Life Update: Fall 2020

Hello lovelies!

    It has been a long while since I've posted anything here. My life has been like a whirlwind! This summer I started graduate school working towards my masters degree in deaf education. Learning through college has been a fairly enjoyable experience for me. I love learning as well as the college environment as a whole. Everything is completely different this semester. 

    The fact that we are currently experiencing a world wide pandemic is not helping my want for normalcy. Aside from that, graduate school is a new experience for me. Sometimes I feel more is expected from me than I can give. I have been working as an intern at a school throughout the week and taking graduate courses on Friday. It is a lot of work. Nonetheless, I love it. 

     I started in a primary school placement. It was incredible. The teacher I was working with was similar to me in many ways. We had an online classroom with 19 of the sweetest little second graders. Teaching children online was a strange and new experience for us all. Thankfully we collaborated with four other online second grade teachers who were in the same position as us. They all became my friends by the end of my time there. I miss them dearly. 

    I am currently working in a high school in the Special Education department. My mentor is an algebra co-teacher as well as one of the football coaches. The first couple of weeks were a really difficult transition. High school is far out of my comfort zone to begin with, and on top of that I am teaching algebra. I didn't even finish algebra in high school! Even so, God is good, and I am working with some amazing teachers. I only have two weeks left at this school. At one point I was counting down the days until I got out of here, but I really think I am going to miss this place. 

   I talked to my recruiter from Pioneer Bible Translators yesterday. I was supposed to intern with them this past summer before the worst of the COVID trauma hit. Through the loving support of my ministry partners, and the gracious power of the Lord, I was fully funded before the summer hit. All this to say, I will be able to proceed with that internship in Summer 2021. I praise the Lord for keeping that opportunity open to me. I am psyched, to say the least. 

  If you happened to make it through this post, thank you. Thank you for listening to my heart and caring to know what my crazy life looks like. 

  I love you dearly, 

The One and Onliest Bek 

Simple Joys- A Poem

Adventures in average places

Bumpy backseat bus rides

Chasing fireflies 

Drawing mindless doodles

Early morning bird songs

Fireflies 

Green grass

Healing hugs

I love yous 

Jumbled journal notes

Kiddish curiosity 

Laughing at lame jokes

Making masterpieces 

Natural lighting 

Opening overtures

Peeling a clementine perfectly 

Quiet companionship 

Running through rain puddles

Standing in the sunshine

Talking to friends 

Umbrella sharing 

Veracious vulnerability 

Waking up under warm blankets

Xanthopetals 

Youthful teasing

Zestful rhythms

An Open Letter to my Honorary Moms

Dear Honorary Mom,

Thank you for everything you've done and continue to do for me. 

Thank you for giving me a place to go to escape life for a while. Putting up with my millions of Webkinz must have been difficult, but it was probably worse if I lugged my bin full of Littlest Pet Shop figurines to your house. If you weren't willing to help me load them into the back of the car to go home, I would not have made it on my own. 

Thank you for mentoring me in things that interest me (and some things that don't). My mom has always been very supportive, but sometimes having an outside encourager makes a big impact. There was never any perceived obligation for you say you were proud of me. Yet you still did. There were times that knowing you truly believed in me kept me afloat. 

Thank you for reinforcing things my mom said. Even though she has almost always been right, sometimes it was easier to listen to you than her... You know how that goes.

Thank you for feeding me countless meals for nothing in return. Thank you for coaching me through my anxiety, even when I didn't know that's what it was. Thank you for including me in family functions. 

I want you to know that pieces of you went into making me who I am today. I treasure those pieces of myself. You are so beautiful and so generous. You have no idea how it has impacted my life to know that you love me as your own. I love you too. 

Sincerely, 

Your honorary daughter 

Shalom, Shalom

I think we can all agree that there is a lot going on in the world around us. Right now that looks like a national state of emergency, fear of sickness, and not enough toilet paper. You can feel the tension in the air. Even when we aren't all panicking about the same thing, there is some sort of drama or anxiety going around. If you are anything like me, you might think about the scary things way too hard. There's got to be some sort of solution right? And there might be, but often there's not.

Isaiah prophesied to the Israelites that they would be conquered and go into exile... again. Shortly following that in scripture, he prophesied the destruction of the Earth. But even as they go through exile and anticipate the apocalypse, the people are still left with a message of hope.The Lord will make all things new, freeing his people from bondage once and for all.

Following the message of hope is a song of praise. Praising God for something that they have not seen yet, but something they know He is going to do. That song, Isaiah 26, contains a couple hope filled verses that continue to bring hope today.

The more we focus on the Lord the more often we are reminded how big He is. Even when the world is a whirlwind of panic, aggression, and fear the Lord is never changing. His plan is steadfast. He, the creator of everything from the tiny bugs to the loud thunder, loves us. He wants us to trust that He has everything under control. And when we do, we will have peace.

"Perfect peace" was translated from "Shalom, shalom" repeated to communicate the intensity of the meaning. We're talking Peace so big that we cannot understand it. Peace so big, it doesn't make sense in our circumstances.

When we find ourselves in less than ideal situations, it can be easy to get consumed by our worries. We cannot forget to look to the Lord. He is the only thing that never changes, an He wants us to trust Him. "You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock." (Isaiah 26:3-4)

Life, Ecclesiastes, and Psalm 127

I am finally getting back into the swing of things at school. I have a big class load with more reading than I could ever dream of completing in full. Practicum work at the local Deaf school should start within the next couple of weeks where I will get to co-teach with the art instructor. I am super pumped, to say the least. College ministry at the Christian Student Fellowship has started back up, and God has already done so much in the last few weeks.

Last week a received official acceptance as an intern with the Deaf group at Pioneer Bible Translators. While I am not sure all that this will entail, I do know that I will be staying stateside. Once my travel expenses are estimated, I will have a solid diving board for jumping into support raising. I am excited for this because it is completely out of my comfort zone. It will be a fantastic opportunity to learn to trust God better and see Him move through the body of the Church.

He has been teaching me so much about trust and focus lately. As I read through Ecclesiastes with a friend, the Lord is teaching me to stay focused. The commentary in my study Bible on Ecclesiastes chapter two said, "Some of the things Solomon sought were wrong and some were worthy but even the worthy pursuits were futile when he pursued them as an end in themselves." That hits me hard as I walk through a part of my life where my people pleasing habits are impossible to keep. For a long time, making people happy was my security and even my identity. Placing my identity in that is, as it's said in Ecclesiastes 2:14, "a futile grasping and chasing after the wind." Unless I do what I do with an eternal perspective, it is ultimately worth very little. This reminds me of my favorite Bible verse in this chapter of my life, Psalm 127:1

"

Thanks for reading my notes on life and living. God is definitely shaping my heart, preparing me for whatever plans He has next. I want to leave you with one more tidbit from the Ecclesiastes commentary:

"In all our accomplishments, even the big ones, our good feelings are only temporary. Security and self worth are not found in these accomplishments, but far beyond them in the love of God."