picky, picky, picky

Am I too picky? I know it's good to be picky in some areas, like who your close friends are, what kind of things you let influence you, etc. and it's good to be picky in who you date, too... right? Because I'm wondering if I'm TOO picky. I've been told (and now believe) that dating just to date is kinda stupid... I mean, I understand casual dating. But being in a serious relationship just to have a boyfriend/girlfriend is completely ridiculous. Anyway, because I feel that way I've only had one boyfriend, been careful to guard my heart and purity, etc. And as the time marches on that I live my life single, seeking God and learning of Him, I wonder what the point is in having wishes and hopes of what my future boyfriend/husband will be like. I wonder why I have a list that etches out what kind of man I want to spend forever with. is my list too precise, too long? I've been careful not to give God a "these four pages describe what my husband will be" list. It's a simple, one-page list... more of a prayer than a list. and honestly, it's just core values that I find necessary in any individual that will be a close friend of mine. yet somehow, it seems like I rely on that list to mark guys off. you know, "possibilities". "He can kinda be a pervert sometimes, I could never date him,"
...and as I type this, I realize what my problem is. It revolves around me. Very rarely do I ask, "God, is he the type of person I should date?" So often I rely on my own intuition and beliefs to handle that answer. 
God, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and help me to live in a way that shares that joy with everyone I can. I want to focus more on taking up your yoke and learning of you, than I do on what my future may hold. I want to seek your will for my life in every area at every moment. Speak to me. Help me hear.

I am not supposed to be here.

honestly, I'm not sure if I can endure another month and a half here. here, physically... here, emotionally... and of course here, spiritually. what is up with my life? this is the weirdest feeling.
for the first time EVER, in my eighteen plus years of life, I'm uncomfortable in my hometown. home is great, don't get me wrong. I love being home, as in being with my family. but even my room is different and weird. and I hate it. I hate feeling like a visitor in my own home, in the town I've grown up in for the past 12 years. I hate feeling like my closest friends here don't even know me as well as my "good" friends at school. sadly, aside from my family, there is one relationship that hasn't changed for the worse... and I kinda feel like God let it remain because he knew I'd need my best friend this summer. 
everywhere I go, whether it's walmart, or my job, or (sadly) my home church, I can't shake that feeling that I'm out of place. and as bad of a feeling as that is, I don't want to change it. I don't want to sink back into the small-expectations-lifestyle I got so good at maintaining while I lived here. but I just don't want to be here. I'm ready to go back to MC today. Not a joke, I would stay up all night packing my stuff and be ready to move in if the dorms were opening this weekend. 
I keep talking about this with my parents, because it's such an odd, new thing for me. apparently it's normal, when you go off to college, to detach from your life before... but it seems like I'm the only one of my peers that has. then again, I'm the only one that went out of state. 
.....my eyes are hot with tears and I find it hard to breathe. I don't want to count how many times in the past week I've cried over how much I miss MC. I hate summer. I hate being away from everyone, from my "home away from home" and from the church that now feels so much more like home. I just want to go back. I don't understand the purpose of this awkward, uncomfortable, weirdly un-stressfull and uneventful summer. 
I don't understand my life, period, right now. I don't see, hear, or feel God moving. I feel lost and somehow complacent. I feel like I'm in that stage of the nightmare where I can hear what's going on around me and realize that all this is just a dream, but can't wake myself up.
wake me up, God.
I'm lost without you.

blank.

last night I experienced the worst feeling ever. 
ok, probably not REALLY the worst feeling ever. but it was pretty horrible. 
see, this whole weekend was consumed with my cousin's wedding and the details of getting everyone there, carting my mee-maw around, and taking care of my cousin's (not the one getting married) kiddos while their parents were busy. so it was probably the weirdest wedding ever to me. plus, that side of the family is just off-kelter. they all practically hate each other and pretend everything is ok all the time when it isn't (praise the Lord my mom turned out differently). plus, there was a lot of alcohol floating around at the reception, which equals more uncomfortability (and a headache from the stench). so if you combine all that awkwardness with my general disliking of weddings, you end up with Becca in a bad mood. 
so there was that, then I got home and relaxed with the family, watched movies and such, which made things better. but having missed out on my home church service because we were traveling back home, my day was just OFF. I finally just went to bed... and of course it WOULD be that one night where you just can't get to sleep. so, like any logical college student, I opted to stay up and watch a movie on netflix. I picked an old-ish Natalie Portman movie called "Anywhere but Here"- and I do NOT recommend it. It was just the weirdest movie, and this poor girl was dragged all over the country by her capricious, love-seeking mother, who was a TERRIBLE mother. not only did her mom continually mistreat her, but she also had no friends in her new home (after her mom moved them across the country), her best friend died, and her mom spent money she didn't have time after time. it just irritated me, and made me angry, and made me want to cry. 
so on top of all my negative feelings toward the wedding weekend, I watched a terrible movie that put me in a nasty mood. and to top it off, I hadn't read my bible in about three days because of all the wedding.
I'm not sure why all of this matters. in fact, it really doesn't. I suppose it's mostly just that this terrible feeling is still lingering. and I don't like it, and I'm unsure of how to rid myself of it. 
well, actually, I'm sure of how to rid myself of it: spend time really alone with God. but you know that guilt you feel when you haven't had a quiet time in a few days, and for some reason you hesitate to set that time aside once again? maybe no one else does that, maybe it's a Becca-ism. but I have that feeling and I've realized that I've tried everything to rid myself of the feeling: reading, watching movies, hot tea, chocolate, America's Next Top Model marathon. it does nothing, and I know exactly why and I know exactly how to change that. but for some reason I can't muster up the courage to actually crawl back.


God, give me courage to come back to you. I know I haven't really gone that far... but I also know that walking away from you doesn't happen suddenly, it happens inches at a time, and I don't want to walk away from you. 


find me here, and speak to me.
 I want to feel you, I need to hear you. 
You are the light that's leading me to the place where I find peace again. 
You are the strength that keeps me walking, 
You are the hope that keeps me trusting. 
You are the light to my soul. 
You are my purpose, you're everything...
And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you? 
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?... 
Cause You're all I want. You're all I need. 
You're everything, everything. 

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.)

I am stained with dirt, prone to depravity.

"A relationship devoid of purity is soon reduced to nothing more than two bodies grasping at and demanding pleasure. Without purity, the mind becomes a slave to depravity, tossed about by every single craving and imagination."
-Joshua Harris
{and actually stolen from an AWESOME blog two friends of mine started, LOVE UNAWAKENED }


Is there even more I can say to expound on this?  "The more the words the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?" (Eccl. 6:11) Just read it again. Mull it over. And ask that God would use it to awaken your heart to His convictions and callings.


and You are Holy, Holy, Holy. All Heaven cries, "HOLY, HOLY GOD!". and You are Holy, Holy, Holy. I wanna be wholly like You are. -Wholly Yours, DC*B

face vs. hands?

Ps. 27:8 says (in Becca language), You spoke into my heart to seek Your face. So here I go: I'm seeking Your face.
I love this verse so much I actually made it my phone background (big deal, to beat a picture of my adorable 5-month-old nephew out). I've been dwelling on it ever since I read it in my quiet time a couple days back, then tonight at church, our worship pastor said something in passing I don't think he even realized he said (which makes it even more of a God-thing). He said, "I pray that we would seek His face before we seek His hand." and boom. I didn't hear anything else for the next 60 seconds. God had me.
read Psalm 27:7-9 (in context). David (the author of this Psalm) is begging God to hear his prayers and answer them. and in the midst of David's cries that God would answer his requests, God simply speaks in His heart, "Seek my face." (oh boy, this is getting bigger as I type. oh boy, God is speaking). notice, He doesn't tell David, "Study the scriptures more often," or "Go make sacrifices first." He simply says "Seek my face." and although I know it is wrong to add to scripture, sometimes I think inferring thoughts is a necessary process. and here, it seems as though God was emphasizing face. I don't know, I could be wrong. but think about it.
how often to we come to God begging Him to move in our lives when we haven't spent time facedown in His presence seeking His will over our own? that happens for me A. LOT.
maybe God was saying, "Instead of seeking my hands to move in your life and achieve your hopes and wishes, why don't you just seek my face? Seek to know me more, to be intimate with me?... Seek my FACE."
I can see the lightbulb moment happening for David. OHHHHHH. Your face. okay, God. seek your face? I'll do it. If that's your desire for me, I'll do it. But please don't turn your face from me in the meantime. I've messed up, and I was selfish to ask what you could do for me before I sought out what your Heart for me in this was. But God, don't turn from me in anger. Please don't forsake me or abandon me, You've helped me so much and I need Your continual help. Take me in, no one else will.
Do you get this, reader? Can your heart comprehend it? I pray that it impacts you as much as it just did for me. And I pray that we'll always seek His face above all else.