Incredible Woman #42 - Kristi from Visible Voice. Trials and Love Story...

KARA: "Tell us about your trials and how faith has played a role in those challenging times."

KRISTI: "Oh my. Well I don’t count my trials any greater than others. In a way we’ve been so blessed. Most of my trials from this experience have been pretty internal. I mean being isolated is definitely isolating. I remember one time last year I was starting to feel like I was going a bit nutty and feeling like I just wasn’t myself. I realized I hadn’t left the house for two weeks straight. Not even stepped outside onto my doorstep. I hadn’t seen anyone but my son and my husband. And I realized how lonely I felt. It’s been hard to live so far away from family, from friends, from my church community and just people. But like I said my trials have been internal. My mind really works against me when I have too much time to myself. But I soon learned that God knows where I am as long as I call on Him. That it doesn’t matter where I go, He finds me. That the small miracles of a phone call from a friend or an emergency root canal where we got to finally take our first trip out are Him helping me and healing me. (Yes my root canal healed me –in more ways then one!). I’ve also realized just how important it is to be who I am. That life is too short to be anybody else. That holding strong to what I believe in is what has carried our whole family through this journey. Some of our beliefs and standards have left us a bit of an outcast. And to be honest it would have been really easy to throw in the towel and say, I’ve got nothing or nobody - I can’t fight this anymore. But at the end of the day I know that to be true to myself, to my faith, and to my Heavenly Father, I had to hold on to what I know and feel is right. God can find you anywhere. And He’ll be for you anywhere. We've been really blessed to have the knowledge that we do."


KARA: "Tell us your love story. How do you keep your marriage happy?"



I remember seeing him. His feet dangled over the edge of the chair. And when he folded his arms they were sorta chubby and they didn’t quite fold together right. This is the earliest memory I have of my now husband. We were about four or five. You see, we’ve always known each other. Since we were babies. We grew up together in church. But never really “knew” each other. He was always the nice guy that I never really took notice of. He was just there. He was Matthew, as I always called him. It wasn’t until later in life that he noticed me and for the first time in MY life he began his silent chase after me. No one has ever chased after me to be with them. People often teased me that he liked me but I just thought whatever and "ew weird" I’ve known him my whole life. But as the next couple of years went by (and a mission with letters back and forth) a friendship started forming. Until one day he told me how he felt. 8 months later, and after me telling him NO twice, he asked me a third time “will we only be friends forever?” to which I responded (with a smile that was saying more) that yes, I think we would always be friends forever. And now I’m married to him. And he’s still my bestest, closest friend. And he’ll stay that way forever.



I believe in all honesty that what keeps our marriage happy is my husband. He once learned “Happy wife, happy life” and for sure he keeps that at the front of his mind at all times - ha ha ha ha! But in all seriousness the things that keep our marriage happy is that we stay friends with each other. We stick to each others side and we try to remember that we’re first married and then we are parents. Not in a selfish, neglectful way, but in the way that we know that long after our kids are grown and gone, we’ll still have to have something to talk about and love each other for, if we want to have a fun and happy eternity. We also try to laugh a lot. With one another and at one another. We don’t get date nights where we can go out anywhere. I mean where would we go up here anyway???? And since we don’t live near family and we’re a bit shy to bug new friends we make along the way, our date nights are spent at home after our son has gone to bed. This may be the case for lots of readers out there. We make sure that even if it’s always just movie and snacks that we do that grown up time together. And we talk. This he doesn’t have much of an option for. Because I love and NEED to talk. And since he lives by “Happy wife, happy life” our communication skills are pretty darn good! And again, he’s my friend. And with his job moving us around as it has, he really is my constant and stability. And I am his. It works. And it works because we want it to."

I'm really enjoying this interview - I hope you've learn some things so far from Kristi. Don't forget to check out her website (see the sidebar). If you like what we do here at Incredible Women, please become a follower - and comment! We love comments. Please come back tomorrow for two more questions in our interview with Kristi.