The Long Lost Blog!

 So I just found this blog! I thought I had published it months ago and I never did! So please entertain me for a moment, take yourself back to the week before Christmas. The air is crisp and dry. People are running around like chickens with their heads cut off preparing for various shows and trips and dinners and families coming in and out of town. Kaylee is stressing out and waiting anxiously for the weekend to end:

      On Saturaday night we had a wonderful Christmas Concert. It was written and orchastrated by our very own Andrea and Elindsey. It was a Christmas play/concert. We had dramas and songs....two of those inwhich I drummed for the first time ever! If you've been following this blog and have impeckable memory you would remember that I started learning drums sometime around April/May and over the last couple months have continued to learn and improve and on Saturday I put my skills to the test- performing, like I said: TWO songs! My nerves were running at high speeds but the rush and the shouts from the crowd was well worth it! :)) My parents even came to the concert, they took pictures and my dad shouted out with excitment. During the very annointed alter call Andy Altringer ministered to my dad while Chris Altringer leaned into a conversation with my mom, which ended with them both stepping away without praying. I was crushed, standing at the sound board watching my mom shake her head no.
      The next night was our much anticipated Childrens Christmas Play. My role was that of the teacher, I had a blonde and bouncy bee-hive and a southern accent that stuck with me for hours after the play. I had slaved for the last two months, missing every Sunday evening service, having a headahe that often last for days, feeling the stress of memorizing lines and ques and constantly restraining myself from beating the many running and wild children into a living pulp..but we made it through with laughs that echoed for days, and again there my parents sat, forth row back, in the center, beaming with grins that stretched from ear to ear watching there bubbly small town daughter turned 60's southern belle. After, we exited stage, with claps and shouts of the crowd ringing in our ears, me and the kids waited in the back, butterflies still flapping their wings in our bellys and suddenly I saw an urgent eye from Courtney knocking from outside the door. "Come here!" she mouthed waving her finger at me. I rushed to the door, confused and worried...'what had gone wrong?' I thought.
       As I stepped out of the crowded door way she looked at me softly and grabbed my arm, "Your dad just raised his hand".
   'No!' I thought. It couldn't be. She pulled me into the dark sactuary and wrapped her arm around me. I could see my dad from where I stood against the flagged wall and then I heard Mark ask, "If you meant that, would you look up at me?" and suddenly I saw my dad raise his head, "did you mean that?" and he nodded yes. The tears streamed down my face uncontrolably, and my body felt numb. My dad was praying at an alter! And without delay, Chris went over to my mom and while every stood and sang, my mom sat in her seat and prayed with Chris. People flooded me with hugs and the heavy liquid eye liner I was wearing had flooded down my cheeks.
       I have been praying for two years that one day my parents would get saved. I could of never imagined it tho, and would have never been able to imagine the feeling I would have seeing my parents giving their lives to Jesus. I was so hopeful on Saturday night that when they didn't pray at that moment I felt so discouraged and to think that they would pray at a Childrens Play, of all things!
     I continue to pray for them, because I just know that if God will save them then he will surely move in their lives!
                         -Always Toby K. A Hopeful Woman Serving the Most High God.

Among The Rubble

I found this among some of my older drafts and I thought I'd share. It's nothing too amazing, and frankly I wish I could change some stuff with it, but I'm trying to get back in the habit of posting and since I don't really feel like writing I will use this. Hope you like :)


A seasons time has come and gone. The summer heat has turned an autumns rain, the warming ocean waves have turned a frigid tide, blooming buds have become fallen leaves; relationships have changed, passions have turned, a love has ended with the warm breeze it rode in on; it left on a whim and ruminated in a hurricane. But before long the changing weather calmed and the waters barely made a stir; people turned a blind eye and soon forgot. Tears have dried, a heart has healed. Over the horizon is nothing but a memory and beyond the memory is nothing but another season to watch the weathering changes as the heart sits on the shore waiting for the storm.

Have you heard? Will you listen?

The souls like leaves are falling, shadowed by the lights on the street, burning under the stars and hypnotized by the moon. Howling a yawn they shout to the Lord, "catch me!" but it's too late, theyre already gone, and the Lord our God lowers his eyes to hide his tears. Before the light of the morning how many will fall, before the dawning of the sun how many will see the fire? Feel the flame? Suffer the pain? Because we turned a blind eye? Because the monster we heard sounded bigger than we thought, than we knew it truely was? Because we didn't feel that freedom, salvation, grace, and love was important enough to share? Because we didn't think that they could hear us, that they wouldn't understand? But you understood. You heard just fine. You took his gift and praised his glory, but what if no one thought you would? How far like leaves would you have fallen into the flame? For the glory of God I praise and sing, and tell the world fore I am called....fore this time I will listen, fore this time I have heard.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Cry.

I go through these phases where I'm completely in love and infatuated with myself and then I have these days when all I do is look in a mirror and start crying. Jaime put it perfectly once saying, "what men don't understand about women is that we can love ourselfs one day and hate ourselves the next". If that isn't the most true statement I don't know what is. To love ones self one day and hate ones self the next...my life in a nutshell. I cried last week after just catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and then in that same week I felt like the top of the world because of a pair of earrings and a good hair day. I am a beautiful young women (most days) and love myself to the fullest (somedays), and if I think really really hard about it, I wouldn't trade myself for the world.

A Letter To A Friend.

If only for a moment, I could lift up your pain and take the world off your shoulders. If only for a moment, I could remove your veil and let all peace from God fall over you. If only for a moment, you wouldn't feel hurt, pain, or sorrow. If only for a moment you could look into the future, strip down the wall paper of time and eternity, and incrusted in your walls you'd see an everlasting promise fulfilled in every second and minute and hour of your life. If only for a moment, you could talk to God and his voice would call out your redemption for all your heart to hear. If only for a moment, I could give you all that your heart desire. If only for a moment, I could show you the beauty of your own smile. If only for a moment, you could feel the laughter of your own jokes. If only for a moment, you could stand where I stand and see you as I do. If only for a moment, you would know that on any given day you are the most wonderful you that has ever walked these roads. If only for a moment, I could tell you that I love you. And if only for a moment, you would know that I care.

Als, you know I love you; I'll see in what will be only a moment.

The Redeemed.

Have you forgotten what salvation tastes like? What grace on your tongue feels like? Have you forgotten how heavy the burdens on your shoulders really were before they were lifted from you? Because salvation is still as sweet as when you first tried it. Nothing has changed and it only gets better over time. Salvation lingers over you, reminding you, days and weeks and months and years after, of the good God we serve. It hums lullabys at you while you sleep, lingers in your ears and rests upon the lashes about your eyes. The mercy of God scratches down deep beneath the service, digging out your imperfections with healing hands. Your lungs are opened and filled as if they have never tasted the sweetness of air, and your eyes are clear behind your misting tears. Your heart sighs with relief as the chains of iniquity that bound it are broken. You shake lifeless limbs with joy and content as they place over themselves the armor of God. The touch of the word of God against your fingertips feels like the refreshing cold of the evening tide. You sway your hand in it as the water crashes up against you and you dig further and further, not knowing where your hand might end up. Further along, salvation touches your soul. It's not something physical or something emotional, but in the hands of God abides your soul, and in his warmth comes his peace, and in his peace lies his salvation.
Incase you've forgotten, that is the salvation you have. Now spread it, so all may know the God that has brought his people out of the bondage of sin and death, and all may know what it truely means to be called The Redeemed.

The Perfect Pair.

There are a lot of people in this world; the sinners, the saved, the misguided, the false prophets, the holy, the righteous, the proud, the humble, the prejudice, racist, judgemental, the lost, the searching, the remorseful, the sorrowful, the guilty, the shamed, the hurt, the abused, the joyful, the triumphant- all of these are human. They are so different, yet so similar. No matter how much we hate to admit it, there are strands of all these characters sown into our chests, some colors more prominent than others, but all woven together to create the living beings we are today. We are the beings that talk and walk and work and live on the dry and wet lands of this little planet. We form relationships, we make bonds, we start feuds, we compromise, and apologize. But even in a sorry, a lingering guilt resides, even behind an "I love you" is a tied rope of restraint, even in a goodbye lies a refreshing and illuminating wind of relief. For some these human strings can bring demise, but for others, these strings quilt themselves together to create the most perfect pair of beings known to man- Christ and his Bride; holy and forgiven; now we have become a righteous people.