Happy Easter!

I can’t understand how anyone can be against people asking to be treated with justice. I can’t understand how anyone can be against people being treated like human beings. I don’t understand why we are still having to protest for these basic rights.

Bottom line is that a horrible crime was committed in broad daylight and we cannot be OK with it being dismissed. Michael Brown is not by any means the only one, it is the one that tested us beyond what we are capable of ignoring. 

Nowadays you see a lot of people quoting the bible with the aim of oppressing others. How do you feel as a Christian when you see things like that? How does it make you feel when you see people using some of these quotes out of context? Just wondering your thoughts on the matter.

Hey there :) 

How do I feel? I feel….angry, outraged, disapproving, frustrated and discouraged. 

I think, that as a body of believers, if we are going to call ourselves Christians, then we are required by our mandate to love others. It’s not that hard! Loving people is literally the highest calling we are given. I don’t understand what happened to us that somewhere along the way we lost sight of that goal and got mired down in the murkiest swamps of legalism. How have we become so short sighted as to think that good behaviour is more important than an authentic relationship with our Lord and Saviour? We have become so preoccupied with shouting at people that they need to change their behaviour that the simple Sunday School song “Jesus Loves Me” is completely drowned out. “Jesus Loves Me” is not just a a simplified message for people who are too young to understand theology. “Jesus Loves” is literally the foundation of our entire belief system and worldview! We are nothing if not for the two words “Jesus Loves”. Telling people that they are wrong and that they are going to Hell is by no means the way of showing them the love of Christ. It is the exact opposite of that! And it is completely counterproductive. 

Therefore, my humble opinion is that those who would hate and oppress others under the label “Christian” are falsely bearing that name and are slandering and besmirching the church, which is truly damaging to those of us who genuinely want to love on people and help the poor and whatnot. 

And don’t even get me started on using quotes out of context! Like, do you seriously expect me to believe that a scripture straight out of LEVITICUS with no theological, historical or cultural context is relevant to my life? Absolutely not! I believe the whole entire Bible is the truth but I also believe that some of it is a true account of events that happened a very long time ago and not necessarily rules to live by. That’s why people think that the Bible contradicts itself, when it in fact does not. You could throw a verse from Leviticus at me to support your premise while I could throw one back at you from Matthew which might completely unravel your argument. This is not because the Bible contradicts itself but because hypothetically, you were using a verse that is irrelevant because it is taken out of its intended context. 

So man like, I said this to someone today. If a church kid ever tries to tell you what to do or judges you for something, tell them to frig right off. Cause I’m a church kid and that’s not even close to the point. You’re never gonna hear the gospel over my judgment. 

Those are my thoughts on the matter! I hope you find them useful somehow! 

Peace and love!-Katherine

I’ll return to Biblical womanhood gladly. Because Biblical womanhood is Deborah being called by God to lead the nation of Israel into victory. Biblical womanhood is Jesus choosing a woman as the first person to whom He revealed His identity as The Messiah and making her the first evangelist. Biblical womanhood is Jesus revealing himself first to women after His resurrection, trusting them with the task of telling His disciples. Biblical womanhood is Jesus inviting Mary and Martha to sit at his feet to be taught as disciples, valuing their presence there with Him instead of busying themselves with meal preparation and “women’s work.” Biblical womanhood is Paul calling Lydia and Priscilla his coworkers in Christ. Biblical womanhood is Priscilla teaching Apollos (a man) and her name being listed before that of her husband, Aquila, when the couple is mentioned in scripture. Biblical womanhood is Paul referring to Phoebe as a minister and a leader. Biblical womanhood is Lydia founding the church in Phillippi. Biblical womanhood is countless other examples of women, valued and empowered by Christ, teaching and leading right alongside men. 

Biblical womanhood is not a few taken-out-of-context verses, written to specific audiences and wrongfully universally applied, about women remaining silent in church and not having authority over men. 

Allow me to introduce myself.

Hey, my name is Katherine. I live in Newfoundland, Canada. I'm 19 years old. I'm in my first year of University, and I'm hoping to get accepted into the school of Pharmacy next semester. I'm a Christian, and you'll hear lots more about that later. Mainly, I am defined by the fact that God made me and Jesus saved me. I like writing, so that's what most of this is gonna be. Thoughts, rants, devos, stories, whatever. Welcome :) Ask me whatever, I don't bite. :) 

“When you turn your face away from the young lady with severe boils and dry scabs covering every inch of her skin do you feel yourself grow? Do you feel new, with shedding snake skin peeling off of your body, making you vibrant and bright? Do you feel beautiful when you turn the ugly away? When you talk to the twenty six year old man with moderate autism like he is five years old, do you feel grown? When he cannot write the word garbage correctly, do you treat him like trash - discarded and forgotten? Do you feel intelligent with the world on your side, only seeking to understand the average and the normal? When you knock your child around, do you feel big? Do you feel the power coursing through your veins? Do you feel the adrenaline pumping through your body? When he cowers in fear at your words of “USELESS” and “WORTHLESS” do you feel worthy of his attention, of his affection, of his love? When you stand on the other side of homosexuality and send your acid laced words claiming biblical truth to burn their sin away, do you feel righteous? When your hate filled phrases make someone want to kill themselves to “get rid of the gay” do you feel loving? When you split marriage to be between one man and one woman do you feel like an earthquake, dividing the world to fit your standard and letting those you don’t understand fall to the core of the world, so you can walk all over them again? When you send a man to his death, do you feel like God? Do you feel the way mountains long to be moved and women scream to be heard and little boys cry at night because they know they are girls and everyone tells them that they are confused? Tell me, do you feel like God? You are no God, you of weak and little love, your hands did not build ribcages of protection and skeletons of structure. Your back did not bear his burdens when they threatened to crush him. You did not pick the larva out of the wounds of the divine and beg to bathe him. You did not care for her when she had next to nothing, but you cared for yourself when you took her everything. Your hands are not dirty from digging him out of the mud, but clean because you were the one who pushed him in. You did not pick up your cross and crucify yourself with him, you were the one in the crowd shouting, “KILL HIM” Depart from me. Depart from him. Go and find love.”

— Amanda Helm, Depart from Me (via amandaspoetry)

Warning signs of a potentially unhealthy relationship 

What's Really Going On When Men Call Women 'Crazy'

I did have a few breakups I would qualify with, "I don't mean 'I can't be bothered to figure out where things went wrong, I mean that she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder," but for the most part, "crazy" meant "acting in a way I didn't like." I didn't realize just how damaging this attitude was in the way I related to women.

The Law and The One Who Made The Law

On Sunday, I was helping out with the kiddies program in the morning church service. I LOVE being with the kids, but this morning I felt that there was something wrong. The lesson was about sin, and I think that the message the kids were supposed to take home was "Don't Sin." We told them stories about people who did drugs and stole stuff and ran away from homes and discussed the various mistakes these people made, and defined sin and then told them that the people in the stories met Jesus and cleaned up their lives and went on to do a whole bunch of really great things for God. 

I'm sure it sounds like a very positive message at first glance, but something really unsettled me about it: 

It's all well and good to tell the kids to obey their parents and tell the truth and share and don't do drugs and stay in school. However, why are we so focused on all these rules for how we should behave and not on The One who made the rules? 

Cause see, the gospel is not a behaviour-control program. The church does not exist to make sure that everyone is following the rules. And Jesus didn't die so that we would have to be perfect. 

What I'm trying to say is that instead of telling these kids what they can and cannot do, we should introduce them to Jesus, and tell them about his amazy-crazy, upside-down inside-out, spin-you-all-around LOVE. I think that we should tell them that Jesus knows them better than anyone else in the world and that He loves them more than anyone else in the world does. I think we should tell them that they are His precious treasure, His beloved son/daughter, the apple of His eye. I think we should tell them that He has an awesome plan for their life and that He's gonna do great things in them and through them. Finally, I think we should tell them that He loves them so much that He died for them, so that their sins would be repaid and they could go to heaven. Don't you think that such a message would be far more effective than "Don't do this. Don't do that." I feel like if they knew the one who made them and loves them, they would be naturally less inclined to seek fulfillment in thrills, drugs, alcohol and sex ANYWAY, and we wouldn't have to try and hammer it into their skulls so much. 

Don't get me wrong, we do tell the kids all the stuff I said up there. We tell it to them all the time. My church is not remiss in informing the children of their infinite value to their creator. I just think that if Sunday morning's service was the only one a child had ever been to, they would think that church was just a list of Do's and Don'ts. So I believe that instead of just talking about sin, we need to prevent a more holistic view of the relationship between God and humans. I think we need to present the gospel to these kids in BIG BOLD ITALIC CAPS every single time we see them, because knowing the love of Christ is infinitely more important than knowing the rules. 

That's all.  Peace and love!  -Katherine

"I think that if you're a half decent person, you'll get into heaven."

So guys I was thinking today: 

If someone says they're a Christian and then they look at me and they're like "I just think that if you're a half decent person you'll get into heaven." .... I honestly have to wonder if they've read the bible. The phrase you just uttered undermines the entire foundation of Christianity. You can't "get into" heaven by being a "good" person.

I mean, first of all, NO ONE is a good person. We're human. We're imperfect. We're mortal. And by default, we are literally incapable of being truly good. I mean, you can be alright and not like, kill people and stuff. But how do you define sin? I mean, where's the line between good people and bad people? Can you still be a good person if you've held a grudge against someone, judged someone or lied? Cause see, all sin is equal in the sight of God. There are no degrees of sin to God. It's a yes or no question. Have you or have you not done something that is not of God? The answer will always, irrefutably be yes. Romans 3:23 says "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

And so...and this is very important, so listen up...if you could "get into" heaven by being a good person, Jesus would never have had to die on the cross. 

So if you believe that you can get into heaven by being a good person, I guess you believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is completely meaningless. And if Jesus Christ, being fully God, stepping into a mortal body, bearing the weight of all the sins of all the people who ever were and are to come, going to Hell, stealing the key and coming back to life to give you eternal life means absolutely nothing then what do we even believe in? 

Do you get the fact that Christianity is ALL ABOUT God reconciling the separation between sinful man and perfect deity? Do you realize that that is literally EVERYTHING that we believe in? 

Don't get it twisted: I'm not telling you that you're a bad person. I'm not telling you that you can't get into heaven. I don't think that I'm better than you and that I'm going to heaven and you're not. Because believe me, I am acutely aware of my own deficiencies. I KNOW how much I need grace. I'm just telling you that we are all human, and we all need Jesus if we wanna go to heaven. If you don't wanna go to heaven, well..I can't help you. :P

Lots of love :) Peace y'all! -Katherine