Musings – Page 4 – Thoughts from Blue Eyes

Reflections and Cardboard

My mind seeks to organize life in boxes. That’s how I work, and it’s great for many things.

This year has certainly been one to break the boxes. I’ve been challenged, humbled, confronted, and forced to process much–my own sin, my own fears, my own judgments about others that are incorrect and wrong.

I’ve cycled through the topics of race and gender roles and Christians needing to vote too many times to count; I’ve read Matthew, Acts, Hosea, Joel, Luke, Obadiah, and Amos; I’ve completed and started another year of Bible college; I’ve said goodbye to friends and welcomed new ones; I’ve walked with other through mental illness, relational difficulties, anxiety, and a lot of prayer for more faith that God will provide; I’ve been heartbroken over the state of sin in the world more than ever; I’ve discovered a desire to hone my teaching skills; I’ve begun dating a wonderfully complicated

Reflections and CardboardKaitlyn2019-10-08T02:29:18+00:00

Proper Goodbyes

Tears welled up in his eyes and his throat closed shut and he creaked out the words between swallows.

“I don’t want to write a book…I don’t need a big church…if you guys email me or call me in five, ten, fifteen, thirty years and tell me you’re still following Jesus, that’s all I want.”

That is my college pastor’s desired legacy. I yearn to have that same devotion to Christ, to people.

Today was his last Sunday morning with us. I’ve been encouraged, inspired, and fed under the teaching of this incredible pastor for the past 8 months. He has called out potential in me, stimulated the faith of others, and welcomed countless students into him and his family’s lives.

As I read the book of Genesis, I’m seeing the incredible faith and devotion of Abraham. Like my pastor, I look at this guy who demonstrated such a devotion to God’s call. My

Proper GoodbyesKaitlyn2016-09-12T04:02:06+00:00

Kitchen Table and Expectations

I’m sitting at the breakfast bar in my parents’ kitchen. It’s 9:30pm and I’m knocking back coconut chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven, courtesy of my mom and her practical love.

I’m thinking about a lot of things. Tomorrow I leave the Northwoods after a short stint home to begin: Year 4. I feel so funny about starting my last year at Bible College in the big city when three years ago, freshmen orientation was happening and I was scared to walk down the street by myself. In my head it’s only been about a week and maybe five minutes.

This summer, I completed an internship serving in suburbia with a local church’s women’s ministry. I have written a paper encapsulating my current philosophy of ministry to women, studied the Word immensely, took ownership of my retirement account, and upgraded my solo-highway-driving skills. I have struggled with anxieties, calling, future,

Kitchen Table and ExpectationsKaitlyn2016-08-20T05:02:45+00:00

Please Get Me a Bigger Box

I’ve recently noticed that I have a natural aversion to things I cannot figure out, pin down, hammer out. It stresses me out if I cannot put something in a box; life is so complex, this obviously is not a problem I can avoid. I am learning more to lean into the complicated rather than shying away, as this is where so much growth happens, but it’s not my favorite. It’s an intentional, arduous mental process for me as such a strategic thinker.

Perhaps that’s why, in an ironic way, I love studying the Bible so much. It’s like an eternal treasure chest that I can’t figure out. Instead of the stress that clutches me when I cannot wade through the loud forum of Protestant evangelical grey areas (here’s my latest), conversations about yet another thing the church should be doing, and arguments about race without a frustrated headache, I rejoice.

Please Get Me a Bigger BoxKaitlyn2016-07-28T03:32:47+00:00

A Snicket in Time

Motto for the summer, courtesy of a fictional children’s hero:

“Get scared later.”

I have been blessedly led to an internship in The Suburbs. I have been working with H the Women’s Ministry Director. I have been thrown into ministry and tested and humbled and busy with writing and loving my grandmother, aka my landlord for the summer, along with my Jesus-needing extended family and the aging neighbors down the street. I am being filmed every time I teach. I have been riding the train alone, driving down the scariest highway in the state, navigating a relationship, praying for my friends serving overseas, dealing with future and money.

I am being taught so much. It’s a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a summer of insanity that I couldn’t have imagined 9 months or a year or five years ago. It seems scary, and I joke about my mantra, but by the Spirit, I’ve been able to

A Snicket in TimeKaitlyn2019-10-08T02:29:18+00:00

Formica Counter-ing Culture

“Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.” -King Solomon. Prov 4:23.

I grew up in the mid-2000s, hyper-purity youth group culture of Christianity. Youth group emphasized saving yourself for marriage, dating was implied to be bad, and everyone was always wondering whether or not you “liked” a guy because you talked to him for more than eight seconds. I remember specifically attending a conference on relationships as a teenager where the entire emphasis was, literally, about keeping your pants on. They were selling checkered suspenders in the lobby.

And then I went to Bible College.

Cue confusion over courtship, paranoia about sneak-attack coffee dates (“Is is a date? Does he like me? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN”), and engagements left and right. It’s a strange arena to attempt navigation, and the Starbucks counter down the street has witnessed many a DTR

Formica Counter-ing CultureKaitlyn2016-05-30T20:26:15+00:00

Broken Batteries

“I’ve been told I’m just a body.”

“I struggle feeling like I’m too broken for God to actually use me.”

“I think God sees me as a piece of dirt.”

“I look so ugly unless I wear makeup.”

“I never want to be raped again.”

Heartbreak, over and over again. I am sitting across Starbucks tables, carpet floors, couches, cups of tea and coffee when I hear these words. My spirit is continually rent by the twisted lies coming out of the mouths of these women, young twenty-somethings who have been repressed and depressed and caged by various turmoils.

I am small. So. Terribly. Small. What on earth am I supposed to say, when the backstories come out and I haven’t lived through half of the nightmares of half of these voices? What do you offer souls that have been busted? How can I reverse a lifetime of degradation at the hands of an abusive father,

Broken BatteriesKaitlyn2019-10-08T02:29:18+00:00

The Heart Pumper

Oftentimes, I feel like there is nothing more to say.

What is the significance of “my contribution” to any of this world? Writing, thoughts, opinions, convictions, definitions, loves, hates?

What on earth do I have to offer? Hasn’t everything already been felt, expressed, acted on enough times?

I am a small woman attempting to serve her Maker. I have been given gifts and circumstances, but everything I am doing is because of God working through me. It is a humbling gestalt to realize that, despite my abilities to create, illumine, influence humans, do a good work here or there–I am incapable of doing anything outside of God, who gives me a breath and a heartbeat, a breath and a heartbeat, but I am furthermore incapable of doing anything to please him unless he changes me and works goodness through me. Praise his name eternally, for he has, by the blood of his Son

The Heart PumperKaitlyn2019-10-08T02:29:19+00:00

The Door Opener

It’s funny how He does it.

My life has consisted of a progressive unfolding, a journey of steps and many, many doors. My heart has been rent and reformed dozens of times–expectations derailed, God switching my direction, people hurting me, me hurting people, disillusionment, and other assorted inconsistencies with my fallen logic about how things are supposed to be. The Lord always uses it to grow me into a deeper disciple.

This moment is a moment of sweetness, a door that has been steadily opening in segments with little slits of light peeking through. God has been showing me glimpses of the future by intersecting my present: affirmations that I am gifted and blessed, future plans falling into place, expressions of love by my family and dearest friends, reminders that our God is the Lord of all.

I sometimes stare into space, mentally pinching myself because it’s hard to believe that I am

The Door OpenerKaitlyn2019-10-08T02:29:19+00:00

Pieces

Crumbs. Pieces. Fragments. Slices.

The Bible, when you think about it, doesn’t offer us that much. This book is, by its own attestation, God’s complete self-revelation, everything he believes is necessary for us to know about him, ourselves, and this world in order to live the way we were meant to. And all we have? Some history of an obscure people group in the Middle East, poetry, strange prophecies from even stranger times, and some random letters written by preachers on the run. Not much.

But this is everything. Life, truth, light. We can KNOW GOD through these seemingly-random desert scribblings. This is how the Creator and Redeemer of the universe has decreed it, and the fact that he used the vehicle of language is shocking. When you examine the Bible through the lens of humility, of knowing God, this is what you see.

Currently, I am staring at a dusty passage from

PiecesKaitlyn2016-01-29T20:07:41+00:00