This year has been full of adventures, things that I thought were going to happen never happened and things I never thought would happen, happened.
I’ve had my share of trials and triumphs, but overall I would say this year has been awesome. The Lord has put passion back into my heart that I had lost along the way of becoming an adult.
See when I was in high school I had wanderlust, like hardcore. I had this deep desire to travel and meet new people and just abandon all to serve the Lord.
I didn’t want to go college or even get stuck in a job because I always wanted to just pick up and go. I had no desire to settle down. The idea of living a nomadic life was exciting and very attractive to me.
Then a couple months ago, I thought if I don’t get involved with missions again I would be very happy. If I never traveled again, I would be happy with that too.
What happened? Where did all my passion go?
Well it’s simple, I let the world take it away from me.
As I started looking at myself I noticed just how much I had changed. I was no longer a kid anymore with this passion and desire to abandon all. I was an adult with a desire to want a steady income and a place to call home and have every comfort in my reach.
Who even am I?
Like when did I become this self absorbed monster who only thinks of herself!?
I remember being nine and my dream vacation was going to Ireland and sitting in a field of green and reading endless amounts of books. I made myself a bucket list when I was sixteen and swore to myself that I would not live a normal life. When I was eighteen, I sat in my room crying at the thought of millions dying everyday and never knowing that Christ died for them. I just wanted the Lord to take me on adventures.
I look at my self now and think, I don’t care about any of that anymore. The saddest part of all was that it didn’t scare or concern me. I was fine feeling that way.
So what did the Lord do? Well i’ll tell you what He did.
He shook everything I thought I knew and gave me the run around. He didn’t give me a gentle push He shoved me. He let me have everything that I thought I wanted.
And of course if my life was playing as a movie, you as the audience would be yelling at the TV screen of how dumb i’m being and how much of a mistake taking this route would be.
In my eyes though, I was living the “American Dream”, but that idea burnt out real quick and I was left with this unsatisfied need to have more. I thought if I get a better job or just try to be a different person then it all will work out.
Then about two months ago penniless and passionless I was reminded of a passage that I read when I was still living in TX.
Ecclesiastes 2:10-11:
“Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun”.
I was grasping for the wind, I had no passion anymore.
That is when it really hit me, I bought into a lie. My passions and desires that the Lord had given me were gone. I acted like they never existed. So naturally I started crying as any good idiot would and just begged the Lord to give me passion again.
You see it wasn’t what I was doing that was wrong it was the intentions of my heart, having a job and stability was fine, but it was the fact that I was consumed with myself that I forgot about the Lord.
Since realizing the error of my ways, the Lord has slowly been putting those desires back into my heart again. Not only a passion for traveling and the world race but a passion for Him again. It’s funny because I feel like the grinch, each day I feel the fire in my heart growing stronger and stronger and my heart for the Lord and for serving others is getting bigger and bigger too.
To finish off this long blabbing blog, I want to share a quote that I feel sums up this journey that I went through and hopefully inspires you too to not focus on yourself but on the Lord.
“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life”.
This quote for me is special, I know now that as a Christian there is more to life than just those things. And living an extraordinary life doesn’t mean living in the Amazon, eating grubs or having an awesome job where you make a ton of money.
It’s about the Lord and the life that He wants you to live whatever that looks like.
Woo, ok i’m done, if you’ve read this far thank you and i’m sorry it was so long I just had a lot I needed to get out.
Love – Kathryn
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