The Purveyor

I have learned to just ask... God, I need money for this trip. God, I really need my summer job at Deer Run back this summer. God, I really want a yearbook and the school sold out. God, I need things like bedding, toothpaste, soap, and summer clothes for this trip. Oh, and my hair iron broke... need a new one.

Asking God for things I want and need has always flashed in my mind... but I only just realized... though it occurred to me to ask him for things... I never really did... maybe I thought I had... or maybe I thought it showed weakness, so I would kinda just let him know I needed something, that way he knew what I needed and I didn't have to come out and ask him... that way I didn't have to bother him with little things and he could choose to accommodate me or not. Asking my parents for things in the past has always either made me sick to my stomach or just made me feel really bad... it shows my weakness of not being to be able to provide for myself. I hate asking them for things... they have 8 other people asking for things... things they really need or want too.

Finally, I realized... I need this money. I need it, and my parents aren't going to be able to provide for all of it by themselves. Why cant I just ask God for it... I mean, he has the means to provide for it all.. and MORE! ...and doesn't he want to provide for me? I mean... this trip is all about our relationship? why wouldn't he want to provide it for me, for us?

So I asked Him. God, I need money for this trip, please help me get it. The next day I asked him again, with more faith than the day before that he would provide. And then I asked him again the next day, and so on. Though I didn't see much money come in at first, I had a really great friend tell me something, "Bekah, have you ever seen that Narnia movie, Prince Caspian? Well, though the kids had faith Aslan would show up to conquer the army attacking them, they had to call out and ask him to come, but they also had to work in the mean time. But when he did show up, he didn't just conquer the other army, he destroyed them, and had means to destroy them again if he had to." What she said was a metaphor for what was bothering me... I had to ask God for money, but I also had to work in the mean time with faith that he would make my efforts plentiful and that they would multiply.

I was sitting in AP Psychology when God told me to write down everything that was sitting in the front of my mind, things that only he could provide. 1) Money for the trip. 2) My job at Deer Run. 3) A yearbook.

God, please provide all the money I need for this trip. God, please provide my Job. God, please get me a yearbook. These are the things I asked Him for... again and again.

Days later, the school called... they had an extra yearbook for me. A little over a week later.... "Bekah, can you start working with us again this summer?- Fred." Three weeks later...God showed himself to me again by giving me the $1,000 I needed by June 7th. And I know he will provide the rest... I just have to keep trusting in Him, asking Him, and keep working.

Some things have come up... Im going to have to provide everyday things for myself while I am in Kona, and I wont be able to get a job to do that. This trip is all about watching God provide... about talking to him, about making him my best friend, about making him REAL. I know he is going to provide the other $7,000 and more! You know how I know? I asked him too, and I have been working in the mean time... :) ....Well, off to my job at Deer Run!

May our King bring you riches! ...whatever that looks like to you, keep asking and working :)
A Warrior for the King,
Bekah

Milestones

My Testimony

            My parents were young and on fire for God when they met. They were both on a mission to Mexico when God told both of them that they were going to marry each other. 16 months after they met they had me. I grew up wanting to be just like them. I watched as we went from my dad working 18- 20 hours a day shifts and going to school to working normal work hours. All the time, my faith in God grew as I watched him continuously provide for my family and me.

           

            When I was 5 years old my parents asked me, in their bedroom facing 11^th avenue in Franklin, if I wanted Jesus to be in my heart… I kinda thought that this was a funny question… I thought Jesus was already in my heart? But I went along with it because it would make it all feel “official...” I guess. The next year, my family of 5 (with one on the way), went to a conference at “some big church” far away from home. They were baptizing people that week and my dad asked me if I wanted to be baptized too. I said “yes” and that day I proclaimed Jesus to be my savior as the entire congregation witnessed me rise up from the water a new daughter of the King. Around this time was when God wanted my parents back on the mission field… he sent my whole family back to Santa Cruz, California to be elders of a church that was falling apart. I remember my parents being so strong in their faith through all of it- all we had to do was sit back and watch everything around us just work out. We started home groups, worked around the camp we were living on, and even I told some of my friends at my tutorial about Jesus.

            Growing up, Jesus had always -just been- in my life. He was my imaginary friend… the only difference was that he wasn’t imaginary. I talked to him like I would have talked to my sisters or to my friends from church. He was always there… I will never forget the day I was sitting in the back of our Volvo and He told me that my mom was going to have 8 children (we had 4 at the time). I now have 8 brothers and sisters from my mom.

            As I started to get older, things around me started to change: going to public school for the first time in 7^th grade, adopting Katrina from Liberia, boys asking me out… getting my first cell phone, going out with my first boyfriend, getting in big trouble for $80 worth of texts, and finally wanting nothing to do with my parent... I felt like my world was falling apart. Jesus was still there, but only on Wednesday nights or Sunday mornings...

            I dated this boy for 2 years. Within that time, my respect for my parents began to dwindle and soon became fickle. They didn’t want me to date him, but I was “in love” with him. They would restrict my phone privileges, but I “needed” to talk to him, so I would ignore their rules. They would ground me, but I “needed” to be around him, so I would cry and sit up in my room thinking of ways to be with him. Finally, after 2 years I hit rock bottom. I had built up so much resentment toward my parents that they weren’t even my friends anymore. I was living with such a huge record of wrongs I had committed that I finally reached a point where nothing mattered anymore… if I disobeyed my parents, who cared? …I had so much riding against me anyways, “just add another thing onto the list, it wouldn’t make a difference.”

            I needed a friend and I couldn’t find one in my own home, I couldn’t call my best friend or my boyfriend, and my computer privileges had been taken away

…After months of living in the depths of my own despair…. One day, there He was! my first friend, my first love! …He had always been there, just waiting for me to look at him! He held me for a little while as I just cried. I couldn’t believe I had lost sight of so much joy and peace for a boy! A boy who was just going to break up with me again and again and again. I took a good hour or so to just bask in His presence- He was all I needed.

After months of rebuilding my relationship with my parents and months of trying to figure out what I was going to do about this boy who had meant so much to me, I decided to break up with him- for good. God became my best friend again, all I wanted was what he wanted, and he wanted me to respect my parents, he wanted me to love others, and he wanted me to love myself. I have been living a life of purpose ever since. 

A testimony is all about the milestones in a person’s life, places where God has said to you, “you pass this phase, now keep on.” I have so many more milestones to complete in my life and the next one starts in YWAM. I can’t wait to see God sign off on another completed mile and I can’t wait to begin the next one.

A Warrior for the King,
Bekah