dis·com·bob·u·lat·ed

*To throw into a state of confusion*

I used to think the word caprious best captured my everyday life in thoughts and actions but now I think discombobulated does. I have been out of control busy for the past two weeks. Ok let me back up. I blogged a week or so ago about how I wanted to stay positive for the week to come. I did pretty well with that. My office moved from SE to NW. Well let's put it more like I moved the office and everyone else showed up to ask questions. I'm not complaining, just being sarcastic. I knew from the get go that this would be in my court and nothing went wrong, we moved in ahead of schedule, but it was just stressful. I haven't managed multiple people and pieces in a while and I forgot how time consuming and brain consuming it is. There were alot of points where I could have been negative or told people to stop asking stupid questions, but I really held it together well. Work hasn't slowed down much, it's actually picked up, but such is life.

I've definitely been connecting more to God lately (thank you Melinda and Stacey for the encouragement) and I've recognized that as I'm working to get over this hump in my life and move on to the better Kristen, I'm encountering a type of spiritual warfare like never before. I don't have time to go into it in detail but I feel like I'm being attacked physically. I'm exhausted everyday and all I want to do is sleep but no matter how much sleep I get, I'm never rested. And of course, hundreds of thoughts have flown through my head like: maybe you have mono, maybe you have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or maybe you have some crazy cell disease nobody has ever heard of....and then I tell myself to snap out of it and ask God to give me energy. I'm afraid to go to the doctor b/c I'm paying for my medical insurance which is illness or injury only so I'm just hoping that this is nothing to be concerned about.

BUT despite that junk, life is good. I have a cool job, get to go snowboarding this weekend, have a patient and fun boyfriend and committed friends.

Ok...back to work:-)

deeper

I really want to have a deeper relationship with God. Over the last year I feel like I've shortchanged myself with Him. My pessimism and lack of discipline has gotten in the way of our connection. The past two weeks however have been awesome. I felt like I was connecting with God again on a level that is more than feelings, a genuine spiritual connection. The devil knows this though and has stepped up his quest to keep my mind on the negative things. When I am excited about what God is doing in my life I feel like I'm on top of the world...and then I look to my left and something is crumbling apart.
I usually attribute my negative attitude to my home environment. I grew up a happy kid but somewhere in there my mom changed. She stopped having friends, stopped doing the things she loved and really disconnected from us. Because of her upbringing, I don't think she could ever trust anyone...she moved over 20 times in her childhood and went to three high schools....that would do a number on any kid. Because we used to spend so much time together, I would play off her emotions and moods. My dad was gone a lot, either on a tour of duty or just out town on business so I learned some things from my mom that I wish I hadn't. My sisters were older so they moved out and it was pretty much me and my mom for a while. I know that I can't blame her for my actions and attitude but I also can't help but see that our short-comings are exactly the same. We fear so much in life (fear of failing mostly) that we rob oursleves from really living. We push people away who want to know us intimately, and we beat ourselves up for things which are not in our control.
My goal for the next week is to put my full effort towards spending time with God and getting right with God. I have to be ready to sacrifice relationships and personal satisfaction to spend time with my Savior. I need so much peace and restoration in my life right now and I know that only God can provide that for me. I have to be the person that He made me to be in order to function in this world, I know that starts with forgiving myself and submitting to His plan.

Wish me luck this week..positive thoughts are the name of the game!

Missing your big chance..

today i might have missed a big chance to prove myself. i was so engrossed in a project i was working on, determined to finish it, that i couldn't see anything else. about 10am this morning i got an email from somebody in our SEA office asking if i could help with a peice of an RFP our team was working on. i scanned the email and thought sure, i can do that later this afternoon, no biggie. well, 3PM rolls around and my boss starts sending me all these emails about the original email with documents attached etc. one of her emails said "this needs to be fed-ex'd tomorrow AM". i immediately started to freak out. not only had i missed a chance to be on top of things and organized but i coudnt redeem myself b/c i had to leave right at 5pm due to the fact that i am house-sitting/taking care of a 14yr old for a week ( i call it a gig but its actually taking care of another human being, not easy for me). so i apologized for not being on top of it and did everything i could to coordinate people and paper to end up in the right place. i think eveything will turn out just fine but on my drive home i kept think...did you miss a big chance? not that i would have been asked to write anything important in our proposal, but i would have been a part of putting something into it. i know my boss knows how hard i've been working on the details for our move and other projects she's given me but it's so hard not to wonder.


but the sunset worth leaving early for tonight....

test for jess

Stop Here on Red

I have long been fascinated by traffic signals. Until I was about twelve or thirteen I used ot think that little people lived inside the lights and waited until a lane had lots of cars lined up, and then radioed to his little friends that he was going green. It seemed really logical to me at the time. Today I'm still baffled at how traffic lights regulate our driving pattern. Every morning when I merge onto 26 from Sylvan, I am joined by many other cars as we inch and crawl our way to the light. And then we wait anxiously, some of us more than others, for the light to turn green and affirm our inclination to go. I really don't beilieve that lights at onramps have helped our traffic flow all that much, and don't even get me started on "traffic calming humps" in Beaverton.

I often blow straight through those red lights when merging if nobody is around b/c I think they are pretty ridiculous. What if our signals were switched and Red meant go, Green was stop. I wonder which came first, the red light green light game or traffic signals.

Passion

I've been thinking alot about passion lately. It seems that I've lost mine. I can honestly say I used to be very passionate about God, serving youth, dancing, sports and friends. But I really feel like I've lost my passion to do those things. I've allowed my fears and my comfort zone to own me and my time. Lately, I've been noticing more passion in my friends' lives and I have to be honest that I'm a bit jealous. I remember what it was like to dance across a stage or play on a court and not care what other people thought, it was so freeing...I miss feeling free.

It's not a coincidence that I've also been thinking about what "freedom in Christ" means. I believe that when you truly find your freedom in Christ, you find your passion. When you feel chained to certain feelings, habits, or ways, freedom is a tough thing to attain and passion is fleeting. I often remind myself that God has made each one of us in a unique likeness to Him and that other people's passions are not to be in competition with ours, or to even compliment ours. They just simply are. I know God has gifted me with certain talents and passions and I really want to tap into them. I need some hobbies of my own and I want to have those moments with God again where it's like He's the only one watching. I love those moments.

On another note, thanks to everyone who wrote/called to ask about my grandma. The service last week was really nice and I think my grandma got a great farewell. Her death really opened our families eyes to how much she held our family together. She really was the glue of our family, always updating everyone about the happenings of everyone else, sending cards at Christmas and birthday's. I pray that her life legacy impacted my mom and her siblings enough to make them think about sharing more of their lives across time and space.

That's all for now....(p.s. did you check out the moon tonight? wow)

When it rains.....

This is a picture of my grandma Lois and I a year ago when they visited. Her situation has gotten progressively worse over the last week and a half. She's been in the ICU for almost two weeks now, and still no change. She has been breathing through a ventilator for most of those two weeks. She still has a lung infection, blood infection and the spot on her abdomen is most likely more cancer. My mom and her siblings are all in CO and tomorrow they will end her life support. This is one of the weirdest situations I've ever dealt with. I've seen suicide, death by a drunk driver, natural death by cancer at an old age, but I've never been in a situation like this. I know that even if she were to wake up and get over the infections, her quality of life would be poor and she would have the battle of her life everyday.

I'm so thankful that she knows God and that she will be so much happier in heaven. I will miss the little things about her. She is an amazing seamstress and quilter. She made quilts for both of my sisters when they got married, I'm sad that I will never get to have one. She has always sent us the craziest Christmas presents. For example, one year I got one of those battery powered squirrels that chase a ball which is attached to their mouth. This awesome gift was accompanied with the usual pair of weird socks my grandma packaged in whatever tissue paper was left over from the year before. I haven't had much time to be emotional about any of this all week b/c my new job has been keeping me very busy. But as I write this I'm filled with so many emotions. I'm lucky to have had her in my life for 23 years and to have had a great relationship with all of my grandparents. I just wish that she and my Daddy Ed (my dads father) could be around a little while longer. But with a Lynam/Moulton combination in heaven I know I will have plenty of divine protection coming my way.
This is Hey-O and grandma Lois' 50th wedding anniversary cake. I thank God that I had two sets of grandparents who got to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. How adorable is that picture?! Actually, now that I think about it, the story of my family is pretty rad. Both of my grandpa's flew for the Air Force. They met while being stationed somewhere in the world together and Ona (my dads mom) made Lois (my moms mom) a welcome to the base pie one day. Well, they got to talking and found out they had kids who were similar ages. One of my mom's brothers and my dads only brother ended up at the same college and were fraternity brothers. Then, one winter my mom came home to the base in Illinois from school in FL. At the same time, my dad went home to the base in Illinois from Westpoint. The base held a winter dance for all the returning cadets and my grandma's set up my parents to go together and the rest is history.

So anyway, keep my family in your prayers. My dad, sister and I will join the fam in CO on Sunday.

thank you God for humbling me through this funky time. I recognize how fleeting our time is on earth, and how powerful you are. please tell my grandma that she is loved, and ask her where her recipe for Santa Maria BBQ ribs is.