Kristy Barnes wears a cape made of an apron she found in the rubble while helping victims of Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi.
"All my life it seems like I have had to learn to stretch." said Kristy Barnes as she described why she has decided Elast-girl is her Super-hero personification. She empathized that Elasti-girl was a wife and mother like herself using her ability to stretch to help others in anyway she can.
"It started when I went to school. I found out I was different than the other kids. I was shorter than the other kids by at least a foot, shy and cross-eyed. I also had some major digestive issues. I felt weak and defective. I didn't seem to be good at very much in school and really bad in athletics. I was always the last one picked for a team and chosen to be the one whose arms were smashed through during a game of Red Rover. I was dogged by these things and feelings all through school."
Kristy said she was weak, but lets clarify this a little. You'll undrestand why. She was talking about physical strength. You'll question her assessment and also see her great strengths lay within.
Kristy said she got married young and started having kids right way. She had four kids in 7 years.
Lets re-think about physical strength assessment right????
But when she was still pregnant with her third child is where her inner strength really had to surface.
Her daughter, just nine-months old had died in her crib over-night of what would likely be considered SIDS today.
"I had to keep going. I was due to deliver in 4 months and I still had a two year old to feed and dress. What a lot of stretching during those years as I tried to find out what it means to be a wife and mother while going through grief. "
STRETCH
During these years she learned sign language and was asked to be an interpreter in an elementary school for a deaf child.
"Every night I would have to study my sign language books to make sure I was signing the right words."
STRETCH
In 1986 my husband told me that God was calling him to be a Pastor. "That would make me a Pastor's wife! "
STRETCH
"We would have to move."
STRETCH
"Sing a solo in front of people?"
STRETCH
"Teach a large Sunday School class of adults?"
STRETCH
"Speak to a crowd of people without hyperventilating?"
STRETCH
"Later I became a Weight Watchers Leader."
STRETCH
"I had to fly on a plane all by myself."
STRETCH
After Hurricane Katrina, Kristy joined a group of people heading to Mississippi to do what ever they could to help people rebuild. While there she found a red apron in a pile of rubble
"It meant so much to me to have that apron. An apron is a homemakers' tool. It represented to me all that the people had lost and all that I still had."
STRETCH
"I watched as my youngest son walked out the door and moved to Nashville to follow his dream."
STRETCH
"I was my autistic grandson's first teacher and taught him to speak. How do you do that? I didn't know how, so, again, I had to hit the books and find out."
STRETCH
"Along the way, I learned to bake pies. No one taught me. I learned on my own from a book, trying different things, tasting as I went along. Now I bake pies a lot and I hope that, maybe, I can use that skill to fundraise for mission trips."
STRETCH
Kristy will tell you that not much has changed over the years. "I am still short and weak. I still have digestive issues. I have now added macular degeneration to being cross-eyed."
She has raised a family and endured pain, learned many tasks that she needed to survive and help her family thrive. She is anything but weak.
"The changes in me have come on the inside. I really needed help so I could stretch to help people. My help came from my God. He gave me the strength I needed at my weakest times."
Kristy Barnes is Elasti-girl. the Incredible Stretching Woman.
"It started when I went to school. I found out I was different than the other kids. I was shorter than the other kids by at least a foot, shy and cross-eyed. I also had some major digestive issues. I felt weak and defective. I didn't seem to be good at very much in school and really bad in athletics. I was always the last one picked for a team and chosen to be the one whose arms were smashed through during a game of Red Rover. I was dogged by these things and feelings all through school."
Kristy said she was weak, but lets clarify this a little. You'll undrestand why. She was talking about physical strength. You'll question her assessment and also see her great strengths lay within.
Kristy said she got married young and started having kids right way. She had four kids in 7 years.
Lets re-think about physical strength assessment right????
But when she was still pregnant with her third child is where her inner strength really had to surface.
Her daughter, just nine-months old had died in her crib over-night of what would likely be considered SIDS today.
"I had to keep going. I was due to deliver in 4 months and I still had a two year old to feed and dress. What a lot of stretching during those years as I tried to find out what it means to be a wife and mother while going through grief. "
STRETCH
During these years she learned sign language and was asked to be an interpreter in an elementary school for a deaf child.
"Every night I would have to study my sign language books to make sure I was signing the right words."
STRETCH
In 1986 my husband told me that God was calling him to be a Pastor. "That would make me a Pastor's wife! "
STRETCH
"We would have to move."
STRETCH
"Sing a solo in front of people?"
STRETCH
"Teach a large Sunday School class of adults?"
STRETCH
"Speak to a crowd of people without hyperventilating?"
STRETCH
"Later I became a Weight Watchers Leader."
STRETCH
"I had to fly on a plane all by myself."
STRETCH
After Hurricane Katrina, Kristy joined a group of people heading to Mississippi to do what ever they could to help people rebuild. While there she found a red apron in a pile of rubble
"It meant so much to me to have that apron. An apron is a homemakers' tool. It represented to me all that the people had lost and all that I still had."
STRETCH
"I watched as my youngest son walked out the door and moved to Nashville to follow his dream."
STRETCH
"I was my autistic grandson's first teacher and taught him to speak. How do you do that? I didn't know how, so, again, I had to hit the books and find out."
STRETCH
"Along the way, I learned to bake pies. No one taught me. I learned on my own from a book, trying different things, tasting as I went along. Now I bake pies a lot and I hope that, maybe, I can use that skill to fundraise for mission trips."
STRETCH
Kristy will tell you that not much has changed over the years. "I am still short and weak. I still have digestive issues. I have now added macular degeneration to being cross-eyed."
She has raised a family and endured pain, learned many tasks that she needed to survive and help her family thrive. She is anything but weak.
"The changes in me have come on the inside. I really needed help so I could stretch to help people. My help came from my God. He gave me the strength I needed at my weakest times."
Kristy Barnes is Elasti-girl. the Incredible Stretching Woman.