Walls

I love the story of Nehemiah. A humble cupbearer for the king goes and rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem, a defeated city of the once great kingdom of Judah, while fighting off Sanballat and Tobiah, enemies of Isreal. There’s something so heroic about someone who can stand in front of rubbles and destruction of something that once was great and see that it can be great once again. Also, not only convincing others to help build it back but also to fight while building. I mean how talented could these people be? They know they meaning of multi-tasking. Each builder had materials in one hand rebuilding the wall and a sword to fight off the Ammonites and Horonites with the other. I can barely rub my belly and scratch my head at the same time! You think that would turn out to be one crooked wall! Unfortunately, rebuilding the wall was only half Nehemiah’s problem; read the rest of Nehemiah if you want to appreciate a persevering leader. Anyway, Nehemiah has always stuck with me because I feel like everything that I have gained has been by building with one hand and fighting off enemies with the other. However, in my case I constructed a lot of walls that I am frantically trying to tear back down. I have built mazes of fortresses around my heart that I haven’t let anyone near in years. Walls with concrete and mortar, having to be crushed down when I have little strength to obliterate them by. Thankfully, I take heart in Nehemiah’s words, “Our God will fight for us!” (4:20) Well, if God wants this heart, He is going to have to, because I have closed Him off in a small cell in the corner of all these walls, I can’t find Him at all. I will continue to fight off the demons, Lord, you knock down the walls, and somewhere we will reunite in the middle. Let’s rebuild this temple that once was completely yours to inhabit

Home is where the Heart is

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” ~ Ps 90:1

A friend once gave me this verse that I feel continues to stay with me. As being a wanderer as I have been for the last few years jumping from state to state with new experiences and lives. Within the last year I have lived in three different states with families and communities in each. In the last week I went home to visit my family for my sister’s and my birthday, continuing to develop relationships in my current state of residence of Texas and I am now visiting Arkansas where I have lived the last 4 years of my life. I have had the privilege of growing and being apart of these different communities filled with God-filled people. There just comes times when my heart just seems to feel the void that is left every time I leave to go to a new place. With each new life I develop, another part of me is discovered to learn and grow but then another part of my heart runs missing when I leave that place. It can be a lonely place to not know where you belong. We can all picture some knit-pillow with the flowery designs with a quote: “Home is where the Heart is”. Well, if that is the case, I am just as homeless as ever. To have all these people that you love and all these people that have impacted your life is truly a blessing, but I still have no place I can go to feel truly connected and at home. The Lord is to be my dwelling place, where my home is, but I have yet to feel safe there but it changes slowly. What does it mean to dwell in Christ? How can I be at home when I have no place to go? It makes me wonder what Jesus meant when He said, “The foxes have holes and the birds have nests but the Son of Man has no place to rest His head.” (Luke 9:58) Is this a lifestyle I’m called to follow?

Warrior

They call me Warrior. Defender. Down a walkway. This is what I am called, and who I am formed to be. Its interesting because in the new revelations of myself, my gift is sensitivity and compassion with a big heart to hold it all in. It seems that my name and my nature is very contradicting. A compassionate warrior. A soft defender. Tends to a be necessity for explanation. Over and over, I have been told of God’s goodness and that He is Love. It is not an action, it is His entire being. And if He loves you, He has destined good for you. In contradiction, my experience has cast me into a dramatic play where one of my greatest attributes is the poison used to destroy me. Kelley’s heart, so tender and passionate is the gateway for the abusive to trounce on. Isn’t that the inherent downfall of irony. The one thing to treasure and to be denounced by. But there is goodness to come for I am loved by Him. My unbalanced equation will be correctly computed into a whole and perfect solution. My gifts and my defeats will be weaved into one oxymoron. Like the God of the Universe, the Lion and the Lamb, the righteous and the merciful, the living water and consuming fire. I am compassionate warrior. I am soft defender. I am Kelley Alexis.