Hi my friends at the Wesley Foundation in Ruston, Louisiana - and to any other readers out there! My name is Katie Henson. I am super excited to be writing a harvest post and I would love to use it as an opportunity to catch you up on what my life has been like since I was last with you in May. I would also love to use it as an opportunity to tell you about how I am a big baby - more on this later.

Catching Up

Last May, I graduated from Louisiana Tech. Like most goodbyes, my farewell to my time in Ruston was filled with sweet sorrow - an eagerness to go and a heart-brokenness for having to part ways with such a sweet town and time in life. I still have a voicemail saved on my phone from the day I moved out of my apartment from Akin, Chlese, and Camellia saying “Goodbye Katie! We will miss you!” with their jumbled voices. I have no words for the gratefulness I feel for the short while I was able to exist inside the magic that is the Wesley Foundation. I spent a lot of my last few weeks in Ruston driving around, crying happy tears, and reflecting - feeling thankful for things like getting to live with one of my best friends for three years, having found a faith community that felt safe and sound, having a sister who lived just five minutes down the road from me, and all of the questioning and answering that had taken place in my heart that God guided me through in this place. I also spent a lot of time dreaming about the future. In February, I began dating what I felt confidently would be the person I would end up marrying. Jack and I had been in each other’s circle since middle school but only really got to know each other once we lived 8 hours apart (him in Lubbock, Texas and me in Ruston). We formed a surprisingly deep friendship through text and eventually an even more surprising romance. Our phone calls each evening were exciting, safe, and transformative. Leaving Ruston also meant moving closer towards the future I saw for Jack and I. I can look back now and see all the ways that God gave me so many precious things to hang onto as I would leave the safety and familiarity of Ruston and venture out into the unknown. In the following months I would have to remind myself of the kind and creative ways that God moved me out of hard places while I was in Ruston and remember that he could do that again for me no matter where I landed.

After an anticlimactic graduation, I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico to live with my sister, Claira, and her husband and four children for the next two months. Jack and I were now 5 hours apart. We drove back and forth between Texas and New Mexico to see each other on weekends. My sister found out she was pregnant with a fifth child while I was there and she still made dinner for all (7) of us almost every night. My sister is one of the most amazing people that I have ever known and her husband is one of the kindest. I worked at an art gallery with people who were very kind to me. My co-worker Jade regularly shared insight into her daily horoscope and love life with me. An old man named Nechay that I met in a coffee shop told me that I could “leave Santa Fe knowing that my life was built on a firm foundation” and that I “could go before God as a small child and trust that I would not be mistreated by Him.” Sometimes before work would start or the day would end I would go to a coffee shop or go out on the town to try to adventure, but I would usually end up feeling lonely and/or scared about being in such a new place on my own. I had pictured my time in Santa Fe as being some great adventure I would go on after graduating - wide open skies, wide open agenda, and wide open heart - but it actually looked a lot more like not knowing what to do with such wide open spaces, wide open old wounds, and working 9-5 to save up money when I would have rather spent time with my family or exploring the city. I felt confused about my life, unsure about what I was doing, and discouraged about being out in the “working world.” It was such a treat to get to be with family in such a beautiful place with such a cool job and I mourned that the inner turmoil that came with my life changing so quickly shadowed much of that time. Everything felt very new and strange and I craved comfort. Even amidst all the discomfort God still provided me glimpses of Himself inside the safety and beauty of meals with my family each evening, the gentleness and generosity of my coworkers, and the magnificence of the sunsets that closed out my days in Santa Fe.

One of the aforemetioned magnificent sunsets.

As the summer came to a close, so did my time in New Mexico. Jack graduated from Texas Tech University and moved to Nacogdoches, Texas to start grad school at Stephen F. Austin and I followed him there. It was/is so exciting to finally live in the same place together. The pacing in Nacogdoches is slow. My friend Emily once described it as “feeling like moving around in a snowglobe.” I currently work at a coffee shop as a barista and run the coffee shop’s social media account and am about to begin assisting a local florist. Although it has taken time and tears, I am slowly coming to enjoy this tiny East Texas town. God has carried through my transition into yet another new place in giving me many faithful and good people in my life here that build me up and that are true friends to me. I have also been given the gift of a husband by Jack who proposed to me in late August. We got married just last month and I am so grateful to have someone who is so wise, gentle, patient, and kind to me by my side as we learn what it means to be husband and wife. His love for me has many times helped me remember how loved and cared for I am by God.

I Am A Baby

Life has looked like so many different things since last May. I left Ruston feeling secure, peaceful, and excited. Here I am almost a year later feeling like I am back at square one or somewhere on the road towards peace and security rather than dwelling inside of it. I have never fared well with transitions. Uprooting my life two different times scrambled me emotionally, spiritually, and physically in ways I did not anticipate. I pictured graduating, moving, and getting married to be times that I would feel empowered, mature, and strong. Ironically, in a time that I thought was supposed to be all about growing up, I have never felt more like a small child. I have yearned like a small child for the comfort of my mother on long nights when I had to go to the grocery store alone in a new city. I have cried like a baby on days where I could not find a clean shirt to wear in the mess of moving from place to place. I have gotten frustrated and thrown a fit when I have felt like our house isn’t coming together quick enough. My emotions have been as confusing as that of a small child who is still learning what it means to be happy, or sad, or angry, or confused. I am so grateful for the way that Jesus treated little children during His time on Earth because it allows me to bring all of my childlike fear and emotion to Him as I honestly know that I will not be abused or treated harshly. In the midst of shifting into “adulthood” I know that God still invites me to have childlike faith. I am humbled at the ways that I am invited to relearn so many things about God, myself, and others as I shift into a new chapter of my life and struggle to come to terms with what it means to be in this phase of my life. I am grateful that in my weakness, God is a strong and soft place to rest when I am tired of wrestling with myself. I am grateful that when I feel like a baby, (when I thought I would feel like an adult) God holds me in his arms and helps me to remember His name and my own. God is a safe place to be a baby. He has continually pointed me back towards who He is through people, places, and His patience with me when I have been willing to have eyes to look for it (and when I haven’t). My prayer for myself and for all those who are kind enough to read my ramblings is that amidst growing up, moving through big life changes, and being a part of “adulthood,” we might be brave enough to bring our inner child before God and know that we will be deeply loved and taken care of despite the constant changes in our lives.

I Am a Baby: Katie Henson

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