A Prayer of Gratitude

Dear Lord:
Thank you for the many blessings you have brought into my life. I am blessed with amazing friends, like Larry who is always so practical and thorough, and whose faith commitment serves as a model for me in being the type of parent, spouse, and Christian servant I aspire to become. Beba who is just in love with life, and works to find the joy and humor in any situation. Sarah and Lisa who are running the same races I am with respect to career and relationships, and who can mentor me in so many ways.

Thank you for the resources and intelligence to attend law school, and the exciting prospect of my law school merging with Western Michigan University. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to do this part time without having to sacrafice my career and for the chance to return to weekend classes and spending time with my weekend student friends once again.

Thank you for my family - my Mom who models gratitude, patience, kindness and optimism for me, and my Dad who is the most philanthropic person I know, who gives and expects nothing in return. Thank you for parents who just want me to be happy and safe, and have no further expectations of me. Thank you for Zuma and Jewels who give me a reason to slow down the pace of my life, to stop and smell the roses. In addition to my immediate family, thank you for my extended family and for the fellowship we shared with them as they had us over for a delicious Easter dinner.

Thank you for the bible study girls and my Kirk family, who keep me rooted in my faith, and keep my marriage with Christ a daily work that is always growing, who keep me on track despite my own personal set backs. The only way we will ever find our true vocation is through a life married to Christ.

Thank you for Accenture, and the many opportunities that it has afforded me - the chance to travel and see the world when I was younger, the chance to fellowship with international colleagues at St Charles, the informal mentorship along the way through people like Julie, Britaini, Ameer, Marty, Sue, Matt, Scott, and Saman, and others. Thank you for the opportunity to live in a nice home and maintain a nice life. At this point, I pray that you will guide me in what to do next in my career, how to best use my talents and skills to glorify God, and whether my career itself has ever been about glorifying God or just about glorifying self :-/

Thank you for Autumn, and the children's book that we are currently writing. Autumn is so talented and I am fortunate to have connected with her.

Thank you, Lord, for the many things that you have given me. I don't deserve any of them, but I am beyond thankful for all of them. You have made my life the great thing that it is!! And I am working hard to be constantly appreciative for it, and to wake up and live every day with a bit of excitement as if it were building up to my prom night or my first date or my graduation ceremony or something else that's equally exciting. And I ask you to strengthen my integrity and work ethic so that every day I can help to build your kingdom.

-Kathryn

Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat (my first musical)

When I was 10 years old, I saw my first musical - "Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." I went with my Mom. I got to dress up. And we drove downtown to the Fox Theatre. We ordered snacks for the show, and my Mom even bought me a cassette tape with the songs on it.

I've been reading up on the story of Joseph and his dreams. It seems that we might be wise to act on our dreams, but also to keep some of our dreams to ourselves. Here's why:

(1) If our dreams are from God, then it doesn't matter what others think, so why share them? When Joseph had two dreams with the same message it meant that "the matter had been firmly decided by God, and God would do it soon." (Genesis 41:32) So why consult others? If there is doubt in our minds, the doubt is irrelevant if we can determine that the dream is from God.

(2) Keeping a dream to ourselves allows us to determine whether the dream is really from God. God's exaltation of a man is never for the man himself; it is for the glorification of God and the edification of others, so if the dream is one that God intends for us, we need to determine whether it is for ego (read: not from God) or for God and others (read: from God). There should be no self-promotion to our dreams. A good test of this is whether we can applaud another person doing the same thing with the same skills. If we can't, then it's about us - not God and others!

(3) We are called to "check on the shalom (peace) of our brothers." (Genesis 37:14). If sharing our dreams makes others feel bad, then we probably shouldn't do it.

The Meaning of Marriage

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and give himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless" -Ephesians 5:22-28 [condensed]

The difference between a secular marriage and a Christ-honoring marriage is that in a Christ-honoring marriage your mission is to make each other better servants, to focus each other on your true vocations in life. The marriage is not between the bride and groom, but between God, the bride, and the groom. Hence why in most Christian ceremonies the minister asks the bride and groom a series of questions which they answer facing the minister and the altar (making their commitments to God). Then they recite their vows to one another either by repeating after the minister or by reading vows they have written down(making their commitments to each other). That entire first half of commitments is completely missing in a secular ceremony. Are secular marriages legitimate? Yes. Are religious marriages legitimate? Yes. But each serves an entirely different purpose. I've struggled with this, being a Christian who was dating a Jew up until a few weeks ago. I think it would be, well, impossible to have a Christ-honoring marriage with someone who does not believe in Christ (or was just raised with no real concept of Christ). Then I look at the  religions comparatively, and both believe in God (arguably the same God? God of Isaac) - I am wondering if a God-honoring marriage is the same as a Christ-honoring marriage. What do you think?

A Jewish Take

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
And, if not now, when?”  –Hillel

This girl does what I do, but with Jewish texts instead of Christian ones! Here is the link to her post on the quote above!

"Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully." -Romans 12:3-8

I'm continuing to think about the concept of vocations and ministries. What or who are we called to minister to?

God has given each of us gifts to use to minister to those around us.  No matter what our vocational calling is, if we will be obedient and use our gifts to encourage and lift up others, we will minister wherever we are. 

A lot of my ministy in 2013 will focus on orphans and youth. I am going through the training with Bethany Christian Services to become an approved foster parent. I am also collecting items for Children's Village, and planning a Twilight Party for Children's Village and Vista Maria. When Autumn and I are done with Angelica & the Attic Bears, the proceeds of the book will go towards helping kids in abuse and neglect situations.

Nevertheless, I am wondering what my calling is in my day to day life. How am I ministering to family and friends? How am I ministering to neighbors and colleagues? How am I ministering to strangers? The impersonal service to a non-profit actually feels significantly easier than the daily callings. In the daily callings, I may be called to do things that require greater sacrafice, that require working with someone I don't like, biting my tongue when I want to make a point that may actually be hurtful, or developing patience and perseverance in the face of disagreement.

In pursuit of the higher goal of finding my calling, I've established the following four resolutions:

(1) Deactivate facebook -- I've never used facebook as a ministry. I've used it as a forum for airing my grievances, bashing political candidates, and expressing my views shamelessly. I am challenged to write, speak, think about the good in my life - not the problems. I am challenged not to compare my life to others' lives. So I am deactivating my facebook as an initial step in this pursuit.

(2) Get rid of the "but" -- I am always dreaming big. But then I am always shooting myself down with all the "why not's" (i.e., "this guy I am dating is really amazing, BUT he's Jewish and a Democrat and we don't agree on XYZ," "it would be great to leave Accenture, BUT I can't because I might not make as much money and I won't have the job security," or "my house is great, BUT it doesn't have a hot tub or a panic room.") I do it because I am pragmatic, but nevertheless, the result of this verbiage is chronic unfulfillment, chronic glass-half-empty-syndrome. I have a great life. I am extremely blessed. PERIOD. NO BUT.

(3) Figure out the vocation -- Initially this was "figure out my career." I wanted to decide when to leave Accenture, and whether to leave for a position with another firm or my own firm, whether to pursue law or consulting. All of these big questions lay in front of me, and I haven't done anything with them. I need to figure out what I want, and map out a plan for how to get there. The plan needs to be a vocation, because it needs to consider my professional goals, my personal goals, and my ministry.

(4) Don't take the bait; stop living a reactivated life -- With the 2012 Obama v. Romney election in our recent past, I have allowed myself to get so worked up. People ruffle my feathers and then I ruffle others' feathers. I am done with feather ruffling of any kind in my life. As soon as I get my feathers ruffled, I am now taking it as a cue for a timeout. Reevaluate, calm down, don't take the bait, and react in the way that is best for the long term -- sustaining the relationship, stating my point without allocating blame, talking about ideas not people, etc.

Those are the resolutions. I pray that through these resolutions, I will be able to better prioitize and lead as a Christian in my day to day life -- not just when I am emerging freshly-minted from church or bible study. Why are we put here? To serve! How are we to serve? That's the next question....

Seeking my vocation

“Stop stealin other peoples’ blessings!” –Beth Moore

This came up in our girls' bible study group this week. How often do we see someone's facebook status update and compare our life to theirs? How often are we unhappy at other peoples' happiness?

Like it says in 1 Corinthians 12, God blesses us with different things, so we should stop stealing other peoples' blessing and start counting our own! The fingers, ears, and nose are three different parts of the body that each have different traits and do different things, but each is capable of contribution and service to the body as a whole. Likewise, we are each given different talents to serve in different ways. We need to look for our vocation, our calling, to find out how best to serve.

"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thessolonians 5:18

No matter what happens to you, it's part of a greater plan. Period.