I am just over halfway towards my fundraising goal of $15,000 to cover my expenses for my time in Thailand!  Thank you SO much to everyone who had already given.  I am amazed at what God is doing!  I know that God will provide for all of my needs, and He does this through His people!

If you still wish to give, click on the "Support Me" tab at the top of this page or  http://heartafterchrist.blogspot.com/p/support-me.html

Please continue to join me in prayer!  Here are some requests that I have right now:

--for my full funding to come in

--that God would continue to prepare my heart, that I would know Him more and more each day.

--for the people and ministries fighting sex trafficking in Thailand

--for God to be glorified!

If you would like to receive an email whenever I update this blog, there's an email update box on the left side of your screen.  If you are looking at this on a phone, look for "see full web version" at the bottom of the page.

I was planning to write a longer post today, but I am just not feeling inspired to write right now, so I'll wait until I have something more to say!  Thanks for visiting and thanks for your support!

The song of my week right now is "Holy (Wedding Day)" by The City Harmonic.  It's about us, the church (Christ's bride) and how one day the bride and groom will be reunited.  It popped up on my Pandora a few days ago and I've been listening to it on repeat, because it reminds me of exactly right where I need to be- in the presence of Jesus, sitting at His feet. 

A Sweet Word About Identity

***Welcome to my Thailand blog!  Until January, I'll be posting updates about my progress towards the mission field, as well as thoughts and updates from my life now.  Life with Jesus never stops, no matter where we are, and I know He's doing loads in this season of preparation!  Look to the left side of your screen if you want to be notified by email whenever I update this blog.  Thank you for your support!

I've been training for a triathlon.  Yep, I'm kind of surprised too.  I knew that it would be good to do something athletically productive during my time at home, so I've been training throughout the summer with a group of women here at home.  The structure and accountability that the group provides is also the only way that I would have had the courage or motivation to even attempt anything like this.

--1/2 mile swim- no problemo.  I love water more than land and I spent my childhood at the pool.  No worries here.

--15 mile bike- nerve wracking at first, yet I've come to really like biking.  I love that pushing it up a hill is usually followed by getting to flyyyyy down.  I like going fast.  It's work, but it's enjoyable.

--3.4 mile run- I wish we did the events in the opposite order.  This for me is the humiliation of junior high PE, its sweaty, its tired, it's scary it's YOU CAN'T in my mind over and over again.  Yuck.

I was involved in sports (mostly water related) all throughout my childhood.  I have never by any stretch been an athletically gifted person.  I was in sports more for the social aspect.  I like to eat.  I didn't do sports or make working out one of my priorities in college.  Since I was a little girl, satan has fed me lies about my body image.  So without getting excessively personal and writing a short novel, that's the history.

Coming home into an open six months, with maybe 1/4 the volume of commitments I've been used to having, and in preparation for Thailand, I decided that it would be a good time to tackle these things head on.  It's been a journey.  Honestly, I haven't even been excessively serious about training aside from official Tri Babes stuff as I thought I would be.  One of the many lessons learned: challenges are infinitely easier in community.  The journey hasn't been about radically dropping time or working my body to oblivion, but in working hard something much deeper has happened.

The biggest result of this journey has been a slow and subtle shift in some of my thinking.  My mental tape has shifted from hate to "good job, strong body."  It doesn't mean I got up that hill at lightning speed, it doesn't mean it was easy, it means that my body DID that for me and that is miraculous!  Another lesson: encouragement is monumentally more helpful than criticism.

But here is the moment from the other night that I originally sat down to write about.  I was doing a bike ride on my own to get ready for this Sunday and I was pushing it up a steep little hill that I hadn't ridden before.  I felt it in my legs.  I was pretty proud of myself, as I realized I was nearing the crest of the hill.  God's voice interrupted my thoughts and He said something to the effect of, "The fact that you're my daughter is still more important.  It's still what makes you you."  

This accomplishment, which I have fought to achieve.  This, which the world and the people in my life tell me is a good thing.  It certainly is!  It's a big deal!  Yet, It is still not where my identity truly lies.  I could be the fastest or slowest finisher, I could be the prettiest and have the best body ever, I could be ugly, ultimately, it is NOT what matters.  I could become a perfectly proportioned super athlete, I could do any number of things that are very good things, it would still not be where my identity lies.

He calls me Daughter.  He has adopted me from my sin and sure death, for nothing that I could ever give Him, BUT BECAUSE LOVE.  BECAUSE GRACE.  BECAUSE REDEMPTION.  The only thing I can do is response is give my life to His glory.  That includes my future, my day to day, and yes, this triathlon.

I have a choice on Sunday.  Which thoughts do I choose to believe?  Do I do what I've done my whole life and believe that I'm not good enough, or do I choose victory?  It's an easy choice.  It will only be by the strength of the Lord that I swim, roll, and drag myself through the race on Sunday.  It will be for His glory, because He is worthy, and He is the one who has set me FREE.

"And oh as you run, what hindered love, will only become, part of the story..." -Steffany Gretzinger

One of our lake swim evenings

Dear Hope Freshman

Dear Hope Freshman,

I remember this day too well.  The heat and the moving and the awkward and the excited.  It's surreal, isn't it?  You are at college.  Take a minute and let that sink in.  I'm guessing that you're somewhere between wanting to curl up and cry and wanting to meet and know everything and everyone in this new place as quickly as possible.  Or you're alternating between the two at lightning speed.  But, I don't know you, so who am I to say?

I don't know where you've been or what your story is or where you're going or what you're hoping to get out of college.  Though I wish I could buy you the caffeinated beverage of your choice and find out all of these things, my time at Hope is done.  I don't know you, but I know the place that you are at, and I know what happened to me and my people during our time at Hope.  This is probably more for my own thoughts than anything else anyways, but here you go.

Jesus.  This guy.  If you don't know much about Him, find out some more.  You'll hear about Him a lot over the next few years.  If you already know Him, find out more.  There's always more to know.  Whoever you are, He loves YOU (yes, you!).  Whatever baggage you might have, look again.  Give it another try.  There's no time like the beginning of college for a fresh start.  And the awesome thing about God is that there are unlimited fresh starts, whenever, no matter what.

The people always define an experience don't they?  Find your people.  Find people who love you for who you are and challenge you to become that person more completely.  Find people who are pursuing what you're pursuing.  Don't settle for being treated as less than the valuable and important person that you are.  Better yet, consider others as better than yourself and treat them with the dignity and respect.  Some advice from the wise guy in the last paragraph.  But anyways.  You have my word that there are some awesome people in the grades above you who are so ready to love, know, and walk with you.  Get to know them.

There's so much that I want to tell you, but here's one more point.  Don't ever, EVER, pretend to be okay when you aren't.  We have a human tendency to want to always prove the best of ourselves to each other don't we?  Trouble is, when everyone only shows one side of themself, we start to think that everyone else is happier than us, so something must be wrong.  It's impossible to be happy all the time.  Don't live into this lie.  Don't compare.  No one wins.  College is often a really awesome time, but sometimes the best growth comes out of really hard things and sometimes really bad things just happen.  Be honest.  Be the friend who speaks truth to the friend who can't hear it for himself.

What a great adventure you have begun.  Make it great.  Get involved in things that matter.  Push beyond your comfort zone.  Seek Jesus.  Personally, my move in weekend was less than spectacular, but it got better.  It gets better.  I promise that the panic in your soul right now will fade with time.  I promise you that it will be hard.  I promise you that it will be worth it.  And while you're at it, stay up late and laugh hard with the people that will become your family.  And if I were to meet you today and then see you again a few years from now, I hope that I wouldn't even recognize you.  I hope that you become who you are that much more. You picked a really good place to make that happen.  Welcome to Hope, 2018.  Welcome home.

Sincerely,
An Overly Sentimental Hope Graduate, aka Karen Harvey '14

You may or may not have your life together on graduation day

Abundance

I get to live within driving distance of this!  Praise God man!

It's been awhile.  I graduated, hung out in Holland, and then drove my car 3,000 miles home, seeing friends old and new all along the way.  Now I'm at home in Washington, living with my family and looking for a job before I leave for Thailand six months from now.

I'm in a transition.   I was driving into Washington on my trip, and decided to turn on "Home" by Ben Rector to commemorate crossing the border into my home state.  I regretted this decision by the time the first verse was over.  He sings, "But there's no fools like the ones I love oh no, so good Lord Almighty take me home."  When I think of "my friends" I think of my Hope friends- all still back in Michigan or scattered around the country and the world for the summer.  That's my group.  My crew.  My pack of goons, the fools that I love.  I don't get to go back to that.  That's not home anymore.  And it's not as though everything is exactly as it was back there and I'm just not there.  It's gone, and it's not ever going to be like that again.

Today I was listening to some music that I've had for at least a year and never actually listened to, House Fires, perpetually free on Noisetrade.  It's what I think of as "house worship," just a bunch of people hanging out and singing praises to Jesus with acoustic instruments.  One of their songs is "God of Abundance," which repeats over and over again, "You're the God of abundance, You're the God of abundance."  My college years certainly were ones of abundance.  An abundance of friends, community learning, sleep deprivation, coffee, and opportunities for worship and teaching.  I loved it.  I'm listening to the song, and remembering the feeling of sitting in a group of people that I love, singing just like that.  Oh the abundance of those moments.  I'm thankful for how deeply I drank them in before I left Holland for good.

The biggest temptation as a graduating senior is to be cynical and angry that the "best years" are over, and that life is nothing like what it used to be.  I'll probably go through this around the time school starts again, but I haven't been feeling this super hugely since graduation.  I was in Holland with said friends, and then I was reuniting with more friends and seeing new parts of the country (basically everything I love).  As another random gift from the Lord, a dear Hope friend was visiting the Seattle area within a few days of me coming home.  It's the littlest things that make me the saddest.  The moments when I wish that so and so could share a moment with me and realizing that that might realistically never happen.

Truth doesn't change though.  Though college was a time of much abundance, God is still the God of abundance.  For me now, it's an abundance of evergreen trees, job applications, and mountain views.  It's an abundance of time with God Himself.  It's an abundance of interceding for Thailand and the people that love.  God Himself is abundance.  An abundance of love and grace and redemption and truth.

This is where I choose to fix my gaze.  On God and who He is.  On the fact that He continually wants me to live fully as His daughter, in spite of my constant actions to the contrary.  Not only does He often provide more abundance than we even see, He is abundance.

This doesn't mean that I don't miss my people, because I do, in a quiet, deep, constant way.  But I've already seen so many people "again," from whatever season of life they are from and I have six more months in the States to do that, not to mention all of the new friends I'll make in my time here at home.  I know that this is where God wants me to be right now, and that gives me such a peace.  He is the God of abundance, wherever, whenever, whoever, whatever.  Amen and amen!

To My Brothers

I am blessed to have some great guy friends, brothers in Christ.  I haven’t really had many guy friends before my last two years of college- I was always in all girls sports, I’ve always felt awkward around guys since middle school, and I lived in an all girls dorm my first two years at Hope. 

The guys I’m talking about most of all put Jesus first in their lives.  His love shines through them.  They seek God as the source of their strength, courage, and wisdom.  They seek to love and serve as He would in the ways that they live their lives, not just every now and then.  The guys I’m talking about are not ashamed of the Gospel.  They aren’t perfect either, but those things don’t define them, and they’re honest about their struggles.  I have guys who I spend time with, whose advice I choose to seek, and who love and encourage me as a sister.  They treat me and other women with the utmost respect, and seek to honor God in their relationships, while still being fun to be around, and being their goofy crazy selves.  I trust them and feel safe around them.  This is a gift.

I was thinking about this one day, and thanking God for these relationships and the love and wisdom that I’ve gained from them.  He then spoke something to me quite clearly:

“Baby girl, it’s because I want you to know that there are good men.”

Tears in my eyes.  I know that this won’t always be the case.  When I go to Thailand, the people that I interact with, and who I will be serving have not known this kind of love.  They have been used, abused, and disregarded by men.  I will see the men who treat women as objects for their own enjoyment rather than as treasures, as beautiful daughters of the King. 

If I know myself at all, this is going to make me really, really angry.  It will be incredibly easy for me to give into this anger, to let satan work more destruction and pain where there is already too much.  But I refuse.

There are good men.  I know this because I know some of them, and I know that there are many more like them, and I’ll meet some of them in Thailand too.  I refuse to become a man basher.  All of us are trapped in evil in some way, but we have the option of freedom through the death and resurrection of Jesus who has taken our sin away from us so that we don’t have to suffer the eternal consequences of it.  My prayer is that I can see all people in this way, and not ignore my own brokenness in criticizing someone else’s.  I want to be a woman who knows that men can do better and calls them higher.  It breaks my heart that people are trapped in evil in such ways, but God’s love and truth is greater and stronger even than this.

Lastly, to the men of integrity in my life- thank you does not even begin to cover it.  Thank you for showing me that there are good men.  The way that you conduct yourselves, the way that you treat women and all people that you meet does not go unseen, by those around you or by our Father in heaven.  Your love for Him shines so brightly.  Thank you for encouraging me, usually without even knowing it, for chasing God’s glory more than what the world has to offer.  I don’t even know a fraction of what I’m going to encounter in Thailand, but I know that the presence of you guys in my life right now is part of God preparing me for that season. 

There will and is so much that tries to bring you down, that tries to focus your eyes downward instead of up.  Keep looking up.  I know that you have something that you struggle with, because we all have that this side of heaven.  Hear me loud and clear here: God is stronger than you, your weakness, and your past.  You are not defined by your sin, by guilt, by shame.  The God of the universe has still chosen to call you son. 

Really though, I have to give the credit to God.  For letting me learn this particular lesson in such a rich and wonderful way, for bringing me brothers who love and support me.  May we not be seen, so that He may be seen. 

Thank you!

BIG thank you shout out to Orange Leaf of Holland for their help in coordinating a fundraiser for me today, and to everyone who came out and ate froyo, donated, hung out with me, or wrote kind words!  This was my first official fundraising event and I'm so excited to finally be under way!  I'll post a grand total when I know it!

You Make Me Brave

There's a song I'm obsessed with right now, called "You Make Me Brave" by Bethel.  This song gets pretty crazy.

You make me brave
You make me brave
You call me out beyond the shore into the waves

You make me brave
You make me brave
No fear can hinder now the Love that made a way

This is the part of the song that starts to build, the music gets louder, the key changes, more hands fly up.  God does make us brave.  As the song says, "God is for us, He is not against us."  This is true.  He gives us boldness to declare the Gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit.  It's so awesome!  I was just now jamming out to this song, thinking about the times when I don't feel brave.  Does saying I'm brave make me brave?  I think that speaking truth aloud is really powerful.  Really, God makes me brave.  

People think I'm brave.  

Because I'm moving halfway around the world or this thing or that thing.

Confession: I'm terrified.  I'm scared that what happened when I studied abroad will happen again, and that this time I won't get to come back to the Hope community to be pulled up again.  I'm scared of living in a place where I don't speak the language and the isolation that this brings.  I'm scared that I will become so hurt and hardened and jaded and angry that I'll lose something important about myself.  I'm scared that I'm not strong enough.  I'm scared that I'm not good enough.

Good enough for God?  The above lies put me in a precarious position.

As if I can impress God.  As if what I do or don't do changes the way that He looks at me or my identity as His daughter.  As if His presence or goodness is conditional upon my circumstances.  As if.

I am not brave, but I know One who is.  He endured more than I could even imagine only to come back with the greatest victory the world has ever seen.

I don't have to be brave of my own accord or my own strength, because ultimately those will fail me.

My hope is in God.  His call to step out is always met with His presence.  The hand reaching out through the waves.  We will fall, and fall hard.  We're still in our earthly lives here.  But it's not about us.  It's about choosing to trust Him, choosing to put His glory above every other single thing that we can chase after, dwelling in His grace, and running faithfully along the path that He has given us.  There's no way I can do this on my own.  Thankfully, the One who can and does do it has adopted me as His daughter.  Thankfully He has set me free from believing the lies that define me by my failure.  He gives me feet for the journey as this passage from Habakkuk says, and He is my strength.  Not even my feet that He gives me are my strength, but He is my strength.

I'm am stirred on by a love and compassion that is greater than my fear.  By the fire in my heart that says that the imprisonment and abuse of my sisters is wrong.  By the fire that says that Jesus is the way and that everyone deserves to know that.  Most of all, by God Himself.  Through pursuing more of who He is and by loving Him.

Because HE has made me brave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hi-VMxT6fc