Love With Arms Open Wide, Kelly Florence’s Story (Ep. 24)

Our Guest: Kelly Florence

 

Kelly Florence has been a professional illustrator for 25 years and mother of three. She has also long felt called to offer her art as a means to raise funds for those most in need. Kelly declares it is an honor and privilege to make her talents available to the Lord for His purposes, alleviating poverty, and potentially decreasing the risk of human trafficking for imperiled people. She is married to Greg, a retired Navy Commander. 

To find out more about Kelly’s art ministry see: http://compassillustrations.org/

Key Thoughts and Scriptures

2 Corinthians 5:14-20a NLT Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves.…

Galatians 5:22-23 NLT But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

• When you’re listening to lessons of the Bible, nuggets of truth will stand out to you.

Luke 14:28 NLT “But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it?”

• Once Kelly made a commitment to the Lord, there was no turning back.
• “I had a King that would ride before me!”

Kelly’s salvation story started with inclusion that led to salvation which continued to the ongoing work of sanctification.

• Seeing the consistency of Christ was good medicine for Kelly’s anxiety.
• The power of praying grandmas is stunningly affirmed over and over for they are empowered to pray beyond their own generation and lifetime. 
• If you were saved at a young age, your testimony may not have the drama and trauma that others have. However you too were saved from that by not having to experience it.
• God has a reason for all that we experience.

Jeremiah 29:11 NLT For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

God can stop the trauma for future generations by saving us.

• “I know there is a Father God who is taking him home and the same God is going to look after me in his absence.”
• The Lord comes in those hard moments and surrounds us with His comfort.
• The moment Kelly opened her mouth in prayer Jesus felt very present.
• “There are a certain amount of tears that will need to be cried between the beginning of this dark tunnel and toward the light at the end of the tunnel. And my work is to do that grief work.”
• If you’re crossing a four-lane highway with a child, you grasp their wrist, if necessary you lift them bodily.
• During her grief, Kathy felt the grasp of the Father’s hand firmly.
• Friendship is a powerful thing.
• Maturity steps up when God allows you to make a decision where there is no wrong answer.

Kelly had to walk away from her anxiety associated with people who were different from her.

• Jesus came to reconcile us to Him and called us to be reconcilers.
• We tend to let fear of others drive us.
• Fear precludes warm hospitality, generosity, and an open handed defenselessness that Christ calls us to.
• We’re angriest at things that make us fearful.
• “What am I afraid of? Is Christ rooted in this fear?”
• Walk away from that sense of fear.
• Invest in love.
• Find one person from the demographic that you fear that you can fall in love with in Christ.
• When you can provide out of your own resources, even friendship, we invest in that person and that guides our thought process.
• Having a relationship with someone is how you learn to relate to that person and that demographic.
• Your everyday behavior should be dictated by something different than political theories.
• If you don’t love a person from that demographic, your opinion about that demographic doesn’t have any weight.
• Scripture tells us that we are to love others, so they can understand God’s love and let Him transform them.
• Our arguments won’t transform them, but our behavior can transform them one way or another.
• We don’t need to be fearful if God is leading us to reach into communities that we are unfamiliar with to show them the love of God.

Kelly just felt passionately that she would like for them to have that sense of a large, embracing Father that she longed for when she was young.

• The Father is standing with arms open wide.

James 1:27 NLT Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

• We’re all given mission fields that we may not want because we’re fearful about the opportunities God brings to us.
• Our greatest calling is to break ourselves open and to share what we are inside.
• We can sometimes feel that connecting with another person is part of our performance as a good believer.
• “When I’m broken open, do I smell like love, joy, and safety?”
• A performance driven mindset ruins the authenticity that God has called us to.
• Everybody wants to live a life with meaning.
• The Lord uses what He has in His hand.
• Being broken open is about communion and transparency and sharing who Jesus is.
• It’s at that point we can intersect with people who are radically different from us.

Ruth NLT 

• Ruth was taken in and included and embraced.
• She was able to come home into the arms of God that were bigger than her tragedy.
• Her loss and her people group didn’t define her.
• She was drawn through all of those things into a walk of sanctification.
• Moses didn’t think he had anything to offer God.
• God used what was in Moses’ hand.
• What do you have in your hand?
• Offer to God what you have, even if you think it’s meaningless, and He will teach you how to use it to share His Love with others.

2 Thessalonians 3:5 NLT May the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ.

Links:

• Compass Illustrations

 

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