You're absolutely golden.

I am rooting for all of you so hard. 

Turn on some soft lighting to collaborate with sunlight creeping through your window.

Wear some soft clothing but let your warrior heart beat strong. Document the victories and tricky times that are happening right now. You're probably about to finish something, big or small, so allow the feelings to exist as you arrive at the conclusion. 

Be intentional with the time you have left in where you are - take those little breaks for coffee dates and let out the deepest belly laughter with your humans because that's good for you. 

Go outside. Find some blooms and take them home with you. Be gentle with yourself, go back to why you started the thing in the first place. Be generous, be kind and work hard. 

Move + shake + achieve + check things off your long to-do list, but make sure you make yourself be still for a little bit too. 

Sweet friends, I am rooting for you so hard. You've got this. You're absolutely golden.

Plant the seed.

Honesty hour: my heart so badly wants to have answers as a response to people's questions about my post-graduation // post summer plans — for them to nod their heads and say, "We feel good about you going out into the world because you have a plan."

There seems to be infinite bright + shiny potential dancing in front of me but my vision is blurry so I can't see what's right there. The world feels so big and I feel like such a small Kate.

Here's the thing, though. Last week I planted a tiny seed in a dirt filled dixie cup. I knew it would be easy to throw away when it didn't grow because I am notorious for having a black thumb. I can't even keep succulents alive.

But I remembered to water it a little bit every day and kept it perched on a sunny windowsill. I frequently checked on it, impatiently begging it to start growing. Each time I looked, there was only dirt but I kept nurturing the seed in the slightest chance it would work.

I came home tonight and there was a tiny, hopeful bud peeking from the soil. When all I could see was dirt, the seed's roots were beginning to grow out of sight.

So here's my answer to the question. Right now, God is planting a metaphorical seed in my heart and is nurturing it with water, sunlight + patience. I cannot see a bloom yet but oh, how the roots are growing. Give me a little time as I pray the crazy "God, plant these seeds... help them to bloom when I'm supposed to see them, do with me what you will and I'll do it" prayer.

Patience. Trust that roots are growing and at the right moment, I will be able to give a concrete answer.

|| Habbakuk 2:3 ||

Twenty Seven Days.

Let’s curl up under a few warm blankets, make a fresh pot of coffee and share some honest talk for a little while.

Twenty seven is the scariest number for me right now. Tomorrow that number will change to twenty six. The next day — twenty five.

A few days ago, everything felt just as sweet as it normally does between God and me. My soul was overflowing with untroubled rest, unreserved hope and trusting love. As I was walking to class on Wednesday, I felt all of that suddenly crumble. A pit of unpredictable anxiety grew as if our lifeline was snipped with a pair of scissors.

I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but echoes of uncertainty erased the inklings of plans I thought maybe God had for after graduation. Fear rooted deeper than that of confidence. I’ve prayed so incessantly for clarity about my next steps but nothing has come to fruition, let alone realization. With graduation just twenty seven days away, that doesn’t fill me with peace.

I know that God doesn’t hide. Sometimes I’ve seen Him work by storming into my life in the mightiest, moving and shaking way to set me on a new path. More often I hear Him in still and hidden whispers.

Maybe lies of fear are closing off my heart, stopping me from listening to what He’s trying to tell me. Maybe I’m afraid of doing big things and failing. Afraid of leaving what I know and then being too small. Afraid of being unworthy or unqualified for what I want to do and so I avoid thinking about it.

Afraid.

Afraid.

Afraid.

Oh, my heart aches to answer curious people’s questions with concrete plans. All I can tell them right now is that I’m sure God’s ways are so, so good and my plans haven’t been revealed to me yet. As a planner — someone who doesn’t like surprises — it feels incredibly uncomfortable to not be able to confidently assure people that I know what I’m doing yet.

But a lingering, restless heart cannot possibly be an accident. I’m sure it means that something is stirring within me, waiting to make an appearance at just the right time. Last week, my heart was shaking off the fact that graduation is so close and pretending to be okay. But I think now it’s to the point where God is telling me that I have to sweetly wreck my heart and fully trust in His works.

I have to tune out fear. There is so much beauty in God’s quiet seasons, what I’m experiencing now — opportunities to be still and allow our hearts to settle and let calmness overflow the aches in our chests. There’s beauty in silence, in the woods, in the desert.

Last night, late, lies of failure and unpreparedness were filling my mind. This unexpected lost-in-the-forest kind of season is fear bringing. I know God’s not hiding from me because He doesn’t do that. Maybe he’s just lingering a bit so I can trust Him, or maybe I’m hesitating to listen.

Jesus used to go out into the desert to be freed of distraction to pray. Last night, I didn’t have a desert nearby but oh, did I have rain. I could hear it as I was listening to “Pieces” by Amanda Cook, having a mind battle with God — getting progressively more angry at the sudden unrest in my heart. The rain sounds on my bedroom roof drew me in. I peeled off my socks and walked outside. I allowed my bare feet to rest in a puddle of cold water; face turned towards the sky and allowed the unforgiving downpour to wash over me. The drops slid down my face. I breathed.

Friends, we are so much more than dust and bones. Our hearts are glowing embers that await kindling and air to burn strongly, even in the darkest of times.

The good news is that we have a tool — the Holy Spirit. God works in our lives, the Holy Spirit is with us to help us go boldly and be patient. Even if we feel like we’re the most unqualified of humans, we have to remember that Jesus is love and what we do is about our hearts and not our works.

“Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3: 4-5).

I have to erase this fear of what is to come because as long as our works are done in love, our works are beautiful. God’s spirit moves within our hearts because we are made for mission. It’s not of ourselves, rather it’s of him — whether we want to be an artist, a teacher or an accountant.

Go to the desert or out in the rain where you listen to God’s sweet words. I’m sure that our stories were written on our hearts since before we were born in the most beautiful tapestries and His call for our mission won’t look the same for anyone else.

And that soothes my soul. 

Love,

Kate

{"Pieces" by Amanda Cook. Seriously. Listen.}

Strong Worker.

God, I pray to be filled with the energy of a strong worker in the coming weeks, a worker who is completely focused on her calling to use her hands for a good work that pleases You, a worker without the time for anxiety or comparison. I pray that I can simply give my heart to my process of making and not be selfish thinking about praise that may come. Keep me humble. Keep me faithful. Keep me genuine. Keep me real. I pray for focus on what is important + to fall so deeply in love with my work as I approach the end of my thesis. I pray for others to feel the desire to explore the work my hands made. God, help me trust the direction my life is moving and please feed my soul in the ways I don't realize it needs 🌻 || Commit your work to God, and your plans will be established 💛 {Proverbs 16:3}

TWO WEEKS UNTIL I BEGIN INSTALLING MY SENIOR THESIS SHOW! 

February 14.

I am resting so sweetly in my current season of life. 

My heart is (after a lot of insecurity and work) at last a home of strength + independence, safely nurtured and radically changing in the best way. With every beat, I feel my heart being moved and shaken by the most precious, uncomplicated form of love. 

For as long as I can remember, I've heard a quiet whisper that God has been pursuing my heart since before I was born, that I am a Daughter of the King. That even though I am just one small, quiet human who makes art and gets emotional at the sight of basset hounds, God knows exactly how many strands of hair are on my head.

I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around that.

But I'm beginning to truly understand that even though God's love is unconditionally given + grace-filled, I have to be willing to reciprocate His beautiful pursuit + actually show up. To desire that relationship with God before one with anybody else. So that's what I'm trying to do.

The process is making me evaluate what I need to dig out from my soul and it is far from clean and shiny. In fact, it's messy and grimy, and some steps seem to harden my heart rather than soften it. But I think that's supposed to happen.  

This season of my life, this season of pursuing and showing up, is allowing me to be a doer, a dreamer + a maker, and the singleness that God has so intentionally gifted me with is allowing me to refine...

Do things that matter to me. 

Rely on myself to make things happen.

Finding my worth in God rather than seeking negativity + bitterness in being single. 

I'm confident that this is the season I'm supposed to be in right now. But that's not to say that I've ceased the process of waiting + hoping. Far from it, actually.

Yesterday I painted faces at a six year old's birthday party. Little things like seeing such happiness in a young family shakes my confidence a tad, causing a slight ache of desire and anxiety that I'm nearly 23 and quite laughably far from getting married. 

Because I'm not sure if I've even met him yet. I don't know his name or how he likes his coffee in the mornings. But I do know that God is teaching me to love him right now, teaching me to be patient (though sometimes with sadness or anxiety). Showing me how to already love him so deeply in this season of my life, even though I don't even know his name yet. 

The coming days, months, maybe even years will allow me to continue praying for him so abundantly, hoping that I'm using this period of waiting as a time to understand that his heart is being prepared and that mine is slowly being taught to not be anxious or hard or afraid. 

It's kind of hard to picture it now but someday I'd like to think I'll reside in a sweet little home, with fresh blooms always installed in every corner, the air saturated with scents of freshly baked bread — though I'll first have to learn to do that... — with forest green + cream colored walls, oversized windows for natural lighting and the most warm, cozy + welcoming family. 

All that sounds wonderful in its right circumstance.

And so this process of waiting will not freeze my heart or make me doubt there aren't "good ones" still out there. I'll continue being a doer, a dreamer, a maker, a Daughter of the King as I pursue Him first before anyone else — so that my heart is full of God's precious unconditional love when it's finally time for my own sweet story. 

Love,

Kate