jail

A story: The journals and the jail

by Karmen |

“What are you going to do about sharing your journals with the women in jail?”

“Great question. I’ve been praying about that very thing. The number of women varies from week to week. I don’t want to leave anybody out, but to be honest, right now I don’t know if I can afford to give that many away. I’m trusting God to work it out.”

praybig

Fast-forward four hours and thirty-four minutes later.

We dropped the boys at church and headed home to get the house and bathrooms presentable before hosting small group. #keepinitreal

I received a text:

“Hello! Are you still ministering at the jail?”

“Yes, I am. I go a couple of times a month.”

“How many ladies do you see? Do they allow books? Like reading books?”

“Yes, books are allowed if bound with no staples and no spiral. This past week there were between 30-40 but usually 20ish.”

Still clueless. I couldn’t even see what God was about to do.

“If I bought them all your journal would that be something you could distribute and use them or give to them?”

I sent her this text because I couldn’t call her for all-the-squalling!!!!

textjail

I still didn’t believe what was happening.

Awestruck, I laid my phone down and walked to the kitchen & started wiping counters because that’s what I do when I don’t know what else to do, and there is an absence of chocolate. After a nice conversation with myself, and the skepticism beginning to recede, I returned to the living room to check my phone. I wanted to be SURELY, sure what I had read was clear.

Upon checking my phone I discovered my mystery friend (who is actually not a mystery but has requested to remain nameless) had sent me a heartfelt explanation of how she had been relieved of her duties from her place of employment as of 2:30 THAT-VERY-DAY, was given her final paycheck and in short said, “This money belongs to The Lord..”

She went on to say that she had been sharing with her husband about the work I do at the jail and the release of my prayer journal. She said she believed God was blessing the ministry and would love to bless the ladies in the jail with a gift. Her husband said, “Great.” And with that, he had to take a phone call as she scurried out the door to pick up their son from school. From the car line she messaged me AND #forthelove if that’s not enough wind for your sail…. while in line waiting for her son, after messaging me and blessing my socks off, THEN she receives a call about a job interview!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL ON THE SAME DAY!!!!

Y’all tracking with me?!?!

Her words, “The Lord has smacked me upside the head, and I have seen his glory today. You just tell me where to order the books or where to send a check!”

So I did, and then she and I shouted a little more glory back and forth at each other and then I asked her, ” Whom shall I say sent them?”

“Tell the girls The Lord sent them. I don’t want any credit.”

And so, I have the journals ready to take to the jail. Humbled at the privilege to bless the socks off of the girls whom Jesus loves.

Isn’t God the best? He is always at work. Working His grand plans even through our doubt. So thankful His plans prevail above our unbelief.

Oh how He loves us and lest we forget, I thought it best to document a few truths about this incident:

God is sovereign.
God is The God of details.
God hears. He bends down and listens because
God cares. He cares that my friend lost her job. He cares about the girls in the jail who don’t believe they matter. He cares about the prayers we barely know how to pray.
God is bigger than our doubt and is ready to bless the socks off of those who are willing to live sold out and surrendered for His honor and glory!
God blesses obedience.
God answers prayers.
Sometimes He says no, sometimes He says wait but glory-be!!! sometimes He says YES!! and sends it RUSH ORDER!!! because He is God and He can!

So what?

I pray this story about the journal and the jail encourages you to #PrayBig prayers, my friends. I know many of you are hard-pressed on every side… Ready to throw in the towel. KEEP PRAYING! If you’re exhausted from the fight-PRAY ON to The God, who hears. If you are experiencing intimacy with God in ways, you never have before PRAISE HIM and encourage someone in need! We weren’t created to do this life alone!

#PrayBig dearest friends, because

When You #PrayBig Things Happen!

Much love and lots more and EXCITING THINGS I MUST TELL YOU~SOON!

begonias & harlots-NO ONE IS EXEMPT

by Karmen |

It was smaller than the others

The plant guy gave us credit or a “no charge”- chalking it up as a loss based on size and the lack of probability to sell

The chickens pecked holes in what few, tiny leaves it did have

Our boys whacked the rest of the leaves with sticks until they were gone

I forgot to water it more days than not

The wind blew it over and busted the pot it called home

Another plant fell on it and smashed the center out of it

Doomed before it ever had a chance to bloom.

But instead of throwing it out

I brought it home

Repotted it

Watered it

Sat it in a cozy little spot on the porch

And watched it

the discarded, battered begonia as it began to bloom where it was planted.

When the county fair rolled around a couple months later

I thought, why not?

The begonia, destined for doom- instead brought home a blue ribbon, a Flower Show Award and is still going strong today…

Maybe today you feel a bit like my pathetic little begonia did: defeated, discarded, battered, or broken.

Maybe you’re thirsty, desperate for attention, aching to matter to someone, anyone.

This is for you.

NO ONE IS EXEMPT

The more I look for women looking for purpose the more women I find looking for purpose.

This weekend I was given the honor & privilege to encourage a talented, gracious, creative group of women at Chelsea Village Baptist Church. I left them with a challenge to trust and obey God as never before. Believing He has a plan a purpose for each one of them.

Do you believe God has a plan and a purpose for you?

When was the last time you noticed God using the most unsuspecting of people to accomplish His purposes?

Harlots included.

Meet Rahab:

2 Joshua son of Nun secretly sent out from Shittim two men as spies: “Go. Look over the land. Check out Jericho.” They left and arrived at the house of a harlot named Rahab and stayed there.

²The king of Jericho was told, “We’ve just learned that men arrived tonight to spy out the land. They’re from the People of Israel.”

³The king of Jericho sent word to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you to stay the night in your house. They’re spies; they’ve come to spy out the whole country.”

^4-7The woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, two men did come to me, but I didn’t know where they’d come from. At dark, when the gate was about to be shut, the men left. But I have no idea where they went. Hurry up! Chase them—you can still catch them!” (She had actually taken them up on the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax that were spread out for her on the roof.) So the men set chase down the Jordan road toward the fords. As soon as they were gone, the gate was shut.

^8-11Before the spies were down for the night, the woman came up to them on the roof and said, “I know that God has given you the land. We’re all afraid. Everyone in the country feels hopeless. We heard how God dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you left Egypt, and what he did to the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you put under a holy curse and destroyed. We heard it and our hearts sank. We all had the wind knocked out of us. And all because of you, you and God, your God, God of the heavens above and God of the earth below.

^12-13“Now promise me by God. I showed you mercy; now show my family mercy. And give me some tangible proof, a guarantee of life for my father and mother, my brothers and sisters—everyone connected with my family. Save our souls from death!”

¹⁴“Our lives for yours!” said the men. “But don’t tell anyone our business. When God turns this land over to us, we’ll do right by you in loyal mercy.” -Joshua 2 The Message (MSG)

How many times have we said, “There’s no way God could use me after all that I have done?”

How many times have I thought in my puffed up self-righteousness, there’s no way God can use that one.

Y’all, I’m rank without His grace. Seriously. If not for Jesus, what a disaster I’d still be..

And yet, NO ONE IS EXEMPT.

God has a PLAN & A PURPOSE for each and every one of us.

Just yesterday while at the jail, sitting across from a woman, with beautiful dark hair, deep-sad, brown eyes with not a tooth in her head, she said to me,

“I want to do better. Be better- because I know better. My momma raised me right. I know and have accepted Christ as Savior. I’ve just walked away and have been doing life my way. Pain pills lead to other things and other things led me here.”

“..the messiest waste of our lives becomes the most fertile soil.” –Jennie Allen

YES! and,

²⁰But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good…..

Genesis 50:20 New King James Version (NKJV)

Be encouraged my friends. We’re in this together. Our pain is not in vain. God is working all things together for our good.

Fix your eyes on Jesus may we remember to “run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize which is God’s call through Christ Jesus to the life above.” Philippians 3:14 TEV

Turn from the doom that so easily ensnares us and turn to Christ where you are sure to bloom.

Love y’all and this community of encouragers so very, very much

PS-Will you please remember my new friend when you pray?

begonias & harlots-NO ONE IS EXEMPT

by Karmen |

It was smaller than the others

The plant guy gave us credit or a “no charge”- chalking it up as a loss based on size and the lack of probability to sell

The chickens pecked holes in what few, tiny leaves it did have

Our boys whacked the rest of the leaves with sticks until they were gone

I forgot to water it more days than not

The wind blew it over and busted the pot it called home

Another plant fell on it and smashed the center out of it

Doomed before it ever had a chance to bloom.

But instead of throwing it out

I brought it home

Repotted it

Watered it

Sat it in a cozy little spot on the porch

And watched it

the discarded, battered begonia as it began to bloom where it was planted.

When the county fair rolled around a couple months later

I thought, why not?

The begonia, destined for doom- instead brought home a blue ribbon, a Flower Show Award and is still going strong today…

Maybe today you feel a bit like my pathetic little begonia did: defeated, discarded, battered, or broken.

Maybe you’re thirsty, desperate for attention, aching to matter to someone, anyone.

This is for you.

NO ONE IS EXEMPT

The more I look for women looking for purpose the more women I find looking for purpose.

Do you believe God has a plan and a purpose for you?

When was the last time you noticed God using the most unsuspecting of people to accomplish His purposes?

Harlots included.

Meet Rahab:

2 Joshua son of Nun secretly sent out from Shittim two men as spies: “Go. Look over the land. Check out Jericho.” They left and arrived at the house of a harlot named Rahab and stayed there.

²The king of Jericho was told, “We’ve just learned that men arrived tonight to spy out the land. They’re from the People of Israel.”

³The king of Jericho sent word to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you to stay the night in your house. They’re spies; they’ve come to spy out the whole country.”

¹⁴“Our lives for yours!” said the men. “But don’t tell anyone our business. When God turns this land over to us, we’ll do right by you in loyal mercy.” -Joshua 2 The Message (MSG)

How many times have we said, “There’s no way God could use me after all that I have done?”

How many times have I thought in my puffed up self-righteousness, there’s no way God can use that one.

Y’all, I’m rank without His grace. Seriously. If not for Jesus, what a disaster I’d still be..

And yet, NO ONE IS EXEMPT.

God has a PLAN & A PURPOSE for each and every one of us.

Just yesterday while at the jail, sitting across from a woman, with beautiful dark hair, deep-sad, brown eyes with not a tooth in her head, she said to me,

“..the messiest waste of our lives becomes the most fertile soil.” –Jennie Allen

YES! and,

²⁰But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good…..

Genesis 50:20 New King James Version (NKJV)

Be encouraged my friends. We’re in this together. Our pain is not in vain. God is working all things together for our good.

Fix your eyes on Jesus may we remember to “run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize which is God’s call through Christ Jesus to the life above.” Philippians 3:14 TEV

Turn from the doom that so easily ensnares us and turn to Christ where you are sure to bloom.

Love y’all and this community of encouragers so very, very much

PS-Will you please remember my new friend when you pray?

what's a great way to get your mind off of your mess?

by Karmen |

A thousand years is but a day and a day a thousand years…

There are moments when life is happening that feel like they will never end and then they do pass…

And years go by and it feels like it happened yesterday.

Yesterday marked a decade since we delivered our little Karson.

As my fingers hit the keys to spell those words I feel like I’m speaking of another woman’s story and yet- I’m not.

I wanted to write a reflective heartfelt post yesterday about how life is tough and how God is faithful but the words and sentences for lack of a better word felt scrambled. But I couldn’t muster it. Life ten years later is different and busy and hard in different ways.

The story would come and go and felt somewhat forced hence –no post.

But tonight in the quiet, with the herd at wrestling practice I feel impressed to exhort you with few meanderings that won’t let me be..

My dear, dear friends~

Friends of ol’, new friends, friend who feel useless, disconnected friends, friend who feels used up or unusable, undone, unappreciated, incomplete or unloved.

#1 You matter.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made no matter how fat you (and I) feel or far you (and I) may have derailed in 2014.

NOTHING can separate us from the love of GOD.

Absolutely-not-one- stinking thing it too terrible-or-bad or too sad that He can’t use for good.

NOTHING. GOD IS GREATER than all of it!

Let’s EMBRACE that TRUTH and MOVE ON!

With my whole heart and until I die I will encourage YOU with that truth and this one->

#2 YOUR story matters.

Yada, yada, Karmen will you leave it alone?

No, and here’s why.

OTHERS NEED YOUR STORY!

The people in our workplace, the grocery store clerk, your banker, neighbors, cousins, inmates in jail.

Who better to encourage a woman endearing life with an alcoholic than one who has endured life with an alcoholic?

Who better to encourage one who has lived through divorce than one who has endured divorce?

Who better to council and advise someone in debt up to his or her eyeballs than one who has been maxed out and now is debt free? (oh, Lord I want to be debt free!)

Who better to encourage one who has lost loved ones than one who has suffered loss?

This is not rocket science theology but for whatever the reason many women (and men, if they would admit it) feel like a big ZERO.

Like they have nothing to offer another.

I heard an alarming statistic last week about how lonely and “unneeded” people in our society say they feel. I wanted to scream at the radio, “IT’S A LIE, Y’ALL! YOU MATTER! OTHERS NEED YOU! FOR REAL! ”

To the skeptics: (because I know you’re there. I am one.)

You say, “How do you know others need me?”

HAVE YOU BEEN OUTSIDE and ENGAGED with the public recently?

More than EV-UH people are desperate for community, a sense of belonging and hungry for CONVERSATION with a REAL PERSON not a FLAT SCREEN.

If you still don’t believe me, I invite you to come to the feed store, visit with us and engage with the public.

We have a warm heater and a bench, just for sitting and visiting. (And hurry, right now it’s clean. We have rearranged and it is lovely. Do-stop-by.)

True story: A precious woman and her daughter came in the store today looking for chicken feed. The daughter went on to say her mother had rescued a ROOSTER from the side of the road that had fallen from a chicken truck nearly a year ago. It had a broken foot and a damaged wing. She began to share about how the rooster had become a burden for her elderly mother on a fixed income.

When I asked, “Would you like to get rid of the rooster?”

The daughter instantly replied, “YES! We would LOVE to give it away. Do you know of anyone who would want it?”

We told her we would gladly take the rooster and find it a home. The mother, who appeared to be very shy, nodded graciously as the daughter told us they would go and get it and bring it to us later.

Annnnd she did, just a couple of hours later.

As we transferred the rooster from her pen to ours the shy, mother gave me the biggest hug, “THANK YOU Hun, THANK YOU.”

The point of that lil’ story

WE NEED EACH OTHER.

To help carry and share burdens <3 (and roosters)

How can I help others?

I’m still a mess.

EMBRACE this one too—> WE ARE ALL A MESS.

Some admit it while others still resist.

God takes messy, surrendered people and births AMAZING MESSages of His grace upon grace upon grace.

What better way to get our minds off of our messes but when we are helping others get through theirs?

I wish we could sit down and I could have coffee with each one of you (because I care about you and love coffee) and I wish I could look you in the eye with this heart message but until then please know…..

YOU MATTER.

YOUR STORY (has a PURPOSE + ALL. OF. IT—> matters)

Surrender it to the One, true and living God and ask Him to help you help someone.

But know this, as I reminded the inmates Sunday afternoon, BE READY.

When you ask God to provide an opportunity for you to help another and you make yourself available HE WILL MOVE.

Speaking of BEing READY…

and NEEDing each other…

I covet your prayers.

As I speak at the jail again this Sunday. The women are sad, downtrodden and many in desperate need.

Pray for them, will ya?

I am super excited to be speaking at the ladies retreat in Chelsea, AL January 23 & 24^th of this month. (Thanks, Hannah Shirey Burton for the invitation)

I will also be traveling to Austin, TX the first of next month to serve at the IF: GATHERING. IF you are not signed up for an IF: LOCAL gathering contact Jeanne Manning or me for more details via Facebook .

And last but not least …the other lil secret is getting really close and it’s going to be great and PS-we are not growing our family and it’s not the manuscript for the book. Holy Moly in the sweet by and by one day…it will be done…the book not a baby.

Amen.

love y’all

PS- If your women’s group is looking for a speaker of truth, who loves to laugh..connect with me..I’d love to join!