Book Review: "Kisses From Katie"

What an incredibly precious testimony is contained within the pages of this book! Katie Davis has given her heart and her life to the Lord to be used however He chooses. She spends everyday serving "the least of these" in Uganda. She goes where most of us would fear to go, serving the most desperately poor and sick, without thought for her personal safety. She has 13 daughters, adopted because the Lord told her they were hers.


Her entire day is filled with simply serving the one God places in front of her, no matter who it is, or what they need. This means there are days when she brings home a child on the verge of death and does everything she can to save that life. Other days, it may mean that she goes into a neighborhood where even the locals will not go, because she has extra food and they are in need.


The book is filled with page after page of God providing for her needs in miraculous ways, ways that don't make sense to those who are not completely and totally dependent on God alone. 


"And even though I realize I cannot always mend or meet, I can enter in. I can enter into someone's pain and sit with them and know. This is Jesus. Not that He apologizes for the hard and the hurt, but that He enters in, He comes with us to the hard places. And so I continue to enter."


Her heart is evident here:
"I didn't believe it was possible to tell a child about the love of Christ without simultaneously showing her that love by feeding her, clothing her, inviting her in. If a child has never known what love is, how can we expect him to accept the love of his Savior  until we first make that love tangible?" 


And then, "I wanted to share with them the truth that many of us seemed to have overlooked--that God wanted us to care for the poor, not just care about them, but to truly take care of them, and many of us were not doing so."  


Ouch!


It is hard for us to imagine walking away from our lives, moving to a foreign country, and allowing the Lord to send us into areas of profound poverty and rampant disease, trusting completely in His Protection and Provision.


"But it is in the brilliantly, gloriously, wonderfully difficult seasons that God seems to show Himself all-powerful and in control . . . the more I give of myself, the more He fills me up. The more I love, the more love I have to give."


She came back to the U.S. for a period of several months to start college, as she had promised her parents. Her heart was in anguish, longing for Uganda and her girls. Living in the midst of such abundance, ease, and comfort now created for her an impossible tension.


"I have often wondered since reentering the United States why I feel such great culture shock. The amount of stuff that just clutters our lives. All these things make it difficult to readjust, yes. But what has been the biggest shock to my system, the huge disconnect, is that I have stepped out of my reliance on God to meet my needs. I "miss" Jesus. He hasn't disappeared, of course, but I feel so far from Him because my life is actually functioning without Him. By 'functioning,' I mean that if I am sick, I go to the drugstore or to the doctor. If I am hungry, I go to the grocery store. If I need to go somewhere, I get in my car. When I need some advice or guidance, I call my mom or go plop on my roommate's bed. If I want to feel happy, I get Brad, my little brother, or someone else to make me laugh.


I keep forgetting to ask God first to heal me, fill me, to guide me, to rejoice with me. I have to set aside 'time to pray' in the morning and at night instead of being in constant communication with Him. In Uganda, because I was so physically 'poor,' I was completely dependent on God and spiritually as wealthy as ever. As I sit here writing, I am frustrated with my own stupidity, my human willingness to step back into dependence on stuff and these places I swore I detested."


It is so very hard to be totally dependent on the Lord in the midst of our incredibly blessed lives. We need to constantly ask Him to show us our need for Him, to help us see how completely incapable of walking this life without Him in every moment.


I love this passage from the book:

"Remember, God will never give you more than you can handle."

People repeat this frequently; I heard it when I was growing up and I hear it now. It is meant to be a source of encouragement, and it would be if I believed it were true.

But I don't.

I believe that God totally, absolutely, intentionally gives us more than we can handle. Because this is when we surrender to Him and He takes over, proving Himself by doing the impossible in our lives.

Now, how's that for Perspective? Wow!

I could go on and on, at this point in the review, with stories of how God has done just that for Katie Davis. But, the thing I took away from this book is the need to allow the Lord to move us to the place where we are completely submitted to His Plan for our lives--even to the point of doing something "radical" when He asks. He will ask it of us if we are allowing Him to steer. There will be something He asks of us that, in our wisdom and strength, is completely impossible and insane. But our obedience to His request of us teaches us dependence and brings Him Glory.


Now, I do have one concern about this book. I really do not want to bring this up, but it would be completely inconsistent with so much I have said here at the Antbed and believe to be absolutely imperative to a transformed life in the very center of His Will.


When Katie was a senior in high school, she talked her parents into a mission trip to Uganda. They didn't think she should go. She kept after them until they relented. Once there, she never wanted to go home. She talked her parents into allowing her to stay for a year before returning to go to college. By that point, she was "all in." Her heart was completely captivated. And the struggle began. Eventually, she told her parents that she was not going to be able to obey them and stay for college. 


Is Katie supposed to be where she is? Absolutely.


The problem lies in trusting God to lead us through the authority He has placed over us. If she had fully submitted to that authority, as unto the Lord, I believe to the marrow of my bones that the Lord would either have given her the Grace to wait on His Perfect Timing (which would have received her parents freely given permission and blessing), OR He would have changed the hearts of her parents to be able to release her from the commitment she had given them to attend college. 


Has the Lord done incredible things through her time in Uganda? Absolutely!! 


But she expresses in the book how poorly she treated her family and friends, while here for that one college semester, because she was so conflicted. It is only when we are completely submitted to His Will through the authority He has placed over us that we can walk in perfect Peace, regardless of circumstances. It would have made her testimony even more powerful if she would have allowed Him to move in this area on her behalf, without wounding her parents or her friends. Without feeling that she had to take matters in her own hands. She uses the verses about loving Jesus even to the point of hating fathers and mothers. But when we are under authority, God uses that authority to cover and protect us and He guides us under it, not out from under it. The Lord may have had a specific lesson He wanted her to learn that would have made her ministry even more profound. I don't know. But, I do know He is perfectly capable of changing the heart of those in authority over us whenever He sees fit.


Now, please hear me here. I am NOT condemning anyone. All I'm trying to say is that, if you read this book, the fullest of blessings come in complete submission to God's Authority. 


Do I perfectly practice this? NO! That is why I recognize it so clearly--because He's trying to teach me this same lesson. 


Kisses From Katie is an incredible testimony of just how powerfully a single person can be used when they say "yes" to the Father. You will be blessed and touched by the stories of so many individuals the Lord uses Katie to minister to. I highly recommend it! :)