beccahallic's Xanga

I remember not to forget to pray...

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 01:09:27 GMT

I am in Costa Rica with a group of people who are studying God and trying to follow Him for our lives, His will and the salvation of the world. I feel very much like a disciple. with more luggage.

I am leaving for Nicaragua tomorrow with two other young women. We will wake up at 5 am to drive to the bus station. The other people in our group are now in Panama and Heredia, Costa Rica. I miss them a lot. We're working on audio and video for the San Jose base and for the DNA conference that happened last week and getting ready to go again.

There are people here from all over the world. It's wonderful. Panamanians of indigenous tribes, Germans, Mexicans, Columbians, and many from Central America. I love it.

And it's been busy. Even in it, it is not God Himself, and it is good to run away to Him. Oswald says it brilliantly in his Sept 16 devotional-

Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the son of God has been formed in us through regernartion (Galations 4:19) then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray. "Everyone who asks receives..." Matthew 7:8. We pray religious nonsense without even involving our will, and then we say that God did not answer- but in reality we have never asked for anything. ..... we have to ask things of God that are in keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ revealed.

I need to ask God things that are really true on my heart. Praying for the world. All these oppressions and injustices. How do I align my thinking with aaaaall that is wrong in order to truly, heart-feltly pursue one thing that God would say, "Yes. This is what you should do." If I say I want to help people living in trash dumps, do I really even mean that? What do I really mean? What do I really pray about? What has Jesus revealed?

John Mark McMillan has a song that is delicious. Please get it off itunes or at least youtube it.
It's called-
Kiss Your Feet~

I dreamed I kissed your feet
Between the cigarette butts
On the side of fourteenth street
I got down on my hands and my knees
With an alabaster jar

I dreamed I'd bleed with your praises
Just to make the world
Smell like your grace again
I got down on my hands and my knees again

And I'm crawling on the floor
Just to find you now
To tell you how I feel I'm falling all over myself

Good morning brokeness
You know you've cut me to the bone
Like one of those days in the middle of the winter
The kind that you can't run away from
And we've been here for so long
But I found a way to appease you
Inside this alabaster jar

And I'm crawling on the floor
Just to find you now
To tell you how I feel I'm falling all over myself

And all my afflictions
They're only light ones anyway now

Good Friday

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:08:10 GMT

I am a failure.

Utterly.

There is nothing better
Than dark clouds after a man's un-beating heart spills to the ground
And an Injustice is justified.
and my failure becomes a ridiculous success.

by what I have not done.

I still have to choose and live
I still struggle and do not Want to.
But i know i will Work This Out.
Trembling.
Joyfully.
Fearfully.

God.

What a day.

What a glorious day.

Unashamed

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:13:19 GMT

God will show us how to build trust. Relationship by relationship.
Love and truth de-dysfunctionalize us. They set our bones and heal our brokenness.

The first dark time away from you
shame covers and holds me
Instead of telling you I did wrong
I ran away to fix myself

The first lie I believed
is that you wouldn't want me.
I am hiding, covering
with what turns to ashes.

All our eyes see our naked lives.
and instead of calling for your glory
I am hiding.
Ashes over pain.
This is why you came.

The dusty road into Jerusalem is lined with crowds of people- people who are like the people in this poem. They wait on a palm tree-lined road under a blue sky with great anticipation for the man that will come riding in on a donkey.
When they see him, they cry, as it is most accurately translated,
"Save Us Now! Save Us Now in the Highest!"
They do not run away. They know who This is. And they are moved to cut down the nearby palm branches and they lay down their clothes for him ride over. They surround him and worship. They need Him. They know who this is, and they do not run away.

Letters to the Romans

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:39:03 GMT

so Paul, who hated and killed people following the Ways of Jesus as Holy Spirit goodness to life,
was rocked by Grace and Love.

and then,
he became one who followed the Way of Jesus Holy Spirit Life.

I have always read Romans with condemnation in my heart
toward people who do the things it says not to do.

"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful..."

It does go on to explain that we who judge are guilty of the same.

Get ready. this is Good.

It means that it doesn't matter.
Oh
No.
You who does these things that Are indeed against what God loves.
Which is everyone.

We are all the ones who are wrong.
Church men in their ties. Rebecca. Beggars without water. The verses are part of the letter, and they aren't supposed to be out of context. The beginning of the book is a drum roll of the degradation that you and I are in... and the trumpet blast is the Love of Jesus toward us regardless.

We are each wrong in our own way, in the human way. But God was never ashamed of our nakedness.

I cannot compare
because
there is no
comparison
for
how
Jesus
Loves.

People hate and kill, but no longer become these people.

If I feel hopeless

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:08:37 GMT

"I prefer “you” in the plural, I want “you,”
You must come to me, all golden and pale
Like the dew and the air.
And then I start getting this feeling of exaltation."
~John Ashbery

Dawn's intricacies
Dew on the dark green hills
a light air
spilling bright from a new, morning sun

Mercy and grace pull the sun into the sky:

Not because it has to
But because of His love

And the feeling of exaltation
cannot be created at dusk,
nor denied when it comes,
each morning.

can you hold this?

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:44:33 GMT

this past weekend i was in Tyler, Texas, driving to a friend's farewell get-together at Cheddars, where i've never been before and highly recommend.

at one point we passed the bank where i put my money. my account is nothing they would ever miss- this big, national bank. and it's a huge building, and i laughed outloud at the silliness of this monstrosity of a money lender to hold onto my Geld.

'umm, here's some money. could you hold on to this for a while?'

big, hulking bank, nodding slowly, extends its hands. 'love to.'

'okay, thanks.' i say. 'and, uh, i might be back every now and then to take some of it back. and sometimes, i might give you a little more to keep track of. is that cool?'

bank flexes its pecs- it will be done.

it's so weird.

Bergen

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:50:22 GMT

The first time I saw mountains I was 20 years old. It was they year 2002, and I was on a train rolling through southern Germany on the way to the Bavarian Alps. Flat green fields became rolling fields, and rolling fields gave way to granite, gargantuan mountains.

Being raised in piney Texas and the farmlands of Wisconsin, and not traveling outside of the Midwest until I was 20, when I went to eastern Germany to study abroad for a semester; mountains blew my mind.

I was capturing the entire event on a hand held audio recorder. I intended to share my yelping joy of seeing mountians with my mother when I returned home. The silver train was going to pop with my excitement, I thought. The energy of the grey day, the green land, and the anticipation of the large grey forms.

God made mountains. They jut up from the ground at abnormal angles. Stacks of rock, beautifully placed. They didn't just get there. They were made to look like that.

In awe. Mountains.

At the top of the Zugspitze, the tallest peak in Germany, the sun blintzed off the white snow, and pulls of clouds floated just overhead. And the mountains stretched as faaaaaar as the horizon allowed you to see. Correct, snow-covered triangles. Silent. The silence grew as I took it all in. The sounds of the skiiers and the other people at the lookout platform dissolved into the powder and the blinding reflections of light as I tried to fathom what I was looking at. Unmoving, unquestioning. Terrible. Existing under the sun. 'Believe it,' I told myself. This is real.

Body and Function

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:19:31 GMT

For all of you who give

prayer

your gifts

money

time

your life

thank you for functioning as the body of Christ.

God does this. It is good to be His child.

mercyworks.org
servingourworld.org
streamsofmercy.org
worldvision.org
WIN India
bloodwatermission.com

& many more at
http://psalm121.ca/mercy.html
&
many more I do not know

Like a friend said to me recently about the needs, whatever they are, of people, 'BE overwhelmed by it. It's okay to feel this, Church.'

God is good. He moves us for His glory.

Batman

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:00:15 GMT

I haven't seen the latest Batman movie, yet, and I would like to see it. I've heard it's dark, but good.

Things that are happening at church are encouraging. People praying for each other, we gave $2,000.00 to this girl who needed to fix her car, sending people on missions, supporting an organization that works against human trafficking. all good things. many churches act like this. my favorite part is that people are starting to use their real voices with one another.

leaving behind the high-toned, "So good to see yous!"
for the more comfortable "Heys" "Hi's" and "So what's new? s"
it's inviting. i love using my real voice. it could be just because i am now doing this that i notice; in any case, it's delightful.

worship.

i crave good worship. it's what we were created to do. so the rocks don't have to cry out. it's supposed to be us. it answers so many questions of the heart and squelches selfishness. because God is awesome. and that's all there is to it.

Sweet worship Friday night at Twin Oaks Ranch down the road from where i'm living. i went with Lexie, my lovely aussie friend, and it was super great. super free. people constantly singing, not even with the music. dancing, laying, sitting, standing, whatever.

i was freaking out about the topic of love in my life; not romantic love, just a frustration that's come up relationally with people that are in my life, and it had been eating me alive for the past two weeks. because not loving is like death.

so i worshiped it out. gave it to God. let it go. And God took it, and told me what my place is. because i can't do everything. and He is God. and i can stop freaking out and taking everything upon myself.

changing

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 06:35:14 GMT

something around here is about to change.
maybe it's just been a strange weekend,
but i can't stop.

i was out with some friends. low light cafe. late at night. not doing anything, really.
really, we were just writing.

but
there was this huge feeling.
every person i looked at at the other tables.
i was like
"can you see what's happening!?"

i do not know if it's me or if it's who i'm hanging out with....

because i feel pretty exceptionally frazzled / not like i'm doing anything, i'm actually waffling just as much as ever in life.
but

the air is becoming champagne-like.

it's amazing

i'm like, "what?"

seriously. there is nothing you can or cannot do.

it is getting beautiful in here.

i think it has to do with how we treat each other. ..... ......... ..............................