Completely bored

and cynical. How can I not be?

I’m in what I would like to call an…Ecclesiastical mood. Nothing is fulfilling. How depressing. How pathetic. Friends, family, work, play, sleep, I fosake it all and walk away to walk into purpose. I need a battle to fight, a cause to win, a hopeless to restore or I lose any and all reason for living.

Where is my need? I have everything and nothing. Even love is fleeting if it means nothing in the end. If God were God for only a lifetime He would not be God! If love is the only good thing in this life, and it ends in death why is it precious? Why is it good? It isn’t! If love is binded by our time on this horrid, broken Earth…then it is nothing beyond illogical lust and instinct.

Sacrifice is expected of us. To give what I have. All. I am the rich man Jesus spoke to. I am also the woman at the well.

Take hold of hope, and drink from the well that will quench your eternal thirst.

Cinco de Mayo

This day has brought about a change in me, about eight seconds ago. Upon perusing other creative and well pondered blogs for a time, I want to start taking mine in a new direction. 

The current is too…snappy, too ..unfocused. It looks a lot like my life, actually.

But today I’m going to start over. Cinco de Mayo. My own little new year’s.

For anyone who takes time to stop by, I am a girl, regardless of the now obviously misleading username. Call me Becc. I am a junior in cyber school. I live in Pennsylvania. I spend most of my time working at a retirement home, watching tv with my family, working on my classes, or running around with my very troubled yet best friend Katy.

The most fun and intriguing section of my life at this point is the youth ministry where Katy and I spend lots of time. But before I can tell that story, I feel I should tell this one:

I once lived with my parents and  brothers together in a country town. We all went to a good baptist church. My parents got divorced, my mom moved into a trailer a few hours away, and my Dad has not had a stable living arrangement since.

Every year I go to a church camp with that church that I started with. I started when I was four, and here I am 12 years later, looking forward to this summer’s camp as much as ever. That camp was one of my only connections that I had with people who listened to God for eight years.

My dad and mom raised me well. My mom, a potential psychologist who took up a mail route to support four kids alone, has consistently taught me how to think for myself and see the value of self discipline. My father was a rule enforcer, which made for a less than fun childhood sometimes, but eventually I realized that I wouldn’t know what I know or believe what I believe if not for all of the lectures I’ve heard time and time again.

I went to a few dozen churches over the course of eight years. I watched quite a few tv preachers. Usually it was just too much for my mom to take us to church every Sunday when she worked almost every day all day. Understandable.

But throughout all of this, I know I have scars I don’t even see myself from divorce, custody fights, arguments, moving, whatnot. But I always wanted to know more about God. Of all the kids that slip through the cracks, that little sunday school lessons don’t have much of a lasting effect on them, that childhood gets passed over for what they feel is expected of them, somehow I didn’t. God preserved me.

And then I met Katy. When I was a easily punked, worried little chiclet in middle school. I also me Ali. Ali hated Katy. Ali was SUPER COOL. So I hated Katy. Only God loved Katy, so I just had to be nice to her until the time came for me to choose cool over right, and I did.

Eventually, Katy and I became friends. Ali is long gone. And Katy led me to a ministry for kids around town. A hang out. I fell in love with the first congregation I had ever seen express any without reservation. And I’ve been there since.

God pulled me back into His world. And I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I met many focused, devoted people who have an eight year or so head start on me in the walk with God, not that it is necessarily a race.

And so here I am. You probably stumbled upon this blog from someone else’s. You are my audience alone. This isn’t something I do and share with my friends. It is a blog to reflect on my thoughts and hopefully get some answers from the hoard of intellectuals surfing the web at three a.m. I shouldn’t even assume that more than one person will ever read this.

Except me. I’m neurotic enough to check what I wrote to see if I’ve matured.

I’m tired of writing. This was way too long a post.

My place in the kingdom

This post is aimed mostly at other Christians. Anyone is welcome, but not all will know what I mean.

 

As a woman. A princess. A daughter of the King. Part of the church. One of the Bride of Christ. Loved. Valued. Jesus died for me as well.

But totally at a loss in this world today.

I spoke in front of my church last year. Some of my girl friends still do. But in the last few months, I have been so frustrated. With Scripture verses. Society. My place. Authority.

1 Corinthians 13:something says that women should not speak in the church. Yet, what about Paul mentioning women accompanying him in his ministry? 

I asked at my church about the verse, but I didn’t get any scripture based answers that really answered what I was asking.  I don’t want to be misled to protect some modern worldview. I want to follow God whether that means my dreams for the future are what He wants or not. I’ll gladly change them. God has been too good to me for anything less.

I know God has no blame, but that doesn’t mean I understand.

If anyone has any thought to add, or knows of any writers that really go deep into this subject, write on.

Just some of the things that have added to the confusion:

Esther, Ruth, Deborah, Eve, Old Testament vs. New Testament, Judges, and on and on.

I’m not really on the verge of a breakdown here. I mean, if what God expects from me is to keep quiet, live a Godly life, and spend my time focusing on other women and children, that is a pretty tall order in itself. I’m not complaining about what He has for me. I’m more groaning about the possibility that I’ve been misled thus far, and that all of my current way of living is off course.

 

Compassion-if I can do it, you can do it.

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Aftermath

I went to my Poppy’s funeral yesterday morning. It wasn’t really sad. I mean, I understood that I was losing a relative for a time, but I also knew that I was meeting many relatives for the first time, and I was nervous and excited too. Odd feelings for a funeral.

They are amazing. My uncles all have this fantastic sense of humor. My cousins are so nice. The two girls are like older sisters/moms. They have children of their own, the sweetest and most gorgeous children I have ever seen. The boy is…so unlike my brothers. Mellow and kindhearted. He looks so much like his dad.

I have to see them again.

 

Then I went to the rally. I met up with Steph and Trav, and we danced hardcore all night long. It was terrific. Who knew screamo would get in my heart if I let it? I bruised my foot really badly, but I have no idea how or when it happened. I watched my friend get a Monroe piercing(Marylin’s mole as a stud) and reaffirmed my choice to never get a tattoo or piercing. I am not sure about where God stands on that issue, so I don’t know enough to argue with anyone, but I just won’t go there.

I got two shirts. The theme of the night was charity, and I ended up buying a malaria-fighting mosquito net for a family. So needed, and so inexpensive for us.

Poppy is dead

So tomorrow I am going to a funeral in the morning and a rock concert at night. That sounds pretty horrible, but I can’t help but feel neutral about my Poppy’s death. Honestly, I am not mourning. Not like when Grampa died.

Either Poppy accepted Christ or he didn’t. I think he did. He didn’t spend his life on Christ. He accepted the gift. What does that imply? What does it mean? Will be last in the Kingdom? Will he be there at all?

Either way, God is good. God will be good even if no one accepted His offer.

So, the concert. Amazing bands will play. Compassion and Rock for Life will be speaking. The theme is reaching out as the family of God. Anyone who reads this, please pray for the kids that will be coming tomorrow night.

Let us all be changed. Strip us of all the bs, and just have us acknowledge how absolutely we need You. Let no heart leave unchanged.

Please, everyone, pray for me. I am speaking in front of a large audience for the first time. Pray for the speakers who will be with me. For the audience. For the bands. Let we who call ourselves Christians truly show it tommorrow night, and definitely always.

I am Yours, Jesus. You are good, and just knowing I am in Your arms is all I need.

Poppy is dying

The man I haven’t seen in five years. I always felt a little dissapointed in my dad when the topic of his family came up. There was a whole family of blood related people living two hours away that I had never met. I’ve asked to go see Poppy countless times over the last five years, but it seemed that Dad had resigned himself to waiting Poppy out until his death to bother to search.

So last week, April Fool’s day, 4am, we get a message from our cousin. Poppy is dying. We go to see him. He is near tears when he recalls that five years ago, Dad’s last words were “see you in two weeks.” I get mad. I’m not the only one. Mad at my dad for being a coward. A compassionless jerk.

Mad for five days, until today we went to visit again. My uncle Tom showed up. Dad and Tom recall their past. Tom married my dad’s sister, and after a lifetime of knowing her, he can easily recall what she remembers about her childhood. Most of it involves my dad being repeatedly abused by Poppy. His whole childhood because he was the oldest. And of mistreating his wife and his other children. Stories that show me why my dad acts the way he does sometimes. Why he tries so hard to be a certain way. Because he is just trying hard to not be someone. He is just afraid that he might accidentally treat us like Poppy treated him.

I’m not mad anymore. At least, I’m not mad at Dad. I guess that means I’m not mad at all. I can’t be too mad at Poppy. I don’t know him well enough to be shocked by such stories. All I have is a new understanding and humility from judging my dad so harshly before. I have to say that I can’t feel too much sadness to see him go, though. He is a man I hardly know, and I trust God, who holds him in His hands.

The rally is coming.

k, very nice

:don’t take any of it seriously, I don’t remember anything I wrote!:

Haaaa. I must say I now understand the Christian struggle to find a core group of believers to fall back on.

That’s not to say that I fully trust the human declaration that everyone should have such a thing. Sure, we all point to the disciples as a group with Jesus, but then do we consider Paul, who did much with only(ha. I said only) the Spirit of God to guide him and to rely upon? 

So then is that a case for fellowship or solitude? I think, for me, the question isn’t so much whether or not it would be taking the trust off God and placing it on those with less capability(which is one concern, not very developed); instead the question is: will my love for the core group lessen my love for others that I wouldn’t trust enough to be in the group? It also becomes a topic of whether or not I am wrong to ‘exclude’ people from a group. And yet another side to that is the question, which gee I heard before not too long ago, (and it really is just a question about the capacity and strength and love, so how feeble) would getting married focus love on that person to an extent that it would limit love for others? And is there such an extent?

What a day

I drove to church!

Mike is taking a break from us for awhile. It kind of hurts to think of it like that, but what is important is that we lift him up to God and trust that He will do what is good.

Haha, a light note. I asked Jake, a nice quiet guy from work to prom with me and he said no. Official reason: He doesn’t know me well enough and knows very few people at my school.  Ha, it was especially awkward to have to ride the elevator with him ten minutes after the first shaky conversation. Good thing I handle awkward well. I couldn’t help but laugh at such a normal teenager drama moment that…well, never got dramatic.

And now for depression. I took Kenya for a walk with Katie. We met a very tipsy Donna. I saw what Katelyn’s future  could be in thirty years the way she lives. I flipped out on her.

She’s cutting and drinking. She sneaks out at night with her car thief boyfriend. She sleeps all day then wonders why she’s lonely. She thinks her parents hate her and refuses to listen to them because she’s convinced it’s too late. She also won’t stop cutting or drinking because she’s convinced she’s hopelessly addicted to both.

I try to help. I let her sleep over if she has problems with her parents. I hang out with her. If she asks I try to lead her back to what God’s word says.

Now a question for Christians out there blogging tonight. My mom’s reasoning in this situation is that ‘we are supposed to be our brother’s keeper, but there is a limit.’

Does anyone have any scripture to offer for this situation.

Right now, I just want to call it quits. She won’t listen. Nothing gets through to her. By the looks of things(I’ve been a friend for four years and this is where she is) I haven’t been much of a good influence on her. I don’t see how I’ve helped by being her friend at all.

I mean, there are other people I could hang out with. I have a friend base of people who occasionally have real problems that they didn’t bring on themselves who I could try to help.

I’m just exhausted. Physically because its 1am and I probably walked and ran a total of 15 miles today. Emotionally because I can almost see where Mike would have to take a break, but I don’t know for sure whether the guilt I feel is warranted or not.

Once again, I need God’s take on all this! Scripture please?

‘Night all.

I got my permit

And I am buying my deceased grandfather’s emerald green ‘98 Mercury Sable. It has 75,000 miles on it, I’m getting it for 2,000 bucks(wholesale price), and I know for a fact that it was driven by a sweet and careful old man who actually did pretty much only use it to get back and forth from church.

It’s my baby. It’s a boy. I named it The Bergey after my grampa(Howard Bergey Gross)