Welcome!

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my blog. ☺

You may know my name, age, family, story, medical conditions, etc. because of our website or having seen me on TV, so I won’t go into all of those details. (If you’d like to know my family’s full journey/story, you can read our story here or check out my momma’s book, Welcome Home: Our Family’s Journey to Extreme Joy.)

First let me say, thanks for reading my blog! I know that life is busy and things often times get crazy. So, thanks for taking the time to sit and read this. I hope you are as blessed as I am by it!

I’ve always had a strong passion for purity, and—living in a society that considers holiness as a “church thing” and waiting for your future spouse as “stupid, unrealistic and an unreachable goal”—I’ve always wanted to reach out to people on the subject, be it tweens, teens, young adults or adults.

So, as you may have guessed, this blog is the result of those many days/months/years of prayers, conviction and study.

First off, I’ll go ahead and point out that I am far from perfect (and I do mean far) and don’t have all the answers. In my eighteen years, I’ve come to realize that life doesn’t have a Fix It: One, Two, Three pamphlet (though, honestly, I wish there was!). We have God’s Word, but we often fail at following its directions. Life is hard. But God is good. And because life is hard, we can learn and grow.

I’ve actually been putting off starting this blog for some time, thinking that I don’t know enough and might get too opinionated (as I often do.)

But then I realized: no one is perfect. No one has all the answers (except God). Everyone’s gonna mess up at some point. I know I do… quite often!

I love God’s Word, and I love studying it. I believe that God’s Word is our ultimate guidebook, love letter, comfort, example giver and… well, truth. I believe that it is the holy and inspired word of God.

Though I’m stubborn and can be overly opinionated at times, I try to base all of my thoughts/opinions on God’s Word. Granted, I don’t always get things right or get the whole picture right away. I’m young and still just beginning this journey of choices and path of following our Lord and Savior, though I’ve known Jesus as my Lord and Savior for thirteen years; almost all of my life.

So, in short: I’m going to mess up. But, in the long run, I guess that’s good. We can’t have all the answers all at once, right? Can you imagine how overwhelming that would be? I see my journeys/mistakes/lessons as God using a seed; He plants it, then slowly makes it grow so that I can fully see and understand His glory and grace—step by step.

As Henry D. Thoreau said,

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been planted, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

Thus said, I truly am prepared to expect wonders with this blog. Not because of myself, my opinions or my writing, but because of God’s unwavering truth and grace. It’s because of truth that I can be sure of His great love, it’s because of freedom that I can bask in His love, and it’s because of grace that I can mess up seventy times seven times, and be forgiven for every single one of them—Thus, learning from my mistakes and learning how to escape those temptations the next time around.

I do believe that growth with the Lord requires a lot of hard work, tears, and—yes—days of utter failure. If we could do everything ourselves, then we wouldn’t ever need or learn to rely on the Lord. “Gardening requires a lot of water—most of it in the form of perspiration.” (Lou Erikson)

The truly awesome thing is that God has called us, and He has called me. I wish to answer His calling to “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16) And I hope you will too. He has “called us with a holy calling” (2 Timothy 1:9). Let’s answer the call!

Well, first off, when someone talks about pure, holiness or purity, most of the time people think: virgin/pure in body. While I am a firm believer purity of body is a very big part of keeping ourselves pure, I also believe that purity of body is not the only facet of purity. I think that purity is like a gem, and that it has a million different facets, meanings, and applications.

This blog will focus on purity in its most specific and broad sense. Not that I’ll start talking about “pure chickens” or “how to keep pure while eating a peanut,” but simply purity in life as Jesus showed us. ☺ For example: purity in speech, pure waiting, purity of mind, pure modesty, purity of clothing, keeping our bodies pure—in both the “sexual sense” and “healthy sense”—purity of attitudes, pure friendships, pure thinking, etc.

Again, I don’t have all the answers. This is going to be a journey for all of us, and I hope that you will bear with me as we travel along!

But don’t just take my word for it. Study for yourself. I’m sharing what the Lord is showing me. What is He showing you? If you have a comment or something/Scripture to share, please do share it!

All that said… let’s turn the next page and start on a new adventure—a new journey. I’m so totally ready to see what the Lord does through this… ☺ Thanks for starting this journey with me. I’m superbly prepared to expect wonders.

“We are all unfinished, a long way from what we ought to be, but if we can look at ourselves and one another from God’s point of view, we’ll know where we ought to be going and in which direction a relationship should move.”

–Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be A Woman

“But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.”

–Acts 20:24 (NASB)

Blessings!

Kayla R. Woodhouse ☺