February 2012
1 post
WatchIf you watch this and don’t smile, you might not have a heartbeat.
I.
Can’t.
Wait.
December 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Wait, 8-year-olds are killing one another?
Last Friday, I had the great honor of being a guest blogger for Project: AK-47, a non-profit that rescues child soldiers and sex slaves from Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, and Mexico.
If you were anything like me, hearing about an 8-year-old with a gun meant another kid playing a video game, however…these kids have never felt the safety of innocence. Their daily nightmare is as real...
4 tags
How do you ever repay the gift of sight? The...
Studhubs is blind as a bat.
Not like, “I need to put on my glasses to see,” blind, but more like, “even when I have my contacts on, I’m really just pretending to see” type blindness. I’ve watched him live in pain for the last 5 1/2 years of our relationship (but really, he’s been in pain for decades), day in, day out…attempting to hide the fact that he’s constantly felt like little...
November 2011
5 posts
3 tags
Angels at the Orphanage
Don’t believe in angels? Try this one on for size.
This past weekend, Studhubs and I ventured to the dusty plains of Amarillo, Texas. I’d been brought in to speak and sing at a benefit for an ministry called Streams of Water that rescues and houses Mexican orphans in Juarez. (http://streamsofwaterministry.org/)
The first night there we had dinner with our hosts, hearing...
Anonymous asked: When will books arrive that we ordered during that last weekend in October?
1 tag
WatchThat’s right folks…I’m pregnant!
I found out middle of July and what an adventure it’s been. The first few weeks were incredible and, as they say, I was glowing. And then…
(dun, dun, duuuuuun).
Morning sickness.
I know this part is necessary for some. It ensures that the baby is healthy and that the mama is giving her little one everything it needs, but...
2 tags
WatchI woke up this morning to find this happening in my kitchen. #mylifeisawesome #iwouldbejealoustoo
Anonymous asked: Dear Christa, just now I read about your book deal, congratulations! This is great news. :-) Maybe the publisher would be willing to publish your book also as an e-book? Almost a year ago I made the switch from paper to digital and I love that there isn't a steday flow of books coming into the house anymore. :-) Have a great november and I can't wait to see what the future brings for...
October 2011
7 posts
1 tag
What the heck does 'INTIMACY' mean anyway?
Intimacy.
They very thought of it petrifies some, having had their hearts burned on the hot stove of someone’s carelessness and cruelty. Others find it to be a driving force towards the mystery we’re all longing for. Love.
Intimacy—to be naked, spiritually, emotionally, and (possibly) physically with someone—seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly. And after they see it...
2 tags
Going through a perpetual tough time?
Anyone feel like they live on hardship lane? Do the same cycles of horrible keep happening over and over again?
I felt that way for years, stuck on a never ending track of awful. In fact, if I had charted out my ‘terribles’…they always seemed to come around like clockwork and take me out.
After years of survival mode, living with a victim mentality, I learned a few things...
2 tags
Order God Loves Ugly today and tomorrow ONLY!
Hey peeps.
The web store is now open for orders! http://christablack.com/
I’ll be signing the first 200 copies , so hop on quick! (And you can just order the book separately for $13.95). ALSO, if you’re wanting to get a group together and order over 15 copies or more, you can get the bulk rate of $10 a book. (email booking@christablack.com for details)
Though my past struggles...
1 tag
LAST CHANCE to order the book GOD LOVES UGLY until...
Friends, Romans, Countrymen (and if you’re not in one of those 3 categories, I’m talking to you, too).
Got some exciting news about this little baby:
Last year after having a chat with Paul Young (author of the life-changing book The Shack), we found out that his best-seller, selling 20 million copies world-wide, was initially turned down by over 27 publishers! I remember sitting...
3 tags
2 tags
WatchI love recognizing heroes. They’re all around us carrying out their heroic deeds every single day, but seldom are they recognized for their sacrifices. Heroes don’t parade about for recognition, in fact, it’s the furthest thing from their minds as they simply live out who they are. They do what they do because it’s right. They do what they do because it brings life and...
August 2011
4 posts
Gluten-Free, Baby
About 3 months ago, Studhubs and I visited a natural Dr/Chiropractor in Nashville named Dr. Jana Joshu. http://www.drjanajoshu.com/
I usually love this stuff. No, I don’t just love it, I adore it as much as I adore Malibu on a summer day, but in spite of my enthusiasm for ‘all-things-natural,’ going in, I had my skepticism goggles in place. Was a doctor really going to find...
Anonymous asked: I've been reading a book that says that to be content as a single I have to have faith that God's plan is so much greater than my own and that he has my ''love story'' under control. Sometimes when I see a guy that's, well, enjoyable to look at, my mind begins to whirl into fantasy world. I recently saw a guy that, I'm sure, if I look at for even short...
Anonymous asked: do you think that if i start believing i am beautiful, everyone else will ?
June 2011
10 posts
The Dead Sea
Well, I promised mud-covered pictures….so here you go.
Nothing like a good, muddy, family photo.
Yep, that’s my mom in the hat. Classic.
xx, Sista Christa
Israel, Day 6
Jerusalem.
I still can’t believe I’m here in the holy city.
We took our bus down into the West Bank this morning and have gone from the green lush of the Sea of Galilee to the dusty brown of the desert. But even with it’s barren rocky terrain, it has a regal beauty of it’s own as history cries from the ground.
Our bus passed the camels and shacks of the Arab Beduin...
Israel, Day 5
No time to write much today….so I’ll upload some pics and write more later.
We visited Bet She’an first and the ruins of a city over 7000 years old.
Looks like the toilet has been around for a while. We all sat as a family on the public toilet where they kept frogs in the building to mask the noise. (As if frogs can mask THAT noise!) I must say, the marble slabs...
4 tags
Israel, Day 4....Day of War
There’s nothing like the calm of the Sea of Galilee to calm the soul. A group of us took a boat out this morning to the middle of the sea, and I sat along the railing with the Israeli flag flying overhead. This land and it’s people have had more war, turmoil, and persecution than any other people group, and yet, there’s a peace here that I’ve never experienced before.
I...
3 tags
ISRAEL, Day 3
Our first stop was the mount of the Beatitudes from Matthew 6. The hill is a natural amphitheater that now doubles as a banana farm. (Yep, that’s right. It’s a banana farm). My dad read the Beatitudes in English while our tour guide Ami read it in Hebrew, the language that Jesus would have preached it in. I must admit, the chill bumps rose fast.
We then drove over to Capernaum,...
3 tags
Israeli Extravaganza Day 1 & 2
After 22 hours of flying, a German kid kicking my seat behind me, a talkative Jurassic Park loving 6-year-old in front of me, and 2 crying babies to my left, Studhubs and I safely landed in Tel Aviv to meet up with the fam on our trip to the holy land.
The occasion definitely merited a romp in the Mediterranean Sea (with Joppa in the background. Yep, Jonah was from Joppa, but I managed not to...
2 tags
WatchOur first night staying on the Sea of Galilee. I’m in heaven. (:
3 tags
NEW BLOG: What kind of body type are you?
Isn’t in crazy how much our society has changed in 200 years? For women, skinny meant you were poor, making it unattractive, and beautiful meant you had enough money to have a bit of meat on the bones. If you walk through any museum and browse the renaissance paintings, you’ll see exactly what I mean.
This girl was smokin’ hot back in Bellini’s day, with her flat chest,...
4 tags
NEW BLOG: Security VS. Jealousy
If I compared myself to the rest of the world, there would definitely be something wrong with me.
I’m so rock-solid secure in my relationship with Studhubs, I tell our friends in LA that he can be their ‘loaner-hubs’ until they get their own (minus a few of the perks, wink, wink). They run up and throw their arms around him in big bear-hugs, and I just stand there, smile, nod...
4 tags
Love Your Flawz
I know a ton of people all over the world, but I have very few close friends. And Miss Caitlin Crosby is one of them.
We got set up on a blind lunch date last year (our good friend Seth Jones thought it would be a good match since we both had a heart for women to know their worth!), and it was ‘instant-friendship, just add time.’ She continues to be one of the greatest sources of...
5 tags
Self-Sabotage
Hot yoga.
I want to kiss and strangle the man who invented the love-child that marries these two extremes. So you walk into a room that’s heated to 105 degrees with 40% humidity, which means, you’re dripping sweat before you even stand up to strike your first pose. About 4 poses in, cascading waterfalls have poured into your eyes and mouth, making you wonder if you’ve just stepped out of a salty...
May 2011
14 posts
4 tags
Do you need to get Self-Control, or do you already...
Self-control.
What a foreign concept for most of my life I thought if I had an impulse, a craving, a desire, or an emotion, I just had to obey it. I thought I was helpless in the grasp of these overwhelming compulsions—a slave at the mercy of wherever they chose to drag me. I believed self-control was something I had to muster up, and not something I already had.
Oh, how very wrong I was.
So...
4 tags
The Science Behind Bulimia, Anorexia, & Overeating
Hey friends. Got a full day today and don’t have time to blog, so I thought I’d include this portion from my book.
Dr. Simone helped me realize the science BEHIND the addiction, and because my body wasn’t getting what it needed physically, it was affecting me emotionally—thus the never ending cycle.
If you’re feeling helpless because you’re in one of these...
4 tags
The Danger of 'Taking Things Personally'
Poor Studhubs.
It’s his 29th birthday today and I scheduled dentist appointments for us. (Whammy). Aaaaaaaaand the dentist appointments began at 7.30 am. (Double birthday whammy). If you know my husband, you know he’s NOT a morning person. I wake up and the birds are singing, the sun is rising on another glorious day, and I’m instantly wide-awake and flitting around the house like a Disney...
5 tags
WatchCicadas. They’re everywhere.
Every 13 years in Nashville, these nasty, winged creatures hatch from the ground like zombies from a horror flick, ready to inflict their plague on our town once again.
Studhubs was sitting out by our pool area reading last night, and I had the bright idea of surprising him with a romantic evening dinner. I prepared the tray with salads, food, drinks, plates, and...
5 tags
The Sting of Old Rejection
I was standing in the hall beside the stage in El Dorado, Arkansas last weekend, waiting for Smitty to finish his meet-and-greet before heading to start the show, when I heard my name called.
After spending 4 years at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas (it’s a mouthful to say, isn’t it?), I figured someone from my alma mater would be there. After exchanging pleasantries, I caught...
4 tags
What do you do with the pain of unfulfilled...
“Do you really think I’m ever going to make it, baby?”
I looked up at Studhubs last week from my withered, exhausted state in the bathtub with pitiful, sad eyes. The kind of sad eyes you see when someone has lost a dear friend, or hit a wall of impossibility, watching the last bit of hope disappear like smoke from a cigarette into the breeze.
Sometimes I still get like this. Sometimes I still...
How to push the 'RESET' button on your metabolism.
I stood there alone in front of the open refrigerator, shoveling handful after handful of food into my mouth, barely chewing before swallowing, only to repeat the action over and over again.
Once the ice cream was gone, I was onto the Oreos, then the leftover chicken, then finishing off the bag of chips I had sworn not to eat.
Tears poured from my eyes, hatred fueled my heart, and self-loathing...
3 tags
Learning how to BE loved is sometimes harder than...
Relationships.
Interesting, unpredictable little suckers. We were made to have them, our lives were meant to run on them, experience our days with them, and yet they can be the biggest source of both extremes of pain and joy, all in the same breath.
Good relationships bring life.
Bad relationships bring death.
And there’s a whole lot of grey area in between.
For years, my relationships...
3 tags
4 tags
Blog 2: The Perils of Swimsuit Season
Swimsuit season.
The bane of my existence for the past 14 years of my life. I can’t remember the last time I felt carefree in a swimming suit, unaware of my body and wobbly bits as I sheepishly and carefully reveal practically everything. My head is usually plagued with an automatic recording of, ‘Suck in, clinch buttocks, remove wedgie, stand up straight, angle yourself...
3 tags
The Spirit: Blog #1
There’s all sorts of references for ‘spirits’ in our world. There are see-through, white, hazy spirits in movies about old haunted houses—and a spirit of fear when you think you might have seen one of them in the darkness. (Even if you don’t believe they’re real). There’s a spirit of joy on Christmas day when you run around the corner to find Santa brought you what you secretly wanted, and a...
2 tags
If you're looking for something wrong, you're...
I’m a very discerning person. It’s one of my strongest gifts.
Studhubs is always impressed when I let him know I have a strange ‘feeling’ about someone, something, or a particular situation, and then come to find out that my little siren of a gut was about as right as an arrow hitting a bullseye. I can just tell a lot of times when something is, well….off. Or on....
The blogger is back. (:
(Sigh). It’s about time.
Hearing my fingers clickity-click-clicking on the computer keys is a music I haven’t heard in a long time, but I song I most definitely needed to hear.
When I started writing God Loves Ugly I thought, “This is going to be so easy. I’ve probably written several books with all the blogs I’ve poured out over the years. I’ll whip it...
April 2011
2 posts
Got my FAVORITE review so far from a reader.
Thanks, @melanymaree!
http://bit.ly/feJQM5
WatchFor those of you who have no idea what my book ‘God Loves Ugly’ is about, here’s a snippity, snip. (:
March 2011
0 posts
And the #GodLovesUgly Book/CD winners are...
from Detroit, Venezuela, Spain, Costa Rica, Maryland, Canada, Argentina, & London!
I couldn’t pick just 4 of you. I just couldn’t. In fact, I wanted to choose ALL of you…but of course, I couldn’t do that either or I’d need to print more books! Your entries were so moving, so emotional, so heart-felt, and SO powerful. I had to choose a few more. (Yep,...
February 2011
7 posts
Check out the page for #GodLovesUgly in Relevant...
http://relevantmagazine.com
Give me your story and win a 'God Loves Ugly'...
Alright, ‘God Loves Ugly’ blog, music, and book lovers. Christa wants to hear your stories for a chance to win an autographed book AND cd!
How has ‘God Loves Ugly’ affected your life and heart? What happened the first time you heard the song? How did you find the blog and hear about Christa? How has her writing, songs, or book affected or changed your life?...
Struggling with jealousy?
Here’s a story about me finding out how the grass isn’t always greener.
http://bit.ly/eWVduo