My new friend, Kristi

For the past few weeks I have been listening to the autobiography of Kristin Chenoweth read by the author.  I listen to it in the car.  I am in my car a lot so over the past few weeks we have spent a ton of time together and I have learned a lot from her.

Tonight, as I was watching the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, I noticed all sorts of technical parts of the performance that Kristin talks about in her book.  At one point a question popped into my head about the singing and I thought, "who is my singer friend I could ask?".  I had to laugh at myself when I realized I was thinking of my new friend Kristi. :)

Just so we are clear, I am aware that Kristin Chenoweth and I are not really friends. :)  But there are some parts of her book that I wanted to share with you.

At one point she decides she needs to hire a personal trainer.  Her trainers philosophy makes a lot of sense.  He says that every woman needs to love their body the way it is because if you don't love it why would you want to invest the time and energy required to make it stronger.  There is always room for improvement but when those changes are prompted by love for ourselves then we won't sabotage ourselves or set our self up for failure.  It makes a lot of sense.

She talks about when she went through some confusing and frustrating parts of her life she held onto the fact that God is in control of her life.  She says at one point that if she believed that God was in control of her life when she won then she had to accept that He was also aware of when she lost and even though it didn't make sense to her He was in control.  I don't know if you remember but I wrote excitedly about a graduate student assistant position I got this past semester.  It is a position you have to reapply for each semester.  I didn't get it for the spring semester.  I was heartbroken mostly because I thought that this position was an answer to my prayers.  I struggled financially through the beginning of my first semester and when I got that job I thought that God had led me to my answer.  I was glad for the reminder in this passage that if I trust that God is in control when things go right then I need to do the same when they seem to go wrong.  For now I am trying to have faith that a window to open after this door has "shut".

My favorite part is when she talks about the list of questions she has for God when she gets to the next life.  It is a fantastic list full of several things I would love to know as well.  When she poses her final question it resonates with me so much that is makes me tear up.  She simply asks "Heavenly Father, are you proud of me?"

Thanks for the lessons Kristi!  Love ya BFF!  he he