they are doing and find out what is holding them back from being with someone.  The scriptures below say what I feel about the season of singleness. This time is a gift from God and nothing more:

1 Corinthians 7:32-35

 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.  I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

Fasting in a distracted world...

I have made a huge decision. I have told a few people what it is but am not going to make it public until it is official. Time will tell when that will be. Time is what I have, unless Jesus comes and then HALLELUJAH! Until then though I have some major decisions to make. In talking to close friends they have agreed to keep me accountable as I make the decision to fast certain things in my life which take up so much time that I am not allowing myself time to pray, meditate and think about the decisions before me. For the first two weeks I gave up Facebook. To be honest that one was a little bit easy. It was a relief to not go on facebook. My conversations resulted in going deeper than "did you see such and such on fb..." They were meaningful. I found that at time facebook was burdomsome, dramatic and a pleasure to fast from. I was thinking of going for a month but it didn't feel like a fast. So on the way to church on the Sunday after the 'so called facebook fast' ended i prayed about what to give up next. I immediately prayed that it wouldn't be nexflix and God said 'that's it'. sigh. i love netflix and since i don't really watch tv and have no cable that's it. Other than pandora it's my primary source of entertainment. I told a friend and she graciously said she's fast it with me. I decided that I wanted it to be a meaningful fast so during "primetime nextflix times" I have a list of Christian books and books of the bible i'd like to read during these times. So far it's been great (and only two days). I have noticed that my evenings are more open now without another netflix marathon.

 So my dad was confused when i told him i was giving nexflix. Partially because most of my walk with God is perplexing to those on the outside and also partially because he thought that the family was giving it up. i told him i couldn't stop them from watching but was going to read during the usual netflix night times. I decided to do my best to try to explain what a fast it (esp to someone who doens't speak 'Christian-ese' and this was my best, "I have made this decison and in order to see the big picture of what God wants me to do I am giving up things. I choose Netflix because i love it so much. I am giving up things that distract me from thinking about the big picture and what I want to come out of this huge decision."

 I did my best, Kris

explaining fasting...

I have made a huge decision. I have told a few people what it is but am not going to make it public until it is official. Time will tell when that will be. Time is what I have, unless Jesus comes and then HALLELUJAH! Until then though I have some major decisions to make. In talking to close friends they have agreed to keep me accountable as I make the decision to fast certain things in my life which take up so much time that I am not allowing myself time to pray, meditate and think about the decisions before me. For the first two weeks I gave up Facebook. To be honest that one was a little bit easy. It was a relief to not go on facebook. My conversations resulted in going deeper than "did you see such and such on fb..." They were meaningful. I found that at time facebook was burdomsome, dramatic and a pleasure to fast from. I was thinking of going for a month but it didn't feel like a fast. So on the way to church on the Sunday after the 'so called facebook fast' ended i prayed about what to give up next. I immediately prayed that it wouldn't be nexflix and God said 'that's it'. sigh. i love netflix and since i don't really watch tv and have no cable that's it. Other than pandora it's my primary source of entertainment. I told a friend and she graciously said she's fast it with me. I decided that I wanted it to be a meaningful fast so during "primetime nextflix times" I have a list of Christian books and books of the bible i'd like to read during these times. So far it's been great (and only two days). I have noticed that my evenings are more open now without another netflix marathon.

 So my dad was confused when i told him i was giving nexflix. Partially because most of my walk with God is perplexing to those on the outside and also partially because he thought that the family was giving it up. i told him i couldn't stop them from watching but was going to read during the usual netflix night times. I decided to do my best to try to explain what a fast it (esp to someone who doens't speak 'Christian-ese' and this was my best, "I have made this decison and in order to see the big picture of what God wants me to do I am giving up things. I choose Netflix because i love it so much. I am giving up things that distract me from thinking about the big picture and what I want to come out of this huge decision."

 I did my best, Kris