It’s been awhile since I’ve written a blog post. For lack of better excuse I have just been uninspired to write anything.
The first week of July I had the privilege of going to church camp in Gulf Shores, Alabama. I took a lot away from this week and am working on applying it to my life. One thing that I really felt lead to do is write out my testimony and share it on my blog. To help understand my testimony I need to explain what I, as a southern baptist, believe. In short, we believe that Jesus came into this world and lived a perfect and sinless life. He then died on the cross for you and me (because we are sinful and imperfect) and three days later defeated death and rose again. He is now a living God. We can have a relationship with him and spend eternity in heaven only if we choose to accept the gift he gives us. To accept his gift we pray, what I’ve always called, the “sinner’s pray”. It is not about the words, but about the heart. To summarize, it’s a prayer that recognizes that you’re a sinner in need of a savior (Jesus), that you believe Jesus is God’s son, and that you are commiting to follow him. After you pray this prayer you can say you got “saved” or “accepted salvation”. The next step is to get baptised. This is just an outward expression to your church and community of the decision you made to follow Christ. If you are interested in more southern baptist beliefs then here is more information: https://www.thoughtco.com/southern-baptist-beliefs-700524 So my story starts off the “basic” way… I was born and raised in a christian home, so church has always been something I’ve been a part of. I could give the “church” answer to any question that was asked and I was a good kid. At some point in elementary school my brother got saved and my mom said, “Kathryn, whenever you’re ready to accept Christ let me know and we will pray about it,”. Immediately I responded saying that I had already prayed the prayer and was saved. The only problem was that I don’t think I had ever actually prayed the sinner's prayer. I convinced myself for a long long time that I had and that I had begun the relationship with Christ. After many many attempts on scheduling a baptism (the baptism pool kept breaking) my brother and I eventually did get baptised together. Growing up in the church I have always known to do the right thing and to stand up for my faith. All the time I had spent in church gave me a whole lot of head knowledge. I knew to invite people to church, I knew to talk to people about God and his love, and I knew all the bible stories. I would try my best to do a quiet time and study God’s word. I would even be caught in the moment at middle school camp and revolution weekend and feel the holy spirit pursuing me. High school camp going into my sophomore year was awful. I felt like I got nothing out of what the speaker was saying and I couldn’t understand why my heart was so hard to what I was hearing. Everyone I knew was getting so spiritually feed and I just wasn’t getting it. I began doubting my faith big time. For many years I was confused about my salvation because I couldn’t remember the date I had gotten save, and there had been no change in my life. After camp that July, I constantly wrestled internally about my salvation. One Thursday morning in FCA there was some body builder that came to speak to us. I couldn’t tell you his name or what he looked like but I remember him talking about salvation. He talked about getting it right, and not waiting. That night I was reading my bible. As I was trying to convince myself yet again that I was already saved, I began crying about how confused and doubtful I was. In that moment after months of questioning I decided that I didn’t need to stress anymore. I needed to stop wrestling with it and just lay it all down at the feet of Jesus. October 22, 2015 I knelt beside my bed and prayed the sinner's prayer. In that moment I felt like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Instantly I felt at peace spiritually. I had always done the right thing and tried to point people to Christ, but I had always done it out of feeling like I had to or needed to. After fully accepting Christ, doing good things or pointing people to him came as an overflow of the relationship I had with him. It was less of a have to do good and more of a want to. Ever since, life has definitely not been peachy. Many people think that becoming a christian means that all your problems will fade away. I’m here to tell you that that’s not true and it’s cleared stated in God’s word too. I’ve been through some trials, if you want to read more about a major one then read my very first blog post. If I could leave you with two major points it’s that, one) it is not about religion, but it’s about the relationship. Having a genuine and intimate relationship with Christ is more important than following rules. It’s not about the head it’s about the heart. And two) you always have the opportunity to get it right. I have not for a second regretted the decision I made to follow Christ. No matter what you’ve done, he still loves you so much that he died for you. All you have to do is accept the gift he freely gives you. I am always open for any questions anyone has about anything you just read. Feel free to contact me if you need to chat. :)
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“So, 2018? Let’s just call it quits and try again next year because this one already sucks.”
I feel like there are a lot of people I know who are struggling right now. Life can just throw a lot of curve balls at you at once, and it’s tough. But...
STOP COMPARING YOUR WINTER SEASON TO SOMEONE ELSE'S SUMMER!!! What does that mean? I think about life in seasons. Summer is pictured to be a care-free time with little worries, lots of fun, and is full of sunshine. Winter, on the other hand, is cold and dark. It is easy for us to compare our situations to everyone else’s when life is hard. We are sitting through a cold, harsh winters day looking at people enjoying a beach vacay. It’s like when you stay home for spring break and your Instagram feed is full of beach pictures. It sucks, and we’re jealous because we want to be there. And you know what? It makes us feel worse than before. I’m here to tell you to stop, for the love of all that is good in the world, STOP comparing your winter to someone’s summer. Why? Because a few months ago that person tanning under a hot sun, was bundled up facing the cold, harsh winter days while you were the one throwing a pool party. We compare our thorns to someone’s roses, our valley lows to their mountain highs, our brokenness to their healed. We are going through the storm looking at someone else who isn’t, and we wonder why they have it all together. They’ve been through their storm too, and that’s what we don’t see. We are looking at them as someone who’s strong and thriving because they just cleared a storm. They just got stressed to their breaking point and they are reaping the benefits of whatever they learned. We all go through tough times and in the end we grow and learn from them. The person your looking at thinking “I just want to be as happy as them” is enjoying their time of growth. We look at people who are excited about knowing what college their going to, when a few months ago they were SO stressed about it. Maybe it’s someone who JUST moved on from their last break up and you’ve just started going through yours. It could be as simple as someone getting that test grade they’ve been wanting, when you just failed yours. Regardless of the situation, we are all at different stages of life, think about that next time you go to compare yourself. This, here, right now, at 12:42 in the morning, as I enjoy the lavender essential oil that it coming out of my diffuser, is my self evaluation of my 2017 and what I hope and expect for 2018.
I always make a new year's resolution, and this time I actually kept it. Given it was easy and more than achievable, I am still proud of myself. My main goal for 2017 was no soda for a year. Now I’m not addicted to soda so it really wasn’t hard for me to just drink water while my family had coke. I may have drank sweet tea and lemonade instead, which have just as much sugar, but that’s besides the point. Last year I also planned to eat healthier! For a solid week I basically ate nothing but superfoods. Since I have never done that in the past I did eat somewhat healthier, right? Let’s be honest I set the bar pretty low, but we gotta start somewhere amiright? I’m feeling more ambitious than ever and I know I can do better. So with that being said here are my 2018 New Year’s resolutions. Feel free to hold me accountable.
Hey guys! I’m Kathryn! As 2017 officially has come to a close I was feeling inspired to share how my past two years have gone, so I made a blog! Please disregard any run on sentences, grammar or spelling errors. This is my first post and quite frankly first real writing outside of school assignments. I just want to share what I’ve learned over the past few years in my life. Majority of my life I have learned from other what to do and what not to do. But sometimes the greatest lessons are learned from our own experiences.
As 2017 comes to a close we all reflect on how this year has been. From the end of christmas to new years day I think about what all has happened throughout my year. The good, the bad, and the ugly. This year I think back to even last year and how I was exiting 2016 and moving into 2017. 2016 was the hardest year of my life. It had a strong start as me and my family celebrated an engagement, planned a wedding… in 3 months, and welcomed in a new family member as my sister got married. Apart from the wedding and a cruise I got to go on with my at the time best friend, 2016 wasn’t a happy time. From August to December I had a difficult time dealing with the world around me. My papaw had been ill for a long while after a stroke he had some time ago. September 2016 he was called home and went to spend eternity with our Lord. I am very blessed to be able to say that I have not lost anyone close to me until I was 16 years old. But with that being said at age 16 I had no idea how to grieve or what that looked like in my life. Papaw had been sick for a long time and my family can agree that his passing gave us all a little relief knowing he was no longer suffering. Still with that relief I didn’t know how to grieve. It looks different for every person and I didn’t know what mine looked like. I began to get bitter as I tried to push it all to the back of my mind and not deal with it. I’m a strong believer that your mindset and attitude determine your life. Because of my bad attitude and bitter mindset nothing in life felt like it was going my way. About two months after papaw went to glory I got in a fight with my very best friend and the friendship was over. She was my person. I knew her life the back of my hand and she knew me just the same. Without that friendship I felt as confused and bitter as ever. I have to be honest and I was so so far from my walk with Christ at this point in time. I was hurt and confused and broken. But then at the end of December as I thought about how rough my year felt I realized that I didn’t want my 2016 to become my 2017. I was tired of being bitter and I was tired of constantly asking God why things weren’t going good. I was tired of blaming everyone else in my life for how sucky I was feeling. I was tired of the turmoil I was mentally going. So right then I decided that my 2016 was NOT becoming my 2017. I know we all roll our eyes as the “New Year, New Me” saying, but honest to God sometimes it’s true. I guess I’ll say “new year, new mindset” in my case, but that’s besides the point. January 2017 I was feelin good but I knew it could be better. As February 2017 came around it was time for revolution weekend (aka d-now) ((a weekend church retreat)). I was spiritually not prepared for the weekend so as it got closer I tried to prepare myself. After just a small amount of time spent with the Lord, I realized why my 2016 happened the way it did. Sometimes God puts us through things and makes us feel alone and broken so that we realise that he is all we need. I lost my papaw so that I could be broken and so I could know that the only way to be healed was through my faith in God. My best friend who knew me better than any other soul was taken out of my life so that I could see that the only thing I really need is the Lord. Sometimes God lets us get brought down so low so that he can teach us how to fully rely on him. I still miss my papaw and to this day I am grieving, but he is breathing better in heaven than he ever did on earth, and I learned a lot through him leaving us. As I continued to grow I learned a lot over the past year. Some things I already knew, and just now became real, while others just came to be. During 2017 I realized that some friendships are just for seasons, because no matter how hard you try and make some work it just doesn’t, and that’s okay. 2017 I learned how to manage my time better so that I got everything on my plate done in a timely manner. To my surprise I procrastinated much less. 2017 I watched Indy Blue life her best life through Instagram and YouTube videos. For a short time I envied her till I realized that I too can life my best life here in gwinnett county as she can traveling the world. 2017 is the year I fell in love with the best boyfriend I could ever ask for. 2017 was all about attitude and the impact it makes. 2017 I learned that if someone wants to be in your life then they will do whatever it takes to be in your life, plain and simple. 2017 I learned that it’s okay to distance yourself from people that aren’t helping you grow. 2017 I got hooked on Riverdale and I drove my car around listening to albums like divide by Ed Sheeran and reputation by Taylor Swift (both albums dropped in 2017). 2017 I lived out the fact that kindness is free and we should throw it like confetti. It cost $0 to be nice to people. 2017 is the year I tried my best to take a mental walk in someone else's shoes before judging them. 2017 I decided I wasn’t going to be like ever depressed tweet I saw on twitter, I was going to be positive and speak life. 2017 was the year of love and laughter and living. I made friends with the type of people that say “hey, look at that sunset, let’s just take it in a minute”. 2017 was a summer full of ice cream runs, Walmart adventures, and waffle house dinners. 2017 was full of growth and joy. I learned not only how important it is to pour into people, but as humans we need others to pour into us too. 2017 is ending and I’m living my best life. I can’t wait to see what 2018 will bring. Graduation, a new car, a summer to remember, and starting college - GOD WILLING! Cheers to a new year, 2017 you’re always welcome back in my home. |
AuthorHey, I'm Kathryn. 2018 is gonna be the best year yet, and I'm documenting it here. |