2011. Wow. It’s honestly kind of a blur. A wonderful blur but a blur nonetheless. Our wonderfully sweet and strikingly beautiful Lydia was born March 30th of 2011 and as of April 1st, everything got a little hazy! We love this precious beauty but spent the first seven months of her life sleeping little and just trying to survive. The Lord’s grace was abundant to me through it all and I learned to lean on Him in a new way–for actual strength just to make it through the day.

I had hoped to walk through the New Testament in 2011 but only made it through March. My soul is thirsty for God’s Word and specifically for gospel truth. In response to the Spirit’s leading, I am starting my journey once again tomorrow, January 2nd and am so excited and expectant for the Lord to draw me into greater intimacy with Him and knowledge of Him.

I would absolutely LOVE for you all to join me. Here’s how this reading plan I created works:

• We’ll read all 260 chapters of the NT in the 260 weekdays of 2012 (http://thefreshman15biblestudy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/260-in-260.NT-Reading-Plan-2012.pdf)
• Each day you’ll read a chapter from the set plan.  To dig deeper into your reading, it would be helpful to journal.  Here’s what I’ll be doing as I read:

1. Pray: Ask God to give me an increased hunger and love for His scripture and to stir the Spirit in me that delights in His Word and gives me understanding into all it teaches.
2. Read the chapter.
3. Outline what it says.
4. Write out the scripture that stands out the most.
5. Pray and journal about what I believe the Spirit is teaching me through this selection.

I already have a few girls who’ve committed to doing this with me.  I will be sending them a text message each day with the day’s reading.  I’ve also created a FB group for those who want to participate.  I’ll be posting commentary to aide in our study and would love to use that as a forum for us to share what God is teaching us as we study.

Are you in?  Let me know! We start TOMORROW!!!

I spent some time in Psalm 119 this morning and was challenged and encouraged by the writer’s affection and desire for the Word of God. Here are a few things he said about it:

I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments.

In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.

Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.

Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain.

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.

Better than the turkey and dressing you’ll gobble up tomorrow and sweeter than any piece of pumpkin pie is the Word of God.

Sometimes things get crazy when we get home and get to hang out with our families. My challenge to you is to take a few minutes away to FEAST from God’s Word this Thanksgiving Break. It is the meal that always satisfies and never leaves you feeling bloated!

When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight… Jer 15:16

For His glory,

Six weeks into my freshman year and I was ready to go home.  The excitement was wearing off and the stress was setting in.  The fun of everything new was gone and all I wanted was something old, something familiar, something normal.  Erie, PA was a long way away from my Texas home and I was tired of being different.  At first it was cute that everyone called me “Tex” but after a while, I just wanted to be Kate.  Unfortunately, I walked onto that campus without a friend to my name and after six weeks, there is only so much new friends canreally know about you.  These friends didn’t know me like my old buddies did and certainly not like my family who I hadn’t seen and wouldn’t see for another five weeks.  Classes had lost their appeal, too as midterms were quickly approaching. I pulled my first college all-nighter, got an awful grade on a paper, started drinking way to much caffeine and began to hate everything about college.

I got a phone call from a sweet friend (whom I now call hubby).  His Texas accent and southern charm brought a warmth and nostalgia I needed so badly.  I poured out my heart to him and he listened well.  He, having already done the whole college thing, gently requested, “Call me before you pack your bags.”  It was the wisest, best thing he could have said.  He didn’t try and tell me to stay and tough it out.  He just listened, as if knowing I would make the right decision but also taking me serious enough to validate what I was dealing with.  Thinking about actually packing my bags and heading home brought things into perspective.  I didn’t really want to leave.  I did really want to be here.  I sat down, talked to the Lord, begged for His help and cracked my books to prepare for midterms.

You know…after that near breakdown, things got better.  Before I knew it, I was making real connections with friends, getting the hang of how to study well so I wasn’t killing myself and starting to feel at home on campus. The funny thing is…just about the time I started to settle in on campus, it was time to head home for Thanksgiving break.  I was thrilled to be returning home but yet I had started making a home where I was.  The challenge I would face as I headed back to Texas was one I wasn’t prepared for but…we’ll have to save that for a later blog post.

Does all this sound familiar? Are you struggling with homesickness?  School ugh? Exhaustion?  You know I have been there and my heart goes out to you.  I encourage you to sit down, talk to the Lord and maybe make a phone call home to a familiar voice.  If you’re really feeling like throwing in the towel, my request to you is this: call me before you pack your bags.

Here are some scriptures to meditate on if you’re struggling with homesickness:

Hebrews 13:5-6, 2 Corinthians 1:3-7, Lamentations 3:22-24, Philippians 4:6-7, Psalm 121:1-8

For His glory,

photo cred: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/travel/5-uses-for-vintage-suitcases-059341

The last three months have been the most physically demanding and emotionally exhausting of my life.  Our sweet Lydia was born with a milk protein allergy that has caused her a great deal of tummy issues.  I’m thankful to be able to put a name to it now because the eight weeks we spent trying to figure it out were grueling.  To watch your new baby wrench in pain, struggle to eat and therefore struggle to sleep is distressing, to put it mildly.  The emotional toll is exhausting and when coupled with physical exhaustion due to sleep deprivation, depression rushes in.  Accomplishing simple, daily tasks is difficult when you are surviving on four hours of sleep for weeks on end.  I started telling people not to even ask how I was doing because I just didn’t want to answer. (*Please don’t mistake my recounting of this difficulty as complaining.  I am well aware that my struggle is trivial compared to the trials of so many.  However, I feel it’s important to give a picture of the pain in order that God may be more glorified as I explain His triumph in it.)

In recent days, the Lord has opened my eyes to the ways He has been blessing me through this.  My first glimpse into His hand at work came from a quote by Paul Tripp that read like a mirror into my soul, “Today you’ll talk to yourself and speak a humbling gospel of grace or a false gospel of self-reliance, self-rule, self-righteousness.”  I grew up with a “pull yourself up by your boot straps” mentality.  When things got tough, you were just supposed to reach deep down and grab hold of enough gumption to get you through.  I took this mentality in trying to survive Lydia’s first days.  I remember waking up and thinking, “OK, Kate.  You can do this.  Come on!”  Boy, how wrong I was.  I was preaching to myself a false gospel of self-reliance, self-rule and self-righteousness.  When I read Tripp’s quote, this false gospel echoed in my ears and I was struck by conviction.  I realized how feeble and certainly unhelpful that gospel had been to me.  It had not strengthened me.  Instead, it made me feel more exhausted and down on myself.  As I confessed my sin, I felt that false gospel of self reliance start to fall away as the gospel of grace poured over me.  Relief.  For the first time in weeks, relief.  I could breath and felt hope.  Since that day, my sweet Lord has given me a renewed hunger for His gospel and a provisional grace unlike none I have ever known.  My new morning thought after four hours of sleep is, “Lord, it must be You today.  Please pour out Your grace.”

In church last weekend, our wonderful Emmy Davis sang Blessings by Laura Story.  It was the first time I’d heard the song and in that auditorium seat, the Lord once again poured grace over me and the evidence trickled down my face.  Tears.  But this time not of sadness and depression.  These were tears of gratitude to a very good God who had rescued me from myself and was letting me know what He’d been up to.  Here’s an excerpt from the song:

“Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the achings of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise”

A thousand sleepless nights.  I wasn’t there yet but it honestly felt like it.  For the first time, I didn’t see Lydia’s struggle as a burden or something to feel sorry for myself about, I saw it as a blessing.  My Father loved me enough to allow this very difficult season in order that I might return to Him.  No more reliance on self but complete trust and reliance on Jesus.  A blessing disguised as sleepless nights.

My hope is that you’ll be encouraged by this post to consider how the Lord may be blessing you through whatever your trial may be.  Whether it’s the daily tug of the stress and pressures of this life or deep, down heartache like you’ve never known, He is revealing a longing for something better.  I hope you’ll give up trying to figure it all out yourself and realize the answer is in Him.  He is BETTER.

I crave the praise of man. I devour compliments, admiring glances & words of praise. They make me feel good. Full. Satisfied. Like I’ve just eaten a great meal. Inevitably the full feeling fades & I’m hungry again. When I’m wearing a cute outfit & no one compliments it, my hunger grows. When I’m having a good hair day & no one notices, my appetite deepens. When I do something well & no one tells me “good job” the hunger pains begin to ache. My growing hunger used to cause me to act out in sin & draw me into bondage. This desperate need to satisfy the hunger led me so deep into anorexia that I no longer felt true, physical hunger. I existed by feeding the appetite to be loved, liked, envied & seen as beautiful-not to mention skinny.

All praise to the God who set me free from that bondage & gave me a taste of something Better. He gave me a hunger for the Bread of Life who satisfies my every craving. In Him I am loved, accepted & secure.

Now, when I feel that craving for man’s praise start to ache within me, I know what it is. It now indicates to me that I have taken my eyes off the Savior & focused them on the mirror. I close my eyes & preach the Truth of the gospel to my hunger. “You are loved. You are accepted. You are secure in Christ. You are God’s beautiful creation.” The ache for the praises of men weakens & my desire for Christ burns within me.

These truths are yours as well. Do you believe them? YOU are loved. YOU are secure in Christ. YOU are God’s beautiful creation. YES. YOU!

Romans 12:2-3 “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary they have diving power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

 
Ephesians 4:22 “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its’ deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

For His glory,

photo cred: http://fingercandymedia.com/applause

Phineas and Ferb anyone? By far my favorite of all my son’s cartoons is Phineas and Ferb and when the all too familiar theme song started playing today, I couldn’t help but think of my F15 ladies who are out on summer vacation. The theme song is true, there are only 104 days of summer vacation and all too quickly school will come along to end it. What you have to decide is how you will spend it.

My husband and I sat down last weekend and, for the second year in a row, wrote down goals on a paper titled “Our Intentional Summer.” We have goals as a couple, goals for the family and then individual goals we’d like to accomplish. This helps us set the framework for how we’ll spend our summer days. I’m looking forward to sitting down with him again in August and reviewing how God used this summer to grow us spiritually, make us healthier and help us reconnect with those we love.

Summer is such a wonderful time to rest, hang out by the pool and just take it easy but if you’re not intentional about your time, August will come and you’ll realize the summer just slipped right by and you didn’t get to do all that you wanted. I encourage you to take a view minutes today and prayerfully consider how the Lord wants you to spend your summer. You may not be building a rocket, chasing a mummy or climbing up the Eiffel Tower (wink wink) but I know He has big plans for you! Go to Him and ask for guidance about what books to read, people to meet up with, ministry opportunities to be involved in, etc. Then, write down what you feel like He is leading you to do and put it somewhere you’ll see it daily. It will be so neat to look over the list before you head back to school. Many of the gooals we’ve set in our home became lifestyle changes that effected our family for the better and for God’s greater glory.

I love you all and hope you have an incredible summer!

For His glory,

Pic cred: http://www.tvrage.com/shows/id-12677

I was working through my 260 in 260 scripture today and was struck by Ephesians 6 in a new way.   It was especially startling because I am so familiar with this scripture.   It is one I teach at every Freshman 15 Retreat and seek to drive home it’s truth to you, ladies. However, as the Holy Spirit amazingly does, the scripture jumped off the page and pierced my heart in a new way this morning and I just couldn’t resist sharing. This blog post is just a simple journal entry exactly as I wrote it this morning. I felt compelled to share and my hope is you are challenged as I was.

Here is the scripture and the journal entry that followed:

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, AS YOU WOULD CHRIST, not by the way of eye service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God FROM THE HEART,…” Ephesians 6:5-6

I’ve read this scripture so many times and have never felt the conviction I felt today from the line, “as you would Christ.”  Do I serve Christ this way?  With a sincere heart? With fear and trembling? Not to please others but from the heart?  I don’t know.  I think a lot of times I serve Christ from duty, diligence and out of guilt.  I lack fear and trembling because I don’t see Him rightly.  Instead of bowing in fear of His power and might-I casually address Him as buddy and friend.  I regrettably see Him as equal instead of Master.  My service to Him doesn’t falter-not because of Him alone but because I fear man & want others to see my obedience to my Savior.

I believe that if I would see and serve Him rightly, my struggle with earthly masters would disappear.  But how can I serve them “as to the Lord” if I’m not serving the Lord as He requires?

Father, help me to see You in light of who You really are.  I bow my heart and bend my knees.  Humble my spirit and transform my heart.   Transform my desires so that I would seek to serve You from a right heart-with “love incorruptible” (Ephesians 6:24).

May God, by His power, transform our hearts to see Him rightly and therefore, serve Him rightly.  When we do, service to our earthly masters will easily follow.

For His glory,

What a blessing it was to spend the weekend with these amazing senior girls from FBC Keller.  We were ushered to the throne each day through the worship of the very gifted Melissa Briggs and had great food and a great setting thanks to Meredith Minor and First Baptist Keller.

This was a crazy, fun group of girls and I loved laughing with them and watching them laugh with one another!  From the scavenger hunt that was just a mess (with only one team actually making it to all of the stops!), to the highly competitive, break out in a sweat game of Catch Phrase to the late night dance party I fell asleep to the first night…the fun just never stopped!  However, when it was time to get down to business and dig into God’s Word, they easily switched from silly to studious. I loved being able to share with them the hope and truth the Lord has to guide them through their college years and I so look forward to keeping up with these ladies as they finish out their senior year and head off to college.

I believe God will use them in a mighty way to reach their campus’ for Christ and I look forward to the legacy of faith they’ll create as they serve God in college and the years that follow.

For His glory,






Photo courtesy of: http://www.melissabriggsphotography.com/

We had such an awesome time in Little Rock, Arkansauce (as my 3 yr old calls it!). Melissa Sponer, the very creative and very thoughtful girls minister at IBC in Little Rock, put together a truly special weekend for the retreat. We stayed at the famous Peabody Hotel in downtown Little Rock where the red carpet is rolled out daily for a precious little group of ducks that march their way from their terrace home to the lobby fountain. It was a riot!

I had so much fun getting to love on these seniors and hearing about all of their excitement and anxiety as they prepare to head off to college. We had a blast touring downtown which included a tip worthy performance from a street-corner Michael Jackson impersonator and a tour through the Old State Capitol where we got to critique all of Hillary Clinton’s old ball gowns on display. We finished the retreat with an excellent meal at a brazillian steakhouse and it was a delight to hand these seniors their framed copy of The Freshman 15 and know that these must-packs would make it to their dorm room walls.

Once again, I was able to watch as God spoke His truth to these ladies and their fears about college just melted away. Please join me in praying for them as they prepare for the journey ahead. I believe God will be glorified mightily through these precious ones.

For His glory,

What a way to kick off retreat season! I had such an awesome time last weekend with this amazing group of senior ladies from Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, TX. The Lord did a mighty work as He transformed their anxiety to excitement and peace about all He has for them as they head off to college. I loved all the hugs at the end of the retreat that were met with a little whisper letting me know, “I’m ready to go now” and “I’m so excited and can’t wait to see what God has in store!”

I was so blessed to come home and open my FB to find a message from a sweet attendee who let me know God used the weekend to get a hold of her heart. In her words, “…this weekend has helped me re-focus and realize what I need to do – and that is to fall in love with the Lord. And through being in an intimate relationship with God, He will prepare my heart for when it is time for me to date.”

I just love it when God speaks and I am so blessed to be a part of His ministry to these ladies.
Thank you to all of you who prayed over this weekend. God moved and I believe we are sending these ladies out to be lights on their campus and give God big glory in college.

For His glory,