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.

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.

Words Are Just Futile Devices.

"You have left me wordless," he said.

We glanced at each other, suppressing our budding grins. Emily's hands immediately fell to wringing each other, her eyes fixed on the bit of skin between her left thumb and pointer finger. Emily has said herself that she has a high tolerance for awkward, but this moment was getting to even her.
We had just handed over our gifts to Dr. Jonathan Thorndike. They were simply wrapped, a plain ribbon tied around each. We had each offered him two books, beautiful books we knew he would enjoy, and we had each written him a note thanking him for being a beautifully brilliant professor. Dr. Thorndike was our Ancient World professor and is one of the heads of the Honors Program. He signs all of his emails JT and is very, very gesticulate. (Sometimes he gets so excited about an Ancient World subject that he starts bouncing.) Dr. Thorndike was our favorite professor and we just wanted to offer him something to show him how much he meant to us.
The Problem: Emily and Dr. Thorndike are probably tied for the most awkward person on earth. They are both very precious in their awkwardness, but quite awkward just the same. Me, I run from awkward, fast. If i get into an awkward situation, I either just begin talking non stop about Lord-knows-what, or I leave. I'm kind of a person who likes to fix things. I guess my thoughts in an increasingly awkward scenario are: This is awkward. If I start talking really fast and way too much, then maybe all of the awkward will go away. If not, I should leave. Immediately. I hate to ruin the ending, but it doesn't usually work.
So, back to the story. Emily and Dr. Thorndike were sitting, relishing, I suppose, the awkward of the moment. They were in their element, I tell you. Both of them fumbling over sentences, trying to express their mutual gratitude. I just started talking. To be honest, I don't remember what I said, but I was clearly following Option A of the R.M. Kennedy Awkward Survival Guide. (Yes, I italicized that. The joke is that it's a book title. Get it?)
I gushed for a few minutes, and finally realized that it wasn't making anything better. (Surprise!) So, naturally, it was time for Option B. "Well, Emily and I have to get to lunch..." I was saving her from the sinking ship, too. We exchanged a few more muttered "thank you"s and were off.
Emily and I giggled all the way to the caf. Despite the ominous feeling of having, shall we say, less-than-aced our final, we were giddy. We were treating our conversation with Dr. Thorndike as if we were 7th graders who'd just talked to a dreamy boy.
Dr. Thorndike is such a great professor, and that awkwardness is what we love about him. We are honored to have been his students. Now I keep wishing I had stayed in the room for a few more awkward hems and haws.

This is us with Dr. Thorndike at the Parthenon.
Try and tell me he's not great.

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.

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.

As Per 1 Corinthians 1.

Christ is:  my wisdom
                    my righteousness
                    my sanctification
                    my redemption.
He is everything smart in me.
He is everything good in me.
He is everything holy in me.
He is everything clean in me.

I HAVE NOTHING TO BOAST.

Amen.

Go Forth With A Warrior Spirit.

Know what I'm gonna see in four days?

This.

And this.

And this.

And this.

And this.

And this.

And a whole bunch of other awesome.

Want to know the most excellent thing?

The other day, when I parked in the parking deck, written in chalk on the wall in front of me was, "Go forth with a warrior spirit."

It's all I've been thinking about since. And all I've been doing.
Also, we went swing dancing.

Heavy & Many.

There are a lot of trials today.
I have so many people on my heart.
I'm reminded of the heaviness of so many people's burdens, so many of my people's burdens.
Trials are heavy and many.

And also, I am reminded of the heaviness of my failures.
So many times I have chosen to hurt people when I could have chosen to love.
So many times I have chosen to break people when I could have built them up.
So many times I have chosen uncleanness over purity, cruelty over love, rebellion over submission.
My failures are heavy and many.

Today, my grandpa is moving. He is moving to the nursing care part of the retirement home he lives in. When he moves to nursing care, he can no longer live with my grandma, his wife of sixty-odd years.
They love each other. A lot of the the time, they suck at showing each other that, but they love each other with a love beyond what I can say. They have been married for three times as long as I have been alive. They depend on each other, but they've gotten to the point where they can't support their own selves anymore, much less one another.
They are tired.
But today, my mom and dad have to move my grandpa from the hospital where he has been staying since something happened last week that caused his health and awareness to decline immensely. I don't know how my parents do it.
They have been so faithful to Meemaw and Peepaw.
My mother takes care of them so well. She cares so well. She is a person who gives so much of herself, but she doesn't even realize how much she gives. She doesn't really think about it. The natural response for her is to care, and to give of herself, and to serve. She doesn't realize how beautifully sacrificial she is.
My dad has been there for them so much. He has had to make decisions for them, uncomfortable decisions that have upset them. He has been willing to do what is best for them even when it hurt, even when they weren't happy about it, even when it felt too heavy to bear. He has loved them in one of the hardest ways to love.
My grandpa, needless to say, is not happy about moving. But this is something else that my parents will do for his good. Because their love is so strong.

I have them on my heart today. And so many other people, too.
I want to do something, to lift them, to be there. For all of them.
But I'm not. So I'm here, blogging.

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.