The Workout Plan

Wed, 02 May 2012 11:17:45 -0400

So I’m getting ready for my wedding right? It’s less than a month away and I have been slaving (ok, not really, just pretending like I’m slaving) trying to get this baby weight off of me. No really though; I work out, I’ve slowed down on sweet teas (which I could gulp about three a day), and….well, that about sums up my adjustments to lose these last seven pounds (LOL) but it has been a trip trying to get just this last bit of trimming off. So at one point, I made the decision to stop drinking sweet teas and force myself to drinking the tasteless, flavorless, non delightful water. Every. Single. Day. That, coupled with working out with a crazy trainer (my fiancé) was my last hope to taking out these last few pounds that I don’t want, right? And I was doing soooo good. For about two days. That may seem so minor to you that I didn’t drink sweet tea for two days, but I promise you—this southern girl right here, believes that sweet tea is just as important as taking a shower daily.

So here I am, two days strong and mighty from drinking water and while on my way to work I see a McDonalds just glowing, saying “Krissalyn stop here and get our sweet tea for only $1.06.” As I approached the light I felt like I was sweating or something, only to look down and realized that I had slobbered on myself. I mean really. I wanted it so bad. So what did I do? You guessed it. I pulled out that dollar, nickel and a penny and yielded to my temptation. Just knowing that when I put that straw to my mouth I would guzzle down the best swallow of sweet tea I’ve ever had in my life. But what happened? The minute I drank some, it was bitter, disgusting, and had very little sugar in it. I mean a sweet n low couldn’t even rescue this. Disappointed, I realized that me cheating my diet—which really in turn was me cheating myself wasn’t even worth it. I mean really, I felt totally defeated and as small as this may seem since I didn’t even finish it, it still made me feel like I had to start all the way over and work twice as hard just to compensate for my failure to stay in my lane with my diet.

Saying all that to say—don’t you ever feel that way about sin? I do. Before my fiancé and I made a decision to become celibate until we were married, not even five minutes after our sexual encounters I would feel disgusted with myself, even after repenting, I would still be like, “dang Krissalyn, now why did you do that?” What we must realize is that for every sip of sin that we like to swallow—whatever that sin may be, one day, we will have to acknowledge it; and for some of us—we may have to work hard to compensate for our mess ups. Thanks be to God, the best trainer there is, gives us sweet, tasteful, ambrosial sips of grace that’s always accessible in our day to day lifestyles. It is important, however, to realize that sin is not an asset to a healthy lifestyle. And while I’m using health metaphorically, I don’t know about you—but not having spiritual and mental health can JACK you up physically! No peace=no sleep, no joy=weeping, just to name a couple. I want to leave you with a scripture that should be able to help you before you make a decision to blatantly sin:

1 Cor 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

What does this mean??? It means that God will never put you in a situation in which you have no choice to escape. It means that no matter what sin is around you, God will never give you an excuse to stay in it. It means that God has given you power to overcome any temptation that comes your way, and ultimately you make the decision to get out. So even if there is temptation placed right in front of you—it’s your decision to walk away.

So I urge you to quit making excuses for yourself and quit trying to convince yourself that the cupcake begging you to eat it (insert your sin here) will be okay, especially if you do not plan on having a forgiveness plan. Let’s work out!

Purpose in the Midst of Pain; How to Handle Your Crisis with Christ

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:48:01 -0400

For a few months, God has been dealing with me on so many levels that it is overwhelming to even try to capture my entire testimony in one blog. However with the courage and strength God has placed inside of me, I now deem it an appropriate time to step forward and share my testimony because I am 100 % positive that this message is going to help someone. My plan is to write and develop a dialogue with my readers about how to handle Christian Crisis with Christ. Often times, in the midst of our trouble we turn to so many different avenues to fill voids that only Christ can fill, thus extending the amount of time needed to fix our situations. I am writing from my heart, I do not intend to give enormous (if any) amounts of scriptures in this blog, I will not over edit this piece; what I am going to give you is the raw, unadulterated truth as a sinner who has really found God’s peace through all of the mess I have created. My sole intent is to really try to help and encourage someone who has lost their way or feels that their sin overpowers Gods love and mercy, which is not the case.

Since I was a little girl, I have been infatuated with everything about church. I love the music, I love the structure, I love the people, and I loved the impact that it has had on my life. I mean honestly, I was in church so much that my reputation throughout my entire life has been “the good girl” without me even having to say anything. As a reflection of this title, I have never drank or smoked, I have never been one to really go out often and honestly for the majority of my life, I have lived off of that reputation—holding myself to a standard of not breaking these “good” habits so people could see me doing “good” things in the name of God. And although my relationship with God was an existent relationship, I must admit that my obligation was more to the church than it was to God. In essence, I walked around thinking I was epitomizing the ideal Christian because I went against the normalcy of the pressure that my peers often fell into. Of course I gossiped, I had sex, shacked up, I had evil thoughts (and the list goes on); but as far as I was concerned, I was on a high pedestal because no one could see those things….except God. When you think no one can see your dirt it is very easy to lie to yourself. I thought that I was somewhat perfect, and even though I knew I wasn’t exactly perfect I thought that my sins were better than everyone else’s. (I laugh now, but I mean how ignorant is that? Don’t act self righteous, you’ve done it too i.e.: “I mean I have sex, but I aint never killed nobody.”)

However, my life changed forever in January 2011, once I found out that I was pregnant. Upon finding out, you know what my first thoughts were? They sure weren’t “Oh my Lord Jesus, I am so sorry for disappointing you…I am so sorry for stepping out of your will.” Instead, my thoughts immediately jumped to “What are people going to think?” “My mom is going to kill me.” “What does this look like, the good girl done got pregnant.” Immediately, my thoughts jumped to—“I’m going to abort it.” I walked around for two whole months with all intentions of killing what was inside of me; still going to church, still singing on the praise team, still raising my hands “worshipping” with no conviction. Of course I knew it was wrong, but I felt no conviction because I avoided God. The dialogue that would normally take place was nonexistent; I made a conscious choice to turn my back to God so that I wouldn’t have to hear His voice. I walked around with this burden for a long time, not telling one soul besides my fiancé. I remember this time being a very toiling time for the both of us; I mean, I didn’t have a job and because abortions aren’t free I pressured him into agreeing to pay for it. I mean, of course I could not turn to anyone else because the last thing I wanted to do was have someone know my dirt and try to clean me up by talking me out of it. But here comes God.

I’m really not so good at hiding my emotions and so those around me that really knew me could tell that things were going on with me. I would lie (I became really good at that) and blame it on other circumstances around me, which was easy because literally everything seemed to be crumbling around me. I had this friend, who we will call Brittany (for the sake of anonymity) who was persistent in wanting me to talk to her about what was going on, but stubborn me refused to open up; meanwhile she told me that she had a dream about me. Brittany told me that in exchange for her telling me this dream, that I must open up and tell her what I was going through. That was in January. I could care less about her dream; my immediate thoughts were that it was something spiritual—and remember, I was running from my spirit because I had an alliance with my flesh in the plan to murder this child inside of me. Needless to say, me and my fiancé LaMont (who was NOT my fiancé at the time) continuously ran into problems that prohibited us from getting this abortion. My car broke down, one time his check was messed up, we couldn’t stop arguing etc.

One cold Tuesday in February, I couldn’t run anymore. Earlier that day, one of my ex boyfriends texts me out of nowhere telling me what he thinks is a hilarious story, about how he ran into my mom. At the time, he was working at BabiesRUs, and when he saw my mom he yelled from behind her, “What are you doing here?” Her response was, “Baby shopping for Krissalyn!” My mom, being the ultimate jokester turned around as if she was telling the truth (the truth was, she was shopping for my cousins baby shower that took place that weekend). She told him she was joking and they got a good laugh out of it; meanwhile I’m feeling dumb like, um…does my mom know?

Later that night I went to a praise team rehearsal and I was so frustrated upon leaving church. I remember me and LaMont arguing probably the worst we have ever argued because I hated going to church nonstop like nothing was going on, knowing that I had plans on killing this baby. To shut me up, he agreed that we would go get the abortion that Thursday. I’ll never forget the hurt in his face knowing that we were going to do this; he did not want this at all. Later that night, my friend Brittany knew something wasn’t right with me so she text me, and I told her everything under the sun was bothering me except what truly was. That night she said to me, “Ok, I know you haven’t told me what’s going on yet, but it’s time for me to tell you this dream.” It was too late for me to tell her not to tell me, as she didn’t wait for my permission but the texts continuously rolled in describing this dream. She told me that she was at church and stepped into the sanctuary during praise team practice and as I stepped out, I was about four months pregnant. BOOM.

You think I came clean even then? Nope. Instead I lied to her and was like, “well I’m definitely not pregnant so maybe your dream was about someone else.” I told her this because I knew she would try to talk me out of our abortion plan, which was set for that Thursday. That night I was pissed off and picked an argument with LaMont, blaming him for this whole situation; which clearly took two people to create. But the bigger problem was that I was still trying to avoid God by turning my attention to the argument I created with LaMont. I slammed my bathroom door and cried and cursed for what seemed like hours. I remember a gentle knock on the door and I finally opened it, and LaMont said to me, “Have you prayed about this?” I was tired of lying. Ashamed, I bowed my head and said “no.” Knowing that this was my time, I finally talked to God. And you know what He told me? He told me, clear as day, “Sure. Go ahead and get the abortion. But if you get it, I’m going to take something you love from you.” Wow. So now what? My immediate thoughts for my punishment of killing someone, was that he would take a person I loved away from me. Honestly, I didn’t know what He was going to take from me, but I for dang sure wasn’t about to take a risk as big as that. So it was that night, that I made a decision to stop letting Satan rule my thoughts, and as my stomach continues to grow with baby Kristen in it, clearly I didn’t go through with the abortion.

So what was the point of this long story?? Well a few things. You see, although for the majority of my life I had not made a mistake that would taint my accountability as this “devout” Christian, I finally realized why I was a Christian. If I were indeed perfect and if my life reflected all of what God has intended for us humans to be, my name wouldn’t be Krissalyn. It would be Jesus. But I didn’t die on a cross for nobody. I didn’t walk the earth perfectly even through all the turmoil that Jesus experienced; I am not the remedy for saving this dying world, my purpose is to be a vessel in which Jesus uses to save the world. Secondly, I had to realize that my relationship with the church was not equivalent to having a true relationship with God. No matter how many solos I killed at church, no matter how many programs I organized, how many people I brought to my church—I could not avoid the consequences of my sins, and more importantly I could not avoid God. Thirdly, I learned that if I were meant to be the judge of who was holy and who wasn’t, then this world would be in a million times more trouble than it is now. I walked around for so long with my nose tooted up thinking that I was perfect because couldn’t nobody see what I was doing, and in some cases that was true. But if you think for one moment that you are going to walk around exempt from God exposing you, you, much like I was, are crazy. God reigns on the just and the unjust and I know this to be true. However, I thank God for exposing me. I really do. Not only have I learned the beauty of God’s love for myself, I have learned that there is a reason for everything, and everybody. I have grown to be more compassionate than I have ever been before in my life.

But most of all—I have learned to be thankful. When I first heard my daughter’s heartbeat, I felt a love that I have never felt before. When I saw her for the first time during my ultrasound, my love grew even more and then I realized that if I were God, none of us would have the chance that we had today. I fell so deep in love, and realized that if I were given the choice of giving up my baby to death so that the world could have another chance, that I would pick my baby girl. I mean it really hit me that God gave his only begotten son, so that we will not perish but have everlasting life. What a gift. I learn more and more as this baby grows inside of me how awesome God is, and I find it very hard to believe that people can even doubt that God is real because only something as powerful as God can give your life a greater purpose even after we have sinned against Him.

So what do I want my readers to walk away with? I want you to walk away with a restoration of hope. I want you to know that God sees you for who you are and is willing to love you. No matter how far you have fallen, I promise you he will pick you up again and give you something that you could never imagine. In the midst of your Crisis, please my brothers and my sisters know that there is Christ there to help you through it all; and the quick fixes that we think help aid our problems: drinking, sexual immorality, talking about people, smoking, drugs, etc cannot do half of what God can do to help heal your problems. I am a firm believer that He alone is the only remedy to our problems, and when he fixes something, I mean really fixes something, there will never be a need to have to go back to the doctor, the porn site, the abortion clinic etc. I pray that you take your first step and learn to turn your back to sin and bring your heart to Christ. Our lives will never be perfect and exempt from sin, but I promise you that your life will be full of peace, joy, and God’s love; all of which are indescribable feelings that you will never want to forsake. I know this was long, but I appreciate your patience and hope that it blessed you. I love you in Jesus name, God bless you.

Crisis Management with Christ's Help

The Workout Plan

Purpose in the Midst of Pain; How to Handle Your Crisis with Christ