High School Years

First, I wanted to apologize for not posting sooner! We're rocking the mom life over here in all its glory! The last two month's have been full of continual sickness. No sooner as one kid would wake up without a fever, by the evening, someone else would have one. We started with what seemed like Flu symptoms and then went right into the stomach bug. Next came strep, ear infections and then Julia tested positive for Influenza B. Once that trickled down to everyone, we are officially on our 3rd day of fever free kiddos!! Fighting to keep a schedule in the house with sick kids is always fun. I am just thankful that it was notnworse. Please continue to pray that with warmer weather approaching we can officially kick this!!

On to the high school years of life. This is a hard one. There is so much that could be said! At the beginning of this blog, I stated that I wanted to be real and raw. Here's my attempt to be as transparent as possible to the details that have brought me to where I am today. High school was not the easiest for me. I wasn't the most self-confident person. I saw me for what the "world" saw and not for what Christ saw. Satans craft is great and he knew how to strike me deep. As I compared myself to others, he would remind me that I wasn't as beautiful, as smart, or as athletic. And I definitely wasn't "the one" boys were chasing after. The value I placed upon this was spiritually unhealthy and eventually led to bitterness taking root in my heart. (This is all to easy to do isn't it ladies??) It would take me a number of years to realize that this was an ugly sin that separated me from a blessed Savior who loved and cared for me more than I could ever imagine. During my senior year, I remember wanting to just be somewhere where I felt like I could be my self. One day, at one of my brothers basketball games, I told my mom that I "felt" like the Lord was telling me to go to Missouri State in Springfield, MO. I think I pulled a "Lord was telling me" card because I knew she would not want me to go against His will for my life. Springfield was the only place, that was multiple(4) hours away, that my parents would have considered letting me go. We knew several good families there that would take me in like their own. Honestly, I do not think I could have handled being any further away than that. I applied and was accepted into Missouri State with the hopes to major in Radiologic Technology(radiographer.) The summer following my senior year, we were in Springfield for a church camp that we attended every year. We drove around looking at apartments and came across the Baptist Student Union for Missouri State. We decided to go in and see if there were any girls looking for a roommate. Wouldn't you know it, that during this visit, the BSU director was actually looking for one more girl resident to live in the basement at the BSU. The rent was free but there were chores to perform and attendance required to their meetings. It was an answer to prayer and in that moment I felt like the Lord was actually saying, "Yes, you are going in the right direction!" It brought my parents and I peace, that He was going to provide the things that we had been nervous about!

It is hard to come to a stopping point but the kids are begging for lunch. If I do not stop now, I'll be sitting here for the rest of the day because we serve a God that is bigger than our dreams! Until next time, I pray the Lord blesses you and keeps you, and all that you do, be done FOR HIS GLORY!!

xoxo, Kayla