the end of Unsystematic

Now it’s time to say goodbye to Keri and all her blogs…

Thank you to all my good and faithful readers… all three of you.  If you’re still reaching Cindy’s blog through mine…now is the time to bookmark www.cindybeall.com

See you around!

Simple thoughts -> Attaction -> Flirting -> Innocent gatherings -> Cheating -> Affairs ->

I guess I’m pretty passionate about marriage because I know first hand what broken homes and blended families are about. 

If you think marriage is hard… try adding in ex’s, visitation, support, new wives, step mom for your children… the list goes on and on. 

I’ve been the daughter of a step mom and stepdad… I’ve been the mother of a son who had a stepmother… and I’m now a stepmother myself.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day asking her if she ever thought about how lucky she is that her parents are still married.  Not only are her parents still married but her husbands parents are still married and she’s working on her 8^th year of marriage herself… happy and healthy.  It’s just so rare these days.  Yet it’s the way God designed it to be. 

There was talk of a couple of coworkers up here at my work having an affair.  Which was shocking to me simply because I thought so much of this guy (who was married with child and one on the way).  Now note, that I still don’t know if it was/is true… but it disturbed me to no end none the less.  So much so that I wanted to leave him a note simply stating…

I know it’s none of my business… but I really feel led to tell you that right now, in this small moment of time, you are ONLY thinking of yourself.  You are thinking of how good this woman makes you feel superficially.  You are thinking of shallow happiness and self gratification.  What you are not thinking of is losing your wife.  Losing your children.  Being alone.  Not waking up with your kids, not tucking them into bed at night.  Your kids now being in public schools and daycare because their single mom is now forced to work.  You living in a crappy apartment or duplex.  You’re not thinking about what it’s going to feel like when she remarries and the first time your kids call someone else dad.  The thought of that man tucking your kids into bed and being there to play catch with your son and sit your daughter on his lap when she skins her knee.  And that’s if you’re lucky enough that she remarries well.  You’re not thinking about the possibility of a man that doesn’t have your morals and/or values or is a closet alcoholic or abusive being your children’s new father.  You’re not thinking of the mental damage you’re doing to the mother of your children and the effects that will have on them.  You’re not thinking of only the 4 days a month you’ll be allowed visitation.  Or the amount of Child Support, Medical Bills and Daycare you’ll be paying a month.  You’re not thinking of the damage you’re doing to your children… all for a simple pleasure from, ultimately, a strange woman.

It’s the same for us.  Think about sending your kid off to spend the night with your ex in some dumpy apartment or duplex… think about struggling to make it paycheck to paycheck… think about what floozy your husband thinks would be a great mom for your kids… think about what movies they’ll be allowed to watch or what they’ll be allowed to eat.. or 26 days a month doing it on your own.  Think about 6 weeks out of the summer not seeing your kids at all.  Think about the lack of attention to what tree they may be climbing or chasing a ball in the street when dad is on the phone.  Think about your ex not paying support on time or at all.  The court costs the on going arguments about the way two different homes have two different sets of rules.

I just think if people had a chance to prematurely feel those feelings listed above, the thought of ever remotely doing anything to split your family would never even enter their mind. 

Broken homes are horrible and damaging to everyone involved.  Blended families are hard work.

That’s all I have to say.

I’m proud

This is my side of the family.

This is my older brother Matt and his wife Jen

These are Matty and Jen’s kids… Jackson Eli and Megan Elizabeth

This is my younger brother Ben and his wife Teresa

this is Benny and Teresa’s son… Zachary (he wanted his picture taken on this big rock… it’s a boy thing)

and this is my daddy…

and finally here’s the handsome heart throbs….

like I said.  I’m proud. 

that’s it.

 

Thankfulness is a result of being content with God’s will

Ok, this is the last post on Part 1 of this book (The Help Meet).  I realize most of you don’t like to read the long posts… So I’ll try to throw in some shorter ones.. but not today.  Ha!

The very heart of reverence is extreme appreciation and profound thankfulness that this man, just as he is, has chosen to love me, just as I am.

I sat in that for a few minutes.  She used the word ‘extreme’ (intense… excessive… severe) appreciation.  Not minor… trivial… or inconsequential.  Are you TRULY thankful that you’re husband chose to love you?  That he picked you out of aaaaaaaalllllllll the other women in this world to stand beside for the rest of his life?  I am.  I don’t deserve my husband and I say that with complete confidence and no reservations. I simply don’t deserve him.  But God has blessed me with him.  And it is no exaggeration that I thank God on a daily basis for him.  When is the last time you audibly said, ‘God… thank you for my husband’?  Honestly.  I know I never did with my first husband.  Now, I did not have a personal relationship with Christ then, and maturity and wisdom has changed my mindset 100 fold. 

I believe that Trent and I truly are thankful for each other.  Not the ‘oh yeah, he’s great’ or ‘yeah I could’ve done worse’ but truly thankful.  I’ll be the first to tell you I’m no prize, I’m overweight, moody and have my own quirks… but Trent was in shock that I would be interested in ‘a guy like him.’  I know a lot of you giggled just now but it’s true, he really said that.  And he thinks I’m a catch (still not exactly sure why)… therefore he’s thankful for me.  And I KNOW there were women everywhere that would have loved to been Mrs Trent Austin… and he chose me.  I’m still in shock and we’ve been married over 2 years now.  We are giddy in love because neither one of us have the mindset that ‘he/she is lucky to have me.’  We both feel very undeserving of the other but yet receive God’s gift and appreciate it every day. 

When you stop appreciating what God has given you, you lose the joy. 

I know a lot of you are thinking, yeah keri, that’s great, if my husband was like Trent our marriage would be great too.  I am here to tell you that Trent has flaws.  He’s human.  You all see Trent on stage every weekend… and at home, he IS the same man you see on stage… I am a very blessed woman.  He has a passion for Christ like no other I’ve seen… and it is inspiring.  But don’t think our marriage is all butterflies and rainbows.  The only thing I can tell you is that I enable him to lead our home, I don’t emasculate him, I don’t speak negatively of him to anyone or even myself… he tells me everyday how beautiful I am, weather I’m straight out of bed with crazy hair and cat litter breath or I’ve spent the last hour getting ready.  He encourages me and lifts me up.  He asks my opinion and seeks my advice.  We guard each other.  If our priorities are straight (#1 God, #2 Spouse) everything else just falls into place naturally.  We tell each other all the time, you’re my #2 and that’s where we want each other to be, because that means we are putting God first. 

The thing you have to get past is to not accentuate his flaws.  I have flaws.  You have flaws.  We all do.  If I spent my days telling my husband the things I didn’t like about him, he wouldn’t want to come home.  When you first meet someone and you’re sitting across the table from them you don’t say ‘your nose is big’ or ‘your teeth are crooked’  because you are so overwhelmed with this person and have so much innocent love and attraction for them that those slight flaws don’t matter.  In the beginning you spend all the time in the world making that person feel special and lifting them up and letting them know you think about them non stop.  Is there any better feeling in the world than falling in love?  Yes.  Having that same feeling 2 years down the road.  10 years down the road.  We were so willing to put all this effort into our relationship in the beginning… find that passion.  Don’t just assume that ‘we’ve been married 10 years, he knows I love him.’  Remind him.  You did then.  He knew you liked him a week into the relationship, but you still drove by and left a note on his car with his favorite candy bar while he was at work.    

Marriage is work.  Team work.  You both have to work… daily.  It’s the smallest things that make the biggest difference.  A man simply wants to know he’s respected and a woman simply wants to know she’s loved.  You show your man respect and he will show you love.  It’s truly that simple.

Let him lead

Ok… so this picture is posted for two reasons… 1. because it is my all time favorite movie and should be yours too and 2. because he portrayed an amazing leader…

William Wallace, Maximus… there’s a reason why your men love these movies ladies… ponder on that a bit.

Becoming less independent was somewhat of a struggle for me… at first. 

Growing up my mother was very strong and independent, but I still knew my father had the last say so.  In other words, I knew my father was the leader of our home.  So letting the husband lead, by nature, is instinctive for me.  However, I was not fortunate enough to have married well the first time, so I was left to raise a 1-year-old boy on my own for seven years making me the mother and father of the home.  Seven years.  That’s a long time.  A long time for me to make the final decisions… me to call the shots… me to rule our home.  So when I married Trent, my instincts battled my habitual behavior.  I was always quick to answer to make a decision and had to condition myself to defer to my husband.  It was a awkward at first, almost feeling as though I was being stripped of something, but it wasn’t that I was being stripped of anything at all… it was that I was being relieved of something that was never meant to be my role in the first place.  It is my first reaction when being asked if we can have dinner, or make plans, to say, that sounds great, let me see what Trent has planned.  Even with Noah, my response is always, ‘I think that’s ok, let’s ask your dad, or I don’t care, go ask your dad.’  It lets him know that we do EVERYTHING together.  We are truly one, in every sense of the word.

Debi Pearl writes…

God created Adam and commissioned him to take the position of leadership.  Since then, every son of Adam has received the same mandate. Man was created to rule.  It is his nature.  But the only place most men will ever rule is their own little kingdom called home.  At least, every man’s destiny is to be the leader of his household.  To deny him this birthright is contrary to his nature and God’s will.  

 

She goes on to say…

It is NOT God’s will for your husband to reverence you.  It is not God’s plan for you to remain seated at the dinner table or in your lounge chair and expect him to serve himself.  Our modern society has conditioned us to expect him to serve us.  It hurts our feelings if he doesn’t do things that we feel he owes us, but that is not the plan God set into place.  Our failure to know and believe the written words of God has caused us to accept a cultural lie.

This one’s powerful…

Reverence is not just how you act; it is how you feel and how you respond with words and with your body language.  It’s like I said before, you have to believe it before he’ll believe you.  If that’s a struggle for you, just ask God to help you… ask him remind you of the good, of why you married him, and to allow you to focus on those attributes.

To lead his home was a bit of an adjustment for Trent as well… although it was natural for him to want to… for 19 years he wasn’t allowed to.  So having a wife that defers to him and reverences him has made him a whole new person.  He’s more confident, he stands taller, and he’s an amazing leader.  Leading our home doesn’t mean he just goes out and makes decisions without my input.. it does mean that what he decides is the way it’s going to be and I’m ok with that.  I love it… I love it when he takes charge.  I’m telling you, get off your self-righteous, feministic, high horse just for short time and serve and lift up your husband and allow him to lead and you will see a man who stands with his chest out.  You’re whole house will realign the way it should be. God’s design.   

Where… in the world… is Cindy K Beall (sung in the tune… you know the one)

Don’t fear my lost, misguided friends… she’s soon to return. 

She’s working franticly to remove that blue bow from her husbands head.

No, not really… I’d love to tell you she’s off speaking at a large women’s conference with Beth Moore but yet… I cannot lie to you.  My faithful 3 readers.  Yes, she screwed up her account and is working dilligently around the clock to fix it.  She has not bathed, not cooked, and couldn’t even tell you the names of her boys because she knows… you are lost without her.  I did speak with her… and the only thing she could murmer (in her best daniel day lewis voice)… was ’stay alive… no matter what… I will find you!’

 

 

Do you reverence your husband?

Whuuuuuuuuuuuhhh?  I know, I did the same thing… or maybe you’re a bit smarter than I and already knew what that meant. 

Reverence is the act of showing respect…a mingling of fear with a high degree of respect and esteem.

So back in my helpmeet book… she talks about a woman who was in a horrible situation with an abusive, unfaithful, alcoholic husband.  When he would always come home in his drunken rages, she would leave and run to her mothers and threaten to leave and call all her friends and tell them what a loser he was.   But she’d never leave.  Finally one day, Mrs Pearl ran into her at church in a tearful mess and she told her of her plot to murder her husband.  Long story short, Debi told her once and for all she needed to make a decision, either to leave her husband and put the pieces of her life back together or stay with him and begin a campaign of winning his heart and saving their life together.  Debi TOTALLY thought she would leave that night.  But she didn’t.  She did just the opposite.  Debbie counseled her to only speak to her husband in an encouraging uplifting manner and to only speak OF him with her friends in the same manner.  This woman had a learners heart and had ‘grasped an eternal vision about life and believed God could save her marriage.’  The change in her husband was almost immediate.  Within a week she saw change.  He stopped going off with his drunken friends and got a job to help support the family.  Today they are growing their relationship with Christ together. 

 

Yes our husbands lead our home. It’s natural. It’s the way God designed it.  But we, as helpmeets, play THE biggest role in our husbands being enabled to be that amazing leader.  They will be what we think of them and tell them.  Put it to the test.  If you’ve been a bit nagging and negative lately, flip it.  Last time I checked, nagging and negative got me nowhere.  Try praising the things he has accomplished…. The smallest things… make a big deal about them.  Then… tell him what a great father and leader of the home he is… but you first need to pray and believe it in your heart.  If you don’t believe it first, he won’t.  You’ll see a change in him.  I promise. 

Trent and I learned this with Noah as well… instead of only speaking when he’s done wrong, we make it a point to tell him when he’s done well.  Even if it’s just ‘Noah, you did so well tonight, you were polite, and quiet’  and we love on him and encourage him.  He likes the attention so he’ll want to do that again. 

And ladies… for the love of all that is good and holy… stop going to work and having the huddles where everyone is talking negatively about their men.  What good is it doing?  None.  You will subconsciously carry that home and have that same negative attitude at home and make it a place where he doesn’t’ want to be.  Start a revolution.  Go to work and brag about what your husband does, yes at first, shock will overcome them all… but I promise, it will catch on.  And if you find yourself in a husband bashing conversation, turn it around.  Be like, ‘oh really?  I’m sorry, but listen to what my man did… and lift him up.’   One of two things will happen.  You’ll either become an encouragement to those women to do the same, or they’ll stop having the man bashing conversations around you.  Either way… You win!  I promise your marriage will thank you.

Stop and think… make a list of the negative things you’ve said to your husband today… now next to it make a list of the negative things you’ve said to others about your husband today… NOW…. Make a list of nice things about your husband and go home and tell him.  Then tell others... create an email to all your friends bragging about your husband.  We CAN make a difference in our husbands… God will smile on you.  “…and the wife see that she reverence her husband” Eph 5:33

Move it Gramps!

Welp.  I’m officially a mall walker.  Yep.  And I’m not even a senior citizen yet.  I’m an over achiever!  Ladonna and I were talking about what we were going to do when it starts getting really hot outside… we already come in smelling like kids on recess… after walking in the Oklahoma wind for 45 minutes… so we talked about getting a membership at OSU OKC up the road and then a friend of ours piped in and said ‘why don’t you just go to Shepherd Mall and walk for FREE!’  uh.  Hello?  ABSOLUTELY!  I’m all about some Free!  So we tried it out today.  We could lap the Cox compound in 15 minutes…we can lap the Shepherd Mall in 7 minutes and that’s even dodging grams and gramps!  Downside:  They have about 3 restaurants’ in there to accommodate Farmer’s Insurance and the school… so we get to smell fresh baked bread from Subway and hamburgers and burrito’s from Dizzy’s and I think it’s asian food from another little joint in there… But we don’t battle wind or weather.  So.

 

I’ll weigh in on Monday and let you know how the small battles are paying off.  Regardless of what the scale says.. I feel better, with the exception of the blisters ALL OVER my footsies…  I’ve just ordered something off the internet called Tuf Foot.  And yes, it was designed for dogs and Horses…for the cost, I better be able to run like Jackie Joyner Kersey… or however you spell her name…We’ll see.  If I start barking or hiking a leg… I’ll let you know.

“Is Trent leaving the Edmond Campus?” GASP!

Many people have inquired, so let me set this straight to the 3 people that read my blog and you can tell people you heard it straight from his wife’s mouth.  Trent has NO intentions of leaving Lifechurch Edmond Campus.  Yes, they are changing the style of worship to try and engage and lead the church in a more active style of worship.  Bryan Witham is the Youth Worship Leader and Trent believes in him whole heartedly.  Marcy Jackson has stood by Trent’s side for years now and together they all three bring an energy to the room that is impossible to deny.  Trent has never been a man who wanted to be stage center and will testify to this day that he is only there because that’s where God wants him.  He still can’t believe he gets to lead worship for a living… it is his passion. 

 

Now… as his wife, I’ll tell you the reason people are drawn to his worship is because it IS his passion.  He has no other desire when he’s on that stage than to worship his God and lead the people to do the same.  The first thing I remember about Trent when I first saw him was that I truly saw Jesus in his eyes.  He loves his Lord and believes every word he sings with all that he is.  It’s never about how great he sings, or how talented he is… every bit of what he does is all for one purpose… to see God’s smile.  When someone resonates a love for Christ that passionately, you can’t help but want what he has.  THAT is why people drive from all over to be led to a place of worship by him.

I myself did not know what it meant to “worship” when I first became a believer, which is the majority of what Lifechurch.tv is… a church of new believers.  I attended that church for two years before I met Trent.  When I first came to Lifechurch, the music really appealed to me and before that I was never a Christian Music type of girl.  So the combination of Craig Groeshel’s style of applying biblical truths to today’s world mixed with Trent’s worship, I was sold.  There was no turning back.  I WANTED to know the words to these songs so that I could sing them from my heart.  I was blessed enough to meet and become friends with Cindy Beall (who at the time was the campus pastor’s wife – we both had 6-year-old Noah’s) and so sitting with her (who she herself used to lead worship with her husband) I loved her freedom in worshiping her God.  I learned that Worship is not just raising your hands in the air and singing.  It’s coming to a place spiritually that it doesn’t matter if 1500 other people are in the room or 1 other person, because all your aware of is your God’s presence… and you are so overcome by Him, that it may bring you to your knees… peel a huge smile across your face… draw both hands in the air… spin you around in circles or whatever you feel at that time.  It’s a form of self expression to your God.  I’ve danced with him… I’ve raised my hands to him… I’ve dropped to my knees for him and it’s all done without thought, without hesitation.  It’s the passion stirring inside that you just can’t deny.  It brings you to a place of such joy, such freedom.  I look forward to getting to worship every weekend and yes, I am very blessed that it is my husband that leads me there. 

It’s not about the lights, it’s not about the music, it’s not about the smoke… it’s about the voices.  I’ve always said, I LOVE LOVE LOVE and LOVE it when the music stops or drops so low and all I hear are the people singing.  It’s elating.  Gives me goosebumps everytime… and I know with all that I am, God is smiling.

So rest assured Trent’s not going anywhere.  This weekend, realign, and worship like a child…dance… laugh… love… as though He’s standing right beside you… because He is.  J

 

things that cross my mind while peeing

The one that jumped out at me today was squished toilet paper.  You know what I mean, the dangling piece from the user before you that grabbed the delicate tissue in both hands and pulled it apard as if it were a wishbone… therefore, on the dangling part, leaving wrinkled, squished toilet paper.  So then my mind goes to I don’t want paper that person has touched on my delicate private parts.  Who knows if they were in there picking their nose, or even if they are a hand washer in general.  Kinda grossed myself out in thought.  So I then carefully pulled to gain excess as to cover the squished part generously. 

There have been times that I will tear the squished off and dispose, but then I feel guilty that maybe that piece of toilet paper would be sad because it didn’t get to serve it’s purpose in life.  What if in the toilet paper world they work their whole life to get to that point, and then they are disposed of without use.  That would make me sad.  All the other toilet papers would talk about you and point and laugh and snicker.  Your toilet paper parents would be disappointed.  You get the point. 

Update on the battles… I am still winning the small battles, have been for three days now and have the blisters on my feet to prove it.  If any of you are in doubt, feel free to request to see these blisters, they are doozies.  If you see me walking with a limp this weekend, you know why.  I will pray against all blisters for any of you.