Let's Do This!

My husband and I have agreed to make a resolution. Starting New Year's we will get up early in the mornings to head to the gym and spend time working out together. Our intention is to do this very often throughout the week. We will change our diet. We will get more rest than we are getting now. We will lose weight, and get healthy. I know some of ya'll might be coming across this post and thinking that you've heard this same resolution hundreds of times. I mean what could be more cliche than a resolution to lose weight and be healthy? However, we are dead serious.

My husband doesn't yet have a weight loss goal in mind (not that he is in serious need of one), but I do. I want to spend the next year losing 130 pounds. I know that this will not be easy but I know that it is possible. After I lose it, I am going to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

For those of you who don't know, I am a diabetic. I don't have to take insulin but I am on medication for it. Part of my goal is getting healthy enough to come off of my diabetes medication (with the doctors approval of course). It's not going to be easy. In fact, I know there are going to be days where it is really going to suck. There are going to be days where my depression fights to keep me in bed, and my anxiety tries to convince me to stay away from a gym full of people.... but I am going to get up. I am going to go. I am going to reach my goals.

Along with getting physically healthy, I am going to get spiritually healthy as well. If you know me than you know we haven't been in church as much as we should this past year. We stopped going to our Sunday school, I don't read my Bible every day, and I don't talk to God near as much as I used to. That is going to change but unlike the eating, that is changing NOW. I know that I am not perfect, but I know what I can be for God and I haven't been that this past year. So it's time for a change.

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So, now that you have been filled in I would love to hear any tips as far as eating healthy, making the most out of scheduling, making the most out of working out, etc. So please leave anything you have to say in the comments below. 

I haven't decided quite how I am going to go about it yet, but I may try to make a post every now and then about how things are going with our journey. Stay tuned and I will keep you updated!

As always, all your support is greatly appreciated. Please share with everyone and follow. Practice makes perfect and I will be trying to make my posts better all the time. 

-Kelcy J.

Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015!

So it's a new year. So much has happened in this past year and I honestly feel like it just started. I don't know how your 2014 was but mine was full of heart break, surprises, changes and some amazing moments and I don't think there is a thing I would change because even the bad was made good somehow or another by the Lord. I had the opportunity to lead an amazing group of girls during BLAST (a discipleship weekend at my church) which I hope to be able to do again here in just a few months. Just before that I went through a week of loss where I was hit one right after another with three different deaths over the period of one week. As you all know I started college this past year and while it has been an adventure I truly believe that God has been glorified in my school work and I can't wait to see where He takes me on this unbelievable journey. If you know me than you probably know that I have never been a big fan of change. So when brother Mark came down into my Sunday school one morning to tell us that we were not only getting new teachers but changing EVERYTHING that we normally did, you can imagine that I was one of many that was not too happy. I stuck it out for a little while gave it all a shot and now I couldn't be happier with the change. The Lord is opening up so many opportunities for me through these changes as well as in other areas of my life. Let's also not forget that it wasn't too long ago in the year that I started writing this blog and quite honestly it has turned out better than I expected it to. PEOPLE ACTUALLY READ THIS STUFF! Can you believe it??? =D

I have to say that I truly believe God has started speaking to me more about things in the last six months than the rest of this past year. He has opened up an opportunity for me to overcome somethings with the help of an amazing accountability partner, He has opened my eyes to a few things that He might have for me down the road, He even gave me an amazing boyfriend. Obviously I am not writing out everything because that would be a post far too long to publish but I wanted to share some of these things with you. My pastor has been saying that He is believing 2015 will be a big year for Gardendale First Baptist and I agree with him. I also believe that God is going to do even greater things this year for our college ministry (SUB25), for Great News, through the bible study He has allowed us to start on my hallway at the daycare, and in my life personally. I can't wait to see what He does.

I pray that whoever is reading this will have an amazing new year! That God will open your ears and your eyes to whatever He has for you and that you will claim it as the child of God you are. Don't let anyone stop you from getting what God has in store for you! May the Lord bless you exceeding abundantly!! =D

-Kelcy

The Flu and Christmas

That's right. I said it. The flu. I have been sick with the flu for three days now. I am tired, I am achy, I am dizzy, and this is NOT fun. I honestly think this is my first experience with the flu and quite frankly I would prefer that it be my last but something tells me, since I do work at a daycare, that's probably wishful thinking. I have had two kids go home in the last two weeks with high fevers of 102.9 and 103.3. Both were crying, really red faced, and shaking. I know how they feel because I think I have experienced their pain in the last three days. Friday I left work with a fever of 102.2. Crashed at a friends house because 1. The plan was for us to have a Christmas movie night and 2. There was no way I could drive home with how dizzy I was. Everyone at church knows that I must have been sick even if they weren't told simply because if you know me, you pretty much don't expect me to be out of church unless I am near death or in the hospital, in fact I would rather be in church anyway but even I felt bad enough that I decided (without being forced) to stay home from church). On a brighter note as we are about to be officially in the week of Christmas I feel decently better than yesterday with only a slight fever, dizziness, and I am very sleepy. 

Now some of you just looked at that last part about being sleepy and are saying to me (your computer screen really) "STOP BLOGGING AND GO TO BED, YOU'RE SICK!" I would probably agree with this accept I have slept away most of the day after watching the church live stream, and if I don't stay up for a few hours I will be up a half a dozen times tonight even with NyQuil, and if I am up a half a dozen times tonight I will be miserable tomorrow. Sadly, with all of this going on I have to call into work tomorrow, believe it or not, while many of you think that should be a good thing I am actually kind of sad about it. However, I would never wish the way I have felt on my worst enemy therefore I would rather say home and get better than pass it on to people I care about. 

Finally, the part of the post I was looking most forward too. As you go about your last minute plans to prepare for Christmas, be it groceries or gifts, stop and take a moment these next few days to be still before the Lord, quite your heart before Him, worship, and remember that the whole reason we celebrate Christmas is because CHRIST came to earth. May the Lord bless you all richly this CHRISTmas season! Love you all! 

In Christ,
Kelcy

P.S. Please keep my family and me in your prayers so that we who are sick may be healed and the one who isn't (mom) may remain completely healthy! In Jesus' name!

I'm so Excited!!!

Yep, you've probably guessed the reason for my excitement correctly. IT'S WEDNESDAY!!!!! Okay, part of my excitement I will admit is because we are half way through the work week and it has been a rough work week. However, the bigger (much BIGGER) reason is that I get to go to church tonight! If this is your first time reading my blog than you should probably know that I have two favorite days of the week every week, no matter what. Those days are Sunday, and Wednesday. I LOVE my church. I also LOVE my worship family (again if you are new, that's a BIG thing and there is a post to help you understand just how much I love each person in my worship family). I look forward to these days with excitement every week, I think if they took away one I would probably cry because that is one less day that I get to go to the house of the Lord and worship with the people of the Lord. So, tonight not only do I get to go worship God with my brothers and sisters in Christ, I get to go downstairs after the service and worship with my worship family.. so yeah, I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!! If you are not new you may be getting tired of reading this because I have been pretty repetitive in the last few weeks, and while I am kind of (not completely) sorry for my repetitiveness I am not sorry for the reasons that I keep repeating myself:) I have an AWESOME God, an AMAZING church, and a beautiful worship family! I want people to know! =D God has blessed me so much more than I ever thought He would, and far beyond what I deserve.

Don't you want the excitement I have? Find true love in Jesus:) That's all it really comes down to.
If you know me personally or even if you just kind of know me (some choir members, it's okay I don't know all of you either but I LOVE YOU JUST THE SAME!) and you want a "GOD IS BIGGER" bracelet (www.facebook.com/GODISBIGGERMOVEMENT) just find me and you can have one:) It's a good reminder.

To my worship family: I will see most of you tonight, and I absolutely CAN NOT wait to worship with you during practice! =D I love you all, and may the Lord bless you richly! =D

P.S. If you come in contact with me today (and if you work with me you will) please be aware that I am sorry for how annoyingly excited I am going to be throughout the day and also for how much more annoying I will get closer to time for church:) Well.... I'm only a little sorry =) PLEASE feel free to follow =D

To My Worship Family

Dear GFBC Worship Ministry,
I want to publicly tell each and every one of you that might read this, just how much I love you all. You are more than just people that I get to worship with on Sunday's and Wednesday's. You are my family. I can not really put into words the overwhelming love I feel for each of you when I get to see you all during services or practices and while singing with you. While there are far too many of you for me to know each of your names, I pray for the choir, orchestra, and praise team as often as the Lord brings you all to my mind. It is such a blessing to be able to stand with so many people that have such a strong love for the Lord and want to use the gifts that He has given them to show it.

When I stand in the choir loft, the choir suite, on the stage, or in praise team practice, I am always overwhelmed by the love I feel for all of you and the joy that I feel getting to praise God with each of you. I can't tell you enough how much I love all of you, but may the Lord allow each of you to know the love that He has put in my heart for you. If you can't grasp anything else of what I am saying please know these two things. You are my worship family and I love each of you so much more than I can explain.

To our three God fearing, Spirit filled worship leaders: While everything above is for you as well, thank you so much for all that you three do to keep things running. Thank you for praying for each of us, for encouraging us, and for leading us. God's hand is on each of you and we couldn't ask for better leaders. Not only do you encourage us to sing or play out for the glory of God, but you encourage us by your lives and walks of faith. You work hard and it is appreciated more than the three of you will ever know. May God pour out His blessings on each of you in overwhelming waves!

Thank you all so much for loving God and allowing Him to use you for worship at GFBC. I look forward to worshiping with each of you again soon! May the Lord bless and keep you!

In Christ,
Kelcy =)

A Little Slice or Two of Heaven

I was sitting and listening to an AMAZING song that we are getting ready to sing at church by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, and as I was doing this I started to think of a few things that give me joy, little "slices" of heaven if you will. It's more than two but here are some of them:

1. A passion filled worship at church
2. GFBC Choir, Praise Team, and Orchestra
3. My personal worship time
4. My alone time with God in the South Campus sanctuary
5. Breathe by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir (and yes, that is the song previously mentioned)
6. The GFBC Christmas Program (you have no idea just how big of slices those really are...)
7. A sunset on a sort of cloudy day

I thought seven was plenty for here, don't you agree? My God is an AWESOME God. In the last few days He has allowed me to experience six of these seven (because it's not Christmas time...) even in the heartache. Plus last night I was overjoyed to get to witness the baptism of a friend of mine! I will admit that it's been a pretty bad week, and if you read my last post you will understand that, but I would also like to remind whoever is reading this and myself that God's Word says that even though weeping may last through the night, a shout of joy will come in the morning (Psalm 30:5b NASB). I trust my God. Right now, I am leaning on my God because I don't have enough strength to walk around on my own. My God is so much more awesome than mere words could ever say. My God has given me a shout of joy with each experience. How could I not love Him?

I want to ask that you will continue to pray for the friends and family of the man I mentioned in the last post, who so recently went home to be with the Lord. But, I also want to encourage you to sit and think about this question: What are your little slices of heaven? Feel free to comment with some below as well, I would love to read them! May the Lord bless you!

Breakfast:)

I got to make breakfast for my family today. I will admit that this is something I enjoy doing when I am able and I think my parents and sister are more than happy to let me cook. For your viewing pleasure here is a picture of my breakfast masterpiece (plate):

As you can see I cooked bacon, biscuits and my special potatoes. I would tell you what all I put on my potatoes but than you might could make them and they would no longer be special. My family will tell you I am a good cook, but they will also tell you that I am a pain to clean up after. With the way I cook it really makes me wonder how hard it is to clean up after television cooks... I really feel bad for some of the people that are on clean up crew for cooks like Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay, Paula Dean, and even the cast of The Chew. I think the clean up crew for the last one would have more sympathy from me simply because they are cleaning up after FOUR individuals who have cooked different things throughout the coarse of the show. 

So anyway, I am happy to announce that I had PERFECT scores on ALL of my week 2 assignments in my class, and I intend to do just as well this week. I am so happy that everything is going well in school and I praise God for His hand on everything. 

Well I guess you are all probably pretty hungry after looking at that picture so I will let you go and try to find bacon as good as that:) It's time for me to go and get ready for work/church. Tonight is our last night of Awesome August at Gardendale First Baptist Church. Siran Stacey the former Alabama football player is coming to speak. If you don't have a church home or even if you do you should come and visit my church for an AMAZING night of worshiping God, and hearing His word through our speaker. It's a blessing that you absolutely DO NOT want to miss. HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE and may you be blessed with the most wonderful day ever in Jesus!!!! :)

Speechless (sort of)

It's funny that I want so badly to type this out here and yet I am at a loss for words. I mentioned in a previous post of how I enjoy sitting in the old sanctuary in the church where I work. Well, today as I went in there I had the intention to be still (and quite) before God. So that's what I did. I went in, took my place in the first pew, leaned back, and asked God to speak. As I was sitting there in the stillness of God's presence I allowed my eyes to look over the sanctuary. I did this for probably somewhere around 20 minutes before feeling the need to just talk to God. So I started talking to Him about how I felt sitting there, expressing the fact that I didn't understand what it was that I enjoyed so much about that sanctuary. Then He spoke. Not audibly of coarse (though if He wanted to He could) but with a memory that explained it. 

In this moment, I was moved to tears as God took me back to a beautiful little chapel in Ecuador. If you know me then you know that I took a mission trip almost a year ago (it will be a year next month) to Ecuador with the student ministry at my church. While in Ecuador we stayed in two places, Camp Chacauco in Patate Ecuador and Camp UNPES located near Tena in the jungle. Something that Chacauco has that I love so much is this quaint little bitty chapel. It has some chairs stacked in a corner, a little podium, and sometimes there was a fold up table in there... Anyway, during my time at this camp, as the day would close I would go to the cafeteria to Skype my parents and than I would head into this little chapel turning the dim lights on and getting alone with God. 

Some of you don't understand my point behind telling you all of that so here it is. Though I loved serving in Ecuador some of my sweetest memories are of what God did while I was in that chapel, much like the sanctuary. Now you get it? While the sanctuary is big, with pews and a stage and all that, God made me realize today that He has blessed me with a little (big) piece of Ecuador. A wooden roof, just enough of a dim light, and it is quite. Just like the chapel... 

So today, as my Father showed me this gift from Him, I sat and cried, overwhelmed with love and joy:) And with that peak into my life today, I would like to end with this question. Has God given you (His child) a gift that maybe you've overlooked? If you're not sure, maybe you should ask your heavenly Father to show you:)

Time for bed, I hope you have a wonderful night, and may God bless you with sweet dreams:)

Last night I had the privilege of doing one of my favorite things, I got to go to prayer. My choir director, her husband and several members of the worship ministry get together at 7:14 on Thursday nights to pray. I enjoy this far more than anyone could ever imagine. Standing with other believers and praying to our Father. Some of you are looking at the time wondering why it's 7:14, it's because of 2 Chronicles 7:14 which says, "Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore the land."

Some people think that I carry my excitement too far when it comes to being at the church all the time but honestly one of the men last night put it best. He was talking to a friend earlier that day and when his friend asked where he was headed, he told him that he was going to prayer. The friend said something along the lines of man we're there all the time and he simply said well, where is there to be? (Sorry if that didn't make any since)

That's how I feel. I honestly feel like every other place that I go through out my time here (work, out with friends, and yes even home) is pointless. My mind even wandered to a verse the other day from Luke. 

"'But why did you need to search?' he asked. 'Didn't you know that I must be in my Father's house?'" -Luke 2:49 (NLT)

Sometimes when people ask me why I spend some much time at the church, or when they tell me that I spend too much time there, or the infamous you don't have to be there every time the doors open, I think of this verse. I want to be at my Father's house whenever I can be. So what if today's culture says I'm taking it too far, I think God is looking down smiling at my eagerness to be in His house. Some people think that I am spreading myself too thin and that I am going to ware myself out but I promise you, the less time I spend at church and the less time that I spend with God the more worn out I feel, but the more I'm at church whether it be for service, practice, or prayer, and the more time I spend with God the more ALIVE I feel, and the more rested I feel. 

Being a christian means that no matter what the people around us think about it, whether it be friends, co-workers, or even family, we will do what we feel like the Lord is leading us to do. We will risk everything. 

I guess I am done with my rant now:) I really hope that this will encourage some one today. And I hope that you all have a WONDERFUL day!! =D

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." -Romans 15:13 (ESV)

Today was a special day for me. Today I made vows to Jesus. Some of you think I'm weird but really it is already changing me. You see I have a purity ring that for the longest time I have only thought of when it comes to staying physically pure before marriage. However recently I have thought more of purity in heart, mind, and spirit. So today in the dim lit, tranquil setting of my churches old sanctuary, I got on my knees and made vows to my sweet Jesus. I recommitted my purity ring, this time with a deeper understanding of what it means. My time there today was a sweet moment that will stay between Him and I unless He leads me to share the details of it later, but my heart is overwhelmed with a joy that I cannot explain.  

Some of the sweetest parts of my weekdays are when I get to go into the old sanctuary at the south campus of my church. You see, I work in the daycare there every afternoon Monday-Friday and the sanctuary is in the center of the building. When I get there the kids still have somewhere between an hour and a half to two hours left of their nap so I will spend a little while talking with co-workers and/or eating lunch, then I will slip off to the sanctuary where I am blessed to be able to spend about half an hour sometimes more, just me and Jesus:) This time, without a doubt is the sweetest prayer time I have ever had the joy of experiencing. I would encourage everyone to make sure that you have a time at some point during the day that you can be completely alone with God if at all possible. Since I started doing this almost a month ago my walk with God has become more intimate and  I find myself falling in love with Jesus more and more:)

Well I guess since today is about to become tomorrow I should get some shut eye. May God bless you exceeding abundantly:) Goodnight.