Author: Jenni Eastin

an emotional day, as whitney houston’s memorial was held. talent and heart and faith and humanness all wrapped up in one life. and they used the service as a chance to proclaim the gospel..the best news yet. oh, how i hope that is what is done at the end of my earthly stint. the word of God spoken, praise songs sung, full of the message of joy and hope arms lifted high into the air voices in tune with the heavenly angels and the realization that there has been a great VICTORY as i enter the pearly gates… with an understanding that with every loss there is great gain for those who believe. that is something that i have had to consider before i blogged again because there is great risk in saying who you are like you mean it, especially on a public forum there are others that may disapprove, or withhold support and when someone chooses to be honest beyond what is comfortable, some privacy is lost. but without a bold voice, stories of redemption and triumph are held under the lid of fear and fear is from Satan. i want to be led by something much bigger…by the will of a living LORD and use my voice to make an imprint for the kingdom.. to tell of God’s goodness, and His mercy, and the way He...

  my world has seemed a bit flat lately, numbness in parts of me that used to be passionate and bold and it bothers me. apathy. but, it is one of the ways that the body and the mind shield itself from feeling too much of any one thing at once. when my father passed away 26 days after an out-of-the-blue stage 4 cancer diagnosis, i felt too much at once. laid on the floor in my closet and wailed, heaved, trembled on the floor. inconsolable. a part of me died too, and slowly…very slowly… I am awakening to see exactly who this new me is shaping up to be quieter, finding strength in prayer. unwavering, unceasing prayer. wanting to be more and more aligned to His will, and not fall short of it.   today i was reminded of what it was that moved me at the core, sitting in a er room, waiting for my mother to get her turn to be tested for a set of recent dizzy spells. the man across from me sat upright in his chair, waiting his turn, too… until he slowly dropped out of his seat and onto his knees, hands grasped behind his neck tucked in a tight ball, he shook and trembled in pain on the floor and the staff were called. i could not sit in my chair....

today, i am taking inventory. not the easy kind…sorting out which clothes still fit, identifying which groceries need to be bought the tough, very personal kind. what drives my day? why is it so easy to find fault and blame, and so difficult to love? do i live in such a way that others can see the kindness of the LORD in my life? how can i get rid of all my selfishness? am I really moving forward with God, or are we still stuck on the same stubborn lesson? God has put someone new in my life. she is understated. wears a size 8 jean when a 6 would do. has seasoned speech. chooses every word carefully. is positive when there could be so many other things to say… she is not meek, or passive, or easily pushed around she is kind and strong an inner strength that can only come from daily prayer and complete devotion to the LORD. and i marvel at her, although she doesn’t know. i count our meeting as a key juncture in my life, and accept her as one of my divinely appointed teachers. none of us really wants to be taught, because we all hope that we have arrived at a place where we have it all together. i know i don’t have it all together, even more so as i...

It is Father’s Day. A celebration of love that is woven deep within us. I miss my father. He had a quirky sense of cool that I always admired. A man of few words, he knew just how and when to make me laugh. He was great JOY to me. And no one will fill his space. There are days I almost pick up the phone and call him… And other days that I quietly have a conversation with him on the playground while I swing one of my children. but I don’t feel comfortable asking God for any more of my father, when He gave me so much. Our lives are braided together by time, and faith, and love. I realize how many VICTORIES we were able to share together in our earthly lifetimes. God was able to watch God pry a longstanding, stubborn addiction from my father’s life, and my dad prayed patiently as God found a miraculous way to do the impossible, giving my husband and I our very own biological children. I flip back to a conversation, a set of circumstances, that happened many years ago. I have been thinking about this, intermittingly, for the last few days. David and I had tried to get pregnant for years, without success… until one I bought a pregnancy test and got the “yes” I had been hoping...