Summer Decisions: Part 3 (Full Speed Ahead!)

Deciding to Get Baptized

Over the past couple of days I have been on different social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, and they have all seemingly had one thing in common.

College

Post after post was another friend commenting about not being able to wait for school to start again, and I agree! I can’t wait to move into my first apartment with one of my best friends! I can’t wait to get my major started! I can’t wait to get back into the gym and learn new, scary death defying skills and have hilarious falls that someone catches on video!

I can’t wait!

But I have to… and I know that. I just keep wishing that I could fast forward time and just start my sophomore year already…

But hold on… aren’t I getting a little ahead of myself? I mean it is only July and I go back to school he first week in September! Although I am technically two months into my summer vacation, it is finally starting! Or so that’s the way it felt.

This is the problem that I am facing and I am sure many other college students are facing similar things as well. There is a drive to be back at school with your sorority sisters or brothers, the team and getting re-acquainted with your orientation group. There is a need to be free once again and to be miles away from your parents grasp and to just have fun! However, there is a similar force keeping us at home where the food is somewhat free and so is the laundry. Sometimes things are just easier at home, there isn’t all of that responsibility that is typically found at college, and it’s nice.

However, with free food and laundry, college still calls you back!

Day after Day!

Growing up college was always a dream. Some people dream about being actresses or singers, but no matter what occupations I switched between, the dream was always college. In college I would finally be out of the house, away from my parents, I would finally have a decent roommate and not my sister. I would have my own phone, my own car… on and on.

But it doesn’t always work out that way…

Don’t get me wrong, college was great and I still want to go back, I find myself wanting to go back everyday! But there were still things that didn’t live up to my expectations such as the lack of drivers license until April of my freshman year. There was also a lack of car until May, and I never thought about the weekends where I would actually have to come home.

I thought leaving for college would give my sister her own room, and everything would be all great! But I didn’t think about what would happen when I came home… and so starts my frustrations.

In the last couple of posts I mentioned that God called me to be home this summer, knowing that he had big plans for me. Restoring relationships was one thing that he is doing, and creating new ones is another. However, those relationships are typically taking place on Sunday mornings and Thursday afternoons. That leaves me wishing on Sunday afternoons, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays that it was Thursday, and on Fridays and Saturdays wishing that it was Sunday morning once again.

Many times I feel like I am wasting my summer away wishing that the days would speed up most of the week and then slow down on one or two of them. I also feel many times that I forget that God is at work this summer, and through the tiny frustrations of life, I just want to go back to college and forget about everything that he has planned to take place this summer.

In fact a couple of Sundays ago, I found myself waking up on the couch in a very uncomfortable position. I had not been getting much sleep at night, but I would often fall asleep on the couch during a movie. When I woke up, I realized I wanted to do something so when I went downstairs I decided that my room could be rearranged.

I spent all afternoon moving everything around, just to realize that it does not fit any other way. I ended up crying as I looked around the basement. I only had two walls, it was loud, cold, my “closet” was made out of a bookshelf with the top taken off and a bar sitting across from it and I had a giant couch in my room that I never really use anyway so it is just taking up space. The basement was obviously not the most ideal room, and the more people came downstairs to do laundry, the more frustrated I got. I just really wanted to talk to Chloe and she was off at camp…

In that moment, I found myself wishing that I were back at school. I missed my best friend, who has been at camp almost all summer, I missed my team, I was tired of working on days that I specifically requested off, and I was just tired in general. On top of everything, I had come back from a lunch with Anthony and Jaryd Motsinger and other people from church, and it was great!

However, every Sunday, I hope for something amazing to happen and when it doesn’t I feel disappointed, and confused. I just sat there with more and more questions about God’s timing!

With everything that he said would happen, it seems like he is taking his good old sweet time with it. I just sat there thinking that by the time God is done working, I am going to be going back to college and it will be like none of this ever happened. I am not going to be able to go back to life groups because I will be in school; I am going to say goodbye to all those friends I made and go back to school. We are both going to move on with our lives and it will go back to the way it was before I came back…

Just sitting back and thinking about it, I couldn’t help but think that God’s timing was awful! He calls me back here, to make friends and start relationships with people that I am going to have to say goodbye to anyway!

But it wasn’t God’s fault at all, in fact his timing is going to be perfect and it is going to happen when he is glorified the most. It was the fact that my heart is in two places, and I am torn.

I am torn between the place where I grew up dreaming about, the place where I am probably the happiest and the place where I built a life there. The place where I am Vice President of the gymnastics club where I can hang out any time I want and actually have friends over. A place where there is really no secrets, and a place where I can finally start my future and get started on that goal of best selling author. My life is in Ypsilanti, but my home is there also.

Then there is Dayspring, the place where I know God called me back to this summer and for specific reasons. Dayspring is the place that used to have the box maze coursing through it every fall, the place that put on the musicals, Jesus Is Alive and The Gospel According to Scrooge. The place with Dinner on the Grounds once every summer and the Parent Appreciation Breakfast that the kid’s church would host for the parents one Sunday morning, and don’t forget, United We Stand every Fourth of July and “Shine Jesus Shine” every Christmas.

Dayspring is the place where thousands of memories were made and a thousand more will be made, and I am sure that there is a call greater than just being a writer, and it is within the walls of Dayspring. Although there are secrets, and family situations that come with being at home, it seems as though being back at church makes it worth the struggles!

My struggle with being torn everyday gives me the question daily, “what am I doing back here?” Why am I not up in Michigan with my friends? However there was a week that God confirmed everything that I was so torn about. It was just another typical night at Life Groups, I had brought my cousin Stephanie for the first time (which is one relationship that God completely restored!). We had our cookout, there was a quick “volleyball game” with food and a lot of laughing and then we all sat down and decided that we were going to share something that we were thankful for.

About an hour into it I was so frustrated with God that I didn’t even want to be there anymore. I was literally yelling at him in my head, “what have you done!? You have done practically nothing!” and God just laughed at me and said “In my own time.” That of course had just made me more frustrated, so I sat back and continued to listen to what was going on around me.

That was when Anthony just said, does someone’s heart hurt? Someone answered and they prayed over him, but there was still a feeling of heaviness, and someone’s heart still hurt. That’s when I looked over to see Stephanie, who never cries, sobbing into her hands. Seeing her like that, reminded me of how I was when I first came back to Dayspring knowing all that had happened my freshman year. It was not an awful year, but there was a lot of guilt that had piled up as the weeks had gone on. Knowing her pain, and seeing her in pain I started crying because I too knew how it felt to be in her position.

Suddenly all the girls had gathered around and we were all praying for Stephanie and it just went on. That’s when it seemed like everyone had split up and there was something big going on! Everything that the girls were saying to Stephanie, lined up with what she had been telling me the last few times we had hung out together and in the car.

Once we had calmed down, Stephanie finally started talking about how everything they were saying was true or what she needed/wanted to hear from God. Every demand that she told God to meet, he did by her being there that night. I of course felt extremely stupid and selfish at that point because while I was sitting there being angry at God for not doing anything he promised this summer, he was healing Stephanie’s heart and restoring his relationship with her.

Our new friend Gela started talking to us about our story and we explained that we grew up at Dayspring and we were both baptized already, and I just mentioned, “but I’ve been thinking and praying about getting baptized again…” Gela’s face lit up and she said, “You want to?” At that moment the plan was set in motion. For months I had been wanting to, but I wanted it to be small and at the right time. I wanted it to be spontaneous and not as if I am showing it off to everyone, just those who were there to witness what had been changing this summer.

We had decided that night that it would not have been right to break into a pond or pool illegally while baptizing in the name of the father son and Holy Spirit. That would be kind of hypocritical. So we scheduled the baptism for the following day. During that day God gave me strength to do things I typically would not be able to do on my own. He gave me understanding and even built up more relationships in the process

When I got baptized I stood right outside the pool, I was so excited, I knew what it meant to get baptized. The first time I had known that it was the death of an old sinful nature and a new life in Christ, but up to that point my biggest sin was lying to my parents. I had never been tempted in a relationship, swore, cheated at anything, betrayed anyone I had never done anything illegal either. But this time, all those little mistakes were like mud that had been caked on for so long! As soon as I started stepping in the pool it was as if step by step more of this dirt was just being washed off.

As Anthony stood there and spoke “because of your confession of faith in Jesus Christ, I now baptize you in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit, buried with Christ, raised to walk a new creation.” He put me under for a second and I could just feel it washing away, and when I came up I felt like all the heaviness on that had weighed on my shoulder for so long, all that guilt that had been there was washed away!

That day something had changed, it started at one in the morning when we wanted to get baptized, it continued when I woke up and God started working in me and helping me do things that I could not do on my own! It continued to when I got baptized and the rest of the weekend.

Saturday I had woken up with joy, not only was I getting to see my best friend, but I was going to get to tell her all that God was doing in my life! As I sat up I just pictured a car going the speed limit for so long, but it finally hit country roads and just sped and sped and kept accelerating! It was full speed ahead from here on out!

Even now as the days start to get tough again and there does not seem to be the joy of the Lord twenty-four seven, God’s hand is still on my life. He will provide.

“Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will worry about itself, each day has enough trouble of it’s own.”

God has made me new and he is working every day in our lives! If you forget that, just look back and remember all the times he was protecting you and guiding you in our life. Think of where you could be instead of where you are! If it were not for God I would probably be engaged to someone who did not believe the same things I did, and I would be missing out on all that God has in store for me! Instead God radically changed my life and pointed out everything that would be possible if I just listened to him and followed him!

Although everyday I find myself wishing that I was back at school, I have dreams that I wake up and I am back in my freshman dorm again with Bailee, I am content with where I am at. Because the world may say, “you are running out of time!” I know better than to think that I am running out of time. Within days God rebuilt my friendship with Stephanie, within a day God built another friendship. I can just picture God siting there laughing when someone says that we are running out of time. In fact he is probably laughing, and saying “just watch this, we are full speed ahead from here on out!”

Summer Decisions: Part 2

Deciding to Join a Life Group

When I had finally got home and settled into the basement, it was about a week into being home. I finally got my bed set up with the help of my sister, and I had my first couple days of work. Things were going well, I knew that I needed to be at Dayspring, so I went any chance I got.

Although things were going well, and I was still making my way up to Ypsilanti on Tuesdays and Saturdays for my job with the Ann Arbor YMCA there was no hiding my friend situation at church. My friends consisted of youth that were 3-4 years younger than myself (and now seemed immature compared to myself after what went down at college) and my parents and their friends.

Lauren Motsinger, whom I have mentioned before in previous posts, had invited me to her life group. I was kind of hesitant, because the last thing that I wanted to do was tell everyone about what happened during second semester. The last thing that I really wanted to do was talk. I wanted friends, but I really didn’t want to deal with any hurt beyond the walls of church on Friday nights. There weren’t just bad things that I didn’t want to talk about though, there were good things, things that I had been noticing and reasons why God may have brought me home this summer, but I didn’t want to talk with anyone about that either.

I felt like I had done all of my talking, and nobody else outside of my parents life group needed to know about the ultimatum that Tyler gave me that ultimately lead to me choosing to break my own heart. And nobody outside of my family and my three best friends needed to know what I had been noticing while at church.

However, the weeks in May seemed to tick by quickly on some days, but still go very slowly most of the time. There was one Sunday that I specifically remember. It was right after attending my parents Sunday school class, my Mom and I were walking back. I had literally spent the last four days with my three best friends, but a feeling of loneliness came over me during those days. The more I hung out with them, the more I felt it and I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

We were walking from the Prayer Center to the church and I told her that I felt lonely. “Why hasn’t God sent me any friends? What was the point of bringing me home this summer if nothing is really happening like I thought he said it would?” I asked her, but I had spoken way too soon.

As I entered the building that Sunday, I was still feeling depressed about my lack of friends until I was reminded quickly of the reason I had come home. A feeling of hope came over me, and then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned to see an old best friend, Jared Kobylski.

Jared was one of few people that knew what I had been noticing, he was a long time trusted friend and someone whom I had not seen since Christmas break. While in college we would often-video chat and snapchat and we might have called each other a couple of times. The thing with Jared was that we were always honest with each other, even if it made the other mad. If someone got mad we would argue/debate and sometimes fight and a couple days later we would see each other in person, snapchat or just call and continue as if it never happened. That was always great simply because we were honest and it didn’t really bother us, we just told each other the truth and with that grew a lot of trust.

After feeling the tap on my shoulder, I turned around, looked up and hugged him. Amazingly the first words out of my mouth were, “I’m sorry for making you mad last night. I was not in a good mood, and for some reason you were making it worse.” He laughed and said that it was okay and then introduced me to Brittany, his girlfriend. The same person I was telling him to break up with the night before, but after meeting her, I realized that she was really sweet and I liked her a lot.

The real story starts out when I went to sit with Jared and Brittany for church. Typically I sat with my parents on the other side of the church in the very front row, but Jared of course, sat in the young adult section, a section I had been avoiding simply because I didn’t want to sit alone. When worship started, we were all the way in the back and it was just weird. I was used to being up at the front with my parents. So I joined a group of people up at the front. When Pastor Scott invited the prayer team up, the others up front backed up and a thin guy shorter in size with dark hair, whom I had met once before invited me to stand and worship next to him. During that time of worship it felt like something had changed, like this was the beginning of everything I thought God was telling me right before school was over. I felt like God was telling me that the dark haired guy would one day be a really good friend, and that this was just the beginning of the summer!

When I went back to my seat, I made myself promise that I would start sitting in the young adult section, no matter if I sat alone or not. After that Sunday I honored my agreement with myself, and I ended up signing up for Lauren and Jaryd’s life group. By then I felt like the healing process was pretty much over, and that it was just time to focus on the reason God told me to come back to Dayspring. He had something huge planned and I couldn’t wait for whatever was going to happen this summer!

The Sunday before the first life group, I was sitting by myself in the row in front of everyone. I had been dealing with some things that Tyler was still putting me through even though our relationship was long over. I was actually almost angry with God for not answering me when I asked if what I was hearing was actually of him or if it was just me trying to make myself feel better. With that anger, I wondered what in the world I was actually doing at home if it wasn’t really God that was telling me, showing me and pointing things out to me? That morning I woke up extremely on edge about everything, and as I was brushing my teeth I just thought, “Okay just confirm that it is of you. Have it be someone I have talked to before, but I am not yet friends with.” I didn’t think much of it, because I didn’t even say this out loud, but that doesn’t mean God doesn’t hear it!

 After service, I felt a tap on my shoulder and Anthony whom I had spoken with before, but was not really friends with at the time, said that he had a word for me. He told me that I have been told things and I was questioning whether or not what I was told was “of God” and I have gotten responses from adults and other leaders that it is not. However, God wanted me to know that it was “of God.”

I really didn’t know what to say to that, I honestly had no idea what he was talking about at the time. It actually didn’t hit me until I was on my way home in the car and I flipped out on my Dad telling him about what Anthony had told me and that it actually did mean something!

With that excitement, I was no longer mad at God about Tyler and I actually forgot about the situation and looked at the rest of my summer with hope. That Thursday was the first life group and by the end of the night it was so cool to be around all those people who were so God fearing. I loved hearing about all the hopes that Jaryd and Lauren had for the group.

The last couple weeks, I have been experiencing God in a way that not many people could experience him or understand. I started out by telling you that I was alone at church, and that I had asked my Mom why it was that God was not sending me friends. However, life groups have changed my life so much recently! It has opened up friendships that I would not have other wise, and things that I had not wanted to talk about before, I feel fine talking about. Even the things that I was noticing at church, but keeping to myself, I ended up sharing with Lauren.

The simple fact is this, that God’s promises remain true. When it comes to humans and human nature, “Promises are just pretend,” but God’s promises are real and true! He doesn’t give up on them, he does not back out and even when you are running the opposite direction he still brings you to a place, like an ultimatum, that makes you start running back to him.

All it took for me was a simple question. “Will you please convert so that we can be together in this life and the next? If not, then it’s over.” The story has been told many times, but now the more that I think about it, the more I remember it, the more I realize that in that moment, God knew that Tyler would ask that of me. God also knew that my answer would be no. He also knew what would be waiting for me back at Dayspring this summer.

God is creating and restoring so many relationships! As I had known, Anthony is becoming a good and trusted friend. Lauren is like an older sister for me and I just love talking with her and sharing things with her. Through God’s love and forgiveness I have been able to restore a friendship with one of my best friends. This friendship should honestly not have been able to be restored, but here we are hanging out and continuing as if nothing happened!

Tyler and I are friends now. You know those moments when you are crying and suddenly you start thinking of every awful thing that has happened to you just so you can cry about everything at once and get it over with? Well the other day when I was frustrated, that happened, and when I thought about what Tyler did to me, I actually stopped crying. There was so much hope, healing and restoration in the situation that the thought of the break-up no longer harmed me in any way!

On top of Tyler and I actually being friends (at a distance) I am a actually friends with his current girlfriend, who is the same girl that I asked him to stop talking to so that I would feel a little better about our relationship (he had obviously said no). I ended up apologizing to her for hating her all these months, and she apologized to me for every pain she may have caused me. However, when she said it she mentioned that she thought that maybe it was supposed to end up this way. She said it may make her sound like a jerk, but I told her I completely agreed! I can see what God is doing in our lives and how his plan is going perfectly.

Even when we don’t feel him in our daily lives, even when it seems that through all this frustration we deal with daily, he is still at work. Many times I have to look back and see the big picture and all that he has done!

One thing is for sure about coming home this summer, it is a part of God’s plan, and through this God is showing that he is always faithful and will not disappoint you in the end!

-Becca

Summer Decisions: Part 1

Deciding to Come Home For the Summer of 2014

As my freshman year of college was coming to a close, I sat down with my co-worker Dana and she told me about summer camps that the YMCA offered and the amount of pay I would receive if I were to coach over the summer. She highly suggested that I find a place to live over the summer and stay up in Ypsilanti over the break. The idea sounded great! The only thing that had been keeping me in Perrysburg for the summer was once Tyler, but that was over and I really didn’t need to be near him anyway. My best friend was going off to camp to work there, and all my other friends were either getting married, having kids or a combination of the two.

It seemed that it was going to work out perfectly. I was planning on buying a car from a family friend in a couple weeks, I could take my car and then sublease from someone and my summer would be set! I could visit my family and friends every other weekend (if I was off) and just hang out with the team in my free time! My life had so quickly been rebuilt in Ypsilanti and it would only make sense that I stay there for the summer. My team was there, my job was there, and my home was suddenly there. However in the weeks following, I found myself at home for Easter, Interviews (incase I came home for the summer) and to buy my van. 

In those times home, I did what I typically do while I am home. Hung out with old friends, and went to Dayspring, the church that I have been growing up in for the last fourteen years. While at Dayspring, I realized that I had been really depriving myself of church. Studying God’s word and listening in on sermons in my dorm on Sunday’s was not doing enough for the healing process; and to be honest, my heart was not into it. I just wanted to stop being scared of relationships and always feeling hurt. However, I knew needed to be at church and in fellowship. I needed to be attending church on Wednesday nights, Friday nights and Sunday mornings; I needed to be involved in a life group.

This became more obvious with every Sunday I spent at home before school was out.

Now I’m going to be completely honest, my amount of friends at church at that point in time was at an all time low. There were people I had grown up with for years, but I never really had the opportunity to get close to them. All of the people that I had become close with had left for different churches my freshman and sophomore years of high school. It’s not their fault, but after they left I never really recovered in the friends department, and for a while, I was okay with it. As long as I was still attending my parents life group, and going to the services and actually participating in worship I would be okay. I didn’t really need any friends. I had all the friends I needed.

I knew Dayspring was where I needed to be, with every passing Sunday God just kept telling me in different ways that I needed to be back for the summer. At first I had ignored it but it became even more evident, when I started running out of time to pack up the room, and search for a place to live for summer break. I had my job, gymnastics practices, I found that I was spending a lot of time figuring things out to take care of the financial side of things, and then there were final exams coming up. My classes last semester were kicking my butt and I knew that I needed to do well on my exams otherwise my GPA could be in trouble.

With about two weeks left of school, I called my Dad and asked the awful question, “could my room be in the basement if I clean it up, and come home this summer?” He said yes, and with that I stopped looking for a place to live, which crossed one more thing off of my busy schedule.

When I told everyone that I was just going home for the summer, they looked at me and asked why they knew things about life at home, and they knew that home was probably the last place I wanted to be. I just told them that I needed to be back at my church, I was still hurt from the Tyler situation and I needed to stop ignoring the pain and deal with it. Even then, they did not understand, and I knew they wouldn’t understand if I told them, “God told me I needed to be at Dayspring this summer.” Nobody really understood my need to be back at church, and to a point I didn’t either, but I was going with it anyway.

Once I had decided to come home for the summer, things seemed to line up very quickly. Bethany and I had nearly finished cleaning my section of the basement on the last weekend I was home. I got a call from my boss Randi, offering me my current job, everything with my car went over smoothly, and on my final day in Ypsilanti, I had my van with me to pack up and drive home. It was a pretty smooth transition and honestly it could not have been any easier!

Although I already missed sharing a room with Bailee…

(Our Matching Sweaters… Oops!)

and I was already missing Katie… who is my all time motivator inside the gym and out!

I was already missing my crazy team, and everything they stood for and meant to me. Many of them had been there when no one else was, and I was already saying goodbye to people who had become so close to me so quickly… 

and all those memories were already fading, the smell of our room was already leaving my cloths and blankets. 

(Our Empty Room Put Back Together)

Freshman year was already in the past, but I was ready to see what God had in store for my summer!

I could just picture it on the way home from Ypsilanti, dinners with my life group, the Fourth of July spent with my family, hanging out with my best friends, visiting Chloe at camp, going up to the lake randomly on weekends. It would be great!

But sometimes things don’t always go the way you picture them, sometimes God has other things in mind.

-Becca