Life in Freefall…

Hey everyone,

I’m actually copying this from my journal, (exactly how I wrote it) so you can have a legitimate peek into my everyday writing. :) Hope you guys like it.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

So I wrote out all my journals out a while back, so that I could search for a date and be able to figure out what I did on that day. It’s really cool, actually, and it worked really well. J

But whenever I want to reminisce I never pull up the file that I made, I always pull out the real journals. Even though I spent all summer typing up these journals, the physical journals mean a lot more to me.

Why? Because I can remember where that coffee stain happened. I can remember the fuzzy chicken pen I used to use for my entries. My memories are triggered by touching something that brings me back to when I first saw it.

I think that’s why we have a hard time with God sometimes. We can’t feel it when he surrounds us, we can’t smell him, we can’t hear him audibly, we can’t even see what he looks like. If it wasn’t for our emotions, I wouldn’t be able to ever feel God.

But I think that’s the beauty of Christianity.

We believe in something we can’t see, can’t hear, can’t smell, can’t feel. But still we give our life to him. It’s like standing blindfolded on top of a table, when you’re told that there are friends waiting at the bottom, and jumping off and hoping they’re there to catch you. Christianity is that three seconds from when you jump to when they catch you. That freefall when you aren’t quite sure whether they’re going to catch you or not—but you still trust them. You still love them. You still have faith that they’re there for you. But you can’t hear them. You can’t see them or feel that they’re there.

Some people think Christianity is that time when you’re caught, and there’s that rush of relief and happiness—but I don’t think it is. I think that’s what heaven is. The transition, our life on this earth, is when you aren’t quite sure whether you’re right or not, but you have faith nonetheless. When we’ve finished this life, we’ll land into the arms of God with the knowledge that everything was worth it. The scariness was worth it. The uncertainty, the doubt, the fear, the ridicule, the pain, the choice to go the hard way—it was all worth it. Because now you’re in the arms of your savior, and there’s nowhere else better.

There’s a time to feel God, to see God, to hear him audibly—but it might not be now on this earth. This earth is the place where you have faith in the unseen, the unfelt, the unheard. Where you believe in God not because he’s proven himself to you, but because you just know that he is God. If it feels like you’re in a freefall right now, like God isn’t there to catch you, like you’re all on your own—you aren’t. God’s waiting to catch you, but it’s not time yet. But when you do land in the hands that hold the world, you’ll know it was worth it.

Becca

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A Good God

So I began to post a status on facebook, but it ended up surpassing the number of characters I was allowed to post. By about 200 words. I didn’t really want to edit it down, so I made it into a journal entry and then a blog post instead. :)

So here it is.

You know what’s amazing? God’s really good. All the time. Even when I’m messing up, even when I’m making stupid decisions, God is still good. He never makes mistakes–he never does the wrong thing.

Just thinking about all the times that I’ve done something wrong-and then add the times that I didn’t realize that what I did was wrong. It’s simply impossible to count the number of times that we’ve failed to live the way God’s called us to.

From the moment that we began breathing we were sinful creatures—creatures that deserved nothing but eternal punishment.

But God’s never once done something wrong.

Imagine that–never doing anything wrong.

How can he ever love someone so below him like you and me?

But still he gives us another chance–a chance to redeem ourselves.

A chance to be blameless once again.

All because he loves us–US! The ones who are the least worthy of his love! It makes my mind almost explode with the realization that someone as perfect as he can be utterly and madly in love with someone as sinful as I am.

But what do I do for him? What do I do now that I have this utter amazement at his love? What can I do for him? What can we have that he could possibly want? We have nothing—nothing in comparison to the wonders he has in heaven.

But we do have one thing that he wants.

He wants our devotion.

He wants our lives.

He wants our love. Our complete love. None of that half-hearted admiration we often have for him—he wants our everything.

Can you give him your everything? Maybe even just an hour of your day? Or are you still going to believe that you can make it into heaven on your own, even though you can’t even count the number of times that you’ve sinned?

It’s time to surrender our everything to him. Time to realize our sorry as sinful humans, and begin to come back to the only one who is truly good.

Becca

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The Little Things

Thanks, God, for giving me such great friends.

Thanks for showing me that you are here for me, even though it feels sometimes that my prayers bounce back off the ceiling.

Thanks for showing me that you love me just the way I am, and for giving me a glimpse of myself the way you see me.

Thanks for letting me be a part of such a change in my friend’s life… it’s been amazing to watch.

Thanks for all the girls you told to send me encouraging e-mails about my blog just when I needed them.

Thanks for how the little grade-6-girl I know looks up to me so much… it really is a huge encouragement.

Thanks for how beautiful the frost was today. Even though it was cold. Can you make frost a bit warmer next time?

Thanks for my cousins—I really love them a ton.

Thanks for showing me what great friends I have, and for giving me some new ones this year. It’s really been amazing.

Thanks for when that little girl came up to me this morning and told me that she wants to look like me when she grows up, because she thinks I’m pretty. :)

Thanks for the little things in life, God. They’re sometimes what mean the most.

Becca

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That Friend

Who’s your ideal friend? (I’m talking people here, although God can (and should) be our best friend, I’m thinking people.)

My ideal friend (guy or girl) would be someone who is (a) intellectual (b) Christian (c) happy or content with his/her life, even when things don’t go their way (d) funny (e) excited enough about God that I begin to want to grow closer to Him just by being around my friend.

What would your list have on it that I don’t have? Patient? Loud? Quiet? What’s the most important thing that you want your friend to be?

For me, my last point is the most important. I want someone who I can talk with about God, what he’s doing in my life, and what he’s going to do. Someone who will challenge me, and correct me when I’m wrong. Someone who believes that prayer works. Someone who’s entire life is centered with Christ. Someone will pray for me when I’m going through a really  hard time without me even asking them to.

It may seem like the generic Christian answer, but something I’ve realized these last few months is that I really do need someone to challenge me. I’m the good little Christian girl—never done anything extremely wrong by the world’s standards. I’ve been to church all my life, and am in a comfortable place in life. But my problem is that I haven’t really let my friends challenge me. I recently started random topics with my friends and have been learning a lot about myself and my relationship with God. I don’t think they always appreciate it, but I really do, so if you’re reading this, and we just had an intense debate, then thank you for putting up with stubborn little me. :)

But what kind of friend am I right now? I know that I’m not the kind of friend to people that I want. I can be self-centered, impatient, stubborn, lazy, short-tempered, vain, proud, and clingy. There. I just opened up completely to you. I hope you appreciate it. :P I don’t want to stay this way, though, and I’m slowly beginning to change. 

That friend who challenges me, corrects me, prays for me, and gets me excited about God—I want to be that friend. I want people to be able to describe me as Christ-centered, and on fire for God. I want to draw people closer to Him simply by having a normal conversation with them. That’s the kind of friend I want to be.

What kind of friend do you want to be? What kind of friend are you now?

Becca

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Confidence

I take singing lessons, as some of you may know, and I really like it. I could already sing before I started, (I could hit whatever note someone told me to, I could breathe properly, etc) but I’m finding it super helpful.

The one thing I struggle with, though, is not the normal things that people struggle with, but is confidence.

I’m a super bubbly person, and usually have no problem throwing myself into a crowd of people I don’t know. But whenever I get up to sing whatever I’ve been practicing, I “curl up into myself”, as my teacher says. My shoulders hunch forward. My head tilts down. My body language screams “insecurity.” But I’m not insecure with anything else–I’m just really afraid that someone won’t like my singing, and so I’m afraid of letting myself push farther, make mistakes, and then fix them so that I become a better singer.

What are you afraid of? Are you afraid people won’t like how you write? Are you afraid people don’t like your personality? That you won’t make the soccer team?

Everyone has something that we’re afraid of. But are you keeping it so hidden that you’ll never be able to enjoy the potential rewards? The one time that I let myself just open up and sing, he said it was the best that I’ve ever done. It’s really rewarding to not give into fear–and you can do it with God’s help.

Becca

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Communication

Hey girls. This is going to be a bit of a longer post.

Today I’m going to talk about something that all girls love to do: talk.

Think about it: You talk to your friends on the phone, on facebook, IMing, etc. You You form a deeper relationship with someone by telling them what’s been hurting you, what’s been making you smile, that embarrassing moment that happened, and how you’ve been growing with God. Girls have no problem talking to their friends (guys or girls) in this way, because it’s just second nature.

Now fit your parents into the scene. It becomes a lot harder for most of us.

I recently read a blog post from Love Unawakened and I thought that they showed a very interesting point: your parents are some of your potential best friends.

I’m homeschooled, so my parents know basically everything about me. They know who I e-mail, who I talk to on the phone, who I hang out with—everything. Mostly because we’re all in the same house all day. I honestly can’t imagine life if I hated my parents like some girls do, and I used to have a “holier than thou” view about the girls who disrespected their parents or simply didn’t talk to them at all.

Then I got a bit of a smack on the head to set my views straight. I was having a terrible day, and was in one of those grumpy moods that I sometimes get when things don’t go my way, and my mom simply said, “Your life isn’t terrible, you know.” And then left my room.

I remember thinking, “Of course it’s not terrible… I love my life. I’m just having a bad day.” Then it hit me, how would she know that? She could see by looking at how I live, and the friends I have and the like that I have a good life, of course. But I had only talked to her about the things that were hurting me, the things that I didn’t like, how much of a bad time I was having at some place. Sure, I talked to her about the good stuff that was happening to, but the times that I honestly sat down with her and talked about what was making me happy was heavily outweighed by the number of times I complained to her or cried to her.

So I’ve been trying to change that. I’ve been trying to talk to both my parents more about the good things in my life, but it is hard. It’s a lot easier to open up to people about the harder things, sometimes, especially if you’re not in the wrong (I wasn’t in these cases) than to tell people what makes you happy. What if they think it’s stupid? What if they say that it’s not a good idea to get to know a certain friend as closely as you are? What if your parents think you could be doing better?

Those are all the questions that I have a hard time overcoming, and I have yet to figure out how to have a perfect relationship with my parents. But I’m getting closer, I’ll tell you that.

For all you girls out there who have a hard time talking with your mom or your dad, here are some things that helped me:

• Instead of talking face to face (which can be hard and can end up in fights sometimes, especially if you know that you and your parents disagree) write a letter or a note or an e-mail to them telling them what you feel about a certain topic.
• Try the “sandwich approach:” something good about your life, something you hate about your life, and then something you like about your life. Two goods surrounding a bad. Besides, it really helps you be thankful and grateful for the life you have.
• Have a certain place that’s easy for you to open up in. For me, it’s our hot tub. J I always talk with my parents in the hot tub. It might be in the car, (especially if you live in the country) or right before bed time. Whatever works for you.
• Choose your battles. If you are going to complain about something in the house, don’t complain about how the phone is too far to reach from the kitchen sink and how your brothers always squeeze the middle of the toothpaste tube and so make it hard to get the toothpaste out and how they left their socks in the hallway again when your friends come over they laugh, when really the big issue is that you aren’t getting enough sleep at night because your older brother is blasting his music until 3.00 in the morning.
• Think before you speak. Especially with your parents and siblings it is so easy to lash out and strike, and those wounds take a long time to heal.
• Listen to them. Don’t just rant and then interrupt them when they start to protest a little bit. Think about how you would feel if someone challenged how you were running something. Then pause, breathe, think, and then say your bit.

Becca

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Rating comments

Hey everyone,
So I’ve realized that every single post has some people disliking it on my little “thumbs up or thumbs down” thing.
So if you’re going to press thumbs down, please leave a comment as to why you do not like it. :) I have nothing wrong with people disagreeing with me. If we all agreed, where would the fun be in life?
But I am asking for some respect in the sense that you give me a reason as to why you don’t like my posts.

Thanks a lot!

Becca

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The Everlasting Computer

The everlasting computer. It’s a bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it?

There’s no such thing as an everlasting computer, as I just learned this weekend. My computer which I’ve had for years has decided to finally start to just fall apart. It doens’t read battery at all anymore, doens’t download anything, is often stubborn when it comes to connecting to the internet, refuses to read mocrosoft office 2007, etc.

So this weekend I got a new computer. It works well, has a webcam (YES!!) and the keyboard is just amazing.

But in about 6 years I’m probably going to have to get a new one again. Either this one will be out dated, or it’ll simply stop working. And what will I do when this one stops working? I’ll go buy a new one, of course!

It seems kind of stupid, doesn’t it? Spending our money on things that constantly have to be replaced? And yet we do it.

Not only do we pay, but we often forget the things that never do break, never do go away. The things we don’t need to pay for–family, friends, and God. When was the last time you actually had a good, long chat with your sister? With your  mom? Your dad?

And when was the last time you spent a nice long time with your cell phone? Your computer? Your iPod? Your TV?

These things are so temporary–so replaceable. But so often we push aside the things that are priceless for something that’s only going to bring you trouble in a few years.

Next time you’ve realized you’ve wasted half the day on your computer, turn it off. Go and talk to your family. Call up a friend and hang out for a little bit. Tell your dad what you’ve been having a hard time with. Start a prayer journal. Begin to appreciate the things in life that really are important.

Becca

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