I have another blog separate from them this one. Every now and then they merge, in order to give my Getting Back to Happy blog a little flava’ – bu this one, is special, so I ave kept it pretty separate until I figure out more of what I am doing with this project. I really love to interview, and i have met some of the greatest people either online or in person, over the past 40 plus years, and I find them so interesting, I want to share them with you! this is my first! So enjoy!
I met Kristi at a writer’s conference here in Tulsa Okla. I really appreciated her from the beginning, and I didn’t even know her! She said she didn’t favor blogging, and from the beginning, I thought, ‘I have to get to know her, because she doesn’t know what she’s missing! However, she somehow found her way to me. We ended up talking really brief, exchanged numbers, and then the next time I met up with her was a a coffee shop. We have been doing deep conversations about writing, projects and hot drinks, every since then I have loved her bubbly spirit and her courageous attitude and approach towards life! She not only adds meaning to life, she gets that its only temporary, and its not our eternal home! I feel like I met her in another life. She’s truly a cool soul, keeps me thinking deep, loving nature, and I will definitely keep her around a long time! I want to grow old with her!
What values give you strength? I am ever seeking to be wiser, to take care of myself without being totally self-absorbed, to take care of others without losing myself. I have learned that the only permanent harm I can sustain from the injuries of this world is from bitterness I choose to nurse. God can get me through anything and make me not only content but truly happy. THAT is what I want to share with the world. Why is identity important in a young lady’s life? When we are children, life happens to us. When we grow up, we take ownership of who we are, and we evaluate the experiences that have molded us. To know ourselves, we have to sift through our traits, our reactions and our dreams to see what is real and what was planted in us. We examine our learned responses and decide which ones we want to keep. We ask our Maker who we were made to be and who He sees when He looks at us with those loving and honest eyes. Every so often, we reevaluate. If we don’t take the time to separate self from scar, if we don’t understand how our scars and breaks affect our range of motion, then we choose to be crippled when we could be dancing. When I was 22, God spent a year walking me through the painful examination of how sexual abuse had affected my decision-making and drives. As a child, I had chosen to forgive the man because God forgives, in a kind of “Okay, it’s over; I’m going to play now” way that made me feel very mature. As an adult, I had to arrive at an authentic place of forgiveness while looking back on a warped and premature adolescence. I asked a lot of questions to which humans just don’t have answers, and I dealt with anger over the way my personality had been molded by that evil. I came to recognize the pain and and helplessness my mother must have felt upon discovering what had happened, and later upon receiving bad counseling from people she trusted. Over and over, I had to keep turning my eyes to my real Father in heaven, whose plan for me is never deterred even though people in this world make bad choices. Look what they did to His Son. Today, I am Kristi Michelle Bridges, vibrant and compassionate and creative and unafraid. I’m not a victim. God doesn’t see me as a helpless toy but as a companion and friend, not as an object but as someone He traded glory to save, not as a subject but as someone whose song makes Him smile, and not as a trashpile of shame and mistakes but as someone He created perfectly and redeemed with His own blood. If you haven’t seen yourself and God in this light, ask Jesus to take you there. God will do the rest. As you look at your life story, at what point would you say a new chapter began for you that prompted courage to be more pronounced and grow much stronger in you?
About a year before my ex-husband left, he went on a vacation and I stayed at home. While he was gone, I thought, “What would I do if he never came home?” A year later, he said goodbye. I never anticipated this—I had believed that we were two people created from birth for each other. But there I was, watching my entire life plan drive away in our new car. Over the next few years, I realized that while he had married a strong, seemingly independent girl, I had become more of an overcoat for him—no longer a whole person, more of a second skin hitching a ride. I thought I existed to keep him warm and dry and he could carry me to all the exciting places in life. In the process, I became a burden and not a companion, a restriction and not an inspiration. It took a few years, and my second marriage suffered a little bit as I went to the opposite extreme—so independent that I almost threw away my vows and God had to teach me how to cherish my husband. My first husband’s exit forced me to become—to become brave, to find out what I like and go do it without a hand to hold, to be a stranger in many places even when I felt awkward and to take charge of my future and my dreams. God didn’t stop there, though. My current husband gives me freedom to fly and cushions me when I land. As a woman, what do you need to hear in life more than anything else?
That who I am is beautiful and makes a difference. Check out my blog at https://kristibridges.wordpress.com/
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