"Those who look to him are radiant..."

The other day I was meditating on what it means to glow as a daughter of the King in His righteousness and glory. Despite how easily my heart gets distracted, he is always pointing me back to himself and the cross, making me most radiant when I am most fixed up on Jesus, not myself. I was reading Psalm 33-34 and Hebrews 12:2-3 the other day. In Ps. 34:5, David says that, "Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame." I love that picture of being radiant...glowing..shining..with God's glory. His holiness, righteousness, and perfection shining through me, his meager, sinful yet chosen daughter. This is the holiness that I long for..the glory of God radiating through my life. Later, David says, "for those who fear him lack no good thing..." What a promise! Those who reverently trust and fear the faithfulness of our great God will lack no good thing! We may lack the things of this world, but we will never lack God's complete forgiveness, daily grace, and continual mercy. Do we get this? Do we live like this? So often I don't. So often I live like the Gospel isn't really real, like I am not completely forgiven. But we are! We are far more sinful that we can imagine, yet God's grace is far more abundant than we dreamed. This is how we radiate the glory of God...by daily resting and living bathed in the blood of Christ.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

By Robert Robinson

New Year's Update

Well, I have not updated for a long time so I figured it was long overdue. Christmas break just ended, and I came back to campus this morning. Christmas break was wonderful to be back with my family once again. Having been in Argentina over the summer, this was the longest I had been at home for a year. It was so good to reconnect (i.e. have long, serious conversations) with Mom and Dad and have fun (i.e. act silly and be made fun of) being the oldest, now the littlest, sister.

I also spent most of the summer working at a tea store. Although tiring, the job was lots of fun. I met and greeted customers and basically encouraged them to buy tea. The job was completely people oriented, which is what made it so much fun.

Until later,
Kristen

Are you a sprinkler?

I have another funny story to add to our list. Last night in our house, four of us made bean soup (we actually just heated it up) and had a cute little "family style" dinner in our kitchen. Later, we had some friends over and were making brownies together. We were going to put chocolate chips in them but forgot until the last minute so we sprinkled them on top. Then, I offered that we should put holiday sprinkles on them too. Another friend of mine said that no, sprinkles don't go on brownies. She asked, "Are you a sprinkler?" Being the Baptist that I am, I said, "NO! I was fully dunked!"

"House" Stories

This year I'm living in a one of several "ministry houses" that we have here on campus. Last night, we had a pot-luck dinner for all of the houses. We shared our funniest and best moments. Some of our funniest moments included Christmas in October, killing a roach with Lysol, and having campus security ring our doorbell at 1:00 AM. We thought that the best one was having security ring our doorbell in the middle of the night, scaring our house full of girls, all because someone left her lights on in her car.

Enjoying college life and looking forward to Thanksgiving break, Kristen

Argentina movie

I recently made this little movie as a part of my portfolio for the College of Education. I thought you all might enjoy it.

New Email Address

Just to let you all know, my email has changed to khatfield1751@andersonuniversity.edu. Supposedly, Anderson is updating the email system. My old email will still work, and I will check both of them until Nov. 1, 2007. After that, my old one will be removed or deleted, at least that's what the school has told us for now. Thanks.

-Kristen