One of those days

Have you ever had one of those days? We all have them from time to time
The one where maybe your alarm doesn't go off on time
or you don't get to shower in the morning
where you drop your whole bowl of cereal
You get stuck in traffic on your way to work
find out your shift is 2 hours longer than you thought, so you can't go on your lunch date
The one where you double book meetings
spend all afternoon running around campus
When you realize that you have a paper due at midnight that you forgot about
Your coffee order gets messed up, but then you end up spilling it on down your legs anyways
You leave your planner at home and completely forget about one of your appointments
The day where it's 9:00pm you haven't gotten a chance to eat any real meals yet and this is the first time all day that I've gotten to just sit down for half a second. & you finally feel like you can breathe.

But also the one where God reminds you that he's there in the midst of all the craziness and the whirlwind of life. Where he uses the smiles and hugs of friends and tangibles encouragements of others to keep you going and the one where he reminds you that no matter what kind of day you're having, how hard or crappy it may seem it is still a blessing and it is a still a beautiful day full of the grace of God. A day where I have my heavenly father there to carry me through the storms. A day where he reminds me of his faithfulness and love even when it's hard to see. And the one where he reminds me of how crazy blessed my life is, even when I'm stressed.
Yes there are those days that don't seem to go as planned and there may have been a lot of bumps in the road, but God is still faithful and there is beauty even in the midst of the chaos and storms, and God's grace, goodness and peace always prevails! Take time in the midst of your overwhelming life to look up and look to God and I promise he'll provide you with the strength you need!

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matt 11:29-30

When you become overwhelmed with your failings...

Some days I look in the mirror and stare at myself.

I sit there and see the person that I am 

I think about the deepest darkest parts of my heart 

the thoughts and feelings that no one knows, except for me

& sometimes when I stop and look at myself if I'm completely honest

my heart sinks a little and I hate the person that I see 

sometimes I'm so overwhelmed with all of my failings 

all the ways I mess up and all of the ugly thoughts that roll

through my head throughout the day. 

"I wanted to love people better this week, yet I didn't

I wanted to be more intentional with my time, yet I failed to plan well

I wanted to be more prayerful, yet I spent the week depending on my own strength"

How can I be so sinful, how can I fail so many times?

I know that God loves me and is gracious with me, 

but sometimes I think that he has to get tired of me continuing to sin 

over and over and over again.

I mean I even still struggle with some of the same things that I did when I first came to Christ 

Why haven't I grown? Why am I such a failure? 

These thoughts constantly flow through my mind 

And when I let myself dwell on these thoughts I fall into despair

I don't think I'll ever arrive and I wonder what others would say 

if they saw what a horrible Christian I really am. 

I become defeated, weary and burdened down by the weight of my own sinfulness, insufficiency and failings 

It is in these moments that God tenderly whispers to me and simply says "Look Up"

He gently reminds me of how self-focused and self-centered I'm being 

That instead of being consumed with God I am being consumed with myself

That my eyes are only looking inward and I've failed to look outside of myself 

and see who God truly is. 

And when this happens I become so focused on who I am that I forget who God is.

I forget that God wants to take my mess and turn it into a masterpiece.

That his power is greater than ALL of my weaknesses

That his grace and love for me are so deep and wide that I cannot fully comprehend the depths of them. 

That he knows EVERY sinful thought and deed, all of my failures past present and future and yet he still chose me to be his beloved daughter. 

That it is through my weaknesses and inadequacies that God gets to show off and display his transforming grace, unending love and his ability and power to change hearts and lives!

So yes, I still mess up a ton and yes I still sin and fail 

But now my reactions to this knowledge changes 

instead of falling into despair and condemnation I get to run to my savior! 

I get to come to him in my weakness and learn how to depend on him in greater ways 

to learn to trust him when he tells me that HE is the one who began the good work in my heart 

 and HE promises that HE will finish it (Phil 1:6)! 

I get the opportunity to realize that I am empty and nothing without my savior 

and that makes his love and grace so much sweeter, it and makes me want to 

run to him and grow in depending on his power and strength instead of trying to do life on my own. 

And this, is such a better, sweeter place to be than in than depths of despair.

So friends take your eyes off of yourself and your shortcomings and place your gaze upon

Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of your faith. The one whose grace is sufficient for us and whose power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-12). 

"True sanctification is all about growing in humility, dependence and gratitude. Joy blossoms in our hearts not as we try harder and harder to grow, but as we see more clearly the depths of our sin and understand more fully our utter helplessness. Only then will we take our eyes off ourselves and look to Christ for all that we need in life and death. Only then will we truly cherish our savior and believe that we need him every minute of every day, and that without him we can do nothing (John 15:5)."

Why I Switched my Major....

Once you enter college the one question that everyone always asks you when they meet you is
"What is your major?"
Next to your name, your major is the next thing that everyone wants to know about you. It almost becomes a part of your identity and a part of who you are. It effects who you interact with, what professors you'll have and what types of groups you'll be involved in.

So after going through the majority of college as a science major with the intention of becoming an Occupational Therapist, that's what everyone knew me as. I was a science girl and I was going to be an OT. And that was that. People thought it was an awesome career choice and I was often applauded for it, & told how smart I was. I was going to go to graduate school and get to help people and join a rising, stable, good, paying career; and people were proud of me for it.

However, I was creating a whole life plan based on my own comfort and wants. What I neglected to do was to seek God to ask him what his plan for my life was. & then he came in and wrecked my heart.

This summer as I spent time in a different culture, saw brokenness and pain up close in a real tangible way and dug into God's word and really sought him and his guidance for my life he directed my path to the field of social work. I wrestled with changing my major, but he continued to keep opening up doors and directing my path. I realized that I wanted to help people. To be able to bring hope and light and joy to those who have none and are in some of the darkest situations. I want to use my life to love and serve others, to do all that I can to make a difference in the world. & for me that means working in the non-profit sector and seeking to work with exploited children and human trafficking.

So yes, maybe I will be taking a big salary cut with my new choice of major, and joining a career that has a lot less prestige attached to it and yes maybe I will have to change everything that I have worked so hard on and start from scratch this year as I enter into the social work program. However, God is so faithful and he has led me this far and opened up the door for me to be accepted into this program and I may not know exactly what lays in store for me 2 years from now, but I know where God has led me to for this moment and I am simply taking it step by step and following his leading.

I cannot wait to grow in this new field of social work and learn what it looks like to enter into this helping profession, and I am so excited to see how I will be able to use my skills to help people and spread God's love.

So here's to this new major, new adventure and new future!

Hi my name's Becca and I'm a social work major. 

Think Twice Before You Apply That Lipstick....

“Every day thousands of women buy makeup & thousands of Indian children are forced to mine mica, the sparkles in the makeup.” (slaveryfootprint.org)

Does this fact shock you? It sure took me aback as I sat there in the comfort and freedom of my home ironically wearing sparkly eye shadow as I read this information. I immediately wanted to run to the bathroom and wash all the make up off of my face.

I knew I couldn’t just read this fact, forget about it and continue on my merry little way. So I immediately started researching this issue.

Have you ever heard of Mica? Well let me tell you about this tiny little mineral that affects thousands of children’s lives a day. It’s the sparkle in your favorite make up that children spend hours beating out of a stone.

Mica- is a transparent mineral that is mined from the earth in thin sheets, and it is often opalescent and sparkling, but can also be completely matte, and ranges in color from gray to blue to green (foriegnpolicyblogs).

One of the biggest uses for Mica is in cosmetics, such as eyeshadow, nail polish, lipstick, and concealer.

The impoverished hills of Jharkhand India, possesses one of the largest deposits of mica, and this is where children are exploited and forced to work in hard dangerous situations.

So now that you know this, what are you going to do about it? I began my quest for finding ethically made cosmetic products. And as I was searching and researching for ethically made make up without mica in it, I found out that it was a lot harder than I had thought.

However, what shocked and bothered me the most, was that during my research I found pages and pages of “ethically” and “cruelty free” cosmetic companies.  This is what these companies meant by this—that their products were not tested on animals and did not use any ingredients that were derived from animals or harmful chemicals. Here’s an example of this from the company that I found:

 

Here’s what bothers me the most: Since when are the lives and wellbeing of animals more important than that of a child? Why is the cosmetic industry more aware of and concerned with never using animal testing, but yet they don’t mind profiting off of the child slavery and exploitation that is going on across the world?

So maybe you should think twice before you apply that lipstick as you walk out the door? Because it should not take the sparkles on the hands of these children to make the rest of us in the world shimmer and shine.

For those of you who are interested in ethically made cosmetic, I am still researching different companies, but here are a few that I have found so far.

-The Body Shop

- Epic Mineral Beauty

Stay tuned as I learn more about ethically and fairly made cosmetic products.

Be still

Ever since I had my concussion last January God has been teaching me the importance of being quiet. Something that I am not very good at. My life is always bursting with school, work, friends, ministry, culture, media and noise!
I'm the girl who never slows down and is always bouncing around from one thing to the next. My mind is perpetually spinning with one thought after another, with a continuous flow of tasks and to-do lists. While I'm awake there is never even a moment of calm in my mind.

But listen to this simple truth that has been speaking deeply to my heart lately.

"Be still and know that I am God."

    -Psalm 46:10

Friends in the busyness of a new week remember that intimacy with God requires stillness, attentiveness and quiet. We have to get off the busy highway of life to grow closer to God! If our mind is constantly full of other things then when will we be able to hear from God and allow him to gently whisper to us and remind us of who he is!

Dear friends be purposeful in your day and week to be calm and quiet before God. I know it's hard and there's a million and one things fighting for our attention, but it is so worth the effort! I am praying God blesses all of you this week with sweet intimate time with him where you get to pause life and simply be still and know that he is God! He wants to breathe life and peace into your stressed, anxious, overwhelmed heart, will you let him?

By Grace...

So these past two weeks have been filled with follow up appointments.
Where I get to meet with awesome girls on my campus who are interested in Cru (our Christian student ministry). Most of them have been eager to get
involved and grow in their Christian faith and that makes my heart fill with joy.

However, there's one thing that has really stood out to me. Most of them are not 100% sure of their salvation and whether or not they would go to heaven and be with God for eternity. They list reasons why they think they would, such as going to church, trying to put God first, one girl even gave me an extensive list of volunteer and service hours that she has done. Hearing them give me these answers over and over again breaks my heart. I see their desire to please Jesus, but they are missing the most beautiful, amazing, and freeing parts of the gospel! These girls are all missing GRACE! They feel as if they have to live up to some "Christian standard", be a good person,  follow God perfectly etc. in order to stay at that 100%.

As I've been talking with them, and explaining to them the beauty of grace, that we can never get to God on our own, all of our good deeds will never be enough BUT God is gracious and loving and came down to save us. Jesus died on the cross for our sins as a free gift so that we could be forgiven and have a relationship with God. My heart desperately wanted them to understand and feel the freedom of knowing our position in Christian.

Later after one of my meetings I realized that maybe God was using all of these encounters with these girls as a reminder for my own heart. I know all of these truths, but how often do I slip back into the rut of perfectionism and trying to earn my favor with God. He wanted to remind me that these truths are not just for these girls that I am talking to, but that they apply to me as well. That yes, maybe I have failed or slipped up in some ways lately, but that does not affect my identity in Christ, or the fact that God loves me unconditionally and I am his beloved daughter. Instead God wanted to use these girls to remind me to look up and find my perfection in Christ and not myself and rest in his work instead of striving in vain on my own.

Just like my heart hurts to see these girls not understand grace, God's heart hurts when I don't live in the freedom of that grace. Now that I know and have experienced true freedom, why would I ever want to go back to the weary days of perfectionism? Lord help me believe that my perfection is found in you alone and that your grace is there to cover all of my failures, that no matter how many times I fall and mess up you are right there to pick me back up again and remind me of who I am in YOU!

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." -Eph 2:4-9

How God Changed my heart

Last night I had the awesome opportunity of being able to share a small part of my story at our campus ministry's meeting. I promised I share it with some of my friends who weren't able to make it so here it is! So grateful for all that God has done in my life. 

I grew up like any other church kid who was raised in a Christian home. I heard all the Bible stories in Sunday school, learned all about God and knew all the right answers in youth group. I knew how to talk the talk and I even knew how to live out the Christian life, how to serve others and memorize scripture. Yet everything I did was lifeless and shallow. Something was missing in all of my good Christian stuff. I felt empty and hallow.

My knowledge fooled me and those around me. I collected knowledge about God like one collects books on a shelf or memorizes history facts. Because of this there was no life or joy in my walk with God. I was following all of the rules, it had become about behavior modification to me and learning how to be good. Somehow in the midst of Sunday school lessons, youth groups and sermons I neglected and missed the most important part of being a Christian: having a personal relationship with God!

But thankfully God didn’t leave me there, at Cru’s winter conference- INDYCC God used the testimony of a friend and one of my leaders, to show me how deeply Jesus loved me and how he desired to intimately know me and infuse life into my relationship with him!

At the moment God opened my heart and showed me that although I had known all about God and even did things to serve God, I didn't actually truly know God. That night God was gracious enough to show me what was missing in my life and that was him! I was missing a personal, powerful connection and relationship with Jesus Christ! Ever since then my life as a Christian has been completely different. There is now so much joy and grace that motivates what I do.

        Some things may still look the same on the outside like reading my Bible, but the motivation behind it is how different, for example I now study God’s word not to simply gain knowledge, but to know him. I spend time with him and talk to him because I love him and I want to grow closer to God and know more of who he is instead of only praying when I need things from him! Before I simply knew about Jesus, but now I truly know Jesus like a friend and having that real personal relationship with Jesus is what has changed everything for me; and brought joy, life, and grace into my walk with God!