Pleasure

All humans desire pleasure.

That's how God created us! We were made for success, for joy, for happiness, for fellowship. He made us to enjoy things. He is pleased when we are pleased! And when we love Him and have His Spirit inside us, we are pleased when He is pleased, too.

God has given us desires - they come from Him and were made to be fulfilled! It all depends on how we fill them. Make sure you are walking in the mind of Christ (which is your inheritance as a Christian!) and follow your God-given desires and you will find the fulfillment - and pleasure - you were created for :-)

Longing

Sometimes I get this feeling of longing. And even though it's supposed to be a feeling of dissatisfaction, wanting something more, I really like the feeling.

Spring fever feels like this.

I want what I had last year at this time. I remember the trees, the flowers, the sunshine. It's like I'm coming awake again! I remember driving with the windows down, radio cranked up. I remember, literally, driving in J's jeep with the top down, listening to Benjamin Dunn's music and laughing together, our first date!

I remember feeling so free, like I held the world in my hands. I could do whatever I liked, and so could J. We were children of the King.

Yet, there was also a sense of longing, but good longing. It's like, we know there's more, and we are MOVING TOWARDS IT. Sometimes, it's not that we actually want to possess the thing we long for, it's just that we love the drive, the push to get it, the journey it takes. I feel empty without it.

I hate normalcy. I get restless when I'm stuck to one routine too long. I want that challenge. That push for something more.

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I've been thinking about freedom today. We are totally and fully free because of Jesus. I want to go do something awesome to exercise my freedom! I want to FEEL my freedom, want it to be manifested.

What happens when someone who's been a captive for 15 years is finally freed? He's been longing for freedom for so long... what happens when he finally gets it? Does he miss that old familiar feeling of wanting to be free, searching for a way out? Perhaps.

In the same way, romance is a lot about the pursuit, isn't it? All the fairy tales are about the prince and princess finding each other. What sort of story starts out with them finding each other and being happily ever after in 5 minutes? No, even if they meet at the beginning, there's something that keeps them apart until the end. They don't get married until just before the credits roll.

So what is it about our human nature that loves the pursuit? I guess that, while we LOVE desire, we CAN be fully satisfied once desire comes. Doesn't Proverbs say that "Hope deferred makes the heart sick?" If there's NO fulfillment to our expectations, we get super frustrated. I HATE movies that don't have happy endings! :)

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This all ties together with my thoughts about freedom. We ARE fully free in Christ - but sometimes, we still think like the old captive. We think we miss that feeling of longing, and can't let it go. While I do believe that God has put a longing in our hearts for our True Home (C.S. Lewis is big into this, and I love how he views this topic of longing!), I also believe that we don't experience the fulness of our freedom here and now because we are still dreaming of being set free. But He has already freed us from EVERYTHING!! On Good Friday, Jesus proclaimed, "It is finished." And He meant it! "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," Jesus said. If we know Him, we have eternal life (John 17:3) - We have it already! I'm getting ready to let go of the longing that doesn't belong and embrace the joy that is mine in the present! :)

Progress

“You’ll be doing live music forever. We came for dinner and stayed for 5 hours. The way you two look at each other – she looks at you like you’re the only one in the world, and when you look at her – you two make my wife and I remember what it was like when we first met.”

One of the men in our audience at the Huntsman told us this after our show there last Friday. It's probably the greatest compliment we could ask for! God has been using our relationship itself to minister to people, as well as our music.

It was a GREAT turn out Friday night, so fun, everyone loved it and we musicians just had a blast! We packed the restaurant out, so I think the owner was quite pleased, too. Dane and J Turner played with us on drums and bass. They were going to leave for Vermont and postponed it till the morning so they could play with us! They are amazing musicians and the fact that they support us that much means a lot. 

We've had a lot going on the past couple weeks! J & I wrote a new song, Sheep Say Baa – it's so fun! We can't wait to release it.

We also met with View Higher Pictures' co-founder, Peter Nevill, to start collaborating on our first official music video, The Best of It. Peter's a good friend of mine, and it means a lot that View Higher is teaming up with us for this project! 

Our show at the Huntsman was another key event on our calendar last week, and now this weekend both J & I are leading worship for two separate conferences: J is at the New Canaan Society's annual retreat in Washington, D.C., and I will be at the Fire & Water Conference in Harrisburg. We will be apart, but we get to spread our influence to even more people this way.

Like David and Joseph in the Bible, whatever we do succeeds. God is for us! Nothing can stand against us! Even in the wilderness, David had 600 mighty men who followed him. Joseph was put in charge of Potiphar’s house, and even of the prison he was unjustly thrown into. Even if satan throws stuff against us, we live under the New Covenant – Jesus’ blood has conquered everything!! There IS no prison or wilderness for us! We can surpass David and Joseph - who both became powerful rulers of nations. “Greater works than these you will do…” – even than Jesus! How great is our God and His lovingkindness towards us!

The promises of God are for all of His children - He loves you! Rejoice in the victory that Christ won for you on the Cross, and have a wonderful weekend, everyone :)

- Kay

The Predicament

So I used to think I had a normal van. Yeah... even after all our Otie adventures, that's what I used to think. But I was wrong. My van is not a normal van. My van is alive.

I was driving away from J's house one day when I realized I had a book in my car I forgot to give him. Sometimes my van, Otie, doesn't like to turn on in the cold, so I left him running while I brought the book to J inside his house. When I came back out, I found out that Otie has a mind of his own, and he thought it would be funny to lock me out! My purse, my keys, my spare key, everything was locked inside except my phone which was in my pocket.

I ran back inside to tell J, and we turned to - what else? - YouTube. Who hasn't gotten locked out of their car before? People like to document that kind of stuff. We found a bunch of companies who unlock cars professionally but they used real wedge tools... we didn't have any real tools like that, but we did have a garage full of potentially helpful stuff, so J & I went on a little treasure hunt.

Armed with 2 wire coat hangers, 3 paint scrapers, a hammer, and two door stoppers, we marched back out to Otie.
J shoved the door stopper into the top corner of the passenger door and wedged it in deep with the hammer.
The paint scrapers were useless. J had cut & bent the hangers and they worked alright except they weren't strong enough to put force on the manual lock - we had to hook it over the lip of the lock and pull back. Not easy!!

J remembered a stronger wire wound up in a red spool and man, that really did the trick! It even had a ready-made hook on the end. It took a LOT of tries.

J maneuvered the wire while I held the flashlight (an app on my phone) and gave him verbal directions - he couldn't see the inside of the latch from where he was standing.
  
We didn't give up, and suddenly - boom! - we'd flipped the latch! We opened the door ASAP so it couldn't re-lock, and Otie was free. Through teamwork, we did it!! :)

 Yeah, I don't know what Otie thought he would gain by locking me out - he really does like me - but I don't think it will happen again! :)

- Kay

The Big Day

Jason and I went snowboarding yesterday. Little did I know that it would be day that changed my life forever.

My first run down Sugar Slope (the easy, "learning" slope) went well, and I felt like I was starting to get the hang of turning from "heel side" to "toe side." For our second run, J suggested we ride towards the left side because it was less crowded. I started out toward that side but ended up inching into the middle as I tried, unsuccessfully each time, to make that half-spin turn.

"Kay, come over on this side by me," J encouraged, still further up behind me on the hill. "No, I'm GOING to make this stupid turn!! I'll lose half the mountain by the time I get over there, it's just gonna be a waste." Little did I know that J was whispering, "Oh, no, it won't!" to himself. :)

In spite of my words, I did steer all the way to the left, losing very little of the hill. Then I tried again in vain to do my spin, fell, and sat down in the snow, discouraged. "I can't do it! I keep catching my back edge," I pouted to J. I was actually getting VERY frustrated, feeling like I was just getting worse. Poor J. He took off his board and walked over to me, then knelt down in front of me. I thought he was going to say, "Kay, it's ok, I love you, you're amazing and you can do anything," as he usually would, but instead he just sat there with a look on his face I couldn't read. Then he unzipped his jacket and reached into his inside pocket. I thought he was going to pull out a tissue so I could wipe my nose, or take out his phone to show me something encouraging. What he pulled out, however, was a blue ring box! I briefly wondered if this was a joke, not wanting to get my hopes up. But then he opened the box - slowly and significantly - and there inside was a real diamond ring!!!!

"Oh my gosh!!!" I said, TOTALLY surprised. "I love you, Kay," he told me, tears in his eyes. "Will you marry me?"

"I will!" I said, now crying myself. He slipped the ring on my finger and I kissed him, so full of joy I could hardly contain myself. He was even more emotional than I was (which is usually the case with us).

We spent about ten minutes composing ourselves from all the emotion and then boarded the rest of the way down the hill - now I felt like I could conquer the world! Then J took me to the fancy new Red Tail Lodge restaurant which was a lovely atmosphere and we called our friends and family and had a wonderfully romantic little lunch.

It was such an amazing day! There were several times in the day where I'd suddenly get more of a realization of what just happened and say, "Whoa! We're engaged!" or look down at my ring in awe that it was really real! We both wanted it to be a surprise, and it so totally was!! It's an extremely difficult thing for J to keep anything a secret from me, but he did, and I was so proud of him.

After we finished at Mountain Creek, we had a lovely little engagement party with both of our immediate families and played music until late into the evening. It was the perfect day.

I'm soooo happy.

I love you, Jason Roe!! :)

- Kay

Updates

I'm so happy today! What beautiful, spring-like weather we've been having recently. The changing of the seasons (even tho it's really the dead of winter) makes me feel so optimistic about life. I love where I am right now!

We just launched our new www.jandkay.com website, so you'll have to check that out!! It's not fully finished, but it's usable; I'll be working on it more and more, so if you have suggestions, comment and let me know.

J and I had a great time at the Recoup Lounge in NYC last night, and are looking forward to our more-local gigs coming up. Join us Tuesday night at the Mason Jar for Toxic Tuesday, hosted by Dylan Wyka! It starts at 9pm but we probably won't be on until 10 or 11. And save March 17th for our fantastic event at the Architekt in Butler NJ! More details on that coming soon.

- Kay

I Only Work In Peace

I only work in peace. That’s a line from one of our most popular songs, “I Feel.” “I step out, walk the tight rope steadily, I only work in peace, let me, let me be myself.” Sometimes, I feel like it's a waste of time to journal, to "insplore," as J would say. Sometimes I don't want to take time out to spend with God or evaluate my life. But when I don't, my life essentially falls apart; what's the use of saving time not journalling when I'm incapable of being at peace without it? I only work in peace. This morning, against my better judgment, I wanted to just jump into work without thinking, praying, and planning my day… but it didn’t turn out so well.

Later, J and I were talking about some hard decisions we've had to make recently. About a month ago, I quit my job because I knew deep inside it was what I needed to do (and I'm so glad I listened to and followed God's voice in that!). J's had to make some similar decisions, and here are some truths that we realized about our lives in the process:

It's good to empathize and feel what other people do, but I can go beyond and know I don’t need to let it affect me when it shouldn’t. I am strong enough not to feel what other people feel, at least not to let it get me down.

I am above all attempts of others to manipulate my emotions.

I do not answer to man, but God

I obey God rather than men

I am not a slave. I am a Free Man!

I am free to work in peace

The best thing I can do for others is be the best J/Kay I can be. That may mean making choices other people won't understand, but it will be the BEST for them in the long run.

My decisions are paving the way to freedom for others, too. People around me will see how I live and desire that freedom from caring about what others think, too.

No living for the weekend! Life is too short. All time is precious. We hear God about every moment of our lives, because each one is precious.

Kids understand how precious every second is; adults often don't. Adults say, "I'll just put up with it for a little bit and then I can go back to what I think I'm supposed to be doing." Not true. We should ALWAYS be doing 100% what God wants us to be doing. It may be serving others; it may be taking care of ourselves, but God has a plan for each moment.

Planning is the first step to accomplishing things. Think time, soak time, planning time, are all priorities! Don't neglect them.

Peace and joy are the end for us, as well as a part of the process. Others work FOR peace and joy; we work OUT OF peace and joy.

We are rich kids; we are God's kids! We inherit joy. We inherit peace. It is ours, we have an abundance, and we work out of it.

Rich and successful people don't carry the emotional weight of others.