What's Your Passion?

I feel like I have a fire burning deep in the core of my being.  I don’t know what it’s there for, but I can’t shake the feeling that there is something locked inside of me that I haven’t quite found the key to unleashing yet.  I just know that there is something there.  

I’ve found myself thinking about the creation story in Genesis recently.  There are two tellings, one where God speaks everything into existence, and one where he hand-crafts the world, and one particular creation; man. "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (Genesis 2:7) I love the imagery presented in that telling of the creation.  There is this feeling of intimacy that helps the reader to understand the care and passion that went into creation.  Not only did God form man from dust, but he also breathed into man bringing him to life!  Incredible!  Our God is an artist!

It’s no wonder to me that the first time the Spirit of God was given to a person it was given to an artist.  While Moses was on Mt Sinai talking with God, the Lord told him that he had given his spirit to two artists who were commissioned by God to create many holy artifacts, including the arc of the covenant.  (Exodus 31)  While this communion of souls was temporary, it is the same Spirit who came upon the believers at Pentecost.  God lit a fire in his people when he gave them his Spirit.  Their passion for the message of Christ was overwhelming.  They just had to let it out and share it with the people around them.  And, while God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, I often need to be reminded that He still breathes inspiration and passion into his people.  

My little brother is a very gifted artist.  While, he was born with a lot of talent in that area, the quality of hi work does not come from him just doodling.  Alex is constantly working to hone his craft.  I don’t think he ever leaves home without a sketchpad and pencil.  I get text messages from him with his latest creation all the time.  He is always drawing.  Art consumes my brother.  And because of that passion and dedication his skill is ever growing.  I have no idea how he will use that gift to impact the world, but I am confident that he will.

That’s the thing about passion and creativity; it refuses to stay locked away for long. When a person discovers their passion, the world around them gains a light that wasn’t there previously.  So, what is my passion?  I have no idea right now.  But I know I won’t have to wait much longer to find out.  I can feel it building in my soul.  It wants to burst forth and bring light to the world around me.  

What is your passion?  How did you discover it?  How are you letting it illuminate the world around you?

Goodbye 2015 (A Few Days Late)

Wow... 2015 was a really big year for me.  When I think about where I am now compared to jut a year ago, I am blown away.  It's super easy for me to get distracted by the day to day nonsense that happens, but when I step back and look I can see that God has been very faithful.

In September of 2014 I posted about how I felt like God was taking me into a season of pruning.  I didn't quite know what that meant, but I knew it was going to suck.  The first half of 2015 was super hard.  My depression was the worst it's been in a long time.  I constantly had thoughts of suicide, and it took everything in me not to act on it.  Eventually I made so really stupid choices that lead me to finally get some help with my mental illness.  I've been going to a psychologist and been on meds for almost 6 months and I am in a much better place now.  It was a very hard step, but it was worth it and I'm glad I was brave enough to do something instead of continuing to suffer.

I also am not really at church anymore.  While I was struggling so much, I felt God ask me to take a break from ministry.  Toward the end of my break I realized that I didn't really want to go back.  I needed a break from that environment, and I really needed to not work retail anymore.  So I looked for a new job, and found one at a residential facility for youths with mental health and behavioral problems due to a history of trauma.  I really like this job.  It's been almost a year and I'm still happy here.  I started on second shift, but switched to first shift recently.  I'm loving it!  I get to go to school with the kids and am working on being certified to lead therapy groups.  Even the worst days there are better than feeling unfulfilled at my retail job.

I've also been making deep and meaningful relationships, as well as mending and growing some old ones.  I've even started seeing a wonderful man who is so good to and for me.  I'm a very lucky girl.

So, when I think back to how much has changed in the last year I can't help but be overwhelmed by God's faithfulness.  I'm glad I hung on long enough to see this part of my life.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

-Isaiah 43:19

Time for a New Adventure

I have a deep need to find a community where I can be damaged, cynical, and really wrestle with what God is speaking into my life.  I have interacted with so many people who just need a safe space to really figure out where they fall on the question of religion.  We need a safe place to ask dangerous questions.  Questions that can lead to drastic change in our lives.  We need a sancutary for religious exploration and biblical learning.  One where we stop taking things at face value and learn to really dive in and think for ourselves.  

Where there is no vision the people perish. (Proverbs 29:18)  I don’t think that just means that we need good leadership.  If we are blind to truth for ourselves, no amount of preaching or predigested theology will help us.  We will wither and starve.  We need a place to learn to digest the Word on our own.  Where making mistakes and being broken are ok.  A place where authenticity is applauded, not swept under the rug.

We need a real community where we are all fighting to survive this together.  

That’s what I want to help create.  I don’t know who will come, but I trust God will bring the right people.  I can feel in my bones that I can’t just sit by anymore.  It’s time to try and build this community.  I’m not sure what it’s going to look like, but I just want people to feel loved.

I want people to feel safe to question and doubt.  I want people to not feel like they have to check part of themselves at the door.  I want to whole person, not just the cleaned up version.  I want them, warts and all.  I want this community to be an expression of the love and acceptance that God has for us.  No more feeling that they aren’t good enough.  No more thinking they aren’t worth love.  No more people forcing their beliefs on them, but rather them learning to live out their own faith.  

It’s time to get to work.  Let’s do this.

Heretic vs Hypocrites

I'm at a point in my life where I don't have time for hypocrites.  If one more person tries to explain the pain and suffering I've seen around me with a christian platitude (aka: "everything happens for a reason" or "God won't give you anything you can't handle") I'm going to punch them in the face!*

I'm tired of people who say they believe in Jesus, but they use him as an excuse to hate people because of their beliefs/race/sexual orientation.  I'm tired of people claiming that God want's them to be wealthy, and refusing to help the poor.  I have half a mind to leave the Church entirely.

God, I love you, but I can't stand your people!!!!

Seriously, what the fuck makes people think Jesus is cool with them completely ignoring his teachings on loving their neighbor (which includes the homeless guy who sits at the exit you take to get to work).  When did Jesus ever teach that hate/discrimination was an ok option?  Or, here is a better question, who did Jesus get the most pissed at?

He got seriously pissed at the hypocritial teachers of the law!  He said they were like white-washed tombs; pretty on the outside, but full of death on the inside.  (Matthew 23:27)  He had no patience for them.  One of the only times we see him get physically violent is when he drives money changers and venders out of the temple.  They had perverted his father's house. (Matthew 21:12-17) If only he was around to do that now.

I would rather spend time with people who are considered heretics, but are still growing in their faith.  My people are those who are asking questions, challenging the system they learned in sunday school.  The people who aren't sure what they believe, but they know that Love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)  Those who hope to one day have their shit together but know that it's probably never going to happen, and rather than stressing about that, they try to love everyone around them to the best of their ability.

I would rather spend my time with the people who may not know what they believe but try to love their neighbor.  I don't want to be around those who think they are 100% right all the time, and refuse to even critically think about their faith.

I think that's why Jesus called fishermen and tax collectors to be his disciples; they were willing to learn, and the students of the temple thought they already knew it all.

I'm tired of hypocrites... where are my heretics?



*I won't actually punch them.  But I will probably scream until I have no more voice.

Weeding and Pruning

Over the course of the year I have felt like God has been teaching me about rest.  I mean, when we started 2014 and I asked him what my word for the year was, that’s what I felt like he gave me.  Toward the beginning, he showed me that I am allowed to rest.  I took a month of from the ministries I am involved in.  Nothing fell apart.  I mean, there were a few things that needed to be adjusted and fixed when I came back, but nothing too drastic. 

During the summer, I feel like God was showing me that I can find moments of rest in the craziness.  And also that it’s ok to be protective of those moments.  He also showed me why rest is so important.  It’s like; I tried to love people out of my own strength.  I tried to make myself be there for them, and take care of them while I myself was falling apart at the seams.  I missed things then.  I was so busy trying to hold myself together so I could take care of them that I missed a lot of opportunities to be there for my friends.

For the last month I have felt like September 1^st was going to mark the beginning of a new lesson in my life.  So far that has proven to be true.  About a week ago I felt like God gave me a heads up that this was going to be a season of weeding and pruning in my life.  God is going to pull up those things in my heart that don’t need to be there so he can plant good things.  And he is going to prune the areas of my life that are producing fruit so that they will produce a bigger harvest.  Since seeing that, I have had some mild anxiety about this new lesson.  I feel like it’s going to hurt.  I had no idea how badly.

I have felt like my soul has been in chaos recently.  Like, every few days I feel like my soul is just getting the shit kicked out of it.  You know that feeling that you get when you are somewhere you are unfamiliar with, and then you get separated from the people you are with?  That panic and fear that just consumes all of you?  That is what I feel deep in the core of who I am.  I lose sight of myself.  

Tonight, I was thinking about a lot of things and nothing in particular when I felt the tug on my heart that God wanted to tell me something.  So, I asked him to speak up.  “Kate, there are a lot of things from your past that we need to deal with.”  That’s what I heard.  I have always thought that I was over most of my history and had moved on.  Apparently I was wrong.  So, it looks like I’m in for a painful couple of months.  I know in the end it will be good.  I am just praying for strength and peace in the meantime.

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  Philippians 1:6

It's 4:45am, Don't Expect This To Be Super Coherent

Friday night I went to Chris' house for a worship night.  Three of the boys played guitar, one guy played the cajon, and the rest of us sang.  It was super laid back, but I know for me it was exactly what I needed.

At one point in the night I looked around and realized the amazing work God was doing in each of our lives.  I've been having a lot of conversations recently about what makes a team work well, and the best way to lead particularly in the context of church.  Our church is going through A LOT of changes, and let me just tell you that it is not comfortable.  But as I looked around the circle and saw my teammates from Impact and other brothers and sisters in Christ faces as they worshiped I suddenly had hope that we could get through this rough patch.  

I'm starting to learn that the only thing we need is for God to be our focus 100% of the time.  If we can continue to worship Him through all of the drama, politics and pain then He will come through.  I'm starting to really grasp that God really does love our kids more than we do.  When I looked at my friends in the circle I could remember a time when they each were one of my students (other than one of Chris' friends who has started to hangout with us, that is.)  I can remember when the times when I wasn't a good friend or leader to them.  None of it was ever on purpose, but there were times I hurt them, or they hurt me.  If their spiritual maturity relied entirely on me, they would have been screwed.  But that's not how God works, is it?

Over the last couple years I have watched God what has done in the lives of those high school students who were more interested in playing Ultimate Frisbee than they were learning something new about God.  He is turning them into college kids who voluntarily pray for each other and who earnestly seek God's face.

When I think of where I was in my faith when I was their age I know that they are light years ahead of me.  They are hearing God call them to do things, and they jump to it.  Right now one of the boys (19) is in Slovenia doing a 6 week mission with Cru.  Another guy  (19) is getting ready to go to Haiti, this is after he went to India earlier this year.  My sister (20) is studying the Bible with one of her friends, and is so comfortable inviting people to come to church with her.  One of the other girls (19) in our group has been on mission in Russia 4 or 5 times now.  Another girl (21) is getting ready to go to Burundi for a year.  We have people studying to be teachers, and others who want to go into the military, another who wants to run tech at our church.  All of these things are callings from God.  They already are hearing him so much better than your average 20 year old.  

I am so thankful that God has been doing such incredible work in their lives.  If this is where they are now in their early 20s, I can't wait to see where they are when they are in their 40s.  For now, though, I will enjoy watching them grow up, and continue to worship our God along with them.

One Word Project

Its interesting how easily what we do can become who we are.  

I have been totally exhausted recently.  I know I had at one point said that I was going to forever trust God with the ministries I am involved in, but that was easier said than done.  The worst part was that I didn't even realize I had put the burden back on my shoulders.  Either I am addicted to stress, or Satan has done a bang up job of messing with my head.  I had fallen back into the thought pattern that said it all was up to me, and I had to make the ministry great.  Somewhere along the way my view of reality became incredibly narrow.  That caused me to feel even more responsible, anxious and tired.  I felt like everything I did was criticized and picked apart, nothing was good enough.  

This is the state I was in when I talked to a friend about New Year Resolutions.  She said she wasn't doing those this year, but rather picking one word and focusing on that.  I loved that idea, so I stole it.  After a little prayer, I came to realize my word for 2014 is REST.  

I guess God wants to start this year off with a bang because very soon after coming to my word, I felt like He asked me to take time off from the ministries I am involved in/leading.  I was not pleased with that, at all.  I started telling him all the reasons that was a silly idea.  'I don't want to take time away from my kids.  I love them, and they need me.  Plus, what am I apart from youth ministry...?"  That's where I stopped.  I don't know when it happened, but my identity has shifted from who God says I am to what I do for God.  

This is not a new problem for God.  Jesus had a friend who seemed to face a very similar issue.  Our story is found in the tenth chapter of The Gospel of Luke.

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.  She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”  (Luke 10:38-42)

In the same way that Martha though serving was the most important, I have put my work in ministry above my actual relationship with God.  That's not to say I don't believe, but rather I have been knocked off my center.  

I think of it like this; a washing machine that is off center will still clean clothes, but it wastes energy by bumping into the sides.  A well balanced washing machine is more efficient.  I need to recenter my life on Christ and make our relationship the priority.  I will be much more effective if I do; not because of me, but because God will be able to use me when he chooses to.  I (hopefully) won't get in the way so much.

So, I'm taking a month off from all youth ministry.  This month is going to be incredibly hard.  I am already a mess and I'm only 4 days into it.  But, I'm going to trust God to take care of everything, and pray that I am well rested and recharged during this time off.  Like a friend of mine pointed out, even God rested after creating everything. (Genesis 2:2-3)  Who am I to think I am above the need to rest?  If it's good enough for God, it is more than good enough for me.