A Thing or Two.

Hello, World.

I exist. Kind of. These last few weeks, I've just been thinking, "It will be so nice to exist again." Times have just been absolutely crazy around these Belmont parts. I have had enough work to fill the workload of at least 3 people, and I am tired. I won't go into the details of how late I've stayed up each night this week, but let's just say I was up til 5:30 three (3) nights last week, and one night I didn't go to sleep at all. Sorry. Wah wah wah.

Anyway, I am not writing to tell you about that. I am writing to tell you about how happy I am right now! I still have a bit more on my plate, but somehow I am just feeling so at peace at the moment. Which is funny because this has been a crazy day in a lot of different ways. So, I want to share some of the things that I am thankful for that are bringing me peace:

1. My friend Kristin, who is a mother of two and wife of one and is filled with absolutely ravishing wisdom, helped me. In a huge way. Which I know is vague, but I just have a lot on my plate, and she just started eating right alongside me. You guys don't know how much I love her. She has known me through a lot of different stages of my life and she still loves me. And she lets me love her kids. And she gets coffee with me, and she is one of the most marvelous things that God has put in my life.

2. Being a religion major. I had a study group with some of my religion major friends at Belmont tonight after having dinner at my religion professor's house, and I just feel so happy to be a part of the REL department. the professors are all so loving and care about each student, and the students are funny and fun and will order a pizza with you at ten o'clock at night. I am blessed to be a part. And I am glad that I got a new religion department shirt for absolute FREE.

3. I'm going home in a minute!! I am so excited to be with Kristin and my brother and my parents and Haley and Heather and all of my home friends! And I am excited to go to the beach, and see my dear friend Megan Brittney get married, and to throw her a party. Also I am excited to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I made a goal on my half birthday to read the whole series by the time I turn 20. I can do it!

On a slightly different note, something that is true about my God is that He is in control of suffering. Sometimes he uses suffering to work for His glory and for our good. Sometimes we endure trials of various kinds, and while sometimes that is from the devil, sometimes it is, in fact, God growing in us. People often disagree with this by saying that "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above" (James 1). But I think that being a Christian demands a redefinition of the word "good." I think there's something that people don't understand when they read verses like that one in James 1 and another that says "For those who love God, all things work together for good" (Romans 8:28). The problem is what does good mean?

Well, based on the life of Paul, and Peter, and pretty much every apostle, good doesn't mean comfortable, healthy, or even alive. Paul's life was certainly not comfortable or healthy (2 Corinthians 11), and most of the apostles ended up dead.

So if good doesn't mean any of the things we usually interpret it as, what does it mean? Well, we know that God is working for His own glory, and that He mercifully lets us be a part of that (Isaiah 43:25). So what were we created for? To glorify God. And I believe that the most fulfilled a person can feel is when they are doing what they were created to do. When you are being used in the way you were intended to be used, that is when you are happiest. So, as humans designed specifically to magnify the glory or the Lord, the ultimate good for us would be to glorify God.

So I believe that when the Lord promises our "good," He is not promising a life free of sickness or poverty, or even free of death (for God never promises us safety), but that He is promising us, if we will accept it, a life full of purpose. Mmmm. Rest in that.

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
1 Peter 1:17-19.

Simmer Down.

I have been having all of the emotions.

This week I have been sad. (No need to get into all the gory details.) (Not that gory.)
I have been antsy. (On account of I like plans, and sometimes I don't know what God is planning.)
I have been peaceful. (Like a river, like the rain.)
I have been scared. (Again, with the plans.)
I have been at rest. (In the Lord's sovereignty.)
I have been silly. (Sort of my schtick.)
I have been pensive. (Not usually my schtick.)
I have been excited. (To find out what the Lord is brewing, for my heart and for my hands and for His glory.)

But right now takes the cake. Right now I am overjoyed. One of my very best friends, Haley LeighAnn Richter, just got the approval for Zimbabwe, meaning that she is finally, finally, in the Lord's sovereign timing, going to be an official missionary in Africa. Haley is a missions lady, and she belongs to the Lord, and she takes beautiful, breathtaking pictures, and most of all she has a heart that can fit almost anything inside of it. She loves with reckless abandon, which I envy. And the Lord is about to use all of these gifts and talents He has given her and all of her weaknesses in the way that she has anticipated since she was born into His family.
My cup is overflowing. I am overwhelmed in the glory of the Lord's favor. I am so happy to see this go down.
Anyway, pray for Haley. She's moving to Zimbabwe in August, and the Lord is brewing, brewing, brewing a mighty storm of His goodness.

Praise Him!

And this song is all I'm thinking: Love Him in the noontime.

Nertz Is A Verb.

Today I was riding my scooter to work the desk at Maple, and my glasses kept fogging up because of the speed + the cold. Pretty dangerous. Also, we played Sardines last night for my beautiful friend Anneke's birthday. It was so intense and fun and then my friends and I played Nertz (or maybe Nerts) til all hours.

Hallelujah.

"The pre-existent, eternal Son of God, second person of the Trinity, there before the foundation of the world, He committed the ultimate act of condescending grace, and He came into the world, put on a robe of human flesh, and was born in a barn in Bethlehem as a baby. That’s incarnation. He took on the robe of human flesh to live the life, to keep the law on our behalf, to live the life we could not live, and then, just as we talked about, He died the death we deserved to die, He paid the price for lawbreakers in His death, and then He rose, conquering the enemy that we could not conquer, sin and death. And in that, He mad a way for sinners to be saved, and there is no greater wonder in all of history than that."
David Platt.

For my birthday present, I would love for you to watch this sermon. It's beautiful.
Glory Be.
The one to listen to is the one entitled, "Undeserving Sinners United and Sustained by Unfathomable Mercy." Thank you!
All glory, honor, and power is His.

Good Night & Good Luck.

This is a word to/about my church.

Dear Ethos,
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I just want to say that I am the most thankful for Ethos Church. It is a church filled with people that know how to love others well and how to love God well. I have seen His truth demonstrated so much in what Ethos has done and been this semester, and I am going to hate being away for three months. Every week, by Tuesday I start to get a hankering in my gut for Ethos, but I always have to wait a week. A whole summer may be the death of me.
Though you may not read this, thank you, Dave, and thank you, Brandon, for the leadership and truth you provide there. And, thank you church people for your honesty in worship and in prayer and in living for God. You are all beautiful. I am honored to be a part of you and to have been loved by you.
It has been a privilege to love our Lord and Savior with you.
Love,
Becca.

That's it.

Say This Like a Secret to Everyone.

Something my prayer book told me:

While we sat in darkness, Lord Jesus Christ, you interrupted us with your life. Make us, your people, a holy interruption so that by your Spirit's power we may live as a light to the nations, even as we stumble through this world's dark night. Amen.

Beautiful and True.

This blog is going to be a list. It is a list of all the things I am excited about, in order of appearance.

1. Tomorrow I am going to do mini babysitting! I love babies, and I miss them, and it's been too long.
2. Tomorrow, I am going with my friends Emily, Zeke, and Blake to Atlanta, Georgia. I am excited just to be in the car and then to get there and to have good food. The best news is that once we get there, we are going to play cards! If I forget the cards, I will cry.
3. Saturday, those same kids (Emily, Blake, Zeke, and I) are going to Six Flags Over Georgia! Hooray! We are going to pack lunches and ride all the rides. Except maybe the Three Ninjas one. Ouch.
4. One week from tomorrow, I am going home! I miss my mom a bushel and a peck. And the rest of them, too. I think I will be talking a mile a minute the whole weekend.
5. A week from Sunday, my brother's getting baptized. I love baptisms. We just had some at Ethos (my church) last week, and it was straight from the Lord.
6. Then, the next Wednesday, I am coming home again. And this time, I'm bringing my cool friend Emily. You'd like her. She's not a moron.
7. It is going to be Easter. I am looking forward to this one as if Christ is actually going to rise April 24th. Good news though. He did it already. (He did it already, indeed!)

That is all I feel like listing today. Maybe I will tell you about my church. I love it. I fall in love with it more each time I go. My pastor is named Dave Clayton and he has a wife Sydney and a son. They are a family of champs.
This Sunday, we talked about God's wrath, which is cool because lots of people don't. We were in Revelation 14. Take a gander. My favorite thing he said was when we were talking about how people treat God's love, "We talk about God as though there's one characteristic of Him that's worth our praise." Then he said, "Every aspect of God is good."
Did you hear that? EVERY ASPECT OF GOD IS GOOD. Sorry that I'm yelling, but it's so true that it's hard to use my inside voice.
Something else lovely is this, "Their identity was no longer in their sin but in the God who cleansed them." That is right along the lines of all the guilt and redemption stuff I have been thinking about. It was just excellent.
I don't know. I'm not communicating it here as beautifully and as truly as Dave did, but after church, I was in awe at the truth that had been proclaimed. I love my church.
The last thing Dave did before dismissing us was to pray over us that we would feel our guilt this week and that God would show us now what our faults are.
It was beautiful. And true. My two favorites.

And Tasty, Too!

Something cool that Ezekiel did was eat a scroll.
(We are talking about the kind of Ezekiel that is in the Bible.)
He was having a vision, the way that prophets do, and God said, "Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel."
The next verse says, "So I opened my mouth, and He gave me this scroll to eat."
He just ate it. I like that Ezekiel wasn't like, "What in the dickens are you talking about?" or, "Can you pass the salt?" (I apologize for that stupid joke. My head hurts, if that explains the lack of hilarity.) Anyways, I like that he just said, as if it were the most matter-of-fact thing in the world, "Then I ate it." Then again, I guess if you are staring God's splendor full in the face, you pretty much eat whatever He says to.

Anyway. My favorite part is when Ezekiel says, "Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey."
For the record, the scroll was a scroll that talked about God's wrath and judgment. But the truth and the holiness and the purity of it was sweet. Because what God does is good.
Ezekiel delighted in God's word. He did it in a bit of a different way than I'm looking to, but he delighted.
I would quite like to delight in the law of the Lord, in the judgment of the Lord, in the mercy of the Lord, but a lot of times, my spirit is too sleepy to feel much of anything.

Restore to me the joy of my salvation.
Remember that kid who ate Maurice Sendak's picture? I want to be that kid about scripture.
She saw it, she loved it, she ate it.

The Highest Form of Flattery.

Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.
—Maurice Sendak

People just don't understand these things like Maurice Sendak and I do. Biting really does mean I love you. Promise.

For God Alone My Soul Waits in Silence.

I have labored in vain.
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.
Yet surely my right is with the Lord,
and my recompense with my God.

"Then you will know that I am the Lord;
those who wait for Me shall not be put to shame."

"Behold, I have refined you...
for My Own Sake, for My Own Sake, I do it."

Amen.

Uncle.

This is a picture that my friend Haley took of my hands. She’s a genius with a lens. Anyways, for a long time I’ve thought that this picture tells a story. And even though I know exactly what was going on when this picture was taken, I felt like this picture tells some bigger grander story. Like it tells the truth. But I couldn’t find it.

Tonight, I found it.

Tonight, I feel very dirty. In light of the purity of the holy One, I find myself shamefully unclean. Not only the dead in my transgressions bit of me, because, hallelujah, I am raised to walk in newness of life.

The newness of life bit of me is the dirty part.

I am supposed to be freed from futility. And yet in my striving, and sometimes in my not-so-striving to become worthy of the One, I fail.

I fail, I fall, and my hands get dirty.

Tonight, I just looked at this picture for a minute, and I saw it.

My hands are dirty. Hopelessly.

They reach out, trying to grasp, well, anything.

They are weak.

But on my finger, my Jesus has placed the sparkling and pure beauty of his love.

And though my hands get dirty, his love remains. Clean enough for my hands.

Here's to Steve.

Tonight, I carved my first pumpkin. It was a night among nights, to say the least. If you have never carved a pumpkin before, let me tell you: you are missing out. Just kidding if it's because you're not allowed. You should submit to your parents.
Anyways. This has been a beautiful evening. My Christian Doctrine professor, Dr. Steve Guthrie, invited us to his home tonight for a little Halloween shindig. He is the kind of professor who tells you you can call him Steve, and I am the kind of student who just can't bring herself to do it. To his face, at least.
He is a wonderful professor. Christian Doctrine is probably my favorite class.
So. He invited us to his house, and we went. I went with my friend Rachel. She's a new addition. And she's a laugh a minute. (I always wanted to be described that way, so I thought I'd throw it out there.) We drove the twenty-five minute trek to Pegram. (Not Pea-gramm. It's Peh-grum. Apparantly.) And then we settled in with other Christian Doctrine students and Steve's kids to carve pumpkins.
This is the fruit of my and Rachel's labor:

Yes. He has a mustache. This guy was a beauty to behold. So, we took him outside and lit him up:

I have never felt so magical. Okay. Maybe I have. But this was pretty darn magical.

We spent the rest of the night talking and eating and watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". All in all, a good night.

Also, we got to play with his kids. And it made me realize how very much I miss kids. It's a lot. For some reason they don't keep kids at college. Whatever.

I talked to his daughter Sophie. She was the coolest thing.

I miss babies.

The end.

Then, we named my pumpkin, (Steve, of course.) and were on our way. With all safety measures carefully taken:

Thank you to everyone who made my first pumpkin carving a success!

How to be Alone.

This is Haley.

This is Haley.

She is one of my favorites.

She is my best beast.

This picture is blurry because she did not take it.

I did.

If she took it, it would have been beautiful.

I would put her flickr thing on here so you could believe me, but I don't really know if that's my place.

Haley's got brains AND brawn.

She's the whole package.

Quite truly I would like to tell you about my Haley.

This story has several different beginnings, but we can start in Costa Rica. Because so many good things start in Costa Rica.

Haley went on a mission trip with me to Costa Rica. That week was a hard and beautiful time of my life. There's nothing like working side-by-side with someone for Jesus to weld your souls together. And that's what happened. Before Costa, Haley thought I hated her, and I thought Haley hated me. Then, miracle! Friends Forever.

In Costa Rica, we depended a lot on each other.

And after Costa Rica, we depended a lot on each other.

Haley shows me what it means to be known by your love.

She shows me that it's possible to be selfless.

And she shows me that breaking can be really, really good.

Haley is someone who knows what it means to be loved and redeemed by Christ.

She belongs to the Lord.

She knows what I am feeling sometimes before I feel it.

And she knows how to say words that sometimes I can't.

And she is blessed with marvelous gifts and talents. She is gifted and talented. Put her in a special smarty school.

She takes pictures that mean things and say things and are a beauty to behold.

She loves like other people don't.

She has a way of understanding and desiring scripture in a beautiful way.

She is wise beyond her years.

I love her as my friend and as my sister.

This is Haley.

Amen.

The Mamas and the Papas.

I am Becca. I have a mom and a dad.
They are named Gary Edwin and Janey Lee Campbell Kennedy.
Sometimes I call him GarBear.
Those two have always been the mama and the papa of me.


Sometimes when you always have the same momma and papa, you don't think too much about it.
Then, one day, you do.


For college, I had to write a paper, a very long paper on something that happened to my family. Familial Rhetorics Paper, it was called.
The basic idea was to write about something that has happened to my family that has affected my life. Something about my family that struck me as "alien" or "different." Something that was "heavy" for me.
I was drawing a blank.
Then, my father came through for me. He thought of the story.


Some of you people may not know that before my parents had me and my brother, Logan, they had another son named Geoffrey.
When he was born, my mom had preeclampsia and they had to do a c-section at 31 weeks.
Geoffrey was very sick. For his whole life, he was in and out of the hospital. The longest period of time he ever spent at home was something like 6 months.
At 18 months, Geoffrey passed away. He had an infection in his brain that gave him crazy fevers and seizures.


So, this is the story that I chose.
It was obviously heavy. It was different. But did it affect me?


When I called my mom to straighten out the details to this story, we ended up talking about it for something like thirty minutes. She told me how worried my dad had been when she was sick, how kind Geoffrey's nurses and doctors were, how the hospital staff became their friends, how they had a schedule while Geoffrey was in the hospital: Momma got off work at 3:15, and went to spend time with Geoffrey, Daddy got off work at about five and met his wife and son at the hospital, they spent a while there, then went home. She told me about the first week they spent at home with Geoffrey, they took him for a walk in his stroller and it was beautiful. She told me about the schedule they worked out when Geoffrey was home, how Dr. Logan would stop by twice a week on his way to work, just to check on Geoffrey. She detailed their final week with Geoffrey, telling the story of taking little Geoffrey's temperature and the mercury going all the way to the top of the thermometer. She described Geoffrey to me, his expressive eyes that could, so aptly, share joy or disdain.


And after listening to all of this, all I could think was, "How did you do it?" She was young. This was her first baby. She and my dad had barely been married a year when Geoffrey was born. She must have been something else.
So I asked her. And she answered, simply, "You just do it."
I don't think I could ever "just do it." (No Nike pun intended.)
I think I would sob and cry and scream and break. I think I would let God know that He had handed me too much, that I was in over my head.
But my parents, they just trusted.


In Brennan Manning's The Furious Longing of God, he prays, "Jesus, human words cannot bear the weight of Your mercy and compassion. My union with You is like being so attached that life seems impossible without You. Detached from You during my days of sour wine and withered roses was a shadow life. I have no sense of myself apart from You. My bones say thank You for this now moment. Amen.”
Since reading this, I have longed for that kind of radical faith in my Jesus. To "have no sense of myself" apart from Christ. That's what I want. To make no sense without Christ.


And, in writing this paper, I realized that's what my parents' life is.
As I sat here in my dorm room trying to figure out how it was that they were bonded together rather than being torn apart, how it is that despite this great loss, they are still now so in love after, what, 22 years of marriage. I tried to figure out why losing a child pushed my parents to clutch Logan and I less tightly, to hold us with open hands, to give us fully, with no reserves, to God's will, even from the time we were tiny babies, how this pain caused my parents to trust all the more fully in God's rich sovereignty.
And I couldn't. I couldn't figure it out.
It made no sense.
No sense at all.


Apart from Christ.


So, I guess the point of this post is to exclaim my joy in seeing that I have two parents whose love, and whose life makes no sense apart from their Savior.
It's some of the best news I've learned.
And I'm jealous of them.

My Cup Runneth Over.

This is amazing.
This feeling that I have right now.
I have never felt such sheer, raw joy and peace. Especially not in a situation like this. I'm in this new place. I know no one. I'm alone. I'm without comfort.
And yet, I was just hit with such an overwhelming peace from God, straight from God, that I am in the right place, that He is gonna use me here, that He knows what He's doing. I'm so overwhelmed by peace and joy right now that I can't even sleep. I can barely keep from shaking. I just feel the presence of God right now, and I know that I am where He wants me.
I feel like I'm repeating myself, but you wouldn't believe how incredible this joyous moment is in the midst of the uncertainty and discomfort and loneliness that is welcome week.
I've even been questioning whether I am in the right place.
But right now, this moment, this overpowering, can't-contain-my-joy, peace-that-surpasses-understanding moment, proves that I can never question God's hand at work in my life here, where I am, at Belmont University.
I can't describe the beauty I feel inside of me right now.
My best attempt is merely this: My cup runneth over.