Beautiful Jesus

oh my goodness.

i mean im a girl so i cry but it takes an act of God to make me cry in church
seriously
like a legit act of God

or i guess if someone kicked me that might do it too, but that hasnt ever happened so im only speculating really

but the service i just walked out of from seacoast i straight balled
im not even going to front

im sorry to inform the rest of every single person that attended services this weekend but im pretty sure that God was all over me in that one....good if you got something from it too...but it was basically Him just talking to me and the rest is just icing on the Jesus cake

ok obviously im kidding
but God was wrecking me and hugging me and loving me and messin me up all at the same dang time

before i go on i should go ahead and let you know that friday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day which has all but been standard for me lately

it ended with me crying on the couch smearing my sudoku puzzle (dont judge, im trying to better myself by working out my brain, dont hate) and in my teary mess i actually said "God can you please please please just be nice to me tomorrow...PLEASE???"

i dont know that i actually expected that to happen
i mean i dont really know how i thought i was going to realize if God was being nice to me or not

He went above and beyond yesterday...and it was great

i got to see and hug a couple of really precious friends at work
work was good because people are pretty cheery since its the holidays
it was cold and rainy (yes i love this sort of weather)
i got to come home and put on my nice comfy favorite sweat pants
i found a pair of really great socks id bought a few weeks ago i forgot about and if you know me then you know that getting to put socks on to match my shirt is sort of a closet nerd thing i like to do
i had some really incredible Jesus/writing/reflection time...it was marvelous


so tonight i went to church and it hadnt been a bad day...but it hadnt been a really great day either

i felt like yesterday was Jesus' christmas present to me and i decided id just be grateful for that and wasnt expecting anything except church as usual

which seems normal but as i type it out and read it on the screen what a silly thing to love the Lord and go into a gathering of His people and not expect that He is going to do something great...seems like were setting the bar sort of low like why would God ever show up at His party?...hmmm

anyway

pause: there is a guy that just sat down next to me at starbucks and a. he is pretty and b. he is apparently intelligent because he goes to wofford...so either that or rich...or both and c. he has on shorts...sir...um...you are clearly wealthy and or smart so why do you have on shorts when it is 39 degrees outside...id give you one of my 3 layers but i dont think you would look good in girls clothes and they wouldnt fit you and id be cold, which you clearly dont care about

unpause

so the message tonight was about finding joy in the midst of chaos and the unknown, and if you know anything about the stuff ive been walking through the last little while then you know that chaos is an understatement for me

i wont try to explain everything that the Lord was pouring onto and answering me with bc i wouldnt do it justice but go listen to the message from the mt pleasant campus that should be posted tomorrow under hidden God at the seacoast website link if you have about 35 free minutes...itll be worth it, i promise


well in the middleish of the message i felt a tear flow right from my cheek and then another...and before i knew it i was sitting there crying pitifully and couldnt do a darn thing to try and stop...and believe me i tried to control it...you have no idea...but to no avail

so i went over and prayed at the cross during the invitation just a prayer of humbled gratitude at the goodness of the Lord and how generous He has been with it to me the last couple of days

so i went back to my seat and was listening to a chris tomlin tune just soaking in the words and their depth

at that moment i felt this hand on my shoulder and looked down to see a red haired girl probably late 20's who looked an incredible amount like amy adams standing there...she started saying hey you dont know me and i promise i never do this but i was crying in the service and looked up and saw you crying too and i cant seem to shake this feeling to come and tell you something but i dont really know what to tell you except i was crying too and i just wanted to tell you that and im...



and i stopped her right there and started crying harder and told her about everything ive held inside for about the last 2 months and in the middle of that she stopped me and then said

oh my goodness i know why i was supposed to be here tonight...because i have been through the same thing and its the hardest thing youll ever go through and then she proceeded to say some things in some ways that were absolutely direct answers to some of the questions ive been wrestling with God over...in the same order in which ive asked them....WHATTTTTT????!!!!


i was SPEECHLESS AND CRYING

what a great combo

so she went back to her seat after a few minutes and then the woman beside me a few seats over came over and started telling me she was praying for me....
and then someone behind me put their hand on my shoulders and just sort of left it there while i wept out of nothing but purely floored gratitude to God

after that the service was over and i was like great, what do i do now...because anything you do after that short of i dont even know what...seems anticlimactic

unless

one of the pastors ive had some involvement with from theWell (college ministry) comes over and talks to me for about 30 minutes and speaks into and about some of the same things i was learning and realizing from my Jesus time last night without even knowing thats the stuff that i was learning

and thats exactly what happened

and then i came to starbucks, bought the charlie brown christmas cd, got a free gift card to sb because of it, and now im here

just sitting processing, dwelling, trying to let it all sink in...

and after all this i am now further floored because God has reminded me for about the BILLIONTH time of the fact that yes life is soooooo hard sometimes....and questions and confusion and trials and all that...they arent fun....

BUT

He STILL loves me and is STILL working for my good and STILL is RIGHT HERE WITH ME COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY...no matter what my dads done or not done...my DAD is STILL in control

He HAS THIS
HE HAS ME
AND YOU
AND US
AND EVERYTHING
GOOD
BAD
HARD
EASY
WONDERFUL
HORRIBLE
WEAK
STRONG
HES GOT IT
HES HAD IT
HE'LL CONTINUE TO HAVE IT
ALL OF IT
HE ISNT LEAVING
HE ISNT MOVING UNLESS HE IS TAKING ME TOO
HES FAITHFUL TO THE END

HALLELUJAH ALMIGHTY
HE IS WITH ME AND YOU AND EVERY PERSON WE CANT STAND AND EVERY PERSON WE CANT SEEM TO SPEND ENOUGH TIME WITH AND EVERYBODY WE USED TO KNOW AND WILL KNOW AND WONT EVER KNOW AND KIND OF KNOW...HES GOT US...HE HASNT FORGOTTEN HIS PROMISES, EVEN WHEN WE HAVE

THANK YOU JESUS
AMEN

Two Blogs with One Sto...er...Mac?

ok so i am horrible Horrible HORRIBLE at follow through
this isnt the first time ive mentioned it
im not 1000% motivated right now but im whatever percent motivated enough to make a claim with some sort of action behind it to try and work on this little not so great habit...if not entirely fix it

this blog was never intended to become only deep thoughts
thats what its become though
i have a lot of deep thoughts sure
but not every idea that passes through this brain is of the, even if imagined, spiritual superiority that it at times feels like this blog has become

in some ways i appreciate that its become a place where i have to meditate and really filter and process what im thinking before i write
i am grateful to have this blog and will continue to write on it
in a way its become a counselor sort of for me...this might not make sense to many (any) of you...but its become this place i can put down things and realize intentionally sometimes, not so much others, how they have not just affected my tangible life but the God and me aspect too..and i think thats incredible...and rare...and awesome

i have other stuff i wanna say though and if only for reasons of my imagination, i dont always feel like i can put them here...
so what im doing is...or have already done actually is....to start a tumblr account...a tumblr for those who dont know is a place i can post conversations, photos, audio, video, short thoughts, long thoughts, links...anything....of any length...and any depth and i am linking this account to the tumblr so that posts here can be in the future read there too...

well kate why not just write the new ones on the other thing
a. let me do what i want please :)
b. there is something in my brain that sees the new thing as a casual funny friend..and this as a counselor/confidant...dont ask...i know its weird
c. because 2 blogs are better than 1 right?

oh yea to the follow through and how this helps:
my not so new years resolution (see what i did there? by adding not so to new years resolution i made it look original...clever i know) is to write more often on here...

i heard recently that if you write online but dont write faithfully you cant expect your readers to read faithfully either...i dont know that i have a ton of readers but i hear the solidity of the idea...the principle...and to me faithfully at first meant daily...and thats overwhelming and i know im kidding myself if i promised daily posts

but then i started thinking and realized...hey what if faithfully was just once a week...that seems WAY more doable....so sundays...sundays is gonna be blog faithfully day for me...it may increase over time but im gonna start with baby steps and work from there...so every sunday i will have some deep thoughts for you...whoever you are

and then the casual tumblr guy can just be my little spontaneous whatever friend....welp
crap tomorrow is sunday...no tomorrow is saturday....so 2 days i have

good

ill talk to you kids in 2 days then
good day

oh yea guess you might want the link...HERE it is :)

all sorts of directional awkwardness

i wish the music in starbucks wasn't so loud

although then it would just be silent and everyone could hear each others conversations

what i should probably say instead is, i feel like the volume of music right now isn't conducive to a 23 year old college student with as much add as any person probably has writing a blog

life would be better (easier maybe) if we would just say what we mean right?

we have taken the art of awareness and consideration for other people's feelings, which is in its purest form good, and morphed it into an excuse to lie

i dont mean that harshly, its just something i guess ive observed

i'm not saying we should all go around being cruel and hurtful to people and labeling it as honest either
because i think that happens too

we think if we preface or add as an afterthought to something the phrase "i'm just being honest" that it's ok to say whatever we want and then walk away feeling little or no responsibility for the effects of our words on another human being being

these are 2 extremes that occur in our lives everyday and neither of them are ok

we of course recognize their unacceptability when they occur too us, but we don't usually care if we are the ones that are participants

it blows my mind that, to the best of my figuring ability, i feel like i got preached to until about the 5th or 6th grade about honesty being the best policy and then 7th grade came and honesty got traded for tell the truth as long as it isnt offensive to other people and if you are mad at someone then tell them everything you feel even if you know it isn't really true and then label it honesty...because nobody will attack you if you say youre just being honest or 'real' about how you feel, its a perfect cover


at chick fil a we are encouraged to "gauge a guest" when they come in on their mood to see how much enthusiasm/small talk/connection is appropriate at that moment because we recognize that in certain situations on any given day, at any given moment, what one person should be able to/is capable of handling/engaging in is not the same as any other guest necessarily
real word terms would probably include tact for this particular practice

its important to be conscious of people and what is going on in their lives and realize that there are times when compassion and empathy for their load makes us refrain from any urgency for truth
because truth will still be truth a week from now
and if its really that urgent that we have to let them know how we feel right this second than we should remember that 99% of the times the more rasher the thought the less realistic it is

giving into rash thoughts are satan's easiest and sometimes biggest victories with us, because we sense such urgency we fail to think through what we are doing/feeling/saying....

on the same token however we dont need to allow the sympathy for burdens to become our excuse for not speaking REAL truth to people

Jesus didn't refrain from being honest with people about things but when He was getting peter out of the water because he had taken his eyes off of Him, Jesus saw that what peter needed was not Him saying "you moron, i knew this was going to happen, don't you see how great i am and how puny you are and how you need to have better faith" no, instead He immediately reaches out and grabs peter, then gently speaks what peter already knows...and then goes into the boat with His friend

Jesus sees that what is urgent right now is to help peter by reaching out, and THEN speaking, with love and compassion, what peter needs.

balance is hard
there is no instruction manual on the 12 steps to knowing what someone needs and when they need it because every person is a book themselves

the best way to become better at reading people though, is to know the Author of the books themselves

much like when you hang out with someone for so long you start picking up their habits and tendencies, if you hang out with Jesus, you, bit by bit, become like Him, He develops your heart to be similar to His

"Whoever Abides In Me, I, Too, Will Abide In him"

if we pursue the Lord, He will draw near to us and remain in us, we will become more like Him and less like us

and if we become like Him, and He was perfect at balancing not only this concept but every other one, then eventually, we will be good at it too...not perfect, but better than we are now

and thats the point right?
we know if we are good at this life thing if we are better at the end of the day then the beginning right?
because since there has never been another person like us, we cant judge our success at life by anyone else, so the only way to judge it is to say that we have learned at the end of the day from our successes AND failures and have moved forward accordingly

Praise God

Just Keep Going
you're doing it
Just DONT STOP
Get Movin, kid.