This is my first attempt at blogging. I'll be honest, I haven't read much blogs nor do I at all think I am a writer.
My grammar and spelling will probably be horrible. Apologies in advanced to the two of you that actually read this thing.
My focus for this blog is not for human, earthly issues (such as politics,culture,economics; although those things may come up, again, they are not my focus). My agenda is simple. it's 1 Corinthians 2:2, which goes a little something like this, "For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."
That's it!
Let me explain a little more.
God has radically changed my life.
I want to share the life I lived for the first 21 years of my life and how just like the Israelites in the book of Exodus, has delivered me from the oppression I was under.
All I want to do for the rest of the days I have is to make much of his glorious name, share what he has done in my life, and hopefully encourage others to inquire more about their creator
My name is Kaitlin. I'm 23 years old. God recently saved me at the age of 21.
I am recently married to a wonderful godly man, named Joe.
God has really blessed me with a man who loves and fears the Lord. SUCH A BLESSING!!
I have been a Christian for a year and a half now.
I live near Seattle Washington.
There is a very popular non denominational church here called Mars Hill Church, and God used the church and the preaching and teaching of our main pastor Mark Driscoll, to expose the gospel to me and regenerate me. He saved me from sin and death at Mars Hill Church in November 2011.
Now for some quick background of my life before God saved me and I became a Christian.
I'm sure I'll get deeper into these stories in other blogs later.
My dad had quite the temper. He was very very angry and unpredictable. He was also very physically abusive, especially in my younger years as a child.
He would get angry at me and lose all control and would punch me, smack me around, throw me to the ground, curse at me, and say demeaning things to me.
It was absolute hell.
Not only was he angry and abusive, he NEVER said a kind or encouraging word to me.
Most of the time he was a total neglecting, uninvolved, uninterested parent.
The only time he really stepped in to interact with me was for what he called "discipline"
but in reality it was absolute child abuse.
Not a surprise, but this made me extremely bitter towards him and hate him from early childhood.
I grew as a child into my teens and early adulthood a total mess.
I had no confidence in myself and was very timid, I was depressed, and I was a very angry person.
Kids at school were mean to me too so I was just miserable.
I want to get deeper into my journey with God later but for now I'll just give some highlights of what happened due to the destructive work I experienced in my home with an abusive, demeaning, and neglective father.
I did go on kind of a wacky journey to find answers to life, since it didn't make much sense.
Typical questions: Why is this evil happening to me? Is there a God? Who is God? Why am I here? What is the purpose to my life? Why have I been placed in the circumstances I'm in?
I needed answers badly and I also longed for unconditional love.
I ended up having Mormon missionaries show up on my door step to introduce me to what they say is "god"
(I'll explain my journey and experience with Mormonism later)
I was Mormon for 2 years (from the age of 14-16)
I didn't read the Bible while I was Mormon, just the Book of Mormon (obviously, cause if I had read the Bible it would have been absolutely clear that Mormon's teachings are in absolute contradiction to God's word)
I thought I knew God, but I didn't.
I quit going to the Mormon church when I was 16. Something made me drift away. I can't pin point a particular moment where I just said "THAT'S IT! I'M DONE!" and stormed off.
But I remember being confused about their teaching that God the father and Jesus Christ are created beings and that we could one day, through our works, become gods ourselves and start our own planet just like this.
There's more, I'll share it all later, but I just started questioning and slowly stopped going, and finally stopped all together.
I now see, that was absolutely God's providence, saving me from that false system.
I then went into rebellion for awhile. I still believed in God (I still didn't know him or follow him) but I said I believed God existed.
From the age of 16-17, I went into what I call my "mini rebellion" (the bigger one was to come later)
I hung out with a group of atheist girls (more on that story later)
they never got me to stop believing in God but they introduced me to a lot of sin.
I started smoking pot and drinking when I was 17.
I also had a boyfriend, Nik, who I started sleeping with.
I also skipped school A LOT.
I just didn't care.
Nik and I broke up after a year.
I dated this guy named Connor weeks after Nik.
Connor was a huge pot smoker and drinker. We partied for a couple of weeks and then I never saw him (he was off cheating on me)
The relationship only lasted for barely 2 months but in that time I hung out with his good friend Garth who was a TOTAL hippie.
He was totally perma-fried from all the acid and pot and whatever other drugs he did.
We became good friends (I was NEVER attracted to him) we were just friends and smoked a lot of pot and hookah together.
Connor and I brake up and weeks later Garth introduced me to my first love Joseph.
We clicked immediately. (more on that story later)
Joseph was Catholic and was against partying and very against smoking pot. He smoked cigarettes though.
So I quite smoking pot and quite drinking and just smoked cigarettes.
I eventually went to the Catholic church with Joseph and was very intrigued by it.
It was more about Jesus then the Mormon church and it was very spiritual with all the chanting and very artsy with all the candles and statues etc.
I thought it was interesting
so I took the classes to get baptized and confirmed Catholic.
I was Catholic for 2 years.
Joseph and I broke up after 2 1/2 years of dating. It was very hard on me.
I lost my best friend and all the friends we shared.
In the middle of Joseph and I's relationship I started attending community college.
It was so liberal, I tried to hang on to my Catholic conservative "morals" while I attended.
I met this girl named Natasha at college and we realized we lived right by each other so we became instant best friends.
She was sooo liberal and claimed to be agnostic.
She didn't do drugs at the time but had been hugely into acid and pot a year prior.
Well it was 6 months of knowing Natasha and the last 6 months of Joseph and I's relationship.
Joseph and I brake up and Natasha was the only friend I had to confine in.
I stopped going to the Catholic Church, I was hurt, and was getting hugely influenced by the liberal thinking of Natasha and college life.
Natasha and I got back into pot, and I got into way harder than I had the first time I smoked it.
Natasha and I LOVED marijuana and cigarettes!
we used to go drive our car and just smoke a ton of pot and cigarettes.
I was single for about a month and Natasha introduced me to a guy friend of hers named Ryan that I had gone to school with since elementary school.
Ryan was an atheist and 100% liberal.
He was into drugs. He didn't do hard drugs but he did all the psychedelics.
I asked him not to do psychedelics anymore and to just stick to pot, which he agreed to, and I believed all was well
until I found out later, after we had broken up, that he had snuck doing acid and mushrooms behind my back at parties I wasn't at.
More on the story of dating Ryan later but to sum it up.
Ryan was horrible to me, he was really gross, used me and was a total loser (more on that later)
I just had given up at that point.
- WILL FINISH STORY IN NEXT POST! MORE TO COME!
