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