Kate

She leaves in January for a new adventure...the continuing adventure of Kate. College-bound! All the way across the country to Mississippi. I am incredibly proud of my eldest daughter. She has had a tough year. She worked hard and diligently to graduate a year early...with honors! All the while dealing with the stress of her father having 2 surgeries and has recently had a third. She became the "woman of the house" when I went to Washington to help with family. She was in charge of her father's care after surgery for 10 days and did an amazing job! Including driving him through morning commute traffic with just a few hours of driving under her belt. Most young ladies her age would not have been able to do this. Nurse a parent and keep the house together as well as keeping up on her studies. And smiling! She amazes me! Right now she is under a lot of stress. Dad retiring within the year with the possibility of coming home to a different house in a different state next Christmas. Going to school across the country. She is headed out to a place she does not know anyone in the middle of the year and dead set on digging in and getting to work! But she can do it! She is one of the strongest people I know. She's had to be as a military kid. We have uprooted her many times and each time she roots again. This time she is uprooting herself. Not an admirer of change...she is loading up and heading to Belhaven University in Jackson Mississippi as a new student in the midst of returning students. new people and new surroundings! She is following her desire and trying to follow her heart. And this is how we have raised our girls! They need to do what is going to make them happy...even if it doesn't follow other people's ideas of "logical steps". Follow your heart because that is where Christ is...He lives in your heart...not in your logic. Kate is going where she believes she is suppose to be in order to write...although I know it isn't exactly where she wants to be...but that is another story of her heart. With her she will take the love Christ has for her, the love she has for her family and the love she has for her best friend and from there she will only grow through Him and become an even more amazing person! And here is the fun part....because of all the uncertainty in her life...she HAS to trust in Jesus. I have watched this young lady grow so much in Him! She has learned to listen to Him in her still moments. Therefore she trusts her instincts. her instinct to travel across the country for school, her instinct for writing, and her instinct for loving....I am so excited for her! She is paving her own path...not a path paved for her. She trusts what God puts in her heart....and the "logic" comes naturally!