unconventional

today i was at an event where i saw a lot of people that knew me when i was small. so i got to tell a lot of the same stories to everyone.

i've been to four schools in four years. switched majors, still undeclared. still undecided.

this normally discourages me because other people my age are graduating from college this year, with big bright plans and exciting prospects for a successful future. but i did things differently. so my stories are not satisfying because they're all cliffhangers. and when you're at a party, people aren't looking for suspense - they are looking for pleasantries and resolution. which i can't honestly give. that's not what's happened.

usually the problem-solvers try to probe deeper, asking questions like, "but kelsey, what are you passionate about?" "what do you want to do for a career?" or my favorite, "kelsey, is there anyone special in your life right now?" but today, these people were just excited to hear where God had brought me, and offered me encouragement for where i am. where i am, here today. i can't tell you how refreshing that was.

my story is different. and i want to get to a place where i enjoy telling it.

proverbs 3:5

trust in the Lord with all your heart;
lean not on your own understanding.

winter winds

my head told my heart, "let love grow"
but my heart told my head, "this time, no."

to be a passenger.

i have been thinking.

i have been thinking way too much.


at present, my days are full. i can't stuff anything else in the daylight hours - i can hardly find time to do what i must. i am putting untold miles on the corolla, and burning out mix cds faster than i can make them. and i haven't even started school yet......ahhhhhhhhhh.

as a result, because i am working so much, either alone or at least isolated, i spend an unhealthy amount of time in my own head.

i hardly see my friends anymore (sometimes it's out of sight, out of mind).

i am not eating very well, or very much, because i'm never home and i'm rather poor.

i never get to go running...!

i think my mom feels like an empty nester even though i do still sleep at home.

i feel stretched too thin.


and i am SO SICK of hearing my thoughts all the time! it's so dull, so repetitive. like my life...

have been recently trying to sing hymns and praise songs while i'm washing dishes at the cafe or setting up the paints at preschool or swinging with owen. i have found it so helpful to redirect my mind out of the rut it gets into from such mundane use.

I MISS PEOPLE!

even though i'm around them all day. i feel like i only ever have time for the initial hellos and how's it goings, never time enough to get real, to ask questions and laugh and be in relationship.

and while i'm still "in the Word" every morning, still singing to Jesus through the day, i feel closer to Him when i can stop....and be still....and listen.

so my heart is heavy.

but i tell myself that this is just a season, and it will pass. see the leaves outside! already they are showing the hope of something new.


i want to be a passenger. i am forever driving myself all over the earth - i want somebody else to be in control of the car. (not sure if this is symbolic right now.) i want to be with another person, and go where they usually go, see how they usually see things, figure out somebody else's head for once. i want to let down.

i want to stop.

my God is so great

this morning, in my recently rearranged quiet time (which i deem my "shut up and listen" time), the Lord spoke to my heart, and He told me the truth.

i'm reading through the prison letters of paul, and i was in ephesians toward the end of chapter three, and i learned that God is "able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think".

which therefore means that God is not confined to my limits of logic. He is absolutely not constricted to my ideas, or even to my imagination, wild though it may be. not only could He and can He realize my dreams, He can do far more abundantly beyond.

goodness.


MY GOD IS SO GREAT
SO STRONG, AND SO MIGHTY
THERE'S NOTHING MY GOD CANNOT DO

i am so glad that God is so other than me. i am so glad that He sees the beginning and the end, and why i am here. i am so glad that He sees my deepest heart, and loves me the same.

the path

i went on the same walk every day.

i felt so full. i grinned like a fool when i looked at the mountains. i'm sure i looked like a fool when i stood on the bridge, staring to the bottom of the river.

i made a very personal connection with a certain bench on the path. about two thirds of the way down, on the edge of the cow pasture there was a bench i stopped at nearly every day. my feet didn't quite reach the ground, so i swung my feet like a little girl, giddy with love for my Father as i looked at the beautiful gift He'd given me. i sat on that bench and told God how i was feeling that day, whether depressed or overjoyed, neglected or full, lonely or overwhelmed. those mountains know all my secrets. and they positively SCREAMED the glory of God. i could never ever deny it, even on the worst of days. so by talking to the mountains, i was talking to God. and i have never heard the audible voice of God, but through those mountains, God told me that He was very there.

i made a habit of asking Jesus to join me on my walks. it was very romantic, walking on that path with Him, knowing He'd made all those things because He knew i would love them one day, because He wanted me to know He was there. i fell so in love with Him on that path.

i think this is why i'm having a hard time translating this beloved austrian alps experience into my current rainy suburban reality. but i have to keep letting myself know that the Jesus i met there on those walks is the very same Jesus right here. He loves the same.

i am the one who has changed.
because of the love He showed me there, i'll not ever be the same.

jeremiah 10:23

my realism is looking suspiciously like pessimism these days.

GROWING UP IS HARD.

i wish i could write about my thoughts and my longings in eloquent words that would help people really understand my deepest me, but i just write like i think. i suppose it would be dishonest to present myself any other way. and really, i am uncomfortable with attention to that degree. and really, no one reads this. it's just my way of being cathartic.

honestly, i think of myself as a patient person. i find patience where other people wouldn't think to look. i can deal with the people most people can't stand. but when it comes to my own life, i am finding it increasingly difficult to wait to see what happens next.

i have had some good experiences in my adult life. adult life, here meaning the years after high school. so for the past three years. it seems SO so so much longer than that. i have gone to Bible school in so-cal and in austria. i have travelled all over europe. i have worked a bunch of jobs. i have become involved in youth ministry, and grown to love it.

but i have also, in my opinion, lacked some important good experiences that most people my age have already had, such as moving out, owning a car, being in an adult relationship (not that i'm looking, just pointing it out), paying rent - things like that. shoot, most people my age are about to start their senior year of college! and because i did things a little differently, it'll be awhile longer before i see a bachelor's. or even an associate's.

here's the thing. i trust God. i do! i mean, it would be utterly stupid not to. i understand with my brains that God's got it covered, that it's silly and a waste of energy to worry. He sees things from end to end, without the restraint of time, and i can only see my here and now. and however depressing i think it is, God put me right here RIGHT NOW so i can bring Him the maximum glory. and clearly, i am missing the ways and means.

one of my favorite quotes is by jim elliot in a letter to his wife. in it he writes: "What is, is actual - what might be simply is not, and I must not therefore query God as though he robbed me - of things that are not. ...Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living."

oh Lord! my faith is so small. my understanding is so limited. i am sick of being in my head and hearing my thoughts, Father. You HAVE to be IT. You have to be the everything. my life is stupid and awful without You. move me where You're moved, Lord. use me somewhere. pour Your love straight through me. i know it is not about me. it can't be.

through gates of splendor

"Cause and effect are in God's hands. Is it not the part of faith simply to let them rest there? God is God. I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice."


"God is God. If He is God, He is worthy of my worship and my service. I will find rest nowhere but in His will, and that will is infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to."

-Elisabeth Elliot
Through Gates of Splendor


this woman amazes me. i have read a couple of her books, and she is just so selflessly realistic. this book tells the story of her husband jim elliot, and how he was a missonary in south america, and the natives he was working with killed him. elisabeth herself went back to that very same country and began a life of ministry to the very same people group who murdered her husband. i mean, who does that? who is a big enough person to put self aside, not to mention a terribly broken heart, and do ministry like that? but she is forever pointing back to God, and drawing strength from Him.

she is my hero (or my she-ro :) ). i want to have the same knowledge of God's sovereignty, and the same depth of trust in His grace.

american food withdrawls

i was reading through my tauernhof journal last night, which made me more than a little nostalgic and emotional, and i found this funny entry.

it was mid-november, and we were having a fast that day.

things i wish i could eat right now:
1. popcorn
2. elk steak
3. payday
4. chai tea latte
5. yukon gold potatoes
6. chicken of any kind
7. olive garden breadsticks
8. steak, period
9. oreos with peanut butter
10. yep, steak sounds really good.

cielo

i have been thinking a lot about heaven lately. i guess i hadn't ever put a lot of thought into it. or, i tried to put a bold face on it since all i'd really heard of it is the weird sounding stuff in revelation, or that the streets are paved with gold, or that Jesus is there building a mansion for me. frankly, those things did not excite me.

my favorite books in the whole wide world are the chronicles of narnia. i have read them about once a year since i was ten. c.s. lewis has a way of blowing open my imagination in all he writes, but especially those novels about narnia. and since i've been thinking of heaven more recently, when i read the last battle this last time, i was completely floored by the way he describes heaven, or aslan's country. my goodness, i want to go there. everything is just like narnia, just like our present world, except that all sin and darkness and pain and sadness is GONE. the characters could run and run without getting tired, could climb mountains, and they had all of eternity to explore with aslan.

THAT is the kind of heaven i want to feel free to dream about. to get to BE with Jesus forever, worshipping Him, and exploring His creation with Him without any fear. i was joking with joy and jerilyn last night about how if God knew me, which He does, He would know that i do not want to live in a mansion for all eternity; i would much rather He built me a treehouse in the forest between the austrian alps and the oregon coast! He and i could live there, being together and exploring without fear of darkness or evil or bugs or height or depth or any other created thing.

i long to worship God without any distractions. shoot, i distract myself when i try to worship. and i do not mean solely through music. my sin is so woven through my life that it's hard to truly, honestly worship God without something pulling me away. even time. it will be so wonderful to not have time restraints in heaven!

and you know, i have no idea what heaven will be like. who does? but i feel free to dream, since God knows how He made me and how i would like to imagine things. i'm pretty sure heaven will not be a disappointment, anyway. even if we don't know hardly a thing about it, i think we should start getting excited. we will get to SEE GOD! and Jesus!

and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

new news

I MISS AUSTRIA.

so much.

i am not the same

i want to begin writing about my overseas adventure. i am SO afraid that i'll forget things i've learned, things i've seen, and how i felt about it all. i know that i'm blessed with the Holy Spirit who will remind me of things God taught me, but i want to flush all this out. i think it'll be kind of cathartic.

so, whomever you are, this will be mostly for me, but i wanted witnesses.

and this could take awhile.