Wedding day

"Wedding Day" Casting Crowns

[Verse 1:]
There's a stirring in the throne room
And all creation holds it's breath
Waiting now to see the bride groom
Wondering how the bride will dress
And she wears white
And she knows that she's undeserving
She bears the shame of history
But this worn and weary maiden
Is not the bride that he sees
And she wears white, head to toe
But only he could make it so

[Chorus:]
When someone dries your tears
When someone wins your heart
And says your beautiful
When you don't know you are
And all you've longed to see
Is written on his face
When love has come and finally set you free
On that wedding day
On that wedding day

[Verse 2:]
She has danced in golden castles
And she has crawled through beggar's dust
But today she stands before him
And she wears his righteousness
And she will be who he adores
This is what he made her for

[Chorus]

[Bridge:]
When the hand that bears the only scars
And heaven touch her face
And the last tears she'll ever cry
Are finally wiped away
And the clouds roll back as he takes her hand
And walks her through the gates
Forever we will reign

[Chorus]

I have totally been loving this song lately :) It's exactly how I've been feeling as well.

Karis

It's been awhile and my new life

Okay so I haven't blogged like at all this summer :( I know, I know cone of shame for me. I'm in my corner..................
Anyways it has been quite the summer!!!
Two of my older siblings got married!
My wonderful sister and best friend being one of them :) but she moved like 3-4 hours away! 
I moved into a house in town with a lovely bunch of young ladies and am so far enjoying the experience. I made like 10 different kinds of jam this summer! Haha my roomies probably think I'm a psycho nut! Which I am....but that's besides the point. 
I quite my job at the grocery outlet (after being promoted to the self proclaimed candy dealer. Mwahaha >:D)
However, before I quite I did land a job at the veterans home first working as a CNA(Certified Nurses Assistent) which I am currently taking the training for. The whole plan behind becoming a CNA is that to me it seems like the first step to becoming a nurse. I will have a job that is in the medical field which will make my applying for the nursing program look better, I will have hours that will enable me to work my way through nursing school and in the end I want to be a Registered Nurse and work in like pediatrics or labor and delivery :)
The biggest thing that I think happened was rededicating my life to Christ :) what a miracle it is that this amazing all powerful, just and loving God would look past the stupid things we do and love us the same as if we'd never done it :) 
All in all it has been a crazy summer :)
Hopefully more frequent updates will be coming.
Oh I have also been cooking like a mama with 10 kids! Hehe I will try to share some recipes on here as well.
I shall bid you farewell for now my wonderful readers :) Have a lovely day!
Karis

Something beautiful

Something amazing and beautiful happened today :)

My oldest brother, Kyle married a lovely young woman named Shannon. It was an extremely emotional day as he is the first of nine children to get married and even now I'm having difficulty believing that he is actually married. 
They have been such an inspiration to me. I do not know Shannon very well but I'm sure that will change :) but in the months before they were married I seen Kyle become an amazing Christian man. He truly wanted to be able to love Shannon better and he knew the way to do that was through loving their Savior more. I loved seeing them together! They looked for opportunities to serve one another. It was incredible! It really encouraged me in relationships and in my walk with God :) 
I'm so happy for them :) 
I'll post pictures of the wedding later :)
Karis

French puffs

Made these fabulous muffins for breakfast today :) I'm pretty sure they should be dessert though lol.
Just thought I'd share the recipe :)


French puff muffins


1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/2 vegetable oil
2 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour
1/3 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder 
1 teaspoon salt


Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin cups. Beat egg; stir in milk and oil. Stir in remaining ingredients all at once just until flour is moistened(batter will be lumpy). Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes*. Immediately remove from pan and roll tops in 1/2 cup melted butter than in mixture of 1/2 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon. 


The recipe said 20 minutes but mine were down in about 14.


Here is the end result :)

Depressing time...over! For now at least

Yay! I am redeemed, loved, blessed, taken care of, strengthened and saved by my risen Savior, Jesus Christ! 
For the last few months I have been going through a extremely rough time. On the outside my life looked good. I don't think many others knew what was going on. On the outside I was fine but on the inside I was an ugly mess. I felt like my sin had put me so far from God that He couldn't hear me even when I was crying out to Him. It came down to a choice. Did I want to choose the direction my life seemed to be headed and disappoint my heavenly Father, my family, friends and myself? Or would I choose an abundant life full of blessings? 
I made my choice :) 

(One of those pictures that the kids borrowed my camera for :) )

My daughter

I love this :)
Father, help me remember this...

Quick update

Hey all
I've been extremely busy these last few months :P With school, work and everything in between I haven't been able to blog. I will give you a quick update though :) I have decided to try to get my nursing degree. I figure it could be very useful and since I might not be getting married for some time I have time. I took a placement test at the college Wednesday and tested higher than I had last time I tested (surprise surprise, considering I haven't done school since I graduated last year) so there are several classes I don't even have to take now! Yay!
I also have been really thinking and praying about moving out. I have some wonderful Christian girlfriends in town that have a room that I can move into. I really feel at peace about the whole situation but my parents aren't feeling the same.
I've been working full time and even get to be the candy stocker (Haha that sounds funny but it sounds better than candy dealer right? Lol)
Things have been rough at home as I am finding there is a lot that I don't agree with my parents about :P

I would appreciate your prayers for things going on in my life right now :)
Will try to give updates more often :)
In His Name,
Karis

Enough snow?

So we have been hearing for the past month that we are going to get snow and everyone was tired of hearing it but when I woke up this morning I would say we have more than enough!

This is my sisters car buried under over two feet of snow.

My little sister measured it this morning and there was 26 inches. It is still coming down!

Though with all the snow I was able to take some pretty pictures of my Amaryllis flower :)

Enjoy! Have a fabulous day! :)

The new year

Well 2011 is over. What a year! So much happened but there is also so much I am looking forward to for the new year. I made a few new years resolutions but I haven't written them down yet so they are still floating around my brain somewhere :D but three that I can think of at the moment are:
#1. Increase my knowledge on the bible and grow in my faith :)
#2. Spiff up my blog and blog more ;)
#3. Work on a budget system
One of the way's I would like to increase my knowledge of the bible is by going to a bible college. I have one in mind so I'll be praying about that one.
And as for making my blog look more spiffy I've already started working on it :) Anyone have any tips?
Anyone have any ideas on a good budget system?
So did you make any new years resolutions? If so, what are they? :)
Have a fabulous day! :)
Karis

Adsense?

I was playing around with the settings on my blog recently and I ran into this thing called Adsense. Apparently you can earn money by having ads on your blog. But people have to click on those ads. I am curious about it but I don't want to be scammed so I was wondering if anyone has tried it and can tell me about it :)
Thanks,
Karis

Beautiful modesty

Recently I stumbled upon a blog post that had pictures of four girls. As I looked at the pictures I couldn't help thinking "my they are all so beautiful." I realized that first off what made them beautiful was their faith in Christ. You could tell that God's love shown from the glow on their faces :) But something else that made them beautiful was their modesty. You see modesty is truly beautiful. It also a way to express the beauty that God has given you. 
Girls, not only does being modest show your beauty but it also helps Christian young men who are trying to be men of God not to stumble. 
Ladies, please join me in being beautiful and being modest :)

In His Name,
Karis

Love and love again

There has been a few issues going on in my family lately and one of them has to do with discipline. I was thinking about this subject late a few nights ago and a thought came to me parents discipline because they love their children. But what about the times when the child just doesn't seem to learn. You can discipline them numerous times and it doesn't seem to do any good. Or how about when the child turns away in rebellion? In that case when the parent is at their wits end, they should do as God does with His children. 
Love and love again. 
How many times in the history of mankind have we turned from God? Or we haven't learned? To many to count! But what does God do, He loves and loves again. Love is extremely powerful :)
This is my random thought for the week :)
In His Name,
Karis

                (Not my picture)

Open hands

Wow....it's been awhile since I posted. Anyways I had a thought I wanted to share with you all :)
I've come to realize that when you give your life to God, you have to continually do so. It's not just a one time thing. I realize that this might be kind of confusing so I am going to attempt to explain it better by using an analogy(an area of Jason's expertise :) ).
When you hold out your hands to give God your life, you must keep them open. As humans we want control and so we will hold out our open hands to give our lives but through wanting control we begin to close our hands and pull back.
I've noticed this a lot with my own life. I thought that when you gave God your life, that was it. You gave it to Him and were allowing Him to have control. But than I look at my life and realize that I have started to pull back. It is a constant decision. One you make everyday that you are alive. 
What decision have you made today?
"But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57
In His Name,
Karis

Convicted and guilty

So today after I finished my Thursday morning kid's time at a local woman's bible study(mom's go to study, I watch and teach their kids :) ) I headed over to the CEF office to work for the afternoon. On the way I was thinking maybe I should go up to the college to figure out some problems with my college schedule and just get to the office a bit later. I decided to just call the college instead and just head to the office. Ha ha that was part of God's plan for sure. So I get to the office and the first thing I noticed was that a familiar looking car was parked outside. It wasn't until I walked into the office that I figured out why it looked familiar. The pastor of one of the churches I did a VBS at this summer was in talking to the ladies. I seen his car at the VBS a few times. The first thing he says to me is "so October 6th from 2:30-4:00pm at my church. You already know the kids so teaching good news club shouldn't be to much of a problem". I protested and told him that that wouldn't work because in a week I will be going to a ceramics class on Tuesday's and Thursday's from 1-3:50pm. He than goes on to convict me by asking if I was going to give up a chance to tell kids about Jesus to flip some mud. I told him I was already signed up to "flip mud". He looks toward the ceiling and starts talking to God for me saying "sorry God. I'd rather flip mud than tell children about you". By than I was feeling bad. He continues to tell me how I should get a refund on the class and teach the kids instead. Than I felt worse. He stayed for awhile longer and talked about other things but I couldn't stay focused on the conversation. My mind kept going back to what he said. That I would rather flip mud than tell kids about God. 
Most people don't know this about me but I feel really guilty really easy. So this guy was pushing button's that he didn't know I had.
I was thinking about how it would be really hard to do this. I would have to change my major, give my boss a new schedule of when I would be available to work, register for a different class so I would have two credit classes and than make time to study to teach a lesson every Thursday afternoon on top of the one I am already teaching the kids at bible study on Thursday morning. That is a lot to change! 
Is this stressing me out? Yes! Does God have a plan in this? Yes!!! 
I think that through this man, God was showing me that even though I thought I had given Him control of my whole life, I hadn't. By not wanting to give up ceramics I was guilty of being selfish and holding on to what I thought I had already given Him. 
Jason is always saying how we should make plan's with open hands, that way God does not have to pry our hands off of them to change the plan. I made a plan and than was holding very tight to it. 
I think I know what I am going to do. Because I know I will forever regret it if I don't. 
I was also listening to a song right after the guy left and it also convicted me of holding on to much. Here is just the chorus: 
When life doesn't go the way I thought it should

Sometimes it's because, God is good

And when plans fall apart though I never dreamed they would

Sometimes it's because, God is good


-John Waller- Because God is good


Wow! Longer post than I thought it would be. Oh well :)


In His Good Name,


Karis :)

(Not my picture)

)

Scraps to masterpiece

I was sitting at my desk today at the CEF office doing some of my work when I hear the door open. We don't get many visitors but when we do they are usually very good! So I leave my small desk in the paper room and go check it out. This lady brought in this box with at least 50 small wooden crosses. This one man makes them and it gives him something to do. What might have been the most surprising about these cool little crosses was that they were made of scrap wood! After the lady left Julie, Jackie and I stand around this box of crosses marveling about how beautiful they are. Than the thought hits me. These crosses are another picture of Jesus in our lives. You may be thinking "why of course Karis! It is rather obvious it's a cross. Jesus died on a cross!" Yes, that is true but that is not exactly what I was thinking about. Here it goes:
We are scraps. Life bruises and scars, people take what they want from us not caring how it hurts until there is nothing left but a beat up piece of wood with not much to offer anyone at all. Than Jesus, this wonderful carpenter picks up those scraps and carves and sands away what He needs to to make us beautiful and new :) 
Jesus is the only one that can turn something that seems completely useless into something beautiful and an amazing tool :)
So anyways that was my thought about scraps and beautiful things today :)
Thanks for reading!
In His Name,
Karis

I'm gonna sing

Chris August- I'm gonna sing


I'll lay it out for all to see
What You my God have done for me
I'm not holding back now
Oh, ohh

I got my heart on my sleeve
No lies in between
I'm not holding back

I'm gonna sing
I'm gonna dance
I'm gonna praise You
Like I never had the chance

And I'm gonna run
Like I've been set free
I'm gonna live
All for You my King

Oh, I'm gonna sing
Yeah
Oh, I'm gonna sing
Yeah

Here it is, inside out
All will know what I'm about
I'm not holding back now
Oh, ohh

I won't deny what You have done
You are my saving one
I'm not holding back

I'm gonna sing
I'm gonna dance
I'm gonna praise You
Like I never had the chance

And I'm gonna run
Like I've been set free
I'm gonna live
All for You my King

Ohh, I'm gonna sing
I will not be silent
I'll become even more dignified than this
Ohh, oh, ohh
I will not be silent
I'll become even more dignified than this

I'm gonna sing
I'm gonna dance
I'm gonna praise You
Like I never had the chance

And I'm gonna run
Like I've been set free
I'm gonna live
All for You my King

Oh, I'm gonna sing
Oh, I'm gonna sing
Oh, I'm gonna sing
Oh, I'm gonna sing
I'm gonna sing


One of my new favorite songs :)
In His name,
~Karis

Psalm 93 :)

Psalm 93

 The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty;
   the LORD is robed in majesty and armed with strength;
   indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.
Your throne was established long ago;
   you are from all eternity. The seas have lifted up, LORD,
   the seas have lifted up their voice;
   the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.
Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
   mightier than the breakers of the sea—
   the LORD on high is mighty.
 Your statutes, LORD, stand firm;
   holiness adorns your house
   for endless days.

Just thought I'd share this psalm with you today :) Is anything to big for my God? No! :)
In His Name,
Karis

Blessings :)

Something really big happened in my life (and is happening) as of late. Some of you know from my recent Facebook status updates that God has been doing some major changes in my life. One of them being my becoming an intern at the local CEF office. And another big one is that God has brought someone really special into my life. One Jason Talbert that I am extremely blessed to be courting :) I don't really know how to say how blessed I feel about my life right now.
God is so awesome!
I almost feel overwhelmed. He has given me exactly what I don't deserve! A forgiving savior more than anything! But I am thankful :) very very thankful!
Here is a picture of Jason and I :) I'll do another post later about everything leading up to the relationship :)

In His name,

Karis :)

I've been....I've become

This is something I wrote two years ago. I recently seen it again as I was giving some old notebooks to my little sisters and I actually liked what I wrote. Usually I will write something and than decide later that I really don't like what I wrote but that was not the case this time. Bear with me as it's not very good.

I've been....I've become
I've been called....amazing, lovely, nice, sweet, a rock star, honest, cool, awesome, loving and giving.
I was....greedy, selfish, a liar, dead, mean, sick, jealous, cruel, broken, ugly and wicked.
I've been shown....love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, joy, patience, kindness gentleness, peace and comfort.
But though the grace and mercy and mercy of my savior, Jesus Christ....
I've become...accepted, a child of God, redeemed, loved, justified, a friend of the King, complete, adopted, living and healed.



There it is. A little bit of my life. I wrote this at a time in my life when I wasn't happy. If you read other things I wrote at that time, they were pretty depressing. But I think this has to be the best thing I wrote at that time :)
In His Name,
Karis

Big plans, Bigger God

Recently I've been seeing some amazing things recently...
And all I can say is God has some plans for my life...plans that I wasn't expecting but am sure to be happy with.
For the last five years I have worked for the summer with an organization called CEF (Child Evangelism Fellowship) where with the help of God and some other teenagers we shared the gospel with children in our area through Vacation Bible School, five day clubs, and the wordless book. Almost every year I did this I told myself I wasn't going to do it again the next year. I didn't think it was the thing for me. Well ha on me! God had other plans. This year at the training camp CYIA (Christian Youth In Action) someone had mentioned to me that I should help out at my local CEF office more because they needed someone. I didn't think very much of it than but since I got back from camp there were things God was to be showing me that seemed to be pointing to becoming an intern at the CEF office. People kept suggesting it to me, I was feeling very strongly about it, and I talked to my boss and I would be able to get the hours needed off. So I went into the office on Monday and talked to my director. My friend Nadine had already been talking to her about it but it was my turn. My director said yes! And so now I am officially an intern at the CEF office! I am super excited to work there and what I have done so far, I love!
There is something else that God has been doing in my life too. But I will talk more about that at a later date :)
These new directions that God has shown me for my life were not what I expected at all. I had this little plan for my life and now when God is showing me little glimpses of his plan, it is so much bigger, so much better than mine ever was :)
That's all for now. I will try to update you all more often :)
In His Name,
Karis