Vintage with a modern twist.

So recently, I've discovered that my fashion sense is vintage/classic with a modern twist. Whenever I go shopping, I'm the girl that gravitates towards the classic dresses, blazers/cardigans and pearls-- I just can't get enough of the pretty old-style clothing in new, fun, and colorful prints. I keep my eye on the past with my head in the present.

And I think that there's something to that, especially in the context of Christianity. Keeping eyes to the past, with out heads in the future. It's vitally important to remember where we came from, so we can be all the more grateful for what we have now.

On that very subject, I was having a really intriguing conversation with my best friend last night about Judaism. Sam was raised as an orthodox Jew, meaning that her family very strictly adheres to the rules set forth in the Torah. Last night when we went to dinner after work, we had a really in depth conversation about the fundamental differences between our beliefs. For our Jewish brothers and sisters, God is not merciful, and sins are never forgiven, simply pardoned for the time being. One of their biggest holidays of the year is Yom Kippur, the one day that they have in the entire year when they ask for their sins to be pardoned. They fast and spend all day in shul (church) asking for their sins in the past year to be pardoned so that they may have another year to live and outweigh their sins with mitzvahs, or good deeds.

But fundamentally, guys, we believe in the same God. After all, our Messiah was a Jew. It's just so interesting to look at where we came from, and where we are now.

It was so intriguing to me to see how much changed when our Heavenly Father sent His own Son down to Earth for us. God incarnate, Jesus must have brought out the kind, forgiving God that we know and love today. It's interesting the compassion that comes when you personally relate to something for the first time. I've heard stories time and time again of men and women that "hate children" or "don't get along with children", but the first time that they hold their own newborn baby in their arms, everything changes. That child is not a mysterious and wonderful gift-- and they want nothing more than to spend every moment with and give everything for that child.

That's almost how I imagine things went with God. He's always been the image and embodiment of Love, but the second He gave His Son to the world, He gained a compassion for all of the people that Jesus was interacting with.

At least that's my theory. Who am I to try and define God, or put Him in a human box? All I know is that the more and more I get to know Him, the more and more awesome he becomes.


But back to the "looking back" idea. I've been reading 1 Samuel in my personal Bible time, and I find it so intriguing and almost underestimated.

One of the things that struck me  about the people in this time period was that they found joy in exactly the right things. There was one point where the Ark of the Lord was kind of in limbo, being passed around to a bunch of different peoples (because someone stole it, and God essentially struck everyone who was in possession of the Ark who wasn't an Israelite with some kind of awful plague. Give me back to my people!!). And when the Israelites finally got the Ark back and brought it back into the camp, the Israelites literally cheered so loud that the enemy's army (who were like half a mile away) heard them. The word of God is in the house!! I just thought that was so awesome that they had so much joy over the word of God. What if we started cheering every time we saw a Bible? Besides being looked at like we're fools, someone would undoubtedly say "Dude, it's just a Bible. Calm down."

Just a Bible? Just a Bible?!


Folks, this is the closest thing that we have to being able to ask God any question about anything ever. There is no way that we will actually know what God thinks about everything all the time, but we were given this book-- and it has a LOT of answers in there. It's not just a Bible. It's the Holy Word of God!

Sorry, I'll get off my soap box. But really. Just a Bible?


Okay, I'm seriously done now.


One last thing I want to mention.

"It is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves: for the battle is the Lord's." 1 Samuel 17:47

 Take a second. Read it again.






Amazing, right? Our God is so powerful that he doesn't even need to bring weapons into the battle, because He's already won. The battle is the Lord's. Our God is gentle and kind. He saves with kindness and love. Because ultimately, He wins. Every. Single. Time.


That has provided me with so much food for thought in the past couple of days, and I hope it will strike a similar chord with you.


God bless you all! Have an amazing weekend!







And, if you're in Greeley, come to Mudhouse tonight! It's a night of extended worship from 8-10pm-- and it's gonna ROCK.

711 10th St. @ the Bel-Air (right by Zoe's). Be there :)

New Year, new me. It's anything but cliché.

I'll save you an apology for kind of dropping off the face of the blogosphere and just begin this post by saying: last semester was freaking hard. Not that any of my classes were all that challenging, or that there was huge amounts of relationship drama. It was hard simply due to the fact that I don't know how to say no. So a lot of little yesses turned Kenzie into a tea saucer holding an entire Thanksgiving feast. It was stressful to say the least.

Anyway.

Dear blog,
Welcome to 2012.
Much love,
Mackenzie


With the start of a new year comes the rush of New Year's resolutions, and the all-too-cliché gym membership spree. Many of the resolutions made this time of year are unrealistic and not planned-- so unfortunately, the resolutions tend to fall through. See, I say this, and here I am with 4 New Year's resolutions (and several more unofficially):

1. Make a deliberate choice each and every day to spend time with God, to rekindle and reconnect.
2. Stay in touch with Sofia (my Compassion sweetheart).
3. Start and finish Insanity (Yes, the superhard 60 day DVD workout. Yes, I'm crazy)
4. Lose a pant size.


Cliché. I know. Lose weight. Reconnect with God. Change my life around.


But, see, friends, in pursuing the first of these resolutions, the outcome has been anything but cliché.

In just a few days, God has literally drowned me in his presence. We pray all the time, "Oh, God, pour out your spirit on me", "Oh, God, shower me with your grace", "Oh God, pour your love over me". And folks, the second I did this, God completely skipped the shower head and went straight for the fire hose. In all of His mercy and wisdom, God has literally blown me away with how in tune he is with me. It's like He was literally waiting for me to come back to Him.

But of course, the enemy can't ever just let you make a decision to rededicate your life to God. The same was true for me, and a couple nights ago I had a really rough night, trying to talk with one of my close friends about my thoughts on what would make our relationship better. After being completely shut down by this person, and essentially told that I was overreacting, I lost it.

"God, you put this person so intentionally into my life, and I've been struggling so much with their lack of care towards my feelings and emotions for about a year now, and I've let them get away with it all this time. But the second I decided say anything about it, they completely shut me down? I don't know what to do"

And then I got an urge to write in my journal. So I just sat down and wrote two pages. And when I was done, I closed my journal and went to sleep. It wasn't until the next day when I read what I wrote and I was simply blown away.

Watch over me as I sleep and
comfort me as I dream.
I am sad now, but
You wipe that all away.
You clean my slate, you take my pack.

You humble me when it's right,
You build me up when I'm down.
You're strong enough
for both of us sometimes
And that's always enough.

May my anger fizzle away
May my tears find your shoulder.
You are the one true comfort
when people fail us.

You will never let me down,
and I am always good enough
for You.
You are a Father, Brother, Husband,
all the best of each,
And there is no bottom to the
love you pour out on us.

Help me remember.
Help me recognize.
Help me know.
and most of all
Help me forgive, as you forgive.

God's presence turned my upset confusion into something beautiful.
The power exhibited by that leaves me in awe. Literally. A week before this, I hadn't really talked to, connected with or felt the presence of God in a long time. And here I am spouting His praises, organized into this beautiful poem. All I had to do was take the first step.

You take a step, God leaps a mile.

And folks, it's totally worth it.








God Bless <3 :)



Also-- check out this blog: The Sexy Celibate
Seriously, guys. It changed my life a little bit.

God's People

Ladies and Gents, our Heavenly Father! (insert mad applause and standing ovation here)


Okay, but seriously, I can't stress how great this guy is. He has this lovely way of putting people in each of our lives that are full of His love and compassion, even if they don't know it. And you know what, here's my tribute to each of them.



To the lady at Starbucks last night who complimented my top and was as kind as could be-- Thank you. You saved me from a night full of self-pity and crying. You snapped me out of the overtakingly negative mood I was in, and I was able to have a good night after that. You honestly have no idea how much you saved me last night.

P-- You are incredible. You are smart. You are compassionate. You are understanding. And you are exactly the person I need right now, to lean on when I have weak moments. Thank you.

S-- You get so happy to see me, whenever you see me. And it makes me feel so special. Sometimes, that little self-confidence boost turns my day completely around. Thank you.

K-- I love you. We barely ever see each other or talk, and yet you have such empathy for me whenever I'm down. You truly are God's servant, and you truly know what it means to love people. Thank you for caring about me. (ps... let's skype soon... and we NEED to plan a sushi date for Christmas.)

To the random classmate that messaged me on FB, saying how much he admires my organizational work, and asking me for help-- You have absolutely no idea how good it feels to have my work noticed and appreciated. I have been bending over backwards for that choir, and I'm glad that people are appreciative of the massive amounts of work and thought that I put into it. You officially made my day.

To the girl that works in the coffee shop downstairs-- you are so kind to me, every day that I go down there for my afternoon coffee and bagel. I can't tell you how much it brightens my day to see you every Tuesday and Thursday and have you ask my how my day is, and genuinely care about the answer. Thank you.




God had a way of showing his love to us, through everything around us. All we have to do is break out of our self-involved thoughts and feelings, and let Him show us. I'm so stubborn it took until I had to break down and beg God to help me appreciate this day for me to realize it, but I did.

And you know what? When you have that realization that God's people are as incredible as they are, and have as much capacity for shoing God's love as they have, you'll know what I mean.


Have a blessed day, my friends.

And remember: "I am blessed. I am blessed. God loves me, God provides. I am blessed"

Prayer?

How is it that one day can be so wonderful, and make you want to jump and shout and praise God, and the next day is completely awful and so distant from the day before?

That's about the story of my life right now, folks. I am so overwhelmed with everything that I have taken on, and on top of that, I have been feeling very depressed on a far-too-consistent basis.

On Sunday of this week, I decided that I don't want to "just get through things" anymore. After all,

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! Psalm 118:24

So I decided that I was done "getting through" things, and that I want to prosper and enjoy every day. Our wonderful Father gives us each and every day of our lives as a gift, so why not rejoice in that?

Well, it's been really hard. I have days when I am unexpicably sad, about nothing and everything at the same time. And like I said earlier, it happens way too often for me to feel any kind of comfortable with it.

I think it goes without saying that I would like prayer. I would just love if you could go to God and ask Him to just pour himself out on my life, in whatever way He knows would be best. I would really, really appreciate it, friends.

Jumbled.

So, I just realized that recently, this blog has been a lot about what God is doing in my life, and less about His word. I plan on changing that very soon-- but right now, I feel like I should (once again) update you guys about the craziness of my life with Jesus.

First of all, I would like to make a recommendation. My dear friend, Katherine, is one of the most spiritually connected and amazing people that I know. She has some of the most amazing thoughts and ideas too, which she shares on her blog, Growing Rainbows. I highly encourage that you check it out-- she is very connected with God, and has some wonderful insights.


Over this past weekend, I was fortunate enough to be included in the Work Crew for the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado's annual fall youth retreat, Genesis. It was a really interesting and different experience from all the other Genesis weekends I've been on before, when I had absolutely NO idea how much work went into running the dining hall, just to ensure everyone got a fresh, hot meal. I feel like over the weekend, I learned another definition of having a servant's heart, and devoting yourself to doing God's work for God's people. And let me tell you, folks, I was exhausted. Between serving, bussing and cleaning the whole dining room, going to the hot tub both nights felt way more than welcome. I was also lucky enough to get to bond with some of my peers from the youth group, and really get to know them on a different level. I also got the chance to see my friend John, who I hadn't seen in almost a year... so that was really nice as well. John is the kind of friend who you can tell anything, and he will never look at you any differently for it. So the fact that I had the chance to confide in him again was really, really awesome.

But there was a whole 'nother side to this past weekend entirely. A lot of things were happening in my brain on Friday night alone, and in talking with a few of my really close friends over the weekend, my thoughts started to get more and more jumbled, because I feel like God was bringing up some things that I had let slip out of my radar. Two of these things include my relationship with my boyfriend and my future as a woman of God. Examining the latter, I started to feel as though this Music Education thing that God has me doing right now may be a very temporary thing, or something that I do to learn how to communicate well with and relate to other people, but not something that I will do for 30+ years, like my wonderful father has. I felt like He was really bringing back up the possibility of becoming a church planter, or possibly a worship leader-- or maybe even both (although, if He was, it was in a very roundabout way).

Now, don't get me wrong, I absolutely glorify God in the fact that I was able to take a long-needed weekend off, away from everything that might keep my mind occupied. I just have a lot to think an pray about.... which is kind of why I am writing this all down here. I would really REALLY appreciate if you guys could pray for me. Pray that God gives me clarity, and that He would light his path for me, so that I could see enough to even just take my next step. I feel like sometimes,  God puts streetlights on his roads for us that aren't always close enough together for their lights to overlap-- so sometimes, you can see where you are, and you can see a little bit of what's coming up down the road, but the path that it takes to get to that place ahead of you is a little unsure. It's there, alright, and it's all paved and ready for you to travel down it, that stretch just isn't as lit as some of the rest of the road is. And I guess I'm just in between streetlights right now.

Well, that's my piece for now. May God bless you and keep you safe and out of harm's way!

OH! And don't forget to stop and admire the beauty of the fall. This is my favorite time of year, because God's just up there with a paintbrush decorating His earth with the most beautiful and vibrant colors He can find. :)

Living day to day.

Hi, friends.

I know, I've been that person. I started a blog, and I was really good about posting for about a month-- and then I came to school and it seems like I forgot all about it. And the truth is, that's only halfway true. I forget about it half of the time, and the other half of the time, I think "I should write about this on my blog!" and then the craziness of my life takes over and I don't have time to follow through with my thoughts.

But here's the good news: even though I haven't been writing about it, God is still doing wonderful things in my life. And the thing is, I don't even deserve any of them. I find it really hard to have time to sit down with my Bible and set aside time every day to spend solely on bettering my relationship with Him. That's not to say that I'm not constantly offering little prayers up to Him. That's actually one of my favorite habits-- if there's an ambulace, I say a little prayer; if someone seems unhappy, I say a little prayer for them. And I'm constantly praying about my own life and circumstances. And yet I can't find any time to sit and just talk to God and read His word and worship Him.... but I guess that's my problem. (Pray for me?)

Back to God's undeserved, perfect, amazing graciousness.

Well, first and foremost, I'm secure financially. I always have just enough money to cover groceries and my compassion child.. .and now that I'm getting paychecks from the school, I know I'll have enough to start tithing again. And that in itself is a blessing. Over the course of a couple of weeks, God has really reassured me that He will always provide for me-- I just have to give Him the chance to.

Also, there's this boy. His name is Peter. And he is incredible. He is a wonderful, Christian guy-- and he has a heart of gold. Pete would do anything for anyone of his friends, anytime. He is truly kind and generous-- not to mention he just treats me so well. I trust him so incredibly much, and I get the feeling that it's mututal. I truly believe that God brought Pete and I together to show each of us how special we really are-- to each other and to Him. And all that I can ask of you, friends, is that you pray for our relationship. Pray that we can grow closer to God, and pray that from that closeness to God, we would grow closer to each other.

And last-- but certainly not least-- God had blessed my life. The passion and ambition that I had for performing (that God showed me was not in His plan) has been replaced tenfold with a passion for the new direction that God has sent me in-- to pursue Music Education. Even though I run myself thin every single day because I'm so busy with my major, I get more excited about the thought of teaching every day. God has really put me in a place where I will be able to teach and affect His people more so than I ever could as a performer-- and in a place that I can easily take summers to go and do His work around the world. Also, I'm in a place where I'm completely comfortable with the idea of moving to a different country to do God's work for an extended time (maybe even a year or two).

So although I may not be as consistent as I would like in my updates about God's moving and flowing in my life, it is undoubtedly happening-- and in a HUGE way.





Also, I would like to thank all of you that care enough to read my blog. I love that you keep checking back, too-- even though I'm so incredibly sporadic about when I post. I love you all, even if we haven't met in real life. I appreciate that you care about your sister in Christ, and I encourage you to email me whenever, about anything. Prayer requests? Email me. Need someone to listen? Email me. Want to share an important triumph? Email me. I will always be there to pray for you or rejoice with you. And I mean that. I love you all.

Livin' la vida loca.

After Cause Conference, I was faced with a monumental transition. It was a time of saying "Okay, God, now what?". My major in school is performance. Everything I do is based on the fact that I was going to perform someday. Online, my savings account has a goal called "Europe Fund". This was a big deal to me! So now what? The most pressing issue for me was school. My major in school is Vocal Performance. Should I even go back to school and waste a semester studying something that my Father in Heaven doesn't want me to pursue?

Now, let's take a sidebar here: I'm not really sure where my father stands on religion. He goes to church with us, and I'm pretty sure he believes in the whole idea... I'm just not sure where he stands on the idea of having a relationship with God, or devoting your life to pursue God's heart for the world. Needless to say, it was an interesting conversation when I told him about Cause Conference and the fact that I'm giving up performing.

Okay, sidebar over. Back to the story.

So I'm thinking a lot and praying a lot about where God wants me to take my life, and my dad mentions Music Education in passing. And it just hit me! It's like God used my own daddy to uncover a little but of his plan for me.

The wheels in my head start turning, and I'm really considering possibly switching majors. Well, as soon as I told my voice teacher I'm thinking of switching, she got really excited and had me sign up for a bunch of Music Ed classes to see if I like it. And here's the thing. I love it. I didn't really ever think that I would love it. But I do. My classes are so interesting, and I don't mind doing homework for them at all. And in every class, I get a little glimpse of what will hopefully be the full picture of me as a teacher in the future.

God is just so good. The second you give Him your life, things start happening. It may be terrifying at first, but we have NO idea what wonderful, beautiful, life-changing things our wonderful Father has in store for us. We take one small step towards Him, and He'll come running towards us with plans we could never even imagine.

Prayer Request:

One of the choirs that I'm in is taking a tour at the end of the year to... drumroll.... Europe!! We get to sing in Vienna, Austria; Prague, Czech Republic; and possibly even somewhere in Germany. I am just so darn excited it's not even funny. However, the price tag makes my stomach lurch... $4,000. I don't know how I'm going to do it.

And also, the church I have been going to in Fort Collins has a group of young adults going to Nicaragua in January. And I would loveloveLOVE to go on that trip. Between working at an orphanage with children to helping around the communities that we visit, and even just going back to Central America (which I fell in LOVE with while I was in Costa Rica). But, there's a price tag on this one too-- $1,775. Which is completely possible... if I didn't already need $4,000 for this school trip.

So guys, I guess just pray that God would provide for whichever amazing opportunity aligns with His plan for me. Pray that I would have clarity and vision about which trip I should be on, and just pray that God would be extra close as I'm forced to decide this week.

Thank you so much, and I love each and every one of you! God Bless!!