Kailee Stephens

Its a hot August day, I have 2 tired toddlers, and I’m trying to decide whether to have a gourmet meal on the table for my husband or just “keep my kids alive” as they climb and wrestle through every moment of their day. I deeply desire to be the best wife and mother I can be, in this season I am in…and then Michael surprises me with princess-cut diamond earrings from Jared’s! I have the best husband on the world! And not just because of diamonds, but because he is the most loyal & dedicated man. I am never in need of a prayer or word of edification when he is around. I am so blessed by his continual washing of my with the Word. I am so honored to be his wife and the mother of his children.

Yes, I am still alive. I haven’t updated this blog in FOREVER!!

My other blog (kaileedstephens.blogspot.com) takes up a lot of my time and the business it has been bringing me is keeping me happily busy. I have had 4 clients in the last 5 months with one client due this week.

I’ve also thrown in some trips with the family this summer too. We spent 10 days in California, ministering at a Korean church and enjoying the ocean and Disneyland, then we spent a week in Wisconsin ministering at a youth camp…we also threw in the mix a couple birthdays and a July 4th celebration. My childhood best friend gets married next month, so I will be off to Southern Indiana for a week as well. It been an eventful summer and so my blog has been lonely these last few months. But I am alive and well.

The Lord has been speaking to my heart about so many things in these last, busy few months and I can say that I am growing each day in obedience, patience and wisdom…mostly regarding my marriage and parenting, which has been a little challenging, especially with two VERY active toddlers and a husband that works outside the home 50+ hours a week. But the Lord is so faithful each day, whispering to my spirit and strengthening me with new, tender mercies.

My focus this week : Proverbs 4

Everyone has heard that saying-Time Flies-and it is so true. I was recently told that the days go by slow, but the years go by fast. It seems like yesterday I was 10 days overdue with our “surprise” second baby girl…I was big, fat and restless….and yet so very excited to welcome her with open arms and lots of kisses. Finley Briel, or affectionately known now as Finny Bri, turned 1 on Monday! We looked back at a few pictures of her life thus far and I though would post some

Contently living inside at 41 weeks

Her big arrival after only 3hrs of labor

3 Months

6 Months

9 Months

Today

We spent the wonderful warm weather at the zoo this week. Our kids had so much fun- Emerson’s favorite was “Horton” the elephant and Finley’s favorite animals are lions. Here are some pictures my husband took of our day together. Enjoy!

I’m not sure if its even possible to maintain a clean and orderly house with 2 young toddlers. Every time I turn around I find another tiny hand print on the wall or find that someone has licked the television or dumped crackers crumbs in all the kitchen drawers. And it’s like my broom and vacuum are magnets…as soon as I pull them out to use them yet again, my little girls are immediately by my side asking to “help sweep”. And I’m thinking to myself- the help would be to stop touching things with slimy hands and use tissues instead of each others shirts. But with a smile I say “sure, its your turn to use the dust pan” and then just expect my quick sweep up to take 20 minutes because lets face it, my 1yr old and 2yr old’s skill of the broom and dust pan are just plain awful! AAHHHH!!!
So I came up with a few ideas I thought I would run by you….ideas that I’m thinking might help me cut back on some clean up time.
1. Everyone wears plastic gloves to help keep the house free from prints
2. Cut everyone’s meals to just once a day and enforce trash bags to be worn instead of those useless bibs
3. Require nap time to be 6 hours long rather than 2 hours
4. All drinks are served via Camel Backs eliminating spills that take place with those “spill-proof” cups

With all seriousness, I need a housekeeper! Any takers?? NO?? Well, then I’ll just keep adjusting my ideas until I find something that works…And continue to focus on having a peaceful spirit admist it all.
1 Corinthians 14:33

Longing is a desire, a yearning, a hunger or a craving. It is something that once is created, is a driving force that cannot be ignored easily. Our Lover, Jesus Christ is longing itself. He is the very definition of this passion and He is the very definition of its satisfaction as well. He was wounded with love for humankind and so we have been wounded with this same longing. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the sense of numinous resides in every person. It is that present awareness that something bigger and greater than is out there. This is where Jesus searches for those who will choose to pursue Him. He seeks voluntary lovers (1 John 4:19). Jesus has a longing for us. He does not long for us out of need, but out of the desire to bring us into the fullness of His Divine embrace.
Many believers go through periods of “silence” from the Lord, where they do not hear or feel Him near to them. Yet, they return to the Lord over and over again; why? Something within them knows that although they do not see Divine love and comfort manifested, they know that He was the only one who can even begin to heal deep wounds of their hearts. Many of those very wounds were from Jesus; own hands as an answer to their prayers. Even though they do not understand at that time, His answer to them is the cultivation of the Divine craving and longing in their inner being. It is an intentional wounding to bring them deeper into His embrace, bringing them deeper into their pursuit of Him. In order to fully experience the heights of Divine calm and exhilaration, we need to fully know the hunger and thirst of our fallen, human soul. We sometimes view our pain as the absence of God and yet it is the full presence of Him. It is an upside down, inside out love, one that we can only begin to understand in this lifetime. Our longing and craving for Jesus, our Lover, is our Divine fulfillment. He was and is strategic in injuring our hearts with this lovesickness, He is awakening us to Divine longing and love. Our eyes have only begun to open to the wonders of this thing called love and this vision of pure and most excellent beauty.
The desert of raw barrenness and pain is a place that can initiate bitterness and sadness of our Lover forsaking us after calling us to follow Him. But it is like that old poem where a man is walking the beach with God and after a hard time, he looks back at their footprints in the sand and sees only one set. He thought God had left him after promising to walk beside him. But the footprints he saw were actually God’s and not his. He had been carried through the hard time . When we see only one set of footprints in the desert sands of loneliness, it isn’t because we were walking alone.
We do not always understand the true ways of our magnificent Lover. Sometimes we react out of our fallen human state and unconsciously create a wall between the Lover and His Loved. While we think we are being forsaken, we are actually being drawn deeper into His Divine love and fulfillment. Our tears of anguish or pain is the very manifestation of His Divine presence; the presence of longing. This longing initiates a journey into His embrace where all we hear and feel are His love songs and passionate words being spoken and sung over us. We are surrounded on all sides with such pleasure, both ours and His, that all we do is speak to each other of our love and desire for one another. We enter into our garden that we have handed over to Him for cultivation, care and pruning and we just sit. We sit amongst the sweet spices He desired us to grow for only His use. We are surrounded by sweet smelling perfume. And the point comes when you cannot tell whose scent is whose. Is it your Lover’s, or is it you who is now dripping with the overwhelming scent of pure longing and deep satisfaction? Longing is the echo of eternity within our souls. Our longing is the very witness to the Divine ache in our heart. Jesus created lovesickness as a gift. It our charge to embrace it and let it have its way with us.
Dana Candler writes this: “All day my heart ached. I have so longed to be with you. I have only known longing… I am a fool lost in a sea of unnamed emotions, searching for a beacon, hoping that my True Love will take my thousand emotions and create a song of love for He whom my heart loves. If this pain is the sword of your love, I can think of no sweeter friend. If pain is my escort into deeper love, pain is my cherished companion. One of the most beautiful things about pain is that no matter the cause, it can always lead me to You and cause me to lean upon your breast…I would gladly cry a thousand nights and drink of pain all my days, if I could but know that the tears were kissed by the Divine before they became the fountain welling up within my heart. If I could but know that the pain was birthed not in my own heart but in the heart of the Man of Sorrows ”.
This gift of longing, that at times seems so painful, is our most precious and treasured possession given to us from our Lover that we in turn give back to Him in communion. We must let it lead us to Him, so that we can know fulfillment. God has invited us to play a divine game of chasing and catching. This propels us into lovesickness, where the longer we chase, the more satisfied we are when we take hold of Him. This is a part of His wooing us to Himself. He loves it when are living in the position of not being able to stand being apart from Him. I love the chorus, “I must have you, I must have you. ” Jesus absolutely loves to hear that from our mouths for this is what we were created for, for His good pleasure.
Proverbs says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when desire comes, it is tree of life. ” This steady hope is the anchor of our soul which takes us beyond the veil into the very heart of our God. Hope, the expectance of something that brings fulfillment, causes the heart to be stricken even more with lovesickness. The desire and longing that occurs leads us to search for He that is true love, He that gives life and life more abundantly. This “delayed for a time” hope is our very preservation. This is the wooing of the human heart to the man Jesus. How true is the old phrase, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder“.

A few recent pictures taken by friend Blaire Perry.

Love you Blaire!!