Red light district.

Trafficking= "to trade or deal in a specific commodity or service, often of an illegal nature"

It's time to speak. It's time to take action. It's time to become an ABOLITIONIST.

2 children are sold every minute.
1.2 million children are trafficked annually.
sex-trafficking is a $32billion business.
27 MILLION people are currently enslaved...which is more than double the number of Africans enslaved during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The trafficking and rape of children for profit is one of the darkest stories on the planet. This physical, mental, and emotional trauma leaves children broken and scarred for life.

I think it would be awesome if we got over ourselves and started to take a look around at what's happening to our world. Here, democrats and republicans are at each other's throats about "life" and "choice." But what if we got to the root of the actual problem? What if we raised awareness and attempted to put a stop to this injustice? What if we turned off all those red lights? (A "red-light district" is a place where the sex industry flourishes...the red lights are where the brothels are located. In some places, all the lights seem to be red.)

There is a much bigger problem here. It's the problem that Jesus came to fix. It's the problem that only He can fix, but it's up to us to be His hands and feet in our short time on this earth. The problem is in our hearts. It's the broken mess we've all made of ourselves....which leads to the sickening reality of the sex-trafficking industry.

In a world that is pushing itself more and more each day into a place of loneliness and destruction....I say pro-ALIVE.

www.love146.org

Love is patient.

I coached a U10 girls soccer team this fall. We lost every single game of the season. Our last tournament was this past weekend. Coaching this team has been quite an adjustment from coaching my U16 team. It was a great experience and I loved all the girls...but it wasn't easy.

In 1 Timothy 4:12, Paul writes, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity."

This verse has been on my mind since becoming the coach of this U10 team for one reason- the parents. Most of the parents were awesome and very supportive, but there were one or two that were very resistant and made me feel very discouraged. These few thought that I didn't know what I was doing and that they could walk all over me, just because I am a new, young coach. Most of the time, I had to ignore the things they were saying and I had to be more mature.

It's hard to get people, especially parents, to understand my coaching philosophy, even after explaining it. I feel like it goes against the way that many coaches choose to coach. I don't believe in screaming at my players and making them play out of fear of failure; or getting angry about mistakes; or becoming overly-obsessed with winning. I believe in peace instead of anger; gentleness instead of yelling; unity instead of selfishness; encouragement instead of pressure; hard work instead of individual glory; self-control instead of recklessness; learning instead of 'getting by'; patience instead of frustration.

Often times, my patience and encouragement and teaching was not accepted, probably mostly due to the fact that we weren't winning. And, that's the most important thing, right? Nope. But we are all seeing the world through different eyes so it's hard to relate sometimes. One parent decided to take things into his own hands and I had to kick him out of a practice. Yes, you read that correctly. I couldn't believe it either. Absolutely ridiculous.

Going back to what Paul said; I am young so it's hard to be the leader and enforce things, as a coach, while trying to still have respect for those older than me. I found MYSELF having to set the example. This is cheesy but, I am trying to see the world as God does. That's what we are called to do. I need to continually remind myself that most people are not trying to do this and that they do not understand why I am trying to do it. It's hard to tell parents, "well, I'm just going to try and coach the way I think Jesus would." Yeah, right. But I'm trying to be patient and, despite the discouragement, continue to coach with the vision that I have. Building players up, teaching them, and setting an example so that they are learning more than just how to be better soccer players.

I'm not trying to win the freaking World Cup. I'm trying to teach them to have an eternal perspective and teach them things that will help them to become better people: honesty, trust, unity, tenacity, determination, perseverance, leadership, discipline, competitiveness, passion. These things will then all be reflected in the way they play soccer.

So....how do I explain this to people?

The truth is, I can't. It might not be successful through the world's eyes...but I don't want the eyes of all the people just living life; I want the eyes of the One that gives life. I can only continue to 'live it' and 'coach it,' and, as Paul goes on to say, "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." (1 Timothy 4:16).

Eternal Splendor.

When you look around at the people and the things happening in our world it's very easy to get discouraged. There are people trying to do good, but it seems as if the evil is so much more prevalent and overwhelming. It also seems that, no matter how much we 'help,' there is always SO MUCH more to do.

In Revelation 19:11-21, the writer talks about a "...white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True." (v. 11). He goes on to say "The ARMIES OF HEAVEN were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean." (v. 14). The passage goes on to describe how this Rider destroys the "beasts" and "false prophets."

The first time I read this passage, it kinda lifted a weight off my shoulders. I think the first thing we need to realize is that THIS IS NOT OUR BATTLE. I think it's our job to do our part to provide love rather than hate but, ultimately, we are God's instruments here on earth. He is the supreme orchestrator.

Another passage that I stumbled upon, while getting frustrated about trying to change the world, haha, is Revelation 22:1-6. It paints the most beautiful picture of Heaven. "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city" (v. 1). The WATER OF LIFE. Ahhhh....refreshing, isn't it? I like to think of this beautiful, radiant-blue river, flowing through the center of all the destruction and pain in our world. It might only be a tiny stream right now but, eventually, it will flood and wash over everything. When this happens, "There will be no more night" (v. 5).

That just pumps me up! Instead of getting frustrated, I read this and realized that THIS IS NOT IT. There is more to come. As William P. Young writes in The Shack, "This life is only the anteroom of a greater reality to come. No one reaches their potential in your world. It's only preparation for what God had in mind along the way."

Some Friday-night lights and the #10 jersey.

I think the fifth-year of college should be called the "lost year." Cause that's how I feel right now. Freaking lost. College has pretty much ended but real life hasn't really begun. I'm caught in the middle. The space between...ya know? I'm not quite sure what the next step is, which is scary, confusing, and exciting all at the same time.

The question of "what am I going to do with my life?" is always lurking in the back of my brain. I know very well that I shouldn't be worried. But some important life-decisions need to be made soon. Let's just say I'm concerned, not worried. Very concerned :)

On top of all these life-changes that will be happening in the next year, something is missing. I knew this was coming. I also knew I couldn't be prepared, I just have to deal with it...

Last week. Friday night. Sitting in the stands at the UK women's soccer game. Watching the team walk across the field, exhausted, heads hanging in despair (because of tying a game they should have won). "The Rising" by Bruce Springsteen was playing on the speakers, (this song is played after every single home game and I can't get it out of my head). And that's when it finally hit me. Ten yards of green space and a fence is the closest I would ever get to being a college soccer player again.


I felt kinda sick to my stomach. This is what's missing. Something that I have been doing since I could walk. No wonder I'm so confused. It seems so stupid: kicking a round ball into a goal. But there's just something about it I guess.


I realize how ridiculous I sound right now. Give it up...right? Nope. If I were to go back in time and tell the 18 year old Kelsey that I was going to stop playing soccer at age 22, she would be freaking pissed. 'Why would you ever want to stop playing?' she would say. Great question, indeed. I miss it. I love it. I want to play again. And I will :)




"Sky of blackness and sorrow...Sky of love, sky of tears...Sky of glory and sadness...Sky of mercy, sky of fear...Sky of memory and shadow...Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight...Sky of longing and emptiness...Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life...Come on up for the rising...Come on up, lay your hands in mine...Come on up for the rising...Come on up for the rising tonight..."

S'mores over candle light.

So, I've been here in Lexington for over 4 years and I am finally starting to really appreciate it. I live on an amazing little street known as Woodland Avenue. Three of my roommates graduated and moved out, while three new people moved in. It is weird living with new people after 4 years...but it's also great because it brings in a whole new dynamic. Directly across the street, 6 of our good friends/teammates moved in. They have added something that is one of the main reasons that I am loving Woodland even more this year....

a PORCH.

Life-changing, for real.

A few nights a week, a bunch of us just sit out on that porch, people watching, talking , and strumming guitars. We often get into deep, meaningful conversations about Jesus and about life :) It has become one of my favorite places in Lexington. It has actually made me realize how much I am going to miss this place when I leave.

I know people say this all the time, but four years have gone by so incredibly fast. I am definitely not the same person. It's funny to think of who I was back then...an 18 year old coming to a new and unfamiliar place; A student that had to figure out how to balance classes and homework without driving myself crazy; A soccer player stepping into a program that would push me beyond my mental and physical limits; A girl meeting teammates that have become my best friends and family; Just a person searching for more.

And now...I bleed BLUE; I am 22 years old and Lexington has become home; I am 4 classes (which don't stress me out anymore) and less than a semester away from graduating; I am a retired college athlete that knows what it takes and misses the uniform; I am no longer part of a team but the current and past players are my family for life; I am still just a person but, somewhere between the soccer and school and friends, I have found what it means to be alive.

So I sit on this amazing porch thinking about all this stuff. It makes me want to cry a little bit. But then I look around at the homeless person digging through the trash, and the people going out, and the cars going by. And then I look even closer at the people I'm sitting with. Some faces that I've known for 4 years, and others for only less than a year. These are the people that have gone through arguably the most challenging four years of life with me, and I with them. As my roomie roasts me a marshmallow over the tiny candle flame, I realize how much I love life and how much I appreciate the people God has put in mine.

I would like to travel back in time, as I am now, to ask that naive 18 year old 'me' what she thinks of who I have become now. There is still much growing/learning/changing to be done and I want the person that I have become now to be proud of the person I am yet to be, years from now.

It hasn't been easy. It never is, right? There are some things I regret but, mostly, I look back and smile. It's just another season of life. Stepping out of the house and onto the porch. Eventually I have to step off that porch and find a new path. There are so many paths and it's a bit confusing. So, for now, I think I will stay right here on the porch.

"Omaha, somewhere in middle America..."

I went on a spontaneous cross-country road trip with one of my friends last week. It was 25 hours of pure beauty from Los Angeles to Omaha. Between blaring music from the itrip and conversations about life, we stared out the windows to soak in the most beautiful natural canvas we had ever seen. And God was constantly re-painting the picture.

I tend to get really distracted and caught up in all the craziness going on around me. I am always going a hundred miles an hour. I think this can be a good thing. But it can also be a very bad thing when the business starts to get in the way of things that matter. I like how Anthony DeMello explains it in The Way to Love, " Look at your life and see how you have filled its emptiness with people. As a result they have a stranglehold on you. See how they control your behavior by their approval and disapproval. they hold the power to ease your loneliness with their company, to send your spirits soaring with their praise, to bring you down to the depths with their criticism and rejection. Take a look at yourself spending almost every waking moment of your day placating and pleasing people, whether they are living or dead. You live by their norms, conform to their standards, seek their company, desire their love, dread their ridicule, long for their applause, meekly submit to the guilt they lay upon you; you are terrified to go against the fashion in the way you dress or speak or act or even think. And observe how even when you control them you depend on them and are enslaved by them. People have become so much a part of your being that you cannot even imagine living a life that is unaffected or uncontrolled by them."

I have an imaginary box on my desk. Inside this box I have placed God. Or at least God in the way I like to think of him: I can take Him with me when I choose or leave Him sitting there when I would rather He not be involved. Because of the standards and norms I have learned from my society, I consciously or unconsciously know when and where it is 'safe' to take Him out of this box.

During this road trip I think I finally realized that it is time to take God out of this box. Although, I know that He was never in it to begin with, it's just something my own control-craving human nature has created in order to make myself feel secure.

In the book Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller says (of his own road trip), "I've learned, too, that I don't really know very much about anything. I mean, I used to have all these theories about life. I thought I had everbody figured out, even God, but I don't. I think the woods, being away from all the clingy soot of commercialism, have taught me life is enormous, and I am very tiny in the middle of it...And yet the chemicals in my brain that make me feel beauty when I look up at the stars, when I watch the sunset, indicate I must be here for a reason."

I first thought about my 'nothingness' when we hit Utah. Wow. That's pretty much the only way to describe it. Hours and hours of the most beautiful rust-striped mountains. Zero civilization, except for us and the few cars that would pass and do a double-take to witness the insane amount of stuff we had packed into the tiny car. For a while I actually had myself convinced that I wanted to move out there into a little shack for the rest of my life. How peaceful that would be. But then I realized that I love being around people...dang it. :) And then came Colorado and Nebraska. We drove through the mountains and along the Colorado River for a while. That was great, but what I liked even more was 'the cloud.' There was this huge storm cloud right in front of us, almost like we were driving into it but could never actually get to it. So, for a good 5 hours we drove at this cloud and from it we watched lightening bolts light up the sky as it began to get darker and darker.

So I guess I finally had a chance to breathe. To get away from the people, away from the noise, and away from control. God is much cooler when I don't condense Him into a God of structure. When I realize how small I am and how big He is I also start to see how alive He is...in everything around me and in me. He is in the desert sand of Nevada and in the midst of Sin City. He is in the mountains of Utah. He is in the rivers of Colorado and the clouds of Nebraska. He is in the very world He created but, even more importantly, He is IN ME. Not in the box...IN US.

I like to think I have it all figured out and understood but God, much like the ever-changing scenery of my road trip, comes in many forms. There is always more. Which is why I know He is not out there but inside of me; it is something that can be experienced but not understood.

I know there is more to life than what we have created it to be. Our illusion is beginning to seem like reality. Sometimes it may only take a spontaneous road trip. For others, it may take more because of the deepness with which we believe the lies surrounding us.

It's time to get away from the noise and unattainable standards.

It's time to open the box and listen. Go.

"There is a serenity in life, after all, and once a withdrawl is felt at having left the lies behind, a SOUL BEGINS TO FEEL AT HOME in its own skin." -Donald Miller

To be ALIVE is to be broken

You want to know the one quality that I respect most in people? HONESTY.

During the past few months I have had some of the most real, honest conversations. People just can't take it anymore...all this "make up." You know? Everybody does it, to some extent. Putting up walls and putting on fake smiles so that, to the outside world, everything looks great. Afraid to be vulnerable because of wounds that have been reopened one too many times. As one friend put it, "there has to be more to life!" I say...indeed, there is.

It's so easy to become numb to our problems and to the world, trying to hide from all the brokenness. Which is one quality that puts me on edge...APATHY. It could be one of the most dangerous attitudes. When you don't care you don't feel. And when you don't feel you aren't alive...you are just living. Apathy is also the easy road. Shutting off our emotions is just a way of putting up walls so that we don't get hurt. It allows us to get through life...lifelessly. Like in the song Runaway Train by Soul Asylum..."Can you help me remember how to smile? Make it somehow all seem worthwhile? How on earth did I get so jaded? Life's mystery seems so faded..."

Honesty is scary but, you want to know what the best thing about honesty is? It keeps us ALIVE. I'm not talking about breathing lungs and a beating heart. I'm talking about giving meaning to life. When we are real with ourselves and with each other there is no room for "fakeness." When all our crap is out on the table it allows us to deal with it. Not alone...but with each other. Which also brings us closer to the people around us. We weren't put on this earth to 'figure it out' all alone. Amazingly, a lot of us are going through the same stuff. We all have a little bit of wisdom that we can share to help each other learn and change and grow.

It's OK to talk about stuff and ask the tough questions. I think our society is afraid of this because it allows others to see us as we really are. If we take off all the masks everyone can see everyone else's ugliness. I wish we would embrace our brokenness. It might be painful at times but, in the end, so much more real and joyful.

As Henri Nouwen, author of 'Life of the Beloved,' explains it, ""My own experience with anguish has been that facing it and living it through is the way to healing. But I cannot do that on my own. I need someone to keep me standing in it, to assure me that there is PEACE beyond the anguish, LIFE beyond death, and LOVE beyond fear. But I know now, at least, that attempting to avoid, repress, or escape the pain is like cutting off a limb that could be healed with proper attention. The deep truth is that our human suffering need not be an obstacle to the joy and peace we so desire, but can become, instead, the means to it. The great secret of the spiritual life, the life of the Beloved sons/daughters of God, is that everything we live, be it gladness or sadness, joy or pain, health or illness, can all be part of the journey toward the full realization of our humanity."

So...suffering leads to joy. It allows us to realize, not only that we are broken, but that there is more to life. Much more, indeed. Jesus didn't come just to tell us about heaven. He came to show us how to LIVE. How to be ALIVE...NOW.

We are all broken and this world is dying. There is another path. The wounds can be healed. Be honest with yourself. Follow the light. It's scary but you'll find that, when you reach that light, you will never look back. It will soon be frightening to imagine life without this light. What this world needs is broken people who have COME ALIVE...



"In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." -John 1:4-5