difficulties – Thoughts from Blue Eyes

valleys of shadow

It’s a quiet day at the desk here. I’m minding the phones but my mind is in a faraway place, pondering great human suffering and the broken, dismal bleakness of our world. I made the mistake this morning of reading a book I found in a pile our receptionist left behind. It is a fiction-ish narrative about a Holocaust survivor and I knew that it would be dangerous, one of those can’t-put-it-down novels that will leave me thinking down a hole and feeling heavy sadness for a while.

My heart shuts down at the brutality of human beings and the atrocious horrors experienced by real people in real time, fellow image-bearers who all had names and faces and favorite colors and loves and special talents and unique laughter. All I can say is, “Lord…?” There really aren’t words for such things.

In the darkest events of human history, it’s easy to shove

valleys of shadowKaitlyn2020-08-17T15:20:44+00:00

Wisdom from Pooh

I am in the process of ending Year 4. I will soon cross the stage. I will shortly have my piece of paper. I will be sent.

Bible College has been the most incredible experience of my life. Trying to say goodbye “well” has involved a large, Hermoine Granger-sized mixed bag of emotions. This has been my favorite season, favorite place on earth, and now it is time to leave.

Maggie took me to a ridiculously sketchy-but-good grilled cheese dive tonight for one last spontaneous dinner. God continues his profound stooping as he constantly uses agents to encourage me and mediate his love. I love the Body of Christ for this reason and so many more.

Reading Romans 8 shows the tension between the already-but-not-yet world we live in. There are goodbyes, and pain, and sufferings, yes, but we as Christians await the new heavens and the new earth, we have hope that

Wisdom from PoohKaitlyn2017-04-25T04:30:19+00:00

So, Does this Outfit Make Me Look Relevant…?

“Do you have Instagram?”

I looked at the man across the counter of the donut shop and shook my head. He was trying to connect me with the store’s coupon offer. Needless to say, I couldn’t jump on the bus.

I twaddle back and forth with the lingering frustration that I don’t fit in to my generation. Oh sure, in many ways, I am certainly a Millennial:

-I remember when terrorism wasn’t a thing

-I remember the advent of cell phones and pre-HD days (hey there, 2004, nice slow-mo effect in that movie)

Despite shared life experiences, in many ways, I feel irrelevant among my demographic. This unfortunately can extend to the Bible College cafeteria.

Problem 1: I have a deep heart for the lost of my generation. And I struggle to connect with them.

Subpoint B: How can I preach the Gospel to Millennials if I loathe social media?

Must I become all things to all people

So, Does this Outfit Make Me Look Relevant…?Kaitlyn2019-10-08T02:29:18+00:00

Wonderstruck and Bothering

I’ve been pondering this one phrase that has so completely captured my imagination:

God bothered.

This Incarnation Celebration Season, aka Christmas, we rave about the commercialism and the church services, the cookies and the presents, even our fiercely-held traditions of being with family or reading the Story itself, but shame on us if we neglect the powerful condescension that fuels this entire thing.

There is a God, and he has bothered to make himself known to us. There is a God, and he has called himself our Father in Heaven. There is a God, and he came.

As J.I Packer writes so plainly and beautifully in his book, Knowing God, despite the magnanimity of Him, we have made God so common, so base–we have lost the sense of awe and reverence for him. God has bothered! The fact that the God of the entire universe wants to know us demands a response of absolute love

Wonderstruck and BotheringKaitlyn2015-12-25T05:03:49+00:00

Travesty

Sometimes I read something and have to blink back tears.

Tonight I was scanning the news and saw an article about mass illegal immigration from Serbia and beyond through the Hungarian border to reach Western Europe. This has probably been happening for a long time, and I don’t ever pretend to be on top of things. But, tonight, the article was highlighted because of Hungary’s recent decision to seal the border with massive barbed wire and walls.

Accompanying this article was a brutal description of deaths: refugees found floating to shore from capsized boats in the Mediterranean, photos of little girls with hair tangled up in barbed wire, a freezer truck dumped at the border oozing decomposed bodies of Syrians who were trapped inside. They found a baby in there, by the way.

What is this dark world? Why? Sin? Evil? Travesty after travesty?

I can’t call it tragic because it’s expected. Sin has infected

TravestyKaitlyn2019-10-08T02:29:19+00:00

Life as Ministry

I pondered his words over a vanilla latte this afternoon.

“I’ve been learning how to rest this semester…I was doing so much for the Lord — walking with him, doing ministry, and yet I ceased to rest in him. It was my most productive semester yet, but it left me burned out and empty.”

I call him Insightful Kyle for a reason.

As a believer, one aspect of growing in the Lord is recognizing that nothing is about me. I exist to glorify and praise my creator, which is a beautiful and freeing thing. I seek to do ministry to women because I deeply desire others to know their place as daughters in the Lord, members of the Body of Christ, and valued, purposeful disciples for the King (as my professor likes to say, ministering poets instead of unfinished poems). I cannot imagine doing anything else besides walking through life in the trenches with others.

Life as MinistryKaitlyn2019-10-08T02:29:20+00:00