Kristin Hill Taylor

Seeking God as the Author of Every Story

Reflections on living & dying

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I knew I wanted to gather some old friends to celebrate my 40th birthday. Four dear friends (and three of their husbands and kids) joined my family at my lake house for the first weekend of May. They brought gifts, memories, and all the food we needed to feed our party of 23 people.

Jaclyn, Sarah, Katie, and Bekah hadn’t all met before, but I have histories with them that span decades, literally. Some of our stories have overlapped, but I knew this was the right group of people to gather together.

Starting in 1990, Katie was my next-door-neighbor-turned-best-friend for all of middle and high school and we remain friends across the state who wish we were neighbors. Bekah and I also were friends in middle and high school. We swam together, she introduced me to country music, and we continue to gather at Christmastime and other times we have extra time when we’re visiting my mom in Louisville. (Fun side note: I encouraged her and her now-husband to date, so they blame me and thank me in the same breath. I’ve actually known her husband Barrett longer than anyone who was at my lake house that weekend!)

Jaclyn and I met in college and had intersecting friends starting in the fall of 1998. We actually got closer after college, got married the same summer, walked through infertility and all the early days of motherhood literally together, and now miss each other if we go too many days without hanging out. Our husbands and kids are tight too. Sarah walked into our church in May 2009, pregnant with Davey who would become my Ben’s first friend, and we’ve basically been friends since. She’s since moved four hours away, but we have an ongoing, never-ending text conversation that brings me so much joy.

Jaclyn and Katie put together a book of blessings and memories from all kinds of people in my life. Jaclyn gave me other goodies and helped organize the whole weekend. Sarah gave me a felt letter board with a sweet message already displayed. (The quote is a reference from a book about friendship by Melanie Shankle that Jaclyn, Sarah, and I like to quote to each other.) Katie made me a T-shaped shelf that’s already hanging on my wall. Bekah bought my dinner when us girls went out for Mexican food one of the night’s together.

Our boys fished and caught enough bluegill and catfish to feed us lunch on Sunday. The older girls made friendship bracelets, had a sleepover in the basement one night, and helped us keep track of the little girls. We went on some boat rides, laughed at memories, told back stories, and ate well.

My soul was so filled with these
new memories with old friends.

The celebrating continued on Monday when some of my friends I know from my kids’ school gathered for breakfast together. It was such a sweet way to begin the new week celebrating some more. Forty certainly had me reflective and craving all the quality time with people I love.

I wanted to celebrate with my people, but God knew I would need to be filled to the brim with love and support as the week continued. God saw beyond my 40th birthday.

My dad went into cardiac arrest the evening of May 7 – four days after I turned 40, one day after Cate turned 12, and five days before Mother’s Day. He passed away about 35 hours later, on Thursday, May 9. (Here’s his obituary.)

He had been without oxygen three different times – for an undetermined amount of time when he went into cardiac arrest, on the way to the hospital in the ambulance, and again in the emergency room. His body never recovered and I watched him stop breathing while hooked to a ventilator and lots of medicines in an Indianapolis hospital.

I haven’t written much about my dad here because our relationship was complicated. For years, I’ve grieved not having the kind of relationship I wish we had. My dad and how I’ve long longed for his approval and attention were the subjects of conversations in counseling. I’d forgiven him and tried to share my life with him, even from a distance.

Regardless of the complications, he was my dad. Right after I was filled from my birthday, I found myself unexpectedly grieving. As Dad was unresponsive in the hospital bed, I learned things about his life in Indianapolis I didn’t know. Even my grief has been complicated and in the days since his death, I’ve found myself beneath a cloud of emotions.

With three kids, the end of the school year, and my everyday life here, I have been able to step out from beneath the cloud, but then when I’m not distracted anymore, it’s still there. Grief is tricky. And I’m so grateful I was filled to the brim with love and support before I had to begin to navigate my dad’s death.

I have questions I wish I could ask him. I want to hold onto hope for a little longer. I remember him as an innovative educator who created an environment at an elementary school for most of my childhood and then a middle school just a little farther down the road that teachers, parents, and students loved. He excelled in his profession.

Three of the friends who gathered at my lake house knew my dad. We had actually talked about some childhood memories involving him just days before he died. Looking back even a couple of weeks, God was preparing me. I didn’t realize it then, obviously, but, for as unexpected as the timing was, I also found comfort in his death being sandwiched between so much life.

Dwelling with God

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I decided to follow Jesus twenty-two years ago. I was at a weekend called Chrysalis in January 1996 with no one I knew. I had been asking God a lot of questions in the months leading up to that weekend, but it was there in a room of strangers I wrote on a piece of paper with what was hindering me from choosing God and then nailed that paper to a cross. The worship team was playing Rich Mullins’ “Growing Young,” and I was choosing to let God made me new.

God saved me that one day, but
He’s been rescuing me ever since.

{Tweet that.}

Throughout the years, I’ve learned so much about walking this faith journey. Circumstances have changed. How I spend time with God looks different from one season to the next. But I’ve learned dwelling with the One whose spirit dwells within me is life-changing.

When Becky Hastings asked if I wanted to preview her email series called DWELL, I was in. DWELL is a five-day email course that helps women connect with God in their everyday lives. It includes scriptures, devotional messages, encouragement for next steps, and resources.

I enjoyed DWELL because it was packed with refreshing truth. I loved having that show up in my inbox like a friend spurring me one toward the One who makes us new. And it’s presented in a way that just requires a few minutes but leaves you wanting to dwell with God even longer.

DWELL is now available for free to anyone interested. You can sign up here to receive the series.

*****

I also want to share a Q & A with DWELL creator Becky Hastings so you could hear more about how this resource came to be:

Kristin Hill Taylor: What does the word DWELL mean to you?

Becky Hastings: DWELL makes me think of an internal pause. We all have all of these busy life things spinning around us all the time. DWELL is choosing to pause my spirit to be with God, even as all those other things keep spinning. We know the kids and work and laundry never stop, but we can take moments in our head to be with the Father. He doesn’t need us to do things for Him as much as He longs for us to be with Him.

KHT: What prompted you to put together DWELL for other women?

BH: Honestly, I was getting sucked into the New Year, New You mentality. I was thinking that when January 1 hit I was going to be a different person. I would magically read my whole Bible in a day – well, maybe not a day, but certainly in a year. I would wake early and spend time and the kids would never interrupt and life would never get in the way. I was being drawn to the idea that turning that calendar page was going to make me into a better Christian, a better child of God.

But then I realized two things:

1. That was never really going to happen. Let’s be real.

2. It was never what God asked of me. I could never be a better child of God. He loves me just as I am. He sees the dishes piling up and the baby that won’t sleep. He sees the endless mom taxi service and the meals that need to be made. He doesn’t love me in spite of those things. He loves me in those things. In the mess. In the middle of life.

God doesn’t call us to live our Christian life and our “real” life. It’s all one.

I figured if I needed help learning how to be okay with that, maybe other women did too.

KHT: I know some people (including me!) got to preview this series. What was the initial response and how did that encourage you in your own relationship with God?

BH: It was a big step of faith to reach out and ask women (most of whom I barely know outside the internet) to preview DWELL. I wasn’t sure anyone would say yes. But God provided the perfect group of women to be part of this. They are women who understood the desire to spend time with God in the middle of their very real, and very busy, lives. That was a huge encouragement, to know I wasn’t alone.

And the response has been great! I think DWELL has provided a grace-filled framework for women longing for more of God in their lives. I’m so blessed by each person who has taken time to participate and let me know what they think. And I hope that doesn’t end! I love hearing from readers! We’re all in this together.

KHT: What do you want women to get out of their time DWELLing with God?

BH: Freedom and grace. It really is that simple for me. I hope women see that their time with God doesn’t need to be perfect or fit a formula. It can be simple and honest and short and He still shows up. And it’s those little, simple pauses in our day that add up to a cumulative DWELLing in our spirit.

Our time with God becomes part of who
we are instead of something we have to do.

{Tweet that.}

KHT: Once women finish the DWELL series, what next steps can they take if they’re new to spending time with God?

BH: This is one of my favorite parts about DWELL. It’s not five days you check off and you’re left hanging. It really is a framework you can use over and over. When you complete the course I provide a curated list of my favorite resources to keep going, using the same framework. And you may even get the occasional email from me when I find a new resource I think you’ll love!

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Rebecca Hastings believes in embracing grace in real life. At My Ink Dance, she captures hard, uncomfortable, often unspoken feelings and brings light, honesty and God’s truth to them in a relatable way. She is also the author of “Worthy: Believe Who God Says You Are,” a 20-day devotional inviting women to live life confident of their worth. Rebecca is a wife and mother of three in Connecticut writing imperfect and finding faith along the way.

When the past & the present collide

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Nineteen years ago as a college sophomore, I walked into the Murray Christian Fellowship house on the edge of campus. I had learned about MCF while compiling a list of campus ministries for the student newspaper. What the campus minister had said during a brief phone call intrigued me. I didn’t know anyone, so I dragged some friends with me because I wanted to go.

Three years later, I graduated with a bachelor’s of science and walked away from that MCF house with a deeper understanding of my faith and some the dearest friends a girl could have.

On a recent Sunday in August, the current student leaders from MCF fill a row of seats near us in church. I held the college memories in my heart as my 7-year-old boy still let me hold his hand in church that same morning. My almost-2-year-old girl was eager to go the nursery and my oldest, who is somehow already 10, sat on my other side. Even so, I remember so much of college like it was yesterday.

God collided what He did long ago
with what He’s doing now.

{Tweet that.}

We’ve introduced our kids to the MCF house recently because our small group painted the front porch and started to haul out trash from the leaking basement. We’ve gotten to know a couple of the current students and hope to spend more time with them. Meanwhile, we are still missing the former student who was my kids’ babysitter but understandably graduated, moved away, and got married in recent years.

I’m grateful our church – which was started out of that same campus ministry more than three decades ago – is still in a relationship with the organization God used to teach me and love me when I was finding my way as a new believer. I sat there in the row of chairs Sunday morning with my kids while others prayed over MCF’s student leaders.

I prayed silently in my head:

Thank you, God, for prompting me through a newspaper assignment to walk the couple blocks from my dorm to the MCF house. Thank you for meeting me there that day, many days in the following three years, and even times since. I love how that ministry and our current church are intertwined and how nobody hesitated to join those students with prayer. Thank you for giving my family the opportunity to serve these kids as they serve you and their peers. Be with the students as they begin a new school year. Let them shine lights and love others for you, God. Let them hold onto the truth of what you’re doing now so they can remember your faithfulness later. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

*****

I love living in a college town! I shared yesterday about welcoming college students to my hometown (and wanting to mother some boys I crossed paths with in Kroger). You can also read the letter I wrote last year to Murray State freshmen.