katie rose writes

Have you ever had a word for the year? Sort of like a theme—running through your year, showing up in the strangest of places and ways? I haven’t had many. 2014 may have been a year of provision. It was certainly a theme that kept coming up again and again. 2013 was a “return”, but was otherwise a scattered and staggeringly beautiful year. 2012, a sabbath year. 2011, a too-busy-for-my-own-good year (hence the following sabbath year…). 2010, a year to fall in love. 2009—well, that was the first year I was introduced to having a word for the year. My roommate mentioned it as our first semester of life together at college drew to a close, and so then I started looking for it. The problem was, I never really documented. I’ve been writing for years, but never as organized as I am currently. But 2015 started off with many words. I got a lot of time to write, as I shifted into a routine at home, freshly graduated with little else to do, and He started speaking over what the year would ho...

Waking up every couple of hours to an echoing voice, billowing through the streets, in a language we cannot understand,  with words not meant for our Father … This is not the ideal way to spend the hours between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas morning came too early; the coffee wasn’t strong enough. My mug was dirty; my oatmeal was cold. I stared at my families’ faces and dreamed of when I’d see them next. And then I shut my computer. I began to cry. I kept whispering to myself, “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.” It’s okay.  Can you imagine all the emotions Mary and Joseph faced as they listened to their baby cry and coo? As they watched Immanuel—G0d with us—fall asleep? The Christmas story says it so insignificantly at first: “They laid their firstborn son in a manger.” No fanfare. No remembrance of the name given to Mary. No big deal.  Because G0d wanted to make a bigger deal of the message and the message bearers. So, He revealed His glory to sheph...

Encouragement. Over and over again, that word keeps replaying in my head, a melody needing a harmony. The Father is singing it as a song of deliverance all around me (psalm 32.7-8). Honestly, this season is a mixed bag. Joy hums her little tune into the tiniest details of life back in this place I love so much. At the same time, insecurity wages full-out war against all that has been built up, and I keep falling hard, so hard. A few key people are really coming around me in this season, loving me from thousands of miles away. A few more trickle into my email inbox this morning. A few more bring their tears to join the chorus. Still others, their laughs, their words, their time, their screens. Some more let me stumble through conversations here in their language. And in the back of my mind, the melody keeps going: encouragement. My heart is uplifted, its beating strengthened. That’s a part of the harmony: my heartbeat. the heartbeat of one who isn’t thinking through limitless what...