You know what one of my favorite things about God is? It's not that he forgives me when I mess up, time, after time, after time, and a few more times (although that is absolutely amazing) and it's not that I know that i'll be with him one day (once again, amazing..I can't wait for that day) but it's his caring and loving compassion that he shows me daily. Not only the care that he alone gives me, but the blessings that he puts on other humans to share to me when I need it most. Today was one of the worst days I could possibly have. Well, not really, but by 6 o'clock my day had went in a straight shoot downwards. This morning I was awaken by my alarm singing "To Make You Feel My Love" Okay, I LOVE that song but this morning, Adele's voice was not charming and it made me mad, I immediately grabbed my phone, shut it off, decided that waking up was not going to happen and went back to bed. 10 minutes later, Adele was back. I decided this time that if I didn't go get in the shower and hurry for school I wasn't going to make it on time, and it's the 2nd day, can't already start this tardy stuff. So I get out of the shower, dry my hair and as soon as I pick up my flat iron, Tyler calls. This wasn't a bad thing at all, I happily answered the phone with an ecstatic "Good morning sunshine" and got in response a "Good morning Beautiful". Now what girl wouldn't smile at that. We talked for a few minutes, then I was like crap I have GOT to hurry. So i did, rushed off to school, now in the most cheerful mood anyone could experience saying Good Morning to every person I passed. The day was great, minus the online class part..gag me with a spoon. I came home, got ready for Junior Miss practice and was gone by 5:45. I get there, and we begin to work on talent. HOLD UP, if you know me..you know I am in no sort or way or any kind of "talented" I mean, I can touch my tongue to my nose..if that counts as talent. I immediately trip because I know i'm going to have to get on stage and do my clog routine..heaven help. So I do it, completely fail. Feel like hiding under a rock and staying there forever. On to the next thing, I head off to soccer practice hoping that I can take my anger from this stress out on a soccer ball or something, just do something to get this off my mind and of course, epic fail again. Everyone was freaking out tonight, I was playing awful, and I knew it. I closed my eyes and began to pray for the team, for myself and for coach to not get absolutely upset with how things were going, mostly everyone was utterly negative and being the optimist I am, I tried to cheer everyone up saying "it's okay" "it happens" "you got this" but it's kind of hard to make others smile, when you've got the biggest look of hate on your face. So after a terrible practice, on my behalf, I come home to vent to mom, thank Jesus she understood and didn't blow me off, because that might have set me off. I came up to my room to try to unwind and chill out a little bit, get on Facebook, tell the world how stressed I am and my WONDERFUL Coach posts, Psalm 46:10 which says "Be still and know that I am God" I don't know how much this verse means to you, but to me it turned my day around..be still and know that I am God. No matter what, God is always watching, guiding, and protecting. He knows your heart more then anyone and loves you despite what is inside of it. I know that the devil had intentions of making me want to rip my hair out today and he tried to defeat me, but I am and will never be defeated because my God is more powerful then any stunt the devil tries to bring me down with. My Lord will always provide and protect..because he is my God.
"Life is rough waters, be sure to have a stable boat"
-KG
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Sanctuary
I'm sure you all have heard of the old hymn, "Sanctuary" but have you ever actually listened to the words and taken them into consideration? I hadn't until I heard one of my Y friends, Andrew was singing it constantly on a service trip this summer. I was in one of those deep thinking moods and I overheard him singing it as we were walking into our next project. It caught me completely off guard and made me think about the lyrics..
"Lord prepare me, to be a sanctuary. Pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving, i'll be a living, sanctuary for you" I realized at that moment, that all my life I had been singing that song, over and over and never even understood what I was singing. I began to think about what the song was saying, which is that we should always be a living sanctuary, no matter what circumstance. We should always be bold in Christ and stay pure and holy. Now if you're in your right mind you know that it is nearly impossible to be pure because we all sin a million times a day but because our God is so forgiving, he allows us to be pure when we ask him to forgive us. Thinking about that, still gives me cold chills even after 17 years of knowing that we are always forgiven..still gets to me. Our God is so powerful. This song is entitiling you to be a Sanctuary, a place that is sacred and holy and set aside for worship. Now, we can't always worship like we do in a actual sanctuary everywhere we go, but we can always find a way to worship any where. It doesn't always have to be by singing, or even praying. Doing random acts of kindness and love, compassion and practicing patience are ways to worship God in the most random times. Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying i'm some holy roller but I do try my hardest to worship the God I love so much, as much as possible, and yes, it's difficult soooo difficult because of the temptations and the busy schedule I have, but the effort you give God is what counts. God doesn't want you to love him with no compassion and just to be doing it because you think that's what's right. God wants you to devote your full heart to him, just like the verse in Revelation 3:16 "So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth." Which means that you should not half heartedly love the Lord, or he will reject you and i guess you'll be spit out of his mouth, and who wants that? Loving God is an easy thing because he is so loving in return, but I think the problem we have today with God is the accepting his commands for us because we're so caught up in what the World has become that it's often easy to listen to the voices of others over the voice of God. I guess that's where our selective hearing plays it's role. So I think that's all that's on my mind for the day, now i'm compelled to be singing Sanctuary over and over and over all day..thanks God.
"Life Is Rough waters, Be Sure To Have A Stable Boat"
-KG
"Lord prepare me, to be a sanctuary. Pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving, i'll be a living, sanctuary for you" I realized at that moment, that all my life I had been singing that song, over and over and never even understood what I was singing. I began to think about what the song was saying, which is that we should always be a living sanctuary, no matter what circumstance. We should always be bold in Christ and stay pure and holy. Now if you're in your right mind you know that it is nearly impossible to be pure because we all sin a million times a day but because our God is so forgiving, he allows us to be pure when we ask him to forgive us. Thinking about that, still gives me cold chills even after 17 years of knowing that we are always forgiven..still gets to me. Our God is so powerful. This song is entitiling you to be a Sanctuary, a place that is sacred and holy and set aside for worship. Now, we can't always worship like we do in a actual sanctuary everywhere we go, but we can always find a way to worship any where. It doesn't always have to be by singing, or even praying. Doing random acts of kindness and love, compassion and practicing patience are ways to worship God in the most random times. Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying i'm some holy roller but I do try my hardest to worship the God I love so much, as much as possible, and yes, it's difficult soooo difficult because of the temptations and the busy schedule I have, but the effort you give God is what counts. God doesn't want you to love him with no compassion and just to be doing it because you think that's what's right. God wants you to devote your full heart to him, just like the verse in Revelation 3:16 "So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth." Which means that you should not half heartedly love the Lord, or he will reject you and i guess you'll be spit out of his mouth, and who wants that? Loving God is an easy thing because he is so loving in return, but I think the problem we have today with God is the accepting his commands for us because we're so caught up in what the World has become that it's often easy to listen to the voices of others over the voice of God. I guess that's where our selective hearing plays it's role. So I think that's all that's on my mind for the day, now i'm compelled to be singing Sanctuary over and over and over all day..thanks God.
"Life Is Rough waters, Be Sure To Have A Stable Boat"
-KG
Thursday, June 30, 2011
I Believe.
Yesterday, I got home from LTC and for all of you non Y junkies that have no idea what that is, it's a leadership training conference that honestly, has nothing to do with leadership. In fact, the word leadership was not mentioned once. But anyways, this years theme was called "This I Believe" which is based off a series of "I believe" essays. If you've never seen the book or read it, it's basically a bunch of different people coming together to write essays about what they believe, and making a book out of it. Very inspirational, I advise you to check it out! At LTC, we were told and encouraged to write our own "This I Believe" essay, although it was a little hard to actually sit down and think of what my believes as an individual were, I in time finally came up with a few believes that I knew were correct for me so I thought I would share them, and as time goes on i'm sure i'll keep adding to my essay until I feel it's complete. So here we go...
I believe that happiness is not a feeling, but a decision, a mind-set, a way of living. Yes, the people around you usually effect your happiness, but you cannot let them change or determine it. You are the writer, the author of your own life, your story. Therefore, your peers do not hold the pen to your journey. I believe to accomplish something you must believe in it, because if you have no confidence in your task, you have no motivation, and without motivation I think we can all agree that it's hard to get anything done. I believe that seeing is believing but also, not seeing is believing. I know it is hard to believe something you cannot see, but that is where faith comes in. If you do not have faith then I believe that all hope is lost, but if you have faith, you can believe and dream anything. "For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." I believe that you should never have a destination, but that you should respect, and enjoy the journey. It is often hard to enjoy the journey when you know the destination because you are so consumed and so excited about being there that you cannot see the beauty in the getting there. You should always live in the moment, like the quote "wherever you are, be there" Often times it is so easy to be conformed to the patterns of this crazy world and so consumed with our personal issues that we cannot live in the moment for fear of what our past will make our future. I believe in Heaven, and I believe in Hell. My own personal beliefs make me believe that without God, there is Hell, but in and with him, there is Heaven. I believe however, that you should respect others faith and beliefs because that's what my God calls me to do, to love and respect others like myself. I believe that everyone alive on this Earth has a purpose, and although we may not be revealed that purpose, it is there, waiting to be seen. But we can only embrace it if we open our hearts , our minds, and let it embrace us. I believe that there is no meaningless life, everyone lives for something and eventually, everyone dies for something. No matter how let down you are, how much you say you hate your life, you are here for a reason; be that to preach, to write music, to become an investor, may it be anything, you are on this Earth to affect someone else on this Earth, and to continue the amazing, so humble, gift of life.
"Life is Rough Waters, be sure to have a stable boat"
-KG
I believe that happiness is not a feeling, but a decision, a mind-set, a way of living. Yes, the people around you usually effect your happiness, but you cannot let them change or determine it. You are the writer, the author of your own life, your story. Therefore, your peers do not hold the pen to your journey. I believe to accomplish something you must believe in it, because if you have no confidence in your task, you have no motivation, and without motivation I think we can all agree that it's hard to get anything done. I believe that seeing is believing but also, not seeing is believing. I know it is hard to believe something you cannot see, but that is where faith comes in. If you do not have faith then I believe that all hope is lost, but if you have faith, you can believe and dream anything. "For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." I believe that you should never have a destination, but that you should respect, and enjoy the journey. It is often hard to enjoy the journey when you know the destination because you are so consumed and so excited about being there that you cannot see the beauty in the getting there. You should always live in the moment, like the quote "wherever you are, be there" Often times it is so easy to be conformed to the patterns of this crazy world and so consumed with our personal issues that we cannot live in the moment for fear of what our past will make our future. I believe in Heaven, and I believe in Hell. My own personal beliefs make me believe that without God, there is Hell, but in and with him, there is Heaven. I believe however, that you should respect others faith and beliefs because that's what my God calls me to do, to love and respect others like myself. I believe that everyone alive on this Earth has a purpose, and although we may not be revealed that purpose, it is there, waiting to be seen. But we can only embrace it if we open our hearts , our minds, and let it embrace us. I believe that there is no meaningless life, everyone lives for something and eventually, everyone dies for something. No matter how let down you are, how much you say you hate your life, you are here for a reason; be that to preach, to write music, to become an investor, may it be anything, you are on this Earth to affect someone else on this Earth, and to continue the amazing, so humble, gift of life.
"Life is Rough Waters, be sure to have a stable boat"
-KG
Friday, June 3, 2011
One if those blogs where I ramble about the nonsense in my life
So graduation was last week, and although I didn't graduate, a lot of my friends did. Including my best friends. Friday morning before graduation even started I began to think
about how in exactly a year, I'll be the one graduating and I'm definitely not ready. For the past 3 years I've been like oh my gosh I can't wait to graduate but now that the realization is coming close I'm like holy cow, wait a second! I just can't believe how fast these past few years have flown by, how much I've learned and most importantly how much my life has changed and been altered. I was one of those wild child kids my freshmen and sophomore year and it wasn't the easiest of times for me. But at the end of my sophomore year I met someone who I never knew would change my life forever. She taught me that my hurts and hangups and all the junk in my life was nothing at the shadow of the cross. And from that moment on my life has been drastically renewed and changed by God's amazing grace. I'm not saying I'm some perfect person now because I still mess up everyday day of my life. But I don't linger on my sins anymore because I know my Lord has forgiven me and that he still loves me and still has amazing plans for my life. On another note, God Never leaves my side. Random bold statement for this post I know but really, he's showed me that more then ever this past week. A few days ago I was really feeling down about some junk that's happened in my life and the feelings I felt were really dragging me down. I woke up at like 5 in the morning completely sobbing because I felt like I had betrayed God and a few of my friends. When I finally got myself
Together I texted my youth minister Dave (he's never not been by my side to help) and my best friend Nate and just asked them to pray for me because I was having a rough time. Wow. I never knew God could place such amazing people in my life with such amazing hope for my life. Dave texted me the next day with a prayer he had prayed for me and although I didn't
Tell him what was going on, God gave him a prayer that was on point of what I needed. God creates such small miracles that make something hugs. Isn't that amazing? Anyways, last night Nate called me and said that he was still praying and that just makes me rest assured that my father knows my heart and knew what people to place in my life so that I would never be alone in my walk with him, but have people by my side to help and guide me along the way. My prayers and concerns are slowly getting answered and now I rest assured that my life has a plan and a purpose that will allow me to live for God and become a servant for him alone.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11
Life is rough waters, just be sure you have a stable boat.
-KG
about how in exactly a year, I'll be the one graduating and I'm definitely not ready. For the past 3 years I've been like oh my gosh I can't wait to graduate but now that the realization is coming close I'm like holy cow, wait a second! I just can't believe how fast these past few years have flown by, how much I've learned and most importantly how much my life has changed and been altered. I was one of those wild child kids my freshmen and sophomore year and it wasn't the easiest of times for me. But at the end of my sophomore year I met someone who I never knew would change my life forever. She taught me that my hurts and hangups and all the junk in my life was nothing at the shadow of the cross. And from that moment on my life has been drastically renewed and changed by God's amazing grace. I'm not saying I'm some perfect person now because I still mess up everyday day of my life. But I don't linger on my sins anymore because I know my Lord has forgiven me and that he still loves me and still has amazing plans for my life. On another note, God Never leaves my side. Random bold statement for this post I know but really, he's showed me that more then ever this past week. A few days ago I was really feeling down about some junk that's happened in my life and the feelings I felt were really dragging me down. I woke up at like 5 in the morning completely sobbing because I felt like I had betrayed God and a few of my friends. When I finally got myself
Together I texted my youth minister Dave (he's never not been by my side to help) and my best friend Nate and just asked them to pray for me because I was having a rough time. Wow. I never knew God could place such amazing people in my life with such amazing hope for my life. Dave texted me the next day with a prayer he had prayed for me and although I didn't
Tell him what was going on, God gave him a prayer that was on point of what I needed. God creates such small miracles that make something hugs. Isn't that amazing? Anyways, last night Nate called me and said that he was still praying and that just makes me rest assured that my father knows my heart and knew what people to place in my life so that I would never be alone in my walk with him, but have people by my side to help and guide me along the way. My prayers and concerns are slowly getting answered and now I rest assured that my life has a plan and a purpose that will allow me to live for God and become a servant for him alone.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11
Life is rough waters, just be sure you have a stable boat.
-KG
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Silly string..it'll get ya every time.
So yesterday, I decided to go golf for a little while with some of my amazing friends. And of course, being the new-excited to golf-golfer he is, Adam was golfing as well. I was pretty amazed at how awesome he was actually..shout out to you, AD!! But anyways as we were chillen in the car waiting for the other guys to get there to come play, Adam decided to spray me with silly string (got it for my birthday, thanks leah rose..best ever) but it was kinda hot and it was already melted so it stuck to my polo. I was upset, so I sprayed Adam back right in the middle of his shirt..eveeeeerywhere..my bad. It was funny, until it really wouldn't come off then I felt terrible because we were looking all nice and stuff and then..yeahh. So after all this Adam was like "Hey Kate you should blog about this" I was like why? blog about silly strings that's ridiculous..then I was like hmm i'll turn it into something positive..I guess? So here you go Adam, i'm doing yet another thing you asked me to do (like always)
Even though some people may throw some dirt on your life, or silly string, you have to love them anyways. God doesn't start hating us when we sin against him does he? Of course he doesn't, he forgives us. He redeems us from the terrible things we do daily and still loves us as if we're perfectly angels. I'm not saying God doesn't get disappointed in us because of course he does, what father doesn't when we mess up. But he still loves us. And we as Christians here on Earth should be able to show love in the way our Father shows love to us. When someone sprays melted silly string on our shirt that we can't get off we gotta show them our loving heart anyways and be like ya know what it's okay because i'm called to love you even though this really sucks and everyone is gunna look at me like i'm an idiot (and they will, you have green slim all over you, duh). But I guess all i'm trying to say is love everyone because God loved us enough to give up his son..grasp that..his own blood and flesh son to die for our sins so that we wouldn't be entangled in sin everyday if we gave the small price of devoting our heart and soul to him. But more importantly, because you probably already love the people you like, love your enemies as much as your bestfriend. Then what can they have against you? Nothing because you love, pray and seek for there well-being everyday therefore they're either going to be like you Jesus freak stop praying for me and get away, or like usually, they're going to open their heart and allow you to come in and take the hatred away between the two of you. Hopefully you've learned a little bit of how to love someone despite that green, melted, silly string they spray all over you.
Life is rough waters, just be sure to have a stable boat
-KG
Even though some people may throw some dirt on your life, or silly string, you have to love them anyways. God doesn't start hating us when we sin against him does he? Of course he doesn't, he forgives us. He redeems us from the terrible things we do daily and still loves us as if we're perfectly angels. I'm not saying God doesn't get disappointed in us because of course he does, what father doesn't when we mess up. But he still loves us. And we as Christians here on Earth should be able to show love in the way our Father shows love to us. When someone sprays melted silly string on our shirt that we can't get off we gotta show them our loving heart anyways and be like ya know what it's okay because i'm called to love you even though this really sucks and everyone is gunna look at me like i'm an idiot (and they will, you have green slim all over you, duh). But I guess all i'm trying to say is love everyone because God loved us enough to give up his son..grasp that..his own blood and flesh son to die for our sins so that we wouldn't be entangled in sin everyday if we gave the small price of devoting our heart and soul to him. But more importantly, because you probably already love the people you like, love your enemies as much as your bestfriend. Then what can they have against you? Nothing because you love, pray and seek for there well-being everyday therefore they're either going to be like you Jesus freak stop praying for me and get away, or like usually, they're going to open their heart and allow you to come in and take the hatred away between the two of you. Hopefully you've learned a little bit of how to love someone despite that green, melted, silly string they spray all over you.
Life is rough waters, just be sure to have a stable boat
-KG
Monday, May 2, 2011
So yesterday I was completely oblivious to the fact that Osama Bin Laden had apparently been shot and killed? Whaaaaaaa?? Yeah I was asleep all day due to the fact I was being homeless the night before and didn't feel the need to sleep at all during the night. Bad decision btw, staying awake through church was so unbearable, shew. But anyways, I found it a little weird that as soon as I found out he had been killed, I kinda got offended in a sense and began to pray for his country, our country and anyone else that had anything to do with him. It kills me that we as humans believe that if someone kills someone, they should be in turn killed. It doesn't make sense, two wrongs don't make a right..right? I understand that he has done a terrible thing and that he doesn't deserve to live probably but still, if he doesn't deserve to live, neither do I. He sinned, and I sin everyday, and every sin is the same in God's eyes, so if murderes are to be put to death, then put me to death too. Maybe i'm just an extreme activist of love or something, but instead of being mad at him for what he did, I instead wanted to help him and love him. Obviously I can't just walk up to him and talk to him, for one he can't speak english and two he'd probably kill me considering i'm American, oh and three, nobody could find him so how could I? ha! I mean honestly, he just needs to be loved. If we as Americans sought out to love him and not to kill him, he wouldn't have kept running. No wonder Non-Christians are so afraid of us Christians when we approach them. We don't look to be activist of love in times when people need it, we look to hurt them just as they hurt us. I'm not saying if someone goes and kills your brother to look at them and say it's okay and give them a big hug. I mean our conscience wouldn't let us do that. But we should pray when something that terrible happens, pray and forgive them who sins against you.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Forgiven.
Forgiveness, that's a pretty big word and yes if you know anything about it, you'll know it isn't always easy to give, but for me, the struggle about it isn't the giving part, but the receiving half of it. Before I was ultimately saved by God's amazing grace, I struggled with my sins and hurts, habits and hang ups a lot more then I probably should. Not many people know about what all I've been through, they just know the good parts of my life so if this shocks you a little, I apologize. Up until April of last year, I practically would cry myself to sleep every night, I told myself all the time that I wasn't good enough for the things I had, said that I wasn't beautiful and basically that I didn't deserve life on this Earth. But covering all of the hurt up, you would see a girl who looked as if she had it figured out, looked like the happiest person alive, always smiling and kind to almost everyone that she encountered. Man, I was good at hiding. And I was hiding, everywhere I would go I would be a chameleon, just blending in to the people around me. If I was with my Christians friends, I would act like I was so on fire for God that not even a bucket of water could put me out. When I was around the guys, I would act like one of them always trying to beat them at whatever they were doing, around the party people I would seem like the life of the party trying to show off how much I could take. But around myself, when it was just me, I would beat myself up and down about my actions and how I had about 15 different personalities. But when I was broken and confused, that's when I found the light shining through. When I knew there was no hope in my own self, I found hope in the lord. My life begin to change after I decided to attend a weekend of Chrysalis (awesome btw, if you have the chance..GO!), it really was a life altering experience. I learned that in order to see the light, you can't just hide in the darkness and wait for the sun to start shining, you have to cut open the surface and make cracks in your own life so the light of God can come shining through. But anyways, back to the forgiveness part. I knew that God had forgiven my sins and I knew that he always would if I would just repent. But I couldn't forgive myself. Before I got on the wrong track, I was a Christian but I didn't follow God. I just really felt that I owed him a big one, but what can you do that compares to what he did for us? Not much, unless you're willing to die for your owns sins..but didn't he already do that? So what do you do when you're so down from your own life and you can't get back up because all those sins are still lingering in your head. People always say forgive and forget, but we all know we can't just erase bad things from our mind and become oblivious to them, it's just not possible no matter how hard we try to do so. Up until a few weeks ago when I began reading the book "the irresistible revolution" by shane claiborne (FREAKING AMAZING book, please check it out) I still couldn't find it in my heart to forgive myself. But when I read this book it stuck me that in order to be fixed we must first be broken. Makes perfect sense right? You can't fix something unless something is wrong with it. So, I applied this to my life, which if you didn't know, was pretty broken and in time, I'm slowly healing. On another note, the giving part of forgiveness might be hard for you, I understand that it isn't the easiest thing to go hug someone and say I forgive you when they just slapped you. But throughout the Bible God shows forgiveness for everyone that turns against him, a broad example would be when he says "Forgive them, for they know not of what they do" that scripture is so powerful. Jesus while dying on the cross screaming out, FORGIVE THEM FATHER..they know not what they do..forgive them. If Jesus can forgive the ones that tortured him, beat him and ultimately put him to death until he rose again, I believe we can forgive others when they sin against us. I know that we can't all be little Jesus replicas walking around proclaiming forgiveness every time someone does something wrong, but I believe that if we stop being Christians, yes I said it..stop being Christians, and learn to only follow God and not be like hey I'm a Christian and I forgive you, forgiveness will come much easier to us.
Life is rough waters, just be sure to have a stable boat.
KG
Life is rough waters, just be sure to have a stable boat.
KG
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