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This Too Shall Pass

May22

girl_on_stairs

I’ve been struggling a bit over the last couple of weeks. For the most part, I’ve kept this completely to myself. I tend to share the good things going on in my life and hide the not so good things. Last week when it was my turn to post on Being Rebekah, I just posted a simple prayer because I wasn’t ready to let the blogging community know about my struggle. Indeed, I’m still not ready.

But as things have a way of doing; my struggle has come to the light. I whispered a text to a friend to let her in. God Himself whispered a word of knowledge to several others. I’ve alluded to these struggles before on such posts as: Confident in His Love, Disquieted, and When Sadness Creeps in.

The amazing thing is that since things have come out into the open, God has rallied a wonderful support team around me. They have offered godly counsel, a shoulder to cry on, prayer and have even fasted for me. I am truly blessed. And yet, I’m still struggling. I feel incredibly guilty about that.

They give me good advice: you need to worship through it, you need to praise through it, you need to choose God, you must choose to hold on Him, don’t try to overcome by your own strength; you need to rely on Jesus etc. etc. It’s all wonderful advice, it truly is. But what I hear is: You’re screwing it up, you’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it wrong. The problem is not with the advice, the problem is with me.

They are all working so hard to support me with love, prayers, and fasting that I feel pressured to report that things are magically all better. I feel if I admit that I’m still struggling that I’m letting them down. I’m failing despite everyone’s best efforts. I owe them better and I owe God better.

I don’t know what the solution is. I’m not writing with my grand spiritual revelation on how I got beyond my struggle with the help of the Lord. I have no idea how to get beyond it and this blog post is simply my attempt at not sugar coating it the way that I’m tempted to do. Here’s what I do know: through Jesus, this too shall pass.

In His Love,

Rebekah L

Ambassadors for Christ

Apr19

ambassadors

This week has been a tough week for the United States. Between the bombing in Boston and the explosion in Texas, many people in this country are grieving and recovering from tragedy. For those of us in New England, the tragedy is still unfolding.

Personally, I know several people who were running in the marathon this past Monday, several more who were near the finish line cheering on the racers, plus I have friends and a couple of relatives that live within blocks of where the bombings occurred. Today, most of Boston and many of the surrounding communities were in lock-down. Although my place of work was open, many of the businesses around us were not. Several of our employees could not come in to work because they live in the lock down zone and were ordered to stay in their homes. Others could not come in because the entire MBTA (our public transportation system) was shut down. Even the taxi services weren’t running for a large part of the day. Although I live a bit outside of the area that is on lock down, I must have seen close to thirty police cars on my way to work. A co-worker sent me a picture of a soldier patrolling the street right outside her window. It is the type of thing that one might expect to see in a war zone, but not in our own backyards.

Yet in all of this, heroism and selflessness abound. It is important to remember that the love of God continues to flow in calamity. He continues to reach out through the hands and feet of countless ordinary citizens; volunteers, donators, EMTs, first responders, nurses, physicians, surgeons, and law enforcement. For every psychopath or terrorist, there are hundreds of compassionate hearts that are moved to action. We have all read the stories of every day citizens who came together to offer food, blankets or a hug to someone lost in their grief. We’ve seen the pictures of untrained hands pinching off the femoral artery to keep a victim from bleeding out. Perhaps we saw the list online of the thousands of people who offered their homes and a hot meal to those displaced in the tragedy. And let us not forget the police officers who ran towards the location of the blast (not knowing if there were more bombs that would go off), while everyone around them ran away. Or what about the doctor who was exhausted from having run and finished the 26.2 mile race? After the bombs went off he immediately ran to Mass General Hospital and within 90 seconds of arriving was scrubbed in to surgery. 48 hours later, that surgeon was still performing surgeries for the victims of the marathon. He was in surgery almost non-stop for over 48 hours after he had just run a marathon! There are heroes among us. Real people, living real lives. Tired, hurting, fallible people, who go beyond their normal physical and emotional limitations to reach out to those around them.

Those acts of heroism do not negate the grief or right the wrong, but they are reminders of love and humanity. Reminders we desperately need at times like this. When we grieve, God grieves with us. I believe He feels the pain that we feel. When we are hurting, He hurts with us. When Jesus walked the earth, He was filled with compassion and time and time again, He reached out to touch the sick and hurting. He brought restoration to people.

As believers, it is our job to represent Jesus on this earth. The enemy wants us to be immobilized by fear, but God wants us to be mobilized to serve!

People can serve without knowing Christ, but can we truly know Christ without serving? If we claim to know Him, we should be on the front lines of service. When horror strikes close to home, it is then that our friends and neighbors need us the most. I want to encourage all of us to serve one another in humility and love. Reach out to the hurting, donate to the destitute, offer a couch to the displaced, pray for the grieving. Be His hands and His feet and His mouth and His listening ear.

Be an ambassador for Christ.

In His Love,

Rebekah L

Identity in Christ

Mar5

Definition of Identity:

1) The fact of being who or what a person or thing is.Fingerprint

2) A close similarity or affinity.

I have spent the last few years on a journey of discovering who I am. It started with uncovering a family secret in 2009 that the man who raised me may not actually be my biological father. Worse than this discovery was finding out that the man suspected of being my father was the person in my life who had wounded me more deeply than any other human being on this earth. Emotionally this put me in a tailspin. As a result I started down a path to try to gain a sense of identity. In the last few months I have done extensive research on my family tree and a few days ago received the results of a DNA test to help answer some of these questions. The outcome of this test gave me more questions than answers.

The results of this test were not exactly what I wanted. In talking about it with my godfather he said that sometimes it’s better not to know. He is right, but it’s in our human nature to want to understand where we come from and why things happened the way they did. But I thank God that He has given me peace in this situation. The Lord has held me through every fear and comforted me through my tears. He is my true Father!

I Praise the Lord for His revelation to me that my identity does not lie in bloodlines and broken promises, my identity rests in Jesus Christ! 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Where I come from is not important, it’s where I am going!

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).

When we are baptized in Jesus Name, we take on His name! We enter into a relationship with Him and from then on we get to use the family name. What a privilege it is to be able to call ourselves Christians! He is our perfect father. He takes care of us, provides our needs, He helps us to grow and even disciplines as we need it because of His enduring love. When we receive His spirit we are freed from the bondage of the enemy and we receive the “spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15).

“Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

I want to be so wraAbba, father, daddypped up in God that it is obvious to everyone that I meet that I belong to Him! I want people to know that I am His child. I want my identity to rest firmly in Him! I want to encourage all of our readers to embrace your Christian identity. There is nothing greater than the salvation He offers us, but beyond that we have received something so special from God; we have received the right to call him Daddy!

In His Love,

Rebekah L.

Being Christian – Loving God, Loving People

Feb19

phil-1-6-amplifiedI have a bit of a confession to make: I have no idea how to be a Christian. I mean, it seems simple enough; believe Jesus. But that’s really just the beginning. That’s what it takes to wear the label, but how we actually live out our Christianity from day to day isn’t so easy.

The Bible is full of wisdom and instruction on the subject and though I’ve committed to live by its principles I still find myself floundering at times. I wonder if I’ll ever get it right. And therein lies the problem. I’m entirely too self-focused. It’s not about me perfecting the rules and regulations, it’s about letting God transform me from the inside out. It’s really His work. I just have to be willing to lay my old man down and allow Him to create me anew.

When it comes down to it, being a Christian is really about loving God and loving people. It’s not about looking inward; it’s looking up to God and out to the people. We’re servants. We’re here to serve God and to honor God by serving others.

Jesus said unto him, Thou Love God Love Peopleshalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. –Matthew 22:37-39

When we really love God we are willing to decrease so that He can increase (John 3:30). We will strive to do what He asks of us (John 14:15). When we really love God we will love people (John 13:35). When we really love people, we will have a burden to reach them for the Lord! This is true Christianity.

Lord, help me to love you better. Help me to love your people better. Help me to believe you for every area of my Christian walk. Teach me how to follow after you with everything I have. Guide me on the path and show me how to be a true Christian. I struggle with how to best to represent you. I don’t know how to do the things I know I should do, but you are a merciful patient teacher, and I thank you for that. Thank you for your unending love.

In His Love,

Rebekah L.

Prayer Monday: Your Amazing Ways

Feb18

Jesus,texting

Thank You for Your amazing ways! I should have trusted Your urging last night at church, but I thank You that You continued to give me the same message until I finally texted the pastor’s wife out here tonight and this was the conversation that I’m sharing with the readers so that they know how amazing You are:

Me: So I should have said this at church, esp since I got this BEFORE you told me anything, but I felt God wanted me to relay to you: “Have no fear. I have taught your hands to war. Always remember your greatest weapons are My love and your praise. Never forget you have a way of escape (I Cor 10:13).” 
Pastor’s wife: thank you so much …I was praying at church tonight..Lord strengthen my hands to do your work
Me: wow… that’s definitely God!!!!!
Pastor’s wife: amen! 🙂

This pastor’s wife has been going through someone at the church personally attacking her and her family (mainly her) for years now and the truth only came out recently.

radioLord, I had no way of knowing that’s what she was praying since she didn’t say the words out loud… You are amazing! Thank You that even the wording was perfectly on target. Thank You for helping me tune in once again to be an encouragement. Thank You that You are good! The most amazing part was I found out this was all an extension of when You called me and my prayer partner to pray for her back in November which inspired me to write my post Tuning In.

Thank You Jesus. Thank You that You allowed me the privilege to tune in to You once again and find that I can be a blessing.  It truly is a blessing to be a blessing!!!!

Thank You Jesus for Your amazing ways!

Rebekah M.

After reading StephenWhoElse’s comment, I realized that others might have similar stories of their own… if you do, please share by commenting below!!! 🙂    ~Rebekah M. 

Ashes to Ashes

Feb13

Growing up in a Catholic family, Lent was always a fairly important part of the year. My siblings and I would have a competition every year to see who would get the darkest ashes on their forehead on Ash Wednesday or the biggest palm on palm Sunday. We would talk for days about what we were giving up. And once we declared our official Lent sacrifices, you can bet we policed each other mercilessly to uphold them. Very spiritual of us, I know.

As my walk with God has evolved over the past few years and expanded beyond Catholicism, I don’t focus on Lent quite so much. I have fast days throughout the year and I check in with God frequently about things I need to give up. Personally, I feel that type of spiritual growth should be ongoing rather than squished into 40 days.

These days, I no longer go to Catholic masses, but instead attend a non-denominational Church. Yet every year on Ash Wednesday, I still seek out a Catholic mass to pray, reflect, and get my ashes. I like the reminder that without my Creator, I am naught but dust. If not for my Savior, I would end up as mere dust again. I like the reminder that my worth was given to me by Jesus and not myself. I think it is mind-boggling and so humbling what Jesus endured – the magnitude of that, the amount of love and compassion behind it, is staggering to me. I could worship 24/7 for the rest of my life and still not give enough thanks for that. And for me, Ash Wednesday mass still encompasses all of these things in one. And so I go.

This year was no exception, but it was a bit different. I missed the afternoon mass because I was helping out my roommate’s aide (who is still in agony and unable to move around much after being hit by a city bus a week ago). The evening mass I attended instead happened to be bilingual – English and Spanish. It was interesting the way the cultures melded together. Sometimes we would sing songs in English to a tune traditionally heard in Spanish mass, or we would switch off line by line. There were two priests, and they took turns speaking in English and Spanish. But when it came time to pray, no switching was necessary. Hands joined and voices lifted to the sky. Spanish and English alike joined together. The languages were different, but the words were the same as we prayed together to our Father. And in that moment, when we forgot about whose turn it was or what the Spanish-speaking priest was doing vs the English-speaking one, when all focus shifted to Jesus Christ our Lord, I could feel His presence so strongly. It was truly amazing. My spirit was definitely stirred.

I have always had an appreciation for the season of Lent (even if I don’t adhere to the schedule as strictly as I once did), but today opened my eyes to an even deeper meaning of who God is, and how deeply the Holy Spirit resides within us. It doesn’t matter what language we speak or culture we’re from – God is so much bigger than that. Life isn’t bound by language or location. And though those things can divide us, together we are brothers and sisters under Christ. We are sons and daughters together. Without Him, our voices would be solitary and insignifcant. Without Him we would have been a room full of dust. But because He sacrificed for us, because He gave the precious gift of Life, our voices rang strong enough to resonate through the whole building.

Jesus, I praise You for who You are and what You did for me. I love You more than words can say.

God bless!

~Rebekah A

A Faithless Spouse

Feb9

I’ve been reading Ezekiel lately and one chapter has been jumping out at me for a couple of days now. It’s Ezekiel 16, about the faithless spouse. In this chapter, God speaks about a baby girl who was completely abandoned and left to die. He saved her, took care of her, raised her and when she was older He lavished her with beauty and gifts. Instead of being grateful for the gifts and using them to serve her Creator, she flaunted them – and herself. She used these things to get attention and whore herself. The chapter is an analogy about Israel’s behavior towards the Lord and His word, but I can’t help but feel that it’s relevant in the church today. Especially the western church.

I feel like we are blessed with so many gifts. We’re given daily little miracles pertaining to our personal lives. As a body, we’re given discernment, wisdom, prophecy, the Holy Spirit, revelations, teachings, visions, prayer language, and so much more. We’re given an identity. We’re given a destiny. We’re given an inheritance. So many gifts that we don’t even think about as gifts – most people just think they’re part of Church.

But gifts they are. Precious jewels and jewelry, bestowed upon us by the One who outshines anything this earth could produce.

And yet….too often we cloud our visions and prophecies with our own desires. Too often we scratch our gemstones with our fear and failure to move at God’s command, and we tarnish our gold and silver bracelets with our own agendas. Yes, we may still have some semblance of good. We may still go through the motions. But even if we’re giving generously, if it’s the tarnished and damaged version that we’re giving, it’s not nearly as good .

I don’t want to be a faithless spouse. I don’t want to waste these precious gives. And when I share what I have with others, I want to share my gems with all the brilliance they were created with. I don’t want to share sub-par gifts, dulled and tainted with my own weakness. I don’t want the rest of the church to do so either.

And so today I ask God to search my heart and to guide me as I pray for my own gifts to be restored to their initial flawless state – and for the discipline and obedience required to keep them that way. I ask for guidance in praying the same over the rest of the body. The polishing process isn’t always an easy or a gentle one but the end result is well worth it.

God bless!

~Rebekah A

Just Show Up

Jan11

“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever.” ~Psalm 30:11-12

cross-rejoice

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” ~ 1 John 4:18

Well, God has done it again. I’ve posted earlier this week about needing to regain my focus. And about shame – how the farther you slide, the more tempting it is to hide your face from Christ who is so perfect and righteous.

And God has been doing a work in my heart today, telling me yet again how much He just desires us. He doesn’t desire the ideal of us, the ‘us’ that we’re supposed to be – flawless and righteous all the time. He desires us as we are; no matter how tainted, soiled, dirty we are, we are beautiful in the eyes of God. He knows our hearts and our struggles and our shortcomings even better than we do; He desires us anyway.

The Bible is very clear about being called to be holy and to live a righteous life and to not sin. And those directives are not to be discounted. We are indeed given the tools to be perfect, and we’re told to be. And we try to be. And that is great. That’s how it should be, in fact.

But for those times when that’s not how it is, when we are very much less than perfect and righteous and when we have in fact sinned, do we then hide our faces, knowing that we were told to behave a certain way and failed to do so? No we don’t. Because the punishment will never outweigh the love. And I’m pretty sure that our idea of ‘punishment’ is a worldly definition anyway, not necessarily a spiritual one. God isn’t about judgement and punishment. He is about growing us, and He’s patient with us until we get there. 2 Peter 3:9 even tells us, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentence.”  Because when you think about it, it’s not about following the rules. It’s about desiring Him so deeply and being so attuned and led by the Holy Spirit within that our desires are the same as His. It’s about getting our hearts to the place where we love what He loves and detest what He detests and desire what He desires. Getting to the place where things we’d call ‘sin’ aren’t even appealing to us anymore. It takes a lot of growing and a lot of shedding of oneself to get there.

So my prayer partner and I today laid our fear and burdens down, and sought Him together. We knew we might be in a little bit of trouble for losing perspective, but we needed Him. Hiding isn’t particularly helpful, by the way; if we muck up enough to lose focus in the first place, and that is with God’s guidance, we are most certainly going to muck up everything we try to do without Him. And so it was. And truth be told, we missed Him. So we chatted for a bit, bolstered each other, broke down a wall or two of self-denial and self-justification, and then we prayed. We sought God. We waited on Him. We worshiped Him. We loved Him, and we let Him love us again. 

And what I found was not judgement or wrath, but rather a “I’ve missed you and I’ve had so much to tell you and I’m so glad you’re here”. As we were praying, both of us well aware of certain mistakes we’ve been making in our lives and simultaneously praying for others who we think needed it, something cool happened. I was praying over one of her friends, and instead of hearing her own friend’s name, she heard my friend Scott’s name. Scott has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and recently came home after a scary period of time in the hospital.  Anyway, she corrected me. And I said, “what? I didn’t say Scott.” “You definitely did because I definitely heard his name.” “Nope definitely not, Scott’s doing fine and I haven’t really been thinking of him during this prayer time.” SO, rather than figure out whether I misspoke or she misheard, we decided that Scott had been thoroughly inserted into our conversation and so it was best to pray for him too. So we did. And it got a little bit intercessory. It was a little odd, but this certainly isn’t the first time this has happened to us, so we went with it and prayed for Scott. Hard. Then, about an hour later, my roommate (Scott’s best friend of 30 years) came home from work and said, “I have an update on Scott. He’s not doing well.”

So, we were called to pray without even knowing why. And this, my friends, is the God we serve. Not a God who seeks to punish for punishment’s sake, but a God who seeks to spiritually grow us. Sometimes that involves consequences; sometimes it involves mercy. Either way, we are never tarnished enough to dull His desire for us. His love is pure and His plan perfect. This time around, God sent us a very clear message: We don’t always have to be cleansed to come before Him; we don’t have to be perfect vessels to show up in His presence and be used. We just have to show up.

God bless!

~Rebekah A

A Few Fateful Moments

Dec7

Doomed

Lately, most of the things that bring me to tears are happy things – call me sappy, but I tear up with tears of joy and awe when I hear of some of the ways God moves. Several days ago, that trend shifted.

Several days ago, a homeless man named Naeem Davis was standing on a subway platform, harassing passersby. Another man, named Ki Suk Han, attempted to calm him down. For his trouble, Davis pushed him onto the tracks of the subway. With lights of an oncoming train beginning to appear in the distance, he struggled frantically back to the platform. However, dazed and injured, he was unable to pull himself out. The train struck him, and in one split second a life – the life of a man who had called two different countries home (first Korea, then for the past 20+ years, the US) and the life of a father – was effectively over. In that last moment, all he could do was watch the inevitable. You are looking at it too. In this picture, a woman is about to lose her husband and a 20-yr-old girl named Ashley is about to lose her father.

There was no help for this man. There were onlookers. And there is a photograph. But no help. I don’t blame the photographer for taking a picture – I am actually happy that he did, because his hope was that his camera flash would signal the conductor to stop the train early. His assumption was that while he was trying to signal the train, the other observers – those closer to Han – would be helping him up. Yet, in this photo, you can see that everyone has backed away. There were onlookers and there is a photograph. But there was no help for this man.

While I don’t blame the photographer, I do have a problem with the fact that there was time to get 3-4 pictures taken before the train was struck, with a professional camera (so there’s a delay between shots), and that during that time, with all the onlookers, not one stepped forward. There were certainly enough people to at least try. But nobody did. Had he been less rattled from the fall, would he have been able to jump a little higher, pull a little stronger, and survive? Had one person grabbed his hand – just one person reached out to him – would it have been the boost he needed to reach safety?

These are questions we’ll never know answers to. In the moments following, a 2nd-year med school resident tried to resuscitate Han to no avail. People, suddenly materializing again after their noted absence when it counted, took pictures and videos with their cell phones. Han remained unresponsive. God wept. The devil danced.

Later, though, God prevailed again. 20-yr-old Ashley, in shock mourning her father, showed an immeasurable amount of grace towards everybody on that platform. She forgave them. Her father was essentially killed by lack of response from others, and she forgave them. That is saying something – when my roommate and I were out and about a few months ago, we were pickpocketed. The two of us – a man in a wheelchair and a woman – were in a diner full of other grown men and not a single one stopped to help us. It was almost a violated feeling, to be honest – everyone looking and nobody helping. I remember how shocked I was and momentarily angry that nobody came to our aide, and that was a simple matter of bus fare. To lose the life of a family member and be forgiving? I don’t know where this girl is at spiritually, but God was definitely in her that day because that level of grace blows mine right out of the water.

I pray over this situation. I pray for Han’s family as they face the inevitable grief and anger that will come as the shock wears off. I pray for surely-traumatized onlookers. I pray for the doctor – and the photographer – who tried to help in what limited capacities they could. I pray for Davis, now in jail, as he lives with a murder on his hands. There doesn’t seem a way that God can move in this situation. But our God is the God of salvation – of impossible, miraculous things. If God is anything, He is love. And He is able. And today I put my trust in that and pray that He moves in each and every person involved in this incident. Even though there was no miracle witnessed, I pray that they would realize who God is. I pray they would come to embrace their own salvation and realize that God is stronger than even this. I praise Him that He is.

God bless and please join me in prayer over everyone involved in this tragedy.

~Rebekah A

He Qualifies the Called

Dec5

“For the spirit of God does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.” ~ 2 Timothy 1:7

“But He said to me, ‘my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9

HeQualifiesTheCalled

I have been feeling a sense of urgency lately to move for God, and to step into the purpose He has for me. I don’t have a super clear picture of what that purpose is, but I know I’m supposed to move towards it. The more I talk to people, the more I see that this sense of urgency is prevalent across the board. We’re in a time to solidify our steps, and match our walk a little closer with our Father’s.

Equally prevalent, though, is an accompanying sense of fear to go along with the push to move. We feel the urge to step out; then just as quickly, we talk ourselves out of it. We convince ourselves that we aren’t ready, that we don’t have the right skills for this, that we haven’t done all the prerequisites. So we wait to move, ‘until the time is right’ or ‘until we’re ready’.

I can’t and won’t presume to know when the time is right for anything. That’s in God’s hands. But I know what happened when Moses didn’t feel that he was capable of leading the people of Israel out of Egypt, and what happened was that God made him capable. Moses wasn’t a great speaker, but was called to speak. Because God called him to speak, God gave him the words to say and God gave him the fluency to deliver his speeches without a single stutter. God qualified him to meet his calling.

God qualifies all of us. Our own limitations don’t matter, because we don’t act on our own merit. It’s not by our skills, our talents, our achievements, and our strengths that we make things happen. It’s by God’s grace. And it’s in our weakness that we learn to be fully dependent on that grace and to accept it. So embrace your weakness, and step out anyway – God will provide everything you need. God qualifies us sufficiently to do the task He calls us to do. That sense of fear is merely a trick of the enemy, trying to thwart God’s plan. And we mustn’t give in to it. Because when it comes down to it, really all we have to do is show up. Go where God says to. Follow the path, and let God take care of what happens. It’s His calling for us, so it’s on Him to equip us. And He will. All we have to do is show up to let Him.

If any of you are struggling with stepping out in faith or in walking the next steps of your path, let me know at being.rebekah.a@gmail.com and I will pray for you.

God bless!

~Rebekah A