katie rose writes

The new year races towards me, but today, it’s only Christmas Eve. Still, as I read Luke 2 this morning, my thoughts went to the words I’ve been pursuing in these last days of 2016—“the right time”—as I read their counterparts only a few verses into the famous, beautifully captured words of the Christmas story.  And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.  The time came.  How often we spend wondering when the time will come… the time to get married. the time to have kids. the time to change jobs. the time to take some time off. the time to work harder than ever. We’re confined by time, walled in, walled out—and so often, stuck. But God is not within this prison cell with us. He’s not controlled by time; He controls it Himself.  And the simple phrase “the time came” is, to God, “the right time.” Galatians 4.4 says it this way: when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son. The fullness.  Each year I spent between my...

This hasn’t exactly been a year of peace for me. Or, as the Hebrew word shalom describes it, it hasn’t been a year of flourishing or wholeness. It’s been the opposite, actually. A year of a lot of brokenness, stripping, disappointment. A year full of fear, anxiety, depression, a floundering of questions: why am I here? what am I doing? who am I? Yet, here we are, at the end of the year, and He’s whispering peace. He’s speaking to me of wholeness, of rejoicing, and of newness to come.  And I’m balking at how newness can come out of so much… oldness. So much ancient history and repeated patterns of beliefs, thoughts—lies dominating the landscape of my heart, like road-markers of mileage repeating themselves, a never-ending roundabout of little green signs that I’m tired of seeing: 435 . 435 . 435 . 435 .  It’s felt like we’ve been getting nowhere, most of the time. But our God is everywhere, and time doesn’t impede His forward motion. It may look repetitive, but it’...

It's a quiet morning here.  And by quiet, I mean my heart is quietly waking, coffee in hand, cardigan on, and blankets piled over my feet. All while some sort of loud celebratory music plays outside my window. Outside, it's Busy. Inside, it's Advent.  So I break up my normal routine & grab my computer to listen to this week's Advent sermon: Everlasting Father. The music quieted as the late-morning-start to this South Asian day finally began, and the sermon continued as my red ink scratched across the page with notes on His love; His Everlasting, Fatherly love is still such a mystery to me, still such an idea that I don’t know how to accept or allow myself, my heart, to feel day in and day out. I look at Him, expecting the reactions of others—silence, disregard, a look of muted disapproval, words to wound me, not to heal me.  And yet, that’s just not who He is. He always speaks, always looks at me, always affirms me even on my worst days. He always quiets m...

I really want to write, I whisper, as my face falls into my hands to cover the shame and overwhelming emotions that tighten around my thoughts, twisting into a headache worse than yesterday’s.  I mean, this is who I am. Or, rather, a part of who I am. Shouldn’t I be walking in it, bearing fruit in it, loving obedience in it? But instead I feel dry. A worn-out, dried-up well of words that come and go like a unreliable stream.  So write this, He says.  And after a few minutes of distraction, listening to a friend’s voice hours and miles away, penning Spirit-words in a text message to another friend even further away, I sit down at the computer. My Bible is open beside me on the corner of the bed; turned to a passage I am committing to pray over another. That’s what He’s leading me to do, to cultivate faithfulness in, over the next, final month of this year: a month of powerful prayer, Cara said three weeks ago. And I believe those words were from Him. And to Him...

With this week’s sermon, came two songs, of sorts--though the first, I guess, should be called a poem, since I didn’t discover a melody as I wrote it.  The challenge at the end of this week’s sermon was to believe in Christ as our Mighty God. To cast all our fear, anxiety, our constant need to be in control on the One who IS in control. To have confidence in our Mighty God.  And, at the end, I found myself praying a prayer we quote probably more than we should—“Increase my faith!” The disciples asked for this in Luke 17, after being told that temptations will come and that forgiveness must always be their response. So, in the face of these weighty words, they cry out to the Lord—“Increase our faith!” But the Lord’s response is so merciful, so gracious, so freeing. He doesn’t say, “Okay, sure—here’s what you do to ensure that that happens.” No, that’s what we want. That’s what we think we need—a list of things to do that will increase our faith and make us better. ...