Day 3

Today has been wonderful and crazy all at the same time. I have literally been staring at my computer screen since 8:30 this morning and have not stopped typing this and that for my boss. They were going to be gone today, but still have not gotten on the road. I am looking forward to peace and quiet when they leave.
Also one of my dear friends is having her baby today, so I am full of joy over that. Isn't birth incredible!? It just reminds me that everyday there are these precious children being born every hour. It's amazing!! I, myself, may not be quite ready for children (good thing since I don't even have the hubs yet ha), but I am certainly excited for whenever that time in my life comes. So nothing real big today about day 3...just busy and still feeling blessed :)

Day 2- Blessed Be

That song "Blessed Be the Name" was cranked up in my car this morning on my regular commute. I have been putting my iPod on shuffle a lot lately and I love it because each day the right songs get played without me having to skip a thousand times or finally get fed up and go the artist I want to listen to. Anyways, this particular song just fits so perfectly into my today. I am blessed when the sun is shining and I am blessed when the road is marked with suffering. God gets all credit no matter what.

Another amazing thought that may or may not go along with this song is what I was reading in John this morning. I have found it completely liberating to read my Bible each morning as if I were a new Christian who knows nothing. I am actually learning so much more this way. Anyways, a passage that was sticking out to me this morning was about how Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead and people were still having a hard time believing in Him. The verse that stuck out to me was, "Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him" John 12:37. Wow. How many times have I seen God work in the life of another or even me and yet I still struggle with doubt of Him sometimes. I am guilty of this verse. So the connection between that verse and this song to me is showing me that I just need to always praise Him for whatever it is I am going through and to remember and BELIEVE that HE is the one working a good work in me.

Day 2...Blessed Be the Name of the Lord!

Day 1-Trust

Day 1, you ask? What does this day 1 mean? What is the significance to this day? Well..unfortunately for you, I will not be sharing what my little countdown is about. I am, however, about to enter into a journey that I have never taken and believe that it could potentially be hard, yet a huge growth time for me. I have decided to enter back into the blogging world and use this as a tool to record my journey into the next 2 months. You will read of the trials I face in each day and the awesome revelations that I know are to come through these next 2 months. Since I will not share what these 2 months stand for specifically, I will share that something has recently been taken away from me for a time and even though I know why it needed to happen...quite frankly the situation sucks for lack of a better term.

So today was Day 1. And day 1 holds trust. I have found that it does get easier to trust God when we start to lessen ourselves and realize how much He wants to give us and teach us! I have treasured the times I have been growing as of late in my relationship with God. It has been remarkable. I feel empty if I don't get to open my Bible everyday and just journal while I read about all the miracles and words of Christ. I don't say this in a boasting way..I only say it as an encouragement to others. I don't always know what God is up to and why certain trials are placed in my life. Sometimes I think, "Gosh, I've been through so much already, what else do you want to throw in my path, God?!" But...I know the reward I receive after going through those trials. And it's really all about God anyway. So...I choose to trust. Ps. 52:8-9 talks of trusting in God's unfailing love forever and ever. I choose that. I will rest in that.

Greater Things

Hello blog world. Oh how I have neglected you. Well I do feel that there is much to update on. First of all, the most exciting news...I am now a part of church planting! My last blog spoke about the beginnings of perhaps being a part of this. It has now come into play and I was right about feeling the nudge from God. He threw me in full fledged, and I am soo excited about greater things that have yet to come. I have become part of a ministry called Rhythm that happens in Roanoke on Thursday nights. It came from going to this that I really felt the tug on my heart to follow our leader into this church vision. I am ready and geared to be a part of a body that is going to be diving deep into the Word and disciple others whole-heartedly! I have come to know many people from going to Rhythm. Great friendships are being made and I love that! I just cannot believe that I ever worried that I was going to be this lonely, sad person over the summer. The exact opposite has happened! What a wonderful gift!

On a more serious note, things is my family are really going through a shift. My mom is getting re-married. If I am being completely honest, which most of the time I am, I am dealing with this the best I know how. I completely support my mom and could not be more happy for her. But with every step that she takes in moving forward, it slowly kicks my dad out of the picture. This is the way it should be for her, but it stinks for the kids. I do like the man she is going to marry. He treats her well and makes her happy. No one could ask for better. He is a great leader and I know that he will support her in anything she does. He pretty much does not possess much that my dad did, which is good or else there would be a comparison game. He is a lot quieter than my dad though which is totally weird. I get my loud mouth from my dad so I'm not used to the house being so quiet! haha. But whatever, new things!
Also, as of this week, my family has gotten some rather scary news. There is a chance that my sister has cancer. The doctor wants her to get an MRI because he is basically looking for cancer in her back. Unfortunately her insurance is not wanting to cover it, so it has become a nightmare. Luckily, our doctor has graciously taken over and become fight club on the insurance on our behalf. There is definitely the chance that she does not have cancer, but of course this does scare me that she might. I just cannot imagine going through this all over again. I have tried to keep my attitude up, to just put my Trust in the Lord that everything is going to work out, but it is totally hard. So if you read this, please pray. I will try to update on this topic more often so that you may know what is going on.

All in all, life is wonderful! God is good and I am so excited to see how He works because either way, it will be for His glory!

Thoughts Needing Discernment

Recently a good friend of mine described perfectly by saying I am an all or nothing type individual. How true this is. Being this type of person has its pros and cons. What I have found to be a major con is I am too quick to become energetic about visions or decisions. I do feel that I have a knack for discernment in terms of knowing pretty quickly whether something will be right or wrong. The downfall is I will jump into a situation without getting God's thoughts on the matter. Sometimes it turns out fine and the Lord gives me wisdom as I dive right in. Most of the time though, I should have taken the time to really pray about something before going into the unknown. So here is me slowing down to really process and ask for discernment and wisdom about a situation that I am extremely excited about. This morning I did not go to church because I did not sleep well last night and felt sick. So instead I started listening to a few podcasts. I came upon a podcast of this "church" that I have gone to a few times that I have really loved. I say "church" because they do not consider themselves a church, better a community of believers who gather together to preach and worship the Lord. After all, that is what church is anyways. I think we have gotten caught up in the word "church" and "religion" too much and have missed what having a true desire and relationship with Christ is...that can be another blog. Anyways, so I was listening to the vision of what this leader was proposing about this once a week gathering. I was completely just praising God for every sentence that he was saying because here is a man who is just simply listening to what God wants him to do. And all he wants to do is preach out of God's Word, and to give off this life of joy that he has in Christ, in hopes that it will seep out into this gathering of students each week. I am excited about this! I have felt a lack in hope about the church for some time. I felt renewed and refreshed to hear that someone is actually doing what the Bible says! And that is the mission. Simple. When I finished the podcast, I immediately wanted to just drop everything and start getting involved with this ministry and even start looking for a new place to live just so that I can be closer to this community. It is not in Lynchburg. And even better, the focus is on college students and young adults. A passion that God has started forming in me as of late. None of this is coincidence, but I also know that a moment of pause needs to happen. How does God want me to go about this? I can already feel that this is what He wants me to do because this is what He wants every Christian to do! To just go and do and glorify Him!! I just need wisdom on how. I know by putting my trust in Him, my path will be straight it will become clear and evident on how everything will fall into place. I am excited beyond belief to have finally found something that I believe God is calling me to. It has been a long time since I've felt the call of God. So Amen to that! Now I just ask for your prayers as well! Pray that God gives me that wisdom and discernment. And I hope that you will also be praying for yourselves that God will show you where you need to GO! Love and Blessings!

Voice=Found!

So I realized that my last post was perhaps very vague, so I thought I would take the time to elaborate on just how amazing my life is going right now. First I must preface this post by having everyone reading maybe 2 or 3 posts ago to get to full effect of just how powerful this story really is! I was in such a rut, loss of joy, etc. But I had a revival in my heart. Nothing in particular happened, I just woke up one morning and decided that it was time to change. I had joy coming back, my love for God just starting flowing over. I started to feel how depleted I had been feeling for so long. My Spirit was starving and I was the problem in making it starve. I started to just accept the fact that certain circumstances in my life may not be things that I believed to be "good timing" and realized that God has me in this particular place in my life for a reason. And that reason is GOOD! And I became absolutely, without a doubt, great with where God has me. Contentment, finally!! Can I get an AMEN?! And if that were not enough, I started meeting all these new people that God has been bringing into my life that just add to encouragement in my life. I found myself being the class clown again. I am making everyone laugh again, everyone actually enjoys being around me. For so long I struggled with this. I didn't feel like I was "me". But now, I'm back!! So if that were still not enough, I proceed to go to this lake cook-out where I knew only about 3 people, but I was totally stoked about new people that I would meet...again, I was back. The Kara I knew loved experiences like this. After all, I am an open-book, I will talk to anyone! I love hearing people's stories, and I love sharing mine! I want to hear about how God is moving in their life, or maybe even how God may not be present in their life. Either way, I love meeting new people. So I go to this cook-out and it was truly one of the best days I have had in a really, really long time! This is where God really showed off....so a bunch of us are sitting there on this dock, sunset, watching the water cast shadows of the reds, purples, yellows, and orange from the sky...I'm just wrapped up in God's splendor...so I turn to my friend Lindsay and go "Lets start singing some worship songs"...ok so you may be asking yourself, "how is that such a big deal Kara?" I'll tell you why! For the past 4 or 5 years, I have struggled with my singing voice. The short of the story is I felt rejected for my voice in college and had never experienced that before so I came to the conclusion that I sucked and God obviously took away my gift from me. So I became embarrassed to sing in front of anyone. My best friend was the only one who still heard me. I would sing along in the car, but more quietly when others were there for fear of them thinking I was tone-deaf and just plain awful. Granted, I did have some friends that heard me and still encouraged me by saying I was good, but I never really believed them. This was an issue I had with myself. I had taken upon myself my gift from God...I made it about me. Never do this! Ok so back to the lake...so after I said that, we started singing, just her and I. Let me write that again...I STARTED SINGING!! And it was not just the 2 of us sitting there. I had a small audience of friends that I literally had only known for maybe 2 days. And the best part, I forgot they were all there when I started singing. It was totally about God and me just wanting to worship to Him. Ok so we finish and then I get told how good of a singer I am. And when that was said, I realized what had just happened. Tears filled my eyes, but I shoved them down so these new friends wouldn't think I was some crazy emotional girl. (They will find that out later ha). And when they started telling me how pretty it sounded, I knew it was all genuine. And it wasn't about me this time. God totally took it all! So then we all started singing for the next like 2 hours! It was freaking awesome! That moment was precious and ever since then I have not been able to shut up! My voice is back. And maybe to some I don't sound that great, but again...it is not about me! So hence my "All Things New" slogan from here on out. My life is awesome and I am blessed beyond measure. And I'm excited to see where God takes me next on my journey with Him!

All Things New

I just wanted to share what I believe to be a great revival that has been happening my my heart and attitude here lately. It has been completely amazing!!!! I have found my peace and my joy come flooding back to me! For so long, so many people would come up to me and ask, "Kara, what is wrong with you these days?" And I would never know the answer, but I knew something was wrong too. Well, Kara is back and in full swing ladies and gentlemen! And it feels so good!!! I truly am thankful that we have such a big God who does make all things new. That is how I feel. I feel that I have been re-charged. I have been meeting all kinds of new people lately, developing some really touching friendships, and just experiencing God in a whole new way thru this new people. God is faithful and I am blessed. I just thought I'd share :) Love <3