Dear katelyn

Dear Katelyn,
Tomorrow will be a new day, as will the next day and the day after that. Christmas will come and we will all get presents and be happy and then summer and suntans and swimming pools and again fall will come to cool us down a bit and make us remember what our brains are for. Do you know where you will be in a year? Does anyone? We can all assume and take guesses but none of us really knows for sure.
And why would we want to?
You are so lucky! You have the privilege of not knowing what you will be doing with the rest of your life. You have the heart to know what you want OUT of life instead. Thats important! Thats awesome. Don't forget it.
All around me I see people with unshakeable five year plans, and big dreams of success and fortune. I even see people with big dreams for lives of service, but even they are set in their ways unable to be open to the plan that God has for them if it is different from the one they have for themselves.
Luke 12:15-21 says
15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”

To me this says a lot of things, but mostly it warns me against putting too much stock in what is materially mine and what will be materially mine in the future. It reminds me that my life is always in God's hands,I don't know what tomorrow holds and thats a GOOD thing. When I left school for that year, I was scared to death. I wanted nothing more than to go straight back to the place that was allowing me to keep KILLING myself, I was so deep that I couldn't even see what a blessing it was for me to be forced away. Not knowing what I was going to do with my life has been the single most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. It allowed me the opportunity to really, truly, give my life up to God because there was no way that I could handle it or figure it out on my own. In many ways, thats where you stand right now. On the verge of something new and exciting and wonderful and you have no idea what or where that new place will be but if you trust that God will guide you, and you let him do just that, he will. He really will. Just pray pray pray, and look into your options with joy! Don't be afraid of them. Who knows where you will end up :-)
love always and forever,
kaitlynn

experimentation

A wise woman once told me that there are a few important questions that everyone must answer in their lifetime.
Who am I?
What am I doing here?
What do I believe in?
I think that more often than not in my life I have taken the answers to these questions for granted. I have assumed to know them, when really I did not, and I have hoped to learn them without really looking. Recently I have been thinking about what it would look like to really try to figure these things out. I am constantly influenced by so many things, but I want to take as objective of a look at my life as I possibly can. I want to believe in something b/c I actually believe it and not because I just always have... or just because its new and interesting. I want to explore and learn and be open. Unbeknownst to me I have already started on this journey, but today I am officially recognizing it and choosing it.
am I a christian?
I think so.
But starting today I'm going to really find out.

sylvia had the right idea... on some things

this is what I want.
I want to grow old with someone. I want to sit on the front porch in rocking chairs and listen to crickets and drink lemonade. I want to feel a hand in mine and know that it will forever be there.
I want the dark to stop being so scary.
I long to be behind the scenes
I desire to take all the credit
To live in the city, walk down the street, take a subway, hear the hustle and bustle
or
to grow somewhere slow.
to be alittle bit old fashioned and not care.
I am on that old line between everything and nothing
sometimes, I like to think that by having no idea, I really know it all.

reality

I once had a friend ask me if I believed in God. I don't remember where we were going, but I can see the road ahead of us as we drove, the windows were down, and my hair was blowing in my face. Its like a mini movie in my mind whenever I think about this question. Do I believe in God?
I remember being a little bit confused b/c this friend (we will call him Ted) knew that I was a christian. We attended church together on a regular basis up until we both left for college and he knew I was involved in a campus ministry. I'm sure that the look on my face explained it all, but Ted just glanced over at me patiently waiting for my reply. "of course I do" I finally answered. "I wonder..." he started "I wonder what life would look like if we actually acted like we believed in God... I mean, if He was completely real to us how would we be able to disobey him?" I don't remember the rest of our conversation, but over the years, Ted's words have stuck with me. Do I really believe in God? I think the only answer I can be completely honest with is.. sometimes. I think that I only sometimes believe in God in the way that Ted was referring to. I never truly doubt his presence but I often find that I take it for granted. I just accept God's existence without feeling much of anything, without recognizing how wonderful that is.
Recently I watched a sermon by Greg Boyd in which he says "when God speaks, reality happens". When God speaks, reality happens. When God speaks, reality happens. When God speaks, reality happens. I had to repeat it to myself out loud a few times.. just to let it begin to sink in. It seems so simple, but the more I think on it the more complex it seems. When God speaks reality happens. If, when God speaks, reality happens, then there is no reality apart from God's reality. He is not and can not be something separate from science, because after all isn't science based on facts? and if science is fact and fact is reality then God must have something to do with that. and when I close my eyes and talk to God I am REALLY talking to an all powerful all knowing being. Sometimes its the simple realities of life and of our faith that really blow me away. Its just accepting that living in the "real world" is living like God is real. Every second, every minute, ever day. Right here, right now. The kingdom of God is at hand.
so this first blog post has turned into a bunch of ramblings... I guess that's why the name of the blog is word vomit.