First off, my name is Kaitlyn. Not Katie, not Kate. Kaitlyn. I am very proud of the name I have been given and do not like it shortened. My Mama often tells people “If I had wanted her to be a Katie, I’d have named her Katie”. That being said, I am also known as Airianna (and multiple variations of that name) to a large group of people. I answer to either name and am fond of both.
Secondly, I am the oldest of five siblings, but I have many more who have proceeded me in meeting their Maker. Among those siblings are Elianna’s twin, Samuel, and a set of twins who followed closely behind their brother.
Things you may want to know about me….. well, recently I have been signed on to be the voice actress of Mariah Marlton in the audio book version of Peter's Angel (soon to be released), Peter's Ally, and Peter's Ransom, a historical fiction trilogy. I am a Council Member on Holy Worlds Fantasy, Holy World's Sci-Fi, and Holy Worlds Historical Fiction. I used to be active on the Rebelution, once upon a time. I am an artist by trade, am launching my cake decorating business, love photography… and oh yes! I run an “unofficial” animal rescue (specifically cats) out of my house.
Yeah, that probably isn't stuff you want to know. So, I'll tell you what! Let me ramble a little about things you might like to hear about. Things that make up who I am.
I have a passion for a great many things in my life, but there are three things that perhaps rise above the rest. I have a passion for children; all children. Not just normal, healthy children, either. I love our often-viewed second class citizens, too; special needs kiddos. Why do we view special needs kids this way? A big part of why we see them as burdens has to do with the way our culture views the value and worth of life. Nazi Germany, though not the only influence, played a big part in this, as did Planned Parenthood and the feminist movement.
We no longer see trials as a blessing, and we want to tell God how best a child could minister. “But Lord, he would have a greater impact if he were healed.” That’s absolute balderdash. The life and death of my little brother vividly portrayed for me how much ministry a child can have, even if they never utter a word. Samuel forced everyone around him to reevaluate life, to look beyond what a medical chart says and look with their eyes and heart. He forced a hospital to change their policies on ventilator patients, paved the way for 2 other little guys to be given a chance at life, and altered the course of a medical student’s major.
Another passion in my life is showing some of the lies young women have been fed by the feminist culture. I have a very feministic background. Short version (those who know me will laugh, I am known for posts affectionately titled "monster posts")?
I was the raging feminist. Not in so many words or terms, but I was all the same. You see, I used to want to be “one of the guys”. In fact, I wanted to shun everything that made me a girl. So I refused to wear anything frilly, preferring baggy T-shirts and jeans to any other kind of clothing, wore nothing purple or pink, and heaven forbid that my mother hang my clothes on a pink hanger!
This mindset started when I was very young. As a little girl I was a tomboy. This wasn’t a bad thing, though. My childhood has molded me into the young woman I am today. But when a child carries this too far, it is detrimental. As a little girl I preferred climbing trees and digging in the dirt, and I had a strict aversion to baby dolls. At this point I didn’t have a warped thinking. I was a healthy, happy child.
However, as I got older, I began to observe other girls my age. I noticed that lots of them were like delicate pansies or china dolls. By the time I was 6, I had been introduced to a word that disgusted me. That word was femininity. That’s right; these lovely little creatures were referred to by the world as feminine. I didn’t like what I saw. They were cute and sweet but unable to cope with their surroundings. If they fell down and scraped their knee they went screaming for mommy instead of brushing themselves off and ‘getting back on the horse’, if you pardon my term. There was no backbone to these girls. They would sooner succumb to someone else’s thinking, rather than formulate their own desires and beliefs that they were willing to defend them. I was always the leader of the pack, a trail blazer, and I found their aversion to personal identity disgusting. They wanted to be exactly what stereotypical society said they should be, and I had been raised from infancy to be my own person.
So very early on in my life I associated femininity with weakness, and I was by no means weak. I therefore decided I didn’t want to be associated with any form of femininity, because that in turn signified that I was weak.
My radical mindset drove me to hate my God-ordained role as a young woman. I tried everything in my power to be like the guys. Anything he could do I could do better. 90% of my friends were guys. The older I got, the worse it became. I didn’t know it then, but I was a full blown feminist.
(Is still trying to stick to the short story)
When I was around 13 the Lord chose to relieve me of this burden, for a burden it most certainly was, and gave me the liberation of being a woman. I learned my greatest strength was my femininity, and that those girls I had first despised did not embody a feminine girl, but a priss. A woman who understands true femininity is not an oppressed woman at all.
My other passion kinda ties into the second one, in many ways. When I was 16, I was diagnosed with PRP. Long story short (because I’m sure ya’ll don’t want to hear another long story) I lost every shred of external beauty during this. I lost eyelashes, eyebrows, hair, nails, and my skin was unrecognizable as skin. I was so bad that the specialists were shocked by my appearance, and I ran into some Doctors who wanted nothing to do with me. You see, to many people, I no longer had worth. I was no longer a bright, beautiful 16 year old, and for many people, that meant I was no longer valuable. I was unsightly, no question. The PRP was horrific looking. The people who knew and loved me were brought to tears at seeing how altered I became in the space of about three weeks. But none of this meant I had lost value. I was still the same person on the inside. In fact, I was a better person than before because the beauty of my soul was being refined.
During this 2 year period of time, I learned some very valuable truths that placed a burning fire in my gut for true, inner beauty. Culture, yet again, perverts beauty. We have stick-thin Hollywood women pumped full of collagen and plastered with layers of synthetic chemicals and animal fat as our example of beauty. This is what is shown to us as perfection. If we don’t measure up, then we are second rate. The minds of both men, and women, have been warped to view beauty as something that is externalized. In reality, inner beauty if first internalized, overflowing to be an external adornment.
I believe passionately in the self worth, self respect, and self assurance of women. Girls in our culture have two issues. They either feel they don’t measure up and have no self esteem, or they go the opposite extreme. Neither is healthy. Neither is biblical.
And now you know more about me than you ever wanted to. The reality, though, is that this only scratches the surface. God made us complex creatures, so a brief rundown on myself won’t tell you much. I hope that it helps give you an understanding of where I am coming from, though, and allows you to see a side of me that you might not have seen before.
