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| How I feel when I can't remember what I wanted to write about |
Hmmmm...
I don't remember.
Well, I suppose I could tell you the story of how I named my blog...
So, some of you are probably wondering why my blog address is really long and awkward. Well, there is going to need to be some background in order for this to make sense.
So, for the majority of my life I lived in the state of Colorado. We moved there from Washington when I was four, and I just recently moved out fourteen years later. I moved to Northern Virginia. Why? Well, you're going to think I'm crazy.
I have no idea.
When I was about ten, my parents joined a spiritual group that has branches all around the United States, and the goal of this organization is to live in community with each other. We want to follow Jesus and live in common with our earthly brothers and sisters. We want to serve them in every possible way and to help them in all that we are able to do. Well, the theory sound great, but sometimes the execution isn't all it's cracked up to be. Through no one's individual faults, I mean, we're only human.
When I entered high school I was able to join the teenage division of this group, and I thought that I might like it better than I had liked it before. (When my parents first joined, I hated going to meetings with every fiber of my being). But, this new avenue didn't go any better. I loathed going to the meetings, and I didn't want to fund raise to go on trips. I saw no point in the summer mission trips because I saw no point in the community as a whole. So, I didn't thrive in this new area either. I felt that I was not called to join this lifestyle, and that no matter what anyone said, I would never like it, and I would never, ever, do anything more extensive than going to the meetings twice a month.
It's funny how the Lord works sometimes.
My freshman year of high school, all of my fellow Action members (this is what the teenage division is called), decided to go on trips. Me, being the wet blanket I was, refused. I didn't want to go halfway across the country to work with people I didn't know, to build a house, and to knock on people's doors asking for things. No way, no how Lord. Not going to happen.
So, the next year, a week before the very last trip of the summer, I felt the insane desire to go. I can't describe this feeling very well. I had just returned from an opportunity at a local college summer program, and I wanted to settle in at home again, and get ready for my junior year of high school. (I still had a ton of summer reading to do). But when I got home, I had an itch. Not a physical itch, but a mental, insatiable, desire to go to Indianapolis and participate in the mission trip there. This wasn't just a passing fancy, I couldn't shake it off. I didn't particularly want to go. I dragged me heels, but there was something in me that knew I needed to go.
Well, a week later I had all my clothes packed up, my toiletries, a swimsuit, as well as the unused bible that sat in my closet. I boarded a plane for the first time all alone, and wondered what I had gotten myself in to. I had no idea that this was just the beginning.
Long story short, I loved the two week mission trip in Indy. I fell in love with those around me, and the work we were doing. I loved the fact that we had real conversations there. The topics didn't center around making others look bad, or how that person wore this the best. Rather, there were conversations concerned with politics, religion, philosophy, how to end poverty, and so on. Nothing that didn't matter was brought to the table, and I found that I could live without the incessant gossip that I had thought I was addicted to my whole life.
By the end of the trip, I never wanted to go home. I had started having daily prayer times for the first time in my life, was baptized in the Holy Spirit, and had received the gift of tongues that very night. I never wanted to leave this bubble of understanding and love, and I never wanted to leave these relationships that I had formed with the people I met. And although I could do without the humidity, I thought that I could stay there forever. I didn't know what I would do with myself when I got home. None of my friends at school were Catholics, or even Christians. Most of them didn't believe in a higher power, and they believed that anyone who did was too weak to think for themselves. That they needed a crutch to make it through life. What would all my friends say if I just burst out in a strange language halfway through class, praising the Lord? I didn't think it would go over too well.
So, when I returned home, I was not happy in the slightest. And though my desire for the Lord stuck around for about a month, after that I returned to being the negative person I was. Another year passed, and I wanted to quit Action. There had been several experiences that I wasn't happy with, and I hadn't felt like I was growing in my relationship with the Lord or with those around me, and I didn't want to waste my time on something that wasn't helping me grow. It also didn't help that there were only two other members than myself at the time, meaning there wasn't much diversity. When my other teammates went to a conference across the country, I wanted no part in it. I stuck back at home. When they returned, they were obviously on fire for the Lord, and I began regretting my decision not to go. So I made a promise to my best friend Mary that I would go to Allendale, Louisiana with her this next summer.
Before I went to Louisiana, I was sure that it was a huge mistake. I wasn't used to humidity, I had never learned how to build anything, and I didn't have the faintest idea what running a summer camp was like. I was scared, but I had agreed to go. So, Mary, Thomas (Mary's brother), and I flew to Louisiana, and I fell in love instantly. The people there were so welcoming and loving. The children at summer camp were not the most happy children to be around, but their love for us was so overwhelming that it was hard not to fall in love with them as well. I didn't even mind the humidity as much as I had the previous summer. I knew that I had found a place where I could be myself, and where I could love the Lord and the people He put around me fully.
But all good things must come to an end, and I flew home at the end of two weeks. A few weeks later, I no longer wanted to know the Lord, I had no desire to go back to Allendale, and I didn't even want to be a Christian anymore. (If I am anything, I am at least consistent with my peaks and troughs of faith). My senior year was the most challenging year of my life, not because of academics, but because of a ton of extenuating circumstances that could not have been foreseen. A few of these included: having a crazy musical director, applying for college and scholarships, quitting band after participating for seven years, trying to be involved in every extra curricular activity the school offered, and contracting bronchitis over Christmas break. With all of these factors against me, I didn't have much time for Action, and I tried to keep it that way. I wanted to quit. But I had also promised the people in Allendale that I would go back, and I couldn't bear to break a promise to them.
So, kicking and screaming, I went back to Allendale this last summer. This year I didn't have Mary and Thomas with me, both of them were spending their entire summers at different mission trip sites. So I flew to Louisiana by myself. And let me tell you, the Dallas airport is much scarier when you are navigating it by yourself then when you have others with you. So, here I was, once again, in Louisiana.
The change was instant. As soon as I walked out of the airport and saw one of my long time friends there to meet me, I knew that the Lord had put me here for a very specific reason: to love Him more fully and to learn to love those around me. And I knew that the Lord wouldn't have let me stay at home a minute longer. I was here through His grace and love, and I felt so happy that I had listened to Him. The next two weeks went by so quickly, that I feel like they almost didn't happen. But they did. I learned how to fall in love with these children, these women around me, and with the Lord, all over again. I learned what life in this spiritual group is actually like, and I realized that I might actually want it. I had never wanted any part in this group before, and now I was so in love with the life in Allendale that I couldn't imagine a life without it. When the time came to go, I was an emotional wreck. I couldn't leave! I had just started feeling at home! I had met so many spectacular people who live in Allendale, as well as other teenagers who lived across the country.
It was around the end of my trip that the Lord put a desire to move on my heart. When I first started thinking about moving I tried to laugh it off. "Yeah Lord, very funny. I am not moving when I have college lined up at home. I have plans too, you know!"
The Lord had very different plans in mind for me.
The minute I got home, I asked one of the branch members for a contact in Northern Virginia, because that's where I felt most called to go. She sent an email off that night, and I began feeling nervous about what I had started. I am a very tight gripped person, and not being in control scares the heck out of me. But I knew that the Lord must be doing this for some good reason. As I waited for a response from this man in NOVA, I told my parents my plans, put in my two weeks notice at work, and cancelled my registration at UCCS (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs). I still hadn't heard back, but I knew the Lord was doing spectacular things. Three weeks later I still hadn't heard back from my contact in Virginia, so I sent him an email myself.
And let me tell you, this was the scariest thing I had ever done. I didn't know this man, I had never met him, and here he was, going to decide my future. I was terrified that he would say I couldn't move to Virginia and be a part of the campus outreach at George Mason University. Since I had already deferred from college in Colorado, I had no idea what I was going to do if I wasn't allowed to go. I was terrified that I was going to be without a job and not going to school, a complete bum.
Later that week I received a call from him. You know how I said sending that email was the scariest thing I'd ever done? Well, this was worse. He was asking me all these questions that included, (but were not limited to): "Do you have a job? Do you know where you are going to stay? Do you know anyone? Are you sure that the Lord is calling you here?" and other questions that most people have figured out before they decide to move all the way across the country.
Well, we agreed to talk again the following week, after we had both prayed about it. I knew that the Lord was calling me there, but I continued to pray about it, and I secretly began to pack up all my belongings. I knew that I was going to move. After our second conversation (which was in the first week of September), he told me that he would love to have me move to Virginia, and that he would work on finding a family for me to live with. He told me that I should consider flying out soon, before this humongous women's retreat. (That way, I would be able to meet a lot of people all at once). So, that Wednesday I received an email from a woman I had never heard of, and she said that I would be living with her, and did I mind that she and her husband owned a dog? My mom and I then bought our plane tickets to Virginia on Monday, September 9th, and then we flew out on Friday, September 13th.
I have now been living here in Virginia for almost a month, and I am so happy that I am here.
Becca, what does any of this have to do with your blog name?
Oh yeah.... Well, when I was discerning moving, and through that whole month of waiting, I kept getting this word from the Lord to walk in faith, and to trust that He knew what He was doing. And I got this message over and over again. And the further I would go, I realized that the less I knew about walking in general. I had thought all my life that I was this strong individual who didn't need God. I didn't need some sort of crutch, and I especially didn't need Him for simple, every day things in my life. I had always thought that God was only there for when you needed prayer requests, or when you wanted to ask for someone else's healing.
But the closer I got to moving, the more I realized that I needed to be re-taught how to walk. I hadn't ever walked before, I had merely been crawling around in my ignorance and hubris. And now, I have just taken a few faltering, baby steps. And I know that the only steps I will ever take will be with the Lord.
Not to say that this isn't the most humbling and profound experience of my life, and that once this realization has happened it won't keep happening. Rather, every day I need to be (and am) reminded that I cannot do this on my own, and that the Lord is teaching me to walk with Him for the rest of my life. I think the most amazing phrases in that realization is "with Him". The Lord isn't teaching me to walk and then abandoning me. Rather, He is grabbing my hand and NEVER letting go. We are walking together.
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