God's Love Language: Part I - "The Air Force Story"

The original post became too long, so I'm breaking it up into two segments :)

Part I - "The Air Force Story"

If you've heard me talk about this before, some of this may sound familiar. But please bare with me. This is the account of how God lead me to the Air Force (something I never dreamed of for myself)... I don't mean to brag, but it's pretty stellar:

If you would have told me four years ago that I would be in the military, I would have told you you were crazy. I first heard of Air Force ROTC upon attending my freshmen nursing orientation with my dad. To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to what they were saying... "Pay for school, yadda yadda, automatic job afterwards, yadda yadda." (With this economy, I don't know how I didn't grab onto this sooner! haha). On the drive home, my dad said, "So Kait, what did you think about that whole ROTC thing?" Rolling my eyes, barely believing that my dad had even brought it up, I just said, "No, Dad. Don't even think about it. I do not want to be in the military." And on this rare occasion, he left it at that (haha, love you Dad!). The military? No way... my plans for post-college at that point were to (1) marry the man I would meet in college (yes, this was a "plan"), (2) become an international missionary with my husband using my newly gained nursing skills and his "whatever" skills, (3) maybe work somewhere back in the States for a few years, (4) maybe do grad school, and (5) have kids in there somewhere. Call me crazy, but that's what I wanted and what I thought for certain would happen.

But as school drew nearer and the reality of paying ~$20,000/year for four years of school started to sink in, I started taking a look at my options. For some reason, I kept being pulled to look at the military. As much as I detested the thought at the time, I couldn't deny the benefits of having the military pay for my school... and like many of my colleagues, that is why I first looked into Air Force ROTC. Thankfully, that is not why I have stayed :) I figured that I would try it out for the first semester, see if I liked it, all while having a crafty way of keeping off that famed "Freshmen 15"! If at the end of the semester I didn't like it, I could walk away with no regrets and the ability to say, "Well, at least I tried it."

But after getting through a stressful first few weeks (those in ROTC know those are the worst! You feel totally incompetent bc you don't know anything!), I was hooked. I loved the discipline I was learning, the people I was meeting, and the sense of belonging (the strongest second only to the church!) I was feeling. At the end of the semester, I decided to apply to go on scholarship - where the military pays for your school, and you in turn commit to serving for a set number of years afterwards. I was nervous... a four-year's time commitment felt HUGE to me at that time. What could happen in those four years? Could I really handle the military lifestyle? I had a serious boyfriend at the time... how would he feel about it? Would he be ok with it? Was this really what God has in mind for me?

Do you ever try to "play games" with God? Saying, "Ok, God if you want me to do x, then you y." Well, I did that. I basically "said" to God, "Ok, God. If you want me to be in the Air Force, then have this scholarship go through by the end of the semester (the winter semester of freshmen year)." Ha, I've since learned from that experience that if you decide to put God to the test, don't be surprised when He flips it back around on you.

So I applied in January, and months, literally months went by without the scholarship going through. First some documentation got screwed up, then my file got sent to the wrong place, and my application just wasn't going where it needed to go. It came down to the last two weeks of school. I was begging God at this point, "Lord, please, if you really do want me to be in the Air Force, please let this work out." And I just kept feeling like He was asking me, "Kaitlyn, do you trust me? Do you trust me?" I finally got a call from now retired MSgt Christon (an amazing woman of God and one of the best NCO's (non-commissioned officer) in the Air Force!) two days before the end of the semester saying my application had been approved. I remember hanging up from that conversation and saying out loud, "Ok God, here we go!". I came in the next day (the day before the end of the semester), signed the paper work, swore in, and was officially a member of Air Force. Come to find out several years later that the day she called me, MSgt Christon felt God leading her to call a certain person about my file... a person who normally doesn't have anything to do with scholarship applications. Upon learning of my situation, that person literally went to a cubicle next door to them, picked up my file, walked across the street and hand-delivered it to the people who needed to approve it. Can you say A TOTAL GOD THING!!!!!

God has been using the Air Force in my life in so many ways! Please stay tuned for Part II of this installment - "God's Love Language: Part II - Obedience" - as I share about just one thing that God has been teaching me through the Air Force.

New Adventures...

Wrote this at 6AM... posted eventually at 11:33PM

"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies." ~Mother Teresa

Good morning ya’ll! My apologies that it’s been so long since my last/first post… so much has been happening that I haven’t had time to process it all for myself, let alone write it down! This is going to be more of an overview about what has been happening recently, with more thorough posts coming eventually!

I was just there!

Even though it’s just after 0600 as I’m writing this, I am wide awake and flying on my way back to Grand Rapids, MI after spending the past 3 days in San Antonio, TX apartment hunting and exploring SA with my dad (more on that to come!). And frankly, right now, I feel like a queen: drinking my Starbucks, listening to Adele (the diva herself and the new Vitamin String Quartet covers of her music – AMAZING if you haven’t heard of them, check ‘em out), gazing out at the beauty of the puffy clouds below me that look like a fresh fallen snow (one of my most favorite things), and feeling so grateful and crazy blessed for so many things.

Quite simply, I love flying and everything surrounding it. Ok, maybe not waiting in line for security, but everything else. To me, flying means adventure… it means going somewhere new, doing something new, meeting new people, and going out on limb to be used in some new way by God. And it’s always accompanied by a range of emotions – usually excitement (visiting loved ones in TN, learning in CO, serving in Jamaica/Haiti, singing in Austria), sometimes nervousness (28 days of Field Training – aka boot camp), but always a sense of adventure. But you want to know the best part of flying? The take-off. I’ve never considered myself an adrenaline junky, but as the plane pulls onto the run way, the jets boost, and the wheels come off the ground, I feel vibrantly alive. Every time, without fail. Even hearing a plane fly by, whether it’s over my house in GR or watching the F-16’s do touch-and-go’s outside my window while staying at Kelly Field (Lackland AFB), my heart quickens. It’s this sense of “alive” that I so desire to feel in my life every day and am convinced God wants for us, too. But I suppose that’s a whole other post J

The past few weeks have been crazy busy, and honestly rather overwhelming and filled with many different decisions, changes, and emotions surrounding those decisions/changes. Like "LIFE" changes. I'm just barely scratching the surface on working through them (how come "growing up" never seemed this complicated before?), but I hope to share more about them soon. Right now I’m studying for the NCLEX (the nursing licensing boards), which has been difficult to focus on – ok, *really* difficult, if you know what I mean J, haha. The task of studying EVERTHING NURSING feels overwhelming, and it’s a constant surrender to turn that overwhelm over to God and just take it a bit at a time. ((For all my recent nursing grads/fellow soon-to-be-RN’s: first of all, I miss you! Second of all, keep on keepin’ on! We’re so stinkin’ close! )).

A week ago, my sisters (Bethany and Kelly) and I ran our first “Sisters 5k” at the 2011 Riverbank Run in GR! Even though it was cold and rainy, we had a blast encouraging each other and finishing together! We’re planning on running another 5k together in June, and I’m contemplating training for the Air Force half marathon in October (What do you think? J)!

Love them! They bring such JOY to my life :)

I also bought my first car a week ago, a 2005 Honda CR-V! Craziness… which brings me to another thing I’ve been dealing with lately: money. Over the past few weeks, I’ve really been digging into my finances (current and projected as I start my first “real job” in July) and how our money is to line up with God’s will and desires, and boy am I learning a lot and being humbled a lot. Bethany (my sister) and I have been going through the “Financial Peace University” message series by Dave Ramsey, and it has been eye-opening. If you’ve never heard what Dave has to say, IT.IS.A.MUST. Seriously, if someone from New Life Church is reading this – we need to offer a small group series on this to college students!!! It's really that good. And I love that Dave teaches from a Christian perspective. Cool stuff.

As I mentioned above, I've spent the past three days scouring the city of San Antonio looking at apartments to live in come September when I move there for the Air Force. I was crazy blessed by my parents and grandparents to have the opportunity to go down there this week to check things out... I know it's going to make things a lot less stressful come September when I'll have a week in between my nursing training in Tampa, FL and my nursing job in SA to drive to SA and move in my stuff. My dad and I went to at least 20 different apartment complexes (please tell me we're crazy), but I've been able to narrow it down to three that I'd be happy to live in any of them (have to have a few in mind depending on their Sept. availabilities). Throughout the trip, my heart has been all over the place. It was really cool being able to show my dad where I'm going to be working (working at San Antonio Medical Center North - aka SAMC-North, and based out of Lackland AFB), and driving around the city and seeing and feeling the open opportunities there. I so firmly know that God wants me in the Air Force (a crazy story if I've never told you - Proverbs 19:21) and is bringing me to that city.

But at the same time, it was weird to be driving around and looking at apartments, one of which will be my new home for several years... being in places where I will meet new people, do new things, and make new memories... ah, but those thoughts are like daggers to my heart right now. You see, though college days brought their trials and heartaches, I have an amazing community of people that has stood by me, rejoiced with me, prayed with me, prayed for me, cried with me, and carried me. They are my amazing family, my amazing friends... and I don't want to leave them. This is a huge thing I'm working through right now (along with so many other things surrounding moving/growing up) and really want to give it justice in writing, so I'll refrain for the moment and decidedly wrap it up here, only to ask you for a few quick prayer requests:

- Pray for the military men and women serving here in the U.S. and overseas. Being back at Lackland AFB (where enlisted airmen are going through basic training, where so many careers begin, where so many of the deploying troops are routed through) really put things into a greater perspective for me. There is such a need in the military for God's love... and just as anywhere else, people are hungry for truth and for love. God's gonna' rock that place... I have a feeling :)

- Pray for my friends Cameron, Betsy, and Amanda who are in Kenya right now with a team from our church in Ann Arbor (New Life Church). Cameron's been blogging while they've been over there, so check it out if you have time --> http://camlafleur.blogspot.com/. God is doing beautiful things through them and teaching them so much. Pray for their physical safety and for emotional and spiritual protection.

- And finally, pray that God would soften my heart towards all these changes going on around me... that I would genuinely surrender them to Him and wait patiently to see His guiding hand in my life.

To those who made it all the way through that, kudos and thank you ;)

Love always,

Kaitlyn

First Post!

"The result of diligence is a faith that is strong and willing to inherit the fulfillment of the promises of God." - A. W. Tozer

While some might say I'm jumping on the "blog" band wagon, really, I've been thinking about creating one for quite some time. There have been so many exciting things happening in my life and so many upcoming changes, that this seemed like the best way to keep the greatest number of people updated! I am about to embark on a crazy journey, taking me literally across the country, away from my amazing friends and family, away from the familiar and blessed life I have here in Michigan, yet into a journey I have no doubt God has brought me to and will bring tremendous blessings through. My desire is to be transparent about my victories and my battles, for life comes with both. Some posts maybe of actual things that are happening, some of things I'm learning. I might even throw in a new wonderful recipe or craft I've tried every now and then :) As I take on this new phase of life, your prayers and words of encouragement will be greatly appreciated and needed!

Truly, this is - a life unexpected.

But all-together wonderful none-the-less :)