Relationships

For me, Life is about relationships. Relationships begin with mom and dad and expand to include brothers and sisters, as well as extended family, neighbors, classmates, coworkers, and even stretching far beyond myself to people I don't know. I relate with every person on this earth and that's a mind blowing reality. I try to understand how to get along in this world, so I seek first a relationship with my Creator, with my God, and I've found this relationship through Jesus and the Christian faith.
With Jesus, I find the answers I seek. Love begins with God, and every relationship I have is a gift from God to learn how to love more like Him. Foolishly I often choose the opposite of love, I choose to hate others when I am jealous, greedy, prideful, or unforgiving. The hate I choose to show to others makes me miserable and is death on earth. I want Love, I want God, so I choose the way of Christ.
He teaches me how to love others. He shows me, to love completely, I must give up my own life: to empty self of self and fill it with the Love of God. When my selfishness is finally defeated, I can love like Jesus, perfectly. To forgive, to have mercy, to pray for all people, to be patient and kind, to love everyone. It's a difficult command but one I choose and work to live everyday. I love God's way, His perfect plan of salvation found in Jesus Christ and made real with the power of the Spirit. The only way to follow His Way is to Love His Way.

Loving Your Way
Written By Kristin Ball & Paramount Group

Verse

My earthly relationships
Often leave
A hole in my heart
A longing in my soul
A desire in my mind
A wanting to be
Loved more than I love
Failing to see
Christ’s love is enough.

Chorus

So, Here I am
Alone and afraid
But not lonely
Today
Because You’re here
I pray
You’re everything Dear
To me.

Bridge

Living Your way
Is often
A struggle
To Always
Be in Your Light
When the world
Is so dark
Hope is in You
Jesus, my Lord.

Verse

Loving Your way
Always means
No offense in my heart
No grudge in my soul
No pride in my mind
Never wanting to be
Loved more than I love
Choosing to see
You’re Love is enough.

Dwell In Our Souls

Dwell in Our Souls
By Kristin Ball

I want so much to be free
Free from the addictions that enslave me
Free from the habits that consume my life
The distractions that lessen me as a mother and wife.

As a sister and a daughter, I fail to be
The very best person God wants for me
I am a friend of Jesus, a follower of Him
Yet these worldly desires still satisfy a whim.

Certain disaster is the result of my sin
As I search for rest from Christ within
I know that I must depend on my Father alone
But temptations of the flesh are brightly shown.

We live in this world so dark from death
But the life of the Spirit is in our every breath
It is true that Jesus dwells in each baptized heart
When we belong to His Church, He will never depart.

We are protected always by the God of Love
And we’re forever connected with His Kingdom above
No matter the fetish from this world we adopt
Our God cannot be defeated or secretly stopped.

With Faith we believe His love will continue
Because of His Grace there’s only one thing to do
Love our God with everything inside of us
And accept His gift like a child of trust.

Know with humble confidence that the Spirit is strong
Who helps us choose right when we’ve done wrong
There’s nothing on earth that completely controls
When the Father, Son, and Spirit dwell in our souls.

Thank you, Jesus!

Love of My Life, Reason For My Existence

Before we married, my husband always told me I was the love of his life, the reason for his existence. I believed him and still do. We will be celebrating 19 years of marriage September 23, 2008. I am thankful God has blessed us, and pray He will continue to bless us many more years together.
Through all our joys and sorrows, I have learned one thing will always remain to keep our marriage strong; the choice we make everyday to Love God and love each other.

Danny

I see my reflection in your clear blue eyes,
Deeply etched in your blackest skies.
Living these years of love, faith, and hope,
It’s your actions and words that have taught me to cope.

So often I’ve wanted to run away and hide,
away from the pressures that destroy me inside.
But you forced me to look beyond my own pain,
and see your love will always remain.

With your strength and power,
I can face any and all.
From the evil that makes me cower
to the sin that makes me fall.

In love, our faith as husband and wife
is constantly renewed in spite of the strife.
It will always be
just God, you, and me,
together as one,
yet uniquely as three.

Because of you, my love, our life is complete.

Your loving wife,

Kristin
9/23/2000

It's So Easy to Mess Up

Life is good, there is no doubt in my mind of this truth. Yet, so often I feel manipulated and bullied by people in my life. Sometimes it happens in my own family, other times it may be friends or colleagues. Whatever the situation, I know I always fall short of loving like Jesus.

I try everyday to love, to be patient, kind, and unselfish. But it is hard when it seems like others do or say things to intentionally harm another person. It's difficult to be involved in the games people play, which always includes the practices of deception and control. I sometimes wonder why we can't just love each other. What is our problem anyway?

Faithfully God opens my eyes, and shows my sin mirrored in the sin of others. I admit my rebel heart is often selfish and I'm constantly seeking forgiveness from my Father everyday. In turn, he teaches me to forgive as well. I've learned my forgiveness for the hurts people have caused me is forgiveness for myself. I've also learned that forgiveness does not mean accepting abuse. Jesus did not take the bullying from the people of power, and he showed us how to respond to those who continually choose to abuse with their words or actions, always respond with the truth. Finally, I've discovered that those who live by deceiving and controlling other people don't like the truth, yet the Truth is the only way to life.

The truth is I am a sinner. I hurt others, myself, and God with choices I make, yet in the midst of all my faults and failures, one thing always remains, the Truth. In the midst of all the darkness in the world, the light shines and life is good.

Midst of My Sin
By Kristin Ball

Even in the midst of my sin,
I can’t forget Him. The evil won’t win.
Because He loves me, regardless of it all
and shows me that I can stand, whenever I fall.

I am not perfect and that is why,
the Light of the world can make me fly.
I am nothing without my Father’s Son.
It is His perfection that makes us one.

So even though I mess up everyday
and I’m humanly unworthy to show others His way,
I can’t stop thinking of Him and sharing His love
yet others will reject me when push comes to shove.

There’s a freedom and peace in letting go
of all the greed and anger and selfishness I know.
I hate my sin and desire an ending cure,
but it’s dying to myself that makes me pure.

I’m the first to admit that I am a sinner,
but with the sacrifice of Christ, I am a winner.
Regardless of what we may believe or say,
it’s the blood of our Lord that cleanses each day.

Loving God, Loving Self, Loving Others

I think about my life, the years that will become the dash on my tombstone. A reality check I heard at a funeral recently. How have I lived the years between my birth date and death date? A good question to ask and one many do not want to think about, but one that has always been on my mind. I want to live my dash loving people, but I have discovered throughout my life that the only way I can love others is to love God first.

It’s humbling to reflect on these forty years I have lived, and sad to know I could have loved more along the way. In spite of my words and actions, the choices I have made, good and bad, every moment of my life has made me who I am today, and will always be a part of who I am in the future.

I am learning, with God’s help, to accept me for who I am, with all the disgusting weaknesses I despise about myself and all the strengths I love. I am embracing me, the good, the bad, and the ugly. God loves me through it all, regardless of all I have done to hurt others, myself, and Him. He is the One who created me, died for me, and loves me perfectly. Because of Jesus, I know my relationship with God is healed and complete.

This is the one Truth I hope I have taught my children well, there is a God and you can have a relationship with Him. As I look back on my childhood, stretching my memory as far back as it can go, I always remember knowing God was close to me. Drawn to Jesus, I believed He was the way to heaven at a very young age.

In this journey of faith, I am coming to understand the mystery of the Trinity bit by bit, and the truth that God has always been there in my life. I think about the strength of my relationship with God before I allowed the world to influence me with doubt and darkness. This is a poem I wrote about that time in my life of childlike trust, before the darkness of the world made me grow up.

K. A. Before
By Kristin Ball

Always alone,
Finding rest in the calmness of Your breath,
quiet and still, yet alive with Your death.
I listen to my own breathing as it matches Your tone,
whispering in my ear, brushing my face, cooling my skin.
Searching for Your love, wanting to win,
Always being with You.

Right around thirteen years old, I began to doubt God’s love for me because everything seemed so tough: relationships, money, clothes, freedom, school, the future, not to mention all the terrifying wars, diseases, and natural disasters happening around the world. Life was hard, and still is.

But what I didn’t know then that I know now is this simple Truth: Life is good, no matter what happens, because God is there. This life on earth is the time I am given to choose God, who is the very breath I breathe, the life I live.

My body grows, changes, and gets old. There is nothing I can do to change the passage of time, the effects it has on my flesh, or the mistakes I’ve made in the past. My body and mind have taken abuse because of the choices I have made, but my spirit is renewed constantly because I choose to love God. His Spirit lives in me and gives me life through my faith in Jesus and all His Gospel promises to us. Loving God first shows God's love for me and His love for others, so I can love others, too.

Jesus' Greatest Commandment is to Love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. With the power of the Holy Trinity, I live this commandment everyday. I have found freedom with God's Love because I know I am His child, you are His child. Today, may we choose Love.