Tag: God

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Butterfly season

I seriously believe that every person who has been in ministry work for a while has had the “I quit” moment.

This moment comes when our work begins to feel pointless: So-and-so relapsed back into drugs. That kid got thrown into jail. My favorite woman at the shelter decided to run back to her abusive husband. The orphan I had been nurturing back to health for months died in my arms. These are all real stories that I’ve heard come from the mouths of my friends in ministry, and regardless of your ministry platform, I can guarantee that if you’ve seen these things, or things of that nature, that you’ve had that I quit moment.

Serenity is the 21 year old house mother at a home for women trying to escape homelessness, drug addiction, and domestic violence in Oklahoma. She spoke about her experience last weekend at Nomads saying,

I’ve had women break my heart. In fact, the first woman that I took into the house was also my first heartbreak when she chose to prematurely leave the program and return to life on the streets. I wanted to quit then, but I continued on. A few weeks later, I had a woman pull me into an alley and dig into every insecurity that I’ve ever felt. You’re too young to do this. You think you can run a home? You couldn’t even finish college. You’re stupid. You’re worthless. You’re… You’re… You’re… That day is the day that I tried to quit. I got into my car and instead of driving back to the [mission agency] headquarters, I started driving to Arkansas, where I’m from.

But as I was driving, it hit me. I was leaving everything and going to nothing. I had sold everything I owned. There was nothing left in Arkansas for me. My home was here now. My support system was here. And so I turned around and drove to my friend’s house at the headquarters, sat on his sofa, and cried for the afternoon. Eventually my ‘I quit’ turned into ‘I quit for the day. I don’t quit, but I can’t go back today.’

You see, I can’t quit. I can’t go back to living my old life. I am broken for these women now and there is nothing that could ever fill my heart like the calling that God has given me to live in this home with these women, even when they break me in turn.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had my fair share of “I quit” moments. Things around the school seem exponentially more difficult than they have during any other fourth quarter I’ve ever seen. And I know that it’s spiritual warfare.

As a staff we are intentionally praying for and with our kids more. More of our kids have come to know Christ than I’ve ever seen in one school year and even more still have begun to seek Him. Students are asking for Bibles to read at home and asking to attend church with us.

These kids are thirsty for God.

And in turn, the devil is pissed.

It’s not something that I can put into words, but I can feel it in the depths of my soul whenever the ish hits the fan.

Part of our jobs is to be close with our students. And I’m not talking “I know each of your academic goals and reading level” close, but the kind of close that happens when you get crying phone calls at 2 am from a teenager and end up on their sofa eating Popsicles and processing life together.

My kids are my life and in turn, they know about my life.

They know my insecurities and weak places. They know where I struggle and stumble, and therefore they know just where to stab me when they are angry.

Because of this, I’ve gotten fairly wounded by the ones that I love as of late. I’ve spend my fair share of time crying in the hallway or in my coworkers’ classrooms.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that my students are the ones attacking me; to be honest, I don’t think they mean to hurt me. But I know the enemy does.

And so with every stab wound, he throws in some salt– the same salt every time. No one likes you. You’re stupid. You’re a b****. How did you get to be a teacher? You’re worthless. You’re too young to do this. God? He’s not using you for anything. You should just give up.

Last Thursday, as I sat in my empty classroom after school and sobbed, I was close to giving up and letting the darkness win. But God has created me to be far too stubborn for that nonsense.

So instead, I quit for the day and after work I bought a floppy sun hat, a pair of gardening gloves, a shovel, and absolutely went to town on weeding the garden of the house that I am currently staying at.

As I yanked plants out of the ground and cried, I also prayed. For my kids. For my coworkers. For my sanity. For protection from all of this insanity.

As I was nearing the end of my weeding mania, I sat against a fence post and took a break. Right then, a gross looking lime green caterpillar crawled onto the fence beside me.

I don’t understand how something so funny looking and gross can turn into something as beautiful as a butterfly. And then my English-teachery brain made a connection:

I love my students, but sometimes they are gross kinda like the caterpillar. No, they don’t ever look that weird (thank goodness) but because they’re still growing into butterflies, their actions and words are weird and gross sometimes. Sometimes they’re pokey and hard to hold onto, just like the creepy wormish thing crawling next to me.

But eventually that weird worm will turn into a butterfly and will be something that will take my breath away. And I know that God will do the same thing with my kiddos.

The darkness will not overcome us. They will grow into the magnificent young men and women that God is planning for them to be and I will be able to say that I survived working with a bunch of gross caterpillars while I sit and bask in the sunshine that will be butterfly season.

Like Serenity, I can’t quit. I love my weird little worms far too much. And in the most beautiful way possible, they’ve ruined my life. I can’t go back to living life without a parade of teenagers following me everywhere. I can’t go back to “normal” because God has called me to something so much more beautiful.

 

*Ps. Prayers are seriously SO appreciated right now. I know that God is bigger than all of the devil’s tomfoolery, but the onslaught of it is annoying. Prayers for protection and the mending of relationships within the school is also much appreciated. xo, Lou

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Leather sofas, dying, & being a homeless hippie

Baptism(Disclaimer: This picture will make way more sense to you by the time you finish reading these ramblings. Don’t try to figure it out now. You might hurt your brain.)

As I write this my butt is in a car driving home from Nomads, a mind blowingly good missions conference in Oklahoma. (Don’t worry, I’m in the passenger seat. Nicole is currently driving.)

What an absolutely wild weekend it has been and what a wild week I have ahead of me. But before I get into that, I have a short story related to what is on my heart right now.

~

Once upon a time in a magical land called Aurora, there was a tall Mexican girl who owned a leather sofa. (Okay, it’s me. Go figure. Moving on.) Around the same time, I had a tiny apartment in which the white leather sofa / pull out couch lived. Every night in said teensy apartment, I would make dinner, tuck my god kids into my fluffy queen sized bed, and go sit on my white leather sofa with my then-boyfriend and study while he watched television.

Life was simple, but it was good.

Over time, that tiny apartment in the ‘hood became home. We got a puppy and nice dishes, painted the walls and bought random kitchen appliances. (You know, “American adult stuff”.)

Mr. Wrong and I enjoyed couple-y events and late night dinners with our neighbors. We took the puppy for walks around the lake near our house and sat on our patio and talked into all hours of the night.

In my own limited perspective, my life was everything I had ever wanted.

Aaaaaand then it all went to H-E-double-hockey-sticks for a little while.

By the time my lease renewal came up the following May, life had changed.

I had lost custody of my god kids and had returned to sleeping in my own bed instead of on the sofa bed.

Mr. Wrong and I broke up for the first (but unfortunately not the last) time.

I decided not to renew my lease and instead to move in with a friend in Denver. And when moving day rolled around, for some reason we legitimately could NOT get that stupid white leather sofa out of my apartment.

Seriously! For three hours I sat back and watched my dad and brothers hem and haw, push and pull, position, reposition, and then try to smush the sofa through the doorway that my friend and I had slid it through (without any hassle) a year earlier.

Nothing.

By the end of that day, my walls had holes in them from my beloved family trying to cram the sofa through a hole that it clearly was not fitting through and I had experienced at least two emotional freakouts from my siblings and dad.

Eventually, out of my own emotional exhaustion, I went into my tool box, grabbed my hammer, and began beating the sofa to pieces, ripping the leather while simultaneously cracking the wooden beams that held its frame together. After about twenty minutes of manic hammering, slightly terrified stares, and nervous laughs from my brothers, the sofa was in pieces, ready to be carried out to the dumpster.

Not quite my classiest moment…

Looking back on that today, I simply sit here and laugh to myself. Not only because I went absolutely bananas on a poor, undeserving inanimate object, but because my life today is so drastically different.

Clearly, I no longer own the leather sofa. I still have most of my nice kitchen appliances, dishes, and linens, but they have been shoved into a ten by five foot storage unit, awaiting my grand adventure to the South. (Which, side note: I drove through Texas on my way to Oklahoma and oh MAN. Pray for me. It is the WORST.

Anyway. Mr. Wrong is out of my life, despite his attempt to wiggle his way back in last week, and my dog is currently living on my mom’s ranch up north.

Oh, and me? When I get “home” to Denver tonight, I am packing up my guitar and the three boxes of my belongings that remain in my tiny apartment, and for all intents and purposes, I’m voluntarily becoming homeless.

Essentially, I am living the opposite life as I was four years ago. Back then I was a young woman playing the part of a surrogate “mom” to two little ones, with an apartment, a schedule, bedtimes, nice furniture, and a waffle maker.

Aaaaaand the intensity of not living a life like that anymore hit me today like a train.

As I was sitting in the grass before Nomads worship this morning, making a mental check list of things that I needed to do to get us back to Colorado in one piece, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of grief.

I have no home.

I have no solid plan for the next seven months.

What am I doing?!

And that’s when I heard it. Literally. It wasn’t some booming voice from heaven. Nope, it was the voice of Bono. Actually, a video of Bono that had begun to play on the screen in front of me while I had been obliviously stressing out.

“This is not a burden. This is an adventure.” Bono said, addressing the crowd of world changers & missionaries in the video.

And there, in my petite pity party on the grass in Oklahoma, I remembered why I’m doing all of this.

Jesus.

Jesus has a plan. God knows the grief in my heart and is going to provide in ways that I can’t predict or even try to comprehend.

After the video of Bono had ended and I had managed to pull my slightly emotional self together, Jamie Zumwalt, one of the women that God used to call me into international missions work this time last year, stood up and announced that they would be moving the crowd over to a swimming pool on the other side of the property where they would be baptizing anyone who wanted to devote or redevote their life to following Christ.

I had already been baptized once when I became a believer, and because I was not expecting the urge to go anywhere near a body of water this weekend, I didn’t pack a bathing suit. But ten minutes later, with all of my clothes on, I hopped into a swimming pool and was re-baptized (I’ve decided that’s a thing.) by one of the most formative women in my missions journey thus far.

Today, I chose Jesus. I chose not only to follow Him in my heart and mind like I did when I was first baptized, but with my whole life. Today I needed to make a statement (more for myself than anyone else) that I am dying to my desires– my dreams of white leather sofas, waffle makers, and stability. I am following my Savior where ever He leads me.

So here I sit, in a car somewhere in Kansas with soggy clothes on, the windows down, and worship music blasting on my way back to the great state of Colorado.

As of today, I have nothing figured out. I have a vague idea of where I will be staying for the next few months but I know that God has called me into a season of adventure and obedience. I will go wherever He calls me, whenever He calls me there, and it will be beautiful.

My name is Kacy and I am becoming a nomad for Jesus.

As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another He said, “Follow me.” But the man said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.”
(Luke 9:57-62)

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Wake up call

Easter Sunrise“Babe, wake up. Look at the sunrise! Come on, Kace… Wake up!”

For a year, I woke up to these words at least once a week. My ex-boyfriend, who I endured the slight misadventure of sharing an apartment with, was a morning person… and well, I am not.

Every Saturday morning he would beg me to wake up and watch the sunrise with him. Me, being the extreme romantic that I am, would roll over, smash my pillow over my head, and tell him to shut up and go back to sleep.

When we split a few years back, nothing really changed in regards to my non-morning-person-ness. Don’t get me wrong, I think morning people are wonderful, but try as I might, I just have never had that streak within me. If my job allowed it, I would sleep in until 9 am every morning and stay awake until 3 am every night.

That being said, this time last year when my friends and I had the bright idea to wake up and have our own little sunrise Easter worship service at Lookout Mountain, I was a little bit less than excited. I knew that it would be an amazing morning adventure, but I wasn’t incredibly jazzed about the idea of waking up at 5 am.

The night before Easter, I set five alarms on my phone out of fear that my anti-morning brain would over sleep. As I fell asleep I remember laying in bed dreading my early morning wake up call and thinking about all of the times I told Mr. Wrong to leave me be or let me sleep.

Just four hours after falling asleep, I sat straight up in my bed in my dark apartment– an hour before my alarm. Instead of my usual slightly grumpy / pre-coffee morning attitude, I was stoked for the day and wasn’t able to fall back asleep.

I hopped out of bed, turned off my alarm, took a shower, made coffee, and got dressed. (And not just in sweats– I’m talking “did my hair, put on a nice sundress, and managed to get some makeup on” kind of dressed.) I walked the dog and if I remember correctly I even had some quiet time with God that morning… All things that I hardcore struggle to do before 9 am, even on my most alert mornings.

Around 5:30, I hopped in my car and headed off to my friends’ house to load up and head to the mountains.

Wide eyed and bushy tailed we arrived at Lookout Mountain that morning just in time to watch the sun start to peek out from behind the Earth. That morning, with five of my closest friends, I sat on the mountain side and worshiped my King to the harmony of an acoustic guitar and a harmonica.

In that moment, everything was beautiful.

I didn’t mind that it wasn’t even 6 am yet, that it was still relatively dark, or kind of chilly.

In fact, as I sat there and watched the sun crest over my city, I felt God whisper in the depths of my soul. I woke you up to watch this sunrise with Me. You are my beloved and I am redeeming you.

And that He did, and continues to do so every single day.

A year later, sunrises still aren’t my favorite times of the day, but they no longer bring up the bitterness of a time of personal brokenness for me.

After all, isn’t that part of the beauty of Easter? Our Father sent His Son to reconcile our relationships with Him and His Spirit to dwell within us and begin to heal the wounds in the depths of our souls.

He is a wonderful Father and Lover, a beautiful Redeemer. He is my King and today we celebrate His risen Son.

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on Earth.”

(Ephesians 1:7-10)

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Practically Peter

Easter Lillies

Easter is easily one of my favorite holidays and seasons. I mean, it’s full of cute baby farm animals, bacon’s red-headed step-child (ham), and flowers. Those things alone would make the heart of this sunflower rancher’s daughter burst with girlie joy, even if those were the only wonderful parts of this season… But they’re not.

This season is centered around God and his beautiful recreation of the world: the way that His redemptive power was personified through the death and resurrection of His Son, the unimaginable love that He showed for His people through Christ’s sacrifice, even the way that he continues to use imperfect people to build up a church to serve a Holy King. It all just makes my heart burst with joy!

As I sat and reflected on John 18 this week after Gospel Community, John’s account of Peter’s denial of Jesus in verses 15-27 struck something within me.

Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in. The servant girl at the door said to Peter, ‘You also are not one of this man’s disciples, are you?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself. Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. So they said to him, ‘You also are not one of his disciples, are you?’ He denied it and said, ‘I am not.’ One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, ‘Did I not see you in the garden with him?’ Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed.”

Just hours earlier, Jesus had predicted that Peter would deny Him three times before the night was up. And what do ya know; Jesus’ prophecy came true.

Weird, right? It’s like Jesus knew Peter’s deceitful heart ahead of time and still loved Him despite it.

After re-reading John 18, I feel like I can relate to Peter the most out of all of the apostles.

Peter was a go-getter. An absolute hot mess of a go-getter.

I mean, if we look back in the first few verses of chapter 18 of John, Peter cuts off one of the ears of a guard who has come to arrest Jesus. He was well intentioned, but he got a little too excited in trying to defend Jesus and cut off the dude’s ear. (Oops.)

And then there was that time at the Last Supper when Peter told Jesus, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” (Matthew 26:33) Peter was absolutely in love with Jesus. He openly stated that He was willing to go anywhere, even to his death for his King.

Then this whole denying Jesus three times thing happens hours later and I’m left scratching my head thinking, Where the heck did the ever-devoted Peter go? How could he just abandon Jesus like that?

Aaaaaand then I remember who I am.

I am a woman who seeks after God in her own spastic, go-getter fashion. I love Him more than I love everything else in the world combined and I know that I would go to my death for my King.

And yet I am still an anxious, control-freak who tries to play it cool, yet always ends up cutting off someone’s ear (okay, it’s usually my own ear) in a moment of indiscretion.

I have a big mouth and if it’s not closely monitored, my God-given wit can be sharp and biting.

I am a passionate person and when I don’t use my passion for God and good instead of evil, (See look, I make pop culture references sometimes…) I easily fall into the traps of lust.

All of this to say, I am a hot mess, and yet God is using me anyway. Just like He used Peter, and just like I’m sure He is using you.

God has built His church out of screw ups and sinners… Screw ups and sinners whom He loves and is redeeming.

Peter went on to be one of the pillars of the early church and yet there he stood, just hours after His King had been arrested, and essentially spit in His face by denying Him not once, not twice, but three times.

I think that we often fall into the lies of “I’m not good enough to be loved by God” or “There’s no way that God could love me after I have [insert your supposedly unforgivable sin here].”

Yet He does.

He sent His Son to die for us because He is a forgiving Father who constantly redeems our stories.

He forgave and redeemed Peter, one of the people closest to Him on this earth, after he denied Him three stinking times.

God continues to forgive and redeem me when I put my foot in my mouth or when I figuratively cut off an ear in my own zealousness.

That truth is what this season is about. Easter isn’t about little chickens, candy, or visiting a creep dressed up in a rabbit costume at the mall.

Easter is about God and indescribable the way that He loves us, even when we spit in His face or trip and fall flat on our own faces after denying Him.

God is seeking to use you.

Will you let Him love you? Will you let Him use you in His Kingdom? Are you willing to let go of your shame and brokenness and let Him guide and redeem you?

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Un-Stuffing My Identity

packed car

“It’s just stuff, Kacy. Calm down.”

Sunday was the day; the day that I had too much coffee around noon, got over ambitious, & began packing away my life, box by box, and donation bag by donation bag.

I’ve known that the day was coming… That dreaded day when I would eventually have to sort out my necessities (which will be moving with me this summer), my clutter (which has been bagged for Goodwill), and well, the rest of my life (which is being boxed & thrown into storage until my move to Texas, eight-ish months from now).

All of this separating, boxing, and bagging has made me realize something about myself:

I’m an incredibly sentimental person.

The moments that I cherish the most are those that I spend with the people I love, and I love having things around me to remind me of those moments or the times when God has shown up in my life.

My apartment is full of such items: the mural I painted on my wall, the photos of family and friends that hang in my kitchen, my grandfather’s typewriter, my great-grandmother’s Bible, my favorite books, and my journals full of stories…my stories…

I cherish all of these things, not even because of their earthly value, but because of the ties that they have to my little sentimental heart.

And as I boxed them up and stared at the empty space on my shelves and walls last weekend, a part of me began to panic.

This is seriously happening. I am giving up everything that makes me comfortable and walking into the unknown.

My heart jumped into my throat and I wanted to rip the packing tape off of my boxes and replace everything back into its proper home.

I realized that I have grown attached to my stuff and not just in a cute, sentimental way, but in a way that has led me cherish my stuff and my memories over my King.

In my apartment, surrounded by my properly placed stuff, I know who I am.

Actually, no, that’s not true either. In my apartment surrounded by my properly placed stuff, I am comfortable with who I have become. And because of this I am not actively trying to be the woman who God has created or called me to be.

In my stuff-y comfort zone, I am not being courageous for the Kingdom, I am not being a steward of what He has given me for His glory, and I most certainly am not declaring, “I am a daughter of the King and I long to know nothing except Christ crucified”.

No. Instead, I have been sitting here in my comfort zone being a wimp  a wimpy hoarder of blessings   a wimpy hoarder of blessings who would rather set her identity in the earthly junk around her instead of within her Heavenly Father and His call upon her life.

Do I really want my identity to come from the world?

No.

Do I want to be reminded of my identity by all of the stuff in my life?

Yes… I mean no.

Do I love my stuff more than God?

No… Yes…. I mean, no. Definitely not.

This whole experience of giving up the cute life I have worked so hard to build for myself and follow God into the unknown simply reconfirms everything that I already knew about myself; I’m a mess.

A stuff-y mess.

But gosh darn it, by the end of this month I will be a less stuff-y mess. In fact, I will be a less stuff-y, homeless, nomadic mess…

Eeesh, things I can’t think about right now. One step at a time…

For now, I am simply working on not panicking every time I seal a box or take a load of my stuff to storage.

What is God calling you to leave behind today?

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

(Matthew 16:26)