Author Archives: Kate Hurley

About Kate Hurley

Hello there! My name is Kate Hurley. I am a singer songwriter, worship leader, writer, and teacher based out of Boulder, CO. (go to katehurley.com for more about me and free downloads of my music.) I am single, but I am not a loser. Just wanted to get that straight. For more about me and free downloads of my music, go to katehurleymusic.com. For a bit more bio, go to the about page.
Jun6

Tips For Flirting

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Two notes:

My book is on sale for a limited time only for only $10. You should buy one! Click here to get them on my website , or you can also buy one on Amazon for a little more money. Check out all the five star reviews!

Also- I am still doing an Indiegogo Campaign  for my new album Sing Over Me. This album is all songs from God’s perspective based on verses where he is talking. You can great perks like the new album and my book. Here is the promo video:

Click here to go to the campaign. Don’t forget you can also download a 12 song free sampler of my other music by clicking the tab above.

On to the post!

So, I only am able to write this blog post because my friends helped me with the content. That is because I am the WORST at flirting. When I like a guy, I have a hard time looking him in the eyes. I don’t touch any form of phalanges, digits, or appendages. Most of the time, I simply hope and pray that he notices how cool I am from afar. I pretty much act like an adolescent at a Jr. High Dance. How did I get like this?

Sometimes I have to ask myself, why is that I am a bad flirter? It may seem like a light thing, but it may also be a symptom of a deeper problem: my own self worth. Do I think that I am not valuable enough for someone to notice me? Am I afraid of risks? Do I think I deserve to be loved? These are serious questions, and I struggle with all of them. I want to feel beautiful and to act beautiful, and sometimes that means fluttering my attractive eyelashes occasionally.

Here are my friend’s tips. Hopefully they will help all of of us bad flirters.

#1: Hug Correctly: This is useful for both friends and at the end of a conversation. I am even bad at this, the most basic point of contact you can have. One day, my friend Matteo told me “Kate, you are a bad hugger.” I said , “Why” and he said “You stick your leg out behind you so you don’t have to get too close to the person.” “I do? ” I said in surprise?” “Yes. And even worse, you stick your chin in the person’s collar bone.” “What? I had no idea.”

My friend Aaron heard the conversation happening from upstairs and yelled “Yeah Kate. You SUCK at hugging. The collar bone thing is the worst!.”

Luckily, the other day, my friend Trace taught me how to hug correctly. He said to stick your chin up as you are hugging the person so it goes over their shoulder. If the person is tall, you kind of turn your head to the side and lay it on your chest. Like so:

#2-Make eye contact -  I am so bad at this that my best friend had to practice with me. I am a little bit pathetic. She says that this is one of the key things to get a guys attention. Also, be brave enough that you let him catch you looking at him.

#3- Learn some good pick up lines. “I know that I’m not Boez, but you can glean my fields anytime.” “The only thing I want to change about you is your last name.” Or my favorite, “Is your name Faith? Because your the substance of things I’ve hoped for.” (I just noticed that those are all guy pick up lines. Maybe that’s why I don’t use them.)

#4- Learn some secretive ways to make contact with them, especially once you start going on dates. Here are some good ones:

The Slow Mover- This is where you are sitting by someone and you ever so slowly, like ridiculously slowly, inch your hand until they are touching, then brushing, then holding. .

The Shiver and Hook- This is where you are walking with someone and you shiver from the cold, and hook your arm in theirs.

The Pirate- The awesome new one I learned from my friend Ted the other day “if you’re a pirate, do you wear your parrot on this shoulder, or this shoulder (putting your arm around the person)?”

The Freddy Crougar- Go to a stupid scary movie and pretend you are so scared that you have to throw your arms around your date.

Any other good pick up lines or flirt moves out there? Anyone have stories of how their flirting or lack of flirting can indicate what is going on inside of them?

May29

What Single People Wish Married People Knew (Repost)

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Hey everyone…I am being interviewed on Frank Viola’s blog this week. Frank is a well known author whose new book God’s Favorite Place On Earth reached #13 on Amazon. I feel honored to get to do this interview.

Because I know I will have a few new readers this week, I thought I would repost my most popular post so far What Single People Wish Married People Knew. Hope you enjoy it!

My friend Jess is a beautiful, single blonde girl who has been a missionary in Italy for 10 years and is 37. One day, an Italian woman, let’s call her Mamma Carmen, came up to her with a little charm necklace that had a picture of a saint on it.

“What’s this?” asked Jess.
(Cue in accent of Italian mama who doesn’t speak much English)
“A necklace for you. A picture of Saint Anthony. “
“Who is Saint Anthony?”
“Is-a- the patron saint of lost-a things.”
“And what have I lost, Mama Carmen?”
“Oh, you know sveetie. “
“No I don’t know. What is that I have lost?”
“You lost-a your husband.”
“Mama Carmen, isn’t that usually the saint you pray to for a lost sock or car keys-things like that?”
“Yes, but not for you. For you, pray to him for husband. More important than sock.”

Mama Carmen’s Formula:

“Lost Husband + Praying to Patron Saint of Lost Things + Ten Hail Marys= 1 wedding, 5 socks, 2 spoons, and 1 bracelet you thought you gave to your friend Jill.”

I had my own formula concocting conversation with a ministry leader of mine a few years back. Let’s call her Emily. The conversation looked like this:

“Kate, do you remember our babysitter Joann? Well, she  went through a season of really struggling with being single like you are going through.  She cried and battled  and finally brought her burden to the Lord. She let go.

Two weeks later, she met her husband. And he looks just like Ryan Gosling. “

I said,”Emily, I am really happy for Joann.  But she is twenty freaking years old.”

“So? What does that have to do with anything?”

I respected and loved this leader, but I just couldn’t brush the comment off this time.

I said “I have had a decade longer than her of wrestling with God over this issue.  In all my wrestling,  I have had several seasons where I have been content as a single person, embracing the thought of God as my husband. But often, those seasons fade, and I’m struggling again. It is a cycle that happens.  I don’t think God laughs at my cycles of frustration. I think he understands. I think He wants to meet me there. “

Emily continued to argue with me, saying that I just needed to let go, insinuating that it was  my own fault that I was still single.

I said, “Em, please understand me here. If you had a friend who was not getting pregnant or who was having multiple miscarriages, someone who had been struggling with barrenness for fifteen years, would you say to her ‘If you just trusted the Lord more with your barrenness, he would give you a baby?’ You would never say that! You recognize how much she is mourning that loss, and so you careful with her words. You don’t want to hurt her even more by making her feel like it might be her own fault.

Well at times, I feel barren. Not only barren in my childbearing, but barren as a lover as well. I don’t have children or a husband, and so I really have no immediate blood family. Please, please, be sensitive to this barrenness in me. Please don’t tell me that I have done something wrong in not letting go, and the result of that shortcoming is my barrenness.”

I know that sounds pretty heavy, but it is how many of us feel at times.

In the very thick book of popular theology that is not actually in the Bible, a book I like to call “First Assumptions” , we have this formula:

“Not letting go=being single.
Letting go= being married. “

Most singles I have talked to have had this formula given to them in one way or another. Many of them dozens of times. Almost every time I mention writing my book on singleness, single people give me some kind of version of this story.

Most of us, when we first heard this formula as a young person, grabbed our journal and bible and went to a quiet place. We turned our sweet young faces to heaven with tears in our eyes and said “Lord, I let go. I give my husband to you.”

Do you know why we were saying this? Because we wanted a husband. And according to the formula, if you wanted a husband, you had to let go of him first. So we were letting go of him in order to get him.

Quite ironic, isn’t it?

But as years passed, when that formula didn’t work, we started cringing when someone told us we just needed to let go. We couldn’t put our finger on why it irked something deep inside of us, but it did.

I have a theory about why it frustrates us so much. At the root of this formula is the idea that all single people have done something wrong and all married people have done something right. Married people, I know you probably never meant to make us feel that way, but it is the nature of that formula.

It kind of reminds me of the story of Job. Here is the formula we can get out of his story.

“Tragically losing everything+wife that is pissed+hideous boils all over your body+annoying friends telling you that you must have done something wrong to deserve this+being totally frustrated and not getting why you’re going through this+God’s booming voice telling  us humans that we don’t know nothing and He doesn’t fit in our formulas and boxes+ praising God even through horrible circumstances and singing “Blessed Be Your Name” = even more stuff than you had before.”

Sound familiar? That story is one of the oldest in the bible. One of it’s lessons? Don’t make formulas. Meet Him, wrestle with Him, praise Him even when you don’t understand, but never, ever, put Him in a box.

As Donald Miller said, “As much as we want to believe we can fix out lives in about as many steps as it takes to make a peanut-butter sandwich, I don’t believe we can.”

My married friend Becca, who is incredibly dear to me, explained to me that married people don’t often have bad motives in their formula making. She said that when human beings don’t understand something, they make formulas. They want to feel like they are giving their friend some control over the situation. They even make their own life journeys into formulas. Sometimes we singles cling to the formulas given to us because we want some control over the situation as well.

I really appreciate that we had this conversation because it reminded me that  married people are not the enemy. They love us.

But out of love, I want our married friends to understand why these formulas are so hard for us to hear.

These formulas makes us feel like our being single has nothing to do with God’s will or our choices or the enemy or any other theory you have on why hard things happen.

It has to do with our lack.

We already struggle with feeling like we lack when we wonder why we haven’t been chosen. Please don’t cut that wound deeper.

This formula also makes us feel like our not being married  has to do with our relationship with the Lord, which evidently is wanting.

For most of us, our relationship with the Lord is the most sacred one that we have. Please, please, don’t criticize that relationship as well. Don’t tear down the one relationship where we feel loved and accepted. Even if you mean well, just don’t do it.

I think a good rule of thumb for both parties is to do less formula making and pat- answering and do more listening. Listening to what the Lord has to say, and listening to each others journeys with compassion.

Restrain yourselves from formulas. But don’t restrain yourselves from giving each other a hug. We probably both need one.

Be encouraged that we all have our own journey, and that all of our journeys our valid.

Don’t forget that my book Getting Naked Later: A Guide for the Fully Clothed is on sale for a limited time only for $10. Buy it here. 

May19

Sing Over Me

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My new album called Sing Over Me is coming out in the next six weeks or so. They are all songs from God’s perspective, based on verses where he is talking. It is by far my favorite project I have ever done. I believe that it will help people that are going through depression, divorce, loneliness, death, or any other number of heartaches remember that they are loved.

Watch this video so you can learn more and can also hear a bit of the music in the background…Plus now you will get to see The Sexy Celibate in real life, since I hardly ever post videos of myself up here.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sing-over-me/x/1824239?show_todos=true

If you’d like to hear some of my older music, click on the free 12 song giveaway above.

I am doing an Indiegogo campaign to put a dent into the funds for this project, and also to get it into your hands. I would love your help! It really doesn’t cost any more than buying it outright. Plus you can also get my book and other CDs as incentives.

Thanks for all your help!

Love, Kate

May13

Embracing the Mystery

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Two notes before I start:

My book Getting Naked Later: A Guide For the Fully Clothed is on sale for only $10 for a limited time! You should buy it.

Also, I am going on a tour through Switzerland, France, and Italy. If anyone has contacts for these places where people might want me to speak, play music, lead worship, or just let me stay with them, will you let me know? You can contact me here.

On to the post…

I had a friend tell me something really beautiful the other day. He is going through a faith crisis and is having to rethink everything he has ever believed.

He said to me, “Kate, I think that I am a lot like Peter. Peter had all these grandiose ideas about who Jesus was. That he was going to give him riches and fame and save his people from physical slavery. When Jesus died, all of those ideas of Jesus died with him. Peter was so confused. He didn’t know what to believe any more.

I don’t know what to believe any more, either. But maybe this is a process in which Jesus can show me who he really is. Maybe it will help me realize that he is different and bigger than I ever expected him to be. “

I have been thinking about this for days. I, too, have been going through a faith crisis. My dad dying seven months ago really shook me up.

For the first few months, I didn’t mourn as much as I thought I should. I felt bad about my lack of emotion. But the other day, while holding his death certificate in my hands. I cried and cried. I will never see him again.

Where is my dad, really? I have ask myself. Is he really still alive somewhere? It’s hard to even touch the idea of him being in hell. I just can’t believe that. And asking myself that makes me question everything I believe. I have wondered if God is actually good. I have wondered if God exists at all.

Added to my mourning for my dad is the heart wrenching process of not being married, of not bearing children. I have questioned words that I was sure I heard from the Lord. I have been trying and trying to believe that if I never had a family, if those words never came true, that God would still be good.

Added to that is the pain in the world that is just beyond my comprehension. I wonder about God’s existence almost every time I hear of something horrible happening. That never used to happen to me. It has only happened in this season, and I don’t like it at all.

This is a wilderness time My ideas of Jesus are dying. It is a time when I realize that God does not just grant me everything I wish for if I pray hard enough or live an upright life. He is not a genie in a bottle that will give me what I want if I rub him the right way. There is no intimacy in that way of thinking. There is no mystery in that way of thinking.

I could easily believe that this faith crisis means that I am in a bad place. A place in which I am faithless and not following the Lord. I may kick and scream, asking that I can go back to that simple place where I was before.

But when I think about it, I realize that it is really a better place that I am in. A deeper place. And that comforts me. I am not losing my faith. I am walking into a place of mystery.

I have come to believe that there are levels to faith. Here is a simplifying of those levels.

Certainty- This is similar to the time when Jesus walked the earth. The disciples saw what Jesus was doing and put that through the filter of their own lives. Here is how Jesus will help me get what I want, they said.  They had formulas. They boxed Jesus in . Everything was black and white to them.

Wilderness- This is what Peter must have felt when Jesus died. Everything he believed about Jesus was crucified. Peter denied Jesus because he was so confused about who he was. He questioned everything he believed. He saw all his dreams dying on that tree. And he was afraid.

Mystery- This is what Peter must have experienced when Jesus rose from the dead. He realized that Jesus was doing more than rescuing his people from physical slavery. He was rescuing them from emotional and spiritual slavery. He was setting them free in ways he had never imagined. The resurrection was a total mystery to him. He embraced the fact that he cannot, will never, understand the great mystery of who God is. His fathomless beauty. His frustrating hiddenness. His eternal, all encompassing, baffling love. The way he embraces us even in our deep deep doubting.

This changed Peter’s life. He no longer wanted to be famous or obtain riches. He wanted to spread the goodness of the Lord all over the world. He died hanging on a tree like Jesus did. He had embraced the doubt which led to the mystery. He probably kept doubting. But he also kept believing.

God has so many facets to him. He is like the biggest diamond you have ever seen. If I were to look at one tiny portion of that diamond for the rest of my life, I would still not have touched even that tiny part of him. He is beyond all comprehension. Eternity can’t hold him.

And yet, he is also like a tiny leaf that I hold in my hand. He makes himself small so that he can be with me.

That is the place that I want to be. In between the tension of mystery and intimacy. A place where I can’t see anything in front of me in this dark dark place, but believing that there is one who will catch me in that darkness if I fall.

A place where I don’t box him in, but I do let him in.

May7

Rave Parties vs. Water Ballet

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Today, I read an article on the Relevant Magazine called The Myth Of Perfect Dating. The article talked about the Christian cha cha that we tend to do with dating, where you keep taking two steps forward and then one step back. I like him! You cry! Two steps forward. But is this God’s will? One step back. Maybe we’ll get married! Two steps forward. Wait a second, I barely know him. One step back. He is actually really wonderful! Two steps forward. But dang it, was that magazine article about breaking up a sign that we shouldn’t be together? Three steps back. Can you say double mindedness?

I am going to take the analogy one step further and say that Christian dating can be even more like rave. We jump up and down in a spiritually inebriated stupor for three months screaming at the top of our lungs is he the one? hoping that the messages in the clamoring music will give us an answer. Then we fall down in a heap of exhausted despair when it wasn’t everything we thought it would be. Or else we continue raving for another three months.

To put it bluntly, we are a little on the hysterical side when we date.

I think the reason for this is that we think about marriage much sooner than the mainstream world. Rather than just getting to know someone day by day, getting good information over a solid amount of time, we want to know now. We ask is this the one chosen for us since the beginning of time where it was written in the glorious portal of heaven that the love our lives would fall on our doorstep at the right time with a bunch of gerber daisies and some quality chick flicks? 

The answer is how the heck are you supposed to know that when you just met the guy? 

We have a frenzied desire to have an answer about whether we’re going to marry this person, which has been spurred on by the tsunami of the I Kissed Dating Goodbye era. This era gave us the damaging idea that we should know if we should marry someone even before we date them. (For more on this phenomenon, read my series 90′s Dating Gone Bad. )

What do we do to aleve these frantic thoughts? We ask God to tell us what  to do. We ask for signs and look for them everywhere. If the next person I talk to says the word banana, that means I’m supposed to go out with him. Stuff like that.

The truth is, we are scared. And when we are scared, we tend to over spiritualize things. Dating is risky business. We don’t like the out of control feeling it brings us. We want God to give us an answer now so we don’t have to be scared any more. So we can have control over the situation through knowing the answer to our questions, while in truth, God may want to answer our questions gradually.

This kind of franticness is contrary to many verses in the bible, like “be anxious for nothing” or “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself.”

One of my favorite things to do is float in water. I am really good at it. Like I could do it for hours. I guess I am just a really buoyant person. One time I was talking to the lifeguard at my gym, and he was like “Oh, I know who you are. You’re the floater. Dude, teach me to relax like that.” He spoke with a slight sense of awe, as if had discovered I was James Bond or something.

The reason I love floating so much is that it is a place of complete rest for me. All that I can feel is the water underneath me, surrounding me. It run through my hands, and the coolness of it against my skin is all I feel in that moment. The clamor of the world fades away until all I can hear is my heart beat.  In that place, I can block all the world out until it is just my spirit and God’s communing with each other.

As I am floating,  I will meditate on some phrase, repeating it over and over like God, surround me like this water surrounds me or Be still and know that I am God.

I am not always a peaceful person. I have rave parties going through my head all of the time. But the more I choose to “still and quiet my soul, like a child with it’s mother” as it says in Psalm 131, the more I choose to trust in God’s goodness and be at peace with the gradual process I am in.

So choose to quiet your soul. Stop going to rave parties and do water ballet with God instead. (Was that an awesome last line or what?)

May1

My Friend’s New Book

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Hey everyone! My friend Frank Viola has a new book out that’s awesome! And you get tons of perks if you buy it soon. Here is the info.

Frank Viola has just released a new book called God’s Favorite Place on Earth that could literally change your relationship with God, help you defeat bitterness, free you from a guilty conscience, and help you overcome fear, doubt and discouragement once and for all.

This is a book that will jar you out of your “Christian rut” and give you new eyes for looking at EVERYTHING. It’s a quick, inspiring, and entertaining read.

In addition, if you get the book between May 1st to May 7th, you will also get 25 FREE GIFTS from 15 different authors including Leonard Sweet, Jeff Goins, Andrew Farley, Steve McVey, DeVern Fromke, Pete Briscoe, Frank Viola himself, and many others.

Over 47 Christian leaders have recommended the book including John Ortberg, Mary DeMuth, Greg Boyd, David Fitch, Leonard Sweet, Jack Hayford, Mark Batterson, Jon Acuff, Joy Bennett, Sarah Bessey, Anne Miller, Craig Keener, Pete Wilson, Todd Hunter, Jenni Catron, and many others.

The premise of the book is simple and 100% Biblical: when Jesus was on the earth, He was rejected everywhere He went . . . from Bethlehem, to Nazareth, to Jerusalem. The only exception was the little village of Bethany.

The curtain opens with Lazarus, who is now ready to die, telling the incomparable story of Jesus’ interactions with him, Martha, and Mary. God’s Favorite Place on Earth blends drama, devotion, biblical narrative, and first-century history to create a riveting book that you’ll find difficult to put down. Within each narrative, the common struggles Christians face are addressed and answered.

Go to GodsFavoritePlace.com to claim your 25 FREE GIFTS, read a Sampler of the book, and watch the gripping video trailer. 

 
Apr29

If You Can’t Marry ‘Em, Write A Blog About ‘Em

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I thought I would repost my very first post on this blog as I know a lot of you haven’t read it yet.

By the way, if you haven’t bought my book Getting Naked Later: A Guide for the Fully Clothed you can buy it here. Also, you should check out the reviews! I’ve gotten six 5 star reviews since it came out a month ago!

I have been in thirty three weddings.

I am not talking about how many I’ve been to, but  how many I’ve been in. I was a bridesmaid in some. I am a full time singer songwriter so I have sang and played in many more. Unfortunately, my job in these weddings has never been to walk down the aisle in a white dress. But I tell you what, if I ever get married, I will have lots of ideas to choose from.

Let’s just look at one wedding that I went to a few years ago that is a snapshot of my single life

Two of my dearest friends were getting married. It was a beautiful backyard wedding. Before the wedding started  I was talking to my friend Shannon, a very feisty, happily married 40 year old. This is what Shannon said to me that day, as she gestured towards my curled hair and perfect makeup  and my eggplant colored sleeveless dress that showed off my shoulders

“Kate, you look smoking hot. Too bad it’s just wasted. “

Most of you that are single are shaking the heads, putting this comment in the mental file called “insensitive things that married people say to single people.” Believe me, that mental file is chock full of comments people have made to me over the years , but this was not one of them. I  was not offended by this remark, because I knew that Shannon meant it as a compliment. What she was saying is “What the heck, Kate? You are wonderful person. I don’t understand why you’re still single. ” People say this to me often.

It is kind of a mystery to all of us.

During the wedding, I sang a love song that I wrote. My married friend Seth came up to me and said “Kate, in that dress, singing that song, any single guy here would want to dance with you. ” I felt very flattered. At the reception, thinking about those two comments as I was eating my chicken a la king, I started to feel very confident, brazen even. I was beautiful. Someone would want to dance with me.

I began to anticipate the dancing that was about to begin. One of those handsome single groomsmen would see me across the room and think “that was the girl who sang her song during the wedding. She fascinates me. I want to dance with her. ” He would walk up shyly and  ask me.  We would step out onto the dance floor and he would gently take my hand. Even that would give me butterflies, since no one has touched my hand in a long time. And then we would move together. Two peopled with different personalities, different weakness’, different strengths, moving as if they were one.

Maybe I would even fall in love.

The time came for the single men to ask the single women to dance.  I stood at the edge of the floor in anticipation like Cinderella at the ball.

No one asked me to dance.

Instead of feeling like the intriguing girl everyone wanted to dance with, I felt more like the Old Maid in that children’s card game- standing alone while everyone else paired up. I could have pulled out my knitting needles and my rocking chair right then and there. I wanted to say “Hey! Single guys! Over here! According to my married friends, this dress makes me look smoking hot! Doesn’t anyone want to dance with me?” I waited, hoping for a falling-in-love-worthy  song. Surely all those groomsmen were just being shy.

Sadly, the next song was anything but romantic. Can you guess what it was? I’ll give you one hint: it has nothing to do with wedded bliss and everything to do with an athletic club.

That’s right folks, the YMCA.

The YMCA seems to be a dance designed for people who can’t dance. A dance that you could do even if you were in a wheelchair.  If you are unable to learn the incredibly complicated 80′s dance that involves hopping up and down alone, you can at least fling your arms out to spell things. ”Look at us!” we say. ” Who says we can’t dance? We are so coordinated! We can all spell out the letters for the Young Men’s Christian Association in perfect unison! “

I was annoyed, but I still I went out there and “danced” with all the other bad dancers.  More accurately I “spelled.” But I wasn’t in perfect unison with them. Instead of YMCA, I was spelling WPCD. A little secret joke between me and myself. White People Can’t Dance.  This has been a tradition for me at weddings ever since then. *

Finally, towards the end of the wedding came the dance I really wanted to participate in, even if it was reminiscent of awkward middle school moments;  slow dancing whities. **

But there would be no slow dancing for me. Not even in my smoking hot dress.

I wanted love, and instead, I got the white man’s overbite.

Seriously God? Seriously?

That night was kind of a snapshot of my life.  The reception started out with me eating at a table with dear friends and loving life.  I laughed. I felt accepted.  I was thankful. But then the dancing came and everyone took their partner . Another pair and another pair and another pair. I sat at the table and slowly ate my wedding cake, an important stance when you don’t want to look like you have nothing to do while everyone is dancing.  I tried really hard not to cry.

I don’t want this to be difficult for me. I want to be satisfied in who I am as a single woman. But when I look at those pairs dancing, no matter how hard I try to fight it,  I don’t feel smoking hot. I feel alone.

How do we find hope that is still hope even if it doesn’t end in a wedding dress? How can we prepare ourselves if we do get married? How can we be thankful for where we are today?  What can singles and married people learn from each other to help us cope with this journey? Is a life that has no intimate witness still valuable? If a traditional family never comes to us, are we doomed to loneliness, or can we build our own family?   Does God see me alone at my table, eating my wedding cake? Does He care? Does He feel the same way at times?

These are some of the questions that I want to explore in this blog. I love the thought of you going on this journey with me. Let’s walk fully clothed along this road together.

*I looked up YMCA and wedding on the internet as “research” and found this in Yahoo Answers:

Question: “Do fundamentalist Christians do the YMCA dance at weddings? It just seems like it would be the dance of the devil. Which village people singer do they like the most?”

Best Answer- chosen by asker “The Village People are a creation of Fundamentalist Christians, so yes. They like the construction worker best because the Lord likes hard work. “

Another not so popular answer was “Fundamental Christians prefer the Hokey Pokey, while pentacostals are hot for the electric slide.”  This is what happens when you do research on the internet.

**All of these moves and more can be seen on the youtube video “How To Dance Like A White Guy.”  Very scientific, incredibly accurate internet research.

Apr8

In Response to the Death of Rick Warren’s Son: My Battle With Depression

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I have thought about writing a post like this for a while. But I kept shying away from it. It seemed so risky.

Risky because I didn’t know how you would respond.

Risky because some of you might believe I don’t trust God.

Risky because people I know and love read my blog and might look at me differently.

Risky because I am a Christian minister of the Gospel. I am not supposed to feel this way.

But after the son of Rick Warren took his life this week, I feel like it is needed.

Henri Nouwen said “what is most personal is most universal.”I love that quote because it gives me courage to say what I have to say, knowing that many of you out there are in the same place. You need to know you are not alone.

So here it is: I have struggled on and off with clinical depression since I was fourteen years old. It is a disease I inherited from my father, who self medicated for many years. I feel so much compassion for my dad, because he never even knew that he needed help. He just thought that he was incredibly sad and that there was nothing he could do about it except self medicate. I am at least blessed enough to recognize that there is something physically wrong with my body, that I don’t have to live like this if I don’t want to, and that I can escape a life of addiction by getting the help I need.

If you knew me, you would be really surprised that I struggle with this. Most people have no idea. As my roommate said to me, it’s not that I hide it, it’s that I fight hard to see that it doesn’t take over my life or ruin my relationships. That’s why people don’t often know.

My first bout with the depression was in middle school. My family was in shambles. My friends at school had all abandoned me. In my mind, I had no reason left to live. I had suicidal thoughts and cried all the time.

Thankfully, about a year later some wonderful believing friends came in and became like family to me, introducing me to Jesus.

I thought that was the end of my depression. I was wrong.

In college, I went through the worst bout of depression I have ever suffered through after a bad break up. I would cry for hours at a time. I would even hit my head on the wall sometimes without wanting to. I didn’t know how to control these emotions. They seemed to overtake me.

Then, I had a life changing experience in Mexico, where God told me that as many times as the ocean waves kept crashing to the shore, that’s how many times he would heal me. I believed him. It changed my life.

That story became my testimony for ten years. I have told that story a hundred times. It always ended it with “I threw away my medication, and I have never been depressed again.”

But I was wrong. That wasn’t the end of my depression.

I felt small bouts of depression throughout those ten years, but I would push them away. These are just attacks of the enemy, I thought. If I just say the right words, (in the name of Jesus! Do not be anxious for anything!) everything will be ok. The leaders in my life supported this kind of thinking. Any time I ever mentioned medication, people looked at me like I was crazy. Of course you don’t need to do that, Kate! Jesus is your everything! Just step into the joy he has already given you! So I tried and tried to do that. It just didn’t always work.

Some time in the middle of those ten years I contracted Lyme disease. I was very sick for seven years, as a lot of you know. The worst symptom was extreme insomnia.  I would go four nights without sleeping day or night, sleep for three hours the next night, then go another four nights. It was like this for six years. It was horrible.

I thought this insomnia was just a symptom of the Lyme disease and that it would go away now that the Lyme disease is cured. But I found out from a psychiatrist recently that the insomnia that was initially from the Lyme disease  actually jacked up the chemicals in my brain until I was suffering from a more permanent disease called cyclothymia. This disease can make me depressed during the day and then revs my brain up so much that I can’t sleep.  Cyclothymia was not a disease that was in conjunction with my inherited depression. It was ON TOP of the other depression, two totally different diseases.

I finally realized that the problems were so bad that I needed to get medication. When I got on the right medication, I started sleeping through night for the first time in years.

Did I stop loving God when I started taking medication? No. Did I stop trusting that God could be my everything and my joy? No. I still love God, just like someone with cancer still loves God when they choose to use radiation.

I have read before that if David were alive today, he would probably have been diagnosed with bipolar. He was an extreme, brilliant man who went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. All symptoms of mental illness. Yet he was a man after God’s own heart. In the midst of David’s bouts of highs and lows he prayed this prayer:  “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” (Psalm 42:5)

David talks to his soul as if it is another person, and I understand that, somehow. My soul feels separate from my true self. My soul is the part of me that gets so sad that I can barely handle it. My soul is the part that feels like I have no hope. But my soul is not all of me. I may never be able to make the sadness go away, but the sadness is not who I  am.

Maybe I can say, like David “Soul, I love you, but you are not the boss. My spirit is the boss. And my spirit says that we are going to get through this. My spirit says that it is not time to give up. My spirit says that we can keep praising God in the midst of our sorrow.”

Are those words a secret formula that will make a physical illness go away? No. They do however depict this truth: even in the midst of emotions that feel out of control and horrible we can still choose hope. We can try to find our spirit in the midst of our soul and ask that spirit to be strong. The sad part of us needs to be loved, but it does not need to be fed. We can visit the same places, but we don’t have to stay there as long.

(If you haven’t read my poem “You Are Stronger Than You Think You Are”  which is actually a response to my battle with depression, you should now, especially if you have similar struggles.)

I want you to look at me, now. I am a worship leader on staff at a church. I have a blog you read. I am an author. I make music and tour. I look totally strong and pretty dang successful. But I have all of this going on inside of me.

How many other people do you think are struggling with hidden depression and other mood disorders in your very own church? My psychiatrist has told me that half the population will have suffered through some kind of depression or other mood disorder in their life. That’s a lot of people hiding a lot of pain. We as the church need to make a safe place so that people feel like they can come forward and heal.

The Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book says ”When we are crushed by a crisis we could
not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that
either God is everything or else He is nothing. Choose.”

Tragedies make us choose. There is a door of opportunity that has opened before us because of the horrible death Rick Warren’s son.  We as a church can choose  to keep ignoring the problem of mental illness, or we can collectively turn around, our arms open wide, and welcome those that have felt ostracized for years.

Side note: If you didn’t read the last post, my book is here! I think you will love it! You can buy it by clicking the “My Book” tab at the top of this page.

Apr2

The Book Is Here!

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I can’t believe it friends! The book is finally here! 

You can buy a copy of it on this website. You can also click the “my book” tab at the top of this page any time you would like to buy it.

I think you will really like it. I honestly think I would read it even if I hadn’t written it, and that is saying a lot. 

I’d love your support! Please share the website, which is gettingnakedlater.com on your facebook pages and such. 

I couldn’t have done it without you!

Mar28

The Longing and the Mystery

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Sehnsucht- A huge and painfully unrequited yearning to find and touch the mystery. An extreme desire for a far off country you have never been to. A deep and insatiable desire for a home that you haven’t yet had. 

This German word is very hard to define in any language. But when you read the definition you know exactly what it means, don’t you? You can conjure up the feeling associated with the word because you feel it every day. It is a hidden desire  running under your skin even as you go to the bank and sweep the floor and buy your groceries. It’s the aching and mystery that arises as you mourn over your singleness or are reminded that your marriage is not all you hoped it would be. It is the faint pain like bruising on your skin that grows more beautiful and more painful as you get older because of the wisdom and the regrets that are birthed from the days you have walked.

This word has been on my mind since my last session with my counselor. I was talking to her about my recent visit to my college town and the longing I now had  for that season, the longing  I had for men that I dated in that season that I gave up on. The wishing I had done things differently. The wanting to go back to that mysterious place and make different choices. The deep desire to revisit the essence of the nostalgia I was feeling in order to live it out in the present moment.

She said to me “did you like being there while you were there? Were you happy?” I couldn’t remember. I found it ironic that I longed for a place that I missed now, but I didn’t even notice it while I was there.

“Kate,” my counselor said “you have always had this deep sense of longing, of dissatisfaction, even of suffering. You had it then, you have it now. Even if you one day finally have children and a husband, you will still have it. You can’t escape the longing. “

I knew she was right. I can’t escape this longing, this desire for a place I have never been to. Because I am human. Because I was born with that longing. It has been said that no other creature is as inherently dissatisfied as the human being. But I don’t think it’s our fault. I think it’s part of our nature.

In fact, I would argue that this sensucht, this deep longing for somewhere we’ve never been, is evidence for the existence of heaven, evidence for the existence of God. Can an atheist argue against his insatiable desire for home? Can an agnostic ignore the fire down in his bones saying that he was made for more than the life he is living?

Psalm 84:5 says “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” Another translations says “in whose heart are the highways to Zion.” Our hearts are set on pilgrimage, a long, beautiful, painful journey that will end in a glorious homecoming. Our hearts have highways to Zion in them, and after many years of walking those highways with perseverance, we will reach that mountain in which the glory of the Lord dwells, where all of our desires behind our sehnsucht will be realized.

CS Lewis’ was all but obsessed with the idea of sehsucht, the idea of looking for True North. In his book The Problem of Pain he says

All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it—tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest—if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself—you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say “Here at last is the thing I was made for.”

One day, at the end of your journey, you will say these words. “Here at last is the thing I was made for.”

Side note- I wanted to share my music with you for free since I know many of you didn’t even realize that I am a musician for a living. To download ten free songs- just click on the tab on top of the page, click on the link, and download! Hope you enjoy my gift to you!