Give Me Your Eyes.

A while ago, this video was circulating on Facebook:

I watched it, and I sobbed, because frankly, it's really stinkin' beautiful.

But the more I thought about it, the more beautiful it became.

How often are we blind to our own goodness and positive qualities? How common is it for us to focus on the mistakes we made, and become unable to see anything else besides the bad? What about your loved ones? Just because we can't see them doesn't mean they're not there: they are.

As I watched this video, I couldn't help but think that we are all called to be like Mr. Ramsay is in this video: to love, to encourage, to give hope, to affirm.

Even people it's really, really, reeeeeeeeaaaaaaalllllllyyyyyyy hard to be kind to them.

There are several people in my life who I have the most difficult time being kind to. Everything always just seems to rub me the wrong way, and I'm short and impatient with them.

But... God calls me to love them. Because even though they are annoying as all heck, they are still beloved, irreplaceable children of God.

Lord, give me your eyes. Help me to be able to love like you love, with my entire heart, and by seeing goodness.

Letting Go is a Leap of Faith

As you may know, I am currently taking a medical leave of absence from school. I came home a few days after Halloween after realizing that I was in a bad place and in need of more help than I could get while being a full time student.

It wasn't an easy realization.

Actually, it was the hardest thing I've ever had to admit myself: that I couldn't hold on any longer.

I had to let go.

I had to let go of my pride that said I was too good to admit this weakness. I had to let go of my expectations for myself. I had to let go of my fears about what my family and friends would say.

Stop holding on and just be held.

 It took me a long time to realize that letting go and taking a break from school was not weak. It was not cowardly. It was not taking the easy way out.

It was taking a leap of faith. When I let go... I was putting the next few months completely into God's hands. I was going home to an uncomfortable situation, leaving all my friends, and entering into intensive treatment. And I had to trust that God wanted me to be back in Connecticut at this specific part of my life.

And so I packed up my dorm and went back to Connecticut. I started in an Intensive Outpatient Therapy program at Yale Hospital, where I went four days a week for over three hours a day. I made medication changes.

And for the first time in a year, I feel like Katie again.

I'm still a work in progress, and to be honest, my faith has taken the back burner to my mental health treatment right now.

But that's okay. God has never left my side. Right now I'm not able to give Him the worship He is due. My worship and prayer and faith is imperfect. But it is made perfect in Him.

Friends, I still wonder what life would have been like if I stayed at the Mount this semester. If I had just held on a little bit longer.

The what ifs don't matter. It's the what IS that matters.

If there's something you're holding onto that you know you need to let go of, let it go. God will never forsake you.

The song I've really been praying with since coming home is Create in Me by Rend Collective. I first heard it at a retreat I was volunteering at, and when I heard the following lyrics, I sobbed with joy, with gratitude, because God has so much more in store for me.

Create in me a miracle, something real and something beautiful. 

You're not finished with me yet. 

By your power I can change, I can change. 

You're not finished with me yet. 

God makes all things new. He takes the gross and yucky and transforms them into the most beautiful things.

He's working on you and me, too.

Let go, and let Him work within you.

Dear Twenty-Fifteen

Dear 2015,

Well, you almost did it. You almost broke me. You threw everything you had at me: my cat's death, a year-long depression, an overnight evaluation in a psych ward, my parents' separation... and the eventual culmination of depression, stress, and anxiety, that I had to leave school.

I didn't think I would make it. I really, really didn't. For almost all of October, I woke up, disbelieving that I could go even one more day.

You gave me way more than I could handle. And honestly, I kind of hate you for that.

But somehow, I made it through.

I'm still broken and mourning the loss of my parents' marriage and childhood home. I'm still feeling like I was run over by a truck. I still feel tired, exhausted, and sometimes hopeless.

But I did it. I'm alive.

And it's because of you, 2015, that once again, I am hopeful.

I am hopeful for this year, that I will be able to go back to finish my final semester. That I will find peace. That I will be able to find joy in my current (and to be frank, crappy) circumstances. That I will continue incredible friendships and create new ones. That I will be one step closer to the Katie I was born to me.

So, here's to you 2015. In one way... don't let the door hit you on the way out, in another... thank you for reminding me that for the past twenty two years, I have survived.

Love,
Katie

Saint of the Year: 2016

St. Kateri, pray for us!

For the past two years (2014 and 2015), I have used Jennifer Fulweiler's random saint generator to ask for a specific saint to intercede for me for the year. This year, Kateri Tekakwitha chose me! When I was younger, I adopted her as my name saint (Katlyn... Kateri... close enough?), but have seldom thought of her since those days. So... I'm excited to rekindle this relationship :)

I looked up her biography, and was reminded that she was canonized during my first semester at college, so her patronage for my final year of college is especially fitting. I also found out that she is the patroness of the environment, which, to be honest, I'm pretty ignorant of. Maybe this is God's way of pushing me to finally read "Laudato Si"? :)

Read more about St. Kateri here!