Romans 8:26-27

"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

    I read this in my Bible today and it really hit home to me! I can't tell you the number of times I have tried to talk to God, but I was just so distraught that I couldn't even think of words... just pain. Or times when I've been wanting to ask something of God, but I don't even know what it was... hopefully you understand what I mean because I don't know how to explain it (thus the point). 

    Something that I always find intimidating is that when you read through the Old Testament, there are a TON of ceremonial things to do before coming into the presence of God that if they were not completed exactly how He commanded, you'd die. Coming before the Throne of Grace is no small thing!! With that in mind, how many times do you pray for really trivial things? I know that I have prayed for some incredibly dumb things that looking back at now, it's almost like I was asking God to be my Infinite Wizard instead of an all powerful God who is worthy of an enormous amount of respect. For real, the more you think about how powerful God is, the more terrifying it is to know that you've asked for something so stupid as $100. I don't know how to explain it. But then there are the times when you know that you are asking something perfectly reasonable of God. Like, what is His will for your life? Why is He doing what He is doing? Why did this bad thing happen? Don't be afraid to ask God those questions! He's big enough and powerful enough to handle those things. He's not going to be mad at you for being absolutely broken over something that's happened. As long as you don't sin in the process. 

    But while we no longer have to go through all the ceremonies before entering the presence of God, He is still just as worthy of our honor and respect. So that's where this verse comes in. The Holy Spirit intercedes. What that means is the Spirit hears our prayers, and then He takes them, gets to the base of what we are REALLY asking for, and takes it to God in a way that honors Him. In other words, when you're asking for that Dodge Viper SRT10, the Spirit is asking God to supply you with what you need... which at the time may be a 1995 Honda Civic EX with a big dent in the right bumper. 

    I just think that it's really amazing to know that God has given us a Helper who is able to see into our hearts and know exactly what we need to be praying for, and He takes it right to the feet of the Father. What I think is the most incredible is how the Spirit can hear the cries of our hearts and take the pain that we can't even put into words right to the Father. 

Friday Findings....

Okay, so basically I just felt like writing a list of things that have recently occurred to me. They're basically all super common sense things, but things that have actually made a difference in my life lately.

1) Compatibility does not necessarily translate into chemistry... and chemistry does not necessarily translate into compatibility...

I realized half of this lesson because my ex and I have ridiculous chemistry. I say "have" because our personalities haven't changed at all. We think each other are hilarious. It's just a fact. I know for a fact that if he and I were to start talking to each other again, we would probably just fall back into the old swing of things because the chemistry doesn't just go away. But were we good for each other? Hell no. We disagree on virtually everything and our life goals were completely opposite. We are ridiculously incompatible.

The other half of the lesson because I like this guy, he's awesome. He and I have the same interests, same sense of humor, same life goals, same views on things... but I don't know if it's because he doesn't want to, or just because there is some thing that is standing between us even being friends. I don't know. But we are suuuuuper compatible... but as far as I can tell, the chemistry just isn't there.

2) Our worst enemy is our own opinion of ourselves.

This is something that I realized just during this school year... and I've only been here for two weeks. As I said in a previous blog post, last school year was super horrible for me. I didn't know how to make friends and it was super awkward. I didn't think anyone wanted to be around me, and therefore I didn't act in such a way that seemed like I had any desire to be included. That's so dumb. I spent the entire second semester of school completely lonely because I didn't allow myself to have friends. The worst part of it was that I was telling myself that I was trying very hard to make friends. But I kept telling myself that they didn't want me around, and that's because I didn't think I was worth being around. So, my own opinion made it so I had the worst semester of my life.

3) Sometimes when you're trying to make friends, you'll be tempted to act the way that you think those potential friends want you to act. Don't do that. It's so dumb. You won't even be able to enjoy their company because you're not being yourself.

Obviously this is a lesson that everyone has taught everyone every day for ever. It's so cliche and totally common sense... but it's really important to take it to heart. There are at least a billion people who you would get along with wonderfully. Obviously you're never going to meet a whole billion people, but there are probably at least 10 anywhere within a 1 mile radius of yourself. So why would you spend all your time trying to impress people that won't like the real you when there are people who will so close by? Also, another thing is... often times we think that people won't like the real us, and in all actuality, if we were to just let them see that side of us, they would LOVE it.

That occurred to me yesterday when I was in a big group of people and I was holding my goofy side back. I never actually acted the way I would if I was 100% comfortable around these people, but the entire time I was hanging out with them, I just kept thinking, "you know, if I was comfortable around them, I would do _______ in this situation." All I kept thinking was, "well, why don't I do that now then? That's the way I WOULD act... so why aren't I now?"  I never did it though... as I said... 'cause that awesome guy that I mentioned ^^^ there... well he was there too... and I didn't want to make him not like me. Haha. But that's the point I'm making. If he doesn't like the me that I actually am, then obviously he's not the person I should be trying to impress anyway.

4) You just gotta let things go.

I spent around a year trying to move on from my ex. And I know that I mention him a lot, but honestly that's because the majority of the real life experiences and lessons that God has been teaching me have stemmed from that experience. So I'm sorry if you're sick of hearing about him, but I'm a dramatically different person with a dramatically different view of myself because of what happened with him. So. Yeah... anyway...

After about five months of dating him, I was trying to stop liking him because I knew that the relationship wasn't healthy and I knew that I shouldn't want to be with him. I kept telling myself that things would get better, that he would change, that he would treat me well, etc etc etc, if I just gave it more time. But I was miserable. I was crying myself to sleep all the time, I was throwing my phone because I was just so mad, I was yelling, I was treating everyone else horribly because I was in such a bad mood, it's just ridiculous the person that I became because I was so miserable. He did not make me strive to be a better person... he made me feel lucky if I made it through the day without killing someone. He made me feel so angry at everything. I didn't trust him. It was so dumb. We broke up three times... and I couldn't let it go. As I mentioned ^^^ up there, we have ridiculous chemistry, he was my best friend and no one has ever been able to make me laugh that hard, ever. I kept holding onto that. I kept letting myself think that there would never be anyone else that I could enjoy being around as much as him. That's soooo stinkin' dumb. So I dated him two more times after that because I just couldn't let myself let him go. I couldn't make myself let go of all that I had given to him, and I couldn't make myself let go of the future that we had planned. I couldn't let go of any of it... but now I finally can. I am finally able to look at myself and realize that I am worth loving, and I am worth better treatment than the way he treated me, and so many different things.

When you realize that you're worth more than what you're hanging on to, it becomes so much easier to let go of it. I am so glad.

5) To go along with number 4... Every now and then, you need to evaluate your friendships.

It seems a little ridiculous at first glance to say that sometimes you should sit down with yourself and evaluate the people you're allowing to have a large place in your life... but it's so important. You become like the five people you spend the most time with. Obviously that's not a hard and fast rule, but it's a pretty good estimate... So if you are best friends with someone who is selfish, unforgiving, manipulative, and too prideful to say they're sorry... what type of person do you think that will make you? Either you will become like that to other people, or you will become someone that they walk all over. Neither of those options are ideal. Obviously there are other types of bad friends, but that's my personal experience.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we deserve friends who are going to be uplifting and encouraging. Friends who are forgiving and don't hold grudges. Friends who are willing to admit when they've done wrong, and who are willing to apologize. Friends who think that the friendship is worth taking the time to sit down and sort out all the kinks that are destroying the friendship. Obviously not everyone who could possibly stumble across this blog is going to be a follower of Jesus, but I'm going to make the claim now that as human beings, we deserve those sorts of friends.

So since all humans deserve to have uplifting friends, all humans should really evaluate their friendships. Maybe the person you spend the most time with is not an encouraging friend who makes you want to be a better person. Maybe you have a good friend that does make you want to be better, but you just don't spend as much time with them... perhaps you should place more value on the friend who uplifts you and encourages you to be a better person. I have really been looking at my friendships lately, and I have been realizing that I have been placing value on a friendship that does not make me into a better person, and I need to stop that.

6) Christ-centered relationships are better relationships.

I have been finding lately, that the friendships that I have that spend the most time talking about God and the things that I have been learning through praying and reading my bible, are the best, most rewarding relationships that I have. I think that is how it will always be for Christians. I can be feeling extremely bogged down and just drained, but when I spend almost 4 hours talking about things God's been showing me, or even things that God has been showing the other person (because conversations are obviously more than one sided), I feel so rejuvenated and like I can take on the entire world. It's amazing! I am so blessed to have such amazing women that I get to spend most of my time with at school!!!

7) Being alone isn't bad.

Although things are a lot better now that I think more highly of myself and I'm back at school, that doesn't mean that every second of every day is spent with another person. For a few minutes today, I was starting to feel a little alone because there was no one around to be around or eat dinner with. Then I had to stop myself and be like, "okay, just because everyone already has plans does not mean that they don't like you, and besides, if you have dinner by yourself, you get to listen to whatever music you want, or you get to read your Bible and pray." And then I was okay with it!

I think that people need to learn how to be alone without being sad about it. If you're always around people, when are you spending time with God? When are you learning to depend solely on Him? When are you spending time with your thoughts and evaluating the changes that you need to make in your life? Obviously those things can be done in groups, but God can't work on you individually if you never give him your undivided attention. Yes, we are to be around other people, even when we are studying the Word, but we are also supposed to take time by ourselves to learn about God and to listen to Him.

So yeah, it's healthy to be by yourself every now and then! And it's healthy to realize that even if you want to be around people and they're all busy, that does not mean that they don't like you.... apparently I am not as good at liking myself and thinking positively about myself as I was hoping to be at this point. But that's okay! Life is all about progress. If you have an insecurity, it will be something that you struggle with every second of every day for the rest of your life. So the best you can do is catch the thought when it attacks you, face it, and refute it with the truth and God's word, then just let it go.

A Time of Healing.

    So last year after going through that really horrible break up (the second to last one... for those of you who can't keep my relationship stupidity straight), I was very lonely all the time while I was at school. I assumed that no one really wanted to be around me and I never felt included and I just felt like an enormous inconvenience...

    Lately I have been evaluating my insecurities and I have really been looking at them through the the lens of how God sees me. Obviously I am no where near perfect at seeing myself the way God sees me. I'm a human being, and I'm a female human being. For some reason I think that we just tend to be more insecure than guys (although I am completely aware that guys are very insecure in their own ways). My biggest insecurity is basically that I am insignificant and that no one really cares whether I exist or not...

   I have always felt pretty lonely, but it was particularly bad last year after the break up... But after looking though the lens of scripture and realizing that even if I don't matter to a certain group of people, I do matter to someone... and that's all that I really needed to know I guess. I guess when the break up happened, I felt like if someone who had dated me for basically a year and a half couldn't love me and didn't want to be around me, then I guess no one wants to. I didn't realize how much damage the ex-boyfriend did to my self-esteem until literally ten minutes ago. He manipulated my emotions and my security to the point that my entire self-worth was attached to whether he wanted me or not. That is so completely unhealthy.

    Now that the ex and I have been broken up for almost three months and have not spoken in just as long... I am back at school and I was just thinking about going to dinner... it seems so natural now for me to go to dinner with the same group of girls that I was panicking about whether they wanted me around or not... nothing about me has changed, nothing about them has changed, and nothing about our relationships have changed... so why does it seem so natural now when it didn't before?

    I think the answer is simply that there was no reason why I should have felt excluded in the first place last year. These girls did nothing to make me feel that way and they gave me every reason to feel like they wanted me around... but because of the damage that had been done I viewed myself as an inconvenience and as though no one would want me around.

   So yeah. Just food for thought. I don't know this is mostly just a journal to me because I figure no one really reads it. So sorry if someone is reading it and it made absolutely no sense to you. :)

Love

Recently, I've come to the conclusion that I have way too many insecurities.

What I have decided to do to combat these issues is to write down everything that I am insecure about, whether it is something I think is wrong with me physically, whether it is something wrong with my personality, or whether it is something that I am afraid of becoming.

After writing down that list, I chose to group my insecurities together by theme. What this did for me was allow me to see what it was that I am REALLY insecure about. I found three major themes.

Before going further into this, I just want to say right now, I am not writing this to "fish" for compliments or anything... basically I'm just sharing a way that God has used to help me feel encouraged instead of the way I normally feel. :)

With that said, my three major themes are:

I am unlovable
I am worthless
I am unattractive

I didn't realize just how much Satan was attacking me with lies... but now that I have realized it, I have chosen to use scripture, God's Word that is 100% true, to ward of Satan's attacks.

So today I chose to work on attacking the insecurity of being unlovable. These are the verses that I have so far. I'm pretty sure that I will end up writing more and more verses as I find them.

Fighting against Satan's lies is not a one time thing. He will continue trying to undermine God's Word for the rest of my life, so it is my job to be prepared for those attacks.

So here it is, straight from my journal:

Psalm 139 - O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar ... If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, and your right hand shall hold me.

Romans 5:8 - but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever would believe in Him should not parish but would have everlasting life.

John 14:21 - Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me. And he who loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

Romans 8:38, 39 - For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation. will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

and last but DEFINITELY not least, the super long passage:

John 15:9-17 - As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my life, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one that this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

Moral of the story:

I am NOT unlovable. 

and neither are you. 

Rearranging Relationships.

The other day I read something that said, "I asked God to protect me from my enemies then I began to lose my friends." ...Or something along those lines.

It really got me thinking about that. How often are we just so concerned about not being alone that we just suffer through really crappy friendships or relationships of any variety...

I think as human beings, we are made to be in relationships. It's only natural. That's why people feel lonely from time to time. And since anyone reading this is also a person, I am clearly preaching to the choir because I can guarantee that you have felt alone at some point in your life, and I bet you weren't a fan of it.

So what do we do when the only relationships that we have available to us are with people who are not good for us. People who are manipulative, selfish, and prideful? Obviously no one wants to be like, "my only friend is a really bad friend... but if I give them up then I'll be completely alone." We're so terrified of being alone that we settle for being in an unfulfilling relationship, whether romantic or platonic. It's really weird and super sad.

I got into a fight with a good friend, that fight made me realize that the friend was not as good of a friend as I had originally thought. It was one of those fights that should never reach "fight" level because it's just such a ridiculous thing, then all of a sudden the person is making a huge deal out of it and is attacking you and you're just so caught off guard that it progresses past the point of no return and at the end of it all you can think is, "holy crap.... how did I end up here?!"

Normally I would just apologize to this person... but I thought over the fight and realized that this person never takes the blame when we argue or when things are bad in our friendship. Either they find a way to blame me for it and manipulate me into taking full responsibility, or they just ignore me and wait for me to come crawling back to them.

That's not healthy at all.

So I sort of made the decision to just trust God with it. Like that quote says, God will protect us from the people that will do more harm to us than good. So we have to trust Him with it. Even if we end up having absolutely no friends, having no friends and having an amazing relationship with God where you completely trust Him to fulfill every single need that you have is so much better than being in an anxiety ridden friendship/relationship where both people are not being fulfilled.

So yeah. That's just a weird, jumbled, sorta downer thought that I had. But at the same time it's kind of encouraging. Due to the (temporary?) end of this friendship, or best-friendship at least, I have reached out to a former best friend who I have drifted apart from who I've truly missed so terribly... and if I was relying on that unreliable friend to fulfill my friendship needs, I would not have fixed the friendship with the girl that I do honestly know is an exceptionally good friend.

So yeah, God's moving in my life and rearranging my relationships... it's good! I'm excited to see the outcome of all that He's doing!

Well, it has been quite some time since I've written a blog entry.

A lot has happened since then... and yet I'm pretty much in the exact same place.

You see, I dated that boy again. You know, the one that had all the issues and was such a terrible person to me? Yeah... I think that it probably shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but he was exactly the same as before, except worse. Although, he didn't break up with me by running away, he broke up with me by saying he didn't want to date me anymore and then hanging up on me on Skype. So I guess maybe tact has found him. Sarcasm.

Something that really got me recently was the thought of Peter when he denied Christ three different times.

Every time that I was dating this guy, there were so many times that God was slapping me across the face making it SO obvious to me that this man was not a godly man and I was just wasting my time, body, and heart on someone who was not who He had for me. God gave me so many opportunities to obey Him and I didn't. Three different times. Every time that this guy and I would be broken up, I would have some personal little epiphany and I would get back where I needed to be with God and then I'd do it all over again.

So to me I remind myself of Peter. I love God, and told Him that I did and that all I wanted to do was obey Him... but when it came down to it, I chose myself over obeying God.

Now that this man and I are broken up for the third and final time, I feel like I'm at the stage of my life where God is asking me, "Kaitlyn, do you love me?" and I say yes... to which He responds by commanding me to take care of His sheep and then asking me two more times if I truly love Him. As with Peter, it is heartbreaking to have the Creator of the Universe remind you of when you denied Him... but it is a relief to know that He still cares and wants me to be part of His plan.

So, we'll see what happens from this point on. I know that if that boy tries to talk to me I'm probably going to do some weird dramatic thing to make sure he never does again... but for now I really don't think that he will ever talk to me again. Which is good. I don't need that temptation in my life ever again. I'll mess up all on my own a million other ways, I don't need to make the same mistake for the fourth time.

The beginning and the end

So here's the story that changed every aspect of my life (sorry, I basically wrote a book).

Around the beginning of October of 2010, I met this boy that went to my school. Now, before officially meeting him, he had caught my eye. I remember very distinctly sitting at a table with a friend, this special boy walked by and my first thought about him was, "I can't decide what I think of him." I remember exactly what he was wearing the very first time I saw him... so clearly I knew what I thought of him, even if I wasn't conscious of it.

He was tall... normally I liked shorter guys. He had strange fashion, but I liked it. Normally my type is the, "Zac Efron" type... this guy wasn't that at all. But something about him stuck out to me... and I couldn't put my finger on it.

Anyway, homecoming came along and I was hanging out with a couple of my friends who just so happened to be friends with this boy. He was super funny, goofy, outgoing, and just ridiculously social. He had actually introduced himself to me earlier in the year (twice), but he didn't remember meeting me (twice). Well, after homecoming, the girls that I was hanging out with invited him to hang out with us as we went to McDonald's and to the playground behind it. That was when our friendship began. He immediately took an interest in my life. He was so easy to talk to. Normally I don't have an easy time talking to guys. Something about them always scares the crap out of me. But this guy was different. He was sweet, kind, caring... and I just knew that I could trust him.

So our friendship sort of grew from there. It was an extremely fast friendship. I know that I liked him before I was willing to admit it to myself, but I didn't want to admit it, because once you admit something like that, then you begin to act weird and mess everything up. So no, I didn't like him. That's what I had to tell myself at least.

Then Halloween came along and he got invited to go trick or treating with the group of people that I was going with. He was clearly more interested in talking to me than anyone else. But I refused to pay attention to that. I just decided that I would enjoy my time with everyone. Then as the evening progressed, this boy left and I stayed with the group of people, but they began to irritate me so I left before I got too mad at them.

So I signed onto facebook, decided to "like" the band "Of Mice & Men." then I received a new message on chat saying, "YOU LIKE OF MICE & MEN?!"and from that, a conversation that I had never had with anyone before ensued. This boy and I talked for several hours after that. I shared with him my deepest secret. A secret that I had never shared with anyone else. Ever. Not even my best friend. But I knew that I could trust him with it. I knew that I wanted to tell him. And I knew that I really, really, REALLY liked him. He was unlike any guy that I had ever talked to... and I liked that.

After that, he and I hung out quite a bit. We texted all the time. We shared things with each other that no one else knew about us. Throughout this process, he knew that I liked him and he hinted around that he liked me too, but he had just gotten out of a relationship at the beginning of the year and he wasn't sure whether his feelings were real or if they were rebound feelings. He told me that he wasn't ready for a relationship and that he wasn't mature enough for one. He told me that he had promised God that he would take a break from girls until at least his sophomore year. Now, this sort of devastated me because I liked him so much... But he seemed so godly and like honoring God in his relationships was what he longed to do most. Which I respected and I decided that, "You know what? As much as it sucks to have to be just friends with this guy when I want to be so much more, he's worth waiting for." So I just enjoyed the friendship.

Around Christmas break, we got into this weird fight thing because he confessed to me that he did like me but he didn't want to date me... and that he had known the whole time that I liked him. Which isn't a huge deal, but he treated me in certain ways that are really inappropriate if you don't like a girl but you know she likes you (meaning, he led me on hardcore. Cuddly and stuff). So I didn't really talk to him for the entire Christmas break of 2010. Finally he apologized and promised me that he wouldn't treat me that way anymore.

That didn't last. He was just as flirty as ever. Just as cuddly. But I still liked him so much that I didn't want to say anything about it. I just chose to accept that he didn't mean anything by it and move on. Well, one day I was in his room for open hours and we were watching a movie together... and he held my hand. Obviously that made me so happy and I was so excited because I was so crazy about this guy and he was already my best friend. That was around February 18th of 2011.

So, March 1st, 2011 came along and this boy and I were in the student center playing pool together, which we did all the time, and he scratched the ball in what seemed like a ridiculously intentional manner. So I told him so, and he was on the ground laughing. I was really confused why he was laughing so hard, until he got up, walked over to the pocket, and pulled out a note with my name on it. He had written me a note telling me all the things that he liked about me and asked me to be his girlfriend. It was so sweet and romantic. I still cherish the memory.

Well, that was the beginning of our relationship. I had never had a boyfriend before so I wasn't really sure how it all worked... but I was sort of getting the hang of it. But as I stated in an earlier blog, this boy had had a traumatic experience with his father that caused him to be afraid of telling the truth. So when we had gone home for spring break, he asked me if I was okay with him hanging out with his ex girlfriend. I wasn't really okay with it because I knew that they had gone way further physically than they should have, and because of that there were emotional connections that just couldn't be broken. He told me that he had already made the plans but he wanted to know if I was okay with them. I said that since he had already made the plans, that he should just hang out with her and then not do it again. He said, "No, I'll just cancel the plans, it's not a big deal! :)" So, I was happy! I thought that was a very mature and honorable thing to do, especially since I had not asked him to do so.

Well, once we got back from spring break, we were hanging out and he confessed to me that even though he told me he had cancelled plans, he really hadn't done so. That was the first time that he had lied to me since we were dating. And it wasn't the last.

There were many other stories that were about as similar in severity as that one. All of them get me so badly because if he had just been honest from the start, I would not have gotten mad at him. But as soon as he lied to me abou things, I just felt betrayed and hurt. I couldn't trust him at all.

There were two major lies that this boy told me. Here's the first of them:

This boy loved going to the club. He loved to dance and be goofy. I am reserved and not super big on the idea of clubbing. With that being said, he asked if it was okay with him if he went without me. I told him that I was absolutely not okay with him going to the club and dancing with other girls. To me, grinding on other girls and letting them grind on you was the same as cheating. If it looks like having sex, then it's cheating. Even if he didn't consider it to be cheating, he knew that I did. Meaning, if he did it it would be a direct betrayal of trust and the same as saying, "I don't care if it hurts you, I want to do what I want to do... I'll just hide it from you." But he said he was just going with a guy friend and they were going to just dance around and goof off together. So I said that I trusted him not to do anything stupid and he went. We'll pause that story right there for now.

Throughout the rest of the school year and the summer, I discovered that this boy had a lust problem. Pornography, bad movies, bad places, bad pictures, etc. He struggled with it. That was really hard to deal with. I was super insecure, which made it worse. I hadn't had the foundation of placing all of my value in Christ rather than this boy, so when he began to look towards other women for sexual gratification, it made me feel worthless and like I had no value. Rather than doing what I ought to have done, which would be seeking out God and placing my value in him and trusting him to work in the boy's heart, I decided that I should probably just make sure that he got the gratification from me. Obviously lust is a heart thing though. So it didn't matter how much I did to try and be enough for him, his heart was still in that dark place and he wasn't trying very hard to get out. My biggest regret is the fact that by trying and being the only gratification that he needed, I really ended up making the problem worse because he would get all hot and bothered by something that he had looked at, and then I would promptly reward those lustful thoughts. Knowing how negatively I affected his walk with God haunts me at night.

But anyway, he had this lust problem and he had this lying problem... the two of those things combined really caused me to feel very hurt, betrayed, neglected, and just altogether... I don't even know how to describe it. But I was disappearing. I wasn't the happy Kaitlyn that I used to be. Every second of every day was spent trying to be enough for this man that I loved so much and then finding out yet another way that he had betrayed my trust and hurt me.

Our relationship quickly became one fight after another. I didn't trust him which made him angry, and he wasn't trustworthy which made me angry. It was a vicious cycle. But throughout it all, we loved each other so much more than we could even put words to. It's really tragic all the way around. We were best friends before we dated, and we were still best friends while dating... but we had made enemies out of each other. Our relationship wasn't about two people growing in Christ, it was about two people who didn't want to be without each other, but who couldn't stand being with the other.

That all happened during the summer. Around two weeks before the 2011 school year began again, I found out yet one more way that he had lied to me, so I broke up with him. I had acted rashly and what I had thought was a lie really wasn't, but he had been lying to me so much and betraying my trust so often that I couldn't see that until the thought of being without him crashed down on me. He begged me to give him another chance, and promised me that he would be truthful and seek help for his lying and lust problem. So I told him that I would give him another chance. He felt as though he needed to make some confessions and most of the confessions I could deal with. All but one.

Press play on the story I began to tell up there ^^^^

Turns out, he had danced with a girl at the club. He had tried to tell me that she was just dancing in their area and was like, 5 feet away. But that lie quickly deteriorated into the truth. That's when I snapped. He had lied to me so many times, he had looked at inappropriate things so many times, he had been too flirty too many times, and he had blatantly checked out too many girls right in front of me too many times... and I had maintained (most of) my composure through it all... but finding out that he had blatantly done something that he knew I considered cheating (and I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the bible it says something about how if you're not sure if something is a sin and you do it anyway, it wasn't done out of faith and is therefore, a sin... so I feel like that same principle may apply. I considered it cheating, so it was cheating just for that reason). And I became the crazy psycho bitch of a girlfriend that so many people make fun of. Now, I know that there are those girls out there that literally have zero reason to behave that way... but having gone through what I've been through, I'm slightly more sympathetic to them. I became super controlling because I just wanted to know what he was doing and who he was doing it with at all times. I somehow managed to convince him that youtube was an awful thing and he gave it up... which led to more fights when I found out that he had used it. There were many other crazy things that I did or demanded that I'm so completely not proud of. And I know that his actions can only influence my behavior... but because I had not placed my value in Christ, his actions made me feel worthless, and I felt like I had to do all these psycho and controlling things to keep him honest and faithful to me. The problem is, all of the things that I did to try and keep him in love with me, really just pushed him away.

Eventually, he began to tell me really hurtful things. That he didn't take me seriously, he didn't like to be around me, he thought we talked too much, he didn't value my opinion, and that he didn't care what I thought, he needed his best friend's opinion on everything before he would make a decision with me. We would get in fights, and rather than dealing with it, he would just yell and tell me I was being stupid and hang up on me. One time he hung up on me in the middle of a fight and turned off his phone for a whole weekend and refused to respond to my e-mails. He became extremely emotionally abusive (but the signs were there even before we began dating... I was just so blinded by my feelings for him) and he was no longer treating me in the kind, sweet, gentle way that he had treated me before. It got to the point where if we were hanging out, he would have a bad attitude towards me, or we would do...bad things... together. I basically became a body to him. But it was the only time when I felt completely loved by him. He was convincing when he was seducing me. He would show me the man that I had fallen in love with. I think that's the reason I did that stuff so often... because I missed the way he looked at me when he was in love with me. And even if he was only giving me that look to get sexual gratification... to me it was worth it because I just wanted to feel like he loved me and ONLY me again.

Then things happened, he kept treating me horribly, he told me that resolving a fight with me wasn't worth his time and he refused to answer his phone, so I called and left a message telling him how that made me feel, he took it as me breaking up with him... which I wasn't... and he refused to get back together with me.

We were broken up for 3 months, during which he was an even worse ex boyfriend than he was a boyfriend. But during that three months, I was able to get myself where I needed to be with God. I placed my value in Christ instead of in this boy, and when I did that. I realized that everything that the boy was struggling with had nothing to do with me and everything to do with things in his past, and things in his heart that he had not surrendered over to God. And I forgave him. Completely. I had so much trouble forgiving him while we were dating. I just couldn't do it. I was angry and it was easier to be bitter at him than to let myself be vulnerable to this man who kept hurting me. But while we were broken up. I forgave him. I surrendered my bitterness to God and accepted the Lord's forgiveness for the things that I had done while dating this guy, and I was truly forgiven. I did some terrible things. Things that are completely not in my nature to do. And if God could forgive me for that, then who was I to hold these grudges? So I let it go.

Eventually the boy and I tried to be just friends and catch up and stuff, but that didn't work out so well and we began dating again. I had a new resolve to be completely different than I had been the first time around (which was pretty easy, seeing as who I had been the first time around wasn't even myself) and to just start completely over where I trusted the boy not to break my heart. I jumped in wholeheartedly and I didn't guard my heart at all. Big mistake. It is very very VERY difficult to backtrack once you've gone too far in a relationship. So when the boy and I got back together, I told God that the relationship was in His hands. I put the sexuality, the distrust, the unforgiveness, the insecurities, all of it. I put them all in God's hands and said, "Lord, I can't do this on my own and I need you in control of all of these things." And I promised Him that it would be different. But like I said, it's very hard to backtrack. So I reached into God's hands and I pulled out the sexuality. "Just for today" I told myself. But when I did that, it was as if God was like, "No. If you want that back, then you're getting the rest of it back too." So I was flooded with the insecurities. So, I made a stupid decision to look through his history. It was foolish and stupid and it was a lapse into the insecure Kaitlyn that I had been before. But it only lasted for about five seconds before I was so overwhelmed with guilt that I had to close his computer because I knew that he had a password on it, so even if I wanted to look again, I wouldn't be able to.

But while I was looking on it, there was something there for me to see. He had attempted to look at pornography. Now, to me... that moment was a huge sign of how far I had come. I mean, I had looked at his history, which was a sign that I still had a long way to go, but the fact that I could see that he had tried to look at porn, forgive him almost immediately, feel more terrible about invading his privacy that angry at what I saw, and still hang out with him that evening and act like everything was fine... and not only that, but everything WAS fine... proved to me that I really did love him and he really was worth it to me to work through his struggles alongside him. In a way of love. The way I should've done it from the very beginning.

But I told him. He asked me flat out if I had done it and I refused to lie. He broke up with my by literally running away from me and sending me a text saying that he didn't want to talk to me again. Then he promptly deleted and blocked me on facebook. He sent me an email telling me that he couldn't be with a girl who was so curious that she would break ethical boundaries to figure something out (mind you, before he even knew that I had looked through his history, he told me that he had tried to look at porn because curiosity had gotten the better of him... to me that is the most hypocritical thing I've ever heard of). and he told me that anything I sent to him would just be deleted. He refuses to give me closure, he refuses to talk to me. In fact, he said hi to me today for the first time in a month...

Just all of it is really messed up. We got into one fight and he told me that "we were well on our way" to becoming like we were before. He said that we fought just as often. Except before, we were fighting every time we hung out. And not just little tiffs... they were HUGE fights... this time around, we got in one fight because he broke a promise, and the second the day he ran away from me.

So, I don't know what to say or do about it. I love him dearly. While we were broken up the first time, I knew that I had done so many things wrong and I had given them over to God and I am a completely different person than I was before. He didn't give me the chance to show him that this time because he was just so primed to see the worst in me. He couldn't see how much I've changed or that I had truly forgiven him. I don't know. All of it just makes me sad because I love him more than I love myself. But I know that God is working some things out for me. He is either protecting me from what the boy really was, after all, his emotionally abusive tendencies had not subsided in the least during the three months apart, or maybe God is separating us for a time while He works on our hearts individually. Either way, I have to give it up to God and just live as though the boy and I are never going to be back together.

That's the thing with break ups. As much as they suck, they are preparing you for something even better. And there's no guarantee that the something better isn't going to be the same person just at different places in their lives. And there's no guarantee that the person you are in love with isn't going to grow up and be married three different times because they just can't have a successful relationship.

The point is, God is good and has your best interest at heart. He isn't going to make your life easy and problem free, but He's going to give you a life that only has the kind of problems that are perfect for your spiritual growth. You just have to follow God. He knows exactly what He wants for your life, so rather than trying to do it all on your own, you should just turn your life over to God because He's the only one who can make it turn out the way it's supposed to.

So while I allow God to mend my heart after it received the beating of it's life, all I can do is trust God and hope that in the end, His plan will be completely worth it in the end. Which it will be, so there's no way I can lose, here. :)

With all that said, if you're in need of some encouragement, click here. It's a really awesome blog that I stumbled across. :)

For Mending Broken Hearts

My friend Tessa made me a CD of excellent songs for when your heart is sad.... so here it is. :)

1. It Is Well With My Soul - Chris Rice

2. Be Still - The Fray

3. Ghost - Ingrid Michaelson

4. Everything - Lifehouse

5. Beloved - Tenth Avenue North

6. Atmosphere - Mree

7. Your Great Name - Natalie Grant

8. Keep Your Eyes Open - NeedToBreathe

9. Hiding Place - Sarah Groves

10. Wonderful, Merciful Savior - Selah

11. Times - Tenth Avenue North

12. Desert Lands - Trading Yesterday

13. Always - Switchfoot

14. Learn to Love - NeedToBreathe

15. Arms That Hold the Universe - Fee

16. He’s Always Been Faithful - Sarah Groves

17. Hope Now - Addison Road

18. Life Me Up - The Afters

My personal favorite is Arms That Hold the Universe. So here are the lyrics because they're awesome, amazing, wonderful, and an excellent reminder.

I know it seems like this could be the darkest day you’ve known
But believe you me, the God of strength will never let you go
He will overcome, I know

And the arms that hold the universe are holding you tonight
You can rest inside, it’s gonna be alright
And the voice that calmed the raging sea is calling you His child
So be still and know He’s in control
He will never let you go

Through many dangers, toils, and snares you have already come
His grace has brought you safe this far, and His grace will lead you home

And the arms that hold the universe are holding you tonight
You can rest inside, it’s gonna be alright
And the voice that calmed the raging sea is calling you His child
So be still and know He’s in control
He will never let you go

You can hope, you can rise, you can stand
He’s still got the whole world in His hands
You can hope, you can rise, you can stand
He’s still got the whole world, the whole world in His hands

And the arms that hold the universe are holding you tonight
You can rest inside, it’s gonna be alright
And the voice that calmed the raging sea is calling you His child
So be still and know He’s in control
He will never let you go

He will never let you go

He’s still got the whole world in His hands
In his hands, yeah
He’s still got the whole world in His hands

Love: The Absence of Expectations

How many girls have written out their list of what makes the "perfect" man? I know that I wrote that list. It's extensive. At least eight pages.

It seemed like a great idea when I was writing it, but now that I think about it, all it did was cause me to have an unmeetable standard. There is no way that any man in the world can ever meet every single criterion that I have on my list. Sure, I had some things that were just preferences, but my "demands" took up about seven and a half of those eight pages.

So when I got into a relationship, what did I do? I looked at my list and realized he didn't meet this thing, he didn't meet that thing, or this or that or this or that, but I had idealized the perfect man so much in my head, that basically, I fell in love with the man's personality and just decided I would change his values to meet my own.

Now, I never ever had any desire to change his personality or change the way he truly was I loved his personality. It's why I started liking him. Just certain little things that would make him match up to my list better than he did on his own.

Was that appropriate? Absolutely not.

I realized that it was inappropriate early on in our relationship, but certain things happened around the same time that caused me not to trust this guy at all... so I sort of shut down my conscience and decided that, "well, I love him and the only way that I can stay with him is if these things change... so I'm gonna have to just make him change them."

So essentially, we ended up putting each other through ten months of hell because we loved each other dearly, but we didn't love enough about each other to be satisfied with exactly how we were. I didn't love that he lied to me and betrayed my trust, he didn't love that I got angry at him for it and couldn't forgive him. But no matter what, those qualities just couldn't change.

I thought that maybe if we made our relationship more God centered, things would be different. Perhaps if "he became more godly, then he wouldn't lie to me so much!" But there's a problem with that logic, my primary focus spiritually should be whether I am living in a godly manner. Which I wasn't. I was so consumed with trying to change his relationship with God that I completely neglected my own. Which essentially destroyed both of our relationships with God because he had it in his head that I was some great Christian, but I wasn't even able to forgive him. How's that for hypocrisy? I know I wouldn't feel encouraged to be more Christlike if the person I thought was most Christlike acted like I did to him. So he didn't strive to change, and when he wasn't changing, I got angry at God and blamed Him for everything that was going wrong. That's a huge red flag that your relationship is going downhill, very very quickly. Just so you know.

But anyway, we began to meet with Ron Kopicko, and he said to me, "I believe that love is the complete absence of expectations." Which didn't sound good to me, because I was so wound up and stressed over all of the times that this certain guy had betrayed my trust that I had turned into a sort of psycho that I never ever ever wanted to be and is completely out of my character to be... but I was so scared of losing him that I couldn't see any other way. My way pushed him even further away from me, of course.

But it's true. If you enter a relationship knowing what you want out of it, and just enjoying the person that you're with and not asking anything of them, you are much more able to see their true character. If you can be around a person and never ask anything of them, and you find that you respect them for their honesty, you respect them for their purity, their thoughtfulness, their kindness, their relationships and all of that, you can truly love that person for who they are. The best part is, you haven't caused them to put on a mask for you to fall in love with, only to find that it wasn't real to begin with.

If I had entered that relationship and just let that person be exactly who they were and show me their true character without me trying to burry it away because I just didn't want to admit that I didn't like it, I wouldn't have gotten so attached to someone so wrong for me. Don't get me wrong, I love his personality. He made me laugh more than any person on the planet, he made me feel beautiful when I looked disgusting, he made me feel special, he found beauty in the strangest things, and he had a heart for people that I've never seen in anyone else. I love all those things. But there were bad things that I would've been able to see much sooner if I had just let him be exactly who he was and never asked anything of him. Things that are deal breakers. Why would I want to be with someone who betrayed my trust all the time and made me feel like I wasn't worth being honest with? Rather than just ending it and guarding my heart, I tried to change him. I put expectations on him that he just couldn't meet. We both got horribly, horribly hurt because of it.

So why don't we, as ladies, get rid of our lists? Why don't we just say, "God. I want a man who loves you and serves you with all his heart and who will love me like Christ loves the church," and truly trust God to bring that man into our lives? We can't change the men that we date. So it's best to see them for who they really are early on in the relationship. Having expectations not only puts stress on them, but it also forces them to put up a front. And who really wants to fall in love with a fake version of someone? And who really wants to be so stressed out about whether someone will leave you or not that you become that absolute worst version of yourself that you never thought you could ever be? I know I don't... I've been there, dated that. I want to fall in love with someone who I can grow spiritually with. Not someone who's entire character I want to change because I don't like the one he's got. That's not fair to either of us.

True Love

Think about the person that you love most. More than any other person on the planet and more than yourself. The person that if given the choice between saving your life and saving theirs, you'd choose them. Every single time. The person who, now matter what they do to hurt you, you love them too much to hold a grudge. The person who is so important to you that you will forgive them for everything they've ever done to hurt you and so much more. The person who you know inside and out, their darkest secrets and their most disgusting struggles or temptations, yet you still have so much love for that person that to you, they are worth so much more than that. To you, their aspirations and the goodness they have in their heart shines through so brightly that you want to be their strength when they're weak, you want to encourage them to embrace their potential for godliness and encourage them to resist temptation in the most loving and gentle manner possible, because you love them and know that they're so much more than their past or their struggles. That person that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one else on this planet can ever love them as much as you love them, especially if anyone else knew as much about them as you did. The one who you just want to be in their life because their happiness means so much to you that you know their life will just be better with you in it.

You have the person in your head? Now, the person you may be thinking of may not be a romantic sort of love. That's fine. Just imagine that amount of love that you have for that person.

Now imagine if that person rejected you. Hurt you. Ripped your heart out of your chest and stomped all over it. They talk badly about you to the people they hang out with but still manage to ignore you. Imagine that this person scorns you, disrespects you, makes you out to be a joke, blames you for all of their problems and refuses to accept responsibility for the choices that they have made that have put them where they are because it's easier to let you take the fall for their life not being what they want.

Now, imagine how that would make you feel.

Worst pain imaginable right? To love someone that much and have them treat you that way, but to still have so much love and forgiveness in your heart for them that all you want them to do is come back to you and apologize for their behavior and actually be sincere about it so that you can demonstrate your love and forgiveness and have the life together because you know it will worth all the pain.

That is literally the exact thing I'm going through right now. The rejection of this one person is killing me but it got me thinking...

How must God feel when the majority of the world, that He loves more than I would ever be able to love this one person, treats Him in that exact same way?

Really puts things into perspective, no? I can't imagine ever making another person feel this way, but the thought of making God feel this way? So much worse. Not only does He say he'd die for us, but He already has. He loves us more completely than any man or woman would ever be able to. Yet we treat Him horribly and take that love for granted and throw it back in His face and tell Him He's not worth giving up a few earthly things that won't matter in the long run.

I don't know about you, but I would rather experience that love in it's fullness, and love Him back. Certain things just don't seem important when put into their proper perspective.

A New Kind of Gratitude

^{John 15:1} “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me."

Things have been going pretty sucky lately, so my mom sent me this podcast that she thought would "encourage" me. It was on just these four verses. Now, the first part where He's talking about the Father cutting off every branch that bears no fruit broke my heart for reasons that I won't go into, and my heart sort of got turned off to the second part that honestly was very encouraging for me. But throughout the day, God has been bringing it back to my head over and over, so now that I don't feel so wounded, I am able to consider it the way I ought to. 

How often do you thank God for a broken heart? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no one really thanks Him for that. I have a heart that has been ripped apart, torn up, thrown on the ground, stomped and spat on. So basically, I'm able to sympathize with people in that situation. No, we aren't running around saying, "Oh thank you God for this awful thing that has happened to me and this gut wrenching heart ache! PLEASE, send me more of this!" It just doesn't happen. 

But maybe we should be a little more grateful. The bible says that God chastens the ones he loves. He "prunes" the good branches so that they will bear "even more fruit." There are many ways to prune a branch. When the bible was written, there was a process called pinching. How this was done was the vine dresser would take his thumb and finger and remove just the growing tip of the vigorous end of an unwanted shoot. By doing this, it wouldn't grow so rapidly and wouldn't be broken off in its weakness by the wind. Another way was a process called topping. This was when the vine dresser would remove a foot or two of a large branch which prevented its loss in the wind or its dissipation of strength as it became too large. Another process was called thinning which was when they would remove the flower or grape clusters from the branch. All these processes were so the branch was made clean and nothing was lost. Causing there to be much more fruit.

So putting this into spiritual and human terms, what does this mean? It means that every person who is saved, will receive spiritual pruning by the Father. God wants us to always be operating at a maximum "fruit-bearing" capacity. In order for this to happen, He must remove ANYTHING that would hinder our fruit bearing. He has to remove things from our lives every now and then, whether they're sins or other hindrances or just little things that attach themselves to us that prevent us from bearing spiritual fruit.

But pruning hurts. It has to be done with a knife. And sometimes that knife is really really REALLY painful. Sometimes God's pruning hurts so bad that we just can't imagine that God really knows what he's doing. Sometimes he prunes so much off of us all at once that it makes us feel like He's never going to get to anyone else. And it hurts. Good Lord, does it hurt. He can "prune" us in many different ways, whether it be sickness, loss of a job, gossip, the loss of loved ones, the end of a relationship that you never thought would end and you had placed all your hope in. But all of this is done in God's goodness. He does this because He cares whether we bear fruit or not. Hebrews 12:10 says, "For they verily for a few days, that is human fathers, chasten us after their own pleasure, but He for our profit that we might be partakers of His holiness."

Do you understand what that means? God chastens us, purges us, so that we can partake in His holiness. God adopts us into His family and treats us as sons or daughters and because of that love for us, He does what He knows is best for us and what will make us the best possible versions of ourselves that we could never be on our own. 

So whenever things are going terribly, and all you want to do is throw in the towel and give up. Don't. If you are saved and you know you are, look at it and see it for what it is. It is the hand of the Father, working in your life because of His great love for you. He wants you to bear much fruit and to remain in Him. But you don't have to do it on your own. See? That's what this is all about. We are incapable of bearing fruit on our own, but God doesn't leave us to our own devices. He comes along and He "prunes" us and prepares us for the weight of all that we have to bear. He removes the things from our lives that hinder us from serving Him to our greatest ability. And for that we should be continually thankful. 



So all of that was actually just the intro to this: 
God has been purging my life. Big time. Basically, one thing has gone wrong after another after another after another. It's as if God was walking around "the True Vine" and realized that He had been missing my branch for years and had to make up for it by purging absolutely everything out of my life. Holy crap. It hurts. 
But I noticed something yesterday. I had a super awesome day where I got to spend the entire day hanging out with a friend that I hadn't seen in a year, I got to help out in their store, got offered a job for the rest of the semester, and just got to talk to someone about everything that was going on and I knew that she actually cared. If things had been going amazingly, I would've just been like, "well that was nice!" and went along with my day. But things have been going horribly lately and I have never felt so alone. So when I got back from that day, I was so overwhelmed with thanksgiving that I was brought to my knees in tears just thanking God for the relief that He had given me from my misery. All because I spent the entire day with a friend. 


That made me realize something. When things are going well, we grow complacent. We take friendships, conversations, jobs, productivity, and basically everything for granted. But when we are in the midst of the darkest hours of our lives and even getting out of bed feels like the most daunting task we've ever faced, spending a day feeling productive and with a friend is the most amazing relief. 

I want to always be so grateful for a day like yesterday. Even if things are going amazingly and I'm happy and surrounded by friends and people who love me, I want to be so overwhelmed with gratitude. Every single time. I never want to take friendship or good conversations or just a day out with friends for granted again. Or during the summer when I'm working, I want to come home every day and realize, "Hey, it may not be my favorite thing in the world, but there are people out there looking for a job so they can make ends meet, and God gave me this job so that I can afford to go to Cambodia to serve Him," and be overwhelmed with love for Him and gratitude. If everything was good, nothing would be significant. 

We take God's love for granted when we can feel the love of everyone else. But when we feel lonely, abandoned, and rejected by earthly men or even just friends, we can feel God's arms around us hugging us to Him. The best part is, God never really leaves us wondering why He removed something from our lives. He is always gracious enough to show us what we're, "missing out" on. Seeing as what we're missing out on was completely not God's will for us, we're not missing out on much because God's will is always significantly better. 

So even though my heart is not in the place where I am able to say, "thank you God for removing that person from my life!" I know that because this person loved himself more than the Lord or me, they were not pursuing God's will at all, but their own, I would have been miserable if they continued to be in my life. Which sucks. I love this person with everything I've got. So that's not really a realization you want to have about someone you love that much. But God knows best, and He knew that since this person was not genuinely pursuing His will with all of their heart and they were trying to conform God's will into their own so that they wouldn't have to give up anything their earthly self enjoyed, my spiritual growth would be hindered if God hadn't removed this person from my life. 

And it sucks. I don't want it to be that way. And I think God knew that I wouldn't be able to remove that person from my life on my own, so He allowed things to happen that broke my heart even more than the initial removal. But God is good and He knows what He's doing. So even though my heart is in a million pieces and I spend around 75% of my day in tears, I am able to look up to heaven and thank God for His chastening because it assures me of my place in the Family of God. 
Also, my mind is a jumbled crazy mess so I think that's why God has shown me so many things in one fell swoop. 'cause He knows that's how my mind processes things. 
Anyway, this is a picture from the awesome day I had yesterday. : )

That's Maycee, she's a Shiba Inu. I want one so bad.

The beginning.

So, I've officially decided to start a blog!

I don't know whether people will read it or not, but it's okay if no one ever does because I just want to be able to write about how God has been working in my life, but I will probably also write about things that I just happen to think are funny. We shall see!