I found my Prince Charming

There is something that has been on my heart for a while now that I feel like I need to share. Warning: there will be rambling in your very near future if you choose to keep reading this!

I am single.

There...I said it.

I am a single girl living in a world that was made for couples. I am a single girl living in a world that tells me that I am not complete without a man by my side. I am a single girl who is told that "the lord will give you a man when you are ready". I am a single girl who is told that if she loses 20 pounds or cuts her hair that more guys will like her. I am a single girl who is indirectly told that because I don't have a man by my side that there is something wrong with me. 

I am a single girl who lives in a world created by the one true God. I am a single girl who has been made complete by my heavenly father. I am a single girl that trusts that the Lord will bless me with a husband when HE is ready. I am a single girl that knows that just because my thighs may jiggle more than other girls, I am a daughter of the king, and THAT makes me beautiful. I am a single girl that knows that nothing is wrong with me because I was made by a perfect creator. 

My hope and my prayer is that "all the single ladies" out there can stop seeing singleness as a handicap. Being single is one of the best gifts the Lord can give us. Just think about it...the Lord has given us time to spend with him and only him. He has given us the gift of not being tied down so that we can follow Him to the ends of the earth. 

This concept is something that I am just now coming to grips with. For years, I would long for someone to share my life with, someone to talk to about anything, someone to lead me spiritually, someone to tell me I am beautiful, someone that I could follow. After years of holding this desire deep within me, I realized that I already was in a relationship like this. 

With Jesus.

The amazing thing about our lord is that HE COMPLETES US. We do not need another person in our life to make us whole, because once we take on the Lord as the leader of our lives, we are complete! How amazing.

I truly hope and pray that the single women of God will stop looking for "Mr. Right" because he is already there waiting on you to come to him! He is standing at the door, with a dozen roses, ready to romance you until the day you die! I also pray that once we do find the man that God has blessed us with as a husband, we do not look for him to complete us, because a man will never be able to complete us. The gift of marriage was not given to us as a way of making two halves become a whole, it is a way that two people who love God more than anything, can come together and teach the world about God's love! It is a way that two people can raise a family that is taught about God and is taught to share God with the world! 

Praise God for singleness. Praise God for this time that can be spent with just God and Katie.

Why I am here

Every blog that has ever been written has some underlying purpose for it's existence. Some people write blogs about crafting (woot woot), some write for their own personal need of expressing themselves and some write about topics such as leadership and how to move up in the world. Up until last February, I had never been a part of this blogging world. I originally thought of it as a way of people to keep up with family from afar or just share what they thought, but I have learned that blogs can change lives. My life and my purpose was changed by God of course, but he used the blogs of some amazing people to help facilitate that change. I was reading a family friend's blog one day out of boredom and I just started clicking on other people's blogs. One of those blogs was a family who had adopted a child from Ethiopia. I had always thought of adoption as an interesting topic, so I kept reading and kept clicking. I then came across the blogs of a few families who were giving all they had to the Lord and through that, advocating and bringing a voice to the voiceless. I read a blog about a girl MY AGE with MY NAME being the hands and feet of Jesus. A girl that made me realize that even though I was young, I could wholeheartedly serve God.

MY LIFE WAS FOREVER CHANGED

Through reading the stories of these families, I was encouraged and I was given hope that in a nation who's focus was not on God, that there are people out there willing to give their everything to HIS purpose. HOW AMAZING! I have not stopped reading these blogs since and I feel as if I am a part of their family, even though we have never met. I have seen God work miracles through these families and I am so proud to know them. (even though if I were to see them on the street they would have no clue who I was, but would I throw a 4yr old fit of excitement if I saw them, creepy? completely.)

The lord used these blogs to open my heart to orphans. Because of these blogs I cannot wait to share with you (whoever you are) my journey of following the Lord. He has put the motherless on my heart for a reason, this reason I am not sure of yet, but I am patiently waiting for that tug at my heart in the right direction. The purpose of this blog is not just about orphan care or about the different things that God has laid on my heart, but this blog is about a 22 year old trying to follow God one step at a time. My hope for this blog is that I can be completely honest and not sugar coat my walk with the Lord. I mess up every single day and I will never say anything different. My life is messy and by no stretch of the imagination have I got it together. Like most other christians, I experience huge highs and MAJOR lows in my walk with christ and I hope to share those times in the most honest way possible. 

Even though it scares me to death to put it all out here for the world to see, I hope to encourage at least one person along the way. I hope that if someone is a non-believer looking at this blog, they do not see what the world has decided Christians should be like. I hope that they see that Christianity is for sinners, for people like me who have made every mistake in the book. Christianity is not beautiful because we are these amazing people who never make mistakes, because WE ARE NOT THOSE PEOPLE. Christianity is beautiful because our savior took our sins on him and took the wrath for us all so that we can live a life of liberty.

My hope is that you will see that being a christian is not all fluffy rainbows. Being a christian requires sacrifice, and those sacrifices are not easy, but they are worth it. If I have learned anything in my short 22 years on earth, it is that a life with the Lord is more beautiful than any other life that there is. God can turn ashes into beauty, and I can say this because I have been the ashes. I was lost and living a life of destruction and then the Lord set me free. What a beautiful life to live! I am happy to share it with you!

"as a prisoner for the Lord, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of spirit in the bond of peace"

-Ephesians 4:1-3

it is HE who lives in me

written on April 10, 2011

For as long as I can remember, church has been part of my life. Sometimes I loved it, sometimes I hated it, but it has always been there. Why was I sent to church growing up? It would make sense that it would be for me to be a good person, for me to be successful (by the world’s standards) or for me not to make some of the detrimental mistakes that “non-churchgoers” make. After 22 years of church going, I have managed to make some of those mistakes, not be a very successful person and sometimes I question whether or not I am a “good” person. If I have managed to fail at those basic things, what was the point in me going to church for the past 22 years? I have learned to love the Lord with all of my heart. Isn’t that what the bible says to do? If so, therefore I must obey His word, which has nothing to do with monetary success or not making mistakes. Obeying God is quite the opposite! I am told to give up everything I have to feed the poor, and to go to all nations preaching the Gospel and I will make mistakes and mess up but I serve a God whose grace is bigger than all of those things!

We have gotten it wrong. Church isn’t about being a good person, being successful, or not making mistakes. Church is about God. God is about love, so let us love! Let us give! Let us bless others with the gifts that God has given us! We have one chance to tell the world about the redemptive power of our Lord. If we only have this one chance, why would we waste it sitting in our nice houses, in our comfy chairs, watching television that is polluting our minds when there are people dying everyday without knowing our Lord? We have gotten it wrong. This is not the life we are called to live.

How can I, a 22 year old, live to this high of a standard? I must let the Lord dwell in me. This is no longer my life, it is God’s. I must let him use me and mold me to whatever he wants me to be. This person he molds me to be will most likely not be what the people who love me want to be, but I must continue on because I am HIS, not THEIRS. I must be willing to give up the comforts of my life and dive into the comfort that only our Lord can give. He is directing my paths every minute. It is up to me to follow these paths, even if it disappoints the people I love. this is scary. For me to leave the comforts of my loved ones’ arms is the scariest thing I have ever had to do, but I am going to the loving arms of my lord and savior, and there is nowhere else I would rather be.

I have never done anything without the full support of at least a couple of people. I have been supported my whole life and people have always said that I could do anything I wanted to do. Well what I want is no longer important. What God wants is the only thing that matters to me, and I am finding that people are much more willing to support me than they are to support God. Why is this? He created the world, he created me, he lives in me. Why are his ways not as good as my ways? I ask myself this question daily and wonder why the people I love will not stand behind God working in my life. It breaks my heart to know that to follow Christ, I must give up some of the people I love. We are told that this will happen and I must accept it and believe that my God has bigger plans. My god is greater, my god is stronger.

Soon I will be making the biggest decisions of my life, who will be there to support me? I dont know the answer. All I know is that I have the Lord and that is good enough for me. If you are reading this and disagree with some of my decisions, or think that I am stupid for giving up certain opportunities, you are welcome to have those opinions, but I cannot bear to live a life that does not serve our God %100. Up until now, I have not lived that life and it is a process that I will most likely struggle through for the rest of my life, but I have the lord on my side. I must make every effort to let the lord live in me and follow HIS paths. Not mine, not my parents’, not my friends’. I must be willing to give up what society tells me to do for my lord. I must be willing to not follow the college degree-high paying job-marriage-house-baby-retire-die cycle that we are told is the proper way to live. Maybe I will end up going down that same path, but that is not for anyone but God to decide for me. What if I end up living in a dirt floor hut in the middle of Africa for the rest of my life? Not for me to decide. The only decision I get to make is to wake up every morning and take up my cross and follow HIM. That decision is hard, but is one that I am willing to make.


When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” -Luke 18:22