You Walked Across The Room

We often like to dream,

Of how we might change the world,

Do something great, make an impact,

Save a life, change a direction,

A dramatic moment in time,

You follow God so closely,

Listen to His nudging without second thought,

You didn’t even know when that moment was,

It was normal for you, you do it every day,

It all happened when you walked across the room,

A 30 second encounter,

Five simple words in a question my life would hang on,

One quick hug to a random stranger,

You told her that she was loved

But it was more than that,

God used you in that moment,

To shine hope and love into my dark world,

Saving my life countless times over,

Not only that,

But you started a chain reaction,

Breaking a cycle,

Generations of brokeness and disfunction,

You changed things not only for me,

But for generations below me,

Now you have another daughter,

My children have a loving grandpa,

I have a godly husband,

Found healing from my past in Jesus,

I know who I am in Christ,

All because you listened,

When God gave you that little nudge,

And you walked across the room.

~Kriss Brewer 

November 2021

I Could Have Had a Really Different Story

 Last Sunday at church we sang a song I've heard a million times. Nobody Loves Me Like You by Chris Tomlin. There's a verse in there that says, "I could have had a really different story, but you came down from heaven to restore me, forever saved my life". It really struck me. 

I have an amazing life. A loving, godly husband and two gorgeous kiddos with another on the way. We have everything we need plus some. Parents who love me and are incredible grandparents to my children. A million different siblings each with our own connection. But it wasn't always this way....

My story could have been really different. My childhood was filled with trauma, 13 years old had me depressed, and ready to leave this world behind. 13 years old I was going to cut through my blood veins. I wanted the emotional/spiritual pain I was in to end and I wanted everyone to know how much pain they had put me through to bring me to the point of bleeding out on my bedroom floor. That's where Jesus came and filled me. Where I met him face to face and asked him to come into my life.

18 years old found me without a home, alone, lost, abandoned, severe anxiety, depression, self harm and suicidal thoughts. That's when God brought two people into my life who would drastically change the direction of my story. Away from a road of darkness and defeat towards the light and love that I could find as a Child of God's. 

Sometimes being years away now from those really dark days it's easy to forget, easy to forget how dark it was and how much time, effort and love my adoptive parents poured into me. Years of it. The other day my dad was going through letters from me, apparently he keeps ALL of them. He ran across the envelope of razor blades that I gave him when we were working through things, when I knew I knew I couldn't keep them anymore. Really took me back and reminded me of how incredibly grateful I am for all the little ways God worked in my life and all the people he brought to cross my path to bring me to where I am today. 

I used to hide my struggles, my pain, my past. I used to be ashamed of the things I did to cope with the trauma and pain but not anymore, I know that when things are brought to the light it gives shame and Satan no place to hide. I also know that there are others out there with stories like mine. I want you to know that you aren't alone. You aren't too broken. You aren't unlovable. Knowing my story could help even one person have hope or find help is why I continue to share it.

We have the power to change our story. To say this is NOT how it will end. My life changed. So could yours. If you are struggling, reach out to me. I've been there. 

~Kriss Brewer

Raising Little Christ Followers

I’m a first-time mom and I often sit and ponder how I am leading my little girl in God’s truth and righteousness. She’s just shy of four months, but she is growing fast. Even though she doesn’t understand what we do right now, we are setting the foundation for her life. She doesn’t understand what’s going on in the mornings when we read her Bible story and pray for our day, giving thanks and asking blessings and protection over her daddy. She just thinks I’m talking to her. When we dance to Jesus Bible songs she just loves the music and moving.  When we go to bed at night and read another Bible story… she doesn’t understand the words. But someday she will. It is setting the stage for when she is a little bit older and it gets me in the routine of getting in the word and praying with my daughter. My childhood mom and myself were never very close... but growing up one of the fondest memories I have with her is when I was about five or six years old and we would gather in our tiny little RV living room and we would read out of Psalms and sing Bible songs. I knew that someday I wanted to grow up and do that with my own kids. Now I have that chance, and I am blessed with an amazing husband who works very hard, so I can be a stay at home mom. He encourages, leads and pours into me so that I can do the same with our daughter.

When I mentioned to somebody about having Bible time with my baby girl they kind of laughed and said, “Who has time for that with a baby?” Yeah who am I kidding… when do I have time? The response I have come up with for myself is this… How can I not have time? Can I really go through life and be too busy to sit down and get in the word with my child? If I’m too busy now am I really going to have time as she gets older? I don’t want this to just be a phase. I don’t want it to only be something we do for a little while. I want to make the time as my child gets older, starts to understand. I want to be there when she has questions, heartaches, joys and struggles. I don’t want to be the mom who was too busy with work, dishes, housework, TV shows, washing laundry, friends, lists, shopping, whatever the case may be. I will have that to do the rest of my life. I only have a small window of time to lead my girl in truth and righteousness. There will be cleaning and housework to do until the day I die… but the light of Jesus that I invest in my child is something that will change lives. I already anticipate the day that she will see her sin for what it is, see Jesus for what He has done for her and ask him to be her Lord and Savior.

Is this post about somebody else? No. It’s only about me. Because sometimes I get so busy and caught up in my life and busyness that I am tempted to think that Bible time with my baby girl doesn’t matter all that much because after all she doesn’t understand. But I think Jesus has a soft spot for children. I think that Jesus would want little, itty bitty children to hear the stories of him and to be raised to know him. I realize every day how incredibly important and crucial my job as a mom is. If I do nothing else in life but lead my child towards Christ raising her with morals, values and knowing the great love of Jesus, I have lived a life well lived.

So, parents out there… I challenge you. No matter the age of your child, dig into the word with them, read Bible stories, pray with them. Lead them. And perhaps even more importantly is to find time to spend time with God yourself. Because that time with just you and God is what will help make you a good leader and good example to them. Children watch what we do with our lives, what we read, what we say, what we watch, what we do, even when we think they don’t see or aren’t paying attention. Raising our children to walk in the light of Christ, turning away from the darkness of worldly desires and attractions will be the single most important job we will have in life. We will never be perfect, but we can give it our all. Be encouraged and go raise Christ Followers.

~KrissElise

Tiny little feet that will someday follow in my footsteps.

From Broken to Whole - Only Through Christ

So I've been slacking on blogging lately... I don't have any excuse except for the fact that I have 24 half written blog posts that I don't want to finish because I don't know how. Sometimes I get so overloaded with emotions and thinking especially around the holidays that I can't come up with complete thoughts to write about. I've had a couple people tell me lately that I should write my life story. So for like the hundredth time I'm trying to work on that. Then at my College Bible Study last night the question came up on how we look to God and focus on Him especially in the hard times. That ties right into my life story, for me it's looking back on my life. Seeing the desperate places I've been and how even then God was faithful and I look at how far He has brought me and am completely overwhelmed. So I thought I'd touch on that subject a little bit. I was reading through journal entries from previous years and ran across this one. I remember these days so well, I remember the absence of hope, I remember very clearly how defeated, scared and hurt I was...

"Here I am again, 4:15am crying and hurting so bad I'm throwing up. I finally fell asleep from pure exhaustion only to find him in my dreams again and wake up with a scream on my lips. Not even the cold metal against my skin or the warmth of blood on my fingers can dull this pain inside tonight. I'm living in a prison, screaming out and slamming my fists against the walls and nobody can hear me. And even if they could, nobody would really care. I'm surrounded by a million people but nobody really cares enough to see that I'm not really living. I'm dying from the inside out but still plaster a smile on my face so they don't have to feel bad. I hate this box. I hate being invisible. I hate that I let him do that to me. But what's the point? It's not like it will really matter when they bury me in a box. Nobody will ever even know what happened that night or all the nights before. They'll never know that this little girl hurt so bad and felt so invisible that she'd run to somebody just to hear the words "I Love You" just to hear someone recognize her even though she knew it was all a lie. People say guns kill. Knives kill. Drugs kill. Pills kill. Suicide kills. It's not true... it's being invisible, lonely and unloved that kills. I'm tired of fighting, tired of being not good enough. I wanna go for a drive and never come back... I wanna drive up into the mountains and see how far my car can fly when it hits the turn... I wanna know how long it would take them to find my rusted car at the bottom of the canyon.... I wanna know if they'd care enough to cry.... I wonder if there is one person in this world whose life would really change if I were gone. Or maybe... I'd just be another invisible statistic. I might write tomorrow.... if I make it through tonight.. we will see. Tomorrow is Sunday and I work so maybe I'll try and fight a few more days cause Ken usually comes in on Sundays I think when they get done with church or something. I hate the fact that I actually care if he comes in but because I swore I'd never care again, but even though I don't know him he seems like the only person who really sees me. And for like two seconds I feel okay..." ~Kriss  *Fall 2012*

Every time I read back over my journal entries like this I just want to cry because of the overwhelming love of my Father in heaven. Because He loved me so much to reach down in such a desperate time and turn my focus to Him. The amount of stuff I've gone through in my life is sometimes really overwhelming. But with each trial God was drawing me nearer to Him. There came a time when I had absolutely nothing... and somebody which happened to be the guy Ken who came into the grocery store where I worked urged me to give it one more try. So I talked with God. I told Him if He could take my failures, my broken self, all the dirt, if I was still worth it to Him.. I told Him I would give Him the little bit I had to offer which was a messed up shell of a person. That's when I gave Him all the pieces and He began to work. It wasn't an easy process because you will find when God wants all of us there is no area in our lives that we can keep for ourselves. I constantly fought Him. And when it came down to following God and losing my biological family... I swear that's the hardest choice I've ever made is to say, "Jesus, I will follow you, no matter the cost." It hurt, I broke (still do sometimes) and God has been in the process of refining me for the past 3+ years. 

Today... I am sold out for Jesus, I told Him I would go when He says go and stay when He says stay. Some days are a struggle and sometimes life sucks. But at the end of the day all I can do is be overwhelmed by what God has done in my life. How far He has brought me. Many times I don't get beyond "Thank you God for being so good, for loving me so unconditionally.." But I am sure that He can read the tears that are flowing down my face. He's placed me in a good family, He's given me some great friends, He taught me how to serve Him, He gave me kids to teach, He has done such amazing things in my life that it is becoming harder and harder for the world to tear my gaze off of my Jesus. He is my world. He is my everything. He is so good. He loves me unconditionally. I am His daughter and I am loved. 

I will go anywhere,
I will do anything,
I will give up all,
I will let Him run my life,
And no matter what people say...
It's no sacrifice. 

I'll try to keep blogging some more. You will find more and more of my life story being told. Not for sympathy, not for attention, not for likes, comments or shares. Only for the glory of my Jesus. So please let Him draw you near, open your heart to Him and let Him in. I guarantee you will never be the same again and it is well worth it. Keep up the good fight, stay in the race, focus your eyes on Christ.

~KrissElise

Our Stories Must Be Told

I have spent much time in the presence of God lately, talking to Him, listening and reading His word. It’s amazing how if we spend that quiet time, when we devote ourselves to Him and empty out our hearts before His throne then we see the life altering changes. We hear God speak and suddenly everything is different. Then we have two choices, do we move on with our daily life and leave it as if but a mere moment in time, or do we stop in our tracks. Do we realize what just happened and make the changes which will let that moment become the foundation for the future?

It’s crazy how in this life people are stuck inside their own walls, fighting battles against the wars that rage in their lives. Struggles with addictions, tragedies and loss. Yet we remain inside of our little boxes pasting smiles on our faces to tell the world that we are fine. Hiding the tears and screams that echo endlessly, bouncing off of our prison walls. We fight against the demons at night and pretend in the day that we are the light. Afraid that if anybody knows who we really are or the things that we fight against, we would be rejected, unworthy and shamed. We are scared of being weak yet we don’t really know the definition, because how strong would we be to drop the facade? To show our struggles and pain to the world. To join together against the fight of Satan and his lies and proclaim to the world that Jesus is the light in the dark. What would it take to step out of our boxes, out from behind the curtains of disgrace, to show the world that nobody is alone and that there is no shame in the battles that we fight?

It’s time to stop isolating ourselves for Satan to play with in the dark. To stop hiding the struggles, addictions and pain, time to show the world that we are strong because we fight. That we won’t give up, we won’t give in and through it all we remain steadfast and unshakable with God on our side. No more shame, no more playing pretend to the world. This beginning starts when we realize that with the telling of our story, others lives can be changed. We can be the hope and the light because through Jesus we have seen change. We have seen the Mighty Healer at work and we know who freely gives everlasting life and that is the hope we share with the desperate, the ones the world has pushed aside leaving them beaten, broken and bruised. We have the power to shine the light in their lives by being transparent about what God has done in our own broken lives.

I for one will not merely sit aside, I have seen the prison cells that Satan is lining up in rows as he captures each one of us in our addictions and pain and convinces us that we are alone and unworthy. As his demons pour out the shame that silences our cries from the world. Today it stops, in this moment I tell Satan that he will not have his way, because I know where my identity is found and the shame that was once mine to bear, the Son of God already bore on the cross for me, declaring I am worthy, washing me white as snow. Therefore I’m breaking out from my prison cell. Time to tell my story to the world so that others can find freedom from the lies that Satan is painting before their eyes. Because we don’t have to fight alone and there is power when the children of God come together. And nothing in this life can stop me from proclaiming the truth and freedom that my Jesus offers with His death and resurrection on the cross.

~Kriss Elise Beckman

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up ofr us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ~Romans 8:31-39