A Present God

Have you ever had a moment where God made you feel so loved that you just couldn't stop laughing and crying at the same time? Have you ever felt that loved before?

Well, that happened to me yesterday at church. I cannot explain the joy that I felt in those moments between me and God except that it rocked my world. I cannot believe how much God loves me. And creation as a whole. 

I spent the whole day thinking of Him, as so often I do.

I thought to myself, " I just wish that You would be more audible to me more often. Like a God who is here and present in every moment." 

Do you know what God said to that?

"That's how I created you, to desire me fully and present. In the beginning, that's how it was. I walked with Adam. I walked with Eve. My creation will continue to desire Me. You will continue to desire Me. But I have made you that way."

Those are the moments we live for. 

To desire and to be desired.

I've never felt more desired by God than yesterday.

I'm enjoying every moment!

Til next time..

Katie

Pockets of Glory

I've been in this season for a while now...in amazement of what God can do. Mostly, I'm in awe when I look up. Which is often. Do you see the heavens changing before our eyes? I wake up and first thing I do is look up, see what God has in store for me that day.

I feel like I can face anything by watching the sky. I know that sounds silly, but I look up and I feel God move closer to me. It reminds me I'm not alone and that while I'm small, the guy who made the sky chose to love me. To pursue and enduringly rescue me. 

Luke 21:25-28 (NIV) "There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

I find myself dreaming of that day. Folks, that's a good place to be in. Yeah, sometimes I feel selfish and want to say no not yet, I've got too much to do. But when I think of the glory of God...the peace and joy I feel in His presence...I'm reminded of how much I love being with Him.

That's something to shout about!

Psalm 147:8 says, "Who covers the heavens with clouds, Who provides rain for the earth, Who makes grass to grow on the mountains..."

That means that those clouds I'm in awe of are literally covering heaven up...the throne room is just beyond. I cannot express how much peace I have when I look up. I like to call them glory clouds, right about sunset, when the colors of the sky are changing and rays of sunshine are going every which way...it's a beautiful sky God created. Even on the dreary days if you look close enough there's still sunshine peaking through somewhere. Little pockets of glory.

This is scattered, probably doesn't even make sense. But regardless, let's start looking up more. Thanking God for what He's given us...chased us with. His glory shines everyday, all we have to do is acknowledge that He's there.

Peace and Joy!

Katie

Blessings

I don't know about you, but in this last week God keeps reminding me of the things He wants to bless not only me with, but others. Many times in my life has God shown up and blown me away when I needed Him.

This last week, He's reminded me how He's financially provided for me.

There was a time when I was down to negative amounts of money in my bank account and I sat in my room all day and prayed. I cried and wept that I had failed and couldn't pay my bills. While it is still so crazy to look back on, it was a moment of change in my life. I desperately depended on God to provide and pay my bills.

Maybe you're reading this and thinking, "why didn't she ask anyone for help?". Well, I don't have many people to turn to who can, and besides that, I don't like to let people think I absolutely depend on them. It's my job to pay my bills. I have since the day I've turned 18.

So in that moment in the winter of 2011, I was rescued from my anxiety.

I opened my mailbox the day after I had wept and prayed all day. There were two envelopes that had no address, no return label, nothing. Just the name Katie. And on the back of one it said, "Because God told me too." And the other said, "Because someone helped me out once." In both of these envelopes were words of encouragements and checks for exactly my monthly expenses. How GREAT is GOD? I wept for like an hour of just pure joy.

 How very little people believe God can do, but because I put my faith in God that week, I just knew I was going to be okay!

The blessings kept coming in. Checks kept showing up, groceries were bought for me, somehow everything I needed and more was provided for. I got offered a second job within the week and took it. Since then I have learned that a good work ethic, remembering God is in control of EVERYTHING, and being thankful is all I need to survive.

From that moment on, I've never had to look for a job. They've just been offered to me. It's like God was saying, "this way..now turn this way". In every job I've had, a purpose has been revealed to me. In each job, I've been able to talk to people about how great Jesus is. Even if it's just smiling all the time, that's a way to cheer people up!

Anyways, in this last week, I worked 47 hours and moved apartments. To say I was tired was an understatement. Yet, God kept showing up in little things throughout my days. Now my new apartment is done and while I work everyday for the next two weeks, I could not be more thankful to a God who provides, loves, and reminds me that while He is blessing me, to bless others even more.

I'm going to start looking for things I can do to help others like God has helped me. In fact, I want my whole life to point towards that. To remind people how God cares. He really cares for the broken hearted.

This may have made no sense and it's all over the place. But I just hope if anyone who reads this is ever in a place where they feel like nobody can help, turn to God. Believe that He was provide for you, cover your finances, cover your sickness, and watch God move!

He's a powerful loving God.

Til next time,
Katie

You Make All Things Work Together for My Good

When I think about God's big plans, I realize I'm not in control. I can choose to be anxious and really stressed about something He's planning, or I can choose to remember how He would never put me in a situation that wouldn't end up being the best thing for me.

When I lost my dad four and a half years ago, on that day I would have told you I trust God and His plan, but I didn't know what that plan was. No way could I imagine four and a half years later I would understand why it had to happen. To be honest, I'm thankful that it did happen. I know, I know. "Woah Katie is glad her dad is dead!" No. That's not what I mean.

The years I had with my dad were more impacting on my life than any other years. He taught me so much in the few years we had. He taught me how to be best friends with someone who ya live with, how to truly love and take care of each other, and how to have fun without having to forget what I had done the night before. My dad was the best dad I could ever ask for. And he's still my dad. He still takes care of me in more ways than one. He was the perfect example of God's love.

The day my dad died, I leaned on the everlasting Father more than I have ever needed to before. Through that I was taught how comforting the Father's arms are. I was reassured of how much the Father cares for each of us, individually. He loves me like I'm the only person in the world, yet I have all these sisters and brothers in the world that He loves equally as much. He has made it so that each of us has something to offer to this world, to glorify His name.

The Lord has been teaching me this last week how to lean on Him when I don't really need Him. How much more satisfying it is to seek His face when I'm seeking to please the Lord and not to receive comfort from the Father. Peace comes over me, the kind that overwhelms my soul and Jesus is higher in my life than any person on earth. He is all I care about. He is all I look forward to. While I have this blessed life full of laughter and joy with my friends and family, I know at the end of the day, God is my Father and best friend, just like dad.

He takes care of me. He makes all things work together for my good.

How could I ever question God when He's brought me through so much?

Break our walls

The Lord is so mighty.

It's hard to imagine a life that isn't like what I've been doing lately. But I feel God moving in my life. It's funny when we get to a point where we think we have it all planned out and suddenly God says, "That's too small for you. I have something bigger in mind. "

My heart is full of excitement and rejoicing while at the same time it's fearful of how it will all play out. Right now my only focus is to fall completely head over heels with the King and let Him take the lead.

It's such a peaceful thing to let Him be in control. I have absolutely no idea at all what tomorrow holds.. Exactly as it should be.

All Consuming Fire

Praise Jesus for this day, amongst all of the things I had to do, He has blessed me in this day.

He is so big and powerful and we are so tiny - yet He adores us.

Here's a song that has blessed me this week called All Consuming Fire, here.

This week Jesus spoke to me through Song of Songs 2: 8-12

"Listen! My lover! 

Look! Here He comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills.

My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. 

Look! There he stands behind our wall,

gazing through the windows, 

peering through the lattice.

My lover spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.

See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one. Come with me!"

Each part of that spoke to me. I know Song of Songs is about how marriage was intended to be for us, but I cannot help but think of the stag as Jesus. Jesus standing behind the walls we put up in this world: like busyness, laziness, the American idea that we must be perfect for God to adore us. Then Jesus says: ARISE! My darling, my BEAUTIFUL one. Come with me (the almighty, perfect, adored Christ almighty). See that the winter is past (the hard part is over, we do not have to live this life alone) Flowers appear on the earth, the season of singing has come (season of adoring the King and worshipping at His alter) He says come with me!

Maybe I took that out of context, but it's exactly how Jesus wanted me to read it yesterday. I needed to be reminded of his adoration of His children including me. How wonderful and mighty is my God and Savior! I'm so blessed. I'm so thankful. 

The Blessed House

In 62 days...

Emily Gamble becomes Emily Hall. And that's the beginning of the end of college for me. For three years, I've lived with Emily. That's truly the beginning of me finding out who I truly was. She's always pointed me to grace and reminded me of qualities God has instilled within me. She is my sister and I will not know how to live without her laughing at me when I oversleep for school.

Summer 2010

BUT I could not be more thrilled for her journey with DK as they embark on going into ministry together. Truly such a joy to watch two people who love each other so much and watch them go into the world with the intentions of growing the kingdom. Jesus will use them in so many ways and I'm excited to watch it from afar!

Spring Break 2009, NYC

Emily's Birthday, June 2009

For two years, I have lived in Sclub7 with Hailey and Emily.

                     

Emily's birthday, June 2011

Asheville trip, August 2011

DK's birthday, September 2011

Boobie 5k, October 2012

Atlanta Road Trip, 2013

This is the place my heart has learned to call home. How I long to be here with my two best friends, catching up and continually growing in Christ together. This is the kind of community my heart has longed for.

How's this for family?

It makes me feel warm and so loved by Jesus that he chose Hailey and Emily for me to grow with through my college years. As I feel change embark around the corner as I know this next year will fly by, I am reminded not to take time for granted. This is time we will never get back. We have had more laughter in this home. More joy. All because of Jesus. These girls are my family. Could not be more thankful.


In 47 days...

Emily Gamble's Bachelorette Party commences and the planning has been so fun with Hailey (sometimes stressful) but we are both ready to get the parties rolling for Emily and let her truly enjoy being engaged and being celebrated!! More updates on that in probably 50 days..

In 26 days..

The journey of Sclub7 ends. Hailey and I will be moving into our new beautiful 2 bedroom apartment across the street (that's a blessing) where the three (I like to call it the trinity) will become the two as Emily prepares to be the best wife of all time.

Hailey and I are fully expecting to make this one of the best years yet by enjoying our time together and continuing to grow in Christ together. We are going to decorate like nobody's business and turn V6 into the coolest, homiest, comfiest apartment Cookeville has ever seen.


So folks, those are the things I'm most excited about at this moment. Celebrating life, changes, friends, family, and school coming to an end for the semester and this beautiful stinkin weather to stick around!
As my summer life begins, I will probably be working a lot. But I feel God moving in my life and know that whatever comes next, it will be full of goodness.

I'm off to finally watch Les Mis!

Katie

Circumstances << Jesus

I have had a hard couple days.

Really feeling attacked and having a hard time gripping God's love and mercy and pursuance after me.

I feel satan sucking the joy out of me and reminding me of flaws that I have more so than the beauty I have inside of me. Folks, I'm here to tell you I'm human. We all have these feelings. The fact that I choose to let satan captivate my thoughts says only one thing: I need Jesus.

I severely need Jesus. He's all I need, He's my medicine, He's my cure, He's my healing, He's my protection, He's my KING, He's my redeemer!
He goes before me, He justifies my name before the LORD, HE is and is to come.

Glory!

To know how little effort it takes my king to rescue me from the captivation of my mind as soon as I plead to Him makes me beyond happy.

Just going to try to remember from now on that He is always there fighting on my behalf as long as I look to Him before I look to my circumstances!


Til we meet again,
Katie

Spring Break-ish

Spring Break was fun and stressful all at the same time. So here's a recap to the best I can do!

So while Damen went and played last week in Washington DC, I worked and worked and worked. I know I am so blessed to be able to afford living comfortably for a college student, but I do work my butt off for it.

SO while I wasn't working....

I went to Crawford to see my grandma and family! I taught my little cousin to parallel park in a field in between two of the family's cars. That was fun and definitely a first for me. I had some chocolate gravy and biscuits that grandma made and boy was my stomach happy. It was a much needed day off!

AND I found this awesome photo of daddy, taken by the White House's official photographer. How cool is that?

I got to spend some much needed time with my favorite girls Hailey and Emily. We spent quality time together at Sclub7, went a movie, and dare I say it: WENT TO ATLANTA.

It was a beautiful day. I had the day off, we all left on time at 7 am, stopped to get our favorite pick me up Starbucks..this day was starting off good.

With a little stop to view the mountains and get CRAZY, we were off and made it to ATL by lunch. We stopped at a little place called Six Feet Under..it's got good food for good college prices AND did I mention a great view?

After that, we went to IKEA. If I haven't mentioned before, I'm going to school for Housing and Design (i.e. interior design) and I had never been to IKEA, so my roomies knew I was in for a treat. We walked in and I just fell in love in moments. This place has got it all..anything you've ever seen in Pottery Barn, Pinterest, you name it. ONLY IT'S AFFORDABLE. I cannot stress how happy this made me. We were a happy bunch. Watch this video and see what I mean:

Being that I live in a tiny apartment, I didn't buy much but for $33 dollars I got two old school milk jars to put flowers in, a candle, lint roller, five packages of 10 pack AA batteries, and a utensil holder. Good deals people.

We continued the day with lots of God's favor as everything kept falling into place way too easily. We went shopping for a couple hours, got the yummiest ice cream I've ever had, and then decided to head to Chattanooga for dinner. SO FUN Y'ALL. 

I feel so blessed to have these girls as a family.

On Sunday, I got the day off too! Which never happens. A whole weekend to do as I please? I ran some errands and went grocery shopping. I got these pretty little sunflowers to go in my new jars and I just love looking at them every morning before I leave for the day. My little piece of sunshine.

Speaking of sunshine, Justin Timberlake's new cd came out on Tuesday! Talk about a happy happy occasion. If you haven't listened to it yet, here are my recommendations: Pusher Love Girl, That Girl, Mirrors, and Dress On. Those are the best. AND THE BEST NEWS: There's ten more songs coming out, straight from JT. Crossing my fingers I get to see my boy in concert this summer!!

He's beautiful.

So school is back in and while I'm super sad about that, my boyfriend is home. And I could not be more excited about that.

Sorry for the long post BUT I hope that your spring break was just as fun as mine.

Til we meet again..

Katie

Giggly Joy

I don't have much time, but I had to let everyone know: God is moving in each and every one of our lives. Seriously. It brings tears to my eyes when I think about how much God loves us.

He has not only provided for me but has also shown up and overwhelmed me with giggly joy this week. Each and every day He has proven to me that my life has been planned with Him from the beginning. He uses each of us everyday to help Him complete His plan.

If you really think about it, He's constantly loving and pursuing us so that we can love and pursue others and get them to understand that they too are loved and pursued.

That thought just overwhelms me!

More on my week later! Hope you notice God moving.

Until next time,
Katie

Enduring Love

I'm currently in a season of watching everyone around me leave.

They're moving on from college life while I am behind in school and have much left here for me. I cannot help but wonder if Cookeville is all life will ever hold for me, but my desires tell me differently. I know that God does not let my desires sit on the back burner. He is constantly working on making my life useful for Him. But He does not forget to love me.

Today, as I let it sink in that I will soon be without almost every friend I've considered my family, God revealed this to me.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give You the desires of Your heart." -Psalm 37:4

In this verse God says, delight in ME, and you will be given what you've always desired deep down. Why would I desire something though if He didn't initially give me that desire? We are impatient beings, looking to tomorrow more than we live today. After all, God does not say: You delight in me today, then today I will give you your desire! INSTANT RESULTS. (like an infomercial) But Jesus doesn't want us to live like that. He wants our focus to be on Him and not tomorrow. Why? Because secret things belong to the Lord, and future things are secret things.

So, while I'm living for the present, living for Jesus and putting my focus on Him..wouldn't my desires change to be more like His?

Basically, what I'm saying is: He's got this.
All I can do is stay thankful.

Until we meet again,
Katie

One of those days:

Phew.

That word above pretty much describes this day.

To say I've been busy is an understatement. I stayed up late writing on here, studying, and watching Downton Abbey(which l know two out of three are guilty pleasures). By the time I was able to get to sleep, it was about 2 am. 

Woke up at 6:45 to shower and get to class early to study some more. Aced a quiz (by Chemistry standards) and I feel pretty confident overall about my Housing I test.

Straight from class I went to work at Sherwin-Williams where today I reorganized the store for five hours. Then home to make a sandwich and change before I was off again to work at Cream City for the night.

I'm sitting here staring at homework, study guides to be made, and a bag of chocolates now.

What's crazy about all of that is this: I am not tired. Not one bit. I fully believe it's because I asked God to take this day and make it better as soon as I woke up. I knew I was facing a hard day and God said I've got this for You! 

I hope that no matter how hectic your life may be, that today you take time to remember how much more important God is in the scheme of everything. He is, realistically, the only thing that matters.

Hope to see you again soon.

Katie

Laughter and Love