Food expands

I'm about to enjoy this bowl of icecream. As I open the container the cover was budging, icecream was dripping down the side of the container. The entire contents of my bowl doesn't even make the amount of icecream that typically comes in a thing of icecream. 

Most of my life, I got mad or at least annoyed at containers not being filled to the top. Like it was a marketing scheme and they were trying to convince me that I was getting more than I actually was.

NOW I GET IT!

Some people live on top of mountains and need that extra space for expansion. 

I regret judging packaging all this time. There was a purpose I just couldn't see it. 

I feel like this is a start of many sermons/lessons I may use it in the future. Judging, trusting... Those I guess are the main lesson subjects I can think of :) 

Redid the bathroom

Old:

New:

Since I moved into my house a year 1/2 ago, I have wanted to redo the bathroom. I finally got to! This past week I have painted and  restyled a few things. I has made a HUGE difference in the feel of the room. I feel like these pictures truly do show the joy of the newness the bath room gives me! 

I have lots of thoughts going on up in my head. I will share more soon! Enjoy your night! 

Pity party

I am having a pity party for me today. I work in a office where I feel like no one else is able or willing to do anything which results me in doing EVERYTHING! we are in the start of outdoor education season, which is one of two programs I so not oversee. 

So even though I'm not involved, I end up spending so much of my time working this program making it hard to get my tasks done. Things from parents emails,school phone calls and kids coming in and asking for sports equipment. I feel like all these things are small things, and seems pity to try to pass them on, but in the end, it eats up 25% of my day! I that's a lot. 

And I get so mad that they have a staff of  5 people and only have programs for 1/3 of the year o and i am all on my own and I don't have a break. Their income is 12% I oversee almost all the rest! I typically have 3-5 groups a weekend and often a mid-week or two. I'm all on my own! I do inquiries, bookings, tours, retreat details, hosting plus all the office and internal things at camp. 

I have asked for help before, but my boss seems to think he should take me out of my job instead of helping me fix the issues of it. Which is hard for me to move forward in fixing it. 

Okay, the pity party needs to stop!

Conference reflections

This week I went to a conference for Christian camping peeps. I have been to two of these conferences before. Both with different sectionals located in the mid-west. 

If you spend any real time with me, you know I LOVE thinking and strategizing about camp and I LOVE LOVE LOVE being in environments where I am surrounded by wise people who work in camping as well. 

So I came into this conference with high expectations: for meeting and connecting with people, but I half-expected the actual conference itself to be a flop. Well it was a lot more of a flop than a success. 

And it wasn't necessary the conference that flopped, but more the personality and vibe of the people there. I felt like I was surrounded by people who wanted to "up one" you in bring close to Jesus AND couldn't say anything of significance about anything. Any question or conversation I had seemed to be answered with "well I just pray about it" or " you should really pray about that" and lofty words that don't mean anything. Which it was done so in such a fake cheesy way--which I hate!!

Though it wasn't the best conference I did walk away with these positive things:  

•if I ever lead a seminar, it better be damn good and have thought put into it!!

•not everyone thinks deeply about camping, is a unique trait I have and will benefit me in life

•Forest Home is a cool camp, where buildings are built on top of each other, a major road cuts through the middle, yet has achieved this uniqueness and culture that has changed lives for years. 

•their Zipline and sky trail is really cool!!! I also love doing camp activities where my friends do the activities with me instead of for me! 

It was also great for me to get away and experience camping people and my co-workers in this environment, so good. 

Forest Home is a really cool place, if you ever get a chance to go to camp there you should. I took a few pictures of a few meeting spaces, wish I took more to share with you all! Also, I felt like I became a friend with every person I interacted with on their staff. 

Charismatic Christian train 2 of 100,000--Holy Spirit in Jesus's ministry

So reading into that book further I got to a part that talked about Jesus not having any "Godness" in him because he was fully human, but that the Holy Spirit filled him and that is how he was 

Transparenancy

The Duggar's daughters wrote a book and in thinking about it, there is no way that they can say the whole truth in the book. They can't say the ugly, anything unkind at all. In talking about this book, a friend said"its a lot like Facebook, and blogging, it have to have discretion in what you say and you only talk about the good, and you make everything look more great than reality" [rough paraphrase] she said blogging--she blogs, but doesn't know that I do, in fact, no one knows that I blog. 

And the whole reason that I started this blog is that I can be transparent in who I am, but talking freely in it and about things I am going through with the people that I know without their feelings getting hurt. I pretty much never go back and edit it, because I feel like it takes out the realness of my feelings ( also opens the door to see ALL my grammar and spelling errors...I naturally have long-run on sentences) 

Anyway, I wanted to restate to both you and myself that this space is filter-free and the transparent Becky. In thinking and looking back at my posts I often have a teaching tone... And I wanted to let you know that I am mainly teaching to myself. Telling myself where and how I need to be... Or trying to put into play what I need to know... Which is good be because I think I am the main person who reads my blog, well, me and 3 other ppl--thanks folks for reading. 

Anyway, this is a special place for me. And I am thankful for letting me be real with you. 

Hope you all keep on reading and glad that you accept me for me! 

Charismatic Christian train: part 1 of 100,000

I'm reading"Surprised by the Voice of God" by Deere. I started this book about 3 years ago, but put it on the shelf and forgot about it. I saw a friend on Facebook was reading it, and decided I needed to pick it up and see what I could learn from God in it and assess if I need to become a scary charismatic Christian. 

Anything charismatic scares me...a lot. They are always the really weird people, and they tend to burn you and creep you out. I really can't handle it. But charismatic people and closeness to the Holy Spirit seem to go together. So I'm reading this book-with a grain of salt. I have learned so far that Elijiah did crazy things for God. But the Bible says "he is a man just like us" just like us...God doesn't do crazy things with people because its a special time or place. But that God does that consistently, it's in his character. "These weren't the only special people or the only special times. Anyone who knows God is a special person living in a special time" 

The person described in this quote is me. Reading the Bible is typically like taking medicine. You do it because you should, it's good, but try to get it over with as soon as possible (disclaimer: the last 5 weeks have been mostly different) 

Though I'm a skeptic of this book, I really do wonder if it's so hard to read the Bible, because I don't see the God in there, the same as the God that I love in my heart, and do not expect him to be the same in his word as in real life. 

God calling me to wait and love and marry skip is very charismatic, way more charismatic than I am. But maybe to grow and be closer to God, I need to widen up my view of him and let him work in my life in ways that seem only for those crazy-scary Christians. And be open to joining that train, in loyalty and obedience to God. 

Maybe...

I think if that's the case, my life will look different than it does now AND different than those scary Christians. 

At Starbucks

At Starbucks, reading a book, by a teachers meeting of the school my friends kids go to... It should be a good afternoon!

Fancy photos, mint budgets, AND Joseph dreaming

So this week I downloaded an app that lets you modifiy your pics in cool ways and Put words on top of them... You may admire my camp word art above as well as my new "sailing in the waves" logo I created (and recreated multiple times this week) 

I also re-activated my mint.com account. And am now tracking how I spend money and trying to figure out how to be debt free by march 2015. I spend A LOT of money eating out and on clothes, but overall I don't think I will have to adjust too many bad habits outside of that. And camp is about to start full swing, so my grocery bill will decrease ALOT for the next 6 months. 

Now I guess the more serious note. My bible study had us read the story of Joseph and reflect about how he was with people and the importance of having people in our lives. I kinda got that, out of it. 

But I mainly focused in how God was so faithful to Joseph! Joseph had a dream, he knew what God was going to do in his life, but nothing in his life, looked that way at all. He was in prison, forgotten. Then one day out of the blue in Joseph's end, he goes from being a smelly gross guy in lock-up to the second most powerful guy in the country. IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS!!! 

I'm stuck on this! That's God working in crazy WAY unpredictable ways. It helps me see God in a better light. I really don't know how it is ever going to work out for skip to personally be in my life again. It's not as quite extreme as Joseph in prison, 

But still very much an unknown variable in my life. 

In the bible study gathering tonight. I kept invisioning skip walking into my office, out of the blue. Staying here at camp for a month and letting our relationship become one where love can be present (instantly of course, because it's a daydream and that's how it goes in fantasy land!)

as much as I want my dreams to come true, I need to keep my head grounded and focused in on Gods will, not my dreams, as hard as it may be! 

Anoint with oil

So my friend Katie has gotten the essential oils bug... It's this fad that seems to be crossing American...Using essential oils instead of modern meds to heal your family. And them seem to work pretty darn effectively, you can combine a few oils together and BOOM!

    •   Your headache is gone!

    •   your back suddenly feels greats!

    •.  your sniffles are no more!

 And though I'm not a oil user. I have seen the huge effects it has had on ppl I know in my life. 

With that, these oils have made me see scripture differently. And I have kinda-sorta thought about it. But wanted to dig deeper right here, right now. 

First of "anoint" sounds so spiritual and special. I just looked up the definition of it... You know what anoint means?... To smear or rub, thats it! That cuts the spirituality out of oils for me...

 .... So passages like this have always made me feel like it's about uber Christians and there was creepy spiritual things going on. But today right now this is how I interpret this Scripture from reading this...

"Someone sick? Get a bunch of people over here, give them the best and most modern and effective medicine we have, and pray together for him like crazy, and The Lord may use the meds or your prayers to make them well"

That makes it way less creepy right?! I also never thought that oil did anything for you outside of keeping your pizza from sticking to the pan or making you feel sticky. 

I think this next part is really special " the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" I haven't dug deep into thought on this yet, not sure if I have to, but I shows there is power in being real in God and being righteous. 

Wow! 

Sunday naps

Though it seems like a lifetime ago, but it was about 4-5 years ago when skip and mick would hang out at my house with me after church.

 I would always get so annoyed because both of them needed to stretch out on my couches and nap before they would hang out with me. I never understood it, and thought it was so weird that they had to do that. But now, all I want to do is crawl up under some covers on the couch and sleep after church. And it's so sad to go home and be all alone. I miss the days in Denver of hanging out with those boys. 

I wish that my life looked like that again. I would love to have fun single guys be my friends and let me nap on their couch after church before we hang out all after noon--- and really, I want it to skip, I loved that so much!!

Here's to rainy Sundays, naps and living the good life.