You Gotta Climb in Order to Rise Above!...

Hello everyone!!!!! I took a brief unplanned blogging hiatus.  But I miss you!!!!  I never force myself to blog, so if it ain't flowin'...I ain't typin'.  Sometimes I just know that I need to be still and wait on God.  There has been just so much going on in my life over these last few weeks.  God is definitely moving.  I know that BIG things are not only on the horizon....but they are HERE.  Right now!!!! AMEN!


For those of you that have been following my "slight" obsession with all things Indian and Bollywood...I had ANOTHER DC Bollywood moment!!!!!  I LOVE THIS CITY!!!!  Let me also say, before I get started, that my wonderful, amazing, spectacular mother bought me a Bollywood cookbook.  One of the best parts about it is, she bought the book at Gabe's in WV!!  It is seriously the coolest thing EVER.  I'll update everyone on how my first crack at making Indian cuisine goes. In the meantime...I'll just be content to look at the pictures!  Anyway, I've been taking the bus a lot lately (and not because most romantic Bollywood moments  involve public transportation...even though, in my personal opinion, that would be a worthy motivation if the soaring gas prices and lack of parking spaces weren't enough for you).  On Saturday, after working all morning and afternoon at a conference, I begrudgingly took the bus to the grocery store to stock up on some single people food.  Ya know, pack of fat free cheese slices, chunky peanut butter, deli meat, cereal, fruits and veggies, and...of course...buttered popcorn jelly belly beans (mostly just random items that in no way fit together to make an actual meal...and usually go bad before you get to eat them....BUT are small and light enough that you can carry in your reusable 100% recycled grocery bag...that you have a million of.  God forbid you are seen still carrying plastic bags...plus, DC now charges 5 cents per bag...but I digress).  It was 90 degrees outside with what had to be 100% humidity.  It felt like I was walking through warm water.  I felt like I needed to grow gills in order to breath.  I was wearing an all black suit...very Johnny Cash.  Good for 45 degree conference rooms.  Bad for walking in a sauna.  Other than being filled with sweat, the black suit was actually quite fetching, if I do say so myself.  However, the leopard print Franco Sarto high heels (that's my own personal version of "professional", okay)  I was wearing at the conference were now replaced with white Gap flips.  My once somewhat styled hair was now a mass of frizzy curlyness.  Even careful bobby pin placements were no match for the humidity. I looked like a blonde version of Rosanna Rosanna Danna (old school Saturday Night Live character played by Gilda Radner).  My makeup had melted down my face a few inches.  I was exhausted and wasn't exactly feeling my most beautiful at that moment.  (Little did I know at that time that later that night I would dance for 3 hours straight and get so soaked with so much sweat that my fingers would start to prune! Slight exaggeration....LOL!  Dancing in a crowd + no air conditioning = big sweaty mess.)

After making my ten items or less purchases and enjoying the air conditioning, I went outside into the hot-tub-like atmosphere to wait for the bus.  I couldn't wait to get home.  As I was impatiently waiting, a hot guy managed to arrive in my proximity without my noticing.  Very unlike me.  Had I noticed him, I probably wouldn't have complained out loud over and over again to no one but myself, about how when the weather is this hot they should have more buses.  However, due to my exhaustion verging on heat stroke...I was too preoccupied to notice his arrival.  When I saw the bus coming, I rushed to the edge of the sidewalk.  I was so excited that I totally left my grocery bag along the brick wall where I was sitting.  I rush onto the bus and feel the immediate shock of air conditioning against my skin, happiness began to enter my life again.  Right as I sit down, I look up and see this super hottie getting on the bus.  My first thought...that guys hot.  My second thought...and he and I carry the same Trader Joe's grocery bags....how cute!  As I am mentally planning our future together, he looks up and locks eyes with me and smiles.  There are tons of empty seats between us, but for reasons I couldn't possibly fathom...he was walking back to where I was sitting.  He sits in the seat right in front of me and turns around and hands me the Trader Joe's bag and with a smile says, "I think you left this."  I thank him...a little too profusely, per the usual...and take the bag.  My constructed future with him began to crumble...our foundation of having similar shopping bags was now no more.  It's like....I didn't even know him anymore.  I mean, he could still carry plastic bags for all I know....!  How silly was I to think that he would walk all the way to the back of the bus to talk to an exhausted sweaty mess that looks like she just left a funeral home?  (The heat was obviously frying my brain and I momentarily forgot that regardless of exhaustion and sweatyness...I am FABULOUS!!!!!!  WOOOO WHHOOOO!)  Just as I am about to mentally start a future with someone else...he turns around and says..."I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm actually glad you left your bag...it gave me a reason to talk to you."  BLUSH!!!  We spent two amazingly wonderful blocks together.  We barely said two words, but we just kept smiling at each other.  As he was getting off the bus, he turned around, smiled and waved.  We kept waving and smiling at each other as he walked down the sidewalk and the bus pulled away.  We didn't even ask each others names.  And that, my friends, is how it's done.  Another beautiful DC Bollywood moment.  It was almost like God was trying to tell me....even when you think you look your worst and you feel too tired to think....you're still beautiful.  SMILE! : )  I nicknamed him Ol Blue Eyes...cause, well...his eyes were blue!

As I said above, God is moving in my life, and the lives around me,right now in a huge way.  Do you want to hear something that is going to knock your socks off?!  Let me tell you about a dream I had over a year and a half ago.  At the time, I totally didn't understand it.  I wrote it down because I knew that God was speaking to me.  God speaks to me through my dreams all the time.  I am SO thankful that He does!  I re-read what I wrote a few weeks ago and was like...whoa.  At the time I had the dream, I was living in  Germantown MD and commuting 3 - 4 hours a day to my jobby job at Georgetown Univ Hospital in DC every day.  In the dream, I am standing on top of a cemetery hill in Georgetown.  The sun is shining behind me and by the way everything looks it was probably around 6 o'clock in the evening.  From where I am standing I can see all of DC.  I remember looking down to my right and seeing the cathedral in Georgetown.  As I am looking out over the city, the ground beneath me turns from solid ground to pebbles.  I start to lose my footing and start to fall off the side of the hill of the cemetery.  As I am slowly going over the steep hillside, I look up at all the gravestones and see the sun shining behind them.  All of a sudden I just start clawing and pushing my way back up to the top with all the strength that I had.  The loose, smooth stones made it so hard to get a grip so I just dug my hands and arms in deeper.  For every foot I would get, I would slip a few inches, but I was determined to get back to the top of that hill. I refused to just slide away.  Finally, I get to the top of hill and that is where the dream ends.   And now, guess where I live? Yep, I live in Georgetown.  And do you know what happens to be situated just one block from my apartment building!?  Yep, a cemetery on a steep hill that overlooks DC.  Socks knocked off yet!?  The craziest part is that when I had that dream, in no way did I think it had anything to do with me moving to DC.  I had already told myself that I would never live in DC....lol.  I vowed to live on the outskirts...but never in the city itself.  That....would be too hard.  I am the epitome of "if you want to make God laugh...tell Him your plans." : )  It was long after that dream had been forgotten that I decided to move to DC.  And thank you God that I did because now I know for sure that this is where God wants me to be.  One day after I moved into my apartment, I was walking down Wisconsin Ave, and I looked up to see....dun dun dun....you gueesed it.....this beautiful cemetery on a hill.  I promise you, I am being totally honest with you when I say that this is the EXACT same cemetery that I dreamed of. I had never been in that cemetery in my life, but I knew that when I walked to the top of the hill what I was going to see.  It was so emotional.  I cried.  I just couldn't believe that God had given me a dream about this place and here I was standing right in the middle of it.  It wasn't until recently did I realize the significance of what God showed  me in the dream.  The cemetery is just blocks from where I live, but that wasn't the only message.  The most important thing God was trying to show me...almost warn me, really....is that if I want to follow His plan for me in this city, I am going to have to fight to not slide off the hill and give up.  The grave stones represent all the dried up, dead souls walking around the city.  The sun shining down was God telling me that He is there.  I also think that God was trying to tell me that when you hang out in a grave yard for too long....you start to focus on death.  Where and with whom I spend my time, and what I am saying and doing in that time is very important.  In the dream, as I was standing in the graveyard, the sun was behind me.  It's almost like I had turned my back on God....and that's when I started to lose my footing.  The other day, I was taking the bus home from a bad day at work.  I felt totally apathetic and like I was fighting a losing battle.  It was starting to rain, but as I looked out the window of the bus, I saw the sun peaking through the clouds.  It was so beautiful.  I wanted to keep looking at it, but the tall building kept getting in the way of my view.  But then I felt God say to me...."Then I guess you need to go higher than the buildings that are blocking your view."  After getting off at my stop, I went straight up to the roof deck of my building and looked out over the city.  I could see all of DC, and even NOVA and MD.  It was starting to rain again, but I didn't care.  I almost welcomed it, because it matched my mood.  Just as I was standing there, feeling defeated....the sun comes out again behind me (see picture above in order to see what I saw).  I was like God was saying to me...."When there is something in the way of seeing me....get above it!"  The sun lights up the city for a few moments.  While the sun was out, my eye is drawn to something I have never noticed before.  I could see the cemetery from where I was standing.  Right in the front is a huge gravestone with a cross on it.  It was in that moment that I remembered my dream from so many months before.  I just sat there and soaked it all in.  It was just a totally WOW! moment.  God had warned me.  This is going to hard.  No doubt about it. I'm going to want to give up and limit myself and even worse, limit God.  I'm going to have to come to a place where I expect God to complete the work He started in me and not ever lose belief and faith.  But, just like I did in the dream...I will fight and not slip away.  I have a purpose here.  There are some mountains that you climb with every ounce of your strength, and then there are other mountains that you have cast into the sea, because they are blocking your view of God's purpose.  (Pastor Michael has been preaching this AMAZING message in church about The Living One: The Two Mountains. It's changed my life!)  That day on my roof deck, I realized that even though I am going to lose some footing every now and then, if I can persevere and keep on climbing the mountain God gave me and get rid of any obstacles that block my vision and purpose....then I will not fail.   God's favor is on me.  No limits.  No negative thoughts.  No fading away.  I am more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus!

Love you all!!!!

Katie the Conqueror