my life, for today.

I love but sometimes hate how quickly my life changes.
Today, I love it.
This whole week has been kinda crazy. It's VBS week at my church, and for the first time I'm an actual teacher instead of just a youth helper. meaning more stress, less sleep, all that jazz. HOWEVER, VBS is probably the best week of my summer, every year. I always feel like I change so much and learn so much from these all-too-wise first graders. 
So in the meantime, I met a really cute guy this week and now work alongside him three times a week. I know, I know, that sounds SO shallow. BUT, I promise there is depth to it. See, God uses the weirdest things to show me things about myself (meaning he used this letsjustsaydropdeadgorgeousboy to do so). Most the time those things are flaws and strongholds... sometimes they're things that make me see His beauty in myself. This day, it's been both. and then some.
The first realization was the obvious: cute boys get to me way too easily. I mean, I guess that's not a bad thing. I would just rather have God effect me so extremely and immediately. (Which I suppose leads us to the decision that there is always room for personal improvement, eh?)
Secondly, I realized how awkward I am. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad realization... I just know it suddenly hit me. You know that terribly awkward moment when you first meet someone who knows how ridiculously attractive they are and you can't exactly find any words to say? Yeah. I had that moment. for about 20 seconds. doesn't sound like a long time, but when you're standing there feeling like an idiot and you want to NOT be an open book with your emotions (coming back to that later), it's not cool. 
My third realization was such a God-thing, and I really have no idea how some stranger brought it to my mind. but the deal is, I was standing there, walking among the girls who were stretching for their class... pointing toes and making splits lower, when it hit me how I could use this time to pray for the girls. by name, cause I mean, I know them all anyway. I have 15 whole minutes to just sit and pray for the precious souls I spend time with every tuesday and thursday! What a blessing, and I wonder how I never saw it before. I wonder why it took me meeting a cute boy, leading to being an idiot around him, leading to wanting to make a better second impression, leading to thinking of personal integrity, leading to thinking of prayer. and BAM. Um, Becca... why don't you pray for these girls since you have 15 minutes of basically no talking? What a plan, God. what a plan.
Fourthly and finally, we come back to the letting-yourself-be-an-open-book. I've always read those books about how "when he looked at her, her face was blank, with no emotion; he decided to abandon his instincts and try anyway..." It always seemed so thrilling and mysterious to be unable to be read. I've always wanted to be able to have that stone cold expression that no one could read, and I've never been good at it. and as I left work today and overanalyzed everything that happened at work, I remembered one point where gorgeousboywhoshallstillremainunnamed laughed at one of the girls, and how his whole wonderful face lit up when he laughed (it's true of everyone, and I wish guys knew how attractive smiling is). my idiosyncratic brain somehow connected that to the fact that this week, I've realized how good I truly am with kids (not to be vain, but God truly has gifted me with a talent for engaging little kiddos), and wondering how much that has to do with the fact that I am so expressive with my face. and how readable my expressions are. so, whoa. God takes something that I used to think was such a bad thing, something about myself that I wanted to change... and he turns it into what will be such a blessing in my future career. 
he blows my mind.
At Passion, Beth Moore stated something that I think about almost every day now: "If you give God your mind, He will blow it for you." Well I did. and He is. and I love it. :)
(PS, I was going to apologize for this ramble-some post... but you got yourself into it.)