Kara’s Collection: Longing

Kara’s Collection: Longing

from an article originally posted May 19, 2014...

Over the past couple of days, I have been rereading my manuscript. I have had about a month break, so it has been good to return to the pages of The Hardest Peace. I have not been reading it in order—there are some chapters I am not ready to read. But I have been returning to the pages and praying that God would use my feeble words for his glory. I have been praying that God would use the story he has grown in me to meet the story of those who choose to look upon the pages of this book.

Wednesday Bookclub: Befriend, Chapters 4 & 5

Wednesday Bookclub: Befriend, Chapters 4 & 5

As I’ve been reading Befriend, I really loved how well these two chapters complement each other. Chapter 4: Befriend Prodigals and Pharisees really rubbed me the wrong way. In a good way! The modern pharisee is probably the type of person I struggle with the most, likely because I was one for sooooooo many years. I don’t like to be reminded of who I was before tasting God’s grace—prideful, self righteous, inward focused, fearful of failure. The Older Brother through and through. Not that I’m not still these things, but now that I have encountered Grace, I am free from trying to save myself and impress God. So when I read this chapter, I really just wanted to skip over it. I find befriending the heroin addict cursing in the church nursery much easier than befriending the pharisee.

Kara’s Collection: Curiosity and Wonder

Kara’s Collection: Curiosity and Wonder

from an article originally posted May 18, 2014...

I have always had a curious mind. I’m a daydreamer and a question asker. I like to know the people I meet—really know them—and I like to understand how things work, how things are cooked, how something came to be. Some things I simply don’t care about. So I’m curious about certain things. Mostly people and mostly things that have to do with the right brain. I wondered if my first MRI would show I lacked a left brain altogether. Apparently it’s there, it’s just a bit broken. There are questions I wonder over, but don’t care if I will ever know the answer to. Then then are things I know the way my mind is made, I just won’t know. For instance, if a light bulb is burned out and the switch is still on, do you pay for electricity to go to that burned out light bulb? I look at my MANY lights with burned out light bulbs, I wonder if the switch is on or off, and then I wonder if I’m paying for that. But I don’t wonder enough to actually figure it out, though I’m sure one of you will know.

A Letter to Our Readers

A Letter to Our Readers

Dear Readers,

I have not written since July and so I wanted to write and say, Thank you!

Thank you for praying for my family through the darkest days of my life.

Thank you for your willingness to follow this story, and to watch God’s grace and truth meet a broken family with his peace.

Thank you for the ways you have entered the lives of those close to you because God used this story in your daily life.

Thank you for not running away from the suffering.

Kara’s Collection: Graduation Grace

Kara’s Collection: Graduation Grace

from an article originally posted May 13, 2014...

The end of the school year is wrapping up, and this time of year is a frantic stumbling to the finish line. Field day, projects, meetings, graduations, and trying to get ready to have everyone home. The marathon has been run, and honestly, we will barely be crossing the finish line. I feel like I said this last year. It feels like I have two functioning brain cells and they are exhausted.