Keeping Secrets

So, I've been pretty quiet lately. And yes, it's cuz I'm hiding things.;) I've kept a few secrets, lately. Good, great, and horrible secrets.

A lot is going on right now. A LOT. I find myself so overwhelmed that I just want to go back to bed and cry for the rest of the week. Just because I feel my own incompetence to face certain situations, and I fear that I lack the ability to make anything better.

But that's a cool thing about the God I know. He never asks me to be shameful, He never asks me to fix the situation, He never asks me to be better. Yes, He desires holiness and purity for me, but this God loved the harlots and the tax collectors. How could I say, after one slip up, that He loves me any less perfectly? And yes, He asks for me to repent and repair relationships with those around me, but that's something He does through me, not something I have to do on my own.

So I'm learning a lot about resting in the fact that He does love me perfectly. Even when I suck. Even when everyone else says I suck. He says for me to come before Him just as whole, because He's already dealt with all my mistakes. I don't surprise Him, I don't disappoint Him, and He works all things for my good.
Romans 8, Joel 3:13, John 15, and Psalm 31 are incredible. Just so you know.

Also, He doesn't ask for an imperfect, impatient, foolish 19-year-old girl to do everything right, or all on her own. After all, He knows the only thing good in me is Himself, and everything that comes from me is dirty and useless. Holiness and purity come from surrendering myself more and more to Him in me, and starving the "me" in me.


I hope ya'll have had a fantastic February! Spring is just around the corner, ya'll.
Love, Casey

Inspired Again

Sometimes I feel like I don't do enough. Which is completely ridiculous, because one look at my life, and you would tell me that I do too much!
And yes, I do way to much. Full time school; part time job; part time ministry. Totally manageable. However, throw into that almost 20 hours of driving a week, and anything outside of work and homework is sort of hard to fit in. Which means things I actually enjoy get pushed aside. Like my music. Like my books. Like this silly little website I don't post on often enough.

And instead of becoming inspired by the world around me, I find myself begin to be too tired to be inspired. To inspire is: "to fill (someone) with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially to do something creative." So for me to be inspired would be for me to have an urge to do something, especially creatively. Something I probably don't have time for. Something, that if I were to desire to invest in, would merely cause me frustration because I would desire to do this creative thing and wouldn't have the time/energy to do it.

This has caused me to just become inspiration-less and lazy in a few ways. It's also caused my purpose-less talents to get rather rusty in this past year. And I don't like it. But I've almost avoiding inspiration because my rusty talent and my lack of time makes me frustrated. Because I can't do more.

Not really sure how I'm going to fix that... but I need to.

But since lists are good things, I'll make a list of things that inspire me:

1) Rainy drives
2) Coffee dates (esp with interesting people)
3) People watching
4) Cities
5) The beach
6) Macklemore
7) Beautiful photography skills
8) Hot chocolate with marshmallows
9) Christmas lights
10) Bike rides
11) Little kid freckles
12) A cup of tea/coffee/breakfast on my back porch
13) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
14) Movie/book/song titles like that ^^

That's a starting point.  I'm going to start being inspired again.

31:19

I am wrong and proud if I think I can go about anything without constantly bringing it before the Lord in prayer. Especially big situations. 
If I want to live in a pure and godly way before Him, I cannot hold on to any bit of my life, or think I’ve got anything under control. 
I cannot have anything less than complete surrender in my life if I want everything His best could ever be.

“How great is the goodness that You’ve reserved for those who honor You...” - Psalm 31:19

Why Modesty?

I get asked a lot why I wear skirts, which is sometimes followed by the question of what modesty is all about. While this is not about why I only wear skirts (a personal conviction, and something I may write about later), this is to answer the simply question of,

What's the point of dressing modestly?

There are a lot of answers to this question. A lot of it has to do with the protection of the men in our lives. But that can't be the only reason, can it? After all, I can't protect them from everything. I slip up; I make mistakes; I wear that shirt that's borderline too tight or too low because I think I look good in it. But the simplest answer I have found for myself, the simplest motivation I have for being modest is this:

I want to be a safe place.

We've all been in situations when we're with our brothers, guy friends, boyfriends, husbands, and we instantly feel uncomfortable for them when we walk past Victoria's Secret, or when that certain scene in that movie comes on. 
It's not a jealousy, or even a protective issue. I just cringe with an embarrassment for the whole female species. Because I know it's difficult for them. I know in those situations their brain is struggling against the opportunity to use the "hey, I'm a guy, I can't help it" excuse, or to be a nobler sort of man.

It's been my goal for the past couple of years to be a girl that men can be safe around. Whether it's my guy friends, my friends' significant others or the adult men in my life.

I do not want them to feel assaulted whenever they are around me. I want them to feel like they can be around me without keeping their guard super high. I want them to be talk to me without having to fight for eye contact because they're trying so hard not to look at my body. I want to be able to hang out with couples and the woman not feel like she needs to be jealous or protective over her boyfriend/husband's eyes or attention. I want to be a source of friendship and encouragement, being the smallest distraction that I could possibly be.

This causes me to ask myself some very hard questions sometimes. Especially when I'm with my guy friends or my brothers and I notice a shift in their behavior when a girl "dressed like that" walks past. And it just leads me to wonder: "do I cause that sort of defensive reaction to the guys in my life? do I make them feel uncomfortable?"

Two possible responses:

Gals, this is a weakness for men. And since we can't protect them completely, we have two responses: we, as women, can set out to assault this weakness, OR we can do what we can to be, as much as possible, a "safe place" for their minds and their eyes. Yeah, it's the less-fun road to take. It means making sacrifices with certain clothing items, and turning down the latest styles sometimes. 
But to put my vanity before the purity of the men in my life is an atrocity.

Let's challenge and encourage each other to becoming safer places for the men in our lives instead of being just another source of struggle.

You can read my next post, "4 Reasons you should NOT be modest," here.

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