Karli Marie

Today's tribute goes to Karli, a Godly friend and the main leader of the south Diving Deeper LifeGroup!

Karli is humble and kind, and a great example of what the Bible calls "a gentle and quiet spirit."  She is grounded in the Word of God and has a lot of wisdom, and she always chooses her words carefully.  I so appreciate that she takes the time to really study and prepare before leading LifeGroup, researching the history of the time period and even sketching out detailed pictures to help us all understand it better.  (*I also love that she reads Joyce Meyer's YouVersion devotional - yay, Joyce!!)  Karli's main spiritual gift and passion is Teaching, and that is obvious in her solid leadership of the group.  (She is also a math teacher at Broken Arrow high school, and I'm sure she's a blessing to her students there!)

Love this pic of our group at Bobbi's house back in the day.

Karli and Chet (whom I call "Charli") are an awesome Christian couple that I really respect.  Without knowing her very well in the beginning, the simple fact that Chet adored/chose her and vice versa spoke highly of her character (just based on what I know of his heart and integrity).  With his extroverted strong expressive side and her introverted analytical nature, they are a perfect personality match, and they're really supportive of each other and very cute together!!

They dressed up as Woody and Jessie from Toy Story for Halloween - love it! :)

Random, but this pic at Yolotti cracks me up... looks like an awkward CD cover for Karli & her band. lol

She is also a good cook, and made a wonderful dinner and fruit pizza dessert for us at the first "Supper Club" at my place recently. =)

I'm throwing this picture in mainly because the donuts are so cute/hilarious to me!  Chet brought them to school, and clearly, he got enough to feed her whole class. :)

She shared her testimony at LifeGroup recently, and I really loved what she said about her story being "a blessed testimony."  She didn't downplay it because there wasn't an exciting mega-transformation, but said that she was very thankful to have grown up in a stable Christian family and to be rooted in a solid foundation in God's Word and the church.  I think so many people (myself included at times) wish we had a more exciting story to share and forget to be grateful for all the ways God has protected us, so that was awesome to hear!

Finally, in the little things that she says, it is obvious that she genuinely respects Chet, and that her heart is surrendered to the Holy Spirit.  She is devoted in spending time with God and praying every night, and she is teachable and responds quickly when she feels convicted about anything.  
She's a beautiful blue-eyed redhead (YAY, redheads!), but far more importantly, she is a woman who sincerely fears the Lord and seeks Him first!

So hooray for Karli... and for "Charli!" ;-)