Passion and Purity: Lesson One

 

Over the past few days, I have been reading a book that my youth pastor had handed out in February. The sermons that month had been based off a book. I know what you are thinking… its August…the sermon was in February and you are just now reading the book.

In my defense:

1.) Someone introduced me to a book called the Hunger Games

2.) Couldn’t get a copy of The Hunger Games and was scared to start a new book.

3.) Finally got a copy, read it in four days… then I needed the next book…

4.) Couldn’t get a copy of Catching Fire… was scared to start a new book again!

5.) Lastly, I had started the book before hand got to the seventh chapter and lost it… but by then someone told me about The Hunger Games and my quest for the famous book began…

Anyways, the book that I’m reading is Passion and Purity, by Elizabeth Elliot. Over these next few blog posts, I’m probably going to talk about it because it has left a huge impression on me… and I’m not even half way through the book.

This book is about… well… here’s the back of it.

“In Passion and Purity, Elizabeth Elliot emphasizes the need to commit daily to Christ all matters of the heart and to wait upon Him. She teaches his often painful yet rewarding discipline by candidly tracing her love story with Jim Elliot as evidence that she has been there.

Through letters, diary entries and memories, she shares the temptations, difficulties, victories and sacrifices of two young people whose commitment to Christ took priority over their love for each other. These revealing personal glimpses, combined with relevant biblical teaching, will remind you that only by putting your human passion and desire through His fire can God purify your love.

Passion and Purity gives honest direction in such areas as:

1.) Loving passionately while remaining sexually pure

2.) Whether or not to marry and who is the right one

3.) The man’s and woman’s role in relationships

4.) Putting God’s desires ahead of personal desires

5.) How far is too far physically”

Now that you rather understand what the book is about, I have to tell you what came to my attention today… First, I have to tell you all of the events that lead up to that point. First my mother tried to wake me up at five in the morning for school. She told me not to fall back asleep, I told her I wouldn’t but I confess. I lied. I fell back asleep and woke up at six instead. Not that bad of damage, I didn’t need to take a shower so I still had forty-five minutes before the bus got here… Yes… do the math. My bus get’s here at about 6:45 in the morning. Lucky me!

Now I’m not a morning person. In fact, if you make me mad in the morning you might want to go running in the other direction. But I got up, made some coffee (it’s what I’m living on now!) and you know did the usual, brushed my teeth, read a chapter or two of Psalms, remembered that it was spirit day so I could actually wear Jeans! (I go to a career tech school and they are hard-core on uniforms!) So I wore my jeans, poured my coffee, and at about 6:30-ish, my brother wakes up reminding me that he thinks he needs my iPod for the day.

Yeah Right.

So I try to use an old iPod that my aunt gave my sister… it wouldn’t connect to the computer. As I’m trying to synchronize, the iPod that isn’t even being recognized by the computer, the bus passes and I go running out!

Now you would think that with about forty-five minutes on the bus in the morning, I would be able to sleep… Nope. For some reason I can’t sleep on the bus in the morning. Therefore, I listen to my daily Dose of Wretched (a podcast that is free!). Once I’m done with the fifteen-minute podcast, I pull out my book, Passion and Purity. I finally got to the part where Jim confesses his love for her and I couldn’t help but smile. I love that part of the story, although there is a catch. He believed at that point that God was calling him to be single. Now at…about seven in the morning I’m in no mood for that kind of disappointment… but I kept reading. Surely, there was a reason I’m reading this so early in the morning. Surely, there is a reason I can’t sleep… and there was.

I get to chapter twelve: holding pattern. It begins with this paragraph:

“I began to learn to wait. Patient waiting does not come naturally to most of us,” that’s me! “But a great deal is said about it in the Bible. It is an important discipline for anyone who wants to learn to trust.” That entire passage stuck out to me like a sore thumb. I am defiantly not a patient woman… and from reading Elizabeth’s’thoughts during her senior year in college… she wasn’t that patient either. In matter of a fact, I just want things to happen here and now. I want to go to college and fall desperately in love, I want start my career, get married and have kids! However, like Elizabeth… I have to wait. Besides, I’m only in high school.

The other thing that stuck out to me was the last part, “it is important discipline for anyone who wants to learn to trust.”The more I think about it, the more I know it’s true. What else is more effecting in teaching you to trust than waiting on something you can’t see to let you be able to give into your desires to abandon everything and fall in love? I can’t think of anything else… you have to have a lot of trust in God to be able to do that.

That really hit me. Mostly because I don’t trust many people, usually people have to do a lot to earn my trust, and I just don’t tell people things or do crazy things with them. So the fact that I’m waiting on God when I’m not patient, and I have to trust that His will is what is best for me is something huge when they coincide with each other.

Lesson One: Patience in God is a great way to learn how to trust.

Passion and Purity: Lesson Two

         This one is going to be a little shorter, but the lesson is just as important...

I kept reading the same chapter since it seemed to pull me further in with the first paragraph. Then another paragraph hits me:

 

“Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all. I was dying to talk to Jim and about Jim.”

 

While she was waiting for a relationship with Jim to just… happen already, she did it silently. There was no sneaking off to her best friend’s dorm at two in the morning right after one of their walks to talk about how Her and Jim hadn’t talked at all… but rather enjoyed each other’s company, taking in the beauty that God had created at the Lagoon. Instead, she was silent.

I had made a connection with something that she had mentioned a few chapters back. She says, “I was very cautious about what I put into the journals. I don’t think it was because I feared someone else would discover my secrets. I think I was afraid to articulate, even for myself, feelings I might have to get rid of.”

Makes sense... as I made the connection I realized, that is what I often do. I don’t want to admit that I have feelings so I beat around the bush using phrases like “sorta kinda” and “maybe.” I didn’t want to admit that I felt a way about someone who would 1.) Break my heart or 2.) Not end up being “the one” so I would often write about how I felt, but not enough to be totally committed to my feelings. Although something Elizabeth did was, she set her desires behind her and only focused on God’s desires, so instead she wrote bible verses down in journals, made notes of small things that happened with Jim, but never going into full detail.

However, that is not where the paragraph ends:

“Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all. I was dying to talk to Jim and about Jim. But the things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over more thoroughly with God.”

I agree.

           The chapter ends with this:

 

            S.D. Gordon, in his Quiet Talks on Prayer, describes waiting. It means:

                        Steadfastness that is holding on;

                        Patience that is holding back;

                        Expectancy that is holding the face up;

                        Obedience that is holding one’s self in readiness to go or do;

                        Listening, that is holding quiet and still as to hear.

           

            How long, Lord, must I wait?

            Never mind, child. Trust Me.

 

            The chapter starts with trust and ends with trust.

 

 

Lesson Two: Wait SILENTLY

Passion and Purity: Lesson Three

Chapter 13: Material for Sacrifice

In this chapter, Elizabeth talks about their last couple of days before graduation from college. He would be going back to Oregon and she was going back to Oklahoma.

Very long distance.

While I was reading it, I didn’t want them to graduate. I didn’t want them to separate. I felt like I was more on their side than God’s side. It seemed unfair for two people who love each other so much would have to wait so long and go their separate ways. Isn’t this where God comes in and says, “Congrats, you have put my will above your own, you have sacrificed your time and your desires for me. Now I’m going to let you be together after all of this time!” However, that’s not what happened.

“Graduation was in the morning. In the afternoon, Jim drove me to the railroad station in Chicago to catch the Texas Chief. I wanted him to kick over all the traces, grab me in a rib-cracking embrace and kiss me without taking a breath till the train started to pull away. That was what part of me wanted. Another part said no.”

When I read that, I couldn’t help but smile… I wasn’t the only one that wanted something that I read in the books; saw in the movies to happen!

“It was a long night en route to Oklahoma.Springfield, KansasCity, Wichita. How many stops in between? I woke at each, trying to calculate how far I was from Jim now, picturing him sleeping soundly (dreaming, perhaps?) in the guest room of his aunt’s house, where he was to spend several weeks before going home to Oregon… At least Jim hadn’t seen the quivering lips or the tears. After we shook hands (clasped hands would be more accurate), he stood there while I walked down the platform almost the whole length of the train, to the car where my seat was. I waved to him in the distance as I boarded.”

Reading that passage is so powerful! At the age of seventeen, I’m still pure; I’ll tell you that now. I mean I have stumbled on a few things, and a few things have been taken away from me, but I don’t count them. Don’t worry it’s not my virginity! Just like… my first kiss… but I don’t count them because I wasn’t ready. I was too young and it wasn’t me to kissed them… they kissed me. I certainly did not kiss back.

Even then the desire to have a boyfriend, to be able to experience what a normal high school student, with a normal boyfriend would be like, comes to mind. It surfaces every now and then. For a while, I thought I was the only one with the desire to stay pure and not date… but at the same time wanted to know and wanted things to happen. I wanted my life to be like a love song, or a Nicolas Sparks book… but it isn’t. God has his own story for me. The thing in reading this is realizing that I’m not the only one who has these desires for everything to be dramatic and romantic, even though they aren’t.

See at the church I go to, not many of the girls are dating. None of them really show an interest in boys… I was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with me. I go to public school, but don’t have a boyfriend-odd. I go to church, but I am boy crazy with no boyfriend -odd… it just doesn’t seem to add up. I felt like I was missing something.

I was right. I was missing that desire for God’s will to be my will in my life, but thanks to this book and a friend of mine, I have learned that. See about a week before I started reading this book I went to Louisville, Kentucky for National Fine Arts Festival and became really close with a friend of mine, Emma.

Remember the whole trust thing I said I have problems with?

Yeah, that week I let it all go and completely trusted my two roommates, Emma and Julia. In the end, we had so much fun and I learned more than we could ever imagine. One thing I struggled with that week was having feelings for a boy that I knew didn’t fit my standards! I mean he could… eventually, in time and if he changed, and Emma brought that to my attention. Thank You!

Through long girl talks at night I learned a lot about Emma, how she is no longer is boy crazy and really doesn’t like any guys at that specific time (until we fell in love the next day! Ahh! (Inside thing)). To be honest I was almost jealous that she had that kind of power and control, compared to her; I seemed to be out of control.

By the time Thursday came around, Emma’s turn to compete had come; she competed in a category called Spoken Word. It’s a cool category; I’ll post a link down below! While we were getting ready for her to compete, we usually jammed to music, but I was in the mood to listen to spoken words. So I went over to my iPod and clicked on one that I had listened to, but it never really stuck with me, (don’t worry, I did ask Emma if it would throw her off to listen to something other than her own). The spoken word was called “I Will Wait For You.” It’s amazing!

So we got ready in with the spoken word droning on in the background, closely I listened to it, “And I will know you. Because when you speak, I will be reminded of Solomon’s wisdom. Your ability to lead will remind me of Moses. Your faith will remind me of Abraham. Your confidence in God’s word will remind me of Daniel. Your inspiration will remind me of Paul. Your heart for God will remind me of David. Your attention to detail will remind me of Noah. Your integrity will remind me of Joseph. And your ability to abandon your own will, will remind me of the disciples. But, your ability to love selfishly and unconditionally will remind me of Christ. But I won’t need to identify you by any special Matthews or any special Marks, because his word will be tatted all over your heart.”

At that part Emma looks at me from across the room… “Does he fit that description?”

Emma always had reminded me of one of my best friends Sophia… but when she asked that question, it was as if Sophia was with me. She always asks the questions that are hard to ask… but easy to answer.

No.

Not yet.

From there I had my answer the hard thing was getting myself to want it. Don’t get me wrong… I wanted to be able to let go, to have those standards set (which I did) but my own desires were blocking it, and it was going to be hard not to let my own human desires block God’s desire for my life.

I thought at that point my lesson for the day had been set, don’t like him because
1.) He doesn’t fit your previously set standards

2.) He doesn’t fit the standards that were added about 5 seconds ago from a spoken word!

But I was wrong. In being one of three teenage girls who had actually gone on the trip, I was the one timing and listening to Emma say her spoken word repeatedly. Every time I listened deeper and deeper into it, I got chills. In her spoken word she talks about her natural desire for:

1.) Material things

2.) To fit in a be “popular”

3.) To find that special someone

Although, by the time she get’s to the end of her spoken word she’s realized that she doesn’t need the material things, she doesn’t need to be popular, and she chooses for her desire to be a perfect spotless bride, because God is Relentless after her. (That was the theme this last year – Relentless after the one.)

Apparently, there was a second lesson of the day...

I had forgotten a goal set up my sophomore year.

-To not date all through High School

-To remain that pure spotless bride

Sadly, I had broken the first one, and yes, it is something I regret, but I did learn from it, so that I will accept it.

After reading Passion and Purity and going through the little things that had happened in Kentuckywith Emma, it made me realize that the things I desired… Even women in the 1940’s desired that… and still to this day even when a girl says that she doesn’t like any boys at the moment, she still struggles with the same things that someone who is still coming off of being boy crazy does.

It is a relief to know that everyone struggles in deciphering the romantic and breathtaking fiction from from your own romantic reality, and choosing to follow God’s desires rather than your own. When you come into contact with the choice between your own human desires and the desires God has for you and you find yourself struggling, the answer is simple. Give it all to God. All of your human desires, everything you are feeling.

Lesson Three: Give it all to God

To Emma: I don’t know if you will read this but thanks for the lesson learned, and I really hope I didn’t say anything that was supposed to be kept to myself. If so I can take this down, but let me know! Love yah!

-Becca

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igCj3jsbcqs

If you are still interested in spoken word, Listen to this one! It gets you thinking!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqfU3OFNZA0&feature=relmfu

A Hiss of Yes!

This entire summer I have been working hard on the low bar. I would chalk up, then climb up and sit on the bar. I would then put my hands in a circular motion, hoping to gain muscle memory. I would then grip the bar, lift my legs and with my body tired and my legs shaking because I am trying to keep them so straight and so tight. I would lean backwards, shoot my feet back up towards the ceiling, let go and WHACK! On the ground... every time. Rachel would say 1.) You’re straddling too early 2.) You’re shooting your feet backwards not up 3.) It’s a release move, so you have to RELEASE your grip from the bar...The point was to catch the bar not land on a mat with your legs in a straddle.... Therefore, I would get up and do it again.

Well today was the first day of training camp. I had not been in the gym for over two weeks until today, on my way to the gym I wondered to myself. “Becca why are you going? Your straddle cut… you’re just not going to get it. Your layout full… you can’t get it all the way around. You are scared of the beam… what is an extra 26 hours in the gym going to do for you? But I went anyways.

Five hours in and I was ready to go home and sleep... but we finally had an open gym and  I climbed back up on the bar again as I always did, with the same mental and physical routine going on in my head. I put my hands in the circular motion and did some timers. Something was off… and I was thinking about not doing the skill at all today… but I’m glad I did.

I was worried they would be horrible today because I hadn’t done them in so long, but to kill a habit you have to starve it, and that’s what the two weeks did. It killed every bad habit, and let the coaching I had for the past two months take over. I fell backwards and shot my feet up into the air. My feet collided with the bar (not supposed to happen… but it was the first one.) and my hands found the bar and grabbed it…  

I hung under the bar with my mouth wide open. “Did you catch it!?” I hear coach Mykle ask me as I’m hanging there… suddenly it sank in. I finally caught the bar… I caught the bar! Becca Garber, you just caught the bar! It didn’t seem possible, it didn’t seem like reality because it something I really didn’t think I was going to get.

So I got back up and I did it again… This time the bar was in reach and I tapped it. My hands didn’t grab it. The second time my hands tapped it again, but there was no hope in grabbing the bar. The third time, I missed. I was starting to get discouraged. I could see my legs straddling before my hands could release. I could feel it. Maybe it was just a fluke, a one-time thing…

But I got back up and still did the skill. The second time my feet didn’t even hit and my hands grabbed the bar as if they had over the past two months. I let out a “yes!” and everyone looks at me and laughs. However, they weren’t laughing to make fun of me, but to congratulate me on getting the skill. Then I caught it a third, a fourth, and a fifth time. They still aren’t consistent… but the fact is that I’m catching them!

There are two things I learned from today…

1.)              When you are chasing after God… often times we struggle, we want it so bad, but only chase it so much. It would be as if I had just given up on it today, when my body was tired, when something felt “off.” However, you can’t give up.

Often times we are chasing after that moment when we can finally let out a “yes!” But once we let out the “yes!” we take off of our grips and go to a different event without finishing what we started. In other words, we finally get a grasp on a great relationship with God, but then trade him in for worldly things. It’s not fair to you or to God. So stay on the event and let out more cheers until it gets to a point where saying yes! Isn’t even needed and you are seeking a higher skill. (An even BETTER relationship with God!)

2.)              Secondly… to kill a bad habit, you have to starve it! I read that in a book for teenage girls and preparing us for the world… anyways. It relates with gymnastics because of the way I said. I waited two weeks and all that was left was my muscle memory and the coach’s direction over the past two months. The bad thing about a habit is that it is most likely hindering you from obtaining the skill you want.

Relates well with sin, to get rid of it, you have to starve it! Don’t give into it, because just like the bad habits I had when acquiring my skill… it will tear apart your relationship with God, it will keep you from getting to say “yes!” every day!

-So kill your habits (sin) by starving them because they will stop you from getting what you want (or where you want to be in your relationship with God).

-Once you say “yes!” don’t give up… get the skill (relationship) down and then move onto something greater (maybe a better understanding of God’s will… or wherever you are at in your walk with God.

Lessons In The Gym...

Today I was in the gym… it was an open gym, but I decided to go to the two events I hated the most.

The first one was vault.

There is a runway, you start at your number, or you count your steps to see how far away you start from the table (that’s the big tall flat thing). Once ready, in a meet you would salute the judge with two arms up (as if raising your hands) and run. Hit the springboard (the thing in front of the table) and do a skill off it.

The reason I don’t like vault is because it happens so fast, and then you are tired after only doing one turn… boring. However, today I found it kind of fun and relaxing. I enjoyed vault for the first time in years.

Then there are uneven bars.

These are the only bars that women compete on.

If it weren’t for my death defying falls that I have had in the past, they would be no big deal. That is exactly why I hate them though. They are a big deal they are all about two things:

1.)    Keeping your body tight, squeezing every muscle in your body.

2.)  Timing, it is everything on bars.

I personally struggle most with those two things. Sounds weird I know, but I honestly could not tell you if my legs were bent or straight (I’m getting better at it though).

Although today, I spent most of my time on bars. I’m trying to get a skill that we call a straddle cut. What you do is you hold onto the bar and swing under it with your legs in front, you then bring your legs through your hands, shoot them upwards, let go of the bar, straddle your legs and catch it again.

The whole point of the skill is to get your legs between your hands and then back out, by letting go. That is what we call a release move.

 My coach watched a few of the ones I did. Every time I would slam on the mat below me. I had yet to catch the bar again. Every now and then I would hear from across the bar area, “that one was better Garber” So I would get up and do it again. Hoping my body would remember what it just did.

As I went to chalk up again a teammate told me to shoot my feet upwards not back. My coach then commented saying, “That’s the same thing I’ve been telling her for two months.”

I then replied, “I’m trying and they are getting better.”

She agreed (wow! That’s an accomplishment), and continued by saying “you need to be patient.”

My immediate reply was, “Well… that’s something I defiantly am not!”

“I know, most gymnasts aren’t,” She said with a laugh.

You see, my biggest problem with working this skill is something that Coach Rachel said herself. “I’ve been telling her for TWO MONTHS.”

The last thing I worked on for two months was a kip… I’m not even going to explain what that is… but that’s like the most basic skill in gymnastics.

My back walkover on the beam, I got it in one day; put it on the high beam in two.

My up-rise, I worked on it for two weeks. Gave up and then went back to it, made it on the first one.

My back-tuck, my coach spotted me once over her shoulder for me to get the feeling of it. The second time she had me do it with just a regular spot and by the third one, she expected me to do it by myself.

My half on floor… got it on the tumble-track in two days, and by the third day, my coach had me putting it on floor.

Lets just say I haven’t had to “be patient” for any of my skills. Nor had I had to slowly work at them and watch them get better and better.

The thing about those skills is that they come and go. I do them when I want, whenever I want. If I’m not in the mood, I won’t do them.

So what I got out of today’s practice:

1.)    I’m sore. Haha

2.)  When you are given an option, like open gym, you are usually faced with two basic options.

a.      Something that you like, no risks and you are more willing to do.

b.     Something that you don’t think you will like, and you usually avoid.

So go with the one that you usually don’t like. You will surprise yourself, and you usually learn lessons from choosing something you don’t think you will like.

3.)  Be patient, because the best things come with time. You will learn to appreciate them more. Like my kip, I don’t go through a practice (in which I go to bars) without doing a kip. Same with when I get my straddle cut, I probably won’t go through a practice, warm-up or routine with out it, once I finally catch it.

Therefore, my best advice for anyone that is reading this… Find a vault day that you actually enjoy. Meaning… actually try the things you don’t think you will like. You might be surprised!

In addition, wait for the day you will catch the bar. Girls wait until the right person comes along. Be patient with your parents. Be patient with God, he’s on his own clock. Because in time, the things you were patient for (like a husband, or a straddle cut) will probably be one of the things you cherish the most, it will be valuable to you, and it will be something that you don’t go a day (or a practice) without.

Until then,
Bec

Confused on the straddle cut, here's a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv72hzTDRL8&feature=related

Fix Me

Has someone ever tried to fix you? It makes you think that you aren’t good enough…
I get that feeling being in the gym all the time.
As a gymnast being good kind of runs along the same lines as chasing the score of a 10.0.
I am chasing Perfection… Something that simply cannot be achieved, no matter what any judge says.

This is how our chase of perfection happens. Over the summer, you work hard to figure out different skills that you need to move up to the next level, you train your body to do the terrifying skills. By the beginning of the school year, you have about two months to officially get the skills. By the middle of October, you are going into a competition knowing that you have the skill…

Sometimes…

You know that you can catch the bar after letting go…

If your muscle memory kicks in…

You know you won’t hit your head on the beam…
If you remember to push, off of your leg…

Just saying your first meet of the year isn’t great…

Throughout the whole season, you are perfecting the skills that you are bad at. You train your muscles to remember. I train my hands to do a circular motion ever time I let go of the bar. I do front walk over’s on the beam until my foot knows where it will land. Until I remember to push my hips forward every time.

Fix.
Fix.
Fix...

By the end of the season the big meets come. There are Districts, Zones (what others call regional’s) and Nationals, and by those meets the coaches are trying to decide if it is a bigger deduction if you do the skill or if you don’t.

If you are confused here’s how deductions work, every time you bend your legs it’s a deduction, let go too early, deduction, timing is off deduction. If you don’t do required skills there is a bigger deduction… so when it comes down to it… and all the deductions are added together… what gets you a higher score? Doing the skill… or not?

Keep it?

Take it out?

Keep it... fix it

Take it out... still fixing...

For me it’s always been… I have the skill, but no matter how many times I do it in one season, the skills always get taken out near the end because I still have too many things to fix. Yes, I get high scores but it makes me wonder… am I good enough? Is all my hard work to twist, release and go backwards worth it?

When it comes down to it, I don’t want trophies and medals… I mean I do… but I want to earn them! Not just, get them because my skills are easier...

And I would rather have someone help me fix what I'm doing wrong... rather than just take it out and return to it later when I'm having bigger problems. And I would rather have someone constantly fixing a skill... rather than just leaving me to figure out what I am doing wrong.

When someone tells me I am doing something wrong it feels like they are telling me how imperfect I am... but it's not that at all...

Gymnastics relates so well with my walk with God. Because all the time people try to fix me. Try to make me better. In TBQ if I quote a bible verse wrong... I feel like I can't get it right, and if i had a bad day... it's not a good thing to tell me.

If my mom tells me my skirt is too short... she is always trying to fix how long my dresses and skirts are... but it's not because she is trying to tell me what is wrong with me.

The people that try to "fix me" are molding me into the person they know I can be. My mom knows that I can be preppy, and fashionable while still being modest. I can keep up with the latest trends without showing my bra straps. When I quote a bible verse wrong, they aren't telling me my memory is bad... they are trying to help me engrave it into my mind. It's just like a skill in gymnastics. If I practice it enough muscle memory kicks in... and i don't even have to think about what i am doing anymore, it just comes. It's the same with the modesty that mom pushes, and when someone corrects me when it comes to studying God's word.

So next time someone tries to "fix you" whether it's a boyfriend, girlfriend, your best friend, coach, parent or teacher... just remember they aren't telling you that you made a mistake just to "fix you" they are telling you that you made a mistake so that you can learn from it and fix it yourself next time.

Because they know who you can become.

-Bec