ABOUT KAY

Updated 8/1/17

I'm the webmaster (webmistress?) of the Clarion Call. If you don't see any author's name on a page here then I'm the one that wrote it. Well, more accurately, I'm the one that was writing while God was guiding me. I always try to keep my inner ear open to His leading on everything that is published here.

All right, in case you are interested then here's a brief description of me and my life. I am married (for the second time). Charlie and I got married in 1980. Charlie is a retired high school teacher, ex-high school golf coach, ex-high school wrestling coach, and currently referees high school wrestling. I have 3 sons. This year they will be 46, 42, and 33. I have one grandson who was born in June 2010. I turned 65 on April 10th. I have lived in Southern California since I've been in the fourth grade. Before that I lived in Oregon and Washington.

The number of children and grandchildren in the previous paragraph is what I've told people up until now. In May my daughter found me and brought me two granddaughters. Does that sound confusing?

In 1969 I had a daughter out of wedlock and gave her up for adoption. If that still sounds confusing it might be because you are from a younger generation. Back then it was an embarrassment to the family for a daughter to be unmarried and pregnant. I was sent to a home for unwed mothers and lived there until after I had the baby. I had wanted to get married but my parents wouldn't sign permission as I was only 16.

It's a weird feeling telling this to people. All these years it has been a secret. I started to search for her a number of years back when all three of my boys were still at home. It occurred to me I didn't know what kind of situation I would find if I found her. We were already having lots of drama and it concerned me that I could possibly bring a whole new set of problems into our home. I had to look out for the three children that I was responsible for so I quit looking.

I quit looking, but I didn't give up. I told God all about it and let Him know He would have to figure out how to get us together if it was His will. As it was, His timing was perfect. I was told that the mother of my grandson might not allow us to see him any more. So, God, in His infinite wisdom, brought me my daughter and two grown granddaughters!

I enjoy a fire in the fireplace, playing with my computer, creating web pages, creating web page graphics, reading my Bible, taking and looking at pictures, painting t-shirts, cross stitching, organizing things, working in my garden, shopping at clearance sales, shopping in antique stores, burning candles, long baths, going camping in our trailer, floating down the Colorado River, exploring museums, and quiet time with the Lord (not necessarily in that order).

Oh yes, I also enjoy feminine type things as you can probably guess from my pink flowered decorations on this page. (In case you were wondering, I created these page graphics myself. The roses were part of a birthday bouquet my oldest son sent me.)

My house is decorated in a non-feminine manner because of the male influence we have here. I try to keep a happy balance between the two. For my personal things I go heavy on the feminine and pink aspects just because it is my own domain. I hear that pink things burn men's skin, too, so I make sure the things I don't want them to touch are pink. (Just kidding.)

I got saved sometime around 1972. I went to a very conservative Presbyterian church back then. Salvation was not taught during church services at that church. I went to an evening presentation of a movie about post-rapture happenings. That got me to thinking. Being a visual learner as well as a skeptic, I needed to have some proof. I began reading in the paper about the Shroud of Turin that some people think was the shroud that covered Jesus in the tomb. That was the nudge I needed to allow myself to believe that Jesus was real.

Once I believed that Jesus was real it didn't make any difference whether the shroud was authentic because God began revealing Himself to me. He gave me all the proof I needed. I would like to think that I had the guts to go with my feelings and had the faith to believe before I got the visual proof, but I didn't. God was faithful. He gave me the "visual" evidence I felt I needed.

I was in the Girl Scouts for a number of years. I dropped out my second year of high school. I had low self esteem and felt like I would die of embarrassment if anyone found out I was a Girl Scout. The sad thing was that I had a lot of fun in scouts. I went to Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. My last name was Nelson then.

I met my ex-husband in high school track. I sometimes wonder if I should have run faster! I dated him throughout high school and we got married when I was two months away from graduation. I did graduate and continued on into college a little. However, he got drafted into the Army four months after we got married and was sent to Viet Nam, I got pregnant, and I've been busy ever since!

I can't say I would change things if I had a chance. I've made some mistakes, but everything that has happened to me makes me the person I am today.

I had two sons (and a daughter) by my first husband and have one by my current husband. I had three brothers, two husbands, and three sons. 99% of all my pets have been males, too. There is something good about that. It has made me tough. Of course, it has also made me more than a little bit crazy! At least I don't wish for a "normal" life because I have no idea what normal is!

Who is in charge of defining normal? Show me a normal person! Where is that person? Anybody know?

I used to be very involved in the church we used to attend. I was my pastor's secretary, a Sunday school teacher, head of VBS, Sunday School Director (in training), and more. We have had more than a few churches since then and have periods of time where we didn't even go to church. It would be a long story to tell you why we have changed churches. Our last church was an Assembly of God that is close to our home.

We are, again, looking for a new church home
It's hard to find a church where:

The pastor doesn't think he's the only one who can make decisions.
Everyone stays open to allowing God to change the agenda.
All the gifts are welcomed.
God gets what He wants.
People aren't shamed into giving money.
The neighborhood can feel God oozing from the building.
Every single person develops a closer relationship with God every single time they attend.
It's close to our home (nice, but not mandatory).
The congregation actually lives what they learn there.

Do you think that's too much to ask? Apparently it is.

I've had a few people tell me that the Clarion Call is my church. Interesting. I do "fellowship" with other Christians. My family needs to be in a church, though.

I started up my own web design business:
Kay's Heavenly Web Design
I don't do real fancy schmancy stuff, but I create personalized sites that have made my customers happy. The bad thing is I don't have many paying customers. I've given web sites in exchange for other work, at a discounted price for friends, or for free to particular causes.

I focus on personalized graphics and getting the sites to the top of search engines quickly. Need a web site? I'm cheap. (Wait, scratch that. Cheap sounds tacky. I'm economical. Yeah, that's it. I'm economical!)

My current ministry is the Clarion Call website. It has taken a lot more time than I imagined. God was the one who created it and He is the one who directs me. I don't understand why He took me out of working in a church framework to working on the Internet, but I don't have to understand.

I also don't understand how He can use me because I have no degree or certificate saying I am knowledgeable about spiritual things. There's a lesson in this... if He can use me in a big way then He can use you, too, no matter what your "qualifications!"

I began on a free web site back in 1997. In 2001 I purchased a domain and moved things out of the free web site. God had me sharing my own personal experiences with you. I didn't want to do that, but now I see why He did it. I've heard from lots of people who tell me that I'm writing about them. Like me, many people felt they were the only ones experiencing certain things.

The Clarion Call has become a kind of tool where people can learn from what has happened to me, where people can contribute things God has laid on their hearts, and where people can find encouragement and a friend. The Clarion Call isn't just me and what I have to say. I encourage you to join in with the other people who have been so kind as to contribute things God has been teaching them.

In mid 2006 I had a spiritual crisis that was a major test of my faith, my strength, my sanity, and my ability to hear God. I went on sabbatical from here. I almost yanked the entire Clarion Call site. Looking back, that was the enemy trying to destroy something God had me create.

So, instead, I just quit posting things. If I wasn't sure I could hear God then I was not going to post anything. I always stay open to what God wants here. The last thing that should be here is something that is my opinion rather than God's opinion! What I wanted to do was jump right back in and pretend like nothing had changed, but that wouldn't have been the right thing to do.

Slowly, but surely, I got back on track. It was hard because a major crisis occurred in my family. Actually, one major crisis and multiple other crises that would have been major in their own right had it not been for the big one. However, God worked on me and I slowly got back on track, or at least back to the tracks.

The weekly Bible studies started back up October 5, 2009, although they are no longer on a weekly basis. I'm praying that I learn every single lesson that God wants me to learn from everything I've gone through and am going through. If all goes as it went before then those lessons will be passed on to you.

Currently the Lord is teaching me how to abide in Him. He is changing what I say and what I think. He is showing me how to involve Him in every aspect of my life. I have given myself to Him and have asked to be used. (Warning...do not try this yourself UNLESS YOU ARE TOTALLY SERIOUS. He WILL use you!)

There have been hindrances in my attitudes and mind that He and I have been working out of me.
1) He points them out.
2) I try to change them and usually fail if I'm changing them by myself.
3) He helps me change them.
4) They eventually change.
5) I sometimes have relapses.
6) He still loves me and forgives me and we work on those things again.

Since 1998 or so I have been discovering some gifts I never knew I had and learning how to use them. I have lots of questions I've been asking God about these gifts. I want to be able to use them as He desires.

I have been finding out that I had tried to put God in a box, attributes and all. I tried to think of Him in ways I, as a human, could understand. I allowed teachers and preachers to fill my head with what I thought was factual information but turned out to be only human interpretations of scriptures.

Well, I only managed to put my own self in a box. You see, you just CAN'T put God in a box.

I put a section up about my biggest learning experience in listening to God in My Prayer Closet.

I am constantly going through the process called, "dying to self."

Romans 8:13 says, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

I can't be a useable vessel for the Lord unless I am emptied of myself. My opinions and feelings need to be God's and not mine. It is a difficult thing. All my life I worked on filling myself with things that are now useless.

It is a hard thing to describe. God is showing me that the result of this "death to self" is holiness. Once I get past trying to place myself first then I am able to do and say everything that God desires.

I've been putting together studies on dying to self. If you are interested, here's a list.

I've been spending a lot of time in the Word and in prayer and listening. The only way I can be ready to be used in whatever way the Lord directs is to be prepared. I must be filled with the Word of God as that is the most important thing of all. I also must be able to listen so I know what God wants me to do.

I've had to release the notion that I need to have some kind of title to let people know what my ministry is. I've had to get past the point of caring about what people think when I would tell them I didn't have a church and I didn't have a title. I am now concerned with what He thinks.

I have come a long way from where I was as I sat in the pew at the Presbyterian church. I think that the thing that enabled me to break out of the spiritual box I was in was the fact that, in the back of my mind, I retained the thought that God is God and nothing is impossible for Him. I never completely shut the door on Him. I kept asking, "Is that all there is?"

I read my Bible from cover to cover. I believed what I read in the Bible and questioned things that I heard being taught that didn't match up with what I had read. I remained open minded about the gifts and manifestations of the Spirit. Even though I hadn't seen them in action I didn't allow myself to say, "They don't exist."

I also did a lot of Bible research over the past 40 years. If I found a subject that interested me or that I didn't understand I did an extensive study on it. It took me a lot longer than necessary to research things because nobody had ever told me about concordances, Bible dictionaries, or other Bible study helps . Nobody had even told me that there was such a thing as a Christian book store. Those things I discovered on my own.

I had been debating whether or not to put a page about me here. I thought it wouldn't be necessary as only the Bible studies were important. As I browsed other people's sites I found that it helped to know who the author was and what their background was as I read their material. If you need some visual aids I also have a photo album .

So, here it is... a page about me. You're here because you want to be here, right? What??? Your browser malfunctioned and brought you here and now it has frozen up and you are stuck here? Gosh, that's too bad. Want to play some pick-up sticks while you are waiting for your browser to thaw?

Or perhaps you'd like to play tic tac toe?

Better yet, you can click on the menu link below and wander around the Clarion Call pages. You might find something there you like!
Oh, did I mention that I have a crazy sense of humor or did you guess it already?