• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Kristen Welch

We are THAT Family

  • Home
  • About
    • Meet Kristen
    • FAQ
      • Privacy/Disclosure Policy
  • Blog
  • Mercy House Global
    • Mercy House Global Marketplace
  • Books
    • Made to Move Mountains
    • Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World
    • Rhinestone Jesus
    • Don’t Make Me Come Up There
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • Nav Social Menu

You are here: Home / Archives for Faith

Faith

Unlock the Door to the Happiest Holiday Season Today

November 29, 2022 by Kristen

You haven’t really lived until you’ve been given the last of what others are living on.

It’s happened to me more than once. This time last year, I stood in the doorway of an apartment in Houston with bags of groceries. I was there on a chilly November day with my family on behalf of Mercy House Global to welcome a family who had just escaped the Taliban in Afghanistan and were being relocated to my city. Due to a hiccup in the resettlement system, hundreds of families were in limbo and it created a massive food insecurity issue.

There were smiles and nods and translated words as we were led to the only furniture in the entire home: a single twin bed.

We sat down, my family of five, lined up one after another and we looked at each other nervously as the host family left the room. The oldest woman in the family returned with one single orange on a plate with a knife.

We watched as she slowly and carefully cut the single fruit into 5 pieces and handed us each a slice on a napkin. She backed out of the room and we were engulfed with the significance of her gift of hospitality.

We ate it slowly and swallowed the understanding that we had just received the best and maybe even the last of this family’s food.

It’s the kind of generosity that has no words. Maybe that’s why it leaves you speechless…

I experienced this kind of generosity again two months ago when I was in Kenya, visiting the family members of some of the 70 pregnant teens that are in some phase of empowerment in their freedom journey to hope. It’s a breathtaking sisterhood of second chances with a lot of diapers.

I sat in the single room home that held more people than square footage and squinted in the oppressive darkness as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light. This home represented the 70th miracle baby born at the maternity homes supported by Mercy House Global. We were visiting vulnerable families empowered with dignified work and every door we walked through gave us only the best.

What is about the world’s normal that gives us an up-close look at our own? Why does my everyday normal afford me with options and opportunities for more when much of the world is forced to make desperate choices because they have so little?

Here we are on the brink of another holiday season where we will spend millions of dollars and a 2022 Gallop poll declares we are the unhappiest we’ve been in years. Those who only spend their money on themselves are the unhappiest people on the planet, according to Giving is the Good Life by Randy Alcorn. So, if keeping everything to ourselves makes us unhappy, than maybe the Bible is correct when it says giving to others will make us happy.

“God comes right out and tells us why he gives us more money than we need. It’s not so we can find more ways to spend it. It’s not so we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children. It’s not so we can insulate ourselves from needing God’s provision. It’s so we can give and give generously (2 Cor. 8:14; 9:11),” he went on to say. “God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.”

What are we saving for exactly when the world is dying to be saved?

“It’s curious that the Church has become the most tightfisted at the very time in history when God has provided most generously. There’s considerable talk about the end of the age, and many people seem to believe that Christ will return in their lifetime. But why is it that expecting Christ’s return hasn’t radically influenced our giving? Why is it that people who believe in the soon return of Christ are so quick to build their own financial empires–which prophecy tells us will perish–and so slow to build God’s kingdom? “Randy Alcorn said. “God doesn’t look at just what we give. He also looks at what we keep.”

Hands down, the best holiday memories in my family’s history are the ones where we gave away our time and money to others. The best gifts we recollect are the ones that are tied to experiences helping others. We are forever connected with the people we give to because God forever connects us all.

If our quest is happiness this holiday season, the key isn’t illusive beyond our reach. We stand at the doorway and we hold the key to happiness this holiday season. Jesus said: “Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).

Today is Giving Tuesday. It is a day that encourages people to give back because of what we have received. When we give to Kingdom work, we are giving to God himself. He accepts our gift as if it was given to Him directly.

The world has a need. But it’s no greater than our need to meet it.

We hold the keys.

Mercy House Global has provided a second chance home to more than 70 teen pregnant teens in their work to empower vulnerable families in Jesus’ name with hope and opportunity. This month alone, five new girls between the ages of 14 and 15 have been welcomed home. But more stand at the door, waiting for the key to freedom.

Would you give your best gift today to help Mercy House Global meet urgent needs?

1 Comment Filed Under: Faith

Woven Together

September 23, 2022 by Kristen

She tugged slightly on the thread and gathered the woven fabric under her fingers. With a critical eye, she leaned back to give her creation a better look. A smile formed at the corner of her mouth. It was good. I watched this play out as she sat at a large wooden loom, in a light-filled room, in a slum in the heart of Kenya this week. I wish I could describe the feeling of hope that settled into my soul --how the pull and push of the loom and the rhythmic cadence sounded like a  steady heart ... Read More

3 Comments Filed Under: Faith

One Day Can Change Everything

May 9, 2022 by Kristen

I listened intently to her story. In a lot of ways, it mirrored my own--the startup, the striving, the struggle, the surrender. It seemed like she was miles ahead of me in her business success and ministry scope, so her words inspired me to stay focused on the path, and maybe one day I would achieve the same. But then her story took a turn as she vulnerably shared details I couldn't have known from the outside--the debt, the disasters, the decline. Bankruptcy.  This word snapped ... Read More

6 Comments Filed Under: Faith

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

May 3, 2022 by Kristen

There are rocks in my garden. Most people take rocks out, but I put rocks in and around each of my raised beds.  They do more than serve as a pathway for my wandering feet. They hold space. The other day I was tenderly walking on the path barefoot. I stepped on a raised rock that immediately made me stop and reach for it as it was uncomfortable underfoot. I held the smooth stone in my hand and stood there, thinking about the song lyrics that had been rolling around in my head for a ... Read More

9 Comments Filed Under: Faith

Trust the Process

April 24, 2022 by Kristen

I’ve been having night terrors or nocturnal panic attacks for the past 6 weeks. I fall asleep and wake an hour or two later in confused fear. It’s like my body and mind are out of sync and sometimes it feels like I’m trying to reach the surface from the bottom of the ocean and I run out of breath before I reach the top. Other times it feels like I’m trapped or falling. These nighttime panic attacks are a real blast. When my body catches up to my brain, my eyes pop open and I fly out of bed— ... Read More

28 Comments Filed Under: Faith

Open Your Heart

January 16, 2022 by Kristen

“Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. He who loves is a participant in the being of God." Martin Luther King I checked the time and tried to mentally calculate the line of traffic ahead of me. The hospital on the other end of the phone and city confirmed that visiting hours would end soon. I would have 30 minutes to spend with my dad. He was in the hospital again with a heart issue. I was having my own kind of heart problems. I had just ... Read More

4 Comments Filed Under: Faith

Cry Like a Baby

December 14, 2021 by Kristen

I don't know where to begin. I've been drinking from a fire hydrant the past few weeks. But instead of feeling like I'm drowning, I feel like I'm tasting Living Water and it only makes me want more. Before church on Sunday, my husband told me about this David Platt podcast. In a nutshell: David Platt got in an Uber on the way to the airport and his Muslim driver asked what he did for a living. David Platt told him he was a pastor. The driver said I've had a dream I need to tell you about. ... Read More

17 Comments Filed Under: Faith

Mercy House Global is a True Story

September 22, 2020 by Kristen

Over the past decade, I’ve cried a million tears, told a thousand stories and witnessed the miracle second chances of a hundred teen moms and their babies that are still alive long after the world left them for dead. This is the true story of Mercy House Global.  At first news of the global pandemic  in March, I knew it would make what we do in Kenya more difficult and even more critical. I hate it when I’m right. In the last couple of months, we’ve rescued a girl who was sold for a loaf ... Read More

8 Comments Filed Under: Faith

Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

You know the ones …

Subscribe to My Newsletter

Footer

Search

Recent Posts

  • Today, I Turn 50 (and Begin a New Job)
  • Unlock the Door to the Happiest Holiday Season Today
  • This Is What Faithful People Do
  • Complete the Circle

Categories

Copyright © 2008-2018 Kristen Welch, We are THAT Family · Site by Design by Insight · Family Portrait Artwork by Marry Me in Spring

Copyright © 2023 · Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in