Thankful Heart.

I am overwhelmed everyday by the beauty and love that are a part of my friendships here in Cincinnati! This is my first summer in Cincinnati and I'm so glad it's not my last! Cincinnati has become home to me over the last two years (I can't believe it's been two years!) but most importantly it has been a place where I have met incredible friends and where I've learned to truly lived loved by a God who is bigger and more loving than I ever could have imagined before! 

This weekend was full of friends and of all the things that I love. A small group of my friends and I (who I met my freshman year at UC) got together for a little summer grilling, and finished the meal off with a delicious homemade cake drowned in sprinkles! Since it was such a beautiful evening after dinner we all went to Eden park to a spot that looks out over the city and river, and then drove around Mt. Adams to get another beautiful view of the city from a high point. One of the highlights for sure was when at some point while driving all five of us in the car started singing to the radio without even realizing it. Not caring how terrible of singers we were (okay, maybe just me), or whether people could hear us outside, we were singing worship songs together! Windows down with my friends in the car singing praise and worship was enough to make my heart desire Jesus more and more, and to thank him for the people he's put in my life here in Cincinnati.

Tonight was also a great part of my weekend! I had the opportunity to spend it with four beautiful girl friends, who I love dearly! We took a walk to the local dairy freeze, sat on the curb enjoying our delicious ice cream, talked to our sweet, elderly neighbor who we just met for the first time (she was precious!), and then talked about life together. Again, I was completely blown away and thankful for the love and friendships that I have here in Cincinnati!

So there's one more thing that I want to mention in this post before I wrap it up. Today I was also reminded of my "other home", my first home, where I have a wonderful family and wonderful friends. I received a housewarming card in the mail from my parents and I almost found myself crying, not because I was sad, but because I was overwhelmed with a thankful heart. I am so blessed to have loving and supporting parents and I hope I never forget that. My parents love me with all of their hearts and their love means the world to me. It's because of their love that I can even start to grasp the extravagant love that my heavenly father has for me!

Kati K 

Celebrate.

Words can't describe the joy and happiness that my friends and I felt last night! We were so blessed to get the opportunity to spend an evening celebrating the beautiful marriage of two of our friends! The love that these two individuals have for God and for each other is so abundant and life-giving that it is contagious! I am so thankful to have been a part of it! Here are a few pictures from the night, congratulations Michael and Ashlynn!!!

Purpose.

So after a lot of contemplation, I've decided to join the blogging community! I've decided that I want the purpose of my blog to be about what God is doing in life, and how I am learning to live loved every single day. The blog is going to be an encouragement to me as I reflect on all the neat things that God is doing in my life, and I hope that it is encouraging for you as well! For those of you who don't know, I will be living in Cincinnati this summer, and I will be taking classes and working. I am so blessed to be living in a house with other girls who love Jesus, and I am so excited for warm weather, summer runs, and summer food! To start off my summer and my blog, I wanted to really show you the purpose of my blog through my first post. I'm an amateur with the whole blogging and writing thing, so bear with me. 

I think what causes me to worship God the most is something that we've all heard, but often don't dig deeper into. His love for us! I have been reading a book lately called "He Loves Me!" by Wayne Jacobsen, and it has caused me to thank God and praise him everyday for the love that he has for us that is FAR greater than anything else in this world. The book kind of hits on three points, the first being that we have to truly understand the gospel to understand the extent of the Fatherly love that he has for us, the second being that most of our lives aren't spent "living loved" and that as we grow in our security of his love for us we can be confident in any circumstance of God's character, and the third being that if we live everyday loved our lives will be transformed and our relationship with the Lord will see so much fruit. 

I think one point that is so critical to understand is that we can't do anything to EARN God's love, and that in it's self shows the awesomeness of God! He loves us even with the junk in our lives. There are a few things in particular from the book that I'd love to share. I probably wont be able to tell them as well as the author, but here were go..

The first story is from Luke 18:18-23 and is about the rich man who asked, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life", and Jesus replies with the commandments. The rich man says "All these I have kept from my youth." Jesus then says to the rich man, "you shall sell all you have, and then you will have treasure in heaven." Upon hearing this the man is discouraged because he is rich, and values his money. 

The author applies this story practically. Coaches don't train young high jumpers by putting the bar at world-record height and challenging them to jump it, instead they put it at a height where jumpers can successfully achieve and then over time raise it slowly. But Jesus doesn't do that in the story. Responding to the rich man's request, Jesus put the bar 50 ft in the air and said Jump that! The rich man did exactly what any athlete would do and walked away discouraged. The point of Jesus doing this was not to be mean, but to raise the bar beyond the man's ability because Jesus just wanted the man to stop trying! Nothing we do, can earn us God's love, he has already earned it for us through the cross. 

The second story is much shorter. The author talks about a married couple, in which the wife has been threatening to leave the husband, and the husband has been doing everything he can to save the marriage. As he watched his wife grow more distant, he had showed his love for her through kindness, obeying her requests, and giving her words of encouragement. Even with all of these things, the wife left him one morning. The man said this later during a conversation with another person: "I've come to realize that I had been trying to earn points with someone who simply wasn't keeping score any longer." 

As much as this story breaks my heart, it brings me back to the gospel. We spend so much of our life trying to earn points with someone who is no longer keeping score, but for far different reasons than the man and the wife. The man's wife had stopped keeping score because she was no longer interested in saving their relationship, but God has never kept score because he wants nothing more than to have a relationship with us. He has done that by not throwing our scorecard away, but by completely filling it out by himself. 

I have been overwhelmed with God's love lately and the way that he has blessed me with my family and friends. The biggest desire of my heart right now is "living loved", and I invite you to experience it with me!

"The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quite you by his love; he will exult over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17


Kati K.