Simple Basics.

It is late and I am still wide awake. Most likely from a combination of coffee and the fact that my brain has been going strong, working on a paper for school. So I have a little bit of time before I crash and I thought I would just share a few things that are just on my mind.

1) Sometimes the Lord reminds you of the basics of our faith. Its not like I don't already know that Christ loves me and died for me, but sometimes in the busyness of life we loose sight of the significance of that. I have had two instances where lately it just "hit" me again... how great and loving a sacrifice he made so that I could not only live forever with him in heaven but also so that I could have a relationship with him while I am here on this earth. The first of these reminder moments was while watching the cross video. Man was that not powerful? (for those of you who watched it) As I get older I find my stubborn, and what used to be an uncompassionate heart, softening and let me tell you it was so powerful when Billy Graham looked at that screen and said "if anyone is in Christ he is a NEW CREATION! the old has gone and behold the new has come!". This might sound silly but to hear that was like such a breath of fresh air... a reminder of how Christ rid of all of my old junk and made me completely new. And let me tell you also that I LOST IT when it occurred to me that possibly MILLIONS of people had just heard that incredible truth. When you ask the Lord to give you a heart for the lost He WILL DO IT. 

2) I have been incredibly blessed this semester with two things. One is a core group of really godly girl friends who have been the BEST encouragers in the faith. The second thing that I have been blessed with is another group of friends who are not believers.. who are from all walks of life that I get to love on and share the love of christ with almost weekly. I have discovered more than anything this semester that dying to self and loving and serving other people is where real life is found. We are to be the hands and feet of Jesus. It takes effort but the effort is always worth it. This picture pretty much sums it up. 

3)  Life is messy sometimes but I don't think I would trade the mess for anything. It makes us stronger, makes us more compassionate, and gives perspective. 

Thats all... nothing really deep. Just the thoughts that are on my heart tonight. I am stopping now because I am sure I am rambling! 

#knowhim #makehimknown 

  With much Love, 

           Kaitlyn Grace

Rear view mirror talk

I was really tired about thirty minutes ago because it has been an incredibly long and hard week but I got a second wind suddenly so here we are…

I thought I would share this because for many of my Albany peeps, it is hard to keep you all updated on life with Kels and myself so this is an update as well as a testimony (again) to the faithfulness of the Lord. 

You know sometimes (actually most of the time) the Lord doesn’t reveal to us why he takes us through certain things or why he allows things to happen the way that they do but looking back, his reasoning is usually crystal clear. Mike Fortenberry ( a guy my dad was good friends with in high school that now teaches sometimes at the new church Kelsey and I became a part of) said something I won’t ever forget regarding this. He said, “Your rearview mirror is for perspective not direction.” You see, we look back on the past not to live in the guilt of sin, but to see the faithfulness of the Lord. It gives us perspective.

Kelsey and I were talking about this very thing this morning. Just to share a little bit about our journey here in Columbus… Kelsey and I moved here for two reasons. 1) to go to school because our grandfather offered to let us live with him and 2) to live with him so that he would not be alone since our grandmother passed away from cancer three years ago. Coming here was very hard. There are many reasons that it was hard. Some hardships were to be expected, such as missing family and etc but other hardships were not expected. We both felt like the Lord walked us through a season of life that was almost like a spiritual desert. We both grew personally with the Lord because suddenly we were not in any type of Christian community anymore like we came from at Sherwood and so we just had a lot of one on one time with the Lord. And this was really good, but doing life with out any close fellow believers walking beside you is HARD. THANK GOODNESS Kelsey and I had each other. We had found a church that had pretty solid teaching, but we had a really hard time connecting there. Kelsey described it as “feeling like an outsider” when we went. To clarify, this church is a great church and we are not downing it. For some reason there was just not a lot for us to get involved in there and we had a hard time connecting with people there, but it was a good church none the less.

Those of you who have been through this same scenario know that it can be frustrating to not have solid Christian friends to be accountable to and study Gods word with and do life together with. So we describe that season of life as our spiritual desert simply because it was just us and the Lord. We felt very alone many days.

Recently I’m sure some of you saw my post about the new church called “My Church” (the name is taken from Matthew 16:18 where Jesus says “ I will build my church” in case any of you wondered about the oddish name.) that Kelsey and I have become a part of. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I have been a little emotional about becoming a part of that church (a good emotional) because, to use a word picture, it has almost been like the Lord has opened the door to a dam and the dry river we had been walking in was suddenly engulfed with water. And It has been a little overwhelming….in a really awesome way. The Lord has just provided so many people in a VERY short amount of time who have helped us plug in quickly and who made us feel like we were never not a part of My Church. He has provided women (one in particular… who also has a heart for adoption..eek!) for us to be able to be mentored by and look up to and observe to try and figure out this whole “growing  up and being and adult” thing. I. MEAN…. I get emotional just talking about all of the things that the Lord has orchestrated in the past few weeks that have ended that spiritual desert that we went through. HE. IS. AWESOME.

But going back to that statement about the rear view mirror…even though the desert we went through was hard on some days, Kelsey and I both agreed that we would not trade it for the world. We grew closer to each other, we grew closer to our family, and we grew closer to the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad it is over for now, but I look back and am in AWE at the faithfulness of the Lord even when I was not faithful.  Now I appreciate even more the gift of Christian community… I have more of a passion to serve… I have more of a love for Gods word… all because of the desert. Our faith is not tested in times of prosperity and ease. It is tested in the darkness of those really hard days when you won't make it except to rely fully on him and trust that his word is true when it says that he is GOOD and SOVEREIGN and WISE and COMPLETELY in control. 

Looking back… I can tell you. He IS good. He IS sovereign. He IS wise. He IS COMPLETELY in control. He LOVES us. He is FAITHFUL and he NEVER fails. 

1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of faith- which is more precious than gold- may be found to result in praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

James 5:11 You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

Is 26:3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.

#knowhim #makehimknown #gratefulforthedesert #heisfaithful

until next time...

But If He Doesn't

        The Lords timing is impeccable. I have seen over and over the perfection of not only his timing, but also the sequence of his timing when teaching me things. I have had something on my heart that I wanted to share in hopes that maybe it will speak to someone else. But even if it doesn’t… it is still a testimony to his awesomeness so I am going to share it anyway.

        So sometimes there are things that the Lord teaches through other people that you never forget. For example, I will never forget the sermon when I was in high school that was taught by Stephen Kendrick about how we DON’T follow our hearts but we lead them (Proverbs 4:23) because the bible says that our hearts are desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). So recently I have had two of those moments in time where the Lord spoke very clearly to me about something and I will just never forget it. In fact, I can’t get it out of my head. It has me checking my every motive.

      The first one was a Sunday when I was actually in Albany sitting in Sunday school. Steph (our Sunday school teacher) said something that wasn’t even really part of the lesson. She recalled the story of Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego (sp??) when they were about to be thrown into the furnace. This is what they said…

      Daniel 3: 17 “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us our of your hand, O king. BUT IF NOT, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

      Now I have read that passage a million times. Trust me… but some how I missed that three-word phrase, “BUT IF HE DOESN’T”. Steph said it perfectly when she asked the question what is that “thing” for you that you are asking God for or asking God to deliver you from? What is that BUT IF HE DOESN’T thing for you? For some girls it may be “if he never provides a husband for me”, for some it might be “if he doesn’t heal my family member from X disease”… etc you get the point. What is that thing for you? Once you answer that part of the question you have to then ask yourself if you will be faithful to him and serve him regardless. BUT IF HE DOESN’T, I WILL still serve him because he is worthy. Man that just wrecked me and I let it sit for several weeks…

        So the second thing that really drove that first point home (remember I said the Lord always has a perfect sequence to things so that we really get it) was a few weeks later when we were studying the book of Job. Very similar setting to the first…in Albany…in Sunday school… Steph is teaching… and she read this quote out of the biography of Ron Dunn. This is what it said….

              "I believe the theme of this book [Job] is not "Why do the righteous suffer?" but "Why do people serve God?" Will a person serve God for nothing if there are no blessings attached or no payoff? . . . What if, after you have said, "I'm going to start tithing," you go bankrupt and lose everything. What about that? Will a person serve God for nothing? Is there such a thing as "disinterested piety"? In other words, is there such a thing as a person worshipping God without any interest in the blessings that might come? Or is it true that we serve God knowing that, if we do, He's going to bless us? It's easy to be good when the good have the goods. IT's easy to serve God when everything is going your way. But here's the question: Is God alone worthy of our service without any of His blessings?"

          The obvious answer to that question is a resounding yes! Like I said earlier I came to a point where I got it. We don’t serve the Lord because of the things we can give us. We teach our kids that about relationships don’t we? We teach girls that you don’t marry a man for what he can give you or how rich he is. You love and marry a man for who he is… for his character. Well, it is the same with God. We love him because of WHO HE IS because that ALONE is enough of a reason to love and serve him. God’s word says that he is I AM.

             Think about Job. Satan basically told God that Job only served God because of the things that the Lord had blessed him with. So God was like “Fine. Lets take all that away and you will see that he will not turn his back on me.” Can the Lord say that of us? Can he say, “Kaitlyn serves and loves me because of who I am not for what I give her.”?

              These two things I can’t get out of my head. They keep running over and over and I keep finding situations where they apply. The lord is worthy of our praise and love and worship because of who he is. That is how we can say BUT IF HE DOESN’T I will serve him.

           This was one of those Ah Hah moments for me. I mean I knew this but you know what I mean when I say I finally “got it”…Deep down. If you really asked yourself why you serve the Lord, what would your answer be?

               The incredible things is that even though the Lord doesn’t OWE us anything, and even though he is worthy of love and praise and affection just because of who he is, he DOES still bless us. He still answers our prayers. He has made promises to us that he will never break. HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON so that we can be FREE. Yes people… we are beyond blessed.

#knowhim #makehimknown #heisworthy #butifhedoesn’t #iwillalwaysservehimalone

until next time....