HUT-a new vision

I just spent two weeks at HUT, Harding University at Tahkodah, a program that prepares people to go into the mission field. I learned so much during these two weeks. I was stretched beyond anything I had experienced before. We simulated what it was actually like to go to a foreign country, and to experience living conditions, culture, and government. I felt the anxiety that came from the rain clouds and the lightening in the distance, no knowing whether I would be dry that night while I slept. I felt the uneasiness that came from not knowing the language and how to properly communicate with the people. I felt the vulnerability of being in a situation and having no way of coming out of it, a fixed fate. I can not even say I have truly experienced these things either, because at the end of the day I knew I still had a home to go home to at the end of those two weeks.

This course taught me so much, it taught me how to kill chickens, how to start fires, how to plant a garden, along with the importance of composting. It also opened my eyes to the reality of the poverty in the world, the limited good, and the limited resources that are unevenly divided in the world. I can not understand why some people have so much, while others have so little. Why Americans never have to eat the same thing twice, when there are people who are lucky to get even a cup of tea before their hard day of work. I do not think I will ever understand this, all I can do is ask God, and look to him for a way to help in anyway I can. I hope I never ever forget this either.

HUT really stretched me, and it really just strengthened my passion for going to Zambia. I know it will be a hard road, but I am so excited for what God has in store for us. We are called to be separate. We are called to be his servants.

Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the word. James 1:27

In Him,

Kayleigh

Where is he found...when there is so much to distort the eye from the essential
being that we are to live for. Where can we run to, when even our own faith in
him is being distorted and strained through the hands of others, ringing every
form of life into a bottomless cup that will only run dry.

You have no idea how much I long to be utterly and wholly without strain, or conflict,
or drama in my relationship with Jesus. I feel like it is so simple, but the pain of
earth can so easily distort. I am sick of twiddling down my faith to fit into a mold,
to fit a liking or a expectation.

I'm sick. SO sick. SO SO SO sick. Because if this is Jesus...I don't want it. If what I am feeling right now, is the real deal, then this is not love. This is not free love of a saviour...this is earthly control fit into a fairy tale story...set to keep more
people under a will that is not their own. I'm sick of man made doctrine and plastic religion. I don't need that. I need Jesus.

NO wonder so many people think of Christianity and get sick to their stomachs,
or find the term humorous. Please just keep your world, keep your expectations...I
want Jesus. I want to be able to serve him freely, but what HE says and HE
instructs...if I can't have that, I don't need any of it.

I stare within my constant vision,
a light and quiet peace.
Viewing only what I can see with
my mortal eye, oh how much more
seeps through beyond what is
touchable, what is questionable and tame.

What do we hold in our minds...a reality
set in stone. Who holds to the key
to the richest price, richest of fair.
The key to the very air that
whispers our thoughts and steals
our breath away
as our lips take in the smell,
and our noses instruct
the senses to the vast realm
beyond.

I am but a leaf in this tree...but
a droplet of dew upon a blade of grass,
smothered among a vast field of
impressible, uncontainable
organic beauty.

I'm longing for something.
Something alive, cold,a breathing beating something...
that could awaken my sleeping body and
strike a fire within me.

I need something maddening and crashing,
an awakening of self. Who will come to
feed...to give this need. And all I am hoping for is
useless.

Step once onto the rocky soil, and feel the wind around
my face, wisp wishing inside my hair. The smell of
blood is in the air..an erie silence fills the ear.
Something is coming, a light is blooming, a change is
near, it's looming over me.

I see a cloud in the distance, swirling into a shivery
dark mass of anger and pain, filled with the tears
of a thousand years. Champions and warriors, the
blood and sweat of a thousand men all poured out in
this one thunderous cloud. I gaze under
and my eyes fall upon him.
Blood...oh it drips through his eyes, mixing with tears as he cries..
father forgive them. Before he takes his last breath,
he stares me straight in the eye.

Oh what a maddening, earth shattering, heart moldering, gut
wrenching, mind blowing fire. This fire that has
consumed me. That man who I guess knew me, very well indeed..
he suffers, he cries, he wails, he suffocated right in front of my eyes.

He has convicted me. He is awakened me. That what I do on this Earth, the least of these, is done to bind up the wounds of the world, is done for he.

Oh Jesus you died. You died, you freely gave what I never could have given. You surely gave away all the love I'm too scared to give. Must I keep living like I never knew you, like you were just a flower crushed on the ground.

Your alive...and oh that scarlet blood, shall it wash me, so that my hands can give even an ounce of cleansing to this world...and give glory to you.

I think Im breathing...and I want to pass it on.

I feel like I have been more confused in the last month than any time in my life. But it is a strange confusion, because I feel like my eyes are open and my lungs are breathing...for the first time. The first time I feel Jesus. I feel him in my life and i see my purpose in my life. I just feel like so much of my life has been full of me...and what I need, what I want. Its been all about my issues and for the first time in my life I can stop and see him.

It feels like I'm breathing...feels like I'm moving. I finally get it. I need to have nothing but him in my life. Because if I am to give people hope and love...then I have to have him. Because I can not hope in anything outside of him. NOTHING. Nor love anything outside of him. Because he IS love and hope. HE IS. the I AM is LOVE. THE I AM is HOPE.

I want to be a teacher. I want to be one of "those" teachers. The ones that are a beacon of light to their students. The ones that can be trusted with anything..the classrooms that are not classrooms but rooms of refuge, away from the norm of public school chaos. I want to be that...to minister...to share..to be there. So many times in public school, I saw so many just dying for attention...calling out...and there was nothing...only those few teachers that actually cared. That were not only there to get a pay check...the ones that could have been making so much more money...but chose to be there. I feel like there needs to be more cushions there...cushions that break the falls of these kids...that tend to slip through the cracks. BREAK SILENCES...silences that are deadly...that break kids to breaking points where they will be willing to kill, to steal, to take their own lives...in order to feel or be noticed. WHAT IF SOMEONE WAS THERE TO LISTEN?????? WHAT IF SOMEONE WAS THERE TO CRY WITH THEM? Maybe so much pain could be spared.

Tonight was beautiful. Tonight I got to have a wonderful time with some awesome friends, and spend some much needed talking time with my wonderful friend Mandy.

Sitting under the stars sipping our iced coffees with a hint of soy milk, watching in annoyance the mosquitoes that were flying around our heads, just talking...it was really a breath of fresh air. It just got me thinking, how wonderful is it to be able to share thoughts, confusions, pains, fears with someone and understand and feel each other in such similar ways. I think that God really did create relationships to be like that, to be able to aid each other in figuring out these things that just trip us and knock us down. We are never alone in our troubles.

I say this because I realized tonight that I really need to start following my heart. Like for instance, I have decided that no matter the cost, no matter if I end up a simple art teacher, I am going to choose the "risky" road and be a fine art major.

I recently found a volunteer opportunity at the children's hospital in Little Rock, and they need volunteers for something called the art cart. It is where they have someone go around and do arts and crafts off of this cart with all the patients in the hospital. Oh my goodness what a perfect opportunity that would be! So hopefully this will work out and I will be able to do this for a while. I think it might be a solution to my future...this might just be what I want to devote my life to, simply doing art with people and helping them cope. :)

How awesome is it that God can take the passions that he has placed in our hearts, and direct them toward helping others and furthering his kingdom. In ALL things we can glorify him no matter if it is hair dressing, or cooking, no matter what he can use it and I am beginning to really learn that. :)

Thanks for reading.

Love KB

Oh me and my...life decisions.

Lately I have been feeling like my life has been changing. Of course my life has always been changing, and everything in life is in constant motion. But this change is something that I am so unsure of...not unsure as it not welcoming, but maybe confusion is closer to the word I am looking for.

I thought that I had my life all planned out. I thought I knew every piece to this puzzle and it was so easy to say, I am this major and I will be doing this in 10 years. Right now I am completely lost. I used to at least have a compass pointing me in a general direction but no, no compass no map no nothing. Yikes! I am so confused and upside down about so many things, and God has been sending me these differn't thoughts, differn't ways that my life could be lived and I have no idea where my place should be.

I want to be a missionary, but is it in the states or in Africa. I am an artist, do I devote my craft to graphic design or to art therapy, or am I to take a "risky" road and be simply a fine art major. I don't know because see when I look down the road and vision my self in 10 years I see Jesus. I see him helping people...and I see him using my art to do that. I can not see Graphic Design anywhere in that. But do I take the career field that will make me enough money to be able to support myself, or do I trust him. DO I defy everyone around me, including my family, telling me I should be "smart" and make my education count. Make money! Because that is the important thing in life! And no they dont say that...but I feel like that is what I am saying when I chose graphic design. I dont' know. I am soo confused. All I know is he is my future. He is alive. His church should be alive...and that brings up another frustrating confusion that I can't even begin to explain right now.

I know I have a lot of thinking and following and praying and trusting and be movable...plyable....because I guess that is his plan to be able to mold me and direct me. I thank him and praise him that I am not alone in this...it's such a comfort to know he leads me. Pray for me if you read this. Thank you. :)

Love KB

DID YOU KNOW???

That companies such as Disney, Nike, Gap, Old Navy, Coca Cola, Pepsi co/Frito Lay, Walmart, Adidas,
Kohl's, and many many many more have all been proven to use or have used illegal sweatshop labor, and
or unruly treatment of their workers in factories?

According to research that I found, sweatshop workers earn as little as 1/2 to 1/4 what they need to provide
for their families, basic nutrition, shelter, clothing, education, transportation etc.

Sweatshop workers are
forced to spend about 75% of their wages alone to meet basic nutritional needs.

Almost 75% of a garment is pure profit
for the manufacturer.

For less than 1% of Nike's advertising budget, wages could be doubled for all workers making Nike university clothing.

Common sweatshops include, tires, auto parts, shoes, toys, computer parts, electronics, clothing, and food.

The U.S. government often gives foreign aid to those same countries whose poverty is directly effected by exploitation
by US businesses operating abroad.

According to the Department of Labor, over 50% of U.S. garment factories use sweatshops.

This is just disgusting, and not acceptable. I really have no idea what I can do at this point, except for
obviously ending my support for these products immediately. But here is a site that will give you a ton
of info on the companies that are leading this problem, along with a lot of research sources that
back up their info.

http://www.greenamericatoday.org/programs/responsibleshopper/learn_hub.cfm

WHEN we have NEW EYES
we can LOOK into the Eyes of those
we dont even like,
and SEE the ONE WE LOVE.

WE CAN SEE GOD'S IMAGE in EVERYONE
we encounter.

IN the F A C E of the OPPRESSED
I SEE MY OWN FACE.

I N THE H A N DD S of the OPPRESSOR,
I SSEE MY O W N HANDS
their flesh is my blood
their pain is my pain
THEIR SMILE IS MY SMILE.

WE ARE OF THE SAME DUST

WE CRY THE SAME TEARS

NO ONE IS BEYOND REDEMPTION!

AND WE ARE FREE TO IMAGINE A REVOLUTION THAT SETS BOTH
THE OPPRESSED FREE AND THE OPPRESSORS FREE. <3

Let them blow away

Sometimes I feel so lost in transition,
like this whole world is spinning on it's Axel,
upside and inside out,
but my head is turning another direction,
and I find that we have yet to cross that line
between radical and ordinary,
it seems we've found a quiet place to lie,
and she's been sleepin for a long time...far too long.

We have to have our covers blown, and the quiet little
shelters blown away
until our words are so jumbled from being contained so long
that they fly out of our mouths and join the dancing of our
brothers and sisters that are still holding on.

And I feel like there are gaping holes in our eyes,
we fail to see the dirt,
but we get lost in every shiny penny that falls at our feet.
OH cant we loosen our tongues
to sing this song...that can untie our heats and keep us
movin on.

And we have to have our covers blown,
and the quiet little shelters blown away,
until our words are so jumbled from being contained for so long
that they fly our of our mouths
and join the dancing of our brothers and sisters
who are still holding on.

Oh let it all blow away,
until we are all dancing and singing
this song of new meanings.
OH they are still holding on.

Lonliness...a rich man's grave

He's ragged, he's worn.
His clothes...they are stained and torn.
Unsettling
Harsh
The stench how it seeps, and he reeks of this
foul drink,
of a lifestyle so far from peace.
Far from the light that his lonely heart needs.
He is cold, and they hate him.
They mock him, they disgrace him.
What sickness does penetrate so deep,
to turn a man so far we can't even weep....
In his packet there lies a buck, or two,
perhaps he has a few grand. No money he
has no need, you see he is a rich man
full of lies and full of greed.
This man has a hunger,
of something to feed,
a sickness so deep,
Loneliness will be,
his tragic end.

What if Jesus was serious when he said...take everything you have and give it to the poor, take your cross, follow me, risk everything, lose your life...all for my sake. What if he meant it?

Lately I have had so many mixed feelings about so many things. Frustrations with the church, and frustrations with my spiritual life, questions and issues that have been just plaguing my mind on how exactly do I serve this God that I know is real and in my life? How do I serve him with my life, when for one there are so many different views for his church and I just haven't been able to put my finger on the right one.

I've been feeling like what is the point of church. Now don't get me wrong, I think that church is extremely important. The church is the family of God and he has commanded us to "do" church. But "going" to church on this designated day, to go to a building where so many people get lost in the crowd, so many just go to go and sit and think about whats for lunch or actually listen, but never ask questions and never feel anything. I think Church is great, but lately it's just been bothering me. There is a huge disconnect, I feel. We are going to this place, but we are not really sure why, or how to do this thing we have been commanded to do effectively. What if we came and we mingled together, and shared our fears, our struggles, our questions, talked, discussed, grew together, dined on his supper, prayed at his feet, worshiped, what if??? Why a building why pews why dresses??? Who are we glorifying in this?

Well today I received a revelation. I don't know where the issue of church will fit in this yet, but lately, I have been thinking that I need to find a career that is suited for me. So that when I graduate I can get a job, make money get a family, and go to church, do mission work etc. But it hit me today. This is the American Dream. NOT my dream. A career is wonderful. But its not my vocation. Jesus is my vocation and the career that I chose has to fit that. I believe that my life needs to be radical. Jesus was radical, his disciples were radical...they were "rooted" in the way of Jesus, of showing this world there is a better life. I believe that I need to use my gift, art, in my vocation, and my career should fit this. Now what that career will be or how I will achieve this I have NO idea, but I do know that it will be in the states, and that God will lead me.

There are so many here in our country that are lost. I want to be able to help. I want my life to be a beacon...not a strobe light, but a gentle beacon shouting Jesus through my actions, not through bible bashing, no....through LOVE. As Shawn Claiborne says, there are many seekers of his kingdom that can not find Jesus because the lives of Christians around them are making such horrid noise they can't hear the whisper of Jesus himself. I want to spread his whisper. I have no idea what I will do in the future...but I want to start right now. I am sick of saying I want to go on a mission trip....because I am in a mission field. I want to act. And I am frustrated because I can't figure out where to start. I pray he will lead me....and I know he will.

Storm

The rain is pouring down. I can feel it's cleansing as it pours, listening to the sound, I know it is you. There is a feeling that everything in this world is under a glass box..every control is being made and every rotating piece of this world is in it's orbit...and I'm breathing here in this tiny room...just listening to the magic that I have no control over. To think that my fingers can feel this rain, but they can not begin to feel every piece of wonder absorbed deep within this drop...where it has journeyed, from it's home all the way to my finger tip.

I know you have brought this rain...this down pour mimics your glory. Showing how you wash away everything within it's time. You wash away my sin just as every leaf will be cast down this stream and forgotten. And the thunder it roars and groans in the night, your voice still resonates...no matter how many try to snuff it out.

I'm speechless of what to say, what words to utter to show how the understanding has found me. I haven't reached that place...I haven't gained the understanding to be worthy of speecing in your presence. I can not begin to explain how I feel...it's a chaotic, confused, joyful, mornful, melancholy feeling...completely contradictory and meaningless until I come to understand that YOU are the piece that will fix every single inch of my confusion..of my uncomplete answers. I just want YOU. God..Father...Omega...Redeemer...all will cease..but I find you ceaseless in this storm...present in the lightening crash and the wailing winds...ceaseless when the thunder roars in side this violent craze. I want to be home. I want to go home. See home feel home be home.

I have seen so many crazy Earth shadering things in the last week and all I know is that I don't like this world. This world shaders my heart, tears it to pieces, ripping..shredding. And how thankful am I..to have a mender.

It is so silent. All I hear is this storm. This Rain. I know you are here. Your hand is upon me. You love pours within this rain. I love you.

Christmas....Lilies of the field?

WOW it has been a really long time since I have written anything on this blog. Time has passed and things have changed. I don't even know where to start,

How about this. Why do we celebrate Christmas? I understand Christmas is a celebration of Christ and his birth, even though "technically" we don't know that he was born on this day. Lately I have been having a really hard time with Christmas. Which is weird...because clearly Christmas is a very long way away. But It just seems so meaningless and ridiculous that we have to spend so much on ourselves, on our families, when there are people in this world that don't have anything.

Christmas is usually something I look forward to...it is a fun time, but I have been convicted of the fact that most of the excitement that I feel is "What will I get?" I I I...I become so consumed with what things I will be receiving, how many gifts I will have, and once it's all over, money is spent, time is passed....I forget about half of these things.

Lately, the idea of a simple life has just been drawing my heart. The idea that one could live so simply and beautifully without want, but not consumed with materials, not laden with stuff...no 60 hour crazy run run work weeks, or a husband who is so busy that he has to rush out the door without giving you a warm kiss goodbye...just a life full of light and peace, joy and sunshine...having time to lay in the grass and soak up the sun, feeling the light breeze on your face listening to your children playing around you. Your family of Christians right beside you every step of the way...through good times, through the tragic life shadering moments...or even the gloomy days in between.

I know that Christmas...isn't the problem...it's not the soul issue in materialism. I know that most of our lives are so consumerized that even our 4 dollar cups of coffee can't seem too bad. And believe me, I love my coffee and this is going to be terribly hard to break....but I just thought I would share this. Please comment if you have any thoughts. :)

Beautiful Distortion

THis is the piece that won 1st in AYAA State Art Contest. It stands 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide. It is a mixed media piece, with charcoal acrylic and watercolor mediums.

To Write LOVE on her Arms

Love is the movement...its universal..it heals. It should be the one thing that unites us all..no matter our situations...trials...illnesses, hidden secrets. Maybe the reason there is so much sickness and pain and in this world is because we don't take the initiative, time, to show each other the love we deserve. Its human nature. We all long to be loved, that is the way we were naturally made. God made us to physically NEED the love of our neighbor, or friends our family. But we don't act on this need as much as we should. These movements have been going around, these people who realized this need for love in their own lives and realized that they were probably not alone in their need...they sparked a trend, a revolution of LOVE. But its more than a movement....why don't we atomaticaly show each other love? We get so angry all the time, when someone looks at us the wrong way, or bumps us in line, or heaven forbid drives too slow on the highway. If someone looks too funny, we think we don't have to love them, or is "weird" we think we don't have to show them the same love we do our best friends...maybe they smell...so freakin what!!! Maybe they look weird because they have been doing hard drugs for years, because they never knew how to feel WHOLE...no one gave them the privaledge so they looked to something artificial to fill the void and they cant turn it around. Maybe there like this girl in this story, who battled so many things, ...who never felt worthy, who by the love of these people...finally saw her worth, saw the love of Christ, saw hope..and LOVE. It inspires me so so so much. Please watch this video, read Renee's story...its a beautiful inspiration.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OHaFrS3TE04&feature=related

Renee's Story:

http://www.twloha.com/the_story.php

<3 <3 <3

Oh HEART Oh HEART

Oh heart Oh heart,

You are the true essence of this true beauty…
Living inside me, breathing yet weeping
for an escape.

I can manifest madness, sadness as well as undesirable flaws…but you are the only thing that allows me to see who I really am.
I have to say
IM SORRY…for all those times I’ve read you the wrong message or turned you away
Because inside YOU
My joy and my TRUE beauty are kept

PROTECTED…mending and restoring me into this person I was created
To be.

Your screaming has finally reached my ears…your twisting and turning, it has finally gotten to the core of me….suffer you will no longer do because

You Oh my beautiful HEART…you keep me alive, beating, breathing, smiling…
BEILIVING
That there really is a purpose to this life and
I really am beautiful, desirable, wonderful, precious…

I really am cherished for being this child I am and

I CAN NOT deny my own heart…you are the true essence of everything I am and you deserve to LIVE.

This is a SILENT night--spinning round....and round

EMPTY...mocking...a twilight

fading with this awakening-

A madness-

SILENT DREAMING...

of a life holding onto

LOVE-

screaming-

a passion still fading away.

Beauty...bleeding-
a meaning too far for me to

BEILEVE- feeding-
something unreachable,
a desire not meetable

for my soul to thrive upon this-
alive within this-

DEMON-
possessed with a desire to win-
although-

winning is never an option,
because life is far forgotten,
in this carrousel lost in darkness,
round and round-not far from
DEATH-to love
DEATH-to life
DEATH-to freedom

YES--all freedom
DREAMING-

but never beileving....just empty.

Dear Old Lady~~Regional Winner-Live Poets Society

She is but a towering oak, whispering, swaying in the moonlight's gentle breeze.

Secrets, they lie buried beneath her, entangled among splitting, encircling limbs.

A heart,breathlessly immersed beneath her core, beating as one...an essential being not exposed to the war of the elements. Though they threaten her, whisper a scarnful demise, unscathed…she remains. She remains. Carefully protected, hidden away among the warmth.

Deep, in solitude she stands, holding as a shelter for one, a strong hold for the next. In no weakness can she fall...even man tests too insubstantial to tear her to pieces…not yet, not now. Even then she shall sing in the wind. Swaying, standing fierce among the blazing light.


She is but a whispering willow, poise and finesse streaming from the glassy water surrounding her. Looking down upon beauty alone, she flies upon her knowledge. Treasured leaves fall with an unceasing courage. Courage of knowing, feeling, that their mother, a mighty one, continues to protect them with her might

She IS but a solid monumental giant, nothing but pure awe in spite of the evil knowing at her. She is this beautiful creature of life, ever standing, ever true. The heart of all wonder, the keeper of life, keeping every piece of this world pondering.