Sharing Katie

Day 4- Book for a friend.

I gave Kisses from Katie to a friend. She was very excited to receive it.

I thought this might be a page turner and what I found was even though I was compelled to keep reading, I also slowed way down and chewed and digested the words. I started taking notes. I marveled at how many of the things she said were an echo of my own life. I’m not saying that because I live this all great Godly life and Katie and I are practically like twins! I’m saying that the things God has revealed to me as of late, the truths I have been impacted by are the same truths Katie writes about.

“For years I had fantasized about doing something incredible for God and others; what I have learned is that I can do nothing incredible, but as I follow God into impossible situations, He can work miracles in and through me.” p. 2

“The children would run to me with gifts of stones or dirt and I saw myself, filthy and broken, offering my life to the God of the universe and begging Him to make it into something beautiful. I sit here in a broken world, small and dirty at His feet, and He who sits so high chooses to commune with me, to love me anyway.” p. 7

I have felt that last quote resonate in my own life over and over, especially in the last three months as a new set of exchange kids are here. They come with broken, messed up lives and people pour out their very hearts into helping them. Some receive it slowly, some lap it up, some choose to reject it- too many weeds, thorns, or simply the hard pack soil it falls on refuses the seed. And I see families pained in a hard way- not necessarily bad. And I fall to my knees for them. God chose in the middle of one prayer to say to me for all of them “I know and I love anyway”. He said that over and over until I clung to it. Here our eyes are opened, if we let them be, and we see our own sin and wretchedness. We let God peel back another layer of scabbing and it hurts and yet He knows and He lets us feel and He heals if we trust.

“And God spoke so plainly to me. He did not apologize for my heartache; even better, he shared it. He knew.” p. 203

“He called me to this and because He gave His life for me. This means that it has been granted to me, it is my privilege, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for Him. Phil. 1:29 That suffering is not alone, but is with Him, and oh, what a privilege it is just to be able to to be in His presence, to share that with my sweet Savior. This is what it means when I say I do it for Jesus. he loved me first: I love him back. And sometimes it hurts. But even then it is pure joy to even be considered worthy to share in His suffering. That is the promise: not that He is sorry that it hurts, but that He sees; that He knows; that He is here with us.” p. 205

And then we grasp a portion of His love and we fall and cry and thank Him and we give more of our lives in return.

Katie is 22. 22!! That’s what keeps getting me. She’s has time trialed wisdom of much older person, not of a 22 year old.

Katie, I’m sure, does not want to be idolized. She wants you to turn and give your worship to God. Maybe you don’t need her book- there are lots out there that say similar things, I’m sure. I’ve just read this one and am sharing it with you.

You can borrow my book if you send me an email or you can purchase it through 147 Million Orphans, who will give 50% of the money to Amazima Ministries.