Moving

Hi guys! Moving my blog to a new location! This is my new home now: https://katelyncreech.jux.com/

:)

Scatterbrained

She Was Made of Flowers and Vines (Self Portrait)

If you ever wanted to peek inside my brain the image above certainly will give you a glimpse. My co-workers often find me doodling on scrap pieces of paper during slow moments at work. I doodle to work out things in my mind or to help myself focus during a meeting. It's funny how I used to feel guilty doodling during a sermon, now I realize it's a tool that helps me listen and respond immediately to what I'm hearing.

Life is a blur of wonderful lunches and coffees with friends as well as panicked moments about moving across the country this fall. God has been stretching me beyond what I thought would happen this summer. I never realized I could learn so many lessons at once. It's a little exhausting, but exhilarating at the same time.

I was reading My Utmost for His Highest yesterday and as usual it was convicting:

"There are times when there is no illumination and no thrill, but just the daily round, the common task. Routine is God’s way of saving us between our times of inspiration. Do not expect God always to give you His thrilling minutes, but learn to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God."
- Oswald Chambers

I've also heard it said that the times when God seems like He is doing nothing is the time when He is preparing you for something that is ahead and to cherish those moments. When He calls you to go, you must be ready to go! So as I check the days off the calendar hanging on my wall I'm trying to listen and be still even though my brain wants to go in a thousand different directions. I'm glad I have a giant spreadsheet or I'd be in trouble.

Catch you later,
- Scatterbrained

Freckles

Close up of some North Carolina mountain moss

 Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

I was at my arts group at church last night and I had a sweet friend ask to draw my portrait while we were waiting for some paint to dry. As she drew, I mentioned sarcastically that she needed to make sure to capture ALL of my freckles perfectly. I have at least a thousand little freckles so that would be a challenge.

"You know" she said as she sketched, "...that every freckle is how often God thought of you." I looked back at her and my eyes began to burn with tears. I don't know if I have ever heard anything that sweet in a long time. I had heard of freckles described as angel kisses or sun kisses, but never the way she had mentioned. 

I think we all long to know we are unique. That He stopped and fashioned us for a specific purpose. I learned last summer that God is the ultimate artist. He formed the earth out of nothing and created everything from the quiet beauty of a stream near a mountain base, the laughable llama, and even the terrifying unpredictability of volcano. I can take so many things away about the character of God by just looking around me. 

Photo taken from the Bled tourism website

If I think about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen which probably was an Easter sunrise over Lake Bled in Slovenia...it does not compare with the breathtaking beauty and majesty of our Creator. 

Genesis 1:26-27 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them. 

The amazing thing is that He created us in His image which means that He made us to be artists like Him. Now, not all of us have the ability to create a painting or sculpt the human form out of marble, but He made us creative in different ways. Whether it's the surgeon who is skilled in repairing broken hearts, a counselor mending relationships, or even an athlete racing down the field to take the next guy that he sees down...we were all created in His image. He gave us skills and characteristics that are unique to each person.  

I am finally beginning to appreciate the things that He gave me that make me unique, but the thing is I can't take credit for anything. I am His lovingly made creation; His freckled child. So remember when you when you begin pick out the things you don't like about yourself...you are saying that He made a mistake when He crafted you. You are criticizing the ultimate Artist's work. 

To borrow from one of the most well known bible passages:

Psalm 139: 13-16 

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  

 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well. 

 My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.  

 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

You were created for a purpose. He loves you. 

The Creator didn't make a mistake when He formed you.

Jello

 

(Paper Cranes) 

Deuteronomy 31:6

⁶ Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

May seemed like it would never end. I'm pushing through what seems like jello...going in slow motion trying to get to September, when I leave for my next big adventure, but I have to stop and realize how much God is changing me in the here and now. Learning how to listen and then wait on the Lord has been the theme of my summer so far. It's in the books I pick up to read, I hear it preached on Sunday morning, and it fills the conversations I have with others. God is practically shouting in my ear; "Walk with me. Be still and listen for my voice."

(Zen doodles)

I would not trade this preparation for an earlier ticket to NYC. I would miss out on so many things. I think I would struggle a lot more later on without the training I'm receiving now. What are you left with when the familiar is ripped away? Whether it is a death of a family member, a physically debilitating illness, or simply a move to another city. When the familiar is taken away what you are left with is what you have been cultivating in the peaceful moments. Will it be a solid foundation & sweet communion with a Savior or will you be picking up the threads of THE relationship you neglected while in the midst of a crisis? He is there now. He loves you no matter what you do, think, or how you feel. I think I can learn how to dance again in that kind of grace.

Life at the Speed of Sound

After taking this picture and working with it in Lightroom, I realized that it sums up where I am in my life right now. In transition, blurry, always moving, and hurried. The summer looms before me, yet I know that it will speed by me and soon September will be here. It will still be too warm to even think about going outside, but still things will be changing. As much as I pray that everything will come sooner rather than later...I still feel the twinges of melancholy.

I lay on the couch watching my brother open his birthday presents last night. I wish that I could capture that moment in a little mason jar and carry it with me to my new home so that in the dark winter days I could open it up and relive the warm moments where family is all around me and we are all happy and safe and healthy.

I am thankful for change. I am thankful that God doesn't leave us in our puddles of misery and sin.

So even though right now I'm in constant motion, I feel blessed. It's a good moment. 

POW

God likes to work in spite of me, thank goodness. Today, while I was driving to work I heard Him gently remind me that He will never leave me or forsake me. I felt like I could breathe a little more after hearing that. My day was filled with my own thoughts crowding out the peace. I obviously needed the reminder again, because tonight at my worship and arts group at church (artists meet up to create for the church) my friend Sasha listened to me while I was explaining my worries about a upcoming trip to NYC and VA. She sweetly reminded me to; "Remember, He said He would never leave you or forsake you." POW. I love when God shows up.

Well...He does show up all of the time...sometimes I'm actually watching for it.

All Creation Cries Out

 

 

Tonight,  I thought I had lost my Kindle so I went outside to look for it in my little red car. I didn't really get very far. I made the mistake of looking up. The light pollution didn't allow for such spectacular views of the sky like in this picture, but the stars and planets I did see were so bright! I sat on the front step of the walkway up to my house and just looked up. A breeze filtered through the trees and I felt like I was in the mountains again. I felt like I could breathe and be with God in his creation and listen. It's amazing that even from so far away you can detect the slight color that radiates off the celestial creatures. Mars was most definitely very red tonight.As I sat there I felt the wind rustle by me as if God was saying He was with me.

"The whole world admires the rainbow's beauty. But the scriptures indicate God created the rainbow specifically to remind people of His promise to them (Gen. 9:11-17). Charles Spurgeon, the famous English pastor said: 'God seems to talk to me in every primrose and daisy and smile at me from every breath of morning air, and call aloud to me in every storm.'" - From Hearing God's Voice by Henry and Richard Blackaby.