Really Confessional Thursdays

Just the other day I was listening to some dream interpretation tapes by John Paul Jackson of Streams Ministries. Now, for those of you who are a little less pentecostal, you may not be as into dream interpretation and the out of the "ordinary" ways G-d may be speaking to you, which may very well be through your dreams.

But a little while ago I realized that G-d has been speaking to me through my dreams gradually more and more as I grow older. So a friend of our family who has really become a mentor for me as I am gradually growing in my prophetic gifting, lent me John Paul Jackson's CD series on interpreting what G-d is saying through our dreams.

On one of the CDs, he discusses all the different dimensions that G-d can bring us to in dreams and visions. He then said something truly profound. He said that we can think of ourselves as humans who occasionally have spiritual experiences, or we can think of ourselves as a spirit having a 70 year human experience, keeping in mind that our human experience determines where we spend or eternity in our spirit.

I found this to be so profound, and really, if you think of yourself as just merely a human with some occasional spiritual experiences you will experience life ensnared in the mundane, everyday troubles of this 70 to 100-year experience. But knowing you are a spirit having a temporary human experience on earth lifts you out of life's troubles, quandries and tumults and takes you into your true purpose in life, whatever G-d has ordained that to be.

Really Confessional Thursdays

After some prayer and consideration, I am beginning to form a more clear focus to this blog and am excited for what it will become.
I have decided to add a new feature called Really Confessional Thursdays. I believe everyone hears from G-d on a regular basis (but whether or not they actually know it is another story), and while I have always randomly reported the revelatory experiences I have with G-d, now those experiences will have a special place on my blog - on Thursdays. So pull up a chair, grab a cup of tea and dive into the spirit of G-d.

The Meaning of a Name...

I was just recently chatting with a friend of mine who is expecting her first child. Unlike me, who just barely had a name or a crib picked out by the time Kaydn Rye was finally born, she is well on her way to being all set and ready for this baby, even being only a month along. She's even got a name picked out that she and her husband both agree on - and that is an act of G-d in and of itself.

But anyway, this started a conversation with her mother and another friend about the meanings attached to our children's names, and I thought it would be interesting to see the meanings attached to your children's names and the reason you chose them.

I'll start. My little's boy's name, obviously, is Kaydn Rye. While the spelling is a little unusual, this was the spelling I chose when I first looked at him when he was born. Hubby and I were tossing the name around before Kaydn was born, but I told him I was not going to be able to decide on a name until I saw him. And when I first saw him, I knew he was a Kaydn Rye, spelling and all.

Kaydn is an Arabic name meaning, "Beloved companion," and Rye is a Scandinavian name meaning, "Gentleman." With my heritage being Norwegian, I wanted to make sure that heritage was a part of Kaydn's life as well, and the word "gentleman" just seemed to fit him.

But the meaning of "Kaydn" has achieved even more significance over time. From the day he was born, with us being so far away from family and with hubby being gone a lot for work, there weren't always a lot of babysitters around to help when life seemed overwhelming. But this created a bond that I have with Kaydn Rye that I couldn't have achieved otherwise, and he has definitely been my "beloved companion" through a lot of hard times. He is my companion pretty much everywhere I go and has been since birth.

And when I felt that G-d gave me this name for him, I envisioned him someday traveling, maybe being a missionary, I don't know, but traveling anyway, spreading the love of Yahushua and being a "beloved companion" everywhere he went.


So, what is the meaning and significance behind your children's name? Post a comment and share your story.




Now doesn't he look like a companion you could ride off into the sunset with??!!

Three Children For a Day

Well today was a busy one. My friend Katie, who just had a baby and who now has three children under the age of 4, asked me if I would watch her older children while she went to an appointment today. I love to help out my friends who need someone to pitch in every now and again with their children. I feel I've been blessed to be so flexible in working from home and of course, to just have the one child right now.

So anyway, she dropped off the kids, her boy who is Kaydn Rye's age (3) and her two-year-old little girl. They played, they fought, they played some more, the two-year-old put the dog food in Gertie's water bowl, they ran around the perimeter of the fence outside looking for holes to climb out of, then they ate chicken nuggets, fruit and yogurt, watched a movie, and went home. And I can't help the fact that I have to follow them around everywhere to avoid the constant wonder about what they're touching, what they're getting into, what they may be breaking or what kind of disarray they may be creating.

So needless to say, while they are all very well-behaved little children and while they play well together, whenever my friends' children come over, it only verifies why I only have the one child at this time.

Because of my super-anal tendencies, having the one was mind-boggling enough for me. And I am blessed that Kaydn Rye has inherited those same super-anal tendencies. Or maybe I've forced them upon him, I don't know, but I'm thankful nonetheless.
Like at lunch time for instance, normally Kaydn puts on his bib, grabs a napkin and sits down to eat, all the while wiping his hands off as he gets crumbs or stickiness on them. When he's finished he then walks into the bathroom and washes his hands. We usually have a nice, orderly meal together.

But today, thought she is the sweetest little child, the two-year-old girl is a hoot at lunchtime. Yogurt, ketchup, ranch dressing, you name it, she scoops it up with her fingers and shoves it in her mouth, all the while I'm frantically hovering over her with a washcloth the whole time wiping her fingers before she can touch anything in my house.

So yes, I am one of those mothers - you find them at social functions spoon feeding and hovering over their children to avoid any kind of spills, stickiness, or yuckiness of any kind on their children, their clothes or the floor.

Actually, at my grandpa's funeral a couple of weeks ago, the church had a luncheon for us afterward. And when we go places I don't bring bibs anymore, Kadyn Rye will just take a napkin and neatly fold it into his shirt. He won't even begin to eat without something around his neck to catch his food so it doesn't get him "all yucky."

And after lunch, when the dessert tray came around, he wanted the gooiest, chocolatiest (is that a word?) brownie on the tray. But he didn't want to pick it up, he wanted me to feed it to him. So I proceeded to feed him the brownie off of my fork, bit by bit, as he wiped his mouth in between bites. My cousin, who was sitting behind me and apparently people-watching us, said, "Kate, I can not believe that you are just feeding that to him, he's a big boy now."

I said, "He asked me to feed it to him. Is that so wrong?" Apparently she found it even more disturbing that he actually asked me to feed it to him. But this is coming from the boy who, when he falls, screams not because he's hurt but because he's all dirty.

But I admit, I have a problem, and I am working on it. And the funny thing is, when Kaydn went to bed tonight, after I told him about another couple we know who is having a baby, he said, "Yeah, and Gary has a baby too."

I said, "Yep, Gary has a baby brother now, doesn't he?"

Kaydn replied, "Yeah, and I need to get my baby sister now too."

This comes after the remarks his father makes everytime we pass the baby section at Super-Walmart. That conversation usually goes something like, "Kaydn Rye, this is for your baby sister isn't it."

Kaydn replies, "Oh yeah, can I have my baby sister now."

Daddy replies, "Well, you'll have to ask your mom."

The Apple Tree

After an extremely trying month, I have begun considering a "re-consideration" of my work and how I fill my days. Now, I love what I do, but it is of course, a business, which often requires a heck of a lot of money going out before any money will come in. And while Yah has blessed the business this year in a way I could have never imagined, in the last month the expense to income ratio has grown slim, which I know is a sign that something is array. But at first this just brought me to the conclusion that I need to re-work the way I run my company: Translation: just keep it simple, do what you can, and don't spend money that Yah never told you will bring in a return. And because I'm so dope-headed sometimes, it took the occurence of some just really crazy, off-the-wall things happening with a bunch of different cases I'm working on to make me see where Yah is leading me in my work.
So, with that crisis over last week, I thought I got the message. But, see, that's the key, I thought I got the message.

The message ended up being that I need to pursue my writing and give it the focus of my work day while still working my already part-time business really part time.

Most of you know that I studied writing in college and ended up working as a journalist before I started my investigations company to be at home full-time with my little terrorist (Kaydn Rye). About the only writing I've accomplished in the last year and a half are legal motions and briefs, writs of execution and levies. Which I've been okay with, but now, wow, in the last few weeks my heart has just really moved in a different direction.

The vision I got to explain how Yah has been moving in my life during the past year is that of an old, bruised piece of fruit, an apple, on the ground underneath a beautiful, full and blossoming apple tree. The apple, tossed to the ground, awaits the day when someone will pick it up, dust if off and wipe away its imperfections. Now I guess I see the fruit as an apple because it is the symbol of why we go astray in the first place. But I saw this apple as my writing dream, dead and wasting away on the ground, and the message I got from this vision is that sometimes a dream needs to completely die, be tossed to the ground and wither away before Yah will take the seeds of the fruit, plant them, and allow them to grow into something that would never have been possible had that dreamer not proven herself worthy of the dream.

With that said, I feel Yah is moving me in a new direction, and oh by the way, as a step in that direction, you can now find me as a "guest contributer" at Faithlifts.

But I know there are tons of us out there whose dreams are dead and waiting for resurrection. Being patient and faithful in the waiting will bring those dreams to fruition.

Grandpa's Funeral

Yesterday marked the funeral of my grandfather, my father's father, which ended up being an extremely numbing day. My grandpa, my father's father, was always a very distant and closed person, as are the five children he raised. The funeral was challenging and saddening as I watched my father's family gather together, all of them having no ability whatsoever to receive or demonstrate a reaction to any kind of feelings they may have had for their father, their grandfather, their friend.

I realized then and there that while there are many things, some I may never even come to know in my lifetime, that I will continue as my grandfather's legacy, the one legacy that will end with me is the inability to demonstrate love to my child.

At the close of the funeral, as my grandfather's casket was being wheeled down the aisle ahead of us, I felt an overwhelming pain that a part of my history, a piece that I will probably never know, was soon going to be put into the ground and lost forever. My grandfather, while he had brief moments in which he atempted a connection with us, will always be a piece of my puzzle that I will never find.

On the Sunday before he died, hubby and Kaydn Rye and I all went to his little house to see him. This was after we had already visited my other grandfather in the hospital. Just as we were about to walk out the door to church that morning, my mother and my aunt both called to let me know that my grandpa, my mother's father, was in the hospital with sharp chest pains again, for the second time this year.

We raced to the hospital to find that his rheumatoid arthritis in his shoulder is gradually taking over the top right half of his body. Gladly, it was not another heart attack, but it is one of those reminders that my grandfather, one of the most influential people in my life, is almost 90 years old and his body will eventually shut down completely.

But once my grandfather was stabilized, with my other grandpa on his deathbed, we headed to his house to see him, for the last time. It was almost two months ago that we found out that he had terminal lung cancer, which had somehow gone previously undiagnosed. He at one time had prostate cancer, which was taken care of with radiation treatments. So when we found out he had terminal lung cancer, at that time we thought he was in perfect health.

Because the cancer had spread to places we were not even aware of, his body ending up rejecting food, and he essentially ended up starving to death. When we arrived on Sunday he looked, well, he looked like he was already dead, to be just extremely honest. My aunt, who cared for him through the end, told us it would not be long, and after just sitting in my grandpa's living room for I don't know how long, we finally decided to pray and then to leave.

So we prayed, I started to break down a little, and we got up to walk out the door. It was then that I went over to his bed, where he just laid there, too weak to even speak, and I said, "Goodbye grandpa Maynard," as I touched him on the shoulder. That moment, with those brief words and that small touch, was the only real expression of emotion I believe we've ever shared with each other, and it was the last thing I ever said to him.

Jump Over the Cliff!!!

I'm just coming back from days of being on the edge - on the edge of that cliff that just calls your name when you are already vulnerable and at the point of crawling in a hole. Yeah, I was at that cliff. The ground below, on the bottom of the cliff, looks so warm and fuzzy and cozy since at the bottom of the cliff nobody calls, nobody whines or screams, nobody demands, nobody has a to-do-list, nobody worries, nobody has a pile of laundry to do, and nobody has dinner after dinner after dinner to make.

But I came back from the cliff.

I don't know what happens sometimes. I came to a point about a year ago, when I decided to open my business, when I decided I was going to maintain a very manageable schedule, and I do. While everybody else in the world wants to go on and on about busy they are, or is it, how subsequently important they are, I am usually able to just flow with life. And it's a good life, but sometimes, I somehow get myself back on the merry-go-round, and it usually gets worse before it gets better.

So yesterday and today I just completed all of those little projects that just keep adding up and just nag at me until I do them, like dusting, and doing my end of the month financials for my business, and doing the bills, and folding my mountain of laundry, and doing Kaydn Rye's lessons plan for school this week, and giving the dog a bath, and organizing my office to fit the growth of my business (which is a task that needs to be completed about every three months - as the business changes, my office management needs to change too).

So now that those tasks are completed and I feel more in control, I have stepped away from the cliff. But I'm sure it will eventually call to me again, and I'll be ready.