Thankful

     Thanksgiving is two days away and provided Hayes doesn't show up at my house and tell me I have to stay another 6 months (a little Boys of Abu Ghraib humor for ya) I'll be headed home Wednesday after I get off work. So, as a blogger it is my moral obligation to write the cliché blog about what I'm thankful for....but I'm very seriously thankful for all of these things. So, I have split my thankful list into two lists of 15....you'll understand why here in a second.

Things I'm Thankful For List One
1. Gilmore Girls....simple as that.

2. That God created fine specimens such as Jake Abel, Jared Padalecki, Chris Evans, and Scott Patterson.

3. That above specimens wear lots and lots of plaid.

4. Ed's Sheeran's voice....especially when he sings this song.

5. Brendon Urie's voice. Seriously....it's beautiful.

6. THIS! This, this, this. God Bless you Luke. This one too, "It's your butt, Luke!"

7. Cowboy boots, cowboy hats, plaid, and wranglers.

8. Bench Seat Pickup Trucks.

9. BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS!

10. Gilbert Blythe, Luke Castellan, Sam Winchester, and Luke Danes....there are all of my favorite fictional men.

11. Tumblr...the amazing, crazy, and scary world that is Tumblr.

12. Anne of Green Gables, what would be life be like without it?

13. Chinese Food and Pancakes.

14. Adventure...without adventure life wouldn't be worth living and I am so thankful for it.

15. Music...without music my life would be so empty.

Things I'm Thankful For List Two
1. I'm incredibly amazed by and thankful for my Salvation. For Jesus, that God loves me at all. That's pretty great and something to be thankful for.

2. My Parents for loving me, teaching me, supporting me, trusting me, and for being the best parents known to mankind.

3. My little sister, she's taught me so much and let me tell you she keeps me grounded and never lets me get full of myself. She's so smart and talented and honest. I'm honored that I not only get to be her sister but her friend as well.

4. My church family and the fact that I am able to serve on the Praise Team and in the Youth Group.

5. My best friend Kate. Thank you for being the Crowhead to my Carrots and for always being there when I need you, even if you are in a different Country...I can't imagine life without you. Thank you for knowing my deepest darkest secrets and loving me anyway.

6. My other best friend Brooke. The Dean to my Sam. Shawn to my Cory. Thank you for understanding me, putting up with me, for letting me cry. For taking care of me when I'm sick and letting me be grumpy Luke in the mornings. Adventures, sarcasm, and butt kicking are all much appreciated and needed in my life.

7. Honor Academy of the Ozarks and my experience there. For the people it brought into my life especially my CA Blanca and my Core from my second year, Jesse Jo. Without the HAO and all I learned there I would be an awful person. Without these two lovely ladies I would be lost. They both taught me so much and bring so much joy to my life. Thankful to Blanca for staying up late with me and guiding me and giving advice. I'm thankful to Jesse for teaching me how to love with the God kind of love and for being sassy and making everyday interesting.

8. All of my amazing and incredible mentors/friends that I have in my life. Melissa and Ashley, I can't even begin to explain what you mean to me and how thankful I am that God placed you in my life.

9. For food on my table, a roof over my head, and shoes on my feet. Cliché but very true and I never want to take these things for granted.

10. For my Swaggin' Wagon that gets me to work everyday (well most days).

11. Nightlight and that I get to work with them on weekends. The work they do is phenomenal and I'm thankful that I get the opportunity to get involved with something that I am passionate about and truly feel called to.

12. For friends that make life interesting and fantastic....even If you don't get an individual shoutout I still love you.

13. I am thankful for my passions and talents and skills. That I am capable of doing what I love and what I feel called to. That I have the ability to write and sing and work with teenagers and Nightlight. That I can do what I enjoy.

14. My health and that even after all that time spent in the hospital this past summer I am perfectly healthy.

15. God's direction, guidance, and never ending grace.

~Carrots

God Told Me To Go, Jesse Told Me To Write About It

     I'm writing this honestly because Jesse told me I should. We were sitting outside Starbuck, Carmel Brule latte in hand, gazing at the Christmas lights our town had already put up when I started telling her this story. Before I was done something along the lines of, "Why haven't you blogged about this, you need to blog about this now." Came out of her mouth. That was Monday....it's Thursday and I'm finally getting around to starting this post. At first I wanted to be selfish and keep it for me, I wanted my little story and experience to belong to me. God gave it to me. Then I started thinking about how ridiculous I was being, what if someone else needed to hear this? That's why God reveals things to us isn't it? So we can pour it into other people? Well, here's my little story and my little experience that made a big impact for me personally.
    
     Little bit of back story....I work a part time job at a local non-profit. As you can imagine this pays basically nothing and I literally have no idea how I manage to pay rent and buy groceries every month. I had been praying and felt God telling me to stay at my job a little while longer, this is frustrating. I also developed the overwhelming desire and need to start college in January, I prayed about it and felt like I should start applying but I can't afford even one class without financial aid so it felt like a big joke and fruitless endeavor. This is extremely frustrating. My life has basically been stress and penny pinching and become depressed and anxious about my future and worrying about every little thing. A couple weeks ago my sister came to stay with me for the weekend, after church on Sunday I met my parents half way and dropped her off.

     As I was starting the drive back to Missouri I realized that I would have 2 1/2 hours in the car alone so I started to pray, and sing, I turned on worship music, and I spent that time with God. When I got about 45 minutes away from home I had this overwhelming urge of, I need to go to church tonight. The thing is my church doesn't normally have Sunday night services and even if we did I wouldn't have made it back in time. Then God dropped a church I had driven past on my way out in my head. It was about 20 minutes up the road and I knew that I could make it as long as I didn't stop, I didn't even know the denomination of the church, I just knew that, that was where I needed to be that night. I pull into the parking lot at 5:59, the sign says church starts at 6:00....there are only 2 cars in the parking lot. Anyway so I go inside and the Pastor is there with a couple people from the church and low and behold on the last Sunday of the month they don't have an evening service they have an afternoon fellowship and afternoon service instead. Basically, I showed up for church and there was no church. So, I end up going into his office to speak with him. Throughout our conversation I mentioned that my dad is a Pastor.
      "Oh, where is you dad a Pastor?"
      "Kansas," I told him.
      Turns out he was from Kansas too. He had been born there, raised there, graduated high school, met his wife, and got married there. Naturally I asked him where in Kansas he was from expecting Topeka or Salina but no...he looked at me and said, "Arkansas City." I stopped....because that's where I'm from and once you leave Ark City you never run into anyone from Ark City ever again until you go back for a visit. It's just one of those towns that no one leaves...so I knew right then and there that was a total God thing, and God had my absolute undivided attention. When I told him I was from Ark City I saw the look on his face, he knew, he knew I was here for a very specific reason.

      The details of our conversation aren't too important and honestly I won't lie, this is getting to be a long post and I've probably lost most of you at this point and I'm too lazy to write the whole thing anyway. Basically, after that all I told him was that I was currently working and trying to go to school. I didn't tell him anything about my financial situation or how hard it is for me to go to school or anything.

     Out of the blue, and what seemed rather off topic, he told me that the story of how he met his wife is incredible. Of course I thought he would then tell me the story of how he met his wife. Instead he said, "Let me tell you what I learned from our story. I learned to trust God. To completely let go of my life and let him take control. I learned that when I let go he works it out. He brings us amazing and better things, he brings us to new places. We have to stop trying to figure out and make it work because that's not our job, it's his. God figures out. The desires of our hearts, the things we want, our plans, and the things that God has called and asked us to do that seem impossible...we can't stress over them. We can't crunch the numbers and lay awake at night and worry about it. We can't make the move on our own and try to make it fit together and work. If God called us to do it, if he placed the desire in our heart then he'll make it work. He'll come in and bring all together but not until we set it down and let him completely have it."

     Talk about hearing exactly what I needed to hear. I didn't say much I just nodded and smiled and soaked it all in. Then before I left he asked if he could pray for me and I said yes. We started praying and it was a pretty typical, thank you for bringing her here, type of prayer. Then in the middle of praying he pauses and starts again with, "Lord, just take this time to remind Kaitlin that you are her security. Financially, physically, spiritually, emotionally...you are her security. You're her provider and her protector and she doesn't need to worry because you care for her."

     Again....right what I needed to hear. Even as I type it, I need to hear it again. Man...I really don't know how to wrap up this blog only to say maybe you needed this too. Trust God, and yeah. I leave you with a promise to work on my conclusions.

~Carrots