• Kelsey's Posts

    Mom’s Story

    June 10, 2019

    When I was 17 years old, my mom gave me her testimony. She told me her whole story… and I was left in tears. My mom has been through hell – and you would never know it. It was so inspiring for me to hear where she came from and see where she is now, so I’d like to share it with you guys as well. This is only a brief summary of her story, and there is so much more to it, but I want to highlight these points specifically because I believe they are important to talk about. 

    It started in high school. She was raised Catholic by her parents, but told me how disconnected she felt from them. Although she knows her parents love her very much, she felt like she hadn’t received the love that she needed.

    She was in band in high school, and was very close with her band teacher. One night when she was 16 years old, she was babysitting his daughter while he visited his wife and newborn son at the hospital. He told her there was beer in the fridge and that she could help herself. She had only had a couple, but when he returned home, one thing led to another, and despite her saying “no!” and trying to get away, he raped her.

    “He was my band teacher and everyone loved him. Even though I said no, I still thought he did it out of love.”

    My mom was raped and told that it was love. 

    “My innocence was taken from me and I didn’t care anymore. I was always told to wait until marriage and I was planning on doing that. The next morning I remember sitting on the toilet thinking I was ruined – worthless. Soon after the incident I found him with a new girl, and I was rejected. This is what began my decline.”

    “At the time I was dating a guy who my parents did not like at all. His parents were very pro-abortion and had very different values than my family. To my horror, I found out I was pregnant at 17 years old. I screwed up again. So of course, his parents pressured abortion on me. I couldn’t face the shame I would bring my parents, and I gave in. I got an abortion.”

    The woman’s health clinic that my mom went to for “counseling” had no regard for the distress she was in. She said she was really struggling because she’s pro-life and she had been picketing and part of the pro-life movement, and the woman’s only response was: “well you won’t be doing that anymore, will you?” She didn’t receive any other options and was pressured towards her abortion. 

    “I was silenced with shame from my environment that only mocked me and pushed me towards abortion.”

    After her abortion, she spiraled downward into more promiscuity, drugs, and alcohol.

     The emotional trauma that she carried with her for years was not quite as much about being raped as it was about killing her child.

    My mom was invited by a (non-Catholic) friend to a revival at her church in which she decided to give her life to the Lord. This began the 30 years of healing, counseling, and post abortion groups. Even after that, she needed more healing. She began some intense sessions of confessions and healing with our pastor at the time. She wound up receiving the graces to forgive her teacher, and said that she knew it was sincere because she woke up the next morning with deep compassion and love for him, and she prayed for his soul.

    Through this healing, she gained a deep devotion and connection to Mary, more specifically Our Lady of Guadeloupe, who she found out is the patron of the unborn. 

    Today my mom is my inspiration and everything that I strive to be as a woman. She exemplifies Our Lady in so many ways, but especially in her motherly heart.  Her love, generosity, and perseverance are extraordinary. 

    • • •

    Mom, I love you so much. I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me and our family. You’ve been an incredible model for me as a wife, mother, and Catholic. Thank you.

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  • Kelsey's Posts

    Agony In The Garden

    May 9, 2019

    In this post, I want to be very real and transparent about my struggle with mental illness. This has been something that has greatly affected my life and is something that I’m still trying to fully understand and cope with as best I can. This is something that is still very difficult for me to talk about, but I really want to share this struggle, because I feel like this is something that is important for others to hear – whether they suffer from mental illness or not. I always have a hard time talking or writing about this because I never feel that I can find words that are sufficient enough to fully describe this mental illness junk. But I don’t want that to stop me from sharing this – so here it goes:

    The first time I started to question my mental health was in eighth grade. I had been struggling with depression and anxiety even before that time, but I never thought of the day-to-day issues that I was experiencing as any type of mental illness. I just thought it was me – that it was my fault for the way that I was – and this mindset only made my symptoms worse. By the time eighth grade came around though, I was crying multiple times every day and spent most of my days alone in my room. I still remember crying myself to sleep every night and then waking up, crying all morning while getting ready for school, and then having to force myself to stop before I walked out the door. I’d get home from school, and immediately go up to my room and basically cry until I fell asleep, and then repeat it all the next day. This was most of my eighth-grade year. It improved slightly with my shift from public school into homeschooling, but I still cried nearly night. I noticed my mental health really take a turn for the worst after high school. My parents noticed and decided to try to get me help. I started trying different medication and went to counseling weekly. After a period of feeling great on some new medication, it slowly lost its effect, and I hit an all-time low about a year after I graduated. I was currently working full time as a teacher assistant, but it soon became impossible to go to work in the condition that I was in. I had to quit my job, which pushed me deeper into my depression. There was a lot of self-hatred that came with being unable to work and function as a normal adult, and I received a lot of condemnation for it from those who were close to me. There was an inner dissonance in my thoughts, with my therapist telling me that I had severe depression, and others telling me that I was just being lazy and that it was my own fault for being so depressed. Throughout all of this, I was experiencing a spiritual confusion as well. Fighting with knowing I can find hope and joy in Christ, but being completely unable to get rid of the overwhelming hopelessness, fear, and worthlessness that I was experiencing. The worst part of all of this was just how incredibly far away from God I felt. I was in utter desolation and darkness. My prayers turned into pleas, which often times just sent me into panic attacks.

    I was eventually able to find a medication that was extremely helpful, and through various activities, such as solo camping, hiking, spiritual reading, and the love and support of my parents, I found myself able to start making little steps into bettering myself. I wound up at the University of Mary to pursue a degree in theology, with a minor in media production. Even though I was doing mostly well with coping with my mental health throughout this past year at Mary, I realized that I had very deep wounds that were caused by my mental illness. I had been burying and avoiding those wounds, but they soon became too painful to ignore. It was just a couple weeks ago that I felt like I finally got the healing that I needed for those wounds. And I’d like to share that experience with you.

    It all started with Lent. I entered into Lent having the expectation of increasing my prayer, along with the daily sacrifices I made. But instead, I found my prayer decrease, until it was almost non existent by the end of Lent. I wound up experiencing a lot of suffering throughout Lent in various different aspects of my life. In my relationships, in my schoolwork, and even in my mental health. Deep wounds in my relationships were being ripped back open, I felt completely overwhelmed with my schoolwork (to the point of questioning my capability and worthiness of the degree I am in), and coping with my depression and anxiety started to become more and more difficult. This is how I entered Holy Week. Completely exhausted, drained, confused, and honestly pretty disheartened. But then came Holy Thursday. I went to Mass that night, and the beauty of the liturgy really struck me. At the end of Mass, we all followed the Eucharist in a procession from out of the main sanctuary into a small chapel down the hall. The priest placed Jesus on the altar, which was surrounded by greenery and flowers that night. I knelt down, and began to cry. I remained kneeling until most people left, and I was alone in the pew. I began to seriously reflect on my Lent. The only thing that came to mind was the word suffering. I then began to think of my semester, and then of my year, and then of the last couple years. My mind began to focus on all of the suffering I experienced, zoning in on the particular times in which depression and anxiety were affecting my life so greatly. I thought about how I felt in those moments, what my heart was feeling, and the desperate pleas and prayers I said to God. I looked up towards the Eucharist, as if to ask for what seemed like the millionth time – “God, why? Why did you abandon me? Why have you put me through all this pain?” I suddenly began to envision Christ at the agony in the garden. My chest experienced a sharp, physical pain as my heart connected with Christ’s in that moment. I heard His pleas to God, saw His body shake, and saw His faced stained with the blood which He was sweating. I was brought back to my most agonizing moments. I remembered how my heart felt, how violently my body would shake, how I couldn’t breathe, and how desperately I would pray… oh how desperately I prayed. How painfully and bitterly I wept. I even thought about how many others feel these same things, and experience this same suffering. I was brought back to the garden – but this time I saw myself there with Him. I united all of those things to Christ’s heart in the garden. I saw what He was about to endure. His passion and death on a cross. I saw how mistreated He would be, not only during His passion, but for years to come, and even still today. Yet He endures it all for love. He was left in darkness, fear, suffering and heartache. He even uttered the words “My God my God, why have you abandoned me?” while dying on the cross.

    I was with Him in the garden, fully feeling this immense heartache… but because I was feeling it as well, I began to console Him. I saw my hands folded tightly together, resting on the same rock right in front of Jesus’ tightly folded hands. We were both shaking violently. Then the Lord opened His hands, and with His palms facing up he extended them towards me. They were still shaking. I unfolded my hands and moved them forward until they were directly above Christ’s, with my palms down. As soon as my hands were above His, Christ’s hands became completely still. He raised His hands until they were nearly touching my still shaking hands. I lowered my hands until they just touched the skin of Christ. The shaking stopped. He then grabbed my hands in His, and He pulled me close to Him until our foreheads were touching. We were both weeping. And then an image that I recently saw came to mind. Jesus was suddenly wearing His crown of thorns, and my forehead was pressing up against it, pushing it further into His head, and piercing mine as well. But He continued to pull me in. I clenched in pain, but Jesus looked up at me with His eyes, surrounded by blood and tears, and He gazed into my eyes. He tightened His hold on my hands and we both just continued to endure the pain, keeping our eyes fixed on each other. I saw God, looking down at His two children like this, Jesus and I. I saw deep, deep sorrow in His eyes, and could see the pain He was experiencing in having to watch two of His beloved suffer and cry to Him. But He knew He could not answer our pleas. He knew what had to be done.

    Sometimes, love is strenuous. It’s painful and causes heartache. But this strenuous love gives the graces needed to love even in extreme suffering, just as Christ did. Sometimes we don’t know the full reason why God allows the suffering that He does. But the truth remains that He can bring beauty and goodness out of anything. I still don’t know the full reason that I have been given this burden, but I can take consolation in knowing that Christ knows exactly what I am feeling and going through. Psalm 22, verse 1 says:

    (1)“My God my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.”

    This verse sounds like a cry of hopelessness and desolation. Yet if you continue to read the rest of the Psalm, the tone changes. It becomes praise to God and His promises. It becomes a passage of hope:

    (24) “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden His face from him, but has heard, when he cried to Him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will perform before those who fear Him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek Him shall praise the Lord! May your hearts live forever!”

    I will end with a quote from Benedict XVI, from his book Spe Salvi (which I highly recommend you all read). This title, Spe Salvi, means saved in hope.

    “Moreover, the individual cannot accept another’s suffering unless he personally is able to find meaning in suffering, a path of purification and growth in maturity, a journey of hope. Indeed, to accept the “other” who suffers, means that I take up his suffering in such a way that it becomes mine also. Because it has now become a shared suffering, though, in which another person is present, this suffering is penetrated by the light of love. The Latin word con-solatio, “consolation”, expresses this beautifully. It suggests being with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be solitude. Furthermore, the capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme.”

    We can unite all of our suffering to Christ’s suffering, and because of that, we can console Him and be consoled by Him. This Easter has turned out to be one of the most joy-filled Easters I’ve ever experienced. And although suffering is not good in and of itself, it yields compassion, love, and intimacy. How great a God we have, who can make even something like suffering beautiful!

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  • Kelsey's Posts

    Woundedness & Healing

    February 15, 2019

    Healing. This word has taken up the majority of my thoughts this semester so far. It has been the main theme in not only my daily prayer, but in homilies, various talks, conversations with friends, books I am reading… I just can’t seem to escape it! Because this has been on my mind so much, it’s obviously the only topic I could think to write about for this post. So I’d like to share a little bit of what I’ve learned so far on the topic of suffering, woundedness, and healing. 

    In my last post, I wrote about my experience at Seek. And I mentioned the Lord revealing to me the woundedness of my heart. I had an idea of what I thought that wound was… but little did I know, that was only the tip of the iceberg. Getting back to school, the Lord very quickly began to reveal more wounds. I did not realize that I even had wounds… I mean I had a hard time coming up with just the one during Seek! And then all of a sudden the Lord released an avalanche that swept me up and buried me with its weight. The pressure of all the wounds I felt caused so much pain, and I could feel more and more continue to pile on top of my chest. There was a very intense week where the Lord revealed some very deep and excruciating wounds. I was very overwhelmed. Yet at the same time, I have been experiencing a feeling of closeness with Christ that I’ve never felt before. Every time I began to feel that it was too much to handle, Jesus stepped in and reminded me of His presence. He has loved me in some very incredible ways that I hope to share soon. But even with feeling the Father doting on me in very tangible ways, it didn’t take away how much pain and suffering I was experiencing. This was creating a lot of dissonance in my mind. How is it that I can feel so close to God right now, yet so terrible…?

    Say you wanted to get a portrait photo taken. You don’t want to be in direct sunlight, as that reveals every flaw and blemish on your face. You would much rather prefer to take that photo in indirect or artificial lighting. I read a Gospel reflection from Bishop Robert Barron in which he said, “Think of what happens when you suddenly shine a light into a dark corner in your basement or down a lonely alley. The bugs and the vermin reveal themselves. Unsavory things scurry about for cover, afraid of the light. When you invite Jesus into your life, you are inviting the light into your life. This is wonderful, but also frightening. Jesus will shine His light in every corner of your life, in every room of your house. Things that look ok in the dark or indirect light will suddenly stand out in all their unpleasantness.” Reading this, everything suddenly made sense. My closeness with Christ is going to reveal everything that needs work in my life. This was the first step I took towards healing. I realized I had wounds, acknowledged those wounds to God, and decided that they need to be fixed.

    A priest told me this analogy about Christ being a divine physician. If you look at a wound like an inflected sliver that needs to be taken out, the first step is giving your doctor access to that wound. Next, you have to let him get in there. To dig into the wound, maybe even to cut more skin, and to trust that he is doing what’s best for you, and it is what you need to get better. It’s going to hurt. A lot. But there is a time during healing where you just have to let it hurt. You need to give the Lord access to your wounds. Offer them up to the Lord, have trust in Him and His careful hands, and have faith in His good intentions for you.

    One of the wounds that was recently brought up that I’ve been struggling a lot with has to do with my past depression. Thinking back to my lowest point, and remembering how I was feeling, what I was thinking, and the complete darkness of where I was at. This was incredibly difficult, as I don’t like having to think about that place. But the Lord wanted me to because He knew that I was deeply wounded because of it – even though I didn’t realize it. I began to question why God let me go through that, to feel the things I felt, and think the things that I did. All I really needed to hear at that point was for someone to tell me that what I went through was not good, and that it wasn’t something that the Lord wanted for me. However, He allowed it in order to bring good out of it – even if I don’t know what that good is yet. It’s important to know that suffering in and of itself is not good, and it is not a gift. It is not something that God wills for us. Jesus, after His scourging, was thrown into a deep, dark pit, where He sat alone, knowing He was undeservedly going to be crucified the next day. Suffering sucks, but guess what, Jesus knows that! He knows that personally because He experienced it. He knows what we are going through. And because of that, if we unite our suffering to Christ’s, we can grow closer to His heart and love. 

    My spiritual advisor told me this, and I think it sums up what I’ve learned about healing thus far very well: “It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it, and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.” Healing is a process – a process I have honestly only just begun. It’s gonna take a lot of time, and it’s going to hurt, but I know the good that the Lord is doing in my heart, and I am ready to take on the task ahead. If there is something that needs healing in your life, give it to the Lord. Don’t let your wounds fester and get worse. The Lord wants your heart, and He will offer you His in return. We need to learn to let go of our fears, and accept the love that Christ is offering.

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  • Kelsey's Posts

    Loving Yourself and Others

    January 17, 2019

    Last time I posted I had just arrived in Indianapolis for a conference called Seek. At this conference, we had the opportunity to hear many amazing speakers. Throughout the day there were several talks going on, and we were able to choose which ones we wanted to attend. It was day 2, and I was looking at the talks for the day, when I saw the title of the talk I knew I had to attend: “Love Yourself: A How To.” 

    This talk was given by Chris Stefanick. He spoke of the many lies that we tell ourselves, and then of the truth from the Word of God that directly rebukes those lies. He told us a story about a little girl with autism, whose parents told her that, because she is the daughter of a King, she is a princess. This little girl fully believed what her parents told her, and every time she would meet someone new she’d say “Hi, I’m a princess!” One day, she looked at her mom and said, “You’re wearing a crown, you just don’t see it.” My eyes welled up with tears, and I felt the Lord speaking this directly to my heart. 

    I am no stranger to self-hatred and insecurities. These are probably some of the biggest things I struggle with. And according to the amount of people who showed up for this talk, I’m not the only one. These things can be the biggest thieves of joy when we let them. I know that being insecure has kept me, and unfortunately continues to keep me, from doing many things. 

    During prayer in adoration, I envisioned myself giving my heart to Jesus. When I looked at the heart that I was offering Him, it was in pretty rough shape. There were large bruises and wounds all over. In the little cracks between the bruises, there was bright light shining through. It was obvious that the bruises were covering up the light of my heart. I began to think about how those bruises got there. I realized that some of them were put there from others. These ones started off small, and became larger from me constantly poking at them. I also realized that many of the bruises on my heart were caused by myself. They were caused from my constant beating and pounding on my own heart for every. little. thing. I also saw the many times the Lord tried to heal my heart, and I didn’t let Him heal it entirely. I’d give Him some things, but others I would keep from Him entirely. Sometimes He would start to heal a bruise, but I’d start poking and beating at it again, and it would grow back to being the large, aching wound it began as. I realized I was not letting the Lord fully heal my heart. This was kind of a shock to me, as that thought had never even crossed my mind before. These bruises were obviously covering up a great light in me. The light of Christ that He wanted to use to reveal Himself to others through me. And this great light is inside all of us. 

    Each and every one of us is a new way that the Lord is revealing Himself to the world. We are all His handiwork, His creation, His masterpieces. God created everything – He made light and saw that it was “good,” he made water and plants and saw that they were “good,” God created the sun and the moon and the stars and saw that they were “good,” He created living things and saw that they were “good.” Then God created man, and he saw that man was “very good.” God created the entire universe, but it was only when He looked at Man did He see His creation as “very good.” We are made in His image and likeness. To grow closer to God is to grow closer to our true selves. If we all saw ourselves the way that God saw us, this would allow us to see others as God sees them as well. If we can’t even see Christ in ourselves, how are we to be expected to see Him in others? Pope Benedict XVI (who at the time was just Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) suggests in his book, “Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures,” that the way that we look at others is decisive of our own humanity. We can’t simply see others as things, but as a child of God, as one made in the image and likeness of God. We each protect the dignity of each other, and that must first start with ourselves.

    One of the biggest things I took away from Seek was the fact that if I was less focused on myself and my own insecurities, I would be able to love others so much more and so much better. How much more love there would be if we could all just set aside our own pride and love as God tells us to love. 

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  • Kelsey's Posts

    Seeking Joy in 2019

    January 4, 2019

    It’s 2019, I live in Bismarck North Dakota, I’m studying theology, and I’m apparently starting a blog? I have no idea what I am doing, but this is just where I will be posting my thoughts on things such as Catholicism, difficulties I run into, and the immense beauty of God and His creations. I’m a huge theology nerd and will probably implement a lot of what I am studying into my writings. I want to take what I’m learning and implement it into daily living. However, I in no way feel that I am in a position to be able to write blog posts and try to offer formation on this kind of platform. But I do want to practice my writing and communication skills, and Grace offered this idea and I figured it could be fun, and maybe even offer some sort of encouragement for others along the way. If I say something super weird, let me know! I would really love to receive any constructive criticism you may have for me about my writings or topics 🙂 

    So let’s be real. 2018 was a pretty messy year for me. At this time last year, I was in a pretty crappy place with my mental health. I have been struggling with depression and anxiety for quite a few years now, and I was at one of my low points last New Years Eve. Every year I ask God for one word that He wants me to focus on for the coming year, and I knew without a doubt that He chose the word Hope for me for 2018. I hadn’t really thought much about Hope, or the fact that I was losing it until He placed this word on my heart. As a Catholic with depression, my spiritual life became incredibly confusing for me. I knew my faith, and I knew that I can place my Hope in God. Yet somehow I couldn’t help myself from feeling completely and utterly hopeless at the same time. This dissonance in my spiritual life caused a lot of heartache, pain, and shame. At the start of the year I began a daily devotional centered on Hope and prayed daily for this word to manifest itself in my life. Through a long process, which I will probably write about in a later post, I decided to attend the University of Mary and pursue a degree in Theology (with a double minor in Catholic Studies and Communication – emphasis on Media Production). Beginning my degree at this school sent me on a very intense search for God. I learned so much about myself, about God, and about the Church than ever before. I was stretched beyond what I thought were my limits, I was stripped of so much of what I found my identity in before, and I was forced to lean on God and God alone. I will be honest, it was a very messy, difficult, and painful process, but He planted a seed of Hope in me throughout all of this. And it grew and grew with each passing day. This was the kind of Hope that I had been so desperate for because of my mental health. It’s a kind of Hope that I didn’t realize even existed. It’s the kind of Hope that keeps me going even in my low points or when I fall back into my depression. It’s much deeper and stronger than my messy and confusing emotions. And it came from knowing God, knowing His purpose for me, and learning to have complete trust in Him and only Him. This in no way makes dealing with my mental health easy, it is still extremely difficult, and something that I am sure I will have to work through for a very long time. This newfound hope just helps me to realize that when I am in a low point, it is only momentary. It will eventually pass, and even when it doesn’t feel that way, I can continue to tell myself this fact and pray for the grace to trust that God will pull me out of whatever deep valley I am in.

    As I neared the end of my semester and reflected on the past few months, it was very apparent that the past year was really tough. There was a lot of suffering, but a whole lot of grace as well. Before I even had time to think about it, God revealed my word for 2019: Joy. When God placed this word in my heart, I began to cry. Tears of Joy, of course! A huge struggle that I have is knowing God’s love for me. I was especially struggling with this for the past couple months. The word Joy for me is one way that God wants me to let Him love me, and also a new way in which He wants me to love Him. Now I’m not just talking about happiness. Happiness is circumstantial and constantly changing. I’m talking about deep rooted, unchanging, resilient Joy. Joy that comes from knowing who I truly am in the eyes of God. It’s seeing myself as God sees me. It’s living a life in Jesus Christ, and what that truly means. This type of Joy is not something that should be, or even can be, contained. It shines through us to others, spreading the light of Christ to them. This is what I want to focus on for 2019, and I’d encourage all of you to as well. Sometimes the suffering that we endure with Christ makes us forget the incredible Joy that He has gifted us. 

    Happy New Year and God Bless!

    Kelsey

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