this is a jumble and I don't like it.

Well, it's been a year. Every time I've come here to write, I closed the tab. The words just wouldn't come. There was a time in my life, about four years ago (actually exactly four years ago), when I had nothing but words to type. Everything was pent up inside me and the only way to process was to write. I suppose I should be thankful that it's not that way anymore, but I developed an attachment back then, and I still haven't let go.
When I think about it, a little voice inside me says, "Bec, you're still a writer," but I've always had trouble claiming that title. It seems so lofty. However, I cannot deny that there are always words inside me, winding themselves around in my head, attempting to find clever ways out. Is that all it takes to call oneself a writer?
Anyway, I'm a good bit ashamed of this post, because it jumps around and isn't very coherent and is NOT the type of writing a TRUE WRITER would produce, I tell myself. But I'm really not here to prove myself as a writer. I'm here to share my heart, to be open and honest, and to hope that God uses it to speak to someone. I'm pretty sure this post will end up being a big jumble of thoughts and emotions, and I dread that, but I know I need to just DO THE THING. Please bear with me.

Life lately has been... different. Kinda funky. It's a lot of self-discovery and avoiding listening to the news and trying to not be so hard on myself.
Here, I must admit that I'm a basic white girl and am VERY into enneagram numbers right now. Which, I believe, is leading to some really beneficial learning-about-myself time.
For a long time, I thought I was a Two- caring, people-pleasing, helper. Then I started seeing a lot of Four tendencies in myself.
Then I listened to Annie Downs' That Sounds Fun podcast on Enneagram Fours and I spent the entire hour going, "WAIT, THIS IS ME! IT'S ME, I'M A FOUR!" and crying along with the speakers.
It's been so beautiful and refreshing and rewarding to hear my tendencies and personality traits explained through the lens of the Gospel, and how those traits can be used to serve and love well. I can't tell you how many times I've cried about that.

And I must say, it tastes so sweet and feels so freeing to realize that part of my Four-ness and Individualist-ness and highly-sensitive-person-ness is a TOOL that God has given me to encourage and empathize and spread words of Truth. My ability to cry at the drop of a baby squirrel is not a weakness, not something I should apologize for, or hide, or feel ashamed of. My ability to cry while listening to any slightly emotional story is a TOOL that God has given me to be able to relate to people and to love them viscerally (tbh, not sure if viscerally is the right word there, but it's the best I've got).

So, needless to say, that made me fall in love with the That Sounds Fun podcast all over again-- I already liked it, but now I have feelings for it. Naturally, I then consumed it like crazy for about a week. I listened to some of my favorite authors and musicians being interviewed- they all made me cry. I learned a lot from all of them, but my favorites were Robin Jones Gunn, Mandisa, and Priscilla Shirer (you should go listen). Robin Jones Gunn reminded me of the importance of friends and of God's sovereignty in all our disappointments. Mandisa spoke about learning to stop hiding from the parts of us we are ashamed of, and instead to speak truth to ourselves and those around us. Priscilla Shirer really got me- she said she was in a season of "holy unrest", and that resonated deeply in me.

I feel like all of me is in that state of holy unrest right now. I'm uncomfortable, almost itchy, and I know there's a reason for it. He's making me uncomfortable for some reason that I can't see yet. I feel the need to get up and do something new in this season... but I can't tell what season this even is. It doesn't feel like any of them. Maybe Winter? I can't tell yet. I just know I'm transitioning to a new season and He's preparing me for something.

(I must remind myself that it isn't a coincidence that these podcasts that I listened to months after they aired, out of order, spoke to me. Every one of them was provided to me by my Father. That makes me weepy, thinking about the fact that He cares enough about me and my worries and my heart to give me some truth in the form of PODCASTS.)

I don't know about you, but I find myself most frequently battling one emotion: fear. I think, if we're honest, that's true for all of us. I'm terrified of what He's preparing me for, of the season He's introducing. I feel very certain that it will be hard and He will require some things of me that I don't think I can do. I'm scared of that.
That's why it is so touching that God's perfect love drives out fear. His ability to show us love in these insane, earthy, human ways is meant to drive the fear out of our hearts and lead us to Him.

As much of my writing does, this will circle back to Casey, so if that annoys you, just skip this bit. When Casey and I first broke up in August 2014, I was terrified. I realized that I loved him and I was terrified that losing him would scar me, or he would never come back to my life. I remember many days of waking up scared that I'd lost this guy who had quickly become one of my best friends, asking God, "Do I have to give him all the way up?"
The answer, of course, was yes.
At that time, I stumbled upon the perfect song- All We Are is Yours, by Daylight Worship. I cannot tell you how many times I listened to that song in the fall of 2014. The lyrics say,

"Whatever you say, whatever the cost, all we are is Yours

Wherever we go, whenever You call, we give all our strength that Your name would be known."

That resonated so perfectly in my heart. As much as I wanted to still be Casey's girl, to still be friends, to hold onto what we had, I knew the only way to move forward was to offer "us" up to God. To open my heart to the possibility of a call that I didn't like, or a cost that felt very unaffordable. To prioritize my relationship with Him over Casey.
I'll finish the story quickly by telling you what many of you already know- Casey came back in my life eight months later with all the beautiful timing and truth only God could orchestrate. We dated for 3 more years, and when planning our wedding, the one song we knew we had to have included was All We Are is Yours. This time we had many of the same feelings I'd had years before: fear, trepidation, nervous excitement. I think every time you fully place your trust in God, those emotions are to be expected. We knew that we would do what He said, go where He called us, whatever the cost. But that's scary and our human minds had a hard time wrapping around the idea of His ability to provide for us at every twist and turn.

That's most of why I wrote the waiting and believing post, about our marriage, life in Hattiesburg, and all that God has brought about here: because I had been terrified, and my little heart relied on His love to get us through. And it did. We waited. We believed. He loved us. We survived. He drove out our fear. We grew. That was enough.

And it still is enough.
Sometimes I feel like life is happening so fast, there will never be enough time to soak up all the lovely moments that go flying past me every day. I fear forgetting these days. I will never be able to memorize every detail of Casey's face, but I need to have it memorized because there is a 50/50 chance that I will have to live without him at some point. There is not enough time in this future of beautiful things blazing past me. It literally makes my throat get tight, the fear of missing all the good stuff. It paralyzes me sometimes and lays in my chest, heavy and dark. Ironically, the fear of missing all the good stuff leads me to missing stuff, because I'm letting fear settle in me. I'm giving it a place to live. And I'm tired of doing that.

In those moments over over-awareness, I feel every little moment so deeply. Kids smiles. Tears. The sound of dragonfly wings. The silliest things. I want to use that over-awareness to cherish life, not to fear missing things. Since it's January 1, I strongly feel the need to have succinct resolutions, or a word for my year, or some sort of vision... but I don't have any of that.

I have things I feel God has spoken into my heart:
I will see salvation this year.
He will provide for the scary unknown that is the months of 2020 after May.
I can trust Him.

That's all I've got. No cute picture. I don't even have a verse yet. But I think His voice is enough.

songs that have been resonating lately:
-Barter (SSA arr. by Clausen)
-High Flight (SSA arr. by Karen Linford Robinson)
-Embracing Accusation (Shane and Shane)
-All We Are is Yours (Daylight Worship)
-Music of My Heart (Nicole C. Mullen-- man I miss her)

welcome to midnight.

Do you ever feel like your path with God is a big ol' question mark, instead of a straight line like it seems it should be? 2018 has been that for me. Don't get me wrong, it has been one of the best years of my life, but it has also been one of the most trying years in every way. This year has been wibbly-wobbly, unsteady, and constantly changing.

I found out my school was closing. I left my job. I got married. We moved to a new city. He got a job, I didn't. I was unemployed. My sister left the country for two years. I worked part-time. We found a church. We found out my mother-in-law's cancer came back. We had to make new holiday plans and traditions. We had our first holiday season without Lauren.

It's been a lot of change, and I've been a heck of a mess. Through it all, through all the tears and doubts and questioning God's purpose in this wiggly question-mark-of-a-path, I found He was building a new foundation of trust in Him. I realized He was building my faith muscle the only way it can be built- by working it out. He was training me in discipline and faithfulness. All those days of wondering where He was leading and what my next step should be were like the marathon-training before you actually take the steps down the road. I felt like I was running in place, and I kind of was, and maybe it benefitted me.

I feel like I've grown more in 2018 than I have in many years. Thinking back across all of these months, I began trying to sum up the main lessons I've learned this year. I won't ramble too much about it, but if you'd like more details or would like to talk about any of these points, I'm more than happy to hear your thoughts and questions and share mine as well. 

Some things I learned and grasped tightly to in 2018: 

• I refuse to spend my life trying to make myself skinnier or smaller or less. I will not be mean to my body just because I have been conditioned to believe that big numbers are shame-inducing and fat is bad. Body positivity and fatness are such complex issues that cannot be neatly summed up, but this year I really started to live happily in my body and be proud of it and treat it well. Fat is not bad. My body has much more purpose than pleasing others. I like to work these abs out, and also feel my belly soft and squishy when it's relaxed. This year, I finally stopped wanting my body to be something other than what it is, and it has been so freeing to not constantly live at war with myself. 
• Responding to conflict with rigidity and harshness only worsens the problem. The only 100% effective method to solving interpersonal issues is selfless kindness. Whether you're a teacher, a friend, a sister, a coworker... all the people around you want from you is kindness. The only way to soothe and resolve problems is to approach them gently and lovingly.
• God is always always always providing and caring for His flock. Even when it feels like He left. Even when you made a decision and then realize it might have been the wrong one. Even when it is down to the very last second. Even when it has been three years, and you thought that stir in your heart had died... He is growing you. He is providing you with lifelong treasures. He is teaching you the priceless gift of learning to walk with sorrow and suffering as your closest companions. He is gifting you a present, painting you a future, and redeeming you a past more beautiful than any earthly accomplishment or item you could ever covet.
• The best gift you can ever give anyone is to be a soft place for them to land. My favorite moment this Christmas (maybe this whole year) was sitting across the kitchen table from my mom, cutting up food for Christmas recipes, talking about our pain and being a little weepy together. You can take all the jewelry, books, tickets, clothes, and cute stuff away from Christmas, and that's enough for me. If you're left with time spent beside loves ones cooking and watching tv and talking about tough subjects, it was worth it all. In three years- heck, 3 MONTHS- I won't remember what I got for Christmas, but I'll remember sitting in the Alabama Theatre sandwiched between my brother and my husband, watching my parents hold hands, singing Hark The Herald Angels Sing and feeling like I was living in It's A Wonderful Life. The best parts of this year were when I was able to be fully myself, ugly parts and all, and was embraced and loved in the midst of it. 

I hope you found some hopeful lessons and grasped tightly to them, too. I hope you discovered parts of yourself that you didn't even know were so strong and beautiful. I hope you began to see another human's extraordinary magic (to steal Ben Rector's words) and felt the miracle of love. I hope your eyes were opened to areas of God's heart that are so much deeper and kinder than you were ever taught.

This year, I met some darkness that I didn't see coming. I felt, for a bit, like more of a burden than a light. You've probably felt that way before, too. Before this year ends, take some time to celebrate the small victories and pinpoints of light in your life. Don't give up. Let this new year be one that you look back on as the year everything changed for the better. On New Years Eve, I always think of these words from one of my favorite authors, Jamie Tworkowski. 

"Wouldn't it be nice if change took just a moment?

Wouldn't it be nice if it were that easy?

Midnight and we're new. Midnight and the past erased. Midnight and we're free.

It seems to come slow. It seems to be a surgery.

Forgiveness. Healing. Sobriety. Letting go. Starting over.

It seems to happen slowly over time. 

One day at a time, the choice made new each morning.

Will you fight?

Will you fight to be healthy?

Will you fight to be free?

Will you fight for your story?
Will you fight to get the help you need?

Change takes more than a moment, but maybe there's also something to this celebration of a moment, something to the way it speaks to us, something to the way we fear it, and dream it to be true. Maybe it's the most honest moment of the year.

It's possible to change.

Welcome to Midnight."

--------

I cannot close this blog without mentioning some of the art and artists who made this year lovely for me. Not sponsored, just honestly enjoyed:

books
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Remember God by Annie F. Downs
Come Matter Here by Hannah Brencher
Body Positive Power by Megan Jayne Crabbe

albums
Magic by Ben Rector
Look Up Child by Lauren Daigle
CRAZYTALK by Mat Kearney
Let It Be Jesus by Christy Nockels

songs
I Was Here by Beyoncé
Pieces by Amanda Cook
The Heart That Slows Down by Canyon City
Simple Gifts (American Shaker song)

all the things, part 3- new promises

God woke me up Tuesday morning. I know because I was startled awake and immediately heard in my heart, "Meet Me."
I don't know about you, but I rarely talk to myself in my heart. I talk to myself in my mind, but I would never say to myself "Meet me," you know? I use first person when I talk to myself, but I don't say "me". I've never really thought about that until now, and I'm suddenly getting distracted with the exact term for that, because I know there is one, but I am sadly not a grammar savant and I have no idea what it is.
ANYWAY, He said "Meet Me," and I knew it was Him. And (as much as I wish this were not the case) I am not one of those people who wakes up at 5 AM on my off days to spend hours with God. I would love to get to that point, but for now I am too undisciplined and love sleep too much for that. I can count, probably on one hand, the number of times God has woken me up with the sunrise simply to spend time with Him (though I will say He REGULARLY wakes me up when I oversleep on school days- and can we just go WOW THANK YOU! for that because that's honestly amazing that He cares enough about me and my sweet lil school to wake me up in time to get there, even when I am selfish for more sleep).
Tuesday, I didn't know where to begin. I knew I needed my bible and some paper and a pen. I knew I needed to leave my phone behind. I sat out on the deck by the lake and had no clue what passage to turn to. I'm reading through the Bible with Casey right now, and felt strongly that I didn't need to pick up where he and I had left off. So, "where to?" was my question for several minutes. I pulled out a piece of paper I'd been scribbling on yesterday, flipped it over, and started jotting down thoughts.
The one that kept coming up was "You have only begun to believe Me!"
Again, the "Me" clued me in that this wasn't MY thought.
I suddenly remembered that at the end of the school year, I had started reading Isaiah on my own and never finished, so I flipped to where I'd left that little piece of paper, and found myself in the middle of a chapter. There was a very obvious line on the page where I had stopped reading in the middle of chapter 30 because the top half of the page was underlined several places, and past that there were no markings.
"Are you sure I'm supposed to start in the middle of the chapter?"
"Read."
And here's what I found:

"He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left."

There, in the middle of the chapter, I found a passage, or 'word' if you will, that felt so made for me right now. Just two days ago, my Sunday School teacher mentioned this passage and what a beautiful picture of the intimacy of Christ and the Holy Spirit it is. Not only is Christ one with us in our sorrow, but the Holy Spirit whispers guidance to us throughout it! And I hope y'all know how much I love it when a verse comes knocking at my heart over and over again. I love how personal that feels, and if that doesn't prove that the Word is living and active, then I don't know what does.
So even the simple fact that this was the second time I had heard this passage made me dewy-eyed.

And I think I had begun to forget how tender God is/can be. I know that working with the type of students and families I work with each day, it is too easy to feel like God isn't interested in us individually. It's easy to think that He is moving at the nice, mostly-white church across town that has money for cute children's musicals and a food pantry, and that He cares very little for a neighborhood you don't want to be in after dark. I know that is a lie, and that Satan is working hard to keep my eyes shut... but it's easy to feel like that's the way it is.

So many times these past two years, I have called, "Unfair, unfair! How could you let this be, God?" and felt like there was not much of an answer. Doubt and bitterness try to build up in my heart when Satan whispers in the silence after that question- "He must not care. He must be too busy somewhere else. I must be doing this wrong."

Somewhere I missed the part where He is being GRACIOUS to me at the sound of my cry! Not only does He hear it, He feels it. (I am a mess as I type this and realize how much He cares.) He pours grace on it. And IMMEDIATELY, as soon as He hears it, He answers it.
I don't know what that answer is or even what it sounds like, but the simple fact that it has already been uttered is such a relief.

And though my only food may be adversity and my only water may be affliction, He will not hide Himself anymore. He will not seem far off. On the days when I have nothing but tears to offer, He will be there, teaching me. He will be there, to be seen and noticed beside me. He will be there, to whisper guidance in my ear.

In the footnotes of my Bible, this verse is explained by saying, "Isaiah foresees the internalized law of the new covenant and the internal guidance of the Holy Spirit."
Y'all, Jesus wasn't even ALIVE yet, and God gave the word to this prophet that someday, our Teacher would be inside us. We wouldn't have physical stone commandments anymore, we would have His Word and Spirit within us.

As if all this wasn't enough of a promise for the upcoming school year, there is more! In verses 23-26, Isaiah describes many ways in which God will give bountifully.
"He will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous."

He has promised me plenty.

He has promised me growth. 

He has promised me roots. 

He goes on to say there will be lots of livestock that are healthy and keep the land healthy, there will be an abundance of fresh water in the mountains, and "the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun".

He has promised me light. 

In verse 29, He promises a song, and gladness of heart.

He has promised me joy and a song. 

In verse 30, He promises His voice will be heard and His arm will be seen. At the end of the chapter, He promises a fight against evil, and ultimately, victory.

And I love what it says in verse 32, that the Lord will strike his enemies "to the sound of tambourines and lyres." Guys, wouldn't you know that I use tambourines in my classroom regularly? Lyres not so much, since they're an ancient stringed instrument (similar to a harp)... but I find it HILARIOUS that He promised these things thousands of years ago, already knowing that in 2017, a little music teacher in Jackson, Mississippi would just cry her eyes out at the thought of His victory being to the sound of her little babies trying to keep a steady beat with a tambourine. My footnotes also comment that this means: "The role of His people is simply to celebrate."

I don't have to do any fighting or toiling. I can just celebrate the victory He already has!

He has promised me His victory.

Finally, in verse 33, Isaiah states that a "burning place has long been prepared" for his enemies to be destroyed. Once again, my footnotes give an astounding fact here that was the final nail for me, proving that this is the exact word God had specifically for me this morning. This 'burning place' is Topheth, "a location in the Hinnom Valley where Judeans had burned their children in sacrifice," that would ultimately be used to destroy those against God. 

He has promised me justice.

And, guys, I know this is a brutal word I'm about to say. I do not wish harm upon any of God's children, lost or found, but I believe in His justice and His purpose, and this verse makes it clear to me. 

For too long, these parents have been sacrificing their children. 

I wish I had a different way to put that, but I don't. 

This is not to say that every parent in Jackson or at my school is a terrible parent, an enemy of God, etc. What I mean is that our generation in general, and my school specifically, cares so much about making their children 'happy', or making their children 'like' them, or their own personal comfort, that they forsake basic spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical needs. Our parents sacrifice their children's well-being for their personal happiness, whatever that looks like- drugs, sex, money, notoriety, less busyness, etc. 

There are so many things wrong with their priorities, and so many ways their children suffer because of that. I could point fingers all day and list examples for pages on end, but at the bottom of all of that, our struggle is not against these parents. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." 

I am tired of this generational curse of parents who sacrifice their children. I am so ready for this to be burned away. I am so ready for these demons' and evil spirits' temporary dominion over this neighborhood, this city, this state, this country, this world, to be over. 

And I know God is promising that this year, that victory will continue. People will continue being freed! I may not see it firsthand yet, or ever, but I BELIEVE THAT THE FIGHT IS WON.

When I look at all the things He has said that morning, my first reaction is to draw back a little bit. It seems like too much to believe. It seems like too big a promise.
But I go back to what he said at 5:45 AM- "Child, you have only just BEGUN to believe Me!"
And here He is, offering a huge chance to believe Him and feel a little crazy and giddy for it.

I have these promises as an opportunity to continue believing God, for bigger and crazier things than I've seen yet. Pray with me. Believe with me.

(rewind to all the things, part 1 or part 2)

Scriptures and songs on my heart today:
"You know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed." -Joshua 23:14

"Because of Your promise, and according to Your own heart, You have brought about all this greatness, to make Your servant know it." -2 Samuel 7:21

"You will say in that day: 
“I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation."
With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: 
“Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.” -Isaiah 12

"Pull me a little closer, take me a little deeper- I want to know Your heart, I want to know Your heart.
Your love is so much sweeter than anything I've tasted- I want to know Your heart, I want to know Your heart." -Closer, Amanda Cook

"Your love's not passive, it's never disengaged, it's always present, 
it hangs on every word we say.
Love keeps its promises, it keeps its word, it honors what's sacred, cause its vows are good.
Your love's not broken, it's not insecure, Your love's not selfish, Your love is pure.
You don't give Your heart in pieces.
You don't hide Yourself to tease us." -Pieces, Amanda Cook

"Let the King of my heart be the wind inside my sails, the anchor in the waves, oh He is my song.

Let the King of my heart be the fire inside my veins, the echo of my days, oh He is my song.

You are good, good. You are good, good. 

And You're never gonna let, never gonna let me down." -King of My Heart, John Mark McMillan

"You are who You say You are.

You'll do what You say You'll do.

You'll be who You've always been to us, Jesus. 

Our hope is in You alone.

Our strength in Your mighty Name.

Our peace in the darkest day remains- Jesus.

This we know: we will see the enemy run.

This we know: we will see the victory come.

We hold on to every promise You ever made: Jesus You are unfailing!

...We trust You, we trust You. Your ways are higher than our own." 

-This We Know, Vertical Church

everything. perhaps we should call it The Big Remodel.

Somewhere along my way here, something told me that I had no right to talk about my pain. I started believing I shouldn’t acknowledge or talk about the things that hurt me and the season of death I’m encountering (leaving?), because mine is so ‘easy’. Which, I guess, is true.
In comparison-- ground gets shaky and dangerous once that word enters the picture-- to much of the world, my pain and sorrow is negligible and laughable.
But believing that I have no right to be open about sorrow I experience is just SATAN.

Let me back up.
Over the past three weeks that I've been blog-less, God has been whispering so much I can hardly hold on to one thing long enough to sketch the most vague idea of it down before another wafts my way. Living in a community of God-lovers (which I love so much, don't get me wrong!) is exhausting in times like these because I am CONSTANTLY being asked, "What is God teaching you lately?" and I always want to respond, "EVERYTHING."

He's teaching me to die to self every day, pick up my cross, and follow Him.
He's teaching me to dwell on things of God and not on the things on man. (Romans 8:5)
He's teaching me that losing my life & dreams is the only way to find life & come alive.
He's teaching me how critical it is for me to surround myself with words of Life, people who speak Truth, and music that breathes Hope.
He's teaching me to hide His Word in my heart, and how greatly it affects my desire/lack of desire to sin against Him.
He's teaching me to see people and listen to them, even to things they don't say.
He's teaching me redundancy is okay.
He's teaching me to live a messy life reeking of redemption and splashing on passersby.

He's teaching me to pray.
He's teaching me to cry.
He's teaching me not to hide.
He's teaching me to stop trying to be tough and sassy.

He's teaching me to be honest with myself.
He's teaching me to love myself AND others.
He's teaching me to rely on Him and abide in Him.
He's teaching me to bear fruit.

He's teaching me to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but to humbly consider others better than myself.
He's teaching me to look out for others' interests and heartbreaks.

He's teaching me to stop comparing.
He's teaching me to replace, "How am I better? How am I worse?" with "How can I bless them? What can I learn from them?"

He's teaching me to stay.
He's teaching me to speak.
He's teaching me to be renewed.
He's teaching me to leave shame behind.
He's teaching me how to study a living, breathing Word that reads me even as I read it.

He's teaching me to see His patterns.
He's teaching me to hear His voice.
He's teaching me to read His signs.
He's teaching me to question.
He's teaching me to measure everything I see, say, hear, and do against His Word.

He's teaching me to empty myself.
He's teaching me how to be filled.
He's teaching me what to let fill me.

He's teaching me to be a cathedral.
He's teaching me what it means to be a cathedral.
He's teaching me to say, "OK," through the tears.

He's teaching me love.
He's teaching me to love.
He's teaching me how to love.
He's teaching me how to be Love.

((if you didn't stop and think about at least a few of those, please go back and do so. Let Him whisper to you, too.))

And you know, there are probably more things He's teaching me that I haven't thought to put words to yet. I am, at all times, as constantly as I have ever experienced in my nearly twenty-two years of life, being amazed by Him.

I would love to be able to wrap that in a pretty little box for you and tell you that all the things I am learning and being amazed by are so fun and lovely and painless.
HA.

The searing pain of spiritual discipline is deeper than any other pain I have ever known.
It's life-wrecking.

It's the kind of pain that leaves you
sitting in the big chair in your new apartment's living room,
a roommate on either side,
shaking and crying and attempting to breathe,
while the world passes by on the road outside our window
with no knowledge of the revolution going on
in the little girl's heart that lives in that old house.
No matter how hard I try to convey that spiritual pain to you, it's not one you can understand until you've experienced it.

I've said this many times in my recently-passed conversations about the God-things in 2015 so far:

I always thought I knew what self-sacrifice meant until now.

I thought I knew what it meant to undergo spiritual discipline.

I thought I knew what Love was and what Love did and what Love looked like.

I thought I knew what that pain felt like.

But I didn't.

I know now: I never knew. 

I still don't know.

I see a tiny, tiny, beautifully tragic fraction of what it looks and feels like.

When I get to this point in the thought process, I always try to boil it down to one big thing. And right now, it all comes down to this:

be His cathedral.

the commandment of my year. my heart.

I'm still not entirely sure what it means or should look like, but I know this:

without the presence of God in it, a cathedral is just a sad, old building.

The only thing that makes a cathedral beautiful, sacred, and holy is the Shekinah Glory of God- the very presence of the Lord- filling it. **side note: I still don't know or understand enough about Shekinah Glory, but if you know nothing about it, read up on it (a little). 

So my quest then becomes: find the presence of God. figure out how to let Him live in me.
Which is a funny thing, because with all that He's teaching me, He's doing the serious remodeling needed to make my sin-filled, self-inclined human heart a place where He can dwell.
I also know He inhabits the praises of His people; He lives in "our praises, filling up the spaces in between our frailty and everything [He is]." (Restless by Audrey Assad). We have a God who responds when we ask "as I sing to You, in my praises, make Your home!" (Audience of One by Big Daddy Weave).

I find it so beautiful that in Exodus when God outlined for Moses and the Israelites EXACTLY how the Tabernacle was to be designed and set up and consecrated (He spent CHAPTERS doing so!), He had a purpose in it. It was ornate and beautiful and sacred and holy- because it was His dwelling place.
Then, when Christ died, the veil, which separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Tabernacle-- literally the only place where redemption of sins could be found, and the only place where God's spirit could dwell (Exodus 26:33, 30:6)-- was torn in two (Matthew 27:51). There was no more separation.
We got to become His dwelling places. We got to be made holy because His glory could now fill us as it used to fill the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:14).
We got the chance to become His tabernacles, His cathedrals; We got the chance to become inhabited by the Spirit of the Living God as our hearts and minds fill with praise for Him.

What an undeserved blessing.
What glorious newness is there to be found amidst the searing pain of self-sacrifice.

In my learning to study His Word, I have found a new connection with several hearts that fill the Old Testament- one of which is Joseph. Mainly because he cried a lot.
In Genesis 41, shortly after Joseph has risen to a pretty significant position under Pharaoh, we see a little section about Joseph naming his kids. Verses 50-52 say:
"Before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph. Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, bore them to him. Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. "For," he said, "God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house." The name of the second he called Ephraim, "For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction."

Now, I'm obviously not claiming to be on Joseph's level here. But I love finding a treasure like that in an odd place.
I love seeing it and clinging to the truth:
God will make me fruitful in this land of affliction.

{this blog and Becca's current heart-movements inspired by Mark 8, the book of Lamentations, Romans 6-8, and the following albums:

Majestic by Kari Jobe

Cathedrals by Tenth Avenue North

City of Black and White by Mat Kearney}

easier

a while back, I had a conversation that's stayed with me. I honestly don't remember a whole lot of what was said, except that we talked about that little phrase that so often pops into our heads, "Wouldn't it be easier?".
Life has seemed incredibly difficult lately. I know that's super first-world-probs of me to say, but it's the truth. It's a season of nitty-gritty discipline and daily picking-up-of-cross, and it's just not easy and rarely fun. I've been really whiny about it, too.
Then on my drive home God gave me this lovely little wake-up call that revolutionized my mind (and was probably the first time {at least in a while} I consciously had my mind renewed by the Lord).

About a year ago, my old voice teacher sent me an encouraging text with some scripture, and I, being a typical white girl, instagrammed it. Then it appeared on TimeHop on Friday and God used that old picture in a huge way.

As I was mulling it over on my drive, God did His weird God-things and stirred His little pinky finger around and whispered. 

I've been so busy complaining that God took my five little loaves and two little fish. 

I was the one the offered them, I was the one that brought them to Him, but I held them out hoping he would say, "No, that isn't enough, you can keep it and I'll take miracle-worthy matter from someone else."

He didn't say that.

Come to find out, He never does.

He will always, always, always accept the widow's mite. I should have known.

Anyway, He took my five loaves and two fish of all the good little things that I wanted to keep in my life- my plans & hopes of: returning to London; graduating into a stable, promising job; having a boyfriend; being able to keep working with the best teacher ever at GMS; keeping my safe little circle of friends and not moving outside of it; maintaining my self-protective covering and not being this continually, obnoxiously transparent person.

I held these things out innocently, because it's what you're supposed to do, and assumed He wouldn't want them.

But He took them. He took them, and there made me realize that I had chosen the hard route, accidentally.

I had been whispering to myself all along, "wouldn't it be easier if....?" and setting those choices to the side (I thought) for later, for the day I would have the bravery to choose either the hard choice or the equally brave choice of the easy way. 

But in reality, I had been choosing the hard way as I went, by simply saying over and over again, "OK, GOD."

I didn't even know. THAT'S WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU ARE IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH SOMEONE FOR 12 YEARS; GEEZ GOD, WAY TO CHOOSE SOMETHING FOR ME. (total sarcasm. I'm glad for it.)

Once He took those five loaves and two fishes of my life, lifted them from my hands, I immediately realized I was lunch-less (metaphorically). I had not much else to give. I immediately regretted my offer. 

But He comforted me with that look He gives your spirit sometimes, when you start reconsidering an offering you gave Him; the one that reminds you that He is so good and trustworthy, especially with living sacrifices. So I stood there by Him and watched Him give thanks for it-- HE GAVE THANKS FOR *MY* TINY OFFERING!?!? The one that couldn't go around to feed everyone no matter how small I cut the pieces up?

As I drove and saw this little picture sketching itself in my head, it all clicked.

Matthew 14:17-21 and John 6:11-13 tell the story:

"They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children."

 "Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten."

He reminded me that after Jesus gave thanks for the food, He broke it. There was no way it could be spread out to feed all the people that needed to be fed if the five loaves and two fish stayed as they were. They had to be broken.
This season of 'I don't know' and 'everything hurts' are my broken bread and split up fish.
They are broken that they may be multiplied.
They are broken that they may feed.
They are broken that others may eat their fill.
They are broken and promised to bring leftovers, and that 'nothing may be lost'.

"Becca," He said,"you brought me your little bit. I took it, I gave thanks, we gave thanks, and I broke it. Wait to see what I do with it. Wait to see how far I will multiply it.
'Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, see if I will not open the 
windows of heaven for you and pour down for you
a blessing until there is no more need."

"Wouldn't it be easier" if I didn't trust Him in this? "Wouldn't it be easier" if He were just some figment of my imagination that I could discard from consideration? "Wouldn't it be easier" if I could go about life on my own merry way and not have to give Him my little loaves and fishes?

Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn't.
I really don't want to know.
It's hard, but knowing that my small sacrifice is broken that it may be multiplied and used to provide sustenance is enough.
Knowing that God is inviting me to test Him and see if He will not throw open the windows of Heaven and bless me abundantly (I'm not Prosperity-Gospel-ing, chill out) until there is no more need.
Not no more want.
But no more need.

my pile of "I DON'T KNOW"s

How do I begin a blog post about my life after so many days full of change since my last one? I don't know where to start to catch you all up. It's been almost a month since I last posted and God has done so very much in that short time span.

Having my heart stolen by 154 6th through 8th graders was not something I would have predicted.
Having my heart broken by a man full of good intentions and operating on God's whispers was not what I thought was coming.
Having my heart stretched to its limits by a God who somehow thinks this is the best time for me to grow exponentially was really not on my radar.
Having my faith muscle over-exercised every day to the point that it is now simply a wobbly, sore mass of Something Bigger Than Me wasn't something I would have signed up for.
Having all my seemingly perfect little plans evaporate into thin air was something I thought would never happen.

I thought my plans were His plans that I had warmly accepted. I thought my faith muscle was strong enough already and suitable for where I am in life and where I'm headed. I thought my heart had been stretched too much over the past four years and that this was finally the time that it got to adjust to its current large stretchiness. I thought being heart-broken over a boy was something I'd never experience. I thought that that multitude of stinky, snarky adolescents would never come to be a group of people I truly cared about, that they would only ever be Those Kids I Teach.

And hey, look at that. All my thoughts were wrong.
At my school, we do this thing every morning called WAR Time-- it stands for We're All Reading-- where everyone sits in silence and reads a book for 10 minutes. It's the most glorious, refreshing invention ever and I hope the rest of the world soon adopts it. Well during WARTime this week, I read a booklet called Be a Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. In it, he talks about Isaiah 55:8-9 and the fact that God's ways and thoughts are not only different from and higher than ours, they are UNFATHOMABLY different from and higher than ours. He brings up the concept of a lightyear and that it itself is pretty hard to grasp, let alone the concept of 15 BILLION lightyears-- then he goes on to say that that's how different God's ways are from ours. They are 15 billion lightyears higher and better than any human plans we could make for ourselves. And while that's a terrifying thing to think about, it's also comforting. The God who invented lightyears and keeps the universe in order thinks about me, cares about me, and listens to my prayers. He orders my steps in His Word and in His way because HE KNOWS they're that much better and He loves His children too much to let us live without them.

So while it's disconcerting and uncomfortable for me to suddenly realize that all my thoughts and plans and hopes are all being remodeled right now, it's comforting to know they will eventually resemble and reflect Him in a much better way than they ever would have if He had let me continue with my own plans.

In addition to that, I've been kinda freaking out over it lately. Crazy, right? ME, freak out? I never would. (smirk) I keep having this realization that I DON'T KNOW.
I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going when I graduate.
I don't know if I'm ever going back to London.
I don't know what or where I want to teach.
I don't know what the rest of my semester will look like.
I don't know if I will continue loving teaching and will actually want to teach once I graduate.
I don't know what God has in store for me and Casey.
I don't know if I'm able to be friends with him and bury all my emotions about him.
I don't know if once I bury those emotions they will eventually be resurrected or they're just lay there, dead.
I don't know if I should move on from him or not.
I don't how to love my friends at MC when I never see them and feel so disconnected from their lives.
I don't know how to talk to people about hard things that may ruin friendships.
I don't know how to live at peace with literally EVERYONE.
I don't know how to live with constant peace in my soul.
I don't know what it really means to "set an example for the believers" in those 5 ways that 1 Tim. 4:12 lists (though that is my God-given discipline area for the remainder of the year).
I don't know if I should pretend I'm ok all the time or be openly broken.
I don't know how to pretend to be a young professional when I still like to wear bows in my hair and watch Sofia the First.
I don't know where the line is between pleasing my professors/higher-ups and being falsely happy/respectful/agreeable.
I don't know how to be loving towards my friends who are living in sin, while not supporting their sinful lifestyles, but also not being judgmental or holier-than-thou.
I don't know what I should know.

and a lot more.
as I've said, I'm just a big pile of "I don't know" lately.

HOWEVER.
I keep hearing God remind me that He DOES know.
A friend recently send me an excerpt from a devotional she was reading. It said:

in the middle of reading this, I burst into tears. There I was, sitting on my bedroom floor having just applied mascara for the day. And there it went, streaming down my cheeks. "I KNOW", he said. He just kept repeating it and singing it over me. 

In the midst of my many "I don't know"s, He is THE "I KNOW". 

Last week alone, there were two more instances where friends who had no idea about my heart's whispers lately, who were oblivious to my "I DON'T KNOW", simply said to me, "HE KNOWS."

It made me cry and laugh. Here I am freaking out over these things that really are tiny in the light of Eternity, but He cares enough to look into my "brimming ache", and sing over me the "I know" that is absent from my life right now. 

Then, this morning at church, the biggest "I know" was spoken. The message was on 1 Samuel 16:7- that ever-famous passage about not looking at the outward appearance because God looks at the heart. In high school you hear it billions of times related to popularity and not judging weird kids just because they look different from you. I have heard so many shallow messages on this passage that I gagged a little when I saw that it was our main scripture focus today. 

THEN.

God did his funny God-things and blew my mind and giggled a little with me when it was all over.

Bro. David started the sermon by teaching us about the original wording used in this passage. Where it says, "Man looks ON the outward appearance, but God looks ON the heart," the ON actually has three translations that each tell us something different about seeing with spiritual vision, as God does.

It can mean WITH or ACCORDING TO, it can mean REGARDING, or it can mean INTO.

So here were his three conclusions:

1. The Lord sees WITH His heart || PURPOSING

He is not bound by time or really anything that humans are bound by, so God is able to KNOW everything. Just as we KNOW what happened yesterday because we have past knowledge, God KNOWS what happens tomorrow because he has eternal knowledge. He is unbound by time and tense. It is in that sense that He PURPOSES for us to hope in His power and "glorious inheritance" (Eph. 1:17-19). He also literally laughs at our stupid human efforts to be smarter or more powerful than Him (Psalm 2:1-6). HA. Thanks for realizing how stupid we can be, God.

2. The Lord sees REGARDING our heart || PURSUING

Just as He KNOWS the past, present, and future, He KNOWS our hearts. He searches them and tries them and replaces them when the need arises. He is slow to anger, abounding in love, always merciful and gracious-- the perfect combination of attributes for One who pursues His Beloved. He gives out hearts of flesh when He sees that our hearts have become stony (Ez. 36:26). And when our seasons of disciplining are toughest, He is still in control, still fully knowing what His plans for us are-- that they are good, hopeful, and offer us a prosperous future {by His definition. not ours.}, especially when we are seeking Him (Jeremiah 29:11-13). HIS PLANS ARE TO GIVE US HOPE FOR OUR HEARTS, because He knows we can't run to Him in our natural, wicked, human heart-condition unless He pursues us first.

3. The Lord sees INTO our heart || PEERING

He uses His Word (Hebrews 4:12) and our words (Matthew 15:10-11, 19-20) to see into our hearts, to examine them, and find the places that don't yet look like Him. He knows our hearts are desperately wicked, and like Jeremiah asked: Who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)... well, He can. He knows they ARE desperately wicked, and He knows the desperate wickedness inside. 

As I have been doing, we humans like to make our own plans and justify our ways-- they seem good enough for us!-- and just go along with it until something stops us. And that's not how God functions. He calls us to COMMIT our ways to Him, to give them over fully and obediently, immediately and with a cheerful heart. Proverbs 16 is killer convicting. We can plan our lives, but THE LORD ESTABLISHES OUR STEPS. He grounds us and holds onto us when we don't even know we need to be held onto.

The passage in Malachi 3 regarding tithes keeps coming to my mind. I've realized that maybe this loss of my own plans is a sort of tithe. "Tithe" doesn't just mean giving God a check, it actually refers to the process of God TESTING His children by asking them to GIVE. So here I am, being tested and having given up a lot of my own plans and 'knowing'... sounds a lot like a tithe to me. 

And do you know what God's opinion on tithing is?

"Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need."

He can, will, and DOES bless His children when we obey Him.

So as I walk around feeling like I pile of "I don't know"s, I'm clinging to His promise that HE KNOWS and that when I bring in my small tithe, my widow's mite, all the little things I have to bring that are nowhere near enough for Him, THEN He will pour down on me until there is no more need. I don't know what the "blessing" is there, but honestly I hope it's just Him. Because though knowledge and money and happy little things would surely feel good, what my heart yearns for is to be filled to overflowing with Him, until I need no more and lack no part of His heart. 

An Open Letter to You

Dear Friend,
Ever since I got a text the other day about letters on lined paper, I've had you and writing you a letter at the forefront of my mind. Please don't think I'm stupid for sending you this letter.

Friend, my life is a big pile of "I don't know" right now, and I hate it. I feel like I SHOULD know, at least a little bit, what I'm doing and where I'm going and who I am and what my life is. But I don't, and it's awful and terrifying. I'm sure I'm making a bigger deal out of the not-knowing that I "should" but I am SO DONE WITH SHOULD. I am almost convinced it's just a word Satan uses to help me tie myself down.
I SHOULD know...
I SHOULD have...
I SHOULD be...
I SHOULD (your entry here)...

And speaking of tying myself down, I've been doing a lot of it without even realizing.
I want so badly to be known/loved/admired/valuable/unforgettable/astonishing/adequate/worthy/enough/superlative, that I confine myself to others' standards and forget how to live.

I want my words to matter and my life to matter, and I know that is anything but selfless. However, it is honest. I want to know how to be selfless, but I don't know how.

"I don't know what do with a love like that, I don't know how to be a love like that."

I know it hurts, and learning to hurt scares me. I hate hurting. It's so hard to escape. There's just nothing you can do about it but be pathetic and more vulnerable and more hurt, once it starts. And I already feel so very vulnerable and so very pathetic.

I am sorry to write you a letter that is so full of my selfishness.
I am sorry to send you words ebbed forward by tears and focused on none but me.

But I am not sorry to send you a letter so full of weakness and so obviously in need of change and strength. I can only hope that in its many cracks and holes and ruins (in MY cracks and holes and ruins), you will see where God is bringing me to build up the walls, repair the cracked places, and find His strength perfects, completes, and matures my utter weakness.

I hope maybe you will be reminded of experiencing similar things, and how God worked it out to become a side of you that turned into an outward-facing mirror, reflecting Him everywhere. I hope that's possible in my life, too.
I hope I learn to hurt in a way that makes me an outward-facing mirror.

being a twenty-something in a Godless society

It's been so very long since I've blogged (or at least it feels that way) that I hardly know where to begin. A lot has changed, is still changing, and will continue changing for a long time. There are many thoughts that have welled up in me, many things heavy on my heart that continue to hold me strongly, and many words stuck just inside my mouth (or in this case, fingertips) that I can't seem to articulate. There is much inside of me, and very little of it that I comprehend. And even less that I can express.
Let me start with my worry. Well, not worry necessarily... maybe more of a concern? Or a recurring thought? Or just something I'm consistently considering. Whatever it may be classified as, here it is:

I look so different from this world.

As I should. I'm ok with looking different from the world, I enjoy looking different from the world, but it makes this specific time of life exceedingly difficult. As an early twenty-something, I'm deciding who I'll be as an adult. Deciding my specific convictions and goals and expectations and what is worth fighting for and what I'm willing to give up and how much of myself I will spend and how I will react and all those sorts of deep emotional/psychological adult-y things.

It seems to me that this age is a time to look to others for wisdom and advice. To say, "Hey, would you mind sending me that list of personal boundaries you made? I'm trying to make one for myself and I'd like some guideline ideas" to your parents or old mentor. It's a time to read articles and peruse books and ponder and make lists and decide things.

This is where I find the problem. Though I have God's Word, sometimes it's hard for me to accurately and directly apply that to my life. His Word, in its perfection, is too literal but too metaphorical, too mysterious but too straightforward, and too complicated but too simple for me to wrap my human brain around well. My next best option is human advice, and, as you may already see, there is a limited amount of relevant, Godly human advice for twenty-somethings hanging around.

There is all sorts of advice hanging around. It's just based on worldly standards.
The advice for twenty-somethings that I find all over BuzzFeed, Thought Catalog, and the like tends to sound good (and often witty to boot!) but look totally opposite than my life as a Christ-follower seeks to be.
Some of them are funny, like this one, but are rooted in some less-than-stellar ways of living life. Some, like this Thought Catalog article, boast (unknowingly) skewed views of morality and love, among other things.

Today I spent the better part of my afternoon reading through one couple's experiment of learning more about themselves by dating each other for a mandatory forty-day period. They nicknamed it 40DoD (Forty Days of Dating) and posted it all on their own website, complete with hand-drawn illustrations of words used and videos of moments together. They became transparent with the entirety of humanity and posted their experimental relationship (daily journal entries from both of them compared side by side) on the internet for all to peruse and learn from.

After reading every word of their blog for hours on end, and realizing how much advice I had inside my head for them (especially towards the end... I won't tell you how it ends because I fully believe you should waste a few hours reading it for yourself), I realized the futility of these types of 'we hope our experience serves as wisdom for you' articles.

The attempt is a noble one, but let me get one thing straight: what we lack in this world is God. What couples and articles and books often miss is that until we are filled with and compelled by His love, all our "wisdom" and experiences and hopefulness in the world is naught.
Until the things we say and do and share are grounded in Christ and His truth they are of no use.

So here I am: the twenty-something reading all the books and looking up all the articles and asking all the older friends and realizing I can count on one hand the number of adults (discounting family members) who I can go to for Godly, truthful advice. And I was raised in church and live in the Bible belt. How much more so do the other twenty-somethings in this world lack that Godly love and wisdom they need to live a fulfilling, purposeful life!

Anyway, my point is that I feel like with all the information out there at my fingertips that could help me in my stage of deciding my specific convictions and goals and expectations and what is worth fighting for and what I'm willing to give up and how much of myself I will spend and how I will react and all those sorts of deep emotional/psychological adult-y things and all that, I still am lost. I've found a lot of Godless information and a minuscule amount of Godly advice. I don't know what it should look like to be a Godly, but relevant, adult.

I don't know what my boundaries as a Christian twenty-something should be, because all I hear are the boundaries (or lack thereof) and expectations and goals that non-Christians my age have. I know mine should be different but I don't know how different and radical they should be, or can be, without becoming something irrelevant to those around me whom I'm trying to shine Christ to.
I guess the problem arises in that we all have different goals, convictions, and experiences. Each of our relationships with Christ and the world look vastly different from one another.

My goal is not at all to push my beliefs on others, but to share with them the Love that has radically changed my life. However, I believe part of sharing that Love means being a light for the ones who will someday be in my position, who in eight years will be doggy paddling through life trying to figure out where they belong in relation to the rest of the world's sense of normalcy.
Because of this, it's my hope over the summer to share these thoughts and convictions and decisions as I come upon them. I plan to be transparent (as per usual) and give too much information (as is also usual), and throw my heart out there in hopes that someday they'll be useful, or at least thought-provoking to someone in a similar position.

My heart goes out to you, fellow twenty-somethings, as we trudge along trying to decide what kind of adults we're going to be. "Seek Ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." (Matthew 6:33)

in the subtlety and softness

There's one question that keeps popping up in my life lately that I'm beginning to hate.
What's God teaching you lately?
Usually this question wouldn't bother me. Usually I'd jump right in and talk about what I've been learning in daily reading or listening, or just start talking until something logical and answer-like came out of my mouth. 
But this week, at least three people threw this question at me and I was at a loss.
I don't really know why. It's partially because I haven't been faithful in my devoted Jesus time. It's also partially because of something else that I haven't figured out yet. 
And in that, I find my answer.

God's teaching me that I don't always have to have an answer. I don't have to know what I'm learning yet. I don't have to have an answer and be all figured out and know what I'm doing. I can just be. I can just live and be His and He'll give me words and solid heart songs when He deems fit. 

It's simple, and subtle, and rudimentary. But it's something I forget often and something God softly slipped back into my mind the way He does. 

One of my favorite movie quotes says, "Sometimes love isn't fireworks. Sometimes love just comes softly." And I love that because it applies to God's agape love just as well as human eros love. Sometimes his love, his lessons, and his leading don't rush in and surprise you and light everything up.
Sometimes they just slip in beside you and slide their gentle, soft hand in yours and start walking in step with you.

struggling

Every couple of weeks, I catch up on my best friends' blogs. There are three or four that I try to stay plugged into (although I often fail at that), and lately I've been so convicted when I read each of their blogs. It's so awesome to me how God works in my friends, leads them to blog about it, and in turn works in me. I so often pray that I can be that type of vessel for His work... Honestly, it's kind of my goal in life. I think it's the highest calling of a Christian, to simply be able to be used by God. Because really, He doesn't need us at all. He can do absolutely anything He wants, anytime, with anyone. And He chooses to work through little nobodies like us, just to prove how awesome He is (that He can work through such stubborn and selfish creatures as me). Anyway, when I read my friends' blogs, I'm also convicted of my lack of empathy, my selfishness, and my vanity. They are all continually selfless, compassionate, and boast in Christ alone- I am so very blessed by them and inspired by their Christ-filled hearts!
As you probably know, I've changed a lot in the past 8 months. This period of time has been the most growth-inflicting bit I think I've ever encountered so far in my life. Honestly, it scares me a little bit. While I LOVE London and can't wait to go back, I'm scared that maybe I got it wrong somewhere, and I start thinking of all the "what-if?"s. What if God wasn't saying that London will be my home? What if I never get to go back? What if all this change in my life changes my friendships too drastically to repair? What if I DO move to London, and I have to leave all my family and friends and start an entirely new life? What if I move to London and realize it isn't really the place for me and have to come back, dragging my tail between my legs (so to speak)? I know I *should* have faith in God, and I *should* trust His every move and I *should* never question him... But goodness, we all know I'm super flawed and sinful anyway. I know I need to take every thought captive to obedience in Christ and not let my worries consume me, but this is something I really struggle with over and over. Most people have addictions to porn or alcohol or sex... my addiction is worry and fear. I can't make myself stop. I know how, but just can't seem to make it happen and the prayers don't seem to be doing much right now.
If it offends you that I'm being so doubtful in God, just stop reading. I'm not going to apologize for the genuine outpouring of my heart.
Obviously, friends, I have a lot of growing to do. I have such little faith and such big worries. I fail Him daily... which makes it even more remarkable that He still chooses to listen to me and work in and through me. His love and forgiveness is extravagant.

God, calm my anxious heart. You are sovereign over me and my circumstances. Even when I am unsure of your plan and doubt your promises, you are faithful... and I am SO grateful for that. Please don't give up on me.