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. 

 

 

Truth

This may remind you of one of those posters you see on the ceiling at your dentist's office. You know the one. Those "reach for the stars" sappy inspirational posters that you see as the chair lowers down and you resign yourself to the (hopefully) capable hands of your dental hygienist for the next thirty minutes of teeth cleaning.

I needed to make this. I was watching Hungry for Change and they were talking about not only changing your diet, but looking in the mirror and saying something like; "I accept myself the way I am right now." I thought I could take it one step further. Let's deepen this a little more.

I will probably always think something about myself isn't right (no matter how much I tell myself the truth that God formed and fashioned me as only a master artist can) and so looking into the mirror and chanting something like that really doesn't do me any good. I pray God changes my heart to match the truth in my brain and I'm sure someday it will click, Lord willing. Until then, and even then I think I will repeat the truth. Jesus loves me and accepts me where I am in this moment. Right now.

Elizabeth Elliot

Reflection

 

This past weekend I had an adventure. I don't get to go on many and I'm not really that adventurous in the first place so this was a treat! I headed up into the mountains of North Carolina to visit Nancy and go through a one day conference she runs called Footprints to the Potter's house. That weekend was such a time of rest. I didn't even know how many burdens I had been carrying until I started simply talking about my life with Nancy.

 The mountains are so beautiful. I looked like a dog in the car, my head going this way and that, trying to take in everything at once. My mouth was open and I'm sure at some point my tongue was hanging out in awe at the landscapes around me.

The sounds of the stream outside my window at night soothed me like no music ever could. I heard God speak more clearly than I had in a very long time. It wasn't that I couldn't hear Him in civilization...it was that I was trying to fill the silence myself. Normally, I would journal or say a prayer and not wait long enough, most of the time, for Him to answer me back. When I went out to the stream to pray and eat lunch I heard Him whisper; "Just let me talk. Don't journal. Don't look up anything in your Bible, yet. Just listen." So I did. He gave me Psalm 91 as my theme for this year to memorize. Funny, He's been showing me a lot of chapters about fear. Maybe He's trying to tell me something. Novel idea...right?? 

Psalm 91

 ¹ Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
   will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.^[a]
2 I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
   my God, in whom I trust.”

 ³ Surely he will save you
   from the fowler’s snare
   and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴ He will cover you with his feathers,
   and under his wings you will find refuge;
   his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,
   nor the arrow that flies by day,
⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
   nor the plague that destroys at midday.
⁷ A thousand may fall at your side,
   ten thousand at your right hand,
   but it will not come near you.
⁸ You will only observe with your eyes
   and see the punishment of the wicked.
 ⁹ If you say, “The LORD is my refuge,”
   and you make the Most High your dwelling,
¹⁰ no harm will overtake you,
   no disaster will come near your tent.
¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
   to guard you in all your ways;
¹² they will lift you up in their hands,
   so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
¹³ You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
   you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
 ¹⁴ “Because he^[b] loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
   I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
¹⁵ He will call on me, and I will answer him;
   I will be with him in trouble,
   I will deliver him and honor him.
¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him
   and show him my salvation.”

These were the other ladies who attended the conference. I was the youngest. I loved being around the other women. I think women my age need to be mentored by older women. I learned so much from them in such a short time. The only one missing from the picture is Sandra who co-ran the conference with Nancy. Sweethearts! There was such a difference in countenance when everyone came back from talking with Jesus. It shouldn't surprise me, but He always seems to. 

It doesn't take much to impress me. I don't really need a lot. Give me the stars, the ocean, the mountains and I'm pleased. I had two out of three. Life was wonderful.

 

Nancy and I on the steps of the church. She is my new surrogate grandmother. We bonded over Newman O's and art. 

I loved exploring the countryside. I found places that people don't get to see out in the suburbs. I automatically wondered about the pioneers who came before us as we drove around the mountains in Nancy's car. It's hard not to, because a lot of the land looks untouched and wild.

 I added a couple of macro shots to show you the beauty I found. Nancy kept saying she wished I was around for spring when everything bloomed. I found enough loveliness in the moss and the dead trees. Like I said it doesn't take much to make me happy when it comes to nature. 

 I love moss and found it everywhere. I even painted it at one point. There must be some sort of hidden meaning that! As I left the mountains I felt better prepared for what is coming. I felt God was giving me a period of rest before my life gets a little more topsy turvy. I feel so grateful to have been able to go. I'm so blessed.

The Artist at Work

 

It's probably the grace and mercy of God, but I was able to hear his soft quiet nudging this morning on the way to church. I was looking at the clouds admiring His workmanship when he let me in on his process. He said; "I shape them with my hands like a potter shapes clay." I thought this morning's display of gorgeousness was enough, but then tonight He really allowed me to see a small fraction more of the beauty he can create.

 

As sunset began, I saw all of these colors emerge after a late summer storm. Pinks, oranges, and purples all began to swirl like the watercolor painting I was working on. Every time I looked out the window I saw majestic cloud formations filled with golden sunlight.

 

Pictures never capture nature the way God intended it to be seen. He wants us to experience, feel, run, jump, roll in His nature playground. Too often I trap myself behind my computer screen and passively choose not to explore...not to learn...not to immerse.

 

If I can capture a half of a half of a half percent of the beauty that God let me see tonight in my art I will be happy.

Glorious.  I can't believe the colors were that vibrant. I can't imagine how Heaven will look, but boy am I even more excited to see it after the presentation I saw tonight.

 

amen. 

Recap!

My extra days!

 

I was so blessed to be able to stay two extra days in my favorite city on earth. The first part of Friday was spent doing a quick load of laundry (lovely) and moving all of my stuff to a taxi that I took with Sharon to a glorious hotel room.

Bye bye hostel!

Let me tell you I became very thankful for a private bathroom. I am definitely not complaining about the community bathroom at the hostel (it was so CLEAN) but being a spoiled American I appreciated the private bathroom even more after that experience.

The elevator doors all had something comical on the inside! 

After we got settled my Hawaiian buddy (Sharon) and I decided to go visit Ground Zero. It was overcast and drizzling.

 The Freedom Tower is halfway built. I thought it was very beautiful and peaceful looking. A very fitting tribute.

 Two beams in the form of a cross that will be placed back in the memorial when it is ready.

I thought this sign was amazing. America is so young so for a church to have witnessed all of these huge events is amazing and sobering.  

 

 

I couldn't take pictures of the next event I went to, but it was amazing. I went to Mako Fujimura's opening of the Four Holy Gospels show at the MOBIA in near Columbus Circle. I even picked up my graduation gift from my parents there, hehe. The amazing gift is a beautiful illuminated four holy gospels bible. I got to see the paintings in their full size at the opening and I really didn't want to leave. Please watch this video as well as go to his website http://www.makotofujimura.com/four-holy-gospels/ and watch that one too! I have a new favorite artist!

After staying for perhaps only an hour at the show, Sharon and I met up with Faith who was also on the project and we headed off to go see a Broadway show. I was so PUMPED! I'll keep it short. I love Sutton Foster and Joel Grey and I got to see them both onstage. I could have left the next morning and been an extremely happy woman!

After the show we got autographs!

 One of the leading ladies and Faith!

This gentleman was actually a good foot and a half taller than us. He just decided to be comical and bend down to our level.

 The next morning I headed off to see if I could get some cheap How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying Broadway tickets. Unfortunately, I underestimated the Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) fans. There were already a good forty people in line for maybe ten tickets!! So I decided to walk around the city until my next meeting with one of the project girls. Amber was going to take some senior pictures of me in Central Park. They turned out marvelous. She is so talented. 

I then headed off to my next crazy destination. I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the second time that trip. I had one goal and that was to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit that I had missed on my first visit. It was very creepy, but well done. It's amazing what someone can accomplish with fabric. He even said that he was an artist and that fabric was his medium. 

The line took an hour and a half to get through. I was trapped in between two very dysfunctional families.

After that I headed to the Frick museum. I will definitely be going back to that one. It was gorgeous and had a lot of old master's paintings. I was in art heaven! I had a lovely laid back dinner with Sharon after my museum adventures and we walked slowly back to the hotel. I was trying to savor the city as long as possible. The golden hour in NYC is like nowhere I have ever been. The light is amazing as it bounces off of buildings and on to the street.

The view from my hotel room was so NYC. I loved it! Check out the water towers! 

I had an amazing trip. I hope I can visit or live in New York City someday soon. I already miss it. God showed me so much while I was there. I am still processing a lot of the information. I have a feeling I will be back in the city sooner than I think...I hope!

Art Show and the End

I have been back for a while now. The days after the art show were a frenzy and it was hard to keep up and catalog the beautiful experiences I was having. We were preparing for the warehouse opening up to almost the last minute. There were people there for the community, churches, and one of the other Crusade Tribeca tracks. There was even the same sweet grandmother who we talked to in the park a couple of days earlier. She was there with her grown up daughter to see the portrait that Ziad had done of her and her granddaughters. So sweet. They just keep staring at the picture. I loved seeing the look in their eyes. It felt so wonderful to encourage them and make them feel loved.

 

We went home exhausted, but so excited that we had completed an amazing show and that we had opened the community's eyes to the fact that there is a place in the city where people will love them with Christ's love and be there for them in the midst of hard times.

The next day we cleaned up. It was hard having to watch all of our hard work be taken down, but some of the pieces of art will remain in the warehouse as permanent pieces of art and reminder of the event! That evening we ate at a beautiful restaurant in Battery Park looking straight out at the lovely Lady herself...the Statue of Liberty. It was so hard knowing I would have to say goodbye to my new friends. 18 days is not long enough to really get to know people well, but we bonded quickly and pulled off an amazing amount of work! I feel so blessed that I got to have that experience.

Ziad being silly with his coffee cup!

Leigh Ann and I

I was sad to see it ending, but I was excited for the next two days that I had given myself to experience the city more on my own.