the truth I haven’t told you

I wrote an article that I intended to post to this website today, but honestly, I don’t want to post that. There’s something else I want to talk to you about. Something I’ve avoided talking about on this site for a while. 

I’ve mentioned it here and there, but never quite in fullness, and if I don’t, then you’re never really getting an accurate picture of who I am, what I love, and what’s really important to me. 

About a week ago my first college roommate reached out. She sent me a text saying that she had recently re-entered the world of social media and had been doing some thinking and wanted to talk to me about something. So, we set up a facetime date. In the days leading up to this facetime my mind was swirling with questions. What did she want to talk about? What had she seen on my Instagram that had sparked a desire to reconnect? The only two things I could think of were writing and Jesus. When I knew this girl, I wasn’t a Christian. I was eighteen, a little neurotic, a little bit crazy, and hell bent on proving myself to the world. She was fun, and pretty, and a little bit whimsical. She always told me she wanted to graduate and go be a ski bum in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Her easy smile belied her innate ability to think and feel so very deeply. On the outside she may have seemed a little bit wanderlust, which isn’t a bad thing, but she was tender, and compassionate, and intelligent, and unpredictable. Her name was the same as my childhood dogs’, and I remember thinking that was a good sign. She felt like home. 

She and I lost touch as many friends do, an occasional Christmas text maybe, but no real meaningful interaction since I moved back to LA at nineteen. What could she want to talk about? I was kind crazy when I knew her. I had a four-foot tall poster of an orangutan on my dorm wall, because I thought the funny monkey somehow represented my loud personality. I was this LA girl in a prep school world, trying to prove that I fit in, and that I was going to make something of my life. I wanted so badly to fit in that I wore Ralph Lauren button down shirts, pearl studs, and carried around a Longchamp tote. Basically, the prep school starter pack. Three quarters of the way into my freshman year of college, while living with this particular roommate, I went away for Easter weekend. I went to spend the weekend somewhere in Connecticut with my then boyfriend, but, I came back different. I remember lying on the floor of this hotel room alone. I had a 104-degree fever, vicious body aches, and I was miserable. My physical misery was only exceeded by my emotional misery. My soul was miserable. Everything ached. I was eighteen, and my life looked great from the outside. I was enrolled at a great college, I had cool friends, I had made the senior Mock Trial team as a freshman, I was on student senate, I looked fine from the outside, but internally, I was falling apart. I was sad, and reckless, and acting out, and looking for validation, and meaning in all of the wrong places. I cried harder than I had ever cried before. I just felt like I had broken somehow. “This has to be rock bottom,” I remember thinking to myself. I cried so hard my sideburns were encrusted with tears. I was eighteen, alone, and really heartbroken. I didn’t really want to be a lawyer, and I wasn’t satisfied in my relationships, it may have all looked fine, but internally, I was barely holding on. 

I don’t know any way to make this next part sound less weird. But the only way I can explain it is, that in between heavy sobs, I felt like I heard this little internal voice say, “you need Jesus.” Previous to this, Christianity had been a pretty vague part of my life. My aunt and uncle were pastors and missionaries, so it was always present, but it wasn’t the most active part of my family. My mom loved Jesus and was always talking about something, “spiritual.” But for me personally, faith just wasn’t the focus. I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus like that. I didn’t feel like I needed Jesus. I could handle it on my own. Jesus was this far off higher power figure that I had heard about, not someone I knew. So, when I heard, “you need Jesus,” I didn’t really know what to do. “How do I get Jesus?” I thought. I dragged myself off the floor and searched the bedside table for a Bible, but this hotel didn’t have one. So, I laid on the bed, opened my ex-boyfriends iPad, and searched the word, “Christian,” into the Netflix search bar. All that came up was Veggie Tales. If you don’t know what Veggie Tales is, it’s a children’s film series starring animated vegetables talking about Jesus and the Bible. 

I selected a video called, “The Girl Who Became Queen.” It was the story of Queen Esther…You know, it’s 12:12 am right now and I’m writing to you about the moment that I met Jesus for the first time and I’m backspacing all over the place. I don’t know how to talk about this in a way that seems less than a little bit mysterious. Like, what do you mean you heard, “a little internal voice in your heart say, ‘you need Jesus.’” Like, “what does that mean?” And, “how can you be sure?” And those questions are seriously valid, and I don’t really have good answers. All I can tell you is that I met Jesus in this shanty hotel room in Stamford, Connecticut, and that moment changed my life forever. 

I didn’t wake up looking like a different person, but something was different in my heart. I watched the video and then all I can remember is feeling an incredible sense of calm wash over me. I was too tired to think about anything else, but for some reason, I knew everything was going to be ok. I was going to be ok. 

I still don’t know a great way to talk about the moment I met Jesus. And I guess it’s not the moment that really matters anyway, it’s every moment after. That moment happened eight years ago last month, and the last eight years have been the craziest ride of my life. I didn’t wake up perfect and trust me when I tell you that I’m still definitely not. But I woke up different. Something had changed in my heart. It’s really freaking difficult to put into any good words the intangible love of Jesus. I may be a writer, but there is no prose I could craft well enough that would accurately portray what Jesus means to me, or what I mean to Him, or what you mean to Him.

And I guess that’s kind of how we get here. The facetime date with my old roommate happened a week ago. We caught up, and talked, and before long it became apparent that the conversation would be mostly centered around faith. She had taken part in several ayahuasca rituals and even spent a significant amount of time living and working in Buddhist monasteries. It was awesome to get to hear about the things she had learned and the ways in which spirituality had changed her life and thought processes. It was just awesome to hear her voice. I danced around a lot of words as I tried to explain to her to that weekend in Connecticut and my life since then. Since that weekend, I contemplated seminary, started working with a college ministry, got really sick, moved back to LA, saw a lot of doctors, got healed from that sickness, studied to be a teacher, worked a million odd end jobs, found Churchome, worked a wild and fun nanny job, served in church a ton, moved to Seattle for a, “6 week internship,” and attended Bible College for three years. Then I worked more odd end jobs, worked for the church, and now I’m staying at home in my townhouse in Kirkland with my roommates. That’s a very small picture of a very full eight years, but you get what I’m saying. Trying to explain to this girl who knew me when I wasn’t a Christian, what my life had looked like since I had become a Christian was interesting to say the least. 

About a year ago, I was working as a waitress at a restaurant in town. There was a man I was serving who always sat alone and read his Kindle. He was a game designer for Nintendo. We were making pleasant conversation when he asked me, “Why did you move to Seattle from LA?” I said, “For college.” “UW?” he said. “No, Bible College actually,” I said. “Oh,” he said. I could hear the surprised tone in his voice. He was quiet for a while and then he asked, “Did you grow up in the church?” “Uh, not really,” I said. He looked puzzled. “How old were you when you became a Christian?” “18,” I replied. He looked more puzzled. He said, “So, you were an adult when you became a Christian, like you willingly chose this? Why?” 

I thought for a while and then said, “Well, I just realized I needed Jesus, I just couldn’t do this life thing on my own.” I could tell he was dissecting my answer. I didn’t know what else to say, that was the truth. I always wanted to be independently successful. I had spent most of my life on a crazed journey trying to prove that I was good enough. And when I met Jesus on that hotel room floor, at my very weakest, and my most broken, I knew that I didn’t want to do it alone. I couldn’t do it alone anymore. I needed Jesus. I needed his love, and acceptance, and forgiveness. I didn’t have words for it then, but I needed what Jesus had done for me. I needed the cross, because what Jesus had done on that cross paid for a life with him that wouldn’t always be perfect, but in my hotel room-floor crying moments in the future, I would never be alone. A savior, who loves me, and made me, and calls me His own would be right next to me, comforting me through heavy sobs. 

I shared the story of the Nintendo man with my roommate on that facetime. I told her about the hotel room, and how faithful Jesus has been in my life since, and how wild the last eight years have been. And then I told her this story…When I first moved to Seattle I was really worried about my brother, Connor. He was this painfully good-looking college kid who had gotten deeply entrenched in fraternity life. I had mostly negative mental images in regard to fraternities, and in my head, Connor was constantly in danger of overdosing on some miscellaneous substance. I basically just thought he was going to die, and I worried about it constantly. Truthfully, I’m sure he was fine. He’s now college graduated, has a stellar career, and he’s an incredible human, minus the quarantine beard lol. But I was worried. The first few weeks I was in Bible College I would pray all the time for Jesus to get through to my brother and keep him from harm. One day, I remember so distinctly hearing that same little internal voice say, “Katie, be faithful to do what you’ve come here to do, and I’ll take care of your family.” I think it has to be noted that Gods’ care for my family isn’t contingent on my faithfulness. God’s good even when I’m bad. But that little phrase, that, “I’ll take care of your family,” brought me more comfort than I can explain. It was like a weight immediately lifted off my chest. Like, “Ok, God’s got it.” And Jesus has been so faithful in taking care of my family. But as I told my roommate this story, I started to get emotional. I said, “You know what’s so crazy is that the best things I’ll ever be a part of, and the best things I’ll ever experience, and the best things I’ll ever do, will all be because of Jesus. He does all of it. I can’t take credit for any of it.” You might think that’s really frustrating, But, it’s true, and it’s why I’m writing to you right now. 

I wouldn’t be me if it wasn’t for Jesus, it’s the biggest part of who I am. It’s why I think the way I do. It dictates my choices. It shapes my world view. It’s huge. And if I’m honest I’ve avoided talking about Jesus at length on this site because I’m afraid of offending anyone or narrowing my audience. I don’t want to speak to an exclusively Christian audience. That has never and will never be my aim. But I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that the love of Jesus has changed my life and it’s been the realest thing I’ve ever known. 

This whole article is so sloppily written, but I guess I just want to leave you with this. As we concluded our conversation my roommate said, “I love how you’ve been able to intertwine your faith and your career. I would love to do that but wouldn’t even really know where to start. I guess I’m just trying to figure out how to have a regular, 9-5 job and give that to God. Like, how do I intertwine spirituality with my life?”  

I said, “That’s where I’m at right now. I don’t work at a church at the moment, and I’m trying to figure out what my next step is. But I’m learning that no matter what I do, whether it’s objectively “spiritual” or not, everything I do is worship, because I am an expression of Jesus and everything flows from that.” 

I don’t know if that conversation was good for her, but my God was it good for me. It was this full circle moment. And I couldn’t help but be reminded of how good Jesus is. I never thought I’d be talking about Jesus with the girl I lived with when I was eighteen. You know, my life isn’t a picture of what it was like before Jesus and then what it was like after Jesus. Yes, I went from being broken to made whole, and blind, to seeing. But I’ve always been Katie. You can’t separate me from my life before I knew Jesus. It’s still a part of me, and that’s a beautiful thing. I’m not supposed to be this cleaned up picture perfect person that looks nothing like the girl I was before. I’m just Katie, but I’m Katie that knows that life is so meaningful because a man lived, and died, and came back to life to make sure I could spend eternity with Him. 

And I guess that’s where we end for tonight, deciding that you want to accept Jesus into your heart doesn’t mean that you stop being you. It means that the God who created you saves you completely in that moment, and then he’ll take you on an unforgettable journey, and he’ll show you how He’s redeemed and restored all the parts of you that may feel broken and battered. It’s a free invitation into the most fulfilling adventure for the rest of your life. It’s the best decision I ever made.

I don’t know where you are in the world, some of you reading this are in countries I can barely pronounce. But, know this, I’m not trying to convince you that you should decide to follow Jesus. I don’t have to convince you. Who Jesus really is, is so good, that you don’t need to be convinced. He is good, even when you don’t feel good. He is kind, even when you haven’t been kind, or others haven’t been kind to you. He is loving, even when you don’t feel loved or loveable. He is faithful, even when you’re faithless. He is God. And He made you. And He died so you could live in eternity with Him. And that’s kind of the whole story. 

Look, I’m sorry I haven’t said any of this sooner, I just haven’t known how to talk about it.  But from me to you, right now, I hope you know that you’re really loved and I’m super not offended if this piece wasn’t your cup of tea. But I had to say it, or I wouldn’t be as honest as I claim to be.