To The Girl Who Lost Her Boyfriend

I met a girl a few days ago five minutes after her boyfriend died.

He had been fighting for his life in the hospital for more than a year after he was shot in the head.

I knew them both because we have a mutual best friend. I had been following their journey through her and watching in awe at his recovery and the way God was using their testimonies.

My friend told me she had been visiting them at the hospital a lot because he wasn’t doing well, but they prayed and believed for a supernatural healing – and so did I.

But on the morning of Dec. 15, I woke up with God telling me I had to go visit my friend that day.

I work in Florence, AL a few days a week where he was currently in the hospital, and that day happened to one of my days to drive there.

I kind of forgot what God had told me that morning (how often do we just forget his nudges) and went on about my day until my friend texted me to ask for prayers for her friend in the hospital.

God nudged me again to go back once I was off work. I got off work early and almost talked myself out of going because I had so much to do and didn’t have makeup on… and I just kept making up reasons not to go, but then God REALLY nudged me and I knew I had to go.

I sobbed the entire way there, not because of the situation, but because of how God’s love was revealed to me in that moment. Even though I wouldn’t get anything out of it and didn’t “have” to go and could think of reasons not to go, I showed up anyway. That’s how God loves us. He doesn’t have to ever do anything for us and there are thousands of reasons why He shouldn’t show up for us, but He ALWAYS does it anyway. He always shows up just to sit with us and let us know He cares and let us cry on His shoulder – that’s how we are called to love each other.

When I got to the hospital, I walked up with a huge smile and waved to my friend. She walked fast toward me with tears in her eyes and hugged me and said, “He’s gone.” He passed away five minutes before I got there.

I felt my heart drop to the very bottom of my stomach and, for once, I had no words to say. I just hugged her and loved her – that’s a lot like how God just hugs us and loves us anytime we need Him.

I knew in that moment exactly why God had nudged me that morning and all day long. He wanted me there for a reason, and I felt it.

Again, I hadn’t met her friends, but I was about to meet the girlfriend in what was the worst moment of her entire life.

She hugged me and had the calmest smile on her face – she felt so at peace, and if I got nothing else out of that day, it was that. She was a walking display of the peace of God and He was using her to be a light in a moment when it would have been humanly acceptable for her to be a wreck.

We exchanged our “nice to meet you’s” with a giggle and I just hugged her again. I told her how much I loved her and she told me she couldn’t wait to hang out with me – and there it was again – a sign that she knew life would go on. Her boyfriend had just died yet she loved on me, a stranger, like everything was fine because she knew it was.

At one point, I looked away and sobbed thinking about what I would do if I lost my fiancé. I couldn’t imagine having her strength.

The only words of wisdom I could muster up were straight from God and I told her that He was going to use her boyfriend’s testimony for the good of so many people but He was also going to use hers and THAT is powerful. Her testimony is so powerful and so encouraging and I felt that in her presence the entire time we talked.

I knew I had to write this for her just to make sure she knows how integral her part is in leading others to The Kingdom. The impact she had on me in the 15 minutes I spoke with her moments after her world crashed down gave me so much hope, and that’s how I knew she would do that for thousands of other people with her testimony.

I think as much as God led me there for her that day, he led me there for our mutual best friend. She told me she had been so strong until the moment she saw me, and that’s when she knew she could let go and break down.

Please understand I didn’t do anything – God did everything. And she knew that. She knew that my hug embracing her and taking her burden was actually God wrapping her up in His arms and wiping her tears away in the way only He can.

As the three of us talked, they told me about little signs they had gotten from God, and I called them “God winks” from a book I had heard of.

When I left, I googled the book so I could order two and send them both a copy.

I found “When God Winks At You” by Squire Rushnell. There were other similarly titled books but that’s the one that jumped out. I didn’t order it but I went to Barnes and Noble that night to do some shopping, and when I walked in, it was the first book on the first shelf I saw as I soon as I walked in the door and my heart sunk again.

Tears streamed down my face and I picked up two books. I shipped them to my old friend and my new friend and felt God saying, “Does it all make sense now?”

It’s amazing what can happen when we really listen to God and do the simple things He asks of us.

As for Allison, she has done exactly what God asked of her through the entire journey with her boyfriend and has exercised her faith during a trial. I hope she knows how strong God must think she is to have given her this job and how proud He is at how she has followed through with it.

We can all learn a lot from her. She lost the most important person in her life, but she didn’t lose her faith in God.

Here’s to that girl and being a little more like her in our pursuit of The Kingdom.

From my heart to yours,

Kaitlin

 

When A Man Pursues A Woman

We all know the sweet song, “When A Man Loves A Woman,” by Michael Bolton, and more famously sung by Percy Sledge. It talks all about how a man can’t keep the woman he loves off his mind and would trade the whole word for her – an absolutely beautiful song.

But what about pursuit?

Not a lot of men will say, “Hey girl, I will alway pursue you,” but the truth is when a man loves a woman, he HAS to pursue here – the two go hand in hand.

We pursue things like money, dreams, and careers, so why do we often fail to pursue the people we love?

My fiancé told me from the beginning that he would always pursue me, and I honestly wasn’t sure what to think of that. I had heard it in church, but I never really thought about it. I never wrote on my “Future Husband List” that he would need to always “pursue” me, but boy am I glad God wrote that on the list for me.

The pursuit of happiness is an ongoing pursuit for absolutely everyone, and the pursuit of your partner should be too.

I have never been truly pursued by a man until now, and I can’t tell girls enough to wait until they find the man that pursue them every single day – and the man they want to pursue back!

Just last night, my fiancé asked if he could take me on a surprise date. That might sound silly or sappy or way too mushy for most people, but the fact of the matter is that it meant so much because it means that he will never stop showing me how much he loves me and never stop trying to win my heart, even though he knows he has it forever.

He picked me up with Starbucks waiting in the car and Christmas music on – side note: I love Christmas and he isn’t very fond of it, so the Christmas theme was a huge deal. He took me to look at Christmas lights because he knows how much I love them and he loves riding in the car and talking to me. He went out of his way to do so many little things to show me that he loves me for absolutely no reason and no intention other than the fact that I deserve that.

And you deserve that. Oh MAN do you deserve that.

Guess who has been pursuing you since the day you entered the world?

Yep. God.

He pursues our hearts with a fire and a passion that even my adorable fiancé with Starbucks and N’Sync Christmas Pandora can’t match. He pursues us even when we run away, even when we spit in His face, even when we sin directly against Him. He always pursues our hearts, and when we start to pursue Him back, it’s magical. He does little things all the time to remind us just how fiercely He is pursuing us.

The thing about a man pursuing a woman is that it can’t be one-sided. Every woman deserves to be pursued like a princess, but every man deserves to be pursued like a prince. God is pursuing their hearts, too, so why wouldn’t we?

We have to choose to love them and show them love every single day, even when it’s difficult.

In the same breath, we have to pursue God. He is pursing us every second of every day, and we have to do the same to get the most out of our relationship with Him.

Girls, guys, whoever is reading this, YOU deserve the pursuit of love and I hope you always give it back. If a guy or a girl isn’t pursuing your heart right now, please know that God still is.

Don’t ever settle for someone who doesn’t pursue you and love your heart to pieces. God painted us a perfect picture of how that should look so that we could use it as a guide.

The coolest thing is that when you do decide to pursue God’s heart, you usually find someone who is doing the same thing, and then you can pursue Him and each other.

When a man pursues a woman, he can’t keep his mind on nothin’ else and he can’t help but show her what she deserves.

Wait on the pursuit and the little surprise dates and the Christmas lights and the butterflies – it’s all real and out there somewhere; you just have to pursue God to get there.

Making Yourself Small So Others Feel Big

“Our strength is not in our beauty but in our function.”

I always thought I was supposed to act like I wasn’t pretty.

My whole life my parent always told me I was pretty (even through my awkward, REALLY awkward, middle school phase), and I never believed them. As I got older, there were days I felt pretty, but I never thought I was beautiful.

I struggled throughout high school with, honestly, feeling like everyone hated me. I did the same thing in college. The fact of the matter was that no on hated me. Unless you are doing things to someone out of malicious intent and hurting them, then there are people who love you and people who want something you have and that’s all – they don’t hate you.

We tell people, “They’re just jealous,” when someone is downright mean for no reason. And that’s usually true. I can think of a time when I really didn’t like someone simply because I was jealous and wanted something they didn’t have. I generally kept that to myself and didn’t act on it, but some people act on it.

With that being said, I wanted to make sure no one ever hated me or was jealous of me, so I made sure to make myself as small as possible.

Even when I knew that one cheerleading routine better than all the other girls, I didn’t want to let them know I thought that, so I’d cower down. Confidence was a foreign word to me. I thought confidence meant cocky and I didn’t want to be that at all.

When someone told me I was pretty, I would tell them why I wasn’t. If someone said I was really amazing or cool or anything else very nice of them to say, I would babble on and on about how they were wrong.

This whole making-myself-small thing really could have hurt the best relationship I’ve ever had. My then boyfriend, now fiance, told me I was pretty and kind and cool and fun all the time and I would make the worst faces or say, “Oh my gosh no,” every single time. It made him so upset because he was expressing emotion that I was totally rejecting. I had to explain to him that it really was me and not him. Since then, I have gotten a LITTLE better about accepting his sweet compliments. Your lack of confidence does not make your more attractive. You can be and should be confident and humble at the same time.

I have a best friend who really and truly is one of the most beautiful, fun, kind people I’ve ever known, and she had/has the same problem. One night, we bonded over our experiences of shrinking ourselves down to make sure others were lifted up. She has no clue how wonderful she is because she didn’t want to make anyone else feel bad about themselves, so she always made sure to step down just a little to give everyone else the room that she also deserved.

I think all of us can get into that rut of wanting so badly to serve others (which is so great) and lift them up that we bring ourselves WAY down. That is NOT the answer. That is not what God called us to do.

You can be God-confident in the way you are without putting anyone else down. Why can’t we all just be lifted up together? If we all love ourselves and love each other simultaneously, that is going to make for a beautiful, strong world.

Your success is not my failure, and my failure is not your success. Beauty is not dependent – it’s very independent. Oh and by the way, that beauty is not your strength; your function is your strength. Lisa Bevere expresses that so fiercely in her book, “Lioness Arising.”  You should check it out.

If you ever feel like you have to lower yourself for the sake of someone else, that is not from God – that’s from hell. You are supposed to walk with your head held high, not because you are athletic or smart or talented or beautiful, but because you are a child of God.

When we all start walking around like that, there will be no more noses in the air for the wrong reasons and no more hanging heads for the fear of hurting anyone else’s ego.

Stop making yourself small so others can be big. You don’t deserve that and neither do they. You are great, they are great, we are all great.

Own who you are – the strengths and the weaknesses – and walk right beside that girl next to you with her own set of strengths and weaknesses. You’re both big to God in your own ways, so you don’t have to feel small.

Be big and bold in the name of Jesus and for the glory of His kingdom. Walk in that, live in that, love in that.

Let’s vow to stop shrinking ourselves down and just lift everyone, including ourselves, up as often as we possibly can.

Walking right beside you,

Kaitlin

 

 

Why My Third Baptism Was A Disaster

I have now been baptized three times and the third time was the biggest disaster of all.

I was raised in a small, wonderful Church of Christ Church where I learned a lot about God and His love. When I was 15, I decided I needed to get baptized because it was time to really commit myself to Him – and I did not want to go to Hell.

My brother and I walked to the front of the church together on an August day, confessed our love for God, and we were baptized in His name. Now, I know I was saved as soon as I decided to confess my love and commit my life, but life happened and my heart changed and I learned a lot.

When I was in college, I felt like I had slipped away from God, so I decided to recommit and be baptized again – and it was amazing. I felt refreshed and renewed. But life happened more and my world felt so out of control. I just wasn’t grasping a real, sold out relationship with my God.

Flash forward to “adulthood.” I graduated college and, shortly after, moved to Huntsville, AL for a job where I moved in with a roommate who went to Church of the Highlands. I started going with her periodically but didn’t really dive all the way in.

I got more and more involved in the church and met more and more amazing, godly people who I knew I needed to surround myself with – especially the guy I’m now going to marry.

All of these people, and so many from my past, played a part in shaping me and my walk with God. I watched some of them completely sell out and live their lives boldly and solely for God and nothing else – and I wanted that.

I had been a Christian most of my life but I hadn’t always stayed true to what I had promised to God.

Jeremiah 31:22 “How long will you go here and there O faithless daughter?” I had been going here and there searching for my joy and my purpose when it was right in front of me all along.

God had been tugging on my heart for MONTHS telling me to rededicate and be baptized again. I ignored it, wrestled with it, fought it, and then surrendered. I was so worried people would think I had never been baptized before and judge me for it, but WHO CARES what anyone thinks? So what if I had or hadn’t? This time felt like the first time anyway – it felt real. My heart was ready to really change and I finally understood what it meant to be in a devoted relationship with God. I wanted to publicly declare what had been happening in my heart.

A mentor told me once that a baptism is always between you and God, but sometimes He also uses it to encourage others who are watching you, and I hope it did that, too.

Let me say first that the baptism was a beautiful and perfect moment between me and God, but on the outside, it was a DISASTER.

My parents weren’t able to be there, so that already had me in a state of stress from the start of the day, but I kept praying and fighting off the stress that was coming from the enemy.

My grandparents and brother and sister-in-law came to church with me and my fiancé before the baptism. I messed up all the times for everyone, and really messed up the plan for the entire day.

So, we had to run to Zaxby’s to scarf down some lunch in about 15 minutes before we had to be back. I cried the entire day. I couldn’t eat. I was a WRECK.

I had no clue what was wrong with me, so I texted my best friend and summarized the day. She said, “That’s the enemy trying to work against you. It’s such a special day for you and your walk with God and the enemy will not win today.”

I felt the enemy trying to mess me up all day. I had so much anxiety and couldn’t eat or stop crying. Our food took forever at lunch and it was pouring down rain. I was in a fight with my fiancé. Everything was going wrong and I have NEVER felt more alone.

Then, when it was my turn to be baptized and I came up out of the water, my shirt lifted up and everyone there saw my stomach and lack of six-pack. And when I got to my car I noticed I had had a booger on my nose for.. who knows how long.

I expected the entire day to be perfect and for everyone to run up and hug me after and for there to be pictures of rejoicing like I always see on social media – but none of it was perfect… except for my Jesus. I had people who I loved there to support me and a God there to save me, and that was all I needed and ever will need….. so then I started to feel bad for not being more appreciative of the wonderful people there loving on me. The cycle with the enemy continued.

A messed up shirt, soaking wet hair, running mascara, boogers, tears, anxiety, loneliness, desperation, fear, sorrow, seeking approval from man – those were just a few items on the list of things I brought to God in that moment. And He met me with grace, love, and arms wide open (cue the Creed song). Despite all that was going on around me and inside me, in that one moment, I felt more peace than I ever had. And that’s when it all made sense.

I thought I would leave and have the best day of my life and be a totally different person.

I left and fought with my fiancé some more, felt sorry for myself for a multitude of things, got jealous, got angry.. you name it. BUT – I was a totally different person and I did feel changed. I recognized that my little world may not be perfect, and I will always fall short and sin, but God loves me anyway and is patient with me in this process of becoming who He wants me to be.

Things will never be perfect. Even when we try to control everything and get the perfect picture of what should’ve been our perfect day, we will feel empty until we focus it all back on Him.

The moment God and I shared that day forever changed me and taught me hundreds of things in a split second.

I’m so glad my day was so imperfect so that I can always remember how perfect He is. His perfection overrides all my imperfections. He meets me where I am at my weakest and lifts me back up with ease. He is my strength and my approval and my joy even when my world is crumbling.

The only way such a messy day can also be my favorite day is only because of the grace of God.

You can run to him to with your shirt up showing your untoned stomach, makeup all over your face, boogers on your nose, food in your teeth, anxiety in your heart, and anger in your words and He will clean all of it up and make it new because He loves you.

Let’s stop focusing on making everything perfect when Someone greater has already done that for us.

Yours in the struggle,

Kaitlin

When God Gives You What You Always Prayed For

It’s very hard sometimes to believe what you’re praying for might actually happen – and that’s where faith takes over.

The thing about praying for something or asking for something or wishing for something is that you have to believe it will really happen – but that’s easier said than done.

A friend said it well when she said, “We say, ‘I’m sure God CAN probably do it, but I don’t know if He will.'”

And then He does. And then the cycle repeats itself. Instead of remembering how He came through the last time, we worry or lack faith or just totally doubt Him yet again.

I do this ALL the time, and I know God is looking at me thinking, “When will she learn to just trust me?”

I tend to try to take things into my own hands when I don’t think God can handle it, which is a whole other topic on control and letting go of it. When I do that, I usually end up taking the longest, messiest route to where He was going to take me anyway… and He had a MUCH easier route planned.

I did that with love for a really long time. I tried to make the next guy “the one” by controlling the entire situation and relationship and trying to convince him to love all the quirky, crazy things about me. But that never worked because none of those guys were ever “the one,” and instead of making them love me, I just let myself feel more and more unloved until I didn’t even love myself.

All I wanted was for someone to WANT to hang out with me (bizarre idea, right?) and to make me feel beautiful and love me for the absolute worst and weirdest things about me. That’s what I prayed for yet I seriously thought it was impossible and that it would never happen.

Looking back, that doesn’t make a lot of sense that I believed that something I had desired and prayed for for so long would never happen, even though Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in The Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

The problem was that I wasn’t delighting myself in God, I was worrying and controlling and trying when He just wanted me to delight in Him and enjoy the season I was in while He orchestrated my beautiful love story.

Again, I never imagined actually falling in love or anyone falling in love with me, so I gave up… and I started my journey of truly delighting myself in The Lord and giving up control. I wasn’t perfect and tried to pick the control back up sometimes, but I was actively giving God control of this “fairytale” I had in mind.

I also never imagined that if I DID fall in love, it would teach me and reveal to me so much about how God loves me.

But both of the things I could never imagine happened. Someone fell in love with me while I was not even looking. And then I fell in love with him. But most importantly, we were falling more in love with God the entire time.

It took me a very long time to really comprehend that someone really did love me. Because I was so used to controlling the situation and screwing it up, I didn’t think it could actually happen – I didn’t realize God had given me EXACTLY what I had prayed for in the most unexpected way.

The guy He sent me came out of nowhere, but He was the guy of my prayers. It has recently clicked more and more (my fiancé says it took me until last week to understand it… and he says that every week) that my prayers are now my reality.

The saying has been all over social media recently about your life being exactly what you always prayed for. Mine is what I prayed for but not how I thought that prayer would look –  it’s better. That’s the point. What I was praying for and trying to cultivate myself was never going to work, but God knew how to cultivate my prayers into a beautiful reality.

He sent me someone who would ultimately paint a picture of His love – someone who loves me at my very worst, loves me unconditionally, loves me when I mess up, loves me when I cry and when I laugh, loves me for my weird quirks, wants to spend time with me, knows me better than anyone, and sees the best in me when I can’t see it in myself. And that’s how I learned how God loves me. P.S. That’s exactly how God loves you, too.

I am a total sap, so I cry a lot. Lately, in the midst of wedding planning, I have teared up a lot thinking about how much God must love me, despite my moments of weakness and sin, to give me exactly who I have always prayed for. He gave me that love my heart desired. Little moments remind me that I always dreamt of someone loving me exactly the way my guy loves me, and that brings me to tears for so many reasons. And all of that has shown me more than just love and a really great time with a really great guy – it has shown me just how powerful God is.

I think of how He protected me from getting hurt so many times in order to save me for this part of my story and how He lined things up just to lead me here to my husband.

I wish I could’ve known then everything I know now about the man I get to marry because I would’ve done things a lot differently. But at the same time, I’m so thankful things happened the way they did. God let them happen and let me make my own choices because He knew I wasn’t powerful enough to ruin then what I have now and He knew that all the heartbreak I encountered would make me appreciate the incredible love I have now all the more.

God answers our prayers, but not always in the ways or at the times we expect. And usually you get exactly what you prayed for in a way you never imagined – and it ends up being even better than what you hoped for you when you prayed.

And when God gives you what you prayed for, remember that the next time you pray for something – believe He will do what you are asking Him to do in the very best way possible, at the very best time.