I am so, so glad you are here—really I am. With a blog name like “This Lovely Mess,” I can’t help but think that something about the title caused you to pause and land here. You probably know a little something about this messy life we live. I’m glad you are here because it gives me comfort knowing I’m not alone in this thing we call life.

My name is Kristy. I love coffee but most especially iced. Iced coffee is an addiction I can’t shake. Every day is better with a cup of coffee in it.

Coffee is important because my house is FULL of energy. My husband and two little boys, even my cat, keep me running and outnumbered. In spite of this, I love that they fill my world with more joy than I can express. Life is busy and it is full. In so many ways I am blessed to get to have the role of wife and mom. For years I didn’t think this would even be possible. In my spare time (do any of us really know what that means?) I run a small photography business over at MK Priceless Photography. I blog and write things, I create because that’s how God wired me. In striving for simple I often discover life is anything but. Where life is complex I try to be a glass-half full kind of gal. Down deep I want to see the beautiful in everything—no matter how hard at times that may be.

And life can be messy—really messy. I grew up the kid who was the last team pick. I didn’t always have the newest, nicest clothes or even the most stunning hair-cut. Most of the time I was more on the unkempt side. Home life was hard. So hard that I ended up knowing what it was like to be “orphaned” as a state kid and shuffled from one home to the next before I was twelve. But that state kid landed in some pretty amazing homes. In those homes were people who loved me enough to point me to a God who loved me beyond what I could imagine.  That state kid grew up and traveled the world, got married, and is learning everyday what it looks like living loved in the hands of a very big and great God.

Hope

That’s kind of what this blog is all about. It’s knowing that yes—life is messy. It’s also knowing that there is hope to live beyond broken. I live and cling to that everyday. It’s what keeps one foot walking in front of the other. I love Jesus. I love Him because He gave EVERYTHING for me and is EVERYTHING to me.  EVERYTHING I am or have is because of Christ and His extravagant grace. Undeserved, beautiful grace.  Grace that:

SAVES

CALLS

TRANSFORMS

CLAIMS

HOLDS

So stay a while, won’t you?

It’s my prayer that this blog, this lovely mess of a life, is not just a place to stop but a place to be part of a community. A community of people willing to be open, vulnerable and admit brokenness. A place to camp in humility and remind each other it’s OK to not be OK. A place to be held and to hold space for one another. It’s not really about me at all. It’s about what God is doing in our lives. It’s about being drawn to someone and to something greater than ourselves. Our world is fallen and broken—very broken. I get that. Our lives are equally broken—I also know this deeply. But hear this, out of anything else—your life is not beyond HOPE.

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a HOPE that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf”  Hebrews 6:19-20a

I really am glad you are here.

Kick up your feet a while. REST. Let the knowledge that God is good all the time and all the time God is good renew your heart and mind a little. Stay. Be encouraged. Leave and take with you a little more peace than what you came with. Run and live this lovely mess of a life with me and celebrate in the beauty that can be found growing out of the ashes of hard. Live beyond broken.