Floods Literally and Spiritualy

So I have officially decided that I could probably never call Seattle home. This rain has not ceased for days. I have been looking at pictures from Gwinnett and I just can’t believe all the flooding. Both Saint John Neumann and Brookwood have experienced some flooding as well as the Connamara neighborhood near church. You are all in my prayers! I must say though, living in a double-wide during non-stop rain has begun to make things feel a little damp…poor ventilation.

The retreats this weekend went very well though so thanks for your prayers. We had St. Gabriel’s from Fayetteville and First United Methodist from Douglasville (which they probably should have stayed here since its all flooding down there). The Missionaries were able to feed so much off of their energy and in return the teens said they enjoyed our energy just as much and that they were really moved by our service to the Lord for a year. What an affirmation! On Wednesday the Life Teen musician retreat begins. All the praise and worship leaders from various churches all over the country are coming to retreat together. I must admit I am a little sad because Matt Maher usually leads this retreat but he won’t be this year L. But I am so excited to just have amazing praise and worship sessions and be rejuvenated!

I have been learning so many amazing things but I have been taking my time on blogging them because I want to make sure the messages are perceived the way God intends them and not impose anything on anyone. Everything I am going to blog about in this post will really be my response to the things I am learning during my formation periods but other people may have different interpretations. The Lord moves in many ways and I am so happy to express and witness to all of you through this blog. So the rest of this post may seem a little random and scattered but I just learned so many cool things. I hope you enjoy!

Being a missionary requires a lot of things; a calling to die to self, be comfortable with not knowing what’s next or having a schedule, intense prayer and giving up of many worldy treasures just to list a few. Lately we have been talking about our YES! We, the missionaries, have said YES to God calling us to missionary life without really knowing what we were going to be doing. Many people before I came up here always asked what my schedule would be or day to day would look like and I never could answer and I still couldn’t. Everyday is different but we should all be willing to say YES to God without necessarily knowing the details, just like Mary. Mary didn’t question God about how she would conceive without having sex or how she was going to care for this child. She said YES to God’s plan and walked in with Blind Faith (a marian virtue)…a thing many people struggle with because it can be uncomfortable…but I can tell you that from my experience it has been God-filled…I have not yet questioned God moving me here although the questioning may come. Saying Yes is not always the easy step but think about this advice...Once you say YES to God, all the pressure is on Him. Whatever He was calling you to it is His responsibility to reveal it to you, all you have to do is have an open heart to receive His glorious gifts! Pretty cool, huh? But you can’t think God works on our time either. It could take days or months for those gifts to be received but He will bless you for your YES to follow Him, love Him, trust Him! I thought this was good advice.

Something Chris Benzinger (our formation director/ runner of Covecrest/father/AWESOME) has been telling us is that God is totally showing off with this group of missionaries. None of us came in knowing how to build a community and yet the Holy Spirit has put a community together in less then a week. We are truly a close community already. God knew what He was up to when He picked the 25 of us for this missionary year. Even how He divided us up into our locations, Arizona, Covecrest, and Germany, is perfect. We are all able to laugh, cry, joke, share our brokenness and share the ways God is moving in our lives without hesitation, question or judgment. What a blessing! But with a community with a similar goal of growing closer to God, the enemy is going to try and get in wherever he can. Mortal sins are usually how he breaks in to our souls and begins pulling them but it’s a little different for me and my fellow missionaries and many other people seeking God. The devil is going to break us down by making us feel unworthy and he can do that in your lives too. He will make you feel that your prayer isn’t good enough or you should be at church more because you are not faithful if you aren’t. We can’t let these anxieties or fears pull us from Christ. Instead they are an invitation to draw closer into the arms of Christ because he wants to heal you from your anxieties and make you feel worthy because you ARE!

I really need to take a moment to thank all of my benefactors that are reading this blog. I am so close to your hearts even if you don’t realize; “For wherever your treasure is, there also your heart will be.” Matthew 6:21. And because of that you are being drawn even closer to God! Your support, prayers, and dedication to this mission is my first tangible proof from God working for me for this mission! Without you all this year would be impossible. You are constantly prayed for!

Alright these are just a couple of random things to consider and think about:
· Let personal prayer time be for God to draw you closer into His embrace- not to necessarily figure out all the mysteries of your life. Do not be afraid of the silences and begin your prayer by Praising Him! If you don’t know what I mean, here is an exercise. Write down what you refer to God as (Jesus, Lord, Father, etc.) then after that write “you are” and then list three adjectives you refer to God as (loving, all powerful, almighty, everlasting, etc.) Pray this and eventually you will start lifting up more adjectives and praise to God. This really opens your heart to the Holy Spirit and we are called to praise the Giver of all gifts!
· He created us all for great intimacy with Him. God is intimately concerned about every detail of our life (I can’t think of a single man who would ever Love me that much!!!).

O and this is a really cool thing for us Catholics! When making the sign of the cross, when you are moving from shoulder to shoulder, imagine that you are crossing yourself out and fully giving yourself to God during your prayer! It can help you to not only think of yourself in prayer time! I thought it was a pretty cool thing J

Anyways I think that’s about it for now…I know it was really long but this is a couple days worth of stuff. Hopefully I will be able to have a little bit more free time to blog more often but WHO KNOWS!!!

Kaitlin
Phil 1:21