Cubism, Dada, and falling behind.

In truth, this post will not discuss Cubism or Dadaism in detail, or in non-detail at all. I am taking a Modern World class this semester and I have my first big test tomorrow. I am so not ready. I have been trying to put so much time into my other more “difficult” classes that somehow, this class has completely been swept under the radar. I was trying to study my class notes today and realized that I have missed a TON of homework assignments. How did that happen? I am so glad that I am finally learning to apply myself better and use my time more wisely because I simply CANNOT afford to fall this far behind ever again. And yet, I say this and I am going to skip my Theology class tomorrow because we are not allowed to go to class without homework and I simply do not have the time to get it done. I am not doing so great. But I will get better.

In brighter, happier news – I got to model for my dear friend Whitney Huynh!
Here are some previews of the shoot:

 

I think they turned out wonderfully! That’s all as far as mundane details of my life goes. Until next time.

Things that make me happy:

I’m in an especially good mood today so I have decdided to compile a short list of things that just make me smile.
Here we go.

• A sunny day
• A rainy day
• Naps
• Good conversations (good company)
• The sounds of a symphony.
• Jazz music
• Folk music
• Thrift store shopping
• Smoothies
• Mangos, Pineapples and Strawberries
• Dark Chocolate anything. Ah, pure bliss!
• Holding his hand
• Just being around him in general.
• Writing.
• Reading!
• Learning, especially anything pertaining to modern culture.
• Watching clouds go by
• A nice hot shower
• A long brutal hike
• Riding a bicycle
• Clean laundry
• Cleaning and organizing (though I don’t like making my bed. . . )
• Tiger lilies and cherry blossoms
• Pancakes! Namely, chocolate chip pancakes.
• Spending time with my beautiful Papa God!
• Serving
• Worshipping!
• Getting things done
• Not having to do anything
• Family, friends, dear and lovely people.
• Getting lost (it’s kind of fun sometimes)
• Traveling! Long trips are the best.

That’s all for now. Praise the Lord for loveliness and life!

Life.

What exactly does anyone mean when they describe such a word? Such a sentiment?

I ask this because my initial thought upon starting this post was, “lately life has been tough.” In saying that I really mean, right now, life sucks. But no, I don’t really even mean that. I mean to say that I am frustrated. But that doesn’t even really describe it either.

I think maybe my issue in conveying all these stuffed up feelings is that I don’t know what I am referring to when I talk about “life.” Maybe a lot of us don’t quite know or understand what is meant by words such as “life” and “living.” People (I include myself in this generalization) often complain about the complexities of life, the sorrows, the mystery, and the difficulty of life. I’m coming to the conclusion, however, that saying such things about life is very much similar to complaining that the sun is too dark. Firstly, it is a false statement because the sun is by nature, bright and unless there is an eclipse it cannot be dark. Secondly, one must certainly be blind to the true nature of the sun in order to make such claims.

So what is it then? You are probably sitting at your computer, sipping on mountain dew or coffee or whatever, and you are shaking your head or pounding your fist. I’m sure you ‘re thinking: “You obviously don’t know a lot about life, Rebecca.” Granted, I don’t know a whole lot about it. I’ve only lived 20 years which is a considerably short amount, and I won’t pretend that I don’t have a lot more to learn. But can I make a proposition? Perhaps, when we complain about life, we don’t really mean to be complaining about life itself, but rather the circumstances that surround our lives. There is a distinction that must be made between the two.

Circumstances:

That which surrounds. Situations, experiences, things that happen to you, often things you don’t really cause, but they nonetheless shape your living. You day. Your time.

Life:

That which is lived; being a live. Breathing. A precious gift.

 

Do not let your circumstances define your life. Do not let circumstances rob you of life. Because if you want the truth, sometimes you won’t want to get out of bed and sometimes you will be too tired to even explain your tiredness; sometimes you will be bruised and sometimes you’ll be beyond confused, you’ll feel directionless and empty and cold, and too hot, and agitated and weary and worn out – your threads detaching at every seam, like a rag that just won’t quit, like a blouse you have outgrown but can’t let go of. You WILL feel this way someday if you have not already. You might even feel it now: heavy and thick.

And that’s okay.

That’s what circumstances can look like sometimes. That’s what circumstances can do to you sometimes. I feel that way now. It’s ugly and unexplainable and it’s making me want to hide under my bed and never come out. But that would be to let circumstances win. That would be to say, “I don’t have victory in this life”, which simply isn’t true.

Because although my eyes are shut tight, the sun is shining brighter still.
And when my head stops aching, and my bones quit breaking, and my heart catches up to my breathing, and my soul quits stirring, i’ll find that truth to be the most real thing I could ever grasp: that lift is full, and free, and beautiful, and mine.

Pain is blinding me. But it will not always be this way.

I have victory in the end, afterall.

Simply my day.

Hello. I don’t often blog in journal-format. In fact, I rarely blog anything to descriptive or personal or anything that I feel will be too “mundane.” My insecurities have always told me that I must be interesting, that I must be thought-provoking, that I must be deep, passionate and persuasive when writing because if I do not do that, then I am wasting talent and taking up space. Only amateurs write the boring details of their life for the entire world to see. (As if the entire world would even be reading this!)

And so anyway, I just always diverted from that path. With that being said, and without going into great detail because I honestly believe this story could take up an entire book, I do want to make it clear that I don’t really think that way anymore. I think part of my problem was that I didn’t think my life was significant or important enough and I certainly didn’t feel anyone would really care to read it, and so I just wrote what I felt would inadvertently draw others in. There’s a verse in Romans that talks about being transformed by the renewing of your minds, and I am experiencing that in great ways in my life recently. COmpared to a year ago, I am completely changed. Wholly new, yet I am not a different person – I am simply learning to be myself; and to see myself as Christ see’s me, as He has always seen me.

Also with that being said, I want to tell you about my life right now. I live in just south of Atlanta and am attempting to get my degree in Biblical Studies and Humanities. I work for the school in various positions, including RA, Librarian, and Academic Office Assistant. It’s great fun. I keep busy, but have been learning on managing my time in order to (a) not go completely nuts (b) have time for fun! (c) spend time with Abba Papa (d) do homework. My schedule this semester is absolutely wild, but I am happy that I am being entrusted with so much. God has given me so much favor! It’s so humbling. Just today I worked from 8am-12pm, then from 2pm-6pm, then had a meeting at 7:30pm-9:30pm. And now I am trying to read and do homework for my classes tomorrow. (I only have class Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.) I also write for the school paper, am part of a student-faculty committee, and am a team-member in our missions project here.

Anyway, that is what my life kind of consists of mostly: School and work, and since I work at school, it’s mostly just that. I do have friends and I do have a lovely, incredible, and amazing boyfriend that takes up a good chunk of my time too. And God is in every moment of my day – I would not want it any other way!

I want to get more involved with the church I am going to – Bethel Atlanta. I want community and family! I know God will open doors. I don’t even have to ask because he just knows.

This blog was so random but it was nice to let that out.

I have to read 200 + pages worth of literature tonight so I will stop rambling about my life and get to it.

Always,

Rebecca

2010

I’ve been unsure about what to say in regards to 2010. I almost don’t want to say anything, because from December 31st and January 1st it’s really just 24 hours like every other day. But it’s not just that, really. There is significance. And saying goodbye to another year isn’t really a sad thing. A lot of times I treated it like burying a good friend and hoping that the next one would do me well. I see things differently, though.

A new year may not mean a “new me”, but it does mean opportunity, possibility, and hope. I don’t need a new me, because if I learned anything in 2010 it was that the me that I am is awesome.

2010 was difficult.

A lot occurred that made it hard. But the rough has only proved to show the shine deep inside me. And more than that, the growth and the glory far outweighs the pain. In this darkness, I have learned to cling to the light.

And hoenstly, I don’t want to dwell on all that was difficult and painful, on the mistakes I made on the things I didn’t do. A lot of awesome things happened in 2010.

1. I started working again
2. I stepped into a role of leadership that I never would have imagined myself in
3. I started writing again
4. I grew up…. a lot.
5. I started dreaming again
6. I started to grow into my identity in Christ
7. And I started to date the most wonderful man I could have ever asked for.

So I do not look back and grieve or sigh, but I look back and give thanks. I am so, so blessed and have been showered with so much love and joy throughout my life; 2010 proved this very thing. 2010 was a year full of glory! And 2011 will be a year full of the same, a year full of newness and brightness and more growth and more pain and more sorrow and more joy. And I look forward and I smile at the future.

This hasn’t been the most thought-provoking thing I’ve ever written, but it is honest and it is beautiful because it is a part of my soul, part of my heart, part of my thoughts, and part of my thanks.

That’s all I have to say about 2010.

Drafts

Drafts sit in my inbox and on my dashboard for a number of reasons. Some of them are intentional; unfinished thoughts, something to share for a later time, when I find myself with nothing to say. Some are little notes or reminders for myself that I don’t necessarily want to send. Some of my drafts have consisted of homework; others were blank and I can conclude that something must have happened to the web-page or that I simply changed my mind when deciding to send the email for whatever reason.

However, there are a few fully written heart-felt emails and thoughts that sit there. Unsent. Unread by the persons they were supposed to reach. They are from months ago, and are usually hardly relevant anymore. But what kept me back from saying those things, what keeps me back from saying so many things so many times and in so many ways, is fear. It has always been fear. I have been scared that if I expose my heart to someone, anyone, everyone, that I will find myself disregarded. Fears confirmed: unworthy, unlovely, unloved.

Alone.

This has kept me from expressing, this has kept me from living, from loving, from being. Fear. That smog that blurs your vision and clogs up your lungs; it seems so subtle but finds its way into every crack, every corner of your life once you let it. It distorts everything and leaves you with a stack of things you want to say, things you want to do, places you want to go, dreams you want to dream, love you want to give, hope you want to live.

stacks, and
stacks, and
stacks, and
stacks, and
stacks
full of it.
Full of regret.
But even as it fills every ounce of your being, choking and gripping you tightly, emptiness surges through your body, reminding you that you are where you are because you choose to live in fear.

Fear will let you believe a lie so much that you cannot possibly fathom the idea that life could be different, that it is, and that you are different, that you might just be worth it. That you are.

You are worth it.

Did you see that? Can you see? Or is fear keeping you from believing that? Doubt maybe? Only fearful people are doubtful.

I have been here so many countless times before. So many painfully countless times before. At 3AM with the radio blaring to keep me distracted from my loneliness, from the loudness of my thoughts and the beating of my heart. I know what it’s like.

But there is truth that you haven’t been seeing, something you must start believing.

I read once somewhere that love, real love, not romance or empty words, but raw, pure, authentic love, that it casts out fear. Love made a way. Love gives me courage. Love gives me value. Love gives me confidence. Love gives me identity. Love gives me purpose. Love leaves no room for fear. Love is stronger than fear because love can put up a fight, love isn’t just the rose petals, love is the thorns. Love opens itself up to the possibility of rejection, of suffering, of loss.

It’s Christmas eve and right now there’s a song playing on that blaring radio that is saying something about how it’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s always been such a depressing time for me. The end of another year. What have I got to show for it?

But the radio is true. It’s wonderful because in the midst of frenzied shopping, baking cookies, stringed lights and TV specials, I look and see love. I see a love that humbled Himself by giving up everything to come down and be near, a love that died to be with me. A love that lived, and died; vulnerable, broken, rejected, suffering, and exposed. A love rose again and lives today.

He thought I was worth it, and He is right because I am.

You are worth it.

Did you see that? Can you see? A baby cries in the night; God appearing in human form, helping the soul find its worth. The child cries, “you are worth it.“

The child grows up and becomes a man, the man is beaten, bruised, bloody. He hangs on a tree and again he cries out, “you are worth it.“

You are always worth it. Love says so. If you would only listen.

This is long. This is honest. This is not going to be another draft. Because I am not bound by fear. I have something to say and I think you should hear it, because I don’t know where you are, where you’ve been, or where you’re going. But that hardly matters because regardless of what you may think of yourself the truth remains the truth, and it is something I have only recently come to realize for myself:

You are worth it. You are lovely. You are loved. And you are not alone.

That will always be relevant because it will always be true. You are worth it. Don’t let fear tell you otherwise.

 

Coming home is such a curious thing.

Nothing feels quite the same.

The buildings, the streets, the restaurants, they’re familiar and they’re safe in their own perfect way, but it hardly feels like home.
There’s this old cliched saying about how home is where your heart is, and maybe Jon Foreman was right when he sang about not belonging in a world “full of a bitter pain and bitter doubt”; maybe C.S. Lewis was right when he said that when we find in ourselves a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, that perhaps it’s because we were created for another world.

That may be true and all, but it is such a strange thing. It makes me wonder if I know where my heart is. If I know where I fit. It makes me wonder if a person ever knows such things for certain, or if that’s just one of those things you take “by faith”; that you fit, that you belong somewhere.

People are growing up, moving on, and creating new homes. My closest friends are scattered; in places like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia, Illinois, Tennessee, and Washington state. My heart is all over the place and I can’t seem to keep it together anymore. It sort of makes me wonder why I ever tried so hard to keep it in place at all. These heartstrings are loose and coming undone, and I can never find a word to express it anymore.

There is no resolution in the pit of my soul like there usually is. I missed my family dearly over Thanksgiving, and now I am home with them and missing my boyfriend…missing my friends. Missing the one place I never thought I’d find myself: A Christian College in the South. I miss it. But I don’t want to leave this place that I’m at.

I’m torn.
Home isn’t home because everything changes. I’ve changed.

But that’s okay. I am working on making this big, gaping hole on my chest a place of rest. There’s only one person that can make it feel safe, that can make it home.

So won’t you come?
Make my heart your home,
So I won’t have to roam,
Don’t leave me stranded here.
I need you close to me,
So I can finally breathe,
I’m begging you to come,
And tell me I belong,
In your everlasting arms.
Oh, home.

 

Growth

I just read through an old journal that I started when I was thirteen, it wasn’t a consistent journal because I only wrote in it about five times a year, but it was still such a colorful reflection of my teenage years. I wept so hard so I read the pages. I am almost twenty, so it will have been seven years of teenage-years recorded in that one journal, and the way I thought about myself was so heartbreaking. The pages were filled with confessions about how I didn’t feel significant, how I was bad at being a friend, how I had nothing to offer, how my dreams were out of reach, how I didn’t feel beautiful or deserving of love, and how I wished desperately that I was not myself.

I am sad that it has taken me this long to find truth and that all those thougths and feelings were completely opposite to what is true about me.

I’m significant

I’m a great friend.

I have so much to offer.

My dreams are possible and I have what it takes to achieve them.

I am incredibly, and stunningly beautiful!

I am so deserving and so valuable.

I love who God made me and I am glad to have the freedom to be myself.

These revelations of truth reflect the level of growth I’ve undergone in the last three semesters since I’ve been in Atlanta. By one means or another, God has been taking me through a process and I finally see that He has been longing to have me as I am all this time. I was just too loud before, I was too angry before. I wouldn’t listen. So he had to quiet me in His love, and I often became so frustrated. I called it my “wilderness” because I felt like I had no words; but it was just God showing me pictures – leaving me speechless. I desire to see others grab hold of the truth that God is love, love is real, and we are made to know love, have love, and give love. Love is not what we think it is. It is powerful and raw, and should we find it for what it truly is, we will find ourselves changed in light of it. I want to see people set free – free to be themselves.

It is 4 in the morning. I am done with my third semester of school and finally have free time and I don’t know what to do with it. So I read old journals and weep and then feel so thankful that seven years were not wasted, because even then, God was holding me together; broken as I was. He holds me even now, and I cling to him in response – I trust him in response.

I have no time to regret a single, broken thing. I have love. I have all I need.

Thankfulness and full of thanks.

Thanksgiving is in a few short days and I am sitting on the floor of my dormity, music blasting, clothes everywhere waiting to be packed, and a heart full of thanks longing to be expressed. This will be the first Thanksgiving I spend apart form my family and in truth, it hardly feels like Thanksgiving because of it. There are “major holidays” as my Dad has always pointed out in which Family ought to be together. The two obvious ones that he stressed were Christmas and Thanksgiving, and at one point New Years but he’s eased up on that Holiday a little. Last year I was to spend Thanksgiving in Ohio with my Ex-Boyfriend, but I broke up with him a few days prior to the Holiday and my Dad flew me home short-notice because it wasn’t right that I should spent the Holiday’s apart form Family, he said.

This year, I know without a doubt that my Family would give anything to have me home. I know that if they could, they’d have bought another flight for me and that right now, instead of sitting on the floor of my dormitory I’d be boarding a plane to my beloved Garden State. It doesn’t really feel like Thanksgiving for me at all. We don’t have any special traditions except to spend the Holidays together. And right now, I miss my sweet siblings and dear parents more than I can adequately find words to express.

Yet, despite all this, I have hope and I am beyond blessed. I cannot count how many times I’ve been offered a home and a table to spend the Holidays at. In fact, I get questioned and offered almost daily regarding where I will be spending my break. I’m overwhelmed by the show of love people have been exemplifying towards me. I am spending the Thanksgiving Holiday with my boyfriend and his amazing family, and I feel incredibly humbled and loved.

Balance, or thoughts on friendship.

It’s almost 10:00 in the morning, and I have been in and out of sleep throughout the night. This is a direct result of my trying to finish a ten page research paper that I just wasn’t satisfied with, regardless of my endless tweaking. School is important to me, or rather, good grades are important to me. I know the importance of education, but honestly, with my life sitll on the deciding line, I don’t always place direct value on the degree I’m attempting to earn (Humanities/Biblical Studies) but I do care when I get a B – it’s simply not good enough. It’s supposed to say something like, “good”, but to me it says, “you could have done better.”

I don’t think it’s wrong to try and to my best, and in essence, not to try my best would be to deny myself of my very personality: I’m a lot of a perfectionist.

I wonder though, whether I place more emphasis and value on temporal things like a mid-term grade or GPA, than on friendships and relationships. Putting my focus on school is for me, an easy thing to do. It’s either a hit or miss, I either pass or I don’t. Friendships….relationships…not so much. Being a friend goes far beyond being “nice” to someone; it goes far beyond talking to someone, it requires that one be intentional and open; to be vulnerable and exposed, and to be willing to sacrifice time, money, and energy into keeping it alive. That’s a lot of work for something that isn’t guaranteed to last a lifetime.

My mother used to always tell me that friendship was like gold, and as a semi-awkward child, I always felt poor when I looked around to observe my peers interacting with one another, and realizing that I had no one with whom to do the same. Facebook tells me I have 650 friends, but in truth, that’s a lot of people to be tied to. There is no way I could physically, emotionally, or mentally handle that many friends.

I feel like the word “friend” is overused. A friend, according to the dictionary on my macbook, means a “person whom one knows and with whom one has a mutual bond of affection.” I don’t have this with very many people, because it does require a lot of energy and time.

With that being said, I have exceptional friends. Friends I would literally do anything for. But do you ever get that feeling in your chest that you want to “be friends” with certain people? It’s odd. It’s like you just feel a natural pull to them, see something of value in them, and feel that it would be a beautiful friendship. There are two specific people I have in mind as I write this to whom I can point to and say, “I’d love to be their friend”, and I’m not so sure how to “make” that happen. Perhaps friendship isn’t something you necessarily force, but rather something that comes sweetly – but not without intention and effort.

I started writing this blog about balance I wanted to say that I’m having a hard time finding balance between school and relatinoships, but I think as a result of writing I’ve realized that all the complaining in the world won’t bring me any solutions. I must be intentional. I must take responsibility for my actions and inactions. I must have confidence: knowing I am a daughter of the king, I am valuable and worthy of affection. I must be willing to be open: broken, bleeding, and bruised – this is what it looks like to open yourself to love.

And whatever the price, I must know love: true and authentic and alive.