Tag: faith

Bikinis, Weeds, and Surrender.

by Becca, posted in Christian Living

I’ve never possessed a green thumb. I don’t even like being outdoors unless I’m tanning (and there’s no bugs). However, this is the first summer I’ve been solely responsible for the yard work. Prior to this year, my former spouse and I would pay someone to come mow the lawn, pick up doggy doo, spray weeds, etc. My income alone doesn’t support that type of luxury. And that’s ok! For the most part, I seem to have been keeping on top of it. With the help of a wonderful neighbor who got my lawn mower working, I’ve been able to keep the lawn mowed, the doggy doo picked up, and I even figured out how to use the whipper snipper without being scared of it. Win!

But there’s one area of yardwork that I have not been able to keep on top of. Weeds. I paid someone to come and do some weed treatments to the front lawn this summer, which I don’t regret, but the back yard? *shudder*

I’ve been spending a lot of time on my back deck this summer and I’ve been watching them grow. Taller. Bigger. Deeper. Uglier. And I became overwhelmed by them. Apparently, glaring and scowling at weeds doesn’t make them go away. Although, I gave it a valiant effort.

No. Weeds don’t just go away. In fact, if they aren’t dealt with, they will only grow, and eventually, they will take over everything that was once beautiful.

Yesterday, I finally couldn’t stand the sight of the field of weeds that had grown all around the rock edges of my home and all throughout the gravel areas of my back yard. So, in my bikini (because…tanning), I donned my work gloves, grabbed a garbage can, and I set to work. Starting in one area, moving slowly, I pulled weeds. One. by. One. Ensuring the root came up with each one.

Throughout the hours I spent pulling weeds, I had a few thoughts running through my mind. I believe that the Lord used my weed pulling frustration to teach me some valuable lessons about the weeds that have sprouted in my own life. So here goes:

1. Weeds are ugly and they take over everything beautiful very quickly – if they aren’t dealt with. There have been numerous weeds that have grown in my life. Some of them have taken over other parts of my life. Parts that used to be beautiful. Like the part where I used to love Jesus more than anything else in this world. Doubt, hurt, fear, and lack of trust are weeds that have tried to destroy this part of me. This is just one small example.

2. The more you let weeds grow, they become bigger, thornier, and deeper-rooted. These weeds are more difficult to get rid of. They cause pain when you try to remove them. They want to hold on. The more I’ve chosen to ignore the promptings, reminders, and convictions of the Holy Spirit, the more certain sins have grown. Sins that I’ve become attached to. These sins are difficult to say no to. Even though they cause only pain in my life, they are also painful to uproot.

3. Weeds pop up easily. They don’t require a lot of water or sunshine. They’ll grow wherever they see an opportunity. If we truly want weeds gone, we can’t just wait until we see evidence of them. We have to do preventative maintenance as well. (*Ahem* Round-up *Ahem*) If I am not spending time with the Lord on a regular basis, spending time in His presence, reading His Word, it is easy to live the way that seems most natural to me. With selfish intention and ambition, focusing on what makes me feel good and happy…even if it is only for a moment. If we surround ourselves only with people who don’t share our faith, it’s easy to forget our faith. Regular maintenance is required if we want to keep weeds from growing in our lives. Perhaps a daily invitation is necessary; asking the Lord, as David did. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” – Psalm 139: 23-24

4. Removing weeds will be painful and it requires a certain posture. Rejecting sin, sin we hold on to, afraid to let it go, isn’t easy. There are reasons we cling to sin. It makes us feel better for a time. It helps us feel like we have a purpose in life. It makes us feel validated. It allows us to feel accepted by certain people. It’s part of our identity. The thing with sin though? It’s deceptive. So deceptive, that we struggle to say no to it. We might even think we have it under control. We can even trick ourselves into believing that we aren’t hurting anybody but ourselves. But in the end, all it really does, is grow. Taller. Bigger. Deeper. Uglier. Until…it eventually has spread and takes over the other beautiful things in our lives.

After a couple of hours of pulling weeds, I also couldn’t help but notice that it would be impossible to pull them out by their roots, without bending low. Whether it was in a squat, a full bow, or on my knees, I had to get low to the ground to do it. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that when we stop glaring at the weeds in our lives and choose to uproot them, we also must adopt a similar posture. Bowing low, kneeling. Surrendering. It will be impossible to uproot weeds of sin in our lives without first surrendering our will and wants to Jesus. When we bow down, we acknowledge that uprooting sin will be painful, but we also acknowledge His Lordship in our lives. And it might take some time to examine the weeds. It might take some time to get to the place where we can’t tolerate them anymore. It might take some time to recognize why we feel the need to cling to them so tightly. It might take some time to uproot them. But as I slowly stood back upright, stretching out and willing the muscles in my back to stop hurting, I surveyed the rocky areas around my home. And I smiled. It was hard work. But it was worth it. What once was beautiful, overcome by weeds, was made beautiful again. Also, Round-up has become my new best friend.

My God is all I need.

by Becca, posted in Changing Seasons, Christian Living, fear, trust, uncertainty

There will likely be a time in our Christian journeys when, like Jacob, we will wrestle with God all night long…But there must eventually come a dawn when we say, “Ok, God, You win…Not my will but Thine be done.” – Gary Thomas

There is a simple black and white canvas in a frame that hangs on my dining room wall that states: “Live with eternity in mind.” There is a Bible that sits in my basement beside my prayer chair. There is a playlist of worship music on my phone. There is a group of people I have memorized Scripture with. There is a women’s ministry that I used to write for. There have been convictional reminders to me in small ways, here and there. All of these things, over the past few months, I have ignored…or at the very least…distanced myself from. Someone mentioned to me awhile ago that I haven’t updated my blog lately. My response? “I write about a specific topic and theme. That theme has not been the theme of my life lately. I will not be hypocritical.”

A lot has happened in my life since last Fall, when I last wrote about my desire to trust Jesus in this crazy season. The short version: I stopped trusting.

Choosing to not trust Jesus wasn’t something I just woke up and decided to do one day. In fact, I remember very sleepless nights, agonizing over whether I really could and should trust Him anymore. After all, I had trusted Him. My whole life. And where did it get me? Divorced. Reduced from a full-time mom to a part-time one. Having to work three jobs to afford to live – even with alimony and child support. Alone.

I knew that in my marriage, I was lonely. I had accepted the fact that my marriage would never be what I hoped it could be. Healthy. Affectionate. Devoted. Loving. But I had made my vows and I was faithful to the end. It wasn’t until a few months after my marriage was over that I was offered something I didn’t even know I had longed for. Craved even. Affection. I’ve come to recognize that I have felt starved of physical affection for most of my adult life. I think, as a defense mechanism, I acted as one who didn’t want it, didn’t care for it. Because it’s easier to pretend we don’t care about something than to want it so desperately, and never receive it, isn’t it? So, when it was offered, I willingly accepted it.

It wasn’t an easy decision. I knew it meant distancing myself from God – because, in essence, it was disobedience. And it’s impossible to live contrary to God’s rules and still remain close to Him. So I distanced myself from Him in an effort to relieve the immense loneliness I came to understand I was feeling. And it worked…temporarily.

This decision didn’t just come from a place of loneliness though. It also came from a place of significant fear. Fear of remaining in this lonely existence forever. Fear of the idea of marriage again one day. Fear of becoming entrapped yet again in an unhealthy relationship. So what do you do when, as a Christian, you don’t want to be alone, but you also don’t ever want to get married again? There’s only two logical answers that I could see. 1. You accept and live a life of celibacy and singleness. Or. 2. You form relationships with people that also don’t seem to care much about marriage. I chose option 2. Because of my deep loneliness. And I’m not talking about the kind of loneliness where spending time with a good friend can help. I craved human affection and love. Desperately. A simple touch on the arm, yes. A hug, yes. A passionate kiss, yes. But mostly: A place where I felt loved. Wanted. Desired. Fully known and accepted. At any cost.

Knowing it would ruin any reputation I had built, knowing it would create distance between me and the God I claimed to love, knowing my behavior could negatively affect my children (although, they were not informed of the details), knowing it would cost me my self-respect, knowing that in the end, it would only bring me grief, I chose to live in the moment and appreciate the affection and care that was offered. Knowing it was wrong; I tried not to care.

But…when your faith means more to you than you think it does, you are left with no choice but to care. Over these past few months, every couple of weeks, I would listen to the following song, and I would try and tell myself that its words were true.

“My God is all I need.” I would repeat these words over and over, knowing they were true, yet, I still couldn’t force myself to believe them. The past few months became a battle ground in my mind between ignoring the convictions of the Holy Spirit and letting myself experience what I had longed for, for so many years. But eventually, conviction won out, along with the prayers of some amazing friends and family members. Because even though I was living my life one way – it was not true to who I really was. And I could not keep living in such a dichotomy.

“If any of you wants to be my follower,” he told them, “you must put aside your own pleasures and shoulder your cross, and follow me closely. If you insist on saving your life, you will lose it. Only those who throw away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” – Mark 8:34-35

The truth of the matter is this: living for our own pleasure provides temporary relief from our pain. But it never lasts. It might make us happy for a time. But in the end, there is only grief. True and lasting joy cannot be found apart from Jesus. I know that now. And when that becomes your belief, you have but only one option left: complete and total surrender. And that can be a very scary thing to do. “But God, I trusted you! I followed You and I obeyed You! And THIS is my life?! Why would You ask me to trust You again? HOW could You ask me to trust You again?” The thought of getting married again is terrifying to me – for numerous reasons. Yet, the thought of spending the rest of my life in this deep loneliness also seems unbearable. But it’s not about me. It’s about Him.

Romans 12:1 says “I urge you…in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices…this is your reasonable act of worship.”

“The Greek word translated “reasonable” is the word logikos. In light of the incredible mercy of God poured out on us (past, present, and future mercies), a full and complete sacrifice of our lives is the only logical response we can make.”1

Currently, it’s Easter weekend, and I can’t help but think on Christ’s perfect example of surrender to His Father. It was total and complete. He willingly surrendered His wants to His Father’s will – allowing Himself to be tortured, to be betrayed, to be murdered in such a brutal way. Christ provided the perfect example of what full surrender looks like. And it was because of His surrender and obedience, that I can come boldly into God’s throne room and receive grace and mercy. It is because of His surrender that my sin does not define who I am any longer. It is because of His surrender that I can be forgiven and spend eternity with Him. It is because of His surrender that I can concede, bow down, and surrender my will and wants and fears as well.

So, in short, I have surrendered. Finally. I choose to mark myself as a bondslave to Christ. Fully His. Fully available for His use. Fully trusting in Him to provide what He sees fit for me – even when trusting is a choice that still scares me. I will overcome my fears with my faith.

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.” Psalm 73:25 has become my prayer. I want to get to that place where the daily choices to trust that I am forcing myself to make turn into a lifetime of trust. I want to desire Jesus more than anything else in this world. Even if that means trusting Him with what seems like a terrifying future. I want to get to the place where Mary was – where she would willingly give up her dowry and future just to pour it out on Jesus’ feet in an act of pure love and surrender to Him. I’m only at the beginning stages of this. Bowing my knee, surrendering my everything to Him, cautiously, but fully, with tears in my eyes, wordlessly pleading with Him to not let me down. Surrender can be terrifying. But I’m hoping that one day I will be able to say the same thing Nancy Demoss states in her book on Surrender: The Heart God Controls:

“The pathway of surrender is not always an easy one. On occasion, I have found myself in some pretty turbulent waters, as a result of saying Yes to God.  There have been points when it seemed like my little boat was going to capsize. But I have learned that there really is no safer place to be than in His will. And in the midst of the storms, I have found joy – indescribable joy. And blessings more often than I can number – blessings to be enjoyed here and now and the anticipation of eternal blessings that I cannot begin to fathom now. It really is true that “there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”


Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days; let them flow in endless praise.
Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.
Take my voice and let me sing, always, only, for my King.
Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use every power as Thou shalt choose.
Take my will and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord; I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.2

  1. Nancy Leigh Demoss from her book Surrender: The Heart God Controls. ↩︎
  2. Take My Life and Let it Be by Frances Ridley Havergal. ↩︎

Endnote: I share openly and honestly in this blog from my perspective and experience. It is not my intention or desire to speak negatively about my former spouse. I do not blame him for what was.

*I dedicate this blog to Jesus, Who never gives up on us. And also my friends Charity and Janeen who didn’t give up on me, who gently encouraged me, listened to me, prayed for me, and walked alongside me, even when they didn’t agree with me. Proverbs 17:17 says “A friend loves at all times.” Thank you for being there for me when I needed you the most.

Seasons Change.

by Becca, posted in Changing Seasons, Christian Living

I’ve always loved the season of Fall. Closing my eyes, I can almost feel as though I’m 15 again. Stepping off of the school bus, I’d start my short trek home, all the while loving the sounds of the huge leaves of both maple and elm crunch underfoot; the smell of wood burning stoves starting for the cooler temperatures. The leaves don’t tend to crunch as much in Saskatchewan and the maples are far fewer, but the cooler temperatures and the barren tree branches still represent a new season that is coming: winter.

I can’t help but love winter, mainly because there are far fewer insects I have to deal with, but also because of: (and who doesn’t love these?) fireplaces, cozy blankets, good books, hot cocoa with whipped cream, and extra cuddles with my kids during our school mornings.

As much as I enjoy the change of these seasons, there are some seasonal changes in life that I haven’t always enjoyed. Tax season isn’t exactly one I would label as “fun” or “pleasurable”. The season of becoming a new mother can be difficult for some. The season of walking through grief can feel awful. I’ve witnessed friends learning how to navigate the season of becoming empty nesters, which apparently can have its ups and downs. (I wouldn’t know as I haven’t reached that season just yet.)

Some seasons are better than others. Some seasons are worse than others. Some life seasons are chosen, while other seasons can be thrust upon us, sometimes when we least expect it. The past few months in my life have proved to be a significant change of seasons – and, as a result, there will only be more changes to come over the next few years. I’ll be honest: I didn’t exactly handle this most recent seasonal change very well at first. I don’t know about you, but when change is thrust upon me and I don’t know how to handle it, I become fearful…which can lead to emotional reactions due to that fear.

This most recent change of season caused me to fear not only my life and future, but it also caused me to be fearful of other people and even God. There were some weeks where I couldn’t pray, because I would have a panic attack. I still can’t open my Bible, because I will have a panic attack. Worship music was a hard no for awhile (and still is to some extent). So what do you do when you know the help you need the most is from the One you can’t talk to?

For the past couple of years, I’ve written encouraging snippets based on Scripture for a women’s ministry to share with their online following and I’ve written very openly about how Jesus is safe to trust. This recent season has been my turn to decide if I truly believed that. For me, it became a matter of choosing to trust the God who walks on water, even though I couldn’t speak to Him or hear His voice. I did the only things I could do – I listened to Revive Our Hearts podcasts – ones that encouraged and reminded me that, in what has seemed like the worst seasonal change of my life to date, Jesus is still with me…and He isn’t going anywhere. Another is that I have started memorizing Scripture again (a Psalm printed onto computer paper, since I can’t open my physical Bible). Reminding myself, in the only ways I can, that I have chosen to not give up on my faith or on God.

When the proverbial shit hits the fan, when life takes a turn that we didn’t want or didn’t expect, that’s truly when our faith is tested, isn’t it? I’m learning that changes in the seasons of our life can come out of nowhere. Sometimes, they can be exciting: a wedding celebration, a pregnancy, a job promotion, a new home. Sometimes, they can appear to be horrific: a cancer diagnosis, bankruptcy, a child that walks away from the Lord, tragedy. And with some of those changes, there is grief, anger, questioning, or denial. Those responses are pretty typical.

But there is another response. One that might take some time to put into practice. But, and hear me out here, what if….What If…instead of resisting the change we didn’t want, we started dreaming about how we could embrace it? I hear you. You might be asking, “How do you embrace something like cancer or tragedy?” I’m not suggesting we embrace those things, specifically. But what if we embraced the fact that this new change is in our life and we now have an opportunity to respond well to it? What would that look like? Perhaps it could be an opportunity to shine the light of Jesus in a hospital room. Or perhaps it could be an opportunity to learn new things and be able to help others when they are faced with a similar situation. Or perhaps, at the very least, it could be an opportunity to learn how to fully trust Jesus and understand what it means to fully rely on His strength for each new day.

I don’t mean to minimize pain or heartache with pleasant “Christianeze”. Perhaps a better way to explain what I mean would be this way: I’m a volunteer firefighter. I get calls any time of the day or night and I never know what type of situation I’ll be walking into or will have to deal with. We had a difficult call this year and my job required me to do something that “I never thought I could do”. But when your job is to deal with the situation, as horrible or awful as it may be, you do it. I came home after that call and just stared into space for awhile and cried, because the entire situation was traumatizing, for everyone involved. The week that followed was incredibly difficult. Images and sounds from that event intrusively flooded into the forefront of my mind at any given time. But I had close friends who were able to walk with me after that experience, who would let me cry as I tried to process what I witnessed. And now, those intrusive images and sounds are very few and I rarely think about that event. I did something I honestly didn’t know I would be capable of doing. Because I had to. Some people asked me if I still wanted to be on the fire department after that experience. It makes me smile to consider that. Because even though that call was not something anybody would ever want to experience, it did not, even for a moment, deter me from wanting to continue helping people on what can typically be one of the worst days of their lives. I embraced that experience and, because of that, I will be better at handling similar ones in the future, because I had to walk through the first one.

This seasonal change in my life has felt debilitating at times. There are many things that I have lost, and will continue to lose. But as I’ve been dreaming about new possibilities, I am also filled with hope. Growing up, a constant phrase I would often hear my mom say in our home was to, “Look at the positive!” Most of the time, as typical teenagers do, I would roll my eyes in response. But isn’t it funny how some of those things from our childhood can resonate with us in different situations as adults? That reminder to remain focused on the positive has forced me to really consider and look for positive things about this new season. In searching for them, I’ve discovered that there are many to be found. One positive that I hope will come from this new season is a renewed and deeper walk with Jesus. Another positive for me has been seeing kindness from people I wouldn’t normally have expected to see that displayed from. Another has been realizing that, even though I never thought I could have walked this new path, I actually am able to, because I’ve had to. A few people have stated that they have seen so much strength in me – strength I never knew I had. And as I was reminded, that “strength” is the power of God in me. It is not something I possess in and of myself. It never will be. But friend, I’m here to remind you of this truth: in whatever change of season you choose to face, or will be forced to face, you will never be alone. God’s strength is within you and He will never leave you to handle it on your own. Embrace the change. Look for the positives. They are there to be found. And in this new season, there can be so much to gain.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and He helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise Him. - Psalm 28:7
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. - Psalm 73:26
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. - Joshua 1:9