Temptation Doesn't Have to Suck

Well...I have seriously nothing better to do in EAST today, so why not post a blog?

Since the retreat, a lot of things in my life have been a LOT different.

A lot of things have gotten better, but temptation hasn't gone away one bit.

However, my perspective of temptation and what I do in the face of temptation has changed completely.

I went back to SCL today for the first time in a LONG time, and one of my best friends did the lesson.

What was is about???

Temptation.

Even though I had to leave early to make it to band on time, I got a lot out of what she had to say.

She even gave me her lesson paper when I saw her in the hallway earlier today.

It talked about how even when temptations feel unbearable, they're not.

God has promised us that He'll help us get through any and EVERY temptation, no matter how horrible it feels.

Throughout my struggle and this recovery process, there have been many times where I felt like there was NO way that I could handle some of the things life was throwing at me.

But, NOTHING is too much for God.

His strength is more than enough to get us through the difficult seasons life throws at us.

So...I know this one is shorter than usual, and I may update it and write more about how much this is changing me and my perspective on life and recovery.

But, for now, that's it.

-Kati

Sync

This weekend, my youth group went on our first "just our group" retreat.

Sorry, I couldn't come up with a better way to put it.

AMAZING doesn't even begin to describe the experience I had there.

I've never really had the opportunity to get away from the craziness of life and have some time.

But, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be doing it more often.

I went in with a lot of preconceptions of what I thought the weekend was going to be like.

It blew every single one of them out of the water!!!

I saw how much I had in that group, and how much I need them in my life.

Not only do they keep me entertained ALL THE TIME, they also show me things about God and about myself that I would never had seen otherwise.

We laughed, cried, sang, prayed, worshipped, and just loved together.

I grew so much closer to each and every one of them, especially my girls.

I always feel like I have to put up this front and act like I'm this perfect Christian or else they'll judge me or something.

I saw that they love me just the way I am: crazy, broken, and jacked up.

I went to the retreat with one real best friend in the group; I came out with 5 more.

That's something I NEVER saw coming.

If I learned one major thing about God this weekend, it's that HE IS ENOUGH!!!

I always felt like I had to find some sort of fulfillment in the world to be complete.

But, God is the only one who can fully satisfy me.

He's perfect, and His perfect love makes me whole, even when I feel broken beyond compare.

I know that I'm coming out with a completely different perspective on God and on my youth group.

They blessed my life so much this weekend, and I pray that I can just return half of the love that they've all given me.

Going into this weekend, I felt like I'd kinda lost touch with God because life had been chaotic.

If Satan can't make you be bad, he can certainly make you busy.

That's what has been my biggest problem in my life.

Like I said earlier, I feel like my meaning should be found in the world and the things that this world values.

In doing that, I tuned God out with the noise of my worldly desires.

But, God often does the most work in the times of silence.

At one point this weekend, I had the chance to just sit out in the field behind the house alone and spend time with God one-on-one.

I just cried out to Him, asking Him to renew the fire and passion I once had for Him.

I felt His presence surround me in a way that I'd never felt before, and it broke me down completely.

It pretty much blew me away.

I never thought I could feel God more powerfully alone in silence than at a youth conference or other event with thousands of other Christians.

But, it can certainly happen.

So many things in my life were changed this weekend!!

If I tried to list them all, this blog would be extremely long, and I'd run out of time to write it.

God is AWESOME!!!!!!

Huge thanks to Brent, Terra, Dave, Ashley, Scott, Marilyn, and ALL of NPC Youth!!!

You guys made this an UNFORGETTABLE weekend, and I'm so blessed to know each of you!!!

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!

At long last, I got the group shot.

-Kati (=

Cereal Boxes, Mascara Mustaches, and WAY Too Much Justin Bieber

WARNING: This blog entry is EXTREMELY long, longer than I expected. But, you should still check it out.

  This weekend, I had one of the most crazy, most exciting, and most life-changing experiences I've ever had.

Thursday night (which techinically doesn't count as the weekend), I went to an Aaron Gillespie concert at a local church for a phenomenal night of worship.

 For those of you who haven't heard of him, he's the former drummer/vocalist of UnderOath, and he is/was (not sure) a part of The Almost.

He's currently doing some solo work, and God has certainly blessed him immensely.

It was a fairly small crowd, and it was one of the most authentic worship times I've been a part of.

I felt like God did a lot of work and did a lot of healing in that place.

And I met some pretty cool people there, and one of my good friends had a life-long dream realized by meeting and getting her picture made with Aaron.

The next evening, CHRISTeens 2011.

I hadn't been to this event in about 4 years, and I was rather excited for it.

Though it was certainly different from the time I went where I gave my life to God, it was definitely wonderful, and God showed up in some pretty amazing ways.

Like Thursday, the whole worship aspect is something I always love, and I was not disappointed there.

I just love that feeling of being around people, no matter how many, who are there to experience God in a real and honest way.

I felt like I was able to just let go and not be afraid to show my love for God.

And the theme for the weekend was something that really related to what had been going on my life.

Stick with it.

That's something I seriously suck at (forgive my bluntness).

When things get hard, I'm the first person to give up and not try anymore.

I've done that in so many aspects of my life, and it's something that's become somewhat of a habit to me.

The theme verse was Lamentations 3:35-27:

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks.
It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God.

It's a good thing when you're young to stick it out through the hard times.

That was something I really needed to hear, and a lot of the things that were said were things I'd heard countless times before.

One moment that popped into my head was Alyssa Barlow's talk before Stay With Me at their concert that I went to about a year and a half ago.

She said that God won't take us out of hard times, but He'll help us through them.

One statistic that they kept telling us was that 70% of teens who have a relationship with God won't have one by the time they graduate high school.

By the way I felt like I'd been living my life, I was on the road to being part of that 70%.

I refuse to surrender completely to God's PERFECT will, and I can't forgive myself for the stupid mistakes I've made.

Until I do that, I don't think my faith will be able to stick it out through hard times.

I'll let the stubborn, impatient Kati come through and tell me that God won't be there when I mess up or that He won't forgive me for what I've done.
But, GOD DOES NOT CONDEMN ME!!!!

I mean, sure, He's disappointed to see me mess up, and I'm not suggesting constantly sinning just to feel the abundance of God's grace.

I'm saying that He forgets my past.

As far as the east is from the west, which is really really far, that's how far He's carried my sins from me.

I don't have to live bound by the chains of this world.

He's already SET ME FREE!!!!!

I have to accept that freedom and live the life He's set out for me.

I'm starting to learn how to forgive myself, which is something I never though I could do.

I mean, I know I'm not always gonna accept myself, and there will be times where I feel like giving up because it's easy.

But, through sticking it out, I know my faith will grow substantially.

And, the best part is, that's not even half of what He did in me.

If I tried to write all of that, my fingers would probably fall off, and this blog entry would be way too long even for me.

For those of you who are curious and/or confused about title, I'll give a brief explanation.

The cereal boxes and Justin Bieber kinda go together, because they both had to do with stuff the girls in my group drew in my journal Friday night.

On youth trips, I have this little quirk that I have to have the people in my group sign a notebook.

Terra drew a cereal box, named Katio's.

In her attendance list for youth, she has me listed as Kati-o because she had originally put Katie, which is one of my biggest pet peeves.

So, in fixing it, she put Kati-o.

And Abby wrote that I love J.B., wrote some of the lyrics to Never Say Never, and drew his silhouette.

So, there is a page in my journal dedicated soley to Justin Bieber, who I can now somewhat tolerate...

And mascara mustaches...I don't think I can explain that well.

So...this insanely long blog entry is now over.

-Kati

*These girls are wonderful!!!! I love them (and Terra, who missed out on this shot) dearly!!!

A Little Reprieve from Life

So...like the last month of my life has been INSANELY chaotic.

3 rescheduled all-state auditions, district swim meet, all-state clinic, and the typical craziness of high school is more than enough to drive a girl MAD!!!

But, I learned a lot through all of that.

First, God works in some pretty crazy yet amazing ways.

He's used the weirdest scenarios to teach me some pretty huge lessons.

I've also been able to witness a lot of changes within myself.

I mean, looking back on the last year, I used to be the most negative person I knew.

I've had a lot of people tell me the same thing.

It's true, so it doesn't bother me that others have seen that.

But, I've seen my outlook on life and my future change dramatically.

I think that's what's been driving a lot of my passion for life and the things I love about it.

That passion has increased exponentially, and I'm getting more excited about the things God has in store for me.

At the same time, my future scares me more than anything.

I'm nearing the end of my junior year, and I haven't even begun to make my top choices for college (except I have one top choice) or narrow them down.

I know I have another year to decide, but it's still an intimidating thought.

But, I know God will guide me through it all, and He knows so much more than I do.

I've also seen how much helping other people has changed how I look at my faith and relationship with God.

I've started to reach out more to those who I know are hurting.

That's something I never thought I could do.

I never thought God could use my brokenness to reach others and show them His love.

That's just what He does.

He uses me reaching out to others through my brokenness to not only help them, but it also helps me learn more about myself, my struggles, and how God works.

Wow, my grammar is atrocious in these blogs...(random).

But, I just have to trust that He's given me the relationships I have for a reason, and life is certainly worth the pain.

-Kati

My Story

I don't know what it is about reading/writing/thinking about my story that scares the crap out of me.

It does, though.

And I think I've begun to understand why.

I don't like to think about the person I used to be and all the pain I've dealt with.

It sucks.

But, I've learned something through all of that.

GOD IS FAITHFUL!!!

Through every trial I've been through in my life, He's been the only constant.

I was thinking about that today.

I had a huge chunk of me ripped out recently.

I'm still kinda reeling from that.

I don't really understand what happened or why it happened.

But, I know that God has a plan for this.

It's just really hard for me to see that right now.

I've broken down completely in 2 of the 4 real classes I've had today.

Very rarely do I cry in school.

Kinda funny tangent off of one of those classes, my Contemporary American History teacher offered to let me play Angry Birds on his ipad (I guess in some attempt to make me feel better).

Sadly, I don't know how to play, but I got to listen to my ipod, which sufficed.

But, back on subject.

I know that it's going to be hard to get over it.

But, I know that I'm not alone in this struggle.
I've never completely understood why I have to go through so much crap in life.
The conclusion I've come to is that through our struggles, we're supposed to draw closer to God and go deeper in our faith.
How that works is so far beyond me.
But, He is so much bigger than ANYTHING I could ever face in my life.
I know that He's calling me to do something more than myself.
I just have to trust Him to do help me do that.

-Kati

Lies

I wasn't sure if I wanted to blog about this, and I've started over on it about 10 times in the last 15 minutes.

I tend to let my life be run and/or defined by lies.

Lies about my worth, lies about my identity, lies about other people.

A bunch of lies.

I think people won't love me or accept me unless I'm a certain weight or I dress a certain way.

I think people will judge me or not like me if I tell them what I'm struggling with.

I think that God can't love someone as messed up as me.

I try to base my identity on looks, academics, athletics, and any other worldly thing you can think of.

It has pretty much destroyed my life.

I lose sight of what I should be finding my worth in.

My relationship with and faith in God.

If I try to base my worth on anything else, it will fall apart because it changes so often.

God's love NEVER changes.

He accepts me just the way I am, no matter how far I run away.

That's a concept I'm still struggling to grasp.

I mean, He's the perfect God of the universe.

He created everything on earth and in heaven.
Yet He still desires to have a personal relationship with me.

That pretty much blows my mind.

I've been thinking a lot about this since we talked about it in youth on Sunday.

Replacing lies with God's truth isn't always easy to do, especially if you're like me and have been believing these lies for years.

I've learned that if I want to get better, it's not enough to just know the truth about my worth and God's love for me.

I have to believe it with the very core of my being.

I have to believe it in the face of the most difficult temptation I face.

I have to believe it when the devil is trying to overwhelm me with stress and lies.

I have to trust that God will always love me and take me back.

It's a lot to think about.

For me, it's something I've heard innumerable times.

Yet, it's finally just clicked.

As I'm starting to think about who I am and what I want to do with the rest of my life, I'm trying to see God's plan for me.

It's a scary thing, but I'm trusting that He will lead me and be with me every step of the way.

-Kati

New Year, New Me

I don't think I've ever been more excited for a new year.

Looking back on 2010, I think it went by way too fast at times.

Other times, I feel like it couldn't go any slower.

But, it made me such a better person.

I wouldn't trade a single second of it for anything.

Sure, there are some parts (well...actually a lot of parts) that I really wish I wouldn't have happened.

But, God has used every experience, good or bad, to make me a better person.

I do feel like a different person than I was last year.

I'm starting this new thing in my life.

It's called being real.

Yeah, I know.

It's not super profound or anything like that.

But, it's something I've struggled with for a long time.

I try to maintain this image that everything is perfect.

But, this year I'm going to try to change that.

I'm going to accept that fact that I will never be perfect.

But, I serve a God who is, and His grace is enough to cover all my sins.

I've fallen in love with this song by Addison Road.

They played it at the concert of theirs that I went to about a year and a half ago (I can't believe it's been so long).

It's called Start Over Again, and it's so encouraging.

It talks about how you can let go of your past and start over again.

That's what I want to do in 2011.

Let go of the junk in my past that I continue to let control me.

As much as it hasn't done anything for me, I let it have free reign in my life.

I'm trying to move on, and I know it won't be easy.

In the face of trials, I may be reminded of some of the junk from my past.

But, I can't let that make me feel like I'm worthless like I usually do.

I'm finding my worth in God, and to Him, I have beauty beyond compare.

Wow...that was a total BG song quote.

But, that's really what I'm excited about for 2011.

I expect God to do huge things in my life.

I have a lot of other goals for 2011, but that's what everything boils down to.

God's going to do awesome things in my life.

I just have to trust Him and trust in His plans for my life.

Here's to a wonderful new year!!!!

-Kati