Boy's Town

Have you even seen this movie? I haven't even heard of it until yesterday, watched it tonight, and am blown-away! 

It's a black & white movie that tells the story of a priest who believes that there is no bad boy and starts this amazing home for the homeless youth and made the youth residences living there the care keepers, the owners of the property. They elected an mayor, grew their own food, had their own barber, printed their own magazines, and washed their own clothes. 

Well, this seems incredible to me! The town is still around, they do things differently now. They place kids in families groups, each group 6-8 kids to 2 adults (a couple) instead of having one huge dorm with massive amounts of kids governing  themselves. They have "boys town" cities all across the U.S. now, not just in this town outside of Omaha as well. 

Anyway, this excites me. I would love to be apart of this, or something like this. I have for a long time, but didn't know they really existed. I wonder and hope that something like this will be in me and Skip's future someday! 

Check out this movie! It's so good! 

Seeking sorrows

I was reading an article in Relevent magazine today, and that article it reference this verse.

 The first line really stuck a cord with me. The sorrows of those who chase after gods will increase. 

I am a very "woe is me" person. I often feel like I'm stuck in this horrible pit instead of seeing the blessings that are around me. But in reading this passage it goes on to say that God has assigned us a part-our portion our cup. And that we don't need to search and go after these big things, instead we to find the thing that the Lord has given us.

I have a sister-in-law who has had a really rough life and it has gotten increasing tougher recently with poor decisions she is making. She decided to file for divorce, to start dating this guy who was trouble before her divorce was finalized. Her boyfriend got banned from the property she lives at, and she broke up with him at the request of my parents after he was found making meth in the back storage room attached to her house. He then, tried to attempt suicide, since she broke up with him. 

After this whole mess, she realized her bad decisions, didn't want to raise her kids in a broken home and tried to redeem her relationship with her husband 2 weeks before their divorce becomes official. (He is done and doesn't want to reconcile the relationship) Her facebook feed becomes all of these posts talking about how hard her life is, how she needs her friends to support her, how God is at her side. 

I wrestled with that statement "God is at your side" how does that work? She is messing up her life, she is making decisions that are clearly not what He wants, by all appearances she is not submitting to His will. Yet, she accepted God as her savior, she has aimed to follow him with her whole life in the past. But is God at her side right now? I have been thinking about this for almost a week right now. And my conclusion is "no, He is not, not until you fully surrender all the crap that is going on in your life to Him and began to fully do it His way."

Her story doesn't end there, on Thanksgiving, her ex-boyfriends calls her. he has made a full recovery from his attempted suicide and wants to hang out. Everyone in her life tells her to stay away from him, he is trouble, but she goes anyway.  About 16 hours later my mom gets a phone call. My sister-in-law is now in jail- arrested for robbery, possion of drugs and concealing a pistol in her car. 

She asked my mom what to do. My mom said "pray pray pray! I have never been in your situation, I have no idea what you should outside of praying" 

The story of my sister-in-law keeps reminding me of the story prostitute in the bible who keeps running away from her husband and he keeps taking her back, sometimes even when she didn't want to go. I hope that is how her story goes. I hope she sees how her actions are disobedience and seeks the Lord to redeem her. I hope I do the same with the little things in my life and that I will be able to stay away from such giant steps of disobedience and painful consequences for that disobedience. 

Give thanks

Today is thanksgiving and my roommate and I hosted a small get-together at our house. This morning was fun! We were cooking and cleaning. She is really really good at cooking, I can survive (kinda) in the kitchen. So I love to cook and bake with her, I learn a ton, she is fun to work with and it is overall really enjoyable. 

We had 3 people come over, the guy with is always at our house and another couple from camp. Our food tasted amazing, but our meal was so quiet, awkward, it was very surfacely. Then everyone left and I was home alone. 

It's strange. I didn't really know how to handle today. I don't really know my place. I really want to be a person that celebrates holidays and celebrates them well. In singleness, I think holidays are the hardest to do. I am at a place where I can't have it my way, but just trying to survive through them. 

2009 journal throwback-- begging prayer

When I was in college. I wanted to be one of those cute girls that had this really significant notebook where I had all of these great notes and thoughts and I could always go back to it and see how big and significant my life was becoming and how I was this great Christian-- like my camp counselor growing up. And have this book. 

Here is that book! I wrote everything in it. I always used my best hand writing, I was faithful to carry my book with me where ever I went, so that I could record and keep note all that was happening. 

My first year out of college, I had this job that was really great for me at a dog grooming salon. It was great except that I hate dogs. With my job, I barely had to interact with dogs, non-the-less, I was surrounded by them. 

In pulling out this notebook today I found this neon pink piece of paper tucked into it. It was from a sale flyer from that job. 

It's really hard to read. But it is a prayer of me begging BEGGING God to give me a job as a financial planner assistant. I don't even remember applying for this job now.

I wonder what I thought when I didn't get the job (or even an interview) 

I kinda sorta had a straight head back then. I heard all of these success stories of people who didn't know what they were doing when they started out, and look at them now, 3-20 years later, so put together they are able to give others advice on life. So I knew there was hope... But I kept on thinking "there must be some people who didn't make it through this hard time, we don't hear those stories... am I going to become one of the silent life failures?!?"

At the time, I wanted something good and stable. I wanted to see that I wasn't going to end up a mess. I still want that. But what would I missed out on if I jumped the gun and got and took that job? How much different would my life be? 

If you have read more than 20 of my posts, you know I'm not in the promise land right now. I have interviewed for other jobs, I have thought about storming  out and quitting. I get really angry some days about my situation. 

But this neon pink letter reminds me that I need to be faithful to God. That he has other things in store for me and will not always give me my immediate will. In fact, some times, I think he protects us from our immediate will and insteads sets-us-up to do His instead. 

Note: the most significant thing in that notebook, didn't meet my rules, it was on scratch paper in my rushed gross handwriting. I'm glad I kept that even though it broke my rules

God is always the same, I am changing

I love how I am experiencing this transition of seeing my relationship with The Lord from being very unique, foreign, such a way that no one will understands to seeing that it is exactly how The Lord works. 

I used to think I had to be very charismatic to understand and make sense of our relationship. But lots of things within being charismatic didn't sit right with me. 

But now I am starting to understand and see and hear from "non-charismatic" real Christians about their relationship with The Lord and their experiences are lining up and similar to the things He is doing in my life. 

This is a quote from "Living a Praying Life"  (page 166) 

Immediately I had 4 separate situations were I heard God whisper me the start of the plan. Hearing the first two whispers was hard, I didn't know what to do-I was kinda a mess for a long time. But the last whisper? I took 12 hours to process it, cried a little that I wasn't able to pursue my will and took the appropriate actions to be obedient in it. Leaven though, I wanted what I wanted, I knew that God's way was the right way, and the path I wanted to be on. 

I don't know about you, but it is incredible to see how much God is changing and shaping me by this blog, I wouldn't of thought it would ever be this much. 

God is big.  

Sunday in the office

I love working Sunday's at work, it's like a paid vacation most weeks. Today, like most Sundays, I get to sit at my desk in my comfy chair and listen to church with a huge workspace in front of me, and the option to push pause whenever I need to stop and reflect on what is being said. 

It's seriously the best way to do church! 

Brussel sprouts

On Wednesday, we were having a conversation about what we wanted to eat at our thanksgiving feast. The conversation of Brussel sprouts came up. I have only had them once in my life, they were really really gross, but it was at a camp where all the food was really gross. 

They got from cut fromour menu.  

The next day I was at Trader Joe's and I saw this:

I just had to get it, it's huge!!! And a little scary.

We made it last night:

And while they were baking I had this text conversation with the boy who always comes over: 

He forgot that he was bringing us dinner. We invited our boss to come and eat Brussel sprouts with us... And he came. It was great. 

Anyway here is how we made Brussel sprouts (it's the most generic recipe ever, 4 people told me this is how you make them) 

Step 1: preheat oven to 400

Step 2: cut off Brussel sprouts from steam with knife and wash with water 

Step 3: line 9x13 pan with tin foil and put a oil olive oil on foil

Step 4: put in Brussel sprouts (cut big ones in half) cover in salt and pepper and more olive oil, mix with hands keep sprouts evenly spread out in pan 

Step 5: put in oven for 25-30 minutes

Hurt feelings

My feelings are really hurt right now-- I'm pissed in the midst of it. 

Things go to hell when my boss isn't around, he is at the dentist today-- life seems like hell. 

We have a retreat group that comes up 3 weeks apart, they do the exact same retreat each time, just with different kids. They wanted to have a fire in a trash can 3 weeks ago- they worked, we had it all set-up for them. Well it rained, they ended up not having the fire in the trash can.

This week rolls around, all of a sudden we can't do a fire in a trash can. And the group didn't do it last time (mind you-because it rained, no  reason on our end) 

Today in our weekly meeting that we had without my boss our maintence director spat at having that fire there and made it sound like it was never okay and said he wouldn't do it and was such a jack-ass about it. It doesn't make sense, and we can't just change that for no good reason. 

Then he yelled at me for not having meals on the detail sheet---

I just called my boss, I cried a lot in our conversation, and embarrassing amount of crying while I explained all of this to him. My chest even turned bright red and splotchy from crying. I really need to leave my house and go back to work, but I look pathetic, and I can burst into tears at any given second. 

 

I just asked jack and Katie to pray for me,  if you see this now, can you as well. 

I hate being sensitive!! 

Dairy-free calzones

Last night I threw together dinner for me, my roommate and that guy who always hangs out with us. I really loved how our meal turned out and wanted to share it with you (I didn't take a picture, I am mad about that) 

Ingredients: (feeds 3) 

•Trader Jo's herb pizza dough  

•1 onion

• Italian seasoning

• garlic powder

• 7 mushrooms

• 2 zucchini 

• 2 links of Italian sausage

• 2 tomatoes 

• 1/4 cup of cooked brown rice

Step 1: 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, and set out dough on counter to rise

Step 2:

Dice onion and sauté in olive oil, cover with garlic powder and Italian seasoning, once it is mostly sauté add chopped mushrooms and zucchini pieces

Step 3:

In separate pan remove sausage from casings and brown in pan

Step 4:

Dice tomatoes 

Step 5:

Separate dough into 3 pieces, on a large greased pan roll out each dough one and a time and add rice, tomatoes, meat and sautéed vegetables to center of dough, fold dough over the top and repeat for the remaining 2 dough balls 

Step 6:

Bake for 16 minutes, or until golden dough is ready 

Faith VS belief

I have never thought much about the differences between faith and belief. My homework this week in "living a praying life" is all about that and in this thinking I am getting clarity on concepts that I haven't allowed myself to think about before because it was too hard for me to handle. 

We can believe in silly things-- believing in them doesn't make them true. We believe in Santa Clause, that he comes and deliveries us toys in the night, but it's not true--it's our parents giving us anonymous gifts from "Santa"-- we believe in prayer-- and we believe if we pray hard and earnestly that God will answer our prayers; we will get that job, be healed from cancer, we will have whatever were prayed for.

 This morning I realized though, when we do this, we are not having faith in God when-we-believe-that-God will answer our-prayers-our-way, instead we believe  we are entitled to what we are asking because we believe in this "earnestly praying" system. 

Having faith in God, is just that-faith in God. He hears all our prayers, he sees us believing in him and he also sees us believing in ourselves or this "earnestly praying" system we created ourselves. 

He sees us get mad at Him when he doesn't mold Himself into the God that we wanted. He sees us doubt Him when he doesn't grant us all our wishes. He sees us miss the whole point of having a relationship with Him. 

It's not about what we get or have, it's just about GOD. We have faith in God and we need to believe in Him, nothing else.

Good morning world!

In my current life, I have very very few days where I stay home the entire day. But today is rare, I'm staying home! 

Here I am, sitting in my new pj pants that are both really cute and a little over the top. Sitting outside, about to read my Bible. 

I just finished by egg bagel sandwich with goat cheese, which I of course ate while watching "a different world" on youtube after sleeping in until 9:30am. 

It is a great lazy day! 

A quick summary of where these waves have brought me...so far

I have been thinking a lot about my story lately and where I have been, where I am going, and that there is so much significance on this journey of traveling from point A to point B. 

In June 2011, I was sitting on top of a Zipline crying my eyes out, asking God why I was at this camp that I hated, what to do with all these 20 year olds who had really messed up views of who God is and teaches kids their messed up ways and God responds with, "you are going to marry Skip"-- very off subject, has nothing to do with anything of the issues that was in front of me. It was clearly God's voice, it was his perfect timing. He spoke this truth to me in the manner that I have so far heard best from him. 

I was young in 2011, it wasn't that far away from a time when Skip was actually apart of my life. We saw each other on a very regular basis in 2009, we skyped some in 2010. We were friends. 

Time went by, I held on to that promise that God clearly told me on that Zipline. I didn't know how to handle it, it was true, but how do I live and work and be apart of that truth in everyday life? When I read great stories in the Bible about waiting in faith, they fly by the waiting part so fast. What does it actually look like to wait? 

Praying for Skip and this was tough, I already knew what God was doing, I knew that us coming together is completely impossible without The Lord and that HE was going to make it be. So what do you say? What do you say everyday? I felt like I was just coming to The Lord with fluff, I felt like there was no reason to pray, God already told me the plan I just needed to wait for it to happen

I really felt different because God spoke to me. I felt like I was becoming this very charismatic person. I felt like no one would understand me if I told them what God said to me. I left like people would say I'm wrong, and that God wouldn't do that and make me question even more than I already was. 

Time went on and on... Skip didn't come into my life, in fact, he was leaving my life. We no longer talked, he was dating a girl, going out and doing all these fabulous things in his life. 

Time goes on, and almost to the two year mark on waiting for The Lord in this, I start to rethink my ways. Now let's quick talk about 2 years. It's actually a really really long time. Freshman become juniors in two years, you experience over 700 days in that span.

I went from summer staff, to being in leadership at this camp, working new retreats, building relationships, volunteering at a youth group, overcoming working with a guy I daily thought about murdering. Then summer came. Most days I worked from7:00am-10:00pm, the stress and intensity of my job was straining, yet amazing, and admidst this chaos, I needed to figure out what was next, my job ended mid-August. After a huge journey, I ended up here, on top of a mountain in California, working at a camp that had more problems than I knew what to do with. This paragraph seems like it goes on forever, and it is only some of the highlights I went through in that two years. Two years is a long time. 

The winter of 2013, I started to really question God with Skip. Not questioning if it was true, but questioning if I wanted to follow this crazy plan still that God had me on. Thesethoughts were in the back of mind, I didn't explore them too much-- that is scary.

  While walking to work during one week, I daily heard God say, "connect with Zach to connect with Ham." And after 3-4 days of hearing this, I finally realized that God was speaking this to me. So I did it, I connected with Zach, learned that Ham was near me and connected with him. We went out to coffee, I told him all about my journey with Skip up to that point, I told him about my doubts of waiting on The Lord. I wanted Ham to just be my friend. Even though Ham and I never technically dated, I know I did not keep him in the friend zone, and that our relationship was heading a little bit into serious. 

I think my favorite thing about my relationship with Ham is that nothing within our relationship was "sinful" we weren't crossing physical boundaries, our conversations weren't taboo, everything in it was wholesome. But it was clearly a sin in my life, not by what it was or resulted in, but because I shifted my mindset and was not living my life the specific way God told me to do. Things ended with Ham, but my mindset stayed the same. 

I was in this limbo land where I knew that making my love life my own was wrong and couldn't get myself to act in disobedience, but also couldn't get myself to surrender to what God wanted it to look like. This entire mindset change lasted for about a year, but it was so settle and slow that I didn't see it, not really, I knew that I was kinda struggling with this but didn't know that it was effecting everything in me. 

I got really mad about something one week. And I was done with this mountain. I made plans to go and do something new. I was talking to one of my best friends about it and she interrupted me so she could say this to me, "can I tell you something becky? You have changed, the words you are saying don't sound like you, the Becky I know has a special relationship with the Holy Spirit and I have notice recently that you don't talk about what He is doing in your life. I want you to figure out what changed" 

Well it came clear as day to me moments after getting off the phone with her, that what changed was my mindset in following God in his promise with Skip. That mind-shift changed everything in my life. It seemed like no huge deal while it happened--it had no effect on the physical side of my life, my life didn't look any different,yet, it really destroyed my pursuit of The Lord. He was silent that entire year, and I never took the time to ponder why that was. 

That day was a turning point for me. I was back on the Skip bag-wagon. And I started to regain my relationship in The Lord. I begin to realize it had nothing to actually do with Skip, but instead all in my trust with The Lord and this faith journey he had me on, he wants to do the impossible in my life. 

Things have changed, and I know they will continue to change as The Lord continues to grow and shape and teach me. 

I pray differently now, i think prayer is different than I did before. The book, Experiencing God,made me realize how special it is that God speaks to me and I know His voice. I used to think it was really really weird and hoped that it never happened again, now I cherish the words God says. 

The biggest take home I have from this semester of Bible studies is that I shouldn't waste this waiting period, and that I should use it to learn more aboutGod  and what he is wanting to do in my life. He told me the end goal--I don't need to pray that he will do it--and that actually prayer isn't ever about the end result no matter if The Lord told us it or not. Prayer is all about having a relationship with The Lord, and knowing him more, we just use the things going on in our lives to make that connection with him. 

Nothing was happened or occurred with me and skip for a long time. And that is okay. Lots of things are developing with The Lord and the promise of Skip came from Him, not skip, so I need to be first loyal to our relationship and grow it more and let Skip happen when God is ready for us to happen. 

Until then, I need to keep growing and becoming the woman the lord wants me to be. Keep coming and hearing where I am at on that, I will keep us both posted on that here on this blog. 

Advent devo

I grew up in a Christian home-- if I had to break that down and really explored what that meant to my family growing up. It would be defined as:

•Highly valuing what was going on within our local church. 

•Being very involved in church, mainly within leadership roles. 

•disliking many people we go to church with and often bashing them and what they are doing to the church on a regular basis

•eating dinner as a family at all suppers- praying together as a family before taking your first bite (the prayer is alway the same: "Lord, thank you for today and the food we are about to eat, bless it to our bodies-amen")

•my mom always read her bible and did "the daily bread" devo before we got up, she never talked about it, but I could catch her in the act if I got up before she woke me up. 

•we sometimes played bible trivia- kids vs dad--- we were really competitive in it. 

So, as you read over this, it seems very normal way to be raised in a Christian home in America. It was obviously how I was raised and many of my friends growing had it this way as well. 

So in this upbringing, talking about my actual relationship with God and how things are going NEVER HAPPENED!! NEVER!! 

When you were at camp on a retreat/mission trip situation, you could talk about it then, but outside of these special experiences it wasn't a subject to talk about. (My parents never were at camp or on youth trips with me--they missed out on this) 

I went to college, my roommate Lacey grew up talking about God at home. And in our friendship, I became a person who likes and wants to talk about my relationship with God. I like that openness and vulnerability with people. I like that my relationship isn't just personal, but something that I can share with others. 

So as I changed, I wanted this change to happen within my immediate family too. It hasn't. It's been 9 years, my family in this is still the same as high school. 

It's almost awkward now. Like I am constantly being fake in their presence, they don't know about the biggest and deepest part of my life. 

They are clueless about my journey with Skip. They just think I am a pathetic single girl with no hope. 

I want our relationship to change. So I asked my mom to do an advent devo book with me. It's 25 days (December 1-25) and I am hoping that this will spark a change within our family. 

Exciting, very very exciting. And hopefully,  life changing 

Christmas is lonely

I need to book a flight for Christmas. I don't really want to do it because it starts me remembering and knowing how pathetic my life is and how I don't really fit into this world. 

I feel like most couples and families have this struggle of how much time they need to spend with each of their families and feel like they are being torn apart by all these people wanting to spend time with them. 

I'm the opposite. 

I feel like everyone around me is being torn and that I need to go hid in the corner, so no one realizes that I'm not wanted by anyone. Yes, my parents like to see me. But they aren't all that into Christmas. Yes, I have lots of friends, but they all feel this stretched-out/torn feeling they don't have time for me in December.  I feel like so much of celebrating is designed for parents and young children. And since I'm neither, I don't know how to fit in. 

It's really okay. I don't need a pity party. I just wished I felt like I belonged. Maybe, that will all change this year. Everything else in my mind seems to feel like it has dramically changed, these feelings may too!